I’ve spent my career helping communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. As our city’s mayor during the pandemic, I’ve seen firsthand this community come together to protect one another, care for one another, and sacrifice for the greater good.
Today, I am asking us to resolve to bring those same collective efforts – focus, dedication, teamwork, and sacrifice – to help recover from our latest, self-inflicted disaster; our flailing District 65 School System. District 65, a once outstanding public school system, is teetering on financial collapse, due to financial mismanagement since 2020 by the prior superintendent, Dr. Devon Horton, and the Board of Education.
Like many who invest time and resources into making Evanston a great place to live, work, learn, and play, I am upset with the Board and Dr. Horton. Neither seemed to place the education of all our students and the financial well-being of the system ahead of their special projects and performative politics. They failed at understanding what a governing School Board’s primary job is: to ensure that children in Evanston and Skokie receive a world-class education provided by outstanding teachers via an organization that remains fiscally sound so it can continue to carry out its essential mission. And they failed at understanding what a superintendent’s primary job is: to implement policies passed by the Board in a fiscally responsible manner and to develop strategies and programs geared to improve opportunities and outcomes for all students…