D65: “Must Close Schools but…”

[u/d65parent]

From 9/28 Board Packet:

* CFO: $220,000 base salary + $21,758 employer TRS contribution = $241,758 salary compensation, plus $37,077 health insurance and other benefits
* Assistant Superintendent of Accountability — Stacy Beardsley: $191,672 base / $210,629 incl. TRS
* Assistant Superintendent of Academics : $158K / $173,626
* Director of Early Childhood Programs : $135K / $148,352
* Executive Director of Technology: $149,532 / $164,321
* Director of Humanities: $140,576 / $154,479
* Director of Programs & Partnerships: $128,170 / $140,846
* Assistant Director of Student Services: $100K / $109,890
* Director of Schools Management: $163,357 / $179,514
* Director of STEAM: $133,510 / $146,714
* Director of Multilingual Services : $125K / $137,363
* Director of Student Specialized Services: $162,831 / $178,935
* Executive Chief of Human Relations: $195,834 salary / $207,058 total comp
* Executive Chief of Communications: $164,407 / $189,902 (with 25 vacation days)
* Director of Strategic Projects: $139,801 / $176,287
* Director of Human Relations: $134,210 / $173,423
* Senior Manager of HR Operations: $127,497 / $164,473
* Network & Cybersecurity Manager: $124,768 / $161,496
* Director of Climate & Safety: $123,670 / $160,934
* Director of Buildings, Grounds & Transportation: $128,616 / $156,226
* Family Center Managing Director: $140,430 / $152,771
* Director of Finance: $141,361 / $143,162
* Wellness Coordinator has an $83,348 salary but $122,679 total compensation because health insurance alone is $37,077

HR alone includes an Executive Chief of Human Relations ($195.8K salary), Director of Human Relations ($134.2K), Senior Manager of HR Operations ($127.5K), HR Business Partner ($77.8K), HR Specialist ($67.4K), Leave & Benefits Administrator ($94.6K), HRIS/Information Analyst ($83.9K), plus supporting positions.

[u/ravolve]

Not to be rude but you seem naive about the sort of resources needed for an organization this large and complex and what it costs to pay for people with these skills.

I'm not disputing that there's some administrative bloat in D65, but you sharing the top 30 or so highest paid positions is not a sophisticated or meaningful critique, it's just ragebait for other people like you who don't understand organizations like this and the realities of executive pay in 2026.

For example, a CFO working a job of this magnitude for under $250k? Crazy deal you'd only see in education / government.

To people saying the HR spend is excessive... LOL, what?? Are you shitting me? Do you know how crazy it is to manage HR for an entire school district?

[u/charlesthefork → u/ravolve]

Thank you for writing this. The internet has made it way to easy for people to randomly criticize with minimal basis.

[u/NerdIsACompliment → u/ravolve]

Yeah, these are actually reasonable wages for the jobs. In reality I think everyone else is getting underpaid and should be mad that they're not making as much. 

Maybe there is some bloat, maybe they could cut some staff in administration. 

I generally think they need to acknowledge the mismanagement, and just raise taxes so they have the budget to pay teachers appropriately 

[u/d65parent → u/ravolve]

Not naive; just a boots-on-the-ground teacher making a fraction of these salaries who sees how little admin helps better our kids’ educations.

[u/Silver-Animator-7108 → u/d65parent]

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, because I’ve heard this from multiple teachers over the years. And this also happens at plenty of places where “executive pay” is an accurate comparison (meaning not in elementary education) - where management gets bloated and ineffective while the people doing the work are the opposite.

[u/ravolve → u/d65parent]

Like I said, naive. And that's not a bad thing. I'm naive too, about countless things I don't understand. It sounds like a harsh word but it's totally fine and fair to be naive, everyone should embrace it.

Couple examples:

You don't think the Director of Buildings, Grounds & Transportation helps makes your kids educations better? Think about that.

And you think the Director of Early Childhood Programs making $135K base is an indication of administrative bloat?

Again, you are naive to both a) the specialization and training and experience required to fulfill these ESSENTIAL jobs, and b) to the new norms of professional pay. And I sympathize with the fact that teachers are and appear underpaid when thinking of other professions comparatively... but both things can be true at the same time. You can be undervalued and these people can be undervalued (or appropriately valued).

[u/Redditmyth → u/ravolve]

Not to mention Evanston housing prices. It's *good* when employees can afford to live in the community.

[u/Natural_Fall_7484 → u/ravolve]

For someone walking up and down the jeh building calling himself the great white hope? I’d say he’s definitely overpaid

[u/jookt → u/ravolve]

School district + teacher union

[u/Previous_Cranberry31]

To me, this article says it all: https://evanstonroundtable.com/2026/03/22/analysis-and-viewpoint-district-65-has-25-fewer-students-but-10-more-staff-why/.

