Illinois parents outraged after school weigh-in by expelling students with one month’s notice

SKOKIE, Ill. (CITC) — Outraged parents flooded an Illinois school board meeting Monday with the announcement that seventh and eighth grades would be cut from a bilingual school with just one month’s notice.

The Evanston-Skokie School District 65 (District 65) decided in June that it would remove the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies (Bessie Rhodes School), the district’s only fully bilingual K-8 program, would close. District officials said at the time that the school would close after the 2025-2026 academic year, citing budget needs.

Parents said Monday at the District 65 Board of Education meeting that they were told earlier this month that Bessie Rhodes School would end classes for seventh and eighth grades on Nov. 15, about a year and a half earlier than expected. The decision was attributed to teaching vacancies at the school, some community members said.

Many expressed outrage at the abrupt announcement, accusing District 65 of causing “frustration, anger, pain and sleepless nights.”

This decision is harmful, cruel and irresponsible,” one mother told the school board. “The only option that is in the best interest of the students is for them to remain at their school.”

“You have not involved the children, the parents and of course the teachers,” another mother added. “You continue to apologize for making these decisions, and that is unacceptable.”

Frances Aparicio, a local resident and retired director of the Latina and Latino Studies program at Northwestern University, also confronted the school board. She told board members that she is witnessing the same “contempt” for the Latino community that she saw during her career when dealing with the Bessie Rhodes School.

“Latinos in Evanston are not respected. They are seen as passive and unimportant,” Aparicio said. “Dual immersion programs are the best model in bilingual education across the country, and I do not understand why this model school is being dismantled when other school buildings with under-enrolled white communities are not affected.”

District 65 Superintendent Angel Turner apologized to the families at the meeting for the “pain and disruption” they have faced, acknowledging that the district has “continued to perpetuate the damage to a community that has already been through so much.” She told attendees that the district is now weighing other options for Bessie Rhodes School and will consider parental input.

A spokesperson for District 65 told Crisis in the Classroom (CITC) on Tuesday that a final decision on next steps will be made by the end of this week.

“We are considering alternative routes in response to many of the needs we have heard, including an option for current seventh and eighth grade students to remain at Bessie Rhodes,” the spokesperson said.

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