Admin Growth Analysis — Frequently Asked Questions

This page answers common questions about the Admin Growth analysis. Click any question to expand the answer. If you have a question not covered here, reach out to the Legion of Data Nerds.

The Numbers

How many administrators does D65 have?

It depends on which data source you use and how you define “administrator.” The public data sources each capture a different slice:

PA Public-Disclosure Reports (SY2025-26) — These are the state-mandated individual-level reports. In SY2025-26 they show:

Category Count What it captures
TRS Admin (certificated administrators) 24 Superintendent, assistant superintendents, executive directors, directors, supervisors — reported in full under PA 96-0434 regardless of salary
Principals & Assistant Principals 28 School-level building leaders — from the same PA 96-0434 reports but tracked separately
IMRF Support Staff (above threshold) 101 Non-certificated admin and support staff whose compensation exceeds the $75K statutory threshold — reported under PA 97-0609
Total unique individuals 147 6 people appear in both TRS Admin and IMRF reports and these duplicates have been removed

CPI-Indexed Count — When we apply a CPI-indexed threshold ($75K in 2016 dollars = ~$103K in 2026) to make year-over-year comparisons apples-to-apples, the higher-paid admin headcount is 94. This is the number used in the admin density and right-sizing analysis.

D65 Staff Directory (SY2025-26) — The District’s own public website lists 1,448 total staff across all roles. Of those, 86 are based at the JEH Administrative Center (central office), including 22 senior leaders (directors and above) and 19 mid-level administrators (managers, coordinators, supervisors). The remaining ~45 JEH staff are support roles (IT specialists, payroll, HR, nutrition services, custodial, etc.). See the staff directory question below for more detail.

Cross-referencing all three state disclosure lists — Larry Gavin’s March 2026 RoundTable analysis cross-referenced all three state disclosure lists (PA 96-0434 TRS Administrators, PA 96-0434 Principals, and PA 97-0609 IMRF) and identified 62 individuals performing administrative functions in FY26 — 10 more than the 52 reported under PA 96-0434 alone. The D65 staff directory independently confirms at least 41–49 central-office admin titles (excluding principals). This ~62-person figure is the best available public estimate of the District’s total central administrator headcount.

AFR (Annual Financial Report) — The AFR doesn’t break out individual headcount, but it captures the total dollar pool for every employee in admin function codes 2300–2600 regardless of salary. The FY25 AFR admin compensation pool was $19.99M (in 2026 dollars).

What does the staff directory show?

The District’s public staff directory lists 1,448 employees. The largest categories are:

Role Count
Teachers 455
Paraprofessionals 268
Custodians 63
Principals & Assistant Principals 28
JEH Administrative Center staff 86
All other staff (nurses, social workers, SACC, nutrition services, etc.) ~548

Within the 86 JEH central-office staff, 22 hold senior leadership titles (superintendent, assistant superintendents, chiefs, executive directors, directors) and 19 hold mid-level administrative titles (managers, coordinators, supervisors). The remaining ~45 are support staff (IT technicians, payroll assistants, nutrition services, custodians, etc.).

Cross-referencing with PA data: Nearly every individual in the PA disclosure (147 unique people) also appears in the staff directory. Only 1–2 people in the PA data could not be matched (likely due to name discrepancies or recent departures). Conversely, about 21 JEH staff do not appear in the PA reports — most because their compensation falls below the $75K reporting threshold (e.g., food transporters, floaters, lower-salaried assistants). This confirms the PA data captures the vast majority of higher-compensated admin staff.

The District proposes cutting 22 admins and 42 non-union support. What is that in percentages?

The District’s April 20, 2026 SDRP Phase III deck proposed eliminating 64 total positions (22 administrators + 42 non-union support staff) for an estimated $8.29M in annual savings.

How many “central administrators” are there?

The District’s use of “administrator” encompasses a broader group than the 24 certificated TRS administrators in the PA 96-0434 filings. Multiple independent public sources point to a central-admin pool of roughly 62:

  • Larry Gavin’s March 2026 RoundTable analysis, cross-referencing all three state disclosure lists, identified 62 individuals performing administrative functions in FY26 — 10 more than the 52 the District reported under PA 96-0434 alone. The additional 10 are people whose roles are administrative in practice but who are classified under different reporting categories.
  • The D65 staff directory independently confirms at least 41–49 central-office admin titles (superintendent through coordinator level, excluding principals and school-level operational roles). This is a floor — the directory won’t capture every admin because some titles don’t contain obvious keywords like “director” or “coordinator.”

