By WMAY Newsroom
Photo Credit: Sangamon County Jail
The head of Springfield’s teachers union is stepping aside temporarily after his weekend arrest in an alleged domestic battery incident.
A statement from the Springfield Education Association says union president Aaron Graves will take time away from the post to “deal with a personal family matter.” The union’s vice president, Angie Meneghetti, will serve as acting president during Graves’s absence, but the SEA says it will have no further comment on the situation. Graves was arrested early Sunday morning at his home after an altercation with a woman with whom he is in a dating relationship.
By WMAY Newsroom
(Springfield Education Association / Facebook)
Springfield’s teachers union has made its endorsements in this spring’s school board elections… opting not to endorse two incumbents who are seeking new terms.
The Springfield Education Association is endorsing challenger Buffy Lael-Wolf over incumbent Tiffany Mathis in subdistrict 5, citing her status as a parent in District 186 and her background in pediatric medicine. The SEA also chose not to endorse Anthony Mares, even though he is running unopposed in subdistrict 1, saying Mares did not align closely enough with the union’s values and goals.
The union did endorse incumbent Mike Zimmers for another term… and is supporting Erica Austin over two challengers for the open subdistrict 6 seat. Election Day for school board and other local races is April 6
Mayor William Reichelt: Renegotiate with union to get West Springfield kids back in school
Updated Jan 13, 2021;
First, they’ll have to convince the teachers union.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the school board, Mayor William Reichelt said he’s not satisfied with the agreement negotiated by school officials and ratified on Monday by the West Springfield Education Association. That agreement, an amendment of the COVID-19 work rules agreed by teachers before the school year began, continues to bar West Springfield from reopening its schools until the town is taken off the state’s list of “high risk” communities.
That would likely keep students in their homes until at least April, Reichelt said.
Rachel Otwell Some Springfield Public Schools students returned to the classroom on Tuesday, for the first time in more than 300 days. Students across Illinois were sent home last March due to state COVID-19 mitigations. The District 186 board voted to implement its hybrid plan at a Jan. 4 meeting. Reportedly, about 44% of students had enrolled for the hybrid option for the second semester of the 2020-’21 school year. Schools that reopened to students include elementary through high school. Other students remain under the remote option, where they learn entirely from home. Mondays are for independent learning, while remote students log into classes via Zoom Tuesdays through Fridays. Under the hybrid plan, one group of students attends school in-person on Tuesdays and Thursdays while learning from home on other days of the week. The other group atte
Brian Daugherty has a desk calendar hanging on his wall at home that has counted the days he s been away from his Jefferson Middle School special education students in a classroom because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Tuesday, when Daugherty is set to rejoin them as a hybrid teacher, it will have been 320 days, he said. It s like a journey to a new frontier, Daugherty said. It will be nice to see them again, without all of the white noise and distractions.
About 44 percent of students from Springfield School District 186 have signed up to return to classrooms under the hybrid model, putting them in classrooms two days a week.