Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Chicago Sun-Times: 360,000 Chicago students head back to school Tuesday
Chicago Public Schools students are headed back to class Tuesday with officials touting systemwide accomplishments amid unanswered questions and challenges.
CPS’ leaders have spent the past few weeks releasing good news: fewer students are dropping out, graduation rates are rising, test scores are steady and the district’s finances are stable.
WBEZ: 5 Things To Watch In Chicago Public Schools This Year
Chicago Public Schools starts the school year Tuesday with budget stability and steady academic achievement, with scores and graduation rates up over time but essentially unchanged from last year.
But it’s facing a host of questions that touch on every corner of the school system, starting with whether Schools CEO Janice Jackson — under the direction of a new mayor and school board — can prevent a strike.
Daily Herald: Child advocacy groups see dip in funding with new state law
A major funding gap is looming for some suburban Children’s Advocacy Centers in light of new legislation that readjusts court fines and fees across the state.
For more than a decade, the Child Advocacy Center of McHenry County collected $13 for every traffic, misdemeanor and felony conviction — a deal negotiated years ago among agency and county leaders, Executive Director Misty Marinier said. The funding has been crucial for the nonprofit’s operations, which include conducting forensic interviews and offering free services for victims of child sexual and physical abuse, among other violent crimes, she said.
Daily Herald: District 220 might raze house to improve traffic at Dundee Road schools
Barrington Area Unit District 220 is exploring the idea of demolishing a house it bought from a fire district, then using the Dundee Road property for improving traffic flow and parking at two adjacent schools.
District 220 purchased the roughly 1-acre site with a vacant house at 36 E. Dundee Road from the Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District. The $500,000 deal was struck this year after Cook County rejected a controversial plan to build a new fire station on the site between Barrington Middle School-Prairie Campus and District 220’s early learning center.
Belleville News-Democrat: Comptroller report shows state’s finances in bad shape, but improving
The state of Illinois ran up a deficit of more than $7.7 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2018. But as bad as that sounds, it was only about half as bad as the $14.6 billion deficit amassed the year before.
That’s one of the conclusions from the latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report that Comptroller Susana Mendoza released Thursday. It’s the first such report released since the end of the state’s historic two-year budget impasse during former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration.