Legion of Data Nerds
Interactive maps of the District’s Oct 23, 2026 boundary draft, which closes Dewey and Lincolnwood. They use the District’s own lines and its Oct 28, 2026 counts of students who change school.
The District projected about $2.9M a year in savings from closing the two schools. Tracking those 17 budget lines in the monthly Treasurer’s reports, only part of it shows up in the FY27 budget so far.
The District credited the two closures with $3.0M a year in savings and proposed closing Lincolnwood and Dewey on the same basis. On the SY2026-27 staffing data so far, the realized staffing savings appear to be a fraction of the $2.0M stated.
High-utilization buildings don’t have bigger classes, the smallest classes are at the dual-language schools, and one closure nets roughly $0.2–0.7M a year after busing.
Questions to bring to the District’s Sept. 22–24 sessions on its plan to cut $20M and close at least two schools.
A recap of what we learned analyzing SDRP Phase III data and methods, with a request to meet on data, methodology and process.
How District 65’s central office doubled while enrollment fell 24%, what the SDRP cut, and what right-sizing the sub-cabinet would save.
An interactive look at how D65 spends its Educational Fund, FY2012–FY2026: spending by category as a share of the budget, in dollars or per pupil, with peer districts to compare.
How administrators are counted, which data sources we use, and what the numbers mean.
Per-student admin spending rose 59% after inflation while enrollment fell 24%. The District’s own April list of admin cuts came to $8.3M.
Every year for a decade, ETHS’s freshman class has outnumbered the prior year’s D65 8th grade, by about 152 students (~20%) on average. That is consistent with, but doesn’t prove, a trust-driven flow from private K-8 to ETHS.
Per-student spending by budget line across nearby districts, as a guide to where reductions could come from. Evanston out-spends every peer district by at least $4,180 per student.
A shared-cart model for grades 1–4, using iPads the District already had, would have saved an estimated $200,938 compared with the 1:1 purchase the Board approved.
What Kingsley families told us about new boundaries, transition support and whether they plan to stay in D65.
Community-sourced ideas for City–D65 collaboration and new revenue, from sharing the cost of crossing guards to a public library branch and cell tower leasing.
An interactive companion to the Financial Levers memo for testing budget levers.
A guide to using the Financial Levers app.
Staff and teachers by school, and per 100 students, from the District’s staff directory.
For each elementary school and middle-school feeder pattern, the share of students within a 0.75-mile walk of school under closure scenarios 1AR, 1BR, 2DR and 2FR.
A plain-language walk through the District’s “no action” budget slide and the terms behind it.
A $2M gap between the District consultant’s financial projections presented on Nov. 3 and Nov. 17.
Levers to reach above 70% utilization in every middle-school feeder pattern while prioritizing students, Title I schools and programming.
Two surveys went to the Kingsley community two hours apart, which will lower response rates. We also list problems in their design, from a single open-ended question to no limit on responses per person.
Victor Filippini’s memo on the deed restrictions that apply to the Lincolnwood school site.
Administrative headcount and compensation compared across similar districts, total and per student.
The Jupyter notebook behind the enrollment and salary figures.
D65’s enrollment decline compared with peer districts. At a z-score of −2.23, it is more than two standard deviations below the peer average: not typical of the region.
Victor Filippini’s memo on cooperation between D65 and Evanston city government.
Our statement to the Board urging evidence-informed decisions, and our concerns about how modeling choices predetermined the results.
How the 95% utilization benchmark and the scorecard’s measures constrained which answers were possible.
Our first statement to the Board: do the data actually support this plan? We urged caution over acceleration.
Our guest essay in the Evanston RoundTable.
Nothing matches.