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Teachers in Bloomington-Normal hope they will make more progress this school year on how kids interact with each other. Last year, many kids weren't used to being in a classroom, doing things together, or taking teacher direction. That resulted in increased conflict and tempers, and sometimes emotional withdrawal.
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Unit 5 is asking voters for more taxing authority while promising the total tax rate would fall. The Unit 5 school board has decided to ask voters for $20.5 million more property tax dollars for its education fund. Superintendent Kristen Weikle and district business manager Marty Hickman said Unit 5 would not apply the 88-cent rate increase all at once.
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Bloomington public schools project a budget deficit of nearly $3.4 million this school year. District 87 chief financial officer Mike Cornale says the district faces higher transportation and personnel costs, but notes the district projected a similar deficit last year, but ended with a surplus.
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Garrett Scott, a longtime Normal Town Council member, speech pathologist, and chess educator who helped thousands of school children learn and play chess, has died. He was 78.
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The display of a Confederate flag outside University High School in Normal did not go down well with other students. One took down the flag. Several reported it. In-school social messaging platforms blew up. The Black Student Union at the high school issued a statement condemning the act as an "obscenity."
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McLean County's taxable assessed property value rose by $143 million last year. County treasurer Rebecca McNeil said the growth largely came from the addition of the Bloomington Grove Wind Farm.
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The announced closure of Lincoln College is an example of a challenging time in higher education, says the president of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. Georgia Nugent used to work at the Council of Independent Colleges, a group of about 700 mostly smaller and liberal arts institutions that has tracked a half century of issues facing largely private liberal arts colleges.
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The executive deputy director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education said when a college closes, there are disproportionate impacts on students of color. And most of the student body at the soon-to-close Lincoln College is Black.
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The mind of a fifth grader is mostly a happy place, though there may be unexpected depths as they create a self-identity. You can see experience the mindsets of District 87 fifth graders at the 37th annual exhibit of their art showing at the Bloomington Public Library.
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The winners of the City of Bloomington Black History Essay Contest speak to the resilience of a people who used some of their most valuable assets to break through societal barriers.