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Chicago Tribune: It’s not just COVID-19 that’s closing schools — it’s a lack of substitute teachers
When the long-awaited return of students for in-person classes arrived at Schaumburg High School in late October, Jim Britton sat in his Hyundai Sonata in the school’s parking lot, awaiting his marching orders.
Britton, the director of human resources at Township High School District 211, was among the administrators dispatched to its five high schools as a temporary solution to yet another COVID-19-era conundrum: a serious shortage of substitute teachers at a time when demand has never been higher.
Chicago Tribune: Last spring, IDES was a pandemic mess. Guess what? It’s still a mess.
At the district office for central Illinois lawmaker Tom Bennett, the biggest task hasn’t been tackling the rising tide of COVID-19 cases or coping with remote learning or solving the state’s financial crisis. The priority for people in Bennett’s district? Fixing the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
Since March, the agency has failed to keep up with a flood of claims from Illinoisans filing for unemployment benefits. Then IDES began failing on a different front. The number of claims filed with the agency that turn out to be fraudulent is on the rise, to the tune of more than 212,000 since March. Identity thieves are responsible for many of those claims.
Chicago Tribune: Even before COVID-19, more than 100 people a day were leaving Chicago
Whether it’s wealthy people fleeing to their second homes or college students forced to move back in with their parents, the coronavirus has set off a great migration in the U.S. this year. But in many cases, it’s just amplifying trends that were already there.
New York City, for example, was losing 376 residents per day to domestic migration in 2019 — an increase of more than 100 per day from the previous year — before it became the epicenter of the country’s virus outbreak in March this year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest survey of population shifts.
Sun-Times: Ald. Tom Tunney served restaurant customers indoors, defying state and city orders
Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) acknowledged Monday he “made a mistake” by allowing some of his regular customers to dine inside his Ann Sather Restaurants in defiance of state and city orders banning indoor dining.
In late October, Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered Illinois restaurants to close their dining rooms for a second time since the pandemic to stop a second surge of coronavirus cases that was worse than the first.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot initially voiced her concern about the devastating impact on Chicago restaurants, then came away from an hourlong meeting with the governor resigned to the rollback.
On Monday, “Second City Cop,” a blog devoted to police issues, disclosed that Tunney has been thumbing his nose at the governor’s order.
The item referred to Tunney’s restaurants as “Stan Rather’s” and included photographs of plates of food on indoor tables. On one table, there was a copy of the Dec. 3 Wall Street Journal along with a slice of bacon in the corner of the photo.
On Monday, Tunney openly acknowledged having defied the governor’s order.
Sun-Times: CPS will reopen next month even if only a fraction of students opt in
Chicago Public Schools will reopen in January even if only a small fraction of students opt to return to classrooms, schools CEO Janice Jackson said late last week, and she warned that teachers without preexisting conditions who simply “don’t show up” to school buildings will be fired.
What’s more, schools officials are so convinced that reopening schools is safe, they’re now working on a plan to bring back at least some high schools during the second semester, Jackson said in an interview with the Sun-Times. The district had expected to keep older students home while elementary schools return Feb. 1 and special education programs come back next month.
News-Gazette: State budget numbers disturbing
Illinois’ finances are going from bad to worse.
The coronavirus pandemic has been a disaster for the administration of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who probably never imagined the public-health crisis he would confront after becoming this state’s chief executive.
As it continues to devastate the state, the coronavirus is exacerbating its severe financial woes while at the same time distracting public attention from the fallout of its bad habit of spending far more money than it has available.
To cover a massive shortfall, Pritzker announced last week that the state will borrow another $2 billion from the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity Facility. That’s on top of borrowing $1.2 billion from the fund in June.