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CHICAGO - Governor Pritzker announced the state has come to an agreement with Iron Workers Local 1 to ensure skilled iron workers will be present at the build site for new shelter space for asylum seekers. Upon learning of a potential labor issue late Thursday night, the state worked closely with the Iron Workers Local to negotiate sending additional union labor to the site as quickly as possible. The 38 th and California site is being constructed to house approximately 2,000 recent arrivals to the city ahead of worsening winter weather conditions. “When my administration was made aware of an issue that could have resulted in a work stoppage and increased costs at a new asylum seeker shelter site, we acted immediately to ensure union iron workers were represented and that the project could continue without delay,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “I am grateful to the Iron Workers for their collaborative work with my office to reach agreement and I am pleased this project

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The new restaurant will be the local company's ninth. And more are on the drawing board.

WASHINGTON — As Congress negotiates the White House’s $106 billion supplemental aid request for Israel, Ukraine and U.S. border security, fights over immigration policy have tied up the request. The White House sent its proposal that includes nearly $14 billion in supplemental border security funding to Congress in late October, but it will likely look different after going through […]

The post Congress is haggling over border security: Where does it stand? appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A powerful new approach can help developing countries make road construction and maintenance greener and more affordable.

Eternal Jungle, an exhibition by artist Jasmine Raskas, is an immersive installation including sculpture, painting, light, sound, and touch. The goal of this installation is to explore sentience and question […]

The post Eternal Jungle Exhibition appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

The challenges facing Illinois businesses in 2024 — especially in Chicago — will be tough but manageable, says Lou Sandoval, the newly ensconced president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

Here are key retail and business openings and closings for the St. Louis area in November.

5 On Your Side viewers asked what's going on in Wentzville. We went to MoDOT for answers.

The Dec. 4, 1923, St. Louis Post-Dispatch included this article in remembrance of a local musician who died of pneumonia, and was once called "the Liszt of America."

by Mike Reicher and Lulu Ramadan, The Seattle Times

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Seattle Times. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Northwest School of Innovative Learning, until recently Washington's largest publicly funded private school for children with disabilities, announced plans to close amid a state investigation and a ban on accepting new students.

The school drew state scrutiny after a 2022 Seattle Times and ProPublica series revealed accusations that staff injured vulnerable students and failed to provide a basic education. The school’s enrollment has since plummeted as public school districts across western Washington withdrew students.

Special education advocates and experts applauded the closure of the Northwest SOIL but said it also highlights the need for better special education options.

“I think this is a victory for children with complex behavioral disorders in Washington state,” said Vanessa Tucker, professor of special education at Pacific Lutheran University. “On the other hand, our school districts are going to need a lot of support because these kids aren’t easy.”

The school’s owners have defended its record but said it has ceased to be viable in the wake of the state’s hold on new admissions.

Reporting by The Times and ProPublica late last year brought to light allegations of abuse, misuse of isolation rooms and unqualified staffing. The reporting triggered the state probe into Northwest SOIL, which collected millions of tax dollars a year to take in students from public school districts across western Washington on the promise of individualized instruction and specialized staff. In years past, the school took in more than 100 students a year.

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Washington’s education department, temporarily banned Northwest SOIL from enrolling new students in June, citing an “unacceptably high” number of incidents in which it restrained and isolated students.

Last week, the school’s owner, Fairfax Behavioral Health, which runs the largest for-profit psychiatric facility in the state, said it could no longer operate the school under the state admissions ban. Fairfax plans to close the school in January and lay off staff, according to a company statement. School districts will decide where to transfer Northwest SOIL’s remaining 37 students.

“The low student number is not sustainable for the school or rewarding for our teachers,” according to a statement provided by Fairfax CEO Christopher West. Students need more diverse interactions with peers for social development, the statement said.

Northwest SOIL said it had requested that the state allow it to gradually admit new students while it complied with a corrective action plan but that regulators with the superintendent’s office decided not to lift the ban.

“While NW SOIL continues to make adequate initial progress, not enough time has passed for OSPI to see sustained implementation of the plan in order to release the enrollment hold,” state superintendent spokesperson Katy Payne told The Times and ProPublica.

Years of Complaints

The news organizations’ investigation into Northwest SOIL revealed how the state superintendent’s office failed to take meaningful actions on years of serious complaints about the school’s discipline and academics. In response, lawmakers passed a bill in April strengthening oversight and regulatory power.

And the superintendent’s office began to more aggressively use its existing power, launching the inquiry that looked at a range of issues, including allegations against staff of “mistreatment and abuse” of students, calls to law enforcement on students, and complaints that the school failed to deliver special education services.

As part of that investigation, Northwest SOIL provided records to the state showing it restrained students 476 times in 2022 and isolated students 447 times across its three campuses. It had roughly 119 students at the time, according to state reports.

By comparison, Seattle Public Schools, the largest district in the state with more than 6,000 students in special education, reported 16 incidents of isolation and 249 incidents of restraint in the 2021-22 school year. Seattle Public Schools banned isolation at the beginning of that school year.

Northwest SOIL “has been restraining its students at an astronomical rate,” a lawyer for the state superintendent told a judge in September.

During the investigation, the superintendent’s office zeroed in on concerning reports to police and Child Protective Services that hadn’t been reported to state education officials, as required by state law. Among them was a July 2022 incident when a teacher at the Tacoma campus was fired after placing a student in a “chokehold” and “running his head into the door,” as described by the school.

Northwest SOIL wrote that its risk management team reviewed several incidents and found them to be either accidental or justified and that they happened while students were behaving aggressively.

