A half dozen parents at the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies took to the microphone at Monday night’s District 65 school board meeting to strongly condemn the removal of Mandarin classes and dismissal of the assistant principal.
The district had offered Assistant Principal Sarah Antrim-Graf an honorable dismissal and the opportunity to apply for administrative positions in other school, but after parents expressed support for her, the district office reversed course, Antrim-Graf said Tuesday. The district is ultimately keeping Antrim-Graf on for the 2025-2026 school year, which will be the last for Bessie Rhodes, as the board voted in June 2024 to close the school.
Parents who spoke on Monday also said that Mandarin teacher Di Zhang is now teaching non-language courses at Bessie Rhodes and just one Mandarin class at King Arts.
These changes add to a long list of grievances for the Bessie Rhodes community. Under the district’s original plan for the Fifth Ward school, Bessie Rhodes was supposed to become a “magnet school within a school” to keep the K-8 program together under one roof. But budget shortfalls forced the board to downsize the new school to a K-5 building.
That feeling of neglect continued into this school year when the district announced in the fall that it would close the seventh- and eighth-grade sections because of vacant teaching positions — doing so without first talking to families about the decision.
Uproar from the community led to students getting a choice between remaining at Rhodes and moving to King Arts or another school. Most of the students ultimately chose King Arts to have more stability going forward.
“Let’s be clear, closing Bessie Rhodes was never just about a building. It has always been about dismantling a community,” said Kate Odegard, the parent of a second-grader. “Every time we turn around, something else is being taken away. Cutting the Mandarin program? Check. Closing middle school midyear? Check. Removing key leadership? Check. What’s next? Should we expect you take the desks and white boards, too? You are removing the furnace from our house in the middle of winter.”
Several others heaped praise on Antrim-Graf for her efforts to keep the ship afloat amid so much uncertainty. They also lauded Zhang for teaching their kids to have a global perspective and an appreciation for different cultures.
“The abrupt closing of the middle school, the removal of the Mandarin program [and] removal of our assistant principal, with neither consultation or outreach to our community, shows a callous disrespect for our children, their academic growth and well-being,” said Peter Schenck, who has two children at Rhodes. “You are failing our children academically, being careless stewards of their finances and don’t even have the professionalism to communicate and engage with the community you’re paid to serve.”
For now, parents like Schenck and Odegard can take a modicum of comfort in Antrim-Graf’s return for next year.
Bessie Rhodes parents criticize recent staffing decisions is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.