What the proposed cuts represent

Measure Calculation Percentage
22 admin cuts as % of ~62 central administrators (Gavin) 22 ÷ 62 ~35% of central administrators
42 non-union support as % of 101 IMRF Support Staff 42 ÷ 101 42%
64 total cuts as % of 147 unique PA-disclosed staff 64 ÷ 147 44%
64 total cuts as % of 94 CPI-indexed higher-paid admin 64 ÷ 94 68%
$8.29M savings as % of $19.99M FY25 AFR admin pool $8.29M ÷ $19.99M 41.5%

Note that “22 administrators” does not mean 22 of the 24 TRS Admin reported under PA 96-0434. The District defines “administrator” more broadly to include management and supervisory positions that may be funded through different channels. Against the ~62-person central-admin pool that Gavin identified, the 22 proposed cuts represent roughly a third of central administrators — a substantial reduction, but not the near-total elimination that 22/24 would imply.

The District’s proposal is larger than all three Legion right-sizing scenarios. Even the most aggressive Legion scenario (return to D65’s own SY2015-16 admin-to-student ratio) calls for only 38 cuts ($4.91M). The District identified more than double that amount.

Did admin spending increase over time even after adjusting for inflation?

Yes — substantially. All dollar figures in the analysis are inflation-adjusted to 2026 dollars using the BLS CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers).

Measure FY16 (2026 $) FY25 (2026 $) Change
Total admin compensation pool $16.56M $19.99M +21%
General Administration (function 2300) $2.40M $4.88M +103%
Per-pupil admin spending $2,201 $3,401 +55%
Per-pupil central-office spending (excl. principals) $1,246 $2,125 +71%

Meanwhile, K-8 enrollment fell from approximately 7,500 to 5,625 students — a 25% decline.

The growth is driven by adding more positions, not by paying existing staff more. Average per-person compensation has roughly tracked inflation (i.e., stayed flat in real terms). When total real spending grows 21%+ but per-person real spending is flat, the math forces the conclusion: D65 hired more administrators.

Are principals and assistant principals counted as admin? Are they in the Legion proposals?

Principals are deliberately tracked separately because they are not where the growth is. The entire point of separating them is to show that the administrative buildup is concentrated in central-office and district-level roles — not in school buildings.

The numbers make this clear:

Role SY2015-16 SY2025-26 Change
TRS Admin (central-office certificated) 11 24 +118% (more than doubled)
IMRF Support Staff (above CPI-indexed threshold) 30 101 +237%
Principals & Assistant Principals 34 28 -18% (declined)

Principal headcount is driven by the number of school buildings, which has been roughly stable (and will decrease by one with Kingsley’s closure). The growth signal — the reason this analysis exists — is entirely in the non-principal categories: the central-office directors, executive directors, chiefs, coordinators, managers, and support staff that have been added over the past decade.

This is also why the AFR analysis reports per-pupil spending both with and without principals. Function code 2400 (School Administration) captures principals and their school office staff; functions 2300 (General Administration) and 2600 (Central Support) capture central-office administrators. Excluding principals, per-pupil central-office and support spending grew from $1,246 to $2,125 (+71%) between FY16 and FY25 — an even steeper increase than the all-admin figure.

In the right-sizing proposals: The Legion’s three scenarios use total higher-paid admin headcount (94) as the denominator because that’s what the per-1,000-student density metric measures. But the practical expectation is that right-sizing would focus on central-office and district-level positions — not on pulling principals out of school buildings. The District’s own April 2026 proposal implicitly reflects this: it targets administrators and non-union support staff, not building-level leadership.

How does D65 compare to peer districts?

According to Larry Gavin’s March 2026 Evanston RoundTable analysis:

  • D65’s -25% enrollment decline since FY2019 is the steepest among 21 nearby K-8 districts; the next-largest decline was 14.3%.
  • Despite this decline, D65’s total FTEs increased by approximately 130 (+10%) over the same period.
  • Peer K-8 districts cluster around 12 administrators per 1,000 students; D65 is at 16.7 per 1,000 — roughly 40% above the peer median.

