Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies will remain open for seventh and eighth grade students, the superintendent for Evanston/Skokie School District 65 wrote to parents on Friday morning. The announcement could signal an end to a saga of abrupt decisions, protests, community engagement meetings and public apologies. Superintendent Angel Turner said the district’s administration reversed its decision of two weeks ago to close the two middle school grades after hearing feedback from seventh and eighth grade families. Parents say they are relieved,  but still have concerns because the district has slated the entire school to close by the 2026 school year and the district is looking to close additional schools to avoid being pushed onto a financial cliff. In Turner’s announcement, she said that not all of Bessie Rhodes’ seventh and eighth graders will continue to attend the magnet bilingual school after their parents were given the choice to transfer their students. According to Turner, 10 seventh grade and 10 eighth grade families are remaining at Bessie Rhodes. Three seventh graders and 11 eighth graders will transfer to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Literacy and Fine Arts, and five seventh graders and two eighth graders will transfer to their neighborhood middle school, she said. Hellen Alvarado, a mother of an eighth grade student at Bessie Rhodes, said the district’s decision to keep some students at Bessie Rhodes and transfer others to King Arts was unfair. She is transferring her son to King Arts, she said. Alvarado said the teacher shortage at Bessie Rhodes was so severe for middle school students that her son was not being taught at the school. “It’s unfair for the kids to just stay there for the remainder of the year. Let’s move our kids to a different school,” she recounted saying to other moms. Friday’s announcement was the latest development in a tangled series of decisions made by the district’s administration. In a surprise announcement made on Oct. 16 to Bessie Rhodes parents, Turner said the district would close seventh and eighth grade at the school, with the initial plan to have students attend their neighborhood middle school starting Nov. 18. The abrupt decision left many in the Skokie and Evanston area in shock, partially because Bessie Rhodes is set to close on June 30, 2026, and the Board of Rducation voted to close the school only  after the district held three public meetings. The recent decision to close two grades was not made in public or by the Board, leaving parents in the dark, they said, and with questions on why the school year started off normally and why they only were given a month’s notice before the announced grade closures. The mayors of Skokie and Evanston, George Van Dusen and Daniel Biss, respectively, also penned a joint letter to the district pointing out that parents were worried about what was going to happen to their children attending school in District 65. Nearly a week after the initial Oct. 16 announcement, Turner wrote a letter to the parents and caregivers of Bessie Rhodes seventh and eighth graders. In the letter, she issued the district’s first apology. “I want to first acknowledge our missteps in the rollout and announcement of this news. Moving schools midyear is no small decision and has an undeniable impact on students and our staff. As superintendent, I hold myself and my team accountable. I am deeply sorry for the pain and disruption that has been caused,” the letter said. The letter also stated that the administration’s decision to close Bessie Rhodes was not final, and that a final decision would be made public by Nov. 1. She also said the district would talk more about it at a Board of Education meeting, and scheduled a meeting with parents of the middle school students a day after. Evanston/Skokie District 65 students, families and teachers protesting the sudden grade closures at Dr. Bessie Rhodes School for Global Studies packed the Oct. 28 Board of Education meeting. Parents, students and teachers slammed the board and administration for its lack of communication on the pending closure of 7th and 8th grade at district’s sole bilingual school. (Richard Requena/Pioneer Press) Before the Oct. 28 Board of Education meeting, both parents and teachers protested the closure and blasted the Board of Education and administration during an hour-long public comment session. At the meeting, Turner revealed the four options the administration was considering for the continued education of the middle school students in the district: having the students attend their neighborhood middle school, continue to attend Bessie Rhodes, transfer to King Arts or have half the students attend King Arts and half attend Bessie Rhodes. Turner acknowledged that none of the options were ideal, emphasizing that a teacher shortage at Bessie Rhodes is what led the district to close the grades in the first place. To make up for the vacancy, the school’s principal, assistant principal and a paraprofessional taught math, science, and Spanish to the 42 students. After the district met with parents, a survey was shared for parents to give the district feedback on what option they would want for their child’s education. According to the survey, about 60% of the parents chose to have their students remain at Bessie Rhodes as their first choice. The Nov. 1 final decision was then pushed back to Nov. 8 after two delays in order for the district to review the feedback and make a decision. The uneasiness and anger that parents feel comes at a critical time as the district hired a consultant to assist the district in closing more schools and laying off more staff. The district plans to cut $15 million in expenses annually in order to prevent from falling into dire financial condition, which one consultant says the district is heading to if the board does not make bold and immediate expense cuts. Construction at Foster School is also a controversial topic in the district. After the Board  approved the construction of a new school for Evanston’s Fifth Ward in 2022, the cost of construction dramatically rose and the K-8 school was reduced to a K-5. In early October, the Board held a special meeting to refute the notion that it was considering pausing construction at Foster School, but memos between the district’s financial consultant and construction manager show that the Board was at least presented information on what they would gain and lose monetarily if construction were to pause, as first reported by FOIA Gras blog writer Tom Hayden.