Item
2022-01-17T18:37:00-06:00
news20220118-danvillepastorcovid
News Local/State
Danville pastor urges those “on the fence” to get vaccinated
Health
covid-19
vaccines
coronavirus
pastor ken mccray
DANVILLE - As we march toward the two-year point in the COVID-19 pandemic the headlines have become real life for many in Illinois. One Vermilion County family, dealing with loss has now teamed up with the state in hopes of saving more lives.
Pastor Ken McCray and his wife Rene have pastored a church in Danville since the late 1990s.
In May 2021, the couple traveled to a wedding and ended up with COVID. Both were unvaccinated.
"It was uncertainty. We knew it needed to be done but I think every member of the family was uneasy about the shot," said McCray.
Once back at home, their conditions got worse and days later, Ken called 911 for Rene. She was taken to the hospital and when pastor McCray tried to follow his wife to ICU, a temperature check led to him being immediately admitted as well.
Three weeks later, Pastor McCray was strong enough to come home. His wife was not. Rene died after spending 38 days on life support after being transferred to a hospital in Champaign. The McCrays shared 35 years of marriage and 3 grown children.
"It is a difference in reading about somebody versus being that somebody so it resonated even more. I made it mandatory for my children," said McCray. "Even with my congregation, there’s a little more conviction with it now."
McCray says they often talked about getting vaccinated, but didn’t, now he’s working with the State of Illinois and the “All In for Illinois” ad campaign that aims to help people feel safe and comfortable about receiving the covid 19 vaccine.
"For some people, it’s a realization that they’re not going to budge, but for those who are on the fence, it provides an opportunity to provide tools and information for consideration that can help move them to the other side," said McCray.
McCray says he’s also using his influence as a pastor to help others avoid falling prey to fear and misinformation.
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2022-01-17T18:35:40-06:00
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2021-05-20T10:29:00-05:00
ebertfellows-music-edit3
News Local/State
Music That Soothed The Soul Of The 2020-2021 Ebert Fellows
Editor’s note: Recently the 2020-2021 University of Illinois College of Media Roger Ebert Fellows – Casey Daly, Grace Johnson and Scarlett O’Hara, all rising seniors -- met with fellowship advisor Michael Phillips in the studios of WILL to explore the songs that helped get them through the last 15 months. These were songs from the soundtrack of life amid a pandemic, vast social unrest provoked by the May 2020 murder of George Floyd and so many other crises.
The conversation can be heard above; below are the essays fleshing out the notion of why certain songs offer comfort, escape and a reminder of better times ahead.
“Dumb,” Nirvana, 1993 version
By Casey Daly
Kurt Cobain was a great weirdo. The 1998 documentary “Kurt & Courtney” included a tour of his childhood home in Aberdeen, Washington, in which his high school girlfriend mentioned his after-school art conquests including dismembered parts of baby dolls. Iconic wedding photos of Cobain and Courtney Love depict the couple on Waikiki Beach, looking like hell. Love later become his punk-rock widow.
Casey Daly
Photo Credit: University of Illinois College of Media
In 1993, Nirvana recorded a live session with MTV Unplugged, comprising 14 unique renditions of the band’s popular tracks. The session was released six months after Cobain’s untimely death, solidifying his membership in the “27 Club” along with greats like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. MTV Unplugged in New York became a posthumous, haunting and raw compilation of what would forever be Cobain’s greatest hits.
The original version of “Dumb” is a really good piece of music. The organic and tender MTV Unplugged version is even better. The stage is pink and purple like a Waikiki sunset. Cobain’s voice swallows a room without speakers. It is the sound of yearning, pain, contentment, enlightenment -- the sound of nirvana. I think I love this version so much because his voice cracks so much, especially when he sings “my heart is broke.”
Every few weeks on college radio, I play this song when I’m feeling particularly stormy. This seems to happen more often than it did last year. “Dumb” is a grey sky, and the sky has been grey for too long.
“Put Your Records On,” Corrine Bailey Rae, 2006
By Grace Johnson
As a girl, with my Afro-textured buns that resembled Minnie Mouse and a voice learning how to bury its tremble, I learned to internalize false obligations assigned to Black girls. One of those obligations included rejecting fear, even if my emotions told me otherwise.
Grace Johnson
Photo Credit: University of Illinois College of Media
That’s why I immediately feel grounded as Corrine Bailey Rae makes a reference to nature in the opening line of her hit song, describing how “three little birds” encouraged her not to worry. Societal norms have instructed me how to closet my magic, and to sacrifice parts of myself even when I get nothing in return. The second single of Rae’s self-titled debut album, “Put Your Records On” (2006), reminds me to take a breath and return home.
“Girl, put your records on, tell me your favorite song. You go ahead, let your hair down.”
During the past year, I’ve been a college student who has shuffled between academic, professional, and personal responsibilities, all while navigating a pandemic and a world ignited by continuous waves of social injustice.
“Some nights kept me awake. I thought that I was stronger. When you gonna realize that you don’t even have to try any longer?”
I’ve found myself going back to this song as it affirms my right to find this juggling of experiences difficult. The guitar notes throughout create an easy and playful mood. Consistent, gentle percussion, accented by chimes, creates a sense of summertime nostalgia. These sounds pair with therapeutic lyrics, leading me back to a curious girl allowed to savor her multidimensional being and reclaim her girlhood.
“Hallucinations,” PVRIS, 2019
By Scarlett O’Hara
PVRIS delivers the kind of alternative electro-rock that makes you want to stomp around in Doc Martens.
Scarlett O'Hara
Photo Credit:University of Illinois College of Media
The music creates a visceral whirlwind of lost love and ghost stories. The paranormal atmosphere heard in “Hallucinations” — the titular single off the band’s criminally underrated 2019 extended play — is there if you want to explore it. But the gravity in songwriter Lynn Gunn’s emotional vocal performance is unavoidable.
My music taste has always revolved around nostalgia, for me a feeling both comforting and terrifying. I remember stomping down a brick Urbana street while listening to this EP for the first time. It was fall 2019. I had just transferred colleges. Everything glittered with novelty, so I welcomed more new things (cautiously).
PVRIS hooked my heart in high school. Today, nothing feels quite new anymore. Urbana certainly feels colder. Just as I had gotten settled, the pandemic swept through our collective reality. It left me in out in the fog, a little confused and unsure how to find home again. Remembering how quickly that early momentum of excitement turned into a year of stillness makes me sad.
I fall back on “Hallucinations” the way everybody returns to their favorite songs. The song’s rhythmic power helps release the sadness; the lyrics speak to a shared experience stirring up past and present simultaneously. Both unsettling and calming, it’s joyful noise for streets that, until just recently, have been practically noiseless.
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2021-05-20T13:31:42-05:00
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2021-01-29T16:48:00-06:00
ebertfellowsv3
News Local/State
2020 - 2021 Roger Ebert Fellows
roger ebert fellows
ebertfest
roger ebert's film festival
roger ebert's overlooked film festival
In this web exclusive, the Roger Ebert Fellows, Casey Daly, Grace Johnson, and Scarlett O'hara talk with adviser and film critic Michael Phillips about some films that they were drawn to throughout 2020 and what they are looking forward to in 2021.
Casey Daly junior journalism student at the University of Illinois
Photo Credit: University of Illinois College of Media
Grace Johnson junior media and cinema studies student at the University of Illinois
Photo Credit: University of Illinois College of Media
Scarlett O'hara senior journalism student at the University of Illinois
Photo Credit: University of Illinois College of Media
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2021-01-29T16:59:12-06:00
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2020-04-21T06:15:00-05:00
news20200421-schoolnursescovid-web
News Local/State
Illinois School Nurses Fear For Their Students Safety During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Education
Health
school nurses
illinois association of school nurses
st. charles community unit school district 303
murphysboro
murphysboro community unit school district 186
jacksonville
sanjay bansal
loyola university medical center
juanita gryfinski
diabetes
asthma
covid-19
coronavirus
school closures
illinois schools
Lisa Marlow is worried about her students. Marlow is a school nurse and educator with the Murphysboro Community Unit School District 186.
The district serves primarily low-income students in a rural part of southern Illinois.
When school is in session, Marlow says having eyes on students, especially those with chronic conditions like Type 1 diabetes or asthma, is crucial.
“The biggest reason why it's a huge part of our job is because people don't get to access health care anywhere else, or won't or don't have the means to. I have high school students who don't have insurance,” Marlow says.
Schools in Illinois are closed through the end of the current school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and students may be missing out on more than just face-to-face time with teachers. They also might be missing an important link in their access to health care: school nurses. Without daily access to students, school nurses like Marlow fear that warning signs of illness or abuse may go unnoticed.
Juanita Gryfinski, presidents of the Illinois Association of School Nurses, says she typically sees about 80 students on an average school day. Gryfinski works as a school nurse in St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 in Chicago’s western suburbs.
“So those are 80 children walking in and out of our offices. And, for most of them, we are the eyes on between physician visits, which may or may not occur every year even,” Gryfinski says. “When a child comes to your office, you’re not just looking at what maybe they’re saying is going on, but you’re also looking at all the subtle signs that tell us what else is going on. So that part has obviously gone away right now.”
Gryfinski says most school nurses aren’t legally able to conduct telehealth visits, the go-to workaround for most health care providers during the pandemic. Illinois law dictates that unless a school nurse is working under the license of a physician, they’re unable to conduct telehealth services. Gryfinski says some states are looking at how policies can be changed to ensure school-based health care providers can also use telehealth services to provide physical and mental health services to students.
In the meantime, Gryfinski says school nurses across the state are still checking in with students using a variety of mediums.
Lisa Marlow, a school nurse and educator with Murphysboro Community Unit School District 108, pictured two years ago with a baby kangaroo inside Carruthers Elementary School in Murphysboro, Ill.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lisa Marlow
Marlow, the school nurse from Murphysboro, says she’s calling families to check on her students.
Marlow works the lunch route now, driving around Murphysboro to provide meals to students and their families who need them. She says she’s used this opportunity as a way to get eyes on her students. Recently, Marlow spotted a middle school student she knows who struggles to keep his diabetes in check.
“I said, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ And he had this kind of cast to his skin. It was kind of a grayish cast to the skin that I've seen before when he was not well controlled, when he was sick,” she says.
Marlow says he didn’t want to talk to her, so she called his mom. She says his mom told her he was fine. But Marlow says she worries parents might miss something that she’d pick up on.
‘Important and essential’
That’s something parent Rebekah Strate agrees with. Strate, who lives outside Jacksonville in a rural part of central Illinois, has three children — all with complex medical needs.
She says school nurses “are important and are essential in my kids’ lives.”
Strate adopted her children from the foster care system. She says two of her children have tracheostomies and feeding tubes because they suffer from severe lung disease. Typically, she says, those children go to school accompanied by nurses that stay with them throughout the school day.
Two of Rebekah Strate’s children: JaRyiah (right), 11, and her sister, McKenzie, 12.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Rebekah Strate
“They do classroom activities with them under the teacher’s guidance, but they also check their vitals and feed them because they don't eat like regular kids,” Strate says. Now that schools are closed, she says her children aren’t seeing their one-on-one nurses. Those duties have fallen on Strate.
Her third child, JaRyiah, 11, has a severe form of asthma. She doesn’t need a one-on-one nurse at school like her siblings, but she does interact with her school nurse on a daily basis.
