ROCKFORD — A group of Rockford elementary school students stand against the front of Lewis Lemon Elementary, trying to stay out of the snow. They’re wearing colorful winter coats and hats to keep warm, which is tough since it feels like -4 degrees with the wind-chill. They live within a mile and a half of
ROCKFORD — On a winter’s day, 5th grade students at Gregory Elementary School in Rockford run around outside at recess. It’s a scene most people are probably familiar with from when they were in elementary school: kids in puffy winter coats playing all sorts of games and walking around with their friends. Of course, there
ROCKFORD — Around one-third of teachers in the U.S. say they’ve experienced at least one incident of verbal harassment or threat of violence from students during the pandemic. That’s according to a 2022 survey from the American Psychological Association. It’s a big jump from before COVID, when 10% of teachers reported being threatened. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s528/audio/2023/01/0118safef.mp3 Listen
ROCKFORD — In October, the family of a Rockford Public Schools student filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the school board, a school resource officer and several administrators from Auburn High School. The suit says that in the fall of 2021, Parris Moore, who was a freshman at the time and stood less than
ROCKFORD — With the new school year starting, reports of a “national teacher shortage” are at an all-time high. But is staffing a school actually way harder this year than previous years? Is there a teacher shortage? A superintendent at a small school district in rural Illinois might tell you about how elementary teacher positions
YORKVILLE – Ten minutes down the road on her way to work, Joni Carter gets a message on her phone. Her 14-year-old daughter’s school bus was canceled…again. Now, she has to double back to her Yorkville home, pick up her daughter and take her to school herself. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s528/audio/2022/07/0719busf.mp3 Listen to this story here. “Then there
ROCKFORD — Last fall, Cara Wolfe and Aubrey Barnett started their first year teaching English Language Arts (ELA) at Flinn Middle School in Rockford ready to change things up. In 2020, standardized test scores at the school were in the lowest-performing 5% of Illinois. Now add a few years of COVID disruption on top of