The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education reached an impasse again on Monday, unable to make a decision on schools it will close on July 1, 2026. That complicates the district’s efforts to cut costs and balance its budget, outlined in its Structural Deficit Reduction Plan.
The board members voted in much the same way they did in November, when they reached an impasse over closing Kingsley Elementary School and Lincolnwood Elementary School, or just Kingsley, at the end of this school year.
The board now faces uncertainty about whether it will be able to close any schools at the end of the school year, aside from the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, a decision the district’s administration says is necessary for the district’s long-term financial goals.
District 65 Board members Sergio Hernandez, Mya Wilkins and Andrew Wymer voted to close both Kingsley and Lincolnwood Schools, but faced opposition from board members Maria Opdycke, Patricia Anderson and Nichole Pinkard, who voted to only close Kingsley.
When a motion to only close Kingsley was on the table, Opdycke, Anderson and Pinkard voted to close it, with the objections of Hernandez, Wilkins and Wymer blocking the Board from committing to that scenario.
Part of the board’s inability to reach a deciding vote comes from the resignation of Board member Omar Salem, which came before the Board took a vote on school closures. With the vacant Board seat, there have been multiple 3-3 votes that have stymied any action on future school closures.
A previous Board of Education voted in 2024 to close Bessie Rhodes on June 30, 2025.
The board has a Dec. 16 Special Board of Education meeting to appoint a new member, who could potentially cast a tie-breaking vote on school closures.
A simple majority of the board would be needed to appoint the new member. If the board should deadlock again and not fill the vacancy within 60 days of Salem’s Nov. 4 resignation, the regional superintendent of schools is required to appoint a board member within 30 days thereafter.
At a previous board meeting on Nov. 20, Superintendent Angel Turner told the Board that its inability to make a decision on school closures before winter break will result in no school closures at the end of this school year.
Before the Board took its vote, each member spoke briefly to explain their vote.
“I’m fine with saying next year, at this time, that Lincolnwood School would be on conversation for closure, but I believe in this community, this Board, the educators and the community, that we can come up with a better solution that does not harm the marginalized population,” Pinkard said.
“I’m voting tonight for a two-school scenario because it is the only option for us that centers the long-term financial sustainability of our entire district,” Wymer said
“I cannot vote for a one-school closure, because I would have to violate my vote to act in the best interest of the whole district, not just one neighborhood,” he added.
After the vote, a hush fell over the large audience at the Joseph E. Hill Early Childhood Center. In a turnabout of the mood in weeks passed, which varied from impassioned protests and public comment sessions where residents slammed the Board, applauded and heckled one another, attendees turned somber after the board failed to close a single school after four votes.
Esteban Quiñones, a member of the grassroots group The Legion of Data Nerds, a group of data experts who have been critical of the district’s school closure process, said while he wouldn’t have predicted the board’s vote, he wasn’t surprised by it either.
“It’s a little deflating… I think most of the community, whether they differ on the number, understand that we need to close at least one school…” he said.
“We were hopeful that there would at least be some compromise today, where if they can’t agree on two, then they would at least settle on one of the two,” Quiñones said.
Quiñones contested that the Board could not vote on the same measures after a new board member is appointed. The district’s administration did not respond to inquiries from Pioneer Press regarding whether the board could still vote in January, or later, to close a school at the end of this school year.
Oakton School parent Lindsey White, a frequent public commenter, said that the blame for the Board’s indecisiveness comes from the Board’s president, Anderson.
Before the start of the school year, the district’s administration floated a proposal to close up to four schools at the end of the school year.
“I think there’s going to be a large attempt to paint this as this all falls on the shoulders of the three board members who voted against closing one school only. But this is truly a failure of Board leadership, and an inability of that leadership to have effective conversations over this entire fall break,” White said.
White anticipated that when the Board has a chance to vote on school closures next year, the district’s financial problems will only be exacerbated, causing even more school closures to come down the pike.
The district began its Structural Deficit Reduction Plan to cut millions of dollars in expenses in 2023, just months after Turner began her tenure at the district. A review of the district’s finances found that the district had a deficit greater than $10 million for two years prior under then-Superintendent Devon Horton.
Horton’s recently announced indictment from the federal government where he was accused of embezzlement during his tenure by hiring his friends to do little or no work for the district has further complicated trust with the district’s administration, the Board of Education and the public.