“She will check her vitals. She'll listen to her heart and stuff like that, which is very important for a child with asthma. And so with us being home, she doesn't get that,” Strate says.
Strate says she takes notes from all the nurses her children see at school and gives them to their multitude of doctors — none of whom they’re seeing right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Sanjay Bansal values that kind of insight from school nurses. Dr. Bansal treats children with diabetes at the Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago.
“The school nurses are a huge part of giving us information that we just don't see in the clinic. They're telling us what's happening in the child's daily life. And sometimes some of our patients who really struggle with their diabetes control, the school nurse often is the one who's kind of alerting us that there's something happening that needs to be attended to and sometimes even the parents don't get in touch with us in time.”
Now that schools are closed and that interaction between school nurses and students has stopped, Dr. Bansal says he’s particularly concerned about children with poor parental supervision.
“That's where I think it matters the most,” he says.
Strate also worries about that population of children. Before she adopted her daughter, JaRyiah, a school nurse was the one who alerted authorities that she wasn’t being properly cared for. At the time, JaRyiah attended school in Murphysboro, and Marlow, the nurse there remembers her. She says her colleague, another nurse, called the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services because she believed JaRyiah was being neglected.
Later, Strate says her daughter was found unresponsive in her home.
“She was a latchkey kid, you know, she came home from school, there were no parents at home and she had an asthma attack,” she says. “And she was found by a friend that came over to her house to visit her while she was home by herself at eight years old.”
Strate says JaRyiah was in a coma for two months and in a hospital for four months.
“That (school) nurse is very important to these kids. So I worry about that population myself.”
Strate says her daughter fears that something like that could happen to her again. She says she finds comfort in the daily checkups provided by her school nurse.
“So for our daughter, it’s scary for her to think that she’s not being checked on medically,” Strate says. “It causes anxiety and everything going on is causing more anxiety.”
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
News
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2020-04-20T21:30:54-05:00
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2020-04-13T06:00:00-05:00
news20200413-uibroadcastclass-covid-web
News Local/State
‘Their Story Matters’: How Broadcast Journalism Students In Illinois Are Reporting On COVID-19
Education
Health
Media and journalism
online learning
university of illinois
university of illinois at urbana-champaign
champaign
uiuc
arizona state university
cronkite school of journalism and mass communication
ken erdey
broadcast journalism
pbs
illinois broadcast archives
good morning illini
higher education
covid-19
coronavirus
One of Kenya Williams’s favorite classes is the broadcast journalism course she’s taking at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. That’s why she was devastated when she realized all of her university classes would be moving online in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Like many institutions across the country, the University of Illinois suspended face-to-face instruction last month. Moving from in-person classes to digital learning, however, is easier for some courses than for others.
Ken Erdey is Williams’ professor. He teaches broadcast journalism at the university and supervises a team of students that work on a live, weekly morning show called “Good Morning Illini,” akin to a student version of NBC’s “The Today Show.”
Under normal circumstances, students meet as a group on Mondays to prep for their live Friday show. Throughout the week, student producers write transitions for the show and keep an eye out for breaking news on campus. All pre-recorded segments must be filmed by the end of day Thursday, and students rehearse and shoot the live half-hour show on Friday morning. They also take turns hosting the show. The finished product, which is filmed in a studio on campus, airs on a local Comcast channel.
University of Illinois students Tim Gilmore (left) and Connor Ciecko (right) on the set of the Good Morning Illini studio on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. Both students work as producers for the weekly morning show.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Connor Ciecko
Erdey says he also posts the show to the class’ YouTube channel and Facebook. This semester, he launched a new companion show called “Illini Sports Night” featuring interviews with a selection of the university’s Big Ten athletes.
But all of that work was cut short when COVID-19 began spreading across the U.S.
Students recorded one last in-studio episode of “Good Morning Illini” before spring break. It included a final segment that featured videos recorded by seniors explaining how much working on the show meant to them. The students gathered as a group on camera for the last shot, and some wiped tears from their eyes.
Williams, a junior, was among the students in the final group shot. She says she loved being on-camera and had dreamed of working on the show.
“I thought like, wow, I'm finally being part of GMI like, for real and now is being snatched away from me because of this virus,” Williams says.
Erdey says he initially had no idea how he’d take a class rooted in hands-on learning and on-the-ground reporting into a digital environment with students scattered across the state.
“If you stop and think about what a studio production class is, you're in studio with live things happening. So, we have guests come in. We have camera people. We have our anchors doing their thing” Erdey says. “I didn't see a potential of how do I teach a live studio broadcast class, in an online format.”
Other journalism programs across the country have grappled with the same problem. Mark Lodato, associate dean at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, says his students typically produce about a half-hour newscast for the Arizona PBS station every night.
“So there's a news juggernaut, so to speak, that has been disrupted,” Lodato says. “What it does is it forces both faculty members and students to get very creative and innovative and frankly that's good.”
Lodato says students at the Cronkite School are now creating video content using their cell phones while they shelter in place at home.
“In an amazing way, we have students who are unearthing creative ways to produce their visual pieces, and that's doing a lot of interviews over Zoom, shooting stand ups in their homes, doing weather reports in front of their television monitor and figuring out how to upload the proper graphics and everything else. So we've seen a real uptick in the creativity in the storytelling and presentation,” he says.
Erdey, the University of Illinois professor, says he also had to get creative to ensure that his class could survive the shift to digital learning. He spent his spring break building a website with the help of YouTube tutorials and a template he purchased online. Erdey previously worked as a photographer and editor for TV news stations throughout Illinois, but web design is entirely new to him.
“For the most part, I just don't understand that realm of technology, and how to make it work,” he says. “I was having 12 hour days of sitting on my computer trying to figure out how do I build this website, how do I make it look like it's professional?”
By the end of spring break, Erdey had a website, but he didn’t know what to assign his students to do for it. He found inspiration online.
“This video popped up on my feed at some point… it was from the Italians when they were 10 days into their quarantine. And it's just people telling their stories to themselves 10 days later, and I was like, you know, maybe I can do something with that,” he says.
Erdey asked his students to file vlogs — video diaries — from wherever they happened to be and then posted them to the website. He says the goal was for students to report on how the pandemic had affected their lives.
He says Williams, in particular, had an important story to tell. While she’s from Chicago, Williams is currently living and working in Champaign. For her first vlog, she chose to list things that had taken an unexpected turn in her life as a result of the virus.
“At first, I didn't have a computer... I will admit I’d go to the (campus) library to use our resources, use the computer. So when they said like we're transitioning to online classes, I was like, well, I don't have a computer. So what am I going to do? So I had to use my old phone and use Zoom through my phone and things like that. So that was an unexpected turn.”
Williams says she’s since borrowed a friend’s spare computer. But when she recorded that initial vlog on her cell phone, she wasn’t able to edit and post it online. She sent her raw material to Connor Ciecko, another junior at the U of I, and a producer for the Good Morning Illini show. Like Williams, Ciecko loves working on Good Morning Illini, and despite the disruption, he says he remained optimistic they’d continue to produce content in whatever form they could.
“We are in such an incredibly unique situation. If you look at other classes, they can teach online so easily,’ Ciecko says. “Good Morning Illini is so rooted in being on the ground covering the campus and just being in that studio reporting on it that we have had to completely rework this.”
Ciecko sees a lot of benefits to the current situation. He says it’s forced him to be versatile and develop skills he thinks will be valuable to a future employer. Ciecko is shooting his own vlogs from his parents’ home in Western Springs, a Chicago suburb.
“I'm shooting on my phone. The audio is not fantastic, the video is not fantastic, the lighting is not fantastic. So I'm learning how to work with those, to work around those and to keep up the production value, and to further the production value of the things that I'm producing,” Ciecko says. He also hopes that work he and his peers creates serves as an important record of what this pandemic was like for college students in Illinois.
Erdey, the U of I professor, says he has impressed upon his students how important it is for them to tell their own stories during this time.
“This is a class about living in a historical moment. And living in a time or telling a story is the most important thing that we can do. And their story matters. And they have done nothing but step up to that and present content that does everything I asked them to do and more. And that's pretty amazing.”
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
News
WILL_57016-news20200413_uibroadcastclass_covid_web.mp3
2020-04-10T15:10:14-05:00
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2020-04-06T06:00:00-05:00
news20200406-specialed-covid-web
News Local/State
‘It’s Exhausting’: Illinois Special Needs Parents Struggle With Remote Learning Days
Education
Health
Public Health
illinois state board of education
isbe
special education
school closures
coronavirus
covid-19
wilmette
new trier township high school
triad community unit school district 2
deerfield public school district 109
deerfield
urbana school district 116
e-learning
remote learning
troy
Betsy Crosswhite says it felt like a punch in the gut when her son’s school closed to limit the spread of the coronavirus. That’s when she realized she would need to become her son Shane’s teacher and therapist.
Crosswhite and her family live in Wilmette. She and her husband have three kids, including Shane, 15, who is on the autism spectrum.
On the last day of March, Illinois schools shifted all instruction to e-learning or remote learning days. A directive from the Illinois State Board of Education says the goal is to get educational opportunities to students by any means possible. The state recently published recommendations for best practices, including for students with disabilities.
But for Crosswhite, that transition from parent to teacher isn’t an easy one. She says her son, Shane, relies on a schedule and he struggles when his routine is disrupted.
“So his recreational activities all shut down, his therapies decided to shut down and he really can’t receive occupational therapy via telehealth services, and speech therapy is also hard for him via (video conferencing),” she says.
Most Illinois school districts use some form of digital learning service to communicate with students, including the video conferencing service Zoom or a Google classroom. But Crosswhite says screens are particularly challenging for Shane. She says like many children with special needs, he’s easily overstimulated.
Shane Crosswhite, 15, works on a cut and paste project at his home in Wilmette.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Betsy Crosswhite
“Whatever iPad time he has it's really closely monitored by me,” Crosswhite says. “And I only give him about 15 minutes a day, because it can turn very negative. So e-learning for him that first week was a real challenge. And I kind of cried uncle early on saying it's too hard for him. He doesn't understand why he's not in school. He doesn't understand why he's seeing his teacher on a video and not in person. And it led to crying fits and all that stuff.”
Shane attends New Trier Township High School in Winnetka. Crosswhite says they tried a video conference with a speech therapist from school, but it didn’t go well.
“It was me chasing him around with the camera while (the speech therapist) is trying to even do one or two things for him. And it just didn't work out,” she says. “It's exhausting because it's 24/7, I can't leave him alone.”
Crosswhite says her son sees the people in his life in specific roles. It’s hard for him to adjust when they take on roles he’s not used to, she says.
“So it is a challenge and we're having to really break down those barriers for him, and I think it's really uncomfortable for him. Because again, it's not routine. It's not the norm of what I'm asking him to do and pushing him to do.”
Most special needs kids have what are called individualized education plans, or IEPs. IEPs are legal documents that lay out a program to meet a child’s unique needs. They include goals and objectives tailored to each student. Crosswhite says she took a look at Shane’s IEP goals recently.
“I just think we all have to anticipate that he's not going to meet them this year. And we'll have to sort of do a redo for next year,” she says.