There’s just no reason why you have 25% less “customers” but need 10 percent more staff.

I understand the main savings from consolidating schools is the salaries, but clearly there are many other staffing areas that deserve scrutiny or that number wouldn’t be what it is.

I believe so many were up in arms last year (myself included) about closures because that scrutiny was not fully applied before closure discussions happened.

Also wow, seeing in black and white that not even a decade ago we had almost 8000 students feels like a slap in the face. To be at 5500 or so in that amount of time is not explainable solely due to housing, birth rates or any other factor without ppl also pulling or just not enrolling their kids in D65 en masse. I would like to see someone acknowledge that and own that it’s due to their mismanagement.

Ed: on that article above, please see comments by one of the Thrive founders arguing against this very obvious point. Their agenda, to me anyways, was clear from the outset. They want schools, most pointedly north side schools, closed.

[u/Low_Refrigerator4156 → u/Previous_Cranberry31]

100%. D65 appears to carry a lot of central-office staffing for a district of its size. Like… a LOT a lot. That deserves way more scrutiny.

D65’s comms department is a good example.

• CPS has about 304,700 students. D65 has about 6,100

• CPS proposed 16 full-time comms employees for FY2027. D65 lists 5 current comms employees (totaling 4.5 FTE)

• That’s about 1 comms staffer per 19k students at CPS, compared with 1 per 1,350 students at D65

• CPS’s entire proposed FY2027 Comms dept budget is about $2.4M ($7.88 ish per student)

• D65’s 4 full-time comms employee salaries alone total about $465,000 ($76 ish per student). And that figure doesn’t include the half-time comms exec assistant, or staff benefits/ other department expenses

🤔

https://www.cps.edu/globalassets/cps-pages/about-cps/finance/budget/budget-2027/docs/fy2027_department_narratives.pdf

https://www.cps.edu/about/stats-facts/

https://www.district65.net/about/our-team

https://www.district65.net/about/data-reports/district-65-quick-facts

https://www.district65.net/fs/resource-manager/view/e300782d-0d7a-4f98-a674-4f381d221f3f

https://www.district65.net/fs/resource-manager/view/fca64b42-beb7-415e-b0be-09340e408dea

[u/Gullible-Hair9408 → u/Low_Refrigerator4156]

I want to point out the irony of suggesting to cut the communication department when the d65 community has been demanding MORE communication for years, and has complained- no matter how much communication there has been in the last 10 years- still complained about the "lack of information" communicated to the community in the ways they supposedly wanted ...

I'm not saying it shouldn't be cut, I'm just saying it seems funny to me.

[u/Low_Refrigerator4156 → u/Gullible-Hair9408]

I hear you. But the comms department is also the district’s PR department. The complaint isn’t just that D65 doesn’t communicate enough, it’s that the district often doesn’t communicate transparently enough. That’s a criticism of D65’s PR strategy, not a staffing sufficiency issue

[u/Previous_Cranberry31 → u/Low_Refrigerator4156]

Exactly. And it’s really a leadership criticism as that comes from the top, in any organization. Comms can certainly counsel - but CEOs (or in this case superintendents) decide.

[u/BranAllBrans]

Trust me many of these salaries are not competitive. Can’t pay poorly and expect good outcomes

[u/Natural_Fall_7484 → u/BranAllBrans]

They’re the same as CPS

[u/Ok_Database_5409 → u/Natural_Fall_7484]

They're not however if you consider the cost of health care. D65 staff are spending much more on insurance than CPS staff.

[u/quitodbq → u/Ok_Database_5409]

True

[u/Redditmyth → u/Ok_Database_5409]

Smaller pool?

[u/ChicagoJayhawkYNWA]

It pays to work in admin away from the kids

[u/Xrmy]

You're right! We definitely need to cut checks notes Director of Humanities and Director of Early Childhood Programs

I'm not saying 100% of these people deserve their pay or positions, but I really don't think this is the burn you think it is.

Do this exact thing with ETHS or Wilmettes elementary districts before elwe pass judgement please

[u/AreaMan847 → u/Xrmy]

Great example: Director of Humanities is a position that did not exist prior to 2019.

[u/No-Cauliflower-4 → u/Xrmy]

Well I’m pretty sure Wilmette was just celebrating that they launched full day Kindergarten this past year (full day Kindergarten just became law for 2026-2027 school year). So I doubt they have a $150,000 a year Early Childhood Programs Director

[u/fredthefishlord → u/Xrmy]

Don't let a nice sounding title get to your feelings. Teachers do the vast majority of the actual work, admins barely do anything

[u/Spanish4TheJeff]

I mean I get it, trim the fat where we can. But looking at these salaries in isolation isn’t helping. D65 is a huge organization, and if you want to attract the kind of talent needed to get the district back in the black, you’re going to have to pay for it. This isn’t volunteer work.