The Legion’s “match peer K-8 median” right-sizing scenario (~68 admin, ~26 cuts, $3.43M savings) is based on bringing D65 in line with that ~12 per 1,000 peer benchmark.

Has student achievement improved alongside the administrative buildup?

No. D65 math proficiency on the IAR (Illinois Assessment of Readiness) went from 44.8% meeting benchmark in 2018 to 42.3% in 2024, per Larry Gavin’s March 2026 RoundTable analysis. Whatever the additional administrator hires have produced, they have not produced measurable improvements in the District’s primary academic outcomes.

Methodology

Why does the Legion analysis only look at staff with compensation over $103K in the headcount trend?

Why the threshold exists: Illinois law (PA 97-0609) requires districts to publicly report IMRF employees with compensation packages over $75,000. But $75,000 in 2016 is not the same as $75,000 in 2026 — inflation alone means the raw $75K threshold captures more people each year, creating an artificial appearance of headcount growth. To make the comparison apples-to-apples, the analysis anchors the threshold at $75K in 2016 dollars and inflates it each year using the BLS CPI-U index. In 2026, that equals approximately $103,000.

What it does NOT affect:

  • TRS Admin counts are unaffected. TRS administrators are reported in full under PA 96-0434 regardless of salary. The “11 to 24” TRS Admin trend is a clean count — no threshold is involved.
  • The AFR dollar pool is unaffected. The AFR captures every employee in admin function codes regardless of compensation level — including admin assistants, school secretaries, and support staff earning well below $75K.
  • The right-sizing scenarios are unaffected. All three Legion scenarios (and the District’s own $8.3M proposal) use the District’s per-cut average of $129K per position, anchored to the full AFR admin pool of $19.99M — not to the $103K-threshold subset.

What it DOES affect: The headcount trend chart showing “75 to 94 higher-paid administrators” uses the CPI-indexed threshold to ensure each year’s count includes only employees whose compensation meets the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $75K-2016. This is conservative — anchoring at an earlier year would yield a higher threshold and make growth appear even larger.

Where does this data come from? Did you have inside access?

No. Every data point in this analysis comes from publicly available sources — state-mandated filings, the District’s own annual financial reports, and the District’s public staff directory. No FOIA requests were needed. No insider sources were used. Anyone with an internet connection can verify every number on this page.

Three independent public data sources are used:

1. PA 96-0434 — TRS Administrators & Principals. Illinois law requires annual disclosure of all certificated administrators in the Teachers’ Retirement System. Every individual is reported with their name, position title, and full compensation breakdown (salary, retirement contributions, insurance, bonuses, etc.). Positions are classified as “Principal” if the title contains principal-related keywords; all other PA 96-0434 positions are classified as “TRS Admin.”

2. PA 97-0609 — IMRF Support Staff. Illinois law requires annual disclosure of IMRF-participating employees with compensation packages above $75,000. These are non-certificated administrative and support staff. This is a broad category that includes senior administrators, mid-level managers, and operational support.

3. AFR (Annual Financial Report). The District files an AFR annually with ISBE reporting total expenditures by function code. Admin function codes include:

  • 2300 — General Administration: Superintendent, assistant superintendents, executive admin, curriculum directors and coordinators
  • 2400 — School Administration: Principals, assistant principals, school office staff (secretaries, attendance clerks)
  • 2500 — Business Services: CFO, fiscal services, payroll, business (excludes O&M and Pupil Transport)
  • 2600 — Central Support Services: Planning/research, IT, staff services, data processing

The AFR captures every employee in these functions regardless of compensation level.

4. D65 Staff Directory (supplementary). The District’s public website lists all current staff with name, title, location, and department. This provides a complete (non-salary) headcount picture. Cross-referencing confirms that nearly 100% of PA-disclosed individuals appear in the directory, and identifies roughly 21 central-office staff below the PA reporting threshold.

What is the $129K per-position figure used in the right-sizing scenarios?

The per-cut figure of $129,489 comes directly from the District’s own April 20, 2026 SDRP Phase III proposal: $8,287,312 in savings ÷ 64 proposed position eliminations = $129,489 per position. This represents the District’s implicit average compensation for the admin and non-union support positions they proposed cutting.

The Legion uses this same figure for all three of its right-sizing scenarios so that every number on the comparison chart is directly comparable to the District’s own proposal. The Legion did not choose this number — the District did.