‘Very long days’
Lauren Kamnik is home alone with her three children in Deerfield, two have special needs. She says trying to give her children individualized attention is nearly impossible.
“It’s minute by minute. Honestly, these are very long days,” she says.
Kamnik’s children attend Deerfield Public School District 109. Her son Wesley, 10, has a rare condition called GAND, or GATAD2B-associated neurodevelopmental disorder, characterized by an intellectual disability and difficulty with speech.
“He’s in a classroom where he’s learning how to wash his hands and, you know, brush your teeth and money and that kind of thing. And he's not learning those skills (right now),” Kamnik says.
Her other son, Oliver, 11, has emotional and behavior diagnoses, including issues with depression, anxiety and ADHD. He normally attends a therapeutic day school.
“I feel myself spiraling into sadness and depression. I think everybody in the country is sad because it’s a very lonely, isolating time, but this is different.”Lauren Kamnik, a Deerfield mother of three, including two children with special needs.
“He's in an environment where they're trying to get them socially and emotionally regulated. And he's not getting that right now,” Kamnik says.
Kamnik says she relies on her children’s school district to provide the interventions and support her sons need.
“The therapies, the psychology visits, the social worker visits, I mean, that's what they got in school, and they're not getting any of it. My son (Wesley) was nonverbal and because of speech therapy, he now talks. These things make a difference,” she says.
Kamnik also relies on the school day to get a break for herself. She says managing three children as a single parent, including two with special needs, is hard in the best of times. Now, she says, it’s taking a toll on her mental health.
“I think most parents, they need time, whether it's a car ride to work or just time to decompress and take a break, and it just isn't happening. You don't have it at all,” Kamnik says. “I feel myself spiraling into sadness and depression. I think everybody in the country is sad because it’s a very lonely, isolating time, but this is different.”
‘The system just doesn’t work for him’
Tia Hartsell and her partner are both essential workers. Hartsell is a social worker at a nonprofit that serves adults with developmental disabilities, and her partner works for UPS. They have two children, a toddler and a seven-year-old, Haden, who is on the autism spectrum.
“He's incredibly smart. But he just doesn't really get social stuff very well. He’s like super, super high energy,” Hartsell says.
Haden attends the Urbana School District 116 and spends half his day at a program that provides services for young children with autism. Hartsell says her son thrives in a one-on-one learning environment which he’s not getting now.
"He can't really do the online learning stuff because he literally needs somebody right there with him to be able to get him to really focus on that and do it. There's just no way that I can do that like all the time.”
Hartsell’s partner works nights and is home during the day, but can’t provide the attention Haden needs. Hartsell says she doesn’t have time or the energy to work with him during the evenings.
Hartsell says the Urbana school district has done a great job providing parents with resources.
“The problem is we’re not teachers,” she says. “And the system just doesn’t work for him. Sit down at a computer — he just can’t do it on his own. And we don’t have the ability to do it to the degree that he needs it. And (the school) knows it, but there's not much they can do either.”
Hartsell also worries the progress Haden has made will erode the longer students remain out of school.
“I'm just terrified that he's just going to go back after months and months and months of no structure and you know, being off those expectations, that it's just going to be like starting from ground zero again,” she says.
‘They don’t have that structure’
Cindy Kline (left) is a special education teacher at Triad Community Unit School District 2 in Troy, Ill. Tina Murray (right) is a teacher's aide who works with Kline.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Cindy Kline
Since schools closed, special education teachers across the state have struggled to teach their students.
Cindy Kline works with special education students in the Triad Community Unit School District 2 located east of St. Louis. She’s set up a Google classroom for her students. But Kline says talking to kids while they’re at home can’t recreate the classroom.
“They don't have that structure, they don't have all the things that we spent all year setting in place to keep them focused. And so then that escalates into problems with parents or them getting behind or them getting stressed, you know, and that makes it difficult,” she says.
Kline says she’s changed the way she teaches now. It’s less about meeting their IEP goals, she says, and more about making sure they’re OK. She recently asked her students to write journal entries as a school assignment.
“But I don't go in and work on the things I normally would work on,” she says. “I don't highlight their capitalization and punctuation and all those things... I write back to them just like it was a letter, and I encourage them to go outside and get some sunshine… because I don't want them getting in a funk and getting depressed.”
It’s not just the students who might be depressed, it’s also their parents. Kamnik, the mother of three from Deerfield, says she finds solace in social media groups for parents of special needs children.
“It's nice that I have a bunch of friends that I can pull up and be like, ‘I've hit my wall.’ And they can't do anything but at least they talk you through it, and make you laugh,” she says.
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
News
WILL_56965-news20200406_specialed_covid_web.mp3
2020-04-05T19:38:38-05:00
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2020-03-30T07:00:00-05:00
news20200326-elearningobstacles-feature-web
News Local/State
Illinois School Closures Spotlight Opportunity Gap For Poor Students
Education
Health
covid-19
coronavirus
dwight eisenhower high school
dwight township high school
blue island
illinois state board of education
isbe
google classroom
illinois school closures
About half of Gladys Marquez’s students can’t access the internet at home. Marquez teaches English language learners at Dwight Eisenhower High School in Blue Island on Chicago’s south side. The school serves predominantly students of color from low-income backgrounds.
Marquez says her students are fortunate to attend a school district that provides an iPad to each pupil. But she calls it “a blessing and a curse.” It’s a curse right now because many of her students can’t access Wi-Fi in their homes.
Illinois schools are closed to help contain the coronavirus, and so are many businesses and community resources like libraries. Marquez says that’s another problem for a lot of her students.
“A lot of my kids would go to like McDonald's or Burger King, Dunkin Donuts to do their homework, or Starbucks, because they had access to Wi-Fi. All of which are closed right now,” she said.
On March 31, school districts across Illinois will transition to e-learning or remote learning days, per an order from the Illinois State Board of Education. The goal is to get instruction to students any way districts can until in-person classes resume. The state encourages districts to adopt grading policies that don’t harm students, specifically passing or incomplete grading models that allow students to make-up or re-do assignments.
Marquez posts daily assignments online in a Google classroom. Many of her students have only a cell phone to access that material.
“There are certain apps that function much better on their iPad than they would on their phone. There's just so many variables you know when you think about students’ access. Is it their phone? Do they have to borrow their parent’s phone? It can be a glaring difference between the haves and the have nots,” Marquez said.
Marquez plans to create a virtual classroom using the video chat software, Zoom. But she worries about the students who won’t be able to access it. In the meantime, she’s also taken creative steps to meet her students’ needs; one student told her they left a book at school and can’t go back for it.
“I was sitting there taking pictures of all of the different pages and trying to upload them to the classroom. And you know, there's just different things that you're trying to do as an educator just to try to fill that void,” Marquez said.
While students remain shut out of their classrooms, their challenges with remote learning largely depend on their socioeconomic status and the resources they have at home.
Lindsey Jensen is following her school district’s e-learning plan. Jensen teaches English at Dwight Township High School, located in a small town south of Joliet. Most of the district’s students are white, and only about 30 percent are classified as low-income.
“We are to provide students with approximately 15 to 20 minutes worth of work per day in each of our classes. Whatever that looks like is kind of up to each teacher.”
Jensen says if students can’t access the internet, they can make up those assignments when school is back in session. Internet access isn’t a problem for her AP English students. Jensen says they are concerned about upcoming exams.
“My AP English kids are, rightfully so, really nervous about their upcoming AP exam.”
She plans to set up a video classroom using Zoom to get face-to-face time with her AP students.
“You know I can't just throw test prep materials at those kids and expect them to do well on that. They all need instruction.”
Jensen says it’s impossible to replicate what goes on in the classroom online. She worries about whether her students will be ready for next year given how long they’ve been out of school.
“They are having very different experiences than what our previous students have experienced. And undoubtedly, that's going to affect student readiness,” Jensen said.
Gladys Marquez, the teacher from Blue Island, says her biggest concerns are rooted in the present moment.
“I have students that work 40 hours a week,” Marquez said. “And they work because they need to work to eat, to survive. And I worry about them. I don't know what's going on with them. I don't know if they're well. I don't know if they're eating.”
How educators across the state handle this period of remote instruction and online classes depends on the resources their students have, or don’t have, at home. Marquez says the school closures serve to spotlight an opportunity gap that’s now exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
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WILL_56886-news20200326_elearningobstacles_feature_web.mp3
2020-03-30T00:26:09-05:00
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2020-03-30T06:00:00-05:00
news20200327-covid-stateville-wrap
News Local/State
‘A Lot Of These Older Guys Are Gonna Die’: COVID-19 Hits Illinois Prisons
Criminal Justice
Health
idoc
illinois department of corrections
covid-19
coronavirus
illinois prisons
shari stone-mediatore
parole illinois
stateville correctional center
jb pritzker
sheridan
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced this week that Illinois prisons would be closed to new inmates in response to growing concern about the COVID-19 pandemic spreading within Illinois’ correctional facilities.
As of Sunday, at least eight incarcerated men at Stateville Correctional Center have tested positive for the virus, along with multiple staff members at the prison. A staff member at the Sheridan Correctional Center also tested positive for COVID-19, and so did multiple individuals housed at the North Lawndale Adult Transition Center in Chicago.
Willie, an incarcerated person at Stateville, says he thinks many people inside the facility are infected.
Illinois Newsroom is not using Willie’s last name because he fears retaliation. Willie says he developed symptoms of COVID-19 in mid-March, including a fever, headache, cough and the loss of smell and taste. He says he has not been tested for COVID-19.
As of this week, Willie says staff at the prison began passing out water mixed with bleach that inmates could use to clean their cells. He says he hasn’t received any other cleaning supplies or personal hygiene products. Willie says he’s under quarantine and can’t leave his cell. Meals are delivered to the men on his cell block, Willie says, and he’s been unable to leave to take a shower.
“They canceled all hospital passes, and all that. So it's like you just don't go out of your cell, you’re just stuck,” Willie says.
Jamal, another incarcerated person at Stateville, says he also has symptoms of the virus and hasn’t been tested. Illinois Newsroom is not using Jamal’s last name because he also fears retaliation.
“It began with a terrible headache. I had a fever and chills. I couldn't really sleep. Then coughing ensued, with a dry cough at first, then it started getting phlegmy. I've been experiencing that for about a week and a half now,” Jamal says. He says his temperature has been taken once since the pandemic started.
Jamal says he was still going to work in the prison’s kitchen while experiencing these symptoms.
“They have taken little to no precautions when we prepare the food,” he says. “We do wear food service grade gloves. None of us are wearing masks.”
Jamal says many people in the prison are sick.
“It's like a symphony of coughs at night, during the day when it's quiet, everybody’s just coughing. You can hear people are obviously sick,” he says.
Neither Jamal nor Willie believe the prison’s health care system is prepared to handle an influx of COVID-19 patients. They say the quality of health care inside is already poor.
Willie says he’s particularly worried about older inmates with preexisting health conditions.
“They can't even handle someone having an asthma attack, let alone multiple cases of coronavirus for somebody who is on dialysis, who has heart problems or respiratory problems,” Willie says. “I believe if (COVID-19) really, really hits, a lot of these older guys are gonna die, unless by the grace of God, they don’t.”
