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By Theresa Kelly GegenJournal | July/August 2024
Here are a few updates to topics we’ve covered in the Illinois School Board Journal in the past year or so.
Food Deserts
In our “Schools, Children, and Food” issue for September/October 2023, our reporting noted the persistence of food insecurity in Illinois and how it impedes children from development both physically and psychologically. We discussed programs in Urbana, Scott County, Cairo, and other communities, and explored how schools are involved in filling the gaps in their communities.
Shortly after we went to press with that issue, the Illinois Grocery Initiative bill was signed into law as Public Act 103-0561. The Illinois Grocery Initiative is a policy designed to address food deserts across the state by supporting existing grocers and encouraging new grocery stores to open through incentive opportunities. It allows grocery stores receiving grants as part of the program to be designated as High Impact Businesses, providing them the opportunity to receive tax credits and other incentives. In addition, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) will commission a study to explore reasons for market declines, historical disparities in access to food, potential policy solutions, geographic trends, the role of independent grocers, and more. The study is designed to inform potential future iterations of program resources.
Grant requirements under the Illinois Grocery Initiative are that the grocery store developer grantee must be located in a food desert, must earn less than 30% of revenue from alcohol and tobacco sales, must accept SNAP and WIC, and must contribute to the diversity of fresh foods available in the community.
Additionally, school districts across the state have, or are developing, farm-to-school partnerships. We’re hoping to take a closer look at these in a future issue. If you have a program you’d like to share, please reach out to Journal Editor Theresa Kelly Gegen at tgegen@iasb.com.
Advocacy in Action
If you missed the Advocacy issue of the Journal, March/April 2024, we hope you’ll take a look. The IASB Governmental Relations team continues to help school board members in their advocacy efforts. As key leaders in our educational system, board members serve as an essential local resource on educational issues. Be it a specific and current issue or public education as a whole, involvement by school board members in both the state and national legislative process is imperative to shaping sound education policy.
The first step to advocacy for a school board member is to become informed. “It’s important to learn about the issues that legislators are focused on during a particular session so you can provide your unique perspective to help shape those issues,” says IASB Associated Executive Director for Governmental Relations Sarah Miller. “Second, what are the issues that are important to your district? Legislators can benefit from hearing your proposed solutions to problems impacting your district but they need to hear from you on what your biggest challenges are. Also, there isn’t one type of advocacy that works for everyone. IASB has so many opportunities to get engaged for that very reason. Whether you attend a legislative panel at the Joint Annual Conference, send an email to a or file a witness slip, the important thing is that you are getting involved in the process.”
Discover more steps by reading the March/April 2024 and visiting the Advocacy pages on the IASB website.
Green Schools
The Journal looked at “Green Schools” in the March/April 2023 issue. Since then we heard back from Huntley Community SD 158, a Green Ribbon Schools winner that joined IASB for a webinar on its green initiatives. “Becoming a Green Ribbon District: Fostering Environmental Sustainability, Education, and Stewardship” is available to members on the IASB website.
In 2024, two more Illinois districts earned Green Ribbon Schools honors. From the Green Ribbon Schools website:
Clarendon Hills Middle School (CHMS) in Hinsdale CCSD 181: The school’s innovative practices inspire students and staff alike to be catalysts for positive change, not only within the school but also in the wider community and beyond. In partnership with CPower, the school has a Demand-Response contract in place, which involves a voluntary decrease in electrical consumption for short periods. CHMS has installed more efficient building automation systems and HVAC controls, powers the school with on-site solar panels and a wind turbine, and has teamed up with Community Solar to take advantage of new off-site solar farms. The electric wiring for car charging stations has been completed. The school features a workout center with showers. A full-time social worker is assigned to each grade level. CHMS offers an effective environmental and sustainability education program, with opportunities for outdoor learning and lab experiences, including visits to local forest preserves and parks. The Clarendon Living Classroom has bench seating for two classrooms, Wi-Fi access, native plants, and a space for the community to gather. Students learn how to develop a model describing the cycling of matter and energy flow within an ecosystem’s living and nonliving parts. They gather and analyze information to describe how synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society. EcoClub and Science Fair Club participants engage in activities such as composting food scraps after lunch.
Lake Zurich CUSD 95: The district implements a multifaceted approach to sustainability, health, and environmental education. Energy conservation efforts such as LED lighting installation, motion sensors, EV charging stations, and HVAC system upgrades, coupled with the integration of renewable energy sources, including the installation of solar panels and geothermal fields at multiple sites, serve as authentic learning tools for students. A rigorous sustainability audit that reviews 36 months of utilities bills will help guide Lake Zurich in future projects, along with plans to further expand the district’s renewable energy portfolio. Lake Zurich has formed a district-wide sustainability committee that engages a diverse group of community members and has integrated language about environmental responsibility as part of global citizenship in its district strategic plan. The district fosters collaboration between its culinary arts and healthy lunch programs; implements IPM protocols and ensures good indoor air quality through MERV 13 filters and ventilation system maintenance; and embeds environmental education across the curriculum through outdoor learning areas, including butterfly gardens and native plant sites and partnerships with organizations such as the Ancient Oaks Foundation. … Students, through extracurricular clubs, advanced classes, such as environmental science and Project Lead the Way Green Architecture, and a high school greenhouse and plant sale, collaborate with community partners on projects that promote outdoor education, environmental conservation, and business acumen.
Illinois Compares
We had some fun with data in the Journal’s “Illinois Compares” issue in November/December 2022, and noted Illinois’ status as the “most average state.” Data analysts and dare-we-say comedians Andrew Van Dam and Lenny Bronner combine fun with Illinois averageness in “What state best represents America?” in the May 10, 2024 edition of the Washington Post.
“So [Bronner] churned through Census variables,” Van Dam wrote, “creating indexes of how similar U.S. states are to one another — whereupon we realized that his work would be perfect for a less important purpose: finding the most typical and most unusual places in America…. So which state most closely mirrors the nation as a whole in terms of racial makeup? By mixing metropolis with corn palace, Illinois reigns as the most demographically “normal” state in America.”
Find out which states are becoming more normal, and which states less. Find out why Florida is close, but Illinois still “wins.” There’s more to discover about how normal Illinois is (and how Normal, Illinois is), and we encourage you to read the whole thing. You can reach the column via the resources link below.
Theresa Kelly Gegen is Editor of the Illinois School Board Journal. Resources associated with this article are available at iasb.com/Journal.