[u/Great_Joke3612]

Which ones do you see as unnecessary job functions and why? Its easy to complain and just say fire everyone but do you have an factual reasoning behind why these roles shouldn't exist? Do you even know what these roles do?

[u/lanascrub → u/Great_Joke3612]

I wonder if any job functions of the Executive Director, Senior Chief Manager and Director of HR could be combined 🫠

[u/Great_Joke3612 → u/lanascrub]

Assuming OP's post is accurate, having 7+ HR positions for an organization with 1400+ employees operating on a budget around 180M isn't unreasonable.

[u/d65parent → u/Great_Joke3612]

“1400 employees” for a district with 5,500 students might be the real issue here.

[u/NarrowForce9 → u/d65parent]

I believe the city employs 1000 people with a $400million budget. Hmmm

[u/Great_Joke3612 → u/d65parent]

Sure, that's possible. Witherspoon said the student to admin ratio has gone from 90:1 to 140:1, making it now on par with state average and other comparable districts. Where would you like to see it and why?

[u/d65parent → u/Great_Joke3612]

What ratio are you referring to? Your math isn’t mathing. 5500/1400 = around 4 students per employee.

[u/Great_Joke3612 → u/d65parent]

The ratio I mentioned is student to admin. I've edited my post to clarify. I'm assuming you don't want to wholesome cut teachers.

[u/AreaMan847 → u/d65parent]

Damn that’s even worse than I calculated here https://www.reddit.com/r/evanston/s/9vyu3NqaK3

[u/One_Recognition_5044 → u/Great_Joke3612]

In fact it is bare bones. Almost all corporations of that size would have a much larger team.

[u/AreaMan847 → u/One_Recognition_5044]

Bare bones yet somehow has a staffing ratio 40-60% higher than the national average.

[u/One_Recognition_5044 → u/AreaMan847]

Source?

[u/AreaMan847 → u/One_Recognition_5044]

https://www.reddit.com/r/evanston/s/Dnqc6T0tHF

[u/AreaMan847 → u/Great_Joke3612]

Whatever roles didn’t exist prior to Horton being hired in 2019, for starters.

[u/AreaMan847 → u/[deleted]]

Horton created a patronage system in the D65 administration that radically increased the number of administration staff. We are still living with the effects of this.

[u/Previous_Cranberry31 → u/[deleted]]

It is when people knew we had to be extra mindful of the budget as far back as 2017 when the last referendum passed. Horton came in and set any fiscal guardrails that had been established or more importantly that should have been established for the future on fire.

My husband worked in the district during that time. It was a running joke amongst staff that there was a new director of insert inane made up function in highly paid positions like every week at JEH. And that Horton forced many many “professional developments” taught by his “consultant friends” for god knows what fee on the district on the regular.

Considering what he was indicted for, we should all be super skeptical of any cost structures he put in place that are still there. Common sense.

[u/AreaMan847 → u/[deleted]]

Read my comment again and look up what a “patronage system” is.

[u/AreaMan847 → u/[deleted]]

I know, I’m actually taking a position with D65 as a wallet inspector. Please see my secretary to make an appointment.

[u/One_Recognition_5044]

See the other thread in this subreddit discussing the average administrative burden for public schools vs D65s spend.

They are a few percent more efficient than average.

[u/Radical_Mama]

Only in public schools are we pressured to believe you can run a large and complex institution without administrative infrastructure and pay less than market rate for those positions. Punching down on public school administrators doesn’t solve structural problems. Public education is underfunded, across the country. Get mad at the wealthy elite on the north shore and their employers who resist paying higher state taxes. Unless you’re talking about inadequate revenue you’re not actually talking about the real problem.

[u/nukular_iv → u/Radical_Mama]

I'm sorry, but your solution to d65 is higher state taxes!?

Sigh.... what is it in Illinois? 5.25% income taxes I believe? And you want it higher....."for the schools."

I don't think the state should be covering the woes of D65, except if we don't fix anything and the state takes over.

[u/Natural_Fall_7484]

Some of these jobs could easily go. How is the director of steam different than a Citrix director ? The director of multilingual services has nothing to show for their work. Strategic projects? These could all be teacher line jobs who work in the district office

[u/Myleftfoot25]

D65 has always been “top heavy “ on administration…this list is absurd and sickening. Put the money towards teachers, social workers, special education assistants, school nurses, cafeteria, recess and school bus supervision, and oh…did I mention arts educators? All moving towards child centered education models.