The Illinois Department of Corrections did not return a request for comment. The agency halted in-person visits to its prison facilities earlier this month. A statement on the department’s website says it will continue to provide showers, medical and mental health treatment, educational and substance abuse programming, access to phone calls, cleaning supplies, law libraries, and prison commissaries to incarcerated individuals while movement within facilities is restricted.
'These people have nothing'
Earlier this month, advocates for criminal justice reform called on Pritzker to release older and sick incarcerated individuals in an effort to protect them from COVID-19. Shari Stone-Mediatore, managing director of Parole Illinois, which advocates for sentencing reforms, is among those who signed onto the letter.
Stone-Mediatore says she’s heard from people inside Illinois prisons who say they're experiencing symptoms of the virus and are not being tested for it, nor being provided adequate cleaning and personal hygiene supplies.
She received a message from someone incarcerated at Stateville informing her that dozens of people had lost their sense of smell and taste.
“And when I did a Google search and found that loss of smell and taste was a symptom of COVID-19, I was just shaking because that was dozens of people who don’t even know that they are carrying the virus that are going to be spreading it,” Stone-Mediatore says.
She says long-standing issues with inadequate medical care and overcrowded prisons enable outbreaks, like COVID-19, to take root in the state’s prisons.
Stone-Mediatore commends Pritzker’s action, but she says more needs to be done. Stone-Mediatore says all inmates should be tested for the virus so prison officials know how widespread the problem actually is, and prisons should also provide people with cleaning supplies they can keep inside their cells. She says prisoners should also be able to spend time outside while practicing social distancing and have opportunities to communicate with their loved ones on the outside.
“When we talk about adequate medical care, those of us out here are thinking about having a respirator, having, you know, all kinds of elaborate things that we might need,” Stone-Mediatore says. “These people have nothing. So better medical care for them means at least basic, minimal things like a clean (cell) house, a clean hospital bed. The health care units in most prisons are filthy.”
She says she hopes continued coverage of the virus’ impact on the Illinois correctional system inspires improvements in the health care and living conditions within the state’s prisons.
While advocates say Pritzker hasn’t gone far enough to mitigate the threat COVID-19 poses for incarcerated people, others have criticized his decision to close prisons to new inmates.
The Illinois Sheriffs’ Association (ISA) issued a statement saying the governor’s action jeopardizes the safety of inmates and correctional officers in county jails across the state.
“Law enforcement believes the entire state is in this together, but this policy shifts an enormous burden to every county jail, when it is most appropriate to transfer individuals to a state correctional facility,” ISA President Mike Everett said in the statement. “We ask this decision be reevaluated so that we can safely and securely transfer health individuals out of local correctional facilities to another appropriate location within the state’s criminal justice system.”
Update at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 29, 2020: This story was updated to reflect an increase in the number of incarcerated men at Stateville who have tested positive for COVID-19.
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WILL_56884-news20200327_covid_stateville_wrap.mp3
2020-03-29T14:57:38-05:00
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2020-03-25T12:23:00-05:00
news20200324-idjj-covid-wrap
News Local/State
Advocates Demand Illinois Release Youth From Juvenile Detention Centers Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
Criminal Justice
Health
Mental Health
covid-19
coronavirus
illinois department of juvenile justice
children and family justice center
northwestern university
julie biehl
jb pritzker
idjj
Advocates and correctional officials are calling on Illinois and other states across the country to release youth from juvenile detention facilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are currently about 200 youth incarcerated in Illinois’ juvenile detention facilities. A recent report from the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University found that more than 90% of incarcerated youth have at least one mental health disorder diagnosis, and about two-thirds have multiple diagnoses.
Julie Biehl, director of the Children and Family Justice Center, said underlying mental health issues make social distancing and isolation especially difficult for the majority of youth incarcerated in Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice facilities.
“At these scary times, where everyone in our country is anxious… being a young person locked up in a cell, isolated from your family, and not having, you know, the programming or the schooling or the support that you can normally have, it's just got to be difficult for everyone," she said.
Biehl said isolation can exacerbate existing mental health issues.
A group of lawyers, advocacy organizations and others have signed a letter calling on Gov. J.B. Pritkzer to release as many youth as possible from IDJJ facilities. In addition to mental health concerns, advocates also raises concerns about the physical health threat the virus poses to incarcerated youth. The letter states that IDJJ cannot maintain the same standards as community healthcare facilities.
Pritzker stated during a press conference last week that he was looking into the possibility of releasing young people from juvenile detention facilities so long as it can be done safely.
IDJJ has halted visits to all five of its juvenile detention facilities through April 3. The agency is also taking other measures to prevent coronavirus from entering its buildings, including taking the temperature of everyone who comes into an IDJJ facility.
Biehl said the average length of stay in IDJJ facilities is about six months. She said as soon as a young person enters an IDJJ facility, staff begin to plan how and when that child will return home.
“That's what they've been doing all along. That's how they operate. And so that system is already in place for them... to look at the possibility of your kids being allowed to return home,” Biehl said.
Criminal justice advocates have also called upon the state to release elderly and chronically ill inmates from adult correctional facilities. During a press conference last week, Pritzker said releasing adults from prisons is a more complex calculation.
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
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WILL_56850-news20200324_idjj_covid_wrap.mp3
2020-03-25T12:35:24-05:00
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2020-03-19T17:31:00-05:00
news20200320-covidschoolmeals-web
News Local/State
Cafeteria Workers, School Staff On The Front Lines Delivering Food To Illinois Students
Education
Health
isbe
coronavirus
covid-19
meridian community unit school district 101
ball-chatham school district
chatham elementary school
national school lunch program
maine south high school
school closures
illinois state board of education
Dawnal Mahan is an essential employee. She manages the cafeteria inside Chatham Elementary School, a kindergarten through fourth grade school in the small town located south of Springfield.
While most teachers aren’t in the building, Mahan is still going to work each school day to prepare pre-packaged meals for students — including breakfast and lunch.
At schools across the state, essential workers show up each day to feed students, even while school buildings remain closed in an effort to contain the coronavirus. In many cases administrators and teachers are the ones delivering meals to students.
Districts are not required to distribute food to students when schools are closed, however a spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education said they are highly encouraged to do so, and will be reimbursed for those meals.
This week, Mahan and her two co-workers distributed meals to families through the backdoor of the elementary school building. Families pull up to the back of the building, and she and her colleagues hand them bags of food through their driver-side windows. Mahan and her coworkers wear gloves and are careful to keep a safe distance.
Mahan said she’s worked for the Ball-Chatham School District for nearly three decades. Her mission during this public health crisis is to ensure every student who needs a meal gets one — even when they’re not in school.
“Because the kids need to be fed, they have to be fed, and so that's why we we’re there to provide this,” Mahan said.
Some parents are embarrassed to pick up the meals, but Mahan doesn’t think they should be. In fact, she asks if they need more than a one-day supply, since not every family can do a pick up everyday.
“I say, ‘if you need more, please tell us.’ We told a lady if you’re not going to be able to come for two days in a row, then we’ll give you that to go ahead and provide for your family. And this person was extremely thrilled,” she said.
While teachers scramble to reinvent classes for remote learning, school officials across the state are trying to gauge what else their students and families need right now.
Food pickup at @Maine_East this morning with Kim, Andre and Dr. Pressler. We are all getting a little better at it each day at @Maine_207 #207Now #ilschoolsstepup pic.twitter.com/BcBWZtAQKJ
— Ken Wallace (@KenWallace207) March 18, 2020
In Chicago’s northwest suburbs, Ben Collins, principal of Maine South High School, said it’s an evolving situation. This week, families signed up ahead of time and then picked meals up from the district. He said it’s very likely they’ll begin delivering meals to students soon.
“If this continues long-term, this is only going to get worse for people who have food needs,” Collins said.
The uncertainty surrounding school closures in light of the coronavirus has weighed heavily on the minds of school staff across Illinois. It’s compelled some to invent creative ways to get food to students.
Jonathan Green is the superintendent of Meridian Community Unit School District 101, which covers nearly 100 square miles in rural southern Illinois. Families in Green’s district are poor; in fact, he said every one of the district’s roughly 450 students qualifies for free meals from school.
“We have to feed all of our kids no matter what. And I mean, I know all the other districts are supposed to feed their kids if they can. But we have to,” Green said.
Green and other school staff members, including teachers, are delivering meals via school bus to neighborhood bus stops in the district each weekday.
“We've been getting phone calls and messages… from people, just making sure that we know about this kid or this family, that they want to make sure they're getting food because they know that they're struggling,” Green said.
While super quiet now! We do have some energy in the building getting ready to send food! Thank you to our cafeteria, maintenance, volunteers and bus staff! #BobcatsRising pic.twitter.com/rxLw0qGm9p
— Meridian Unit Schools #101 (@101Meridian) March 18, 2020
Green is worried about those families, too. He said the area his district serves has few options to buy food, and just a single gas station. But Green said he’s heartened by the community’s willingness to help.
“We’re supposed to socially distance ourselves. That just means physical contact. It doesn't mean we can't help each other out and to make sure that we're taking care of the people who are around us,” he said.
Green said he plans to ride the school buses everyday to deliver food to his students as long as schools remain closed. He said at least that way, he’ll get to see them.
News
WILL_56802-news20200320_covidschoolmeals_web.mp3
2020-03-19T17:36:32-05:00
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2020-03-19T06:06:00-05:00
news20200318-hotspotbuses-web
News Local/State
While Schools Are Closed, Illinois District Uses Buses As Wi-Fi Hotspots
Education
Health
illinois state board of education
isbe
coronavirus
covid-19
school closures
e-learning
wi-fi
belleville township high school district 201
belleville
brian mentzer
Elementary and secondary school districts across Illinois are moving toward online or e-learning while students remain at home in an effort to contain the coronavirus.
One district in southern Illinois has taken a unique approach to ensure every student has access to the internet.
Belleville Township High School District 201, located outside St. Louis, is deploying four school buses equipped with WiFi to serve as Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the community. Drivers park the buses next to seven different parks scattered throughout the community and Belleville’s downtown YMCA, depending on the day of the week, between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. every Monday through Friday.
“People can just pull up, come up and download the information they need for the day and then go,” said BTHS District 201 Assistant Superintendent Brian Mentzer.
Mentzer said a member of the district’s IT department came up with the idea as educators in the district discussed how they’d transition to an online learning model.
“And everybody’s heads nodded like, yeah, that’s a great idea,” he said.
Never thought the WiFi enabled buses would be deployed for this! #ilschoolsstepup https://t.co/xfUMI4LyGl
— Melissa Taylor (@melissat1130) March 17, 2020
The district includes two high schools that collectively serve about 4,800 students. Mentzer said the vast majority of students in the district reported having access to the internet at home. But he said it was important those who didn’t were still able to receive digital educational materials.
“This is available for all our feeder school districts, all of our elementary kids, you know there could be 13,000 kids,” Mentzer said. “They’re there to provide a resource for families and kids.”
Like many school districts, Mentzer said District 201 had to move quickly to transition to e-learning. He said school officials have provided all students who lack personal devices at home with a Chromebook they can use during the mandated school closure.
“However we realized that some of our students may have devices but they prefer to work on a Chromebook during the time they’re off. And we’ve allowed them obviously to pick up Chromebooks as well,” Mentzer said.
He estimated that the district has loaned students between 500 and 600 Chromebooks to use while schools are closed.
The Illinois State Board of Education has instructed districts that the mandated closure does not count toward days of instruction, and will not need to be made up at the end of the school year. The guidance indicates that schools don’t need to teach students during this period, but offering something in the form educational activities is recommended.
Mentzer said it was important for his district to provide e-learning for students because it’s unclear how long the closure will last. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has ordered school remain closed at least through March 30.
Mentzer said each online lesson begins with a check-in.
“So our students will hopefully hear this seven times a day, (it) starts with: how are you doing? Is there anything you need? Are you healthy? Do you need food? Those are the questions our lessons, our communications are beginning with, because we understand that’s also a priority.”
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WILL_56785-news20200318_hotspotbuses_web.mp3
2020-03-18T20:06:57-05:00
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2020-03-11T15:58:00-05:00
news20200311-coronavirusuofi-web
News Local/State
Next Steps Unclear For University Of Illinois Students Dealing With Coronavirus Cancellations
coronavirus
covid-19
study abroad
university of illinois
university of illinois champaign urbana
eric mcnulty
julie pryde
champaign urbana public health district
robin kaler
Alissa Xiao is confined to a bedroom in her parents home in the East Bay region of California. Xiao, 20, is a junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was forced to return home last week from a study abroad program in Italy because of the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.
“It’s very boring,” Xiao said. “Concerned would be another word I would say. And frustration, maybe, just with the lack of information I have right now from the university. I understand that it takes time to figure everything out, but I would say a lot of us are left in the dark with what’s going to happen next, and how this affects our four-year plan in college.”
The coronavirus has prompted many colleges and universities across the country to cancel study abroad programs — including the U of I. University officials announced via email on March 2 that students and staff had to leave Italy and the Daegu region of South Korea as soon as possible. The decision affected 137 students in Italy, and another 15 in South Korea. Students and staff are also barred from traveling to China, Iran, Italy and the Daegu region of South Korea on university business or using university resources.
The university also required all students returning to the U.S. to self-quarantine for 14 days before coming back to campus.
Xiao said the abrupt cancellation of her study abroad program has left her with more questions than answers about her academic future.
“The email (the U of I) sent was kind of vague,” she said. “And nothing else was really provided, nothing about what would happen to our academics, what parts of our program would be refunded to us. The main point of that email was: we want all students out of Italy right now.”
Xiao doesn’t know whether she’ll be able to take classes online, or what portion, if any, of her program’s tuition will be refunded.
Joe Hume, 21, another U of I junior studying in Italy, said he received the same email from the university. Hume said he was traveling with friends when he got the email and scrambled to get the next flight. When he flew from Italy to Poland, Hume said people in protective gear boarded their plane and took everyone’s temperature. His experience flying to Chicago was different.
“When we flew from Warsaw to Chicago, I was in and out of customs in like five minutes. It was almost as if nothing was happening,” Hume said.
Xiao said she had a similar experience when she flew from Milan to San Francisco International Airport. There were no extra screenings or precautions when she got to the U.S.
Hume and Xiao said they’ve figured out what self-quarantine means with their families. Xiao said her parents turned to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance.
Joe Hume, 21, a junior at the University of Illinois, was forced to return home from his study abroad program in Italy due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hume is pictured in his bedroom at his parents home where he is under self-quarantine.
Photo Credit: Coutesy of Joe Hume
Joe Hume, 21, a junior at the University of Illinois, was forced to return home from his study abroad program in Italy due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hume is pictured in his bedroom at his parents home where he is under self-quarantine.Courtesy of Joe Hume
Hume is staying in a bedroom inside his parents’ home in the Chicago suburbs. He said his family will avoid all non-essential travel outside the house.
The students say they have not had any contact with their local health departments, nor did they know that that’s something they should have done.
Julie Pryde, administrator for the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, said it’s unfortunate those students aren’t in touch with their local health authorities. Her agency is in close contact with the handful of U of I students who returned to the Champaign-Urbana area after travel in Italy and other affected countries. Pryde said they’re in quarantine away from campus and have received kits that include face masks, trash bags, kleenex and other supplies.The
students have explicit instructions on what to do and what not to do while in quarantine, and guidance on how to get help if they start showing symptoms.
Pryde doesn’t know what support students in other health districts across the country receive if they’re not in communication with their local health authorities.
“I would know if the health department was involved. But other than that, I don’t know. And I know that some health departments are probably overwhelmed, depending on where they’re going back to.”
Pryde strongly recommends that all students who self-quarantine when they return from countries affected by the virus reach out to their local public health districts.
Robin Kaler, a spokesperson for the U of I, said university staff know where all affected students are. However Kaler doesn’t know whether those students are in touch with their health department officials.
“We only control the things we have in our portfolio. And so we’re trying to do the best we can with what we can control,” she said.
Pryde, with the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, acknowledged that self-quarantine is done on the honor system. She said most people want to observe the quarantine, “but part of it is education, too. You have to educate them about why it is important, and what it means.”
The U of I is far from the only university grappling with these challenges. Eric McNulty, associate director of Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, said decisions about pulling students and staff from international locales can use different criteria from one institution to another.
He said it’s impossible to monitor all students at all times.
“A lot of our public health relies on good individual practice and individual responsibility. And so it may not be the most watertight system, but it’s the system we have,” he said. McNulty added that that means good guidance and communication is key.
McNulty hopes that universities and colleges as well as local, state, and federal health authorities learn something from the current pandemic, and develop better responses. Research institutions have students and staff who travel all over the world, and often live on campus in close quarters. McNulty said that makes them a unique population with specialized health concerns.
“In this country, we’ve got so many, so many students, and as well as faculty and staff, that we are a distinct subset of a larger community with specific needs,” he said.
The U of I’s Kaler said questions about academic coursework and tuition refunds for the students whose programs were canceled will be handled individually. She said students in other international programs have also been offered the opportunity to return to the U.S. and so far about 40 have taken the university up on that offer.
Kaler said she understands why some students may feel frustrated right now.
“Anytime you have uncertainty, it’s frightening,” she said. “And we’re getting answers as quickly as we can.”
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
News
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2020-03-11T16:08:37-05:00
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2020-02-24T12:04:00-06:00
news20200212-idoceducation-web
News Local/State
Lack Of Access, Long Waitlists: Education In Illinois Prisons
Criminal Justice
Education
Government
prison education
illinois department of corrections
california department of corrections and rehabilitation
rob jeffreys
brant choate
illinois community college board
graham correctional center
western illinois correctional center
stateville correctional center
northwestern university
mary flowers
When Ralph Gray transferred from one prison in Illinois to another, he didn’t know the move would mean sacrificing access to an education.
Gray guessed he was 16 credits shy of receiving an associates degree from Lake Land College, a community college that offers classes in several prisons in Illinois, when he left Western Illinois Correctional Center, a medium security facility located between Springfield and Quincy.
When he arrived at Graham Correctional Center in southern Illinois several years ago, Gray said he was told he’d be placed at the end of the waitlist for an auto body course. The class was the reason he requested a transfer. He’s still on the waitlist, according to Gray.
Gray isn’t the only person incarcerated in Illinois prisons that isn’t able to further their education. A lack of teachers, funding and the department’s own policies prevent many from obtaining their GED, associates degree or a trade skill.
An Illinois Department of Corrections policy stipulates that once a class is full, inmates are placed on the waiting list in order of their release date, with those getting out soonest receiving priority.
According to IDOC officials, the policy was changed in June 2013. Previously, prisoners were placed on the waiting list in ascending order based on the date they requested access to the educational program or course. Gray’s projected parole date is January 2029.
Despite the fact that inmates like Gray remain shut out of educational programming due to the policy, IDOC spokesperson, Lindsey Hess, said the department does not plan to change it.
“Given our limited resources, we must prioritize educational programming for men and women reentering their communities first,” Hess wrote in an email.
Access to education in IDOC facilities is low. In fiscal year 2018, which runs from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018, 723 inmates received a GED, and 168 received an associates degree, according to department data. That same year, IDOC held more than 15,000 inmates without a high school degree, and more than 18,000 without a college degree, department data shows.
GED Attainment in Illinois State Prisons
Infogram
A lack of opportunity
Illinois Department of Corrections Director Rob Jeffreys attributes low attainment numbers to a lack of teachers and a lack of funding in the corrections and community college system, as well as the geographic location of many of Illinois’ prisons.
In fiscal year 2018, the department employed 119 educators in a prison system with roughly 40,000 inmates. The number of educators in the system rose slightly to 124 in fiscal year 2019, according to IDOC data.
Jeffreys said it’s more difficult to recruit educators in rural areas, leading to a concentration of educational opportunities in prisons located near urban centers. For example, DePaul University, North Park University and Northwestern University operate privately funded educational programs inside Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security facility located just outside Chicago.
Leroy Anderson completed an entrepreneurship program offered at Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg, Ill. last spring. The class was offered by the Illinois Small Business Development Center, which is operated by Western Illinois University. The class was offered to incarcerated people with less than three years left to serve. People with longer sentences were unable to participate.
Photo Credit: Lee V. Gaines/Illinois Public Media
Including Stateville, only three of the system’s 28 prisons offer credit bearing courses above the associates degree level. Those programs, which are located in Stateville, Sheridan and Danville Correctional Centers, are operated by colleges and universities. Two prisons, Pontiac and Menard Correctional Centers, offer neither post-secondary nor vocational programming. The remaining 26 facilities have some vocational courses, but whether they offer associates degree classes depends on if the community college that works inside the prison can pay for and hire an adjunct professor to teach in the facility, according to prison officials.
“When you talk about the Chicago area, I mean, we have all types of facilities up there to provide programming,” Jeffreys said. “But when we start talking about… the southern part of Illinois, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity to provide secondary education in those particular facilities.”
Hess wrote in an email that Jeffreys is “primarily focused on expanding educational programming in facilities in downstate Illinois.”
Funding is also an obstacle.
The department contracts with community colleges to provide vocational programs inside state prisons, while community colleges are responsible for the cost of academic post-secondary programming, for which they receive reimbursement from the Illinois Community College Board.
But state investment in community colleges has dropped dramatically over the last two decades, according to data from the state’s community college board.
In fiscal year 2000, state funding accounted for about a third of community college revenue. In fiscal year 2017, state funding made up just about 15% of community college funding. Adjusted for inflation, the state invested about half as much in Illinois’ community college system in fiscal year 2019 as compared to fiscal year 2002.
In the absence of increased investment, community colleges have increasingly relied on local tax dollars and tuition. Matt Berry, a spokesperson for ICCB, said incarcerated students rarely pay tuition.
“The colleges are able to claim these students for ICCB reimbursement, but… the funding formula is significantly underfunded,” Berry wrote in an email. Offering more courses inside state prisons would not necessarily lead to more revenue, given that the amount of state funding available to community colleges is “a finite pot of resources,” Berry wrote.
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Associate Degree Attainment in Illinois State Prisons
Infogram
Trading educational opportunities for better living conditions
Gray said he understands that the money available for education in state prisons is limited. But he thinks the current policy, which prioritizes those with shorter sentences for programming, is unfair to people like him.
Gray grew up in Champaign, and he was sent to prison in 2012 shortly after he turned 18. He was sentenced to 20 years after he pleaded guilty to the aggravated kidnapping of an Australian researcher who was visiting the University of Illinois during the fall of 2011. Gray is now 25.
Truth-in-sentencing laws dictate that Gray must serve the majority of his sentence, which means he’s also not eligible to receive “good time” — time cut from his sentence — for participation in correctional department programs.
During his first few months in prison, Gray said he acted out, largely because he was still processing the length of time he had to serve. But then, he said, he had an epiphany.
“I was really determined to, you know, kind of get on the right track, and I never lost sight of wanting to go home,” he said. A big part of getting on track for Gray meant getting an education. He requested a transfer to Western Illinois from Menard Correctional Center because Lakeland College offered classes there.
“I gained a lot of college courses. I took almost every business course that they had there,” Gray said. He said he was able to get into the courses because many of the inmates at Western Illinois were serving similarly long sentences.
“One thing about Western (Illinois) Correctional, your living conditions were bad, but they made sure that everybody has the opportunity to get into school,” he said.
At Western Illinois, Gray said he could only leave his cell for about an hour and a half each day. He decided to request another transfer, partly because he wanted a better quality of life, but also because he wanted to take an auto body course.
“Because when you think about it, an incarcerated person, a person with a felony is fighting with a lower chance for a job compared to a person that doesn’t,” Gray said. “But if you take a guy that’s been incarcerated and you give him a skillset that he can learn, he can take that to the street with him when he’s released.” Graham Correctional offered an auto body class, and Gray thought that developing those skills would make him a more attractive candidate to a future employer.
What he didn’t realize, he said, is that leaving Western Illinois for Graham, a lower security facility located between Springfield and St. Louis, would mean he’d lose access to all in-person educational programs.
“A lot of guys are sacrificing leaving prisons that are worse living conditions to come here and, you know, they’re leaving their educational classes and all that stuff. They’re not realizing that when you get to these lower level prisons, that you’re not going to be able to obtain courses and classes,” Gray said. “So that pretty much exiles us from gaining educational programming in certain facilities, which doesn’t seem right.”
California’s solution
Few states have succeeded in recent years to pass legislation aimed at increasing access to post-secondary programming in prisons. California is an exception.
California went from offering face-to-face college classes inside only two state prisons to having community college classes and teachers in 34 of the state’s 35 correctional facilities in a five year time span.
The change occurred as a result of legislation passed in 2014, which allowed educators to teach classes inside correctional facilities and provided a mechanism for which community colleges could receive reimbursement for those classes from the state.
Last year, the state’s governor, Jerry Brown, approved a budget which allocated $5 million to the state’s community colleges serving incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. Now, people incarcerated in state prisons can earn college credits and associates degrees that are fully transferable to public universities in the state, according to Brant Choate, who directs the division of rehabilitative programs within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Choate said there’s a financial incentive for community colleges to participate in prison programming.
We view them as human beings and people that deserve an education, but at the same time, those people who know that they’re never going to leave prison — they’re some of our best instructors on the inside.Brant Choate, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
“Some of the colleges in remote areas have seen this as an opportunity to increase their enrollment,” he said. “But I think more so, and I can only tell you this anecdotally from what I’ve seen… there’s this feeling of social justice.”
Choate said stakeholders, including prison officials and college educators, have benefitted from the arrangement. He said educators have realized the environment may be safer than they previously thought, and that the students are extremely engaged.
“Many of our students are actually receiving honors,” Choate said. “And it’s very exciting to see that, and word spreads amongst community college faculty where, in many cases, that’s where everybody wants to teach.”
Choate said the increase in educational access has also led to improvements in the workplace for prison personnel.
“It’s almost like a conversion of one officer at a time,” he said. “They attend the graduation, they see the behavior change on the yard, they see an attitude change in the inmates… and that just makes it a better work environment.”
Unlike IDOC, Choate said the department allows anyone who wants to to access college programming, including those with life sentences.
“We view them as human beings and people that deserve an education, but at the same time, those people who know that they’re never going to leave prison — they’re some of our best instructors on the inside,” he said.
Choate said incarcerated scholars have served as mentors and tutors to other inmates, and as role models for those just entering the prison system.
“It changes them from essentially criminals to academics,” Choate said. “People are huddled around the domino table now talking about the most recent classic literature piece they’ve read, as opposed to talking about how they’re going to get in trouble because they’re bored.”
Choate said the dramatic change in access to education in California prisons came in large part from buy-in both at the correctional and community college system levels, as well as state lawmakers.
He said he’s “very aware” of what kind of programming other state prisons offer incarcerated people.
“The key difference is that we have support from our legislature, and California has decided to make this a priority and fund it,” Choate said. “Funding is the biggest barrier for all the other states, so they’re reliant upon private foundations to fund college and that’s the main difference.”
The cost of an education in prison
While funding remains a barrier in Illinois, the state may actually save money if it were to implement broader access to educational opportunities inside its prisons, according to research from the Rand Corporation. A meta-analysis from the non-profit policy think tank found that people who participated in educational opportunities while incarcerated were 43% less likely to recidivate than those who did not. Additionally, the report states that for every dollar a prison system spends on education, they’ll realize $5 in savings due to reduced recidivism rates.
A 2018 report from the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council estimates that 43% of those who are released from state prison will return within three years. The report also estimates that recidivism related costs to victims and taxpayers will total $13 billion over the next half-decade.
State analyses indicate that educational programming in prison settings saves money. A 2018 report from the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget predicted that vocational, adult basic education and post-secondary education would reduce recidivism, with post-secondary education yielding the greatest benefit to cost ratio of nearly $39 in savings for Illinois taxpayers and crime victims for every dollar spent on it.
Illinois State Rep. Mary Flowers, a Democrat who represents parts of the south and west sides of Chicago, filed legislation in 2017 that would have mandated educational and vocational programming in all of Illinois’ adult and juvenile prisons. The measure died in committee.
She said she filed the bill because she wanted to see something done to address recidivism in the state.
“The vast majority of the people that are incarcerated come from the minority districts, and so they really come back to my area,” Flowers said. “And as a result of them not being educated, not having health care, not having job training, it’s really a double or triple whammy on the community, because you could guarantee that someone’s going to get hurt, you can guarantee that there will be recidivism, you can guarantee that it will be an extra cost on the taxpayers.”
A fiscal note provided by the Illinois Department of Corrections stated that Flowers’ proposed legislation would cost the department more than $380 million over 10 years. Flowers said she was told that the bill failed due to its projected cost.
But she believes the price of not educating the state’s prison population will ultimately cost taxpayers more. “If they really want to do a fiscal note, how much money we have paid out for false incarceration, or how much money we have paid out for recidivism, it would way surpass this $380 million. It was really insulting to me,” she said.
Flowers said she plans to reintroduce similar legislation this year.
“There’s fewer people incarcerated now, so I would like to see how much they say it would cost,” she said. “And I always like to ask the question: ‘how much will it cost if we don’t do it?’ But I never get an answer.”
Real worries
Gray said he worries about his lack of access to an education largely because of his family. He said he’s a father, and he looks forward to supporting his family when he returns home from prison. He said he’s heard that the administration at Graham Correctional Center, where he’s located now, may implement a baking class. Gray said he hopes that’s true.
“Because anything that I can take educational wise, I will take because I know it’s important, and it’s detrimental to my future if I don’t have them courses,” he said.
Gray said he’s looking into correspondence courses, which his family will have to pay for, to access the education he believes he needs.
“My family has been very big in helping me, and without them I would not be able to do them classes,” Gray said.
A spokesperson for Illinois’ prison system wrote in an email that agency officials are trying to increase educational opportunities for incarcerated people, including building partnerships with public and private colleges and universities. In an interview last fall, Jeffreys also said the department planned to hire a vocational coordinator, and he hoped to bring people from local trade unions into the prison to serve as teachers.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for IDOC wrote, “Director Jeffreys and IDOC’s programming staff are reviewing educational programming in other states and how those programs are funded. We are actively seeking additional partners and working to expand programs currently in place. ”
The funding stream — regardless of educational partnerships — for the Illinois prison system is controlled by the state’s General Assembly. Choate, with California’s correctional system, said that’s the case in that state, too. He said they needed political support to expand educational programming in California’s prisons.
“I mean, it needs to come from the people that are in charge of the money,” Choate said. “And if you convince your legislature — and it’s always helpful to also have your governor’s office and the governor, him or herself, be behind it — but once you have that support, then it’s just a matter of, in our case, crafting the bill to make sure that everybody was happy with it, so it could pass. And that’s what happened with us.”
News
WILL_56534-news20200212_idoceducation_web.mp3
2020-02-24T12:21:29-06:00
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2020-02-20T06:00:00-06:00
news20200220-reentryhouse-web
News Local/State
Champaign Group Provides Home To Former Prisoners, But Need For Housing Remains
Criminal Justice
Urban Planning
reentry
james kilgore
john howard association
first followers
illinois justice project
jennifer vollen-katz
metropolitan planning council
kendra freeman
Each year, roughly 28,000 people are released from Illinois prisons. Now, four of those men will live in a modest five-bedroom home in a residential neighborhood near downtown Champaign.
First Followers, a group that offers support to formerly incarcerated people operates the home called the First Steps Community House, in partnership with the Housing Authority of Champaign County. The authority owns the residence while First Followers will operate it. The first resident moved in last December, and at full capacity four men can live there along with an overnight supervisor.
Each room is equipped with a bed, a dresser and an inspirational photo or image on the wall. But residents will receive more than just a roof over their head and a bed to sleep in, according to Marlon Mitchell, co-founder of First Followers. He said they’ll also receive mentoring and support from First Followers staff, many of whom have also spent time in prison.
“We sit down with them, and we do a needs-based assessment to see where they are,” Mitchell said. “And so it’s all individualized, so it can look different from one person to the next.”
Members of First Followers say many people returning to the community after a prison sentence need help getting a state ID or medical insurance, in addition to lessons in basic life skills, like writing a resume or additional education.
Statewide there’s a massive need for this kind of housing and support, according to a report released last year by the Illinois Justice Project and Metropolitan Planning Council. The Illinois Department of Corrections contracts with 27 agencies to provide housing to people released from correctional facilities, according to Lindsey Hess, a spokesperson for IDOC.
When asked how many beds those agencies represent in total, Hess wrote in an email that she couldn’t provide an exact number.
They're walking out the door typically with, you know, a bus ticket and $10 and the clothes on their back that they got issued from the prison as they were released.
Jennifer Vollen-Katz, executive director of the John Howard Association
Jennifer Vollen-Katz, executive director of the nonprofit prison watchdog group the John Howard Association, said most people leaving state prisons are left to find housing on their own.
“And they're walking out the door typically with, you know, a bus ticket and $10 and the clothes on their back that they got issued from the prison as they were released,” she said.
The IJP and MPC report found that formerly incarcerated people struggle to find housing because of landlords who don’t want to rent to people with felony records and rules that make it hard for them to live in public housing.
Kendra Freeman, director of community development and engagement for the MPC, said when people are released from prison they often need more than just a roof over their head. They frequently need mental health and other forms of support services to successfully reintegrate in their communities.
“When you look at the actual need, the sheer number of people who are reentering after being incarcerated and the actual level of support that the state provides, it's slim to none,” Freeman said.
That was Tamika Davis-Nunez’s experience. She spent eight years in federal prison for a drug conviction and after her release in 2008, Davis-Nunez ended up living in a halfway house in Champaign. While she had shelter, she didn’t have the resources she needed to get a job and become a productive member of her community.
“And so that was like the scariest moment of my life because I had nothing and nobody to guide me,” Davis said.
Caption: Vincent Andujo, workforce development coordinator for the Champaign group First Followers, stands in the upstairs hallway of the First Steps Community House, a new transitional home for people recently released from prison or jail.
Lee V. Gaines/Illinois Public Media
Davis now works for First Followers, and she’s currently helping the home’s first resident with his math skills. He declined to speak to Illinois Newsroom for this story. Davis said support is key to a successful reentry.
“I don't think that a person who has done 25 years could ever even think about getting acclimated back into society without the help, without the support… If you do not have support, there is no way. That's why a lot of people end up going back to prison.”
The report from the IJP and the MPC found that Illinois could save more than $100 million per year providing affordable housing and support services to the thousands of formerly incarcerated people who need them, because fewer people would return to prison. The same findings showed that about 40 percent of people released from Illinois prisons return within three years, each time costing taxpayers more than $150,000.
Vollen-Katz, with the John Howard Association, said it’s cheaper to house people in the community than to send them back to prison.
“Anytime we can start investing and helping people be successful outside of prison… long term we're saving money,” she said.
James Kilgore, co-founder of the First Followers group in Champaign, agrees with that sentiment. But he acknowledged this new facility will hardly make a dent in the number of homes needed to support those released from state prisons. The new transitional house in Champaign is unique, Kilgore said. They will carefully select the men who live there, looking for individuals with plans and goals for their future.
“We're trying to build a smallish kind of cohort of people who can have an impact well beyond their numbers,” he said.
Kilgore, who spent years in federal prison, said he knows there are people sitting in prison cells with dreams. Now, he wants to provide the support they need to make at least some of those dreams a reality.
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
News
WILL_56490-news20200220_reentryhouse_web.mp3
2020-02-19T23:18:51-06:00
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2020-02-19T15:12:00-06:00
govpritzkerspeech2020
News Local/State
Pritzker Talks Healthcare, Education At Budget Address
governor pritzker
2020 budget address
education
healthcare
Gov. J.B. Pritzker stressed statewide unity in his second budget address on Wednesday. The first-term governor announced his budget priorities for the next fiscal year, with a focus on affordable education and healthcare.
Pritzker said his budget would make community college tuition-free for all students whose families make under $45,000 per year. The governor's budget also includes a 5% funding increase for the state's public colleges and universities, which Pritzker said would allow the University of Illinois to provide free tuition to students whose families earn less than $67,000 annually.
Pritzker also asked the General Assembly for an extra $50 million to move the state toward universal preschool for all low-income families.
On the healthcare side, Pritzker proposed investing an extra $40 million in mental health and addiction treatment services. The governor's budget includes $4.5 million to restore the state's healthcare navigator program, which he said would lower healthcare costs for small businesses and families who purchase health insurance through the federal marketplace. Pritzker also touted his commitment to the federal immunization program, and a proposed budget increase of $2 million for a program that delivers meals to senior citizens. The governor also contrasted his approach to social safety net and healthcare spending to that of President Trump's administration, which eliminated the healthcare navigator program.
He also used part of his speech to highlight his administration's successes in the last year, including the legalization of cannabis and how the state can use those funds in the upcoming fiscal year. Pritzker said 25% of cannabis revenue will be reinvested in communities impacted by the criminalization of cannabis.
Pritzker announced a proposed budget increase of 20% over last fiscal year for the Department of Children and Family Services. He said the agency needs attention and resources to implement reforms at all levels, including employee training and facilities.
Throughout his speech, Pritzker repeated the theme of statewide unity.
“Some of you need to stop pretending that one part of the state can exist without the other,” he said. “We are one Illinois.”
News
WILL_56489-govpritzkerspeech2020.mp3
2020-02-19T15:21:52-06:00
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2020-02-07T11:44:00-06:00
hobson-2way-web
News Local/State
Sinfonia Da Camera To Feature ‘Melodies And Mallets’ At Krannert
Art and Culture
Music
sinfonia da camera
ian hobson
krannert center for the performing arts
arnold bax
franz schubert
carl maria von weber
koppel
The chamber orchestra Sinfonia da Camera is in concert Saturday night at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The program starts at 7:30 p.m.
The concert is titled “Melodies and Mallets,” and features two of the orchestra’s principal musicians as soloists. Bassoonist Henry Skolnick will perform Weber’s Hungarian Fantasy for Bassoon and Orchestra, and percussionist William Moersch will be featured in Koppel’s first Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra.
Illinois Public Media’s Brian Moline got a preview of Saturday night’s concert with Sinfonia’s music director and conductor Ian Hobson, who says the concert starts with a selection from composer Arnold Bax.
“I’ve wanted to do this for many years,” Hobson said. “These pieces are ‘Three Pieces for Small Orchestra.’ The first one is ‘Evening Piece,’ the second one ‘Irish Landscape,’ and the third one ‘Dance in the Sunlight.’ They’re really not well known at all, but they’re beautifully written.”
Hobson said both the Bax and the final piece on the program, Schubert’s Symphony No. 5, are perfect for a chamber orchestra like Sinfonia da Camera.
“It is written in a very concise way, almost Mozartian,” Hobson said. “One of the most beautiful pieces that you’ve ever heard.”
Hobson said that he and Henry Skolnick will perform a few selections from the Weber Hungarian Fantasy in the lobby at Krannert Center just before Saturday’s concert at 6:40pm.
Music
WILL_56351-hobson_2way_web.mp3
2020-02-07T11:48:21-06:00
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2020-01-31T08:57:00-06:00
pine-2way-web
News Local/State
Rachel Barton Pine To Perform With C-U Symphony
Art and Culture
Music
rachel barton pine
champaign-urbana symphony
stephen alltop
krannert center for the performing arts
Award-winning violinist Rachel Barton Pine is the featured soloist with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra this weekend, first for their concert at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts Saturday night, then for a special Sunday Salon fundraising event at Urbana Country Club on Sunday.
Pine will perform the Barber violin concerto with the C-U Symphony at Saturday night’s concert, a work that she says has multiple facets that appeal to her.
“It’s absolutely gorgeous,” Pine said. “It really does have that American feel of wide open spaces, sometimes soaring and pastoral.”
Pine said Sunday’s performance will include a variety of chamber music, including some selections with C-U Symphony conductor Stephen Alltop performing on piano.
“It’s going to be a really eclectic mix,” Pine said. “We’re going to play a couple of works for violin and piano, because of course your conductor is also a wonderful keyboardist.”
Sunday’s performance is the CUSO 60th Anniversary Benefit Celebration at Urbana Country Club. Tickets for that event are $75 each and are available by calling the C-U Symphony at 217-351-9139. Tickets for Saturday night’s concert are available through Krannert Center.
Arts and Culture
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2020-01-31T09:03:41-06:00
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2020-01-06T05:32:00-06:00
news20191230-yogaresearch-web
News Local/State
U Of I Research: Yoga May Lead To Better Brain Health
Education
Exercise and Fitness
Health
Science
yoga
brain health
exercise psychology
beckman institute
kinesiology
university of illinois urbana champaign
Practicing yoga could lead to improved brain health, according to a University of Illinois review of the available research on how the practice affects the brain.
Neha Gotha, a U of I assistant professor and coauthor of the research review, said the brain health benefits of yoga are similar to the neural effects from aerobic exercise. However, Gothe said, the field of yoga study is much newer. While aerobic exercise, like walking or running, and its impact on the brain has been studied since the mid-twentieth century, systematic research into yoga and its impact on the brain began only about 20 years ago, she said.
The research review focused on 11 studies that fall into one of two categories; the first focuses on comparing experienced yoga practitioners to those who have never practiced yoga, while the second follows individuals practicing yoga over a certain time period, Gothe said.
“And there were a few brain regions that were consistently highlighted across these studies,” she said. The hippocampus, the region of the brain that controls memory, the amygdala, which serves as the emotional regulation center, and the prefrontal cortex, the most advanced area of the brain in terms of complex cognitive processes, were found to be enlarged in individuals who practice yoga, Gothe said.
“So we see that individuals who practice yoga tend to have larger structures compared to those who don’t,” she said.
The research also found that people who regularly practice yoga expend less effort performing certain mental tasks inside an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine, Gothe
“So we see that they need fewer brain resources or fewer neuronal resources to accomplish the task as compared to somebody who hasn't practiced yoga before.”
Neha Gothe, assistant professor at the University of Illinois
said.
“When you have yoga practitioners in the machine and have them do tasks about memory or about problem solving, we see lower activation. So we see that they need fewer brain resources or fewer neuronal resources to accomplish the task as compared to somebody who hasn't practiced yoga before.”
While exercise research points to positive effects from aerobic exercise on the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, Gothe said the link effects on the amygdala, the emotional regulation center, may be specific to yoga.
“Yoga is unique in the sense that it is meant to calm you down, it’s meant to relax you, it’s meant to lower your stress. And so I think the amygdala effects seem to be unique to yoga,” Gothe said.
But Gothe said the research quality and quantity is lacking. She said there’s outstanding questions about how yoga affects neural health.
“One is what should be the dose of yoga. So if you're saying yoga is good for the brain, and it's good for brain health, how much yoga should I be doing to get these benefits? And we don't have a very conclusive answer for that question yet,” Gothe said.
She said it’s also unclear what areas of the brain aren’t affected by yoga, and that information is important for researchers to understand as they examine the benefits of the practice. Also, she said, it’s unknown what specific populations may benefit more than others from a yoga practice.
“And so we aren't able to definitively say if these benefits are good for everyone across the board, or if these benefits are unique to certain individuals, such as older adults who may be aging and who seem to be on the decline for some of these brain health functions,” Gothe said.
Gothe said, given the rising popularity of the practice, that she’s hopeful better quality research studies teasing out the relationship between yoga and the brain will emerge in the future.
“And hopefully this (research review) will serve as the next steps for future research to come,” she said.
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
News
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1178684
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2019-12-20T07:36:00-06:00
jimmy-in-saigon-web
News Local/State
Peter McDowell Discusses Documentary Film About His Brother, ‘Jimmy In Saigon’
Art and Culture
Biography
Cinema
History
jimmy in saigon
jimmy mcdowell
peter mcdowell
documentary
Peter McDowell was only five years old in 1972 when his brother Jimmy died in Saigon, Vietnam. He doesn’t remember too much about his brother, but he remembers the effect his death had on their family in Champaign-Urbana.
That’s one reason he’s making a documentary about his brother, called “Jimmy in Saigon.” Peter McDowell will be in Urbana for an informational and fundraising event for the film this Sunday at Analog Wine Library starting at 4pm.
Illinois Public Media's Brian Moline spoke with McDowell about the project and his brother Jimmy.
"He was sort of a hero to my brothers and sisters as a kid," McDowell said. "Because there were six of us, he was kind of like an adjacent parent to the rest of the family."
Jimmy McDowell served a tour of duty in Vietnam, briefly came home, then returned to Vietnam to live as a civilian before his death, which Peter said happened under mysterious circumstances.
"It was after living in Saigon for about a year as a civilian that he died," McDowell said. "He really went back because he loved the country. He loved the people in general, and he loved specific people as well."
