“Asked to select their top three from among a list of problems affecting the district, most respondents, including parents, put ‘students not learning enough academically’ at the top of the list. When asked to grade the district, 54 percent gave CPS a C. The next most common grade was D. “

Headquartered in Munster, Indiana, Land O’Frost said it’s the country’s largest family-owned packaged meats manufacturer and it has about 1,500 employees. It has a plant in Lansing as well as plants in Madisonville, Kentucky, and Searcy, Arkansas.

Jareli Reyes, who resigned from the sheriff’s office last year, obtained approval for a $20,833 PPP loan in April 2021 and for another loan in the same amount the next month — a total of $41,666, according to records from the federal Small Business Administration. On her application, she said was the sole proprietor of a security guard and patrol business.

After a few hundred union members clad in red flooded the Capitol, several described a shortage of English as a second language teachers and paraprofessionals who work with students with disabilities, the need for school employees who specialize in helping children who’ve experienced trauma, and a lack of resources for homeless students.

As the DePaul encampment enters its third week, student protest leaders said their message and mission will last longer than their tent encampment in support for Palestine as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

While police officers would no longer be working in schools, each school must have at least one security officer and should utilize security cameras on their campus, the draft policy states. There is also an emphasis on training in the draft policy, as all schools must incorporate “climate, trauma-responsive, and social and emotional learning training into their annual school-wide professional development plans.”

U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer rejected nearly all of the demands made by the coalition of police reform groups behind the consent decree, the federal court order requiring CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s push to send about 650 teachers and staff members to lobby lawmakers May 15 in Springfield could cost Chicagoans up to $141,000 in substitute teacher salaries.

If Mayor Brandon Johnson and the CTU get the additional $1.1 billion, CPS’ spending could reach more than $32,000 per student, well above the nearly $22,400 average total spending per student currently in Illinois’ 10 largest school districts. Meanwhile, only one-fourth of CPS students could read at grade level in spring 2023.

“But a year ago today, our city itself needed treatment — treatment from the trauma experienced through a lack of hope and faith in institutions entrusted to protect and provide. Chicago needed treatment, not trauma.”

Since inauguration May 15, 2023, the current Council has held 23 regular meetings, totaling roughly 52 and a half hours of official business. Under Mayor Brandon Johnson, the body has spent roughly 17 hours on honorary, non-binding resolutions, and just under 36 hours on binding legislation.

“On one hand, critics argue Johnson won’t do enough to dissuade bad actors from coming to the city in the first place. On the other, protest groups are taking the city to court, complaining that it has denied their permits to march close to two main convention sites: the United Center and McCormick Place.”

“National political conventions are now an anachronism. They are expensive taxpayer subsidized infomercials. The last major party convention where there was some doubt regarding who the nominee would be occurred in 1976, when Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were competing for the Republican nod.”

Four robberies or beatings occurred on the Red Line from May 6-10, carried out by at least four young women and a male, Chicago police said in a community alert.

While studies have shown stadium projects like these tend to fall short when it comes to perks for city residents, the mayor and Bears brass have been touting a number of benefits, including expanded green space and a state-of-the-art field that would be accessible to the city’s youth for games and tournaments.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson took office on May 15, 2023. One year later, none of the $800 million in new taxes have passed. But expect a big taxpayer impact during his second year: he’s negotiating a contract with his former employer, the Chicago Teachers Union.

Only a combined 28% of likely Chicago voters polled said they approve of Johnson’s performance in office, while a majority (57%) disapprove and 41% strongly disapprove, according to a new poll by M3 Strategies.

One section of downtown where restaurants have soared is Fulton Market. In 2023, 515,000 square feet of the neighborhood’s retail space was devoted to food and beverage, up from 430,000 two years earlier.

Cicero town spokesperson Ray Hanania said, “It’s not unusual to have people who’ve been drinking to be outside firing weapons, we had something like that about a week ago. They fired 10 Shots, the police are being burdened by this problem.”

Chicago Public Schools leaders confirmed they are giving more than 600 teachers and staff members a paid day off to lobby.

Chicago remains worse off than Illinois and the U.S in joblessness for Black and Latino 16- to 19-year-olds and 20-to-24-year-olds, the report found. The highest percentages of joblessness in Chicago, recorded at 92.8 percent, were found around the South and West side neighborhoods of Pilsen, Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Fuller Park and Back of the Yards.

“The second option is to figure out how to get more social good out of what the city is already spending every year on social programs, public schools, infrastructure, economic development, police, etc. The way to do that is boring but vitally important: using data to manage operations and ensuring that the best people are hired and promoted (and well-trained) and that policies and programs are selected based at least in part on what actually works.”