* The Senate voted 37-20 to pass SB15, which would elect the Chicago school board…

[From Rich: As Senate President Harmon explained today, ten elected members would represent the entire city for two years with ten members appointed. Then, after two years, those ten districts would be cut in half and all twenty members plus the chair would be elected. There’s more to it, but that’s the basic gist.]

* Press release…

The Illinois Senate Democratic Caucus today passed legislation to create an elected Chicago School Board, expanding representation and empowering communities with a greater say in how the state’s largest school system is run.

Under SB 15, 10 Board members will be elected in 2024 and 10 Board members and the Board Chair will be appointed by the mayor. Beginning in 2026, all 20 CPS Board members will be elected from subdistricts and the Board President will be elected citywide. These changes will give families and community members a direct say in the leadership of their schools, a right every other community in Illinois is already afforded.

“With today’s vote, we are bringing democracy to the people of Chicago,” said Senate Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford, Chair of the Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board. “For the first time, leadership of Chicago Public Schools will be accountable to the voters, who will have the power to set a new course for our city’s education system.”

A map detailing electoral district boundaries, as well as demographic data and shape files, is available online at www.ilsenateredistricting.com. The map consists of 20 districts, including seven majority Black districts, six majority Latino districts, five majority White districts and two coalition districts. School board districts must be consistent with the Illinois Voting Rights Act, which ensures districts are crafted in a way that preserves clusters of minority voters if they are of size or cohesion to exert collective electoral power.

“At long last, families across Chicago will have a platform to make important decisions about their children’s education,” said Sen. Robert Martwick, Vice-Chair of the Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board and sponsor of the legislation creating an elected school board in Chicago. “Representation matters, and I’m proud we are finally giving parents in Chicago the same rights as those in every other community throughout Illinois.”

The legislation establishes ethics requirements for Board members that mirror those for other school boards across the state, as well as conflict of interest provisions in line with the state’s existing Public Officer Prohibited Activities Act. It also calls for the creation of the Black Student Achieve Committee within the Board, following feedback from education advocates, parents and community members about the need to focus on the disparity in academic performance among Black students.

“With a budget of nearly $10 billion a year, this change doesn’t just impact families enrolled in Chicago Public Schools but every person who lives in our city,” said Sen. Omar Aquino, Vice-Chair of the Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board. “Our communities will now have a direct say in deciding how public funds are spent, ensuring schools are better positioned to respond to the unique needs of each neighborhood.”

…Adding… Senate Republican Leader John Curran…

Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran (R-Downers Grove) released the following statement in response to the Senate passage of SB15 that enacts gerrymandered maps for hybrid Chicago School Board elections:

“I have and will continue to vote NO on any legislative or school board map drawn by politicians, rather than the people they represent. We stand with the thousands of opponents, citizens, parents, students, and teachers who want to end the process of gerrymandering that suppresses choice and disenfranchises voters in Illinois.”

* The bill passed out of committee on a 9-4 partisan vote earlier today…

* WTTW…

[F]or Eileen O’Neill Burke, locked in a fierce fight for the Democratic nomination for Cook County state’s attorney against Clayton Harris III, her last name has turned out to be a double-edged sword.[…]

“For the record – no, I’m not related to THAT Burke,” she posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, confident that she didn’t have to spell out her reference to former Ald. Ed Burke, convicted Dec. 21 on 13 counts of racketeering, bribery and extortion. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June. […]

After six years as a Cook County judge, O’Neill Burke had her eye on an appellate court seat. In 2015, O’Neill Burke contributed $500 to Burke’s main campaign account, her only direct contribution to Burke’s war chest, which he would eventually use to fund his criminal defense, according to records filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections. […]

In 2017 and 2018, O’Neill Burke’s husband, John Burke, an attorney at the law firm of Ice Miller, made four contributions totaling $1,250 to two campaign committees controlled by Ed Burke, according to records filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

* Tahman Bradley…

* Sun-Times…

Lurie Children’s Hospital has restored its electronic medical records platform after being down for over a month because of a cybersecurity threat, the hospital announced Monday evening.

MyChart remains offline, the platform patients use to communicate with providers, access medical records and test results and make appointments, according to a statement on the hospital’s website.

The hospital took its phone, email and electronic systems offline Jan. 31 because of a “criminal threat” from a “known criminal threat actor,” Lurie said in February. It has not explained what the threat was and how it affected its systems. The hospital has remained open and providing care.

Emails to and from external addresses and most of the hospital’s phone lines were restored last month. But the hospital’s electronic medical record platform, Epic’s MyChart, remains down.

