A billboard located along Illinois State route 15 in Centreville, Illinois, advertises for teachers for East St. Louis School District 189. PHOTO COURTESY OF BELLEVILLE NEWS-DEMOCRAT
SPRINGFIELD â Following a February survey of school districts that illustrated a persistent teacher shortage in the state, the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools has released policy recommendations calling for better benefits and more lenient certification in an effort to reverse the trend.
The IARSS, which serves as an intermediary between local school districts and the Illinois State Board of Education, had the survey conducted between September and October to see how school districts were faring with the supply of professional and substitute teachers during the 2020-21 school year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Chicago Headline Club announced Friday that ProPublica won six Peter Lisagor Awards, recognizing the best journalism produced across the Chicago region. ProPublica projects won for best feature story, best illustration, best education reporting, best individual blog post, online best non-deadline reporting and online best feature story.
“Inside the Lives of Immigrant Teens Working Dangerous Night Shifts in Suburban Factories” by Melissa Sanchez won best feature story, as well as online best feature story or series. The piece revealed that immigrant teenagers as young as 13 or 14, who attend school by day, are routinely working in illegal and often dangerous jobs on factory assembly lines at night. Sanchez unveiled a world operating in plain sight in one Chicago suburb and in places like it around the country. The story prompted the high school the teenagers attended to convene meetings to discuss how to better support its students, and a number of residents in the area donat
The Chicago Headline Club, the nation’s largest chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, named ProPublica a finalist for 13 Peter Lisagor Awards. The Lisagor Awards honor the best journalism produced across the Chicago region.
ProPublica received six nominations in the Best All Media categories, which span all news mediums and platform sizes; a nomination in the General Interest Daily Newspapers, News Service or Bureau categories for a collaboration with the Chicago Tribune; and six nominations in the Online categories. These projects reflect the depth and range of the newsroom’s collective efforts, from features, data journalism and investigative reporting, to illustrations and newsletters. Winners will be announced virtually on May 14.
The Education Writers Association announced this week that the “Invisible Walls” series, by the Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica, won first place in its National Awards for Education Reporting in the Investigative Reporting (Smaller Newsroom) category. EWA also named a series of stories by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune examining how the pandemic exposed inequities in education as a finalist in the News (Large Newsroom) category. The awards competition recognizes the top education journalism across the country.
“Invisible Walls,” a project of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Connecticut Mirror, investigated the connection between long-standing systemic housing and school segregation in Connecticut. Reporter Jacqueline Rabe Thomas’ expertise in education reporting allowed her to quickly grasp how some towns used lucrative local contracts for school board legal work to pressure law firms to abandon affordable housing clients. In another exa
CHICAGO (WLS) The Illinois State Board of Education has released updated COVID-19 safety guidelines for schools which they said reflects what they have learned about the transmission of the virus in school settings.
In a statement, the ISBE said in-person classroom instruction should be prioritized over extracurricular activities including sports and school events to minimize transmission in schools. As such, capacity limits for in-person learning, including activities like lunch, will now be determined by the space s ability to accommodate social distancing as opposed to a set capacity limit number or percentage. It s a very controlled setting and, again, we have not seen lots of transmission within the schools, said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike.