This school year is the first in a six-year process in which Evanston/Skokie District 65 plans to bring dual language programs in Spanish and English to local middle schools, expanding the long-running and popular two-way immersion (TWI) program offered at some elementary schools.
The first pilot of sixth grade dual language classes is happening now at the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, and that will expand to seventh grade at Bessie Rhodes this coming fall.
But when Foster School opens and Bessie Rhodes closes for the 2026-2027 year, dual language will officially start for all grades at Haven Middle School under a plan established last year, when the board had to trim Foster to a K-5 school instead of K-8 because of cost overruns and voted to close the Rhodes building.
The other two middle schools, Nichols and Chute, are getting a phased rollout of dual language after it comes to Haven. The question for the past year has been which school will first offer the program, as the district has said that bringing dual language to all middle schools at the same time would likely be overly ambitious.
A committee of parents, caregivers, teachers and administrators, 40% of whom are native Spanish speakers, have met over the last few months to make that decision. Members looked at data on TWI enrollment, family interest and school readiness, and ultimately recommended Nichols, which will get a sixth grade dual language class starting in 2026-2027, district officials announced at Monday’s school board meeting. The program will go to sixth grade at Chute in 2027-2028, with the full rollout timeline pictured below.
As shown in the graphs below, Nichols had a sizable advantage over Chute in the number of elementary school TWI students in its attendance boundary. (TWS refers to native Spanish speakers, TWE to native English speakers and TWX to those who have reached bilingual status. The TWI program combines native Spanish and English speakers in one classroom, where they learn various subjects in both languages. More TWS students — who are legally entitled to language learning services — live in the Nichols boundary, too.
Families surveyed indicated an overwhelming interest in middle school dual language, with 68% saying yes, 27% maybe and just 5% no, out of 269 parents/caregivers who responded.
The committee also looked at the state’s 5Essentials survey to get a sense of each school’s preparedness to launch the TWI program. Chute scored much higher on the survey, especially in the program coherence, instructional leadership and professional development categories.
Despite the preparation factor, though, the committee “felt that location and number of students to be served was very, very important,” said Amy Correa, the district’s multilingual program director. “Chute had a lead in readiness, but that wasn’t strong enough to change their position on serving … the location of where our EL [English learner] students are.”
Correa said the next step will be for her team to start meeting with Nichols administrators and language teachers over the next year to train them on the program structure, curriculum and instruction, among other things.
District 65 bringing dual language to Nichols, Haven Schools in fall of 2026 is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.