Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Chicago Tribune: Charter school teachers to return to work Monday after tentative agreement reached
Hundreds of elated Acero charter school educators decked out in union red cheered, chanted and danced at a Sunday afternoon rally to celebrate their historic victory: a tentative contract agreement with management that ended the nation’s first charter school strike.
More than 500 teachers and support staff will return to 15 Acero campuses across the city Monday after walking off the job and missing four days of school last week. The workers will vote in the coming weeks to approve the contract, which promises better pay and hours for teachers as well as smaller class sizes and sanctuary school protections for the majority Latino student body.
Chicago Tribune: Preserving choices for low-income students in a hostile Springfield
Paul Walker is a truck driver and father of three from south suburban Riverdale. His wife receives disability compensation due to a heart condition. They live in a bungalow with a market value of about $47,000, according to the Cook County assessor. That’s if they could sell. Or move. Which they cannot.
They live on a fixed income, pay their property taxes and don’t take vacations or drive new cars or splurge on Christmas gifts.
Daily Southtown: 5 south suburban towns voted for term-limits in November. A bill before state lawmakers would negate those referendums.
Illinois lawmakers are considering legislation that would negate term limit referendums recently approved by voters in five south suburban communities.
If approved, House Bill 5698 would nullify term limit restrictions recently adopted in Calumet City, Crestwood, Dolton, Harvey and Hazel Crest.
Bloomington Pantagraph: Eastland Mall owners challenge tax assessment
Bloomington residents could soon feel another kind of pain from the exodus of anchor stores at Eastland Mall.
CBL Properties, the Chattanooga, Tenn., company that owns the mall property at 1615 E. Empire St., is pushing to pay less in property taxes, which would move more of the burden onto local homeowners and other businesses.