“We believe our staff members act appropriately during incidents or restraint and isolation,” the school wrote to state regulators in June, when the ban on admissions was imposed.

Northwest SOIL and its parent company, Fairfax Behavioral Health, tried to get the admissions ban overturned, suing the state in Thurston County Superior Court and separately appealing the ban through an administrative hearing. The lawsuit was dismissed in October, and the administrative appeal remains active.

West, the CEO of Kirkland-based Fairfax Behavioral Health, blasted the state’s admissions hold in a letter to regulators in early November.

“It is unwarranted and egregious to continue withholding the services we offer from students,” West wrote. He said the school was cooperating with the state’s investigation.

Northwest SOIL was previously financially sound, he continued, but because of the admissions ban, “NWSOIL simply cannot operate indefinitely with ongoing financial losses.”

West gave the state an ultimatum: Lift the hold by Nov. 10 or Northwest SOIL would close. The state declined.

Fallout

The news of the closure has sent parents scrambling. For some families that remained at the school, Northwest SOIL has been a positive influence in their students’ lives.

Heidi Sapp’s 16-year-old son, Brendan, has attended Northwest SOIL for three years. She contacted reporters at the suggestion of Northwest SOIL and previously provided an affidavit in support of the school’s lawsuit against the state.

Sapp’s son, who has autism, has behavioral challenges and suffered setbacks in public schools but flourished at Northwest SOIL, she said. She now worries the closure will disrupt his education.

“I don’t feel like I have any options left,” Sapp said.

The closure of Northwest SOIL renews an ongoing debate within the special education community about the role of private programs serving public school students. Washington has one of the nation’s highest dropout rates for students in special education, according to the latest federal data.

Some advocates say private programs are needed because public schools routinely fail students with severe and complex disabilities. Others say public school districts need to invest more in integrated programs that keep students in local public schools.

Karen Pillar, director of policy and advocacy at TeamChild, a nonprofit law firm for Washington at-risk youth, sees Northwest SOIL’s closure as an opportunity for school districts to explore in-house alternatives. In December, Pillar and two special education attorneys wrote an opinion column for The Times calling on the state to immediately shut down Northwest SOIL.

As public school districts decide where to transfer Northwest SOIL’s students, districts should hire trained staff and create programs that would keep students in neighborhood schools, Pillar said.

Her fear is that districts will fall back on “harmful practices” such as shortened school days or the use of restraint and isolation of students with disabilities.

“There are systems and strategies to keep students, including high-needs students, in public school classrooms safely,” Pillar said. “The districts have to invest in that.”

Tucker, the Pacific Lutheran University professor, said school districts will go through a period of adjustment as they either develop plans to serve students themselves or work with other private programs.

“They’re all having to create models for these kids that are truly complex. It’s not like we’re saying, ‘Let’s put them back in the school and everything will be fine,’” Tucker said. “These are kids with complex neurological impairments, some with trauma, some with mental health needs. It is a very complicated puzzle to put together.”

Anti-abortion activists have capitalized on the dueling campaigns, emphasizing the apparent divisions among abortion rights supporters in Missouri.

CHICAGO – A Jersey County man - Joshua G. Eastham - was sentenced to 40 years in prison after previously being found guilty of four Class X felony counts of disseminating child pornography involving victims under the age of age 13. Jersey County Circuit Judge Allison Lorton handed down the 40-year sentence. Raoul’s office co-prosecuted the case with Jersey County State’s Attorney Ben Goetten. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced the decision on Friday. Raoul said the sentencing is part of his ongoing work, in collaboration with federal law enforcement agencies and local law enforcement officials throughout Illinois, to apprehend offenders who download and trade child pornography online. Raoul’s office charged Eastham after receiving a CyberTip from the mobile messaging application Kik and discovering evidence of child sexual abuse material during a search of Eastham’s home on Jan. 27, 2022. Along with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service,

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ALTON - Visitors will soon be able to go back in time at the Mitchell Mansion, located at 310 Mill Street in Alton. Markus Boyd, who grew up near Alton, has spent the last 25 years as a real estate and mortgage broker. Now, he’s back in the Riverbend to transform the “Pink Mansion” into a space that resembles how it looked in 1850 with the feel of 2023. “I want to be involved in the beautification of the Alton riverfront and I want to be actively involved in helping redevelop it,” he said. “I want to be here for the long haul and I want to be a staple. So this is kind of just the first big undertaking…When this one came through, it was just meant to be.” Boyd explained that he first wants to “stabilize” the property, meaning he will make sure the four outer buildings are up to code while the mansion itself continues to function as apartments. He predicts “light renovations” to transform the outer buildings into

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Every few weeks for the last fifteen years there’s been a massive scandal involving some company, telecom, data broker, or app maker over-collecting your detailed personal location data, failing to secure it, then selling access to that information to any nitwit with a nickel. And despite the added risks this creates in the post-Roe era, […]

ALTON - “Homecare & Hospice Month” is recognized each November, and Jamie Perkhiser and Christie Kamp with OSF St. Anthony’s in Alton recently capped off the month of awareness by dispelling common hospice myths, sharing their perspectives, and more. Perkhiser works as a Hospice Coordinator, while Kamp is an RN, BSN, CRRN, and manager of Home Health Care and Hospice for OSF. Both recently appeared on Our Daily Show! on Riverbender.com to close out this year’s Homecare & Hospice Month with some facts and insights. “Some of the biggest myths that we see related to hospice is obviously there’s a fear associated with making that decision, but really with hospice, our focus is on comfort of the patient - what can we do?” Kamp said. “The patient and the family have decided that the treatment options aren’t working anymore and that they want to go down this path to comfort care, so that’s really what we’re providing

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