Fifth ward school to be named "Foster School" at groundbreaking, decades in the making

9/22/2024

In 2005, Evanston native Jerome Summers started his fight to reopen a 5th Ward neighborhood school, Foster School, which he had attended through the fifth grade in the '60s. That is until he began getting bussed to the primarily white Lincolnwood Elementary as part of the city's integration initiative that, he said, ended up being "terrible" for the community.

Nineteen years later, Summers, Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board members, community leaders, city officials and the fifth ward community came together Monday for the official groundbreaking ceremony at Foster Field for the new 5th Ward school renamed Foster School, an homage to its predecessor that closed its doors in 1967.

Serving on the District 65 board for eight years, Summers fought for a $24 million referendum that would have financed a new Fifth Ward school in 2012. Faced with a failed referendum, Summers continued to work with city officials for the new school, even after exiting the school board. "The fight's on, it's on," he said.

Starting in August 2026, the new school will operate as the 5th Ward's neighborhood school, a resource lost from the community since its namesake's closing. Its mascot will be the phoenix. "I know everybody in this campaign over the years would agree that one word really sums it up which is victory. Victory. Victory. Victory," Ald. Bobby Burns (5th) said.

"I'm mostly excited about a school in the fifth ward for all these young people behind us," he continued, referring to the line of children next to the free C&W Market and Ice Cream Parlor ice cream serving at the event.

Summers recalled the old Foster School as a "safe space" and the heart of the 5th Ward community, a sentiment that kept him motivated throughout the years. Even the negative experiences he recounted to have experienced at Lincolnwood didn't remove from the "love" he has for the 5th Ward.

The new "state of the art" school, as District 65 Superintendent Dr. Angel Turner described, will be equipped with 24 classrooms and a "flex" multipurpose room. The school's curriculums are still being decided with both the Two-Way Immersion Program, previously championed by the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, and the African Centered Curriculum, currently at Oakton Elementary, on the table, according to Dr. Gilo Kwesi Logan, who served on Citizens for a Better Evanston and is a fifth-generation Evanston native.

"It's one thing to have a school in the Black community, it's another thing for the school to serve their needs," Logan said. "One of my concerns I think is going to be making sure that the interests and the voices, particularly of Black people, that this meets their needs and it suits who they are."


Summers and Logan (first and second from left), as long term leaders in the creation of the new school, participated in the groundbreaking.

Logan, whose father attended Foster School, thinks a common misunderstanding that a lot of people have about the new school is that it's the "Black" school, attaching racist connotations to the intellectual output of the school. Still, Logan hopes that the school will aid in developing "healthy identities" for generations to come.

Similarly, Summers recalled others telling him that there's a large enough white population in the 5th Ward now for the city to build a school.

"There's a perception that it's too late for the school," Logan said. "Because the Black community has been depopulating greatly in Evanston. I feel that, although late, we're going to work with what we got. It's more of an asset-based approach."

The groundbreaking brought together community members involved in this "multigenerational" process since the beginning, as Logan said, and gave them an opportunity to "break ground" at Foster Field, fitted with hard hats and shovels.

"I'm grateful, and congratulations to D65 for keeping your word," said former fifth ward alderperson Delores Holmes. "I always say to people, they can talk about Foster School as much as they want, but we could all read."

Evanston's new Foster School is designed, engineered, and being constructed by Cordogan Clark.


Text: From The Daily Northwestern by Shreya Srinivasan