* Here’s the rest…

* 25 News Now | Smaller school districts impacted most by teacher shortage: The conference at ISU’s Bone Student Center highlighted the state’s current geographical and subject areas lacking teacher applications. “We had an opening for special ed last year, and I believe we had zero applicants, so none. It’s difficult to fill those positions,” said Karen Engelman, a family and consumer science teacher at Cobden High School in southern Illinois.

* Capitol News Illinois | Funeral home director subject to ‘scary, filthy freak show’ complaint surrenders license: Moran Queen-Boggs funeral home director Hugh Moran signed a consent order on Friday, March 1, a copy of which was obtained by Capitol News Illinois. In it, he agreed never to reapply for his funeral director or embalmer license in the state.

* SJ-R | SIU School of Medicine scholarship challenged on race, gender identity discrimination grounds: The scholarship in question, the Tracey Meares Scholarship, is eligible to U.S. citizens in their fourth year of medical school in “good academic standing.” Where EPP founder and Cornell law professor William A. Jacobson takes issue are the race and gender identity-based criteria. Per the SIU School of Medicine website, the scholarship is open to students who are Black, Hispanic or Native American and those identifying as LGBTQ+. The award winner receives a $1,000 stipend to cover housing and travel costs throughout a four-week resident rotation.

* Crain’s | Rivian laid off about 100 Illinois workers: The Illinois layoffs are just a tiny fraction of its workforce here. Rivian employs more than 8,000 people in Normal, about 7,000 of whom are hourly workers who produce electric trucks, SUVs and delivery vehicles. But it also has engineers and designers at the facility, the company’s only production plant.

* Daily Herald | Hoffman Estates latest suburb asked to adopt Gaza cease-fire resolution: Schaumburg village board members heard from nine people last week asking they pass a cease-fire resolution, but ultimately chose not to act on a request, saying it was not relevant to the operations of the town. The decision led some advocates to verbally assail board members, leading them to recess their meeting.

* WCIA | Champaign Board of Education meeting erupts in heated discussion, ends with member resignation: After approving new business and listening to public comment, discussion began between board members, which quickly turned heated between Board Member Betsy Holder and Board President Gianina Baker. Holder requested more transparency within the district, wanting to specifically know what the district is spending money on. She pointed to a $38,000 monthly legal bill that she was told was “confidential information.”

* WCIA | Champaign School Board member resigns, citing ‘mistrust, missteps and misinformation’: Near the end of the March 4 meeting, Jamar Brown, Champaign Unit 4 School District Board Vice President, read a statement reflecting on many positive moments during his first term on the board. However, he called out his experience with his second term on the board as one filled with “mistrust, missteps and misinformation”. Brown noted that he saw a number of attacks pointed at the Champaign School District, but said what was “more alarming was the self-inflicted wounds we were doing to ourselves.”

* Tribune | Support staff at Crystal Lake D47 file unfair labor practice charge after district hires staffing firm: Crystal Lake Association of Support Staff, or CLASS, the union representing Chaix and more than 100 paraprofessionals across 12 schools in District 47, filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board in October after district administrators retained a recruiting firm to hire temporary employees. The union said the move was made illegally and without giving them notice.

* SJ-R | Springfield’s first cat cafe holds soft opening. Everything you need to know: The Cat’s Pyjamas, Springfield’s first cat café officially opened its doors to the public last Saturday and Sunday. After completing building repairs, the business welcomed a combined 130 patrons in a soft open during the weekend.

* AP | Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads logins restored after widespread outage: The outage comes just ahead of Thursday’s deadline for Big Tech companies to comply with the European Union’s new Digital Markets Act. To comply, Meta is making changes, like allowing users to separate their Facebook and Instagram accounts so personal information can’t be combined to target them with online ads. It’s not clear whether the outage is connected to any preparations Meta might be carrying out for the DMA.

* D Magazine | Here’s Why Jalapeño Peppers Are Less Spicy Than Ever: “As more growers have adopted drip irrigation, more high-tech farming tools to grow the peppers, they’ll tend to be milder,” Walker told me first, as a sort of throat-clearing exercise before the real explanation. “But there’s more to it than that.” The truth is more like a vast industrial scheme to make the jalapeño more predictable—and less hot.

* Sun-Times | CTA bus driver, passenger rescue 14 residents from burning South Shore homes: “We started banging on doors and yelling ‘fire fire fire!’ at the top of our lungs and just trying to wake as many people up and alert as many people as we possibly could,” Adamopoulos said, adding that he didn’t think about his own safety as he ran toward the flames. “The only thing I was focused on was getting the people out.”