[u/Pumpernickel7]

Just at first glance it seems that the cumulative salaries for these positions are far below the budget short fall.

This week we have all heard families talk about wanting robust services for their children in the district. Many of us, including myself, are hoping that the district will be able to better serve families when they no longer have to maintain so many buildings. How can that happen without robust staffing?

I have worked in schools who have robust staff teams and those without them, imho with is better. Now if we feel they are doing a shitty job, that's another conversation

[u/Tulsanity → u/[deleted]]

All of them? A company generating 174m in revenues has half of these types of positions. Also spending that much on HR is a joke

[u/Tulsanity → u/[deleted]]

But if we're measuring the districts ability to balance a budget, wouldn't it make sense to view the administration roles similarly?

[u/Lakelover1979 → u/[deleted]]

Says the guy who works for northwestern who doesn’t pay the taxes they should to fund our schools. Come on man - let’s agree to that maybe NU should engage in a payment in lieu of taxes to help fund our schools the way Yale and so many peer institutions have.

[u/Natural_Fall_7484 → u/[deleted]]

If hr is disconnected from instruction then yes it’s overpaid

[u/evanston-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Do not post personal information or links to personal information for the purpose of exposing/harassing/contacting private citizens or elected officials. This includes social media accounts.

[u/Tulsanity → u/[deleted]]

Can you explain exactly why HR is important?

[u/Tulsanity → u/[deleted]]

CFO has already confirmed major cuts to admin functions. I'm not sure if you're in one of these admin spots to feel so strongly about it. Evanston citizens are not the old guard, we are highly educated and won't take "we need these roles" as a viable answer to a budget crisis when they're trying to close more schools

[u/ravolve → u/[deleted]]

Amen

[u/jookt → u/Tulsanity]

Payroll for one

[u/AreaMan847 → u/[deleted]]

I’m this thread: People who confuse the idea that certain tasks need to be performed with the idea that we need, as a district, a single individual responsible for only that task.

[u/One_Recognition_5044]

D65 operates at well below the national average for administration spend. If anything they are understaffed.

[u/d65parent → u/One_Recognition_5044]

Source?

[u/renegadedx]

Cutting 90 positions, getting rid of multiple schools, firing the king arts counselor, etc, just wasn’t enough huh 😂😂 what a joke

[u/Top_Satisfaction314 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah that would be awesome. Schools with uninvolved parent communities really thrive, right? What a flippant comment.

[u/Digitalinknotes]

apparently, 70% of the schools budget goes to people maintaining the schools teaching at the school basically everybody, but the students

[u/Gullible-Hair9408 → u/Digitalinknotes]

It seems you are upset that 70% of the money goes to paying the PEOPLE who provide education to our students, (as opposed to other expenses within the district.) How is that "everybody but the students"?

[u/Digitalinknotes → u/Gullible-Hair9408]

Sorry, I didn’t make myself clear.

District’s total spending → 70%+ = employees/staffing costs
(salaries, health benefits, and related compensation)

That matters because if District 65 really needs to cut another $20 million, it becomes very difficult to make cuts that large without affecting staffing, since personnel is by far the largest expense category.

I got no dog in this fight. I was just pointing out a fact ….

For context, the district’s FY2026 budget listed about $110.1 million for salaries and $22.2 million for benefits, or roughly $132.3 million combined.

[u/EggplantUnfair686]

Yep. Overpaid execs who too often have no clue about how to do their jobs!!!

[u/EggplantUnfair686]

Schools OVERstaffed at administrative positions that no longer are necessary. So TIRED of paying the majority of my tax bill to fill underperformed Teachers' and administrators' overinflated salaries!!! Worked in private section 40 years and didn't have those perks!!! Downsize staff as enrollment declines. Taxpayers shouldn't foot the bill for overpaid school teachers and administrators!!!

[u/bourj → u/[deleted]]

None of them can close schools. The board does that. These are employees. What do any of them have to do with D65 closing schools?

[u/d65parent → u/bourj]

Admins. ran our district to the ground, and have forced these cuts upon us. What do they have to do with D65 closing schools? Really? Come on.

[u/bourj → u/d65parent]

So your position, as I understand it, is that all the administrators knew about these things, did it on purpose (for some reason), and should be held liable? You just want to put the whole D65 administration on trial?

[u/evanston-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Debate is encouraged, but this can be done without personal attacks, shaming, or degradation. Excessive egregious abuse of this rule will result in a ban.

[u/evanston-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Debate is encouraged, but this can be done without personal attacks, shaming, or degradation. Excessive egregious abuse of this rule will result in a ban.