McDowell said he plans to finish the documentary in 2020, and submit it to film festivals for consideration.
"I'll be selecting an editor within the next weeks, and the editor will hopefully begin editing in January," McDowell said. "I do think it will debut in 2021, but it'll be finished in 2020."
You can find details about Sunday's event and McDowell's documentary at the film's website.
Arts and Culture
WILL_55807-jimmy_in_saigon_web.mp3
2019-12-20T08:16:46-06:00
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https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/55807-jimmy_in_saigon_web.mp3
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11701301
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2019-12-16T06:00:00-06:00
news20191216-tenth-dinner-wrap
News Local/State
Champaign’s Community Christmas Dinner Turns Ten
Community
Food
holiday food traditions
christmas dinner
first christian church
lynne barnes
volunteering
community christmas dinner
This is the tenth year for Champaign’s annual Community Christmas Dinner. And its organizers are looking for both volunteers and dinner guests for the Christmas Day event at the First Christian Church.
Lynne Barnes says she got the idea for serving a free dinner on Christmas Day from a similar dinner held by a couple in the small Vermilion County town of Ridge Farm. Champaign’s Christmas Day dinner now regularly serves about 400 people. While reservations are requested, Barnes says everyone is invited.
“Certainly people who might need a meal,” Barnes says. “But also, people who just otherwise would be alone, and have an opportunity to get together with other community members and celebrate Christmas.”
It takes about 200 volunteers to serve dinner every Christmas at 1 p.m. at the First Christian Church, 3601 South Staley Road near the intersection with Curtis Road in southwest Champaign.
Barnes says that after ten years, they’ve gotten the preparation and serving of the free dinner down to a “fine art," with all the work for the dinner done between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
“There's all kinds of roles,” says Barnes. "From food prep to exciting dishwashing, to plating, to serving, to being the table host, helping with gift wrapping, helping with our appetizers, and of course, good old set up and tear down.”
And Barnes says it’s been surprisingly easy to recruit volunteers.
“Because we thought, oh gosh, this might be hard, you know, to get volunteers on Christmas Day,” she says. “But often, we’re in a position where we have to turn people away.”
Barnes says that usually about two-thirds of the volunteers have helped out before.
"It's really fun to see the people who have consistently served over the years and really made it kind of a family event in some cases, or just folks who who want to do something different on Christmas Day and give back to the community," Barnes says.
The community Christmas dinner is designed as a restaurant experience, Barnes says.
“We open the venue doors and the tables are all set, decorated, the lights are dim, we have music playing, we have table hosts at each table,” said Barnes. “And as our visitors walk in, they are greeted by table hosts and are seated at tables. And then we have servers, two per table, dressed in black, with white shirts and red and green aprons. And then everyone is treated like they’re in a restaurant. Because we want our guests just to feel really well served.”
Barnes says the diners will be served a traditional holiday meal, with hams donated by the Carle Foundation, and rolls from the local Texas Roadhouse restaurant, apple and pumpkin pies from Meijer, and additional donated groceries.
“It’s a full kind of traditional meal,” Barnes said. “And it’s been what we’ve served from maybe year three. Because we started doing turkeys, but wow, that was a lot of work. So we converted to ham, and that’s worked out more smoothly.”
You can make reservations for the dinner by calling or texting 217-493-2323, and at the First Christian Church website. Those interested in volunteering for the dinner can use this web page, which can also be accessed through the church website. The deadline for both reservations and volunteering is Sunday, Dec. 22.
News
WILL_55718-news20191216_tenth_dinner_wrap.mp4
2019-12-13T13:01:09-06:00
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https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/55718-news20191216_tenth_dinner_wrap.mp4
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2019-12-13T14:11:00-06:00
news20191216-campusswap-web
News Local/State
Champaign Unit 4 Officials Propose Swapping Elementary School Campuses
Education
Race/Ethnicity
champaign unit 4 board of education
champaign unit 4
garden hills
international prep academy
bilingual education
racial equity
naacp
minnie pearson
aclu
susan zola
schools of choice
To solve a host of problems the district faces, Champaign Unit 4 Schools officials recently proposed swapping two elementary school campuses.
At a Unit 4 Board of Education meeting Monday night, the district’s superintendent, Susan Zola, suggested moving the International Prep Academy (IPA), a kindergarten through fifth grade bilingual program with majority Hispanic enrollment located on West Kirby Avenue, to the building now housing Garden Hills Elementary, a majority black school in north Champaign with more than 200 open seats.
Zola said the district’s middle schools are “overflowing.” Meanwhile, numerous parents told school board officials during the Dec. 9 meeting that they wanted to see the IPA program expanded through eighth grade. A presentation on costs associated with an upcoming renovation of the IPA campus show that, depending on the scope of the work, such an expansion would cost the district between about $20 and $40 million.
While IPA is “over-chosen” by Unit 4 parents, Zola said, Garden Hills is “under-chosen” in the district’s schools of choice process. She said students at Garden Hills struggle both academically and behaviorally. She attributed their struggles to the fact that the school receives many who enroll later in the year and may be undergoing difficult life transitions.
“About 30% (of Garden Hills students) prior to October 1 had an office referral,” Zola said. “You wouldn’t see a third of a school community typically working from that space… it’s definitely an outlier.” The school is located in a neighborhood that has struggled with crime and low property values.
Zola’s solution to all three problems: swap the IPA and Garden Hills campuses. She said the Garden Hills building can accommodate a Kindergarten through eighth grade program, and she said that would also provide some relief to the district’s already overcrowded middle schools.
But several Unit 4 board members questioned whether the move would provide any benefit to Garden Hills students.
“I continue to hear about the positives of what this will do for IPA, and this is not to knock any of the IPA students, parents or principal, but I still don’t know what we’re doing for our black students. I don’t know what our students who go to Garden Hills will get for this,” said Unit 4 board member Gianina Baker.
Days before Zola announced the proposed swap publicly, the district received a letter from the local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calling out the district’s poor racial equity measures and disparities in both academics and discipline rates between its black and white students.
In an interview following the board meeting, Champaign County NAACP president Minnie Pearson said she adamantly opposes the proposed campus swap.
“Don’t just choose that school because it seems that’s a poor neighborhood, people are not very vocal, people are gonna let you get away with it. But there are other organizations looking at that and it’s not right,” she said. Pearson suggested the district use the extra space in the Garden Hills building to create smaller class sizes and provide targeted interventions for children who need it.
“Don’t take something from the underserved and give it to someone else who is doing well,” she said.
Zola said during the board meeting that Garden Hills kindergarten and first grade students could choose to enroll in IPA if the swap were to occur, or they could follow their teachers and administrators to the Kirby location. She said, based on anecdotal evidence, some Garden Hills students who transfer to other schools do better academically and socially in a new environment.
“When the students left the campus and went to a different campus they saw success… the question is would that be reflected in larger campus movement,” Zola said.
A representative of the IPA Parent Teacher Association said the group was not yet ready to publish a public statement outlining their position on the proposed swap.
Chad Smith, president of the Garden Hills Neighborhood Association, said he needs more information from the district before he takes a position.
“I think there’s pros and cons in the swap. And I think we need to not disregard the disparities between the education… that it seems the black student is getting versus white students,” he said.
Smith said he wants to hear more from his neighbors as well as Garden Hills Elementary families regarding the proposal.
At least one Unit 4 Board of Education member appeared open to the idea. Board member Kathy Shannon said she thought the swap could prove beneficial to the Garden Hills community.
“So I do want us to make sure we’re framing it that way, that we’re taking a really wonderful program that parents love and considering putting it in a neighborhood that has had some struggles,” she said.
Zola told the board that she would meet with teachers and families from both IPA and Garden Hills to discuss the proposed swap in the new year.
Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter: @LeeVGaines
News
WILL_55722-news20191216_campusswap_web.mp3
2019-12-13T15:02:43-06:00
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2363506
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2019-12-12T18:42:00-06:00
news20191212-hr3-wrap
News Local/State
Davis, Londrigan Fall Along Party Lines As House Passes Prescription Price Bill
Government
Health
Politics
rodney davis
betsy dirksen londrigan
hr3
prescription drugs
medicare
A bill backed by Democrats to control prescription drug prices passed the House Thursday on a near party-line vote of 230 to 192, with just two Republicans voting for it. Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis joined the majority of his fellow Republicans in opposing it. Meanwhile, Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, who’s making her second attempt to unseat Davis, says she would have voted for it.
Londrigan praised House Resolution 3, the Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, in a Thursday teleconference with reporters. The Springfield Democrat is running in the March 2020 primary against Stefanie Smith of Urbana for a second chance to challenge Davis in the November election. Londrigan lost a close election to the Republican incumbent in 2018.
Londrigan said HR 3 would help curb high prescription costs, “by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices, while ensuring seniors never lose access to the prescription drugs they need. And Congressman Davis’ opposition to this bill is expected but it is still really disappointing.”
Davis, a Taylorville Republican, says the provisions for negotiating drug prices for Medicare is a step towards a socialist healthcare system, one he says limits drug access in other countries.
“I cannot vote for a bill that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has said will mean fewer new prescription drugs to treat or cure cancer, Alzheimer's, ALS, and so many other deadly diseases,” said Davis in a statement posted on his congressional Facebook page.
Davis and other Republicans cite a CBO analysis of HR 3, which concludes the Medicare price negotiations would result in lower drug prices, but leave less money available for pharmaceutical companies to spend on research and development, resulting in fewer new drugs being developed in the future.
But Londrigan dismissed the Republican argument as a “red herring.” She contended that the impact on the development of new drugs would be lessened, because a good share of current research in the U.S. is already taxpayer funded, through the National Institutes of Health.
“As well, HR 3 provides a provision for reinvesting in innovation, with the savings from negotiating down the drug prices, reinvesting billions of dollars back into the N-I-H,” said Londrigan.
As an alternative to HR 3, Davis supports a Republican-backed measure, House Resolution 19, known as the Lower Costs More Cures Act. The measure, sponsored by Republican Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, contains more than 40 provisions from both sides of the aisle. They include price transparency measures, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare Part D benefits and elimination of its “donut hole” coverage gap, and reform measures for Medicaid and the generic drug market.
While HR 3 passed the House Thursday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to block it from coming to a vote in the Senate.
But Tiffany Muller, president of the political action committee End Citizens United, says the House was right to approve HR 3 over its Republican alternative, even if the bill is stalled in the Senate.
“The fact that Mitch McConnell is sitting on 450 bills and won't bring any of them up to a vote is no reason for the house not to do their job,” said Muller, who appeared with Londrigan during her teleconference, and gave her group’s endorsement to her campaign. “It's a reason for Mitch McConnell to start doing his."
But Davis says HR 19 is “a better, bipartisan bill that isn’t just messaging, but a bill that was negotiated between Republicans and Democrats that could actually be signed into law if Democrats in the House set politics aside.”
However, the Walden bill, offered Thursday as an amendment to HR 3, was defeated in the House on a mostly party line vote of 201 to 223. Eight Democrats voted for the measure, while two Republicans voted against it.
News
WILL_55709-news20191212_hr3_wrap.mp4
2019-12-12T21:24:38-06:00
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https://will.illinois.edu/nfs/55709-news20191212_hr3_wrap.mp4
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