CHICAGO, IL - Chicago Public Schools has hired more staff to educate fewer students since 2019. The district spent nearly two-thirds of the $2.8 billion it received in federal relief funds for COVID-19 on salaries and employee benefits, including the cost of hiring more than 4,400 additional full-time staff members since before the pandemic.
District reports show enrollment at CPS dropped by 31,905 students between the 2019-2020 school year and the 2023-2024 school year.
Meanwhile, reports on CPS employee rosters show employment in CPS has increased by 5,472 full-time staff members between December of the 2019-2020 school year and December of the current 2023-2024 school year. That’s a 15% increase in full-time staff members amidst a 9% decrease in enrollment. Click here to read more.
An illegal alien, released into the United States by President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has been accused of murdering a young woman on her twenty-first birthday in the sanctuary state of New York, prosecutors say.
Jhon Moises Chacaguasay-Ilbis, a 21-year-old illegal alien from Ecuador, was arrested in Syracuse, New York, and charged with second-degree murder and concealing a human corpse. According to prosecutors, Chacaguasay-Ilbis allegedly strangled Joselyn Jhoana Toaquiza to death on her 21st birthday on June 18 and then threw her body in a shallow grave at a Syracuse park. Click here to read more.
MIAMI, FLA - TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Numerous laws will take effect on Monday, July 1 as Florida’s new fiscal year begins, including a lab-grown meat ban, anti-human trafficking legislation and more.
Below is a list of some of the higher-profile laws taking effect.
SB 1084 – Prohibits and creates penalties for the manufacturing, sale or distribution of cultivated meat in the state.
HB 7063 – Penalizes the owner of an adult entertainment establishment from employing anyone under the age of 21.
The owner would receive a harsher penalty if they employ anyone under 21 to work while nude at the establishment.
HB 1349 – Requires “age and developmentally appropriate” instruction on the history of communism, beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.
SB 544 – Creates the Swimming Lesson Voucher Program, which applies to families who earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level. Click here to read more.
DUVALL, Wash. (TND) — A Washington high school girls track and field coach claims the state did not "prepare" his team for facing a transgender runner at last month's state championships.
Dean Vergillo is the girls track and field coach for Cedarcrest High School in Washington. His team took second place at the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) state track and field meet last month. The first-place team, East Valley High School, beat Cedarcrest by just eight points.
The results were thanks in part to a transgender runner on East Valley's team winning the girls’ 400-meter dash, Vergillo told the Independent Women’s Forum.
As a cross country and track coach, everybody has a running style,” he said. “It’s kind of like your fingerprint — everybody runs a little bit differently. In this case, it was obviously a male running.”
BIRMINGHAM, AL - One teenager's overjoyed reaction to being invited to a birthday party is going viral.
Macy is a 15-year-old high school freshman and she has Down syndrome. Her mom says she can “count on one hand the amount of birthday parties” Macy has been invited to since she started kindergarten.
“Yesterday Macy got in the car and showed me an invitation to a birthday party for a friend at school who is also in the life skills program,” Macy’s mom, Heather Avis, began an Instagram post. “Her joy from this invitation is palpable. WOW!” Avis wrote. “To me it spoke of a longing fulfilled. All I could do was laugh with her and then cry as I celebrated with her.” Click here to read more.