What roles have been added since SY2015-16?

The TRS Admin roster grew from 11 to 24 between SY2015-16 and SY2025-26. Among the positions in the current SY2025-26 roster that did not exist in SY2015-16:

Executive Chief of Communications, Executive Chief of Human Relations, Executive Director of RAAD, Executive Director of Technology, Director of MTSS & SEL, Director of STEAM, Director of Multilingual Services, Director of Climate & Safety, Director of Strategic Projects, Director of Programs & Partnerships, Director of Schools Management, Director of Humanities, Director of College and Career, Director of Science, Asst Director of Teaching & Learning, Diverse Learning Supervisor/Coordinator, Talent Development Coordinator, Special Assistant to Cabinet, and Manager of Student Specialized Services.

On the IMRF side, newer roles include Sustainability Coordinator, Wellness Coordinator, Network & Cybersecurity Manager, Substitute Staffing Specialist, Family Center Managing Director, Senior Manager of HR Operations, Culture and Climate Manager, and a Science & Sustainability Education Coordinator.

Pushback & Context

Don't we still need to close more schools? Isn't that the real issue?

Maybe — and the Legion isn’t opposed to right-sizing facilities where the data supports it. But school closures and admin right-sizing are not either/or choices. They’re both levers, and the data shows the admin lever has been largely untouched while the student-facing lever has been pulled repeatedly.

Consider: closing Kingsley saves an estimated $1.66M annually. Adding Lincolnwood brings it to ~$3.24M. Meanwhile, the District’s own April 2026 proposal identified $8.3M in admin cuts — more than double the two-school closure scenario. Even the Legion’s most conservative right-sizing scenario ($1.68M) saves as much as a school closure without displacing a single student.

There’s also a practical question worth asking: with one fewer school next year (Kingsley and Bessie Rhodes close, Foster opens after SY25-26), does the District need the same number of administrators it had when it operated more buildings? If anything, fewer schools should mean less central coordination, not more.

Both conversations should happen. The Legion’s position is simply that the admin conversation has been conspicuously absent from the public debate while student-facing cuts have dominated it.

Is this analysis just DOGE for school districts? Are you suggesting cuts without understanding what these people do?

No. The Legion of Data Nerds is a group of D65 parents — not political operatives, not outside consultants, and not people who think government is inherently wasteful. We have kids in these schools. We want the District to succeed.

What we are is transparent about the data and honest about what we don’t know. The analysis documents publicly available facts: how many administrators the District employs, how much they cost, how those numbers have changed over a decade, and how D65 compares to peer districts. We do not claim that every added position was unjustified, and we do not name specific individuals who should be let go.

In fact, the main analysis explicitly asks the questions that would need to be answered before making specific cuts: Was each new role created with a documented business case? Are measurable outcomes being tracked? What evidence exists that a function would deteriorate if a role were eliminated? The District has not made answers to these questions publicly available.

There is a meaningful difference between saying “the data shows the administrative footprint has grown substantially while enrollment has declined, and the District should explain why” and saying “fire everyone.” The Legion is doing the former. The District’s own April 2026 proposal identified $8.3M in admin cuts — larger than anything the Legion has proposed. We are asking the same questions the District itself is asking; we’re just asking them in public.

Don't strong administrators make a school district successful? Doesn't the District need experienced leaders to manage the deficit?

Yes — and nothing in this analysis argues otherwise. The question isn’t whether D65 needs administrators. It’s whether D65 needs 67% more administrators per student than it did a decade ago, and 40% more per student than peer K-8 districts in the surrounding area.

Effective administration matters enormously. But effectiveness is not measured by headcount. A district with 25% fewer students that has added positions like Director of Strategic Projects, Special Assistant to Cabinet, and Executive Chief of Communications needs to demonstrate that those roles are producing outcomes that justify their cost.

The District’s own leadership appears to agree with this framing: the April 2026 SDRP Phase III proposal identified $8.3M in admin and non-union support cuts as available. That proposal came from the Superintendent and CFO, not from the Legion.

Verify It Yourself

Where can I verify this data myself?

All source data is public:

Three convergent sources — this page, Gavin’s RoundTable analyses, and the District’s own April 20, 2026 admission — all arrive at similar conclusions using independent methodologies.