The Daily Northwestern Wednesday, October 23, 2019
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IASB considers arming teachers IL Association of School Boards to weigh resolution
By ANDREW MYERS
the daily northwestern @drewmyers1172
Benjamin Bomier/The Daily Northwestern
MSNBC contributor Jill Wine-Banks speaks at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center on Tuesday. The event, hosted by Indivisible Evanston, focused on increasing civic engagement in the 2020 election.
Activist urges 2020 voter turnout Evanston NAACP leader, MSNBC contributor stress importance By JACOB FULTON
the daily northwestern @jacobfulton1
Ahead of the 2020 election, MSNBC contributor Jill Wine-Banks and the Evanston NAACP’s civic engagement chair Willie Shaw urged
Evanston residents at a Tuesday event to get out the vote and stay engaged. Invisible Evanston held the event at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center, aiming to inspire community members to become politically active. The speakers emphasized the importance of grassroots work
and involvement in both local and national elections. Before she was a contributor for MSNBC, Wine-Banks served as a prosecutor who worked on the investigation of President Richard Nixon in Watergate. Indivisible Evanston co-leader Kathleen Long said she was excited about the
speakers’ messages, especially in light of the current impeachment inquiry. “We couldn’t have gotten more relevant than the two speakers we had tonight,” Long said. Shaw started out the event, » See VOTE, page 6
The Illinois Association of School Boards, a lobbying group that advocates for education policy in the Illinois state legislature, has laid out resolutions to support legislation that promotes arming school faculty in anticipation of their Joint Annual Conference. The IASB, which is made up of delegates from 98 percent of all school districts in Illinois, will hold their Joint Annual Conference from Nov. 22 to 24 to lay out their objectives and which legislation they will support next year. Among the list of 12 new resolutions to be considered this year, two include wording surrounding the use of firearms by either school resource officers or authorized school faculty. With resistance to similar resolutions that were taken up at IASB’s annual conference last year, the reemergence of this topic at this year’s conference has reignited the debate around whether or not to arm
school teachers in the face of the growing number of school shootings nationally each year. Joseph Hailpern, a member of the board of education for the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 and the board’s IASB delegate, said the issue is more nuanced as the school districts in favor of arming teachers are from more rural districts than Evanston. “The district and Resolution Committee’s rationale for putting (the resolution) in speaks to the diversity of school districts in Illinois, and it makes a lot of sense,” Hailpern said. “Districts in rural communities have a very different lived experience regarding access to police, proximity to police and response times.” Evanston Township High School District 202 was not available for comment at the time of publication. Among the resolutions surrounding firearm use, one calls for the IASB to support legislation that would give local school boards the option to develop Student Safety and Protection Plans. These plans would authorize “voluntary district employees, in any capacity” to carry a concealed firearm as long as they have » See ARMED, page 6
Buchanan connects Teenagers say wages weren’t enough beyond NU campus Some say Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program caused strain NU staff member engages outside Evanston bubble By MADDIE BURAKOFF
daily senior staffer @madsburk
Growing up, Val Buchanan didn’t feel like she really had a hometown. After bouncing around the country for family moves, college and career opportunities, Buchanan, 46, feels she’s partly from Michigan, Texas, Missouri, California and Massachusetts. Since she joined Northwestern’s staff in April 2016, though, Buchanan — or “Wildcat Val,” as she’s dubbed herself on Facebook — said she’s fallen in love with the Chicagoland area and plans on sticking around for a long time. And now, she’s made it her goal to connect NU students with their own temporary home. “At Northwestern, so much of our time and energy is spent on learning our disciplines and research pursuits,” Buchanan said. “And yet, so many of the things that help us figure
out who we want to be in the world, and what we want to be about, come through … experiences that we have with our neighbors.” Officially, Buchanan works as NU’s assistant director of leadership development and community engagement. In simpler terms, she wants to make sure students interact with their neighbors beyond campus limits — for example, by organizing service days, bringing in speakers and advising service-oriented student groups. The role is a little like being a matchmaker, said Buchanan. Sometimes, she’s in her office on the third fl oor of Norris University Center — a bright space near The SOURCE brimming with event fl yers, stacks of books and souvenirs from all over the world — meeting with student leaders and school administrators to find new ways to engage. Other times, she’s out in Evanston and Chicago, building relationships with groups that are already addressing issues she cares about — like serving meals with food bank » See BUCHANAN, page 6
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
By EVA HERSCOWITZ
the daily northwestern @herscowitz
When Bernice Olla-Chatman’s brother prepared to leave for college this summer, her mother, who single-handedly raises three children, was about to face more financial burden. The Evanston Township High School junior knew she needed to support her family, so she got a job at Evanston’s HAIR Science scheduling appointments, cleaning the salon and resupplying products for $8.50 an hour. Olla-Chatman found the job through the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which connects 14- to 18-yearolds in Evanston with summer jobs through a job fair and training process. The program offers jobs in both the public and private sector and subsidizes salaries for some jobs in hair salons and barber shops. Olla-Chatman, who wants to be a hairdresser, said her job gave her real-world experience in the beauty industry. But she said the wage, which the program subsidized, wasn’t enough to support students under financial strain. “I think they were setting it
Source: Kevin Brown
Evanston mayor Steve Hagerty addresses participants at the 2018 Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program job fair. The program connects “at-risk” teenagers with employment opportunities and training.
because kids were mainly doing it because they just wanted extra money,” Olla-Chatman said. “They really don’t pay attention to kids who really need the job because they’re supporting their families.They’re taking it from the view that if you live in Evanston, there’s really no problems there.” Kevin Brown, who manages Evanston’s Youth and Young Adult division, said the program employed 605 students last summer. Most students who work for the city — in government departments or communitybased organizations — earn an hourly wage between $8.50 and $9.50, although some students
have earned up to $11 an hour. Wages for students who work in the private sector are determined by their employer, and many are above minimum wage. The federally-funded program, which was created in 1992, is a non-law enforcement crime prevention initiative. It targets students with minimal work experience hoping to improve their skill set for future jobs, as well as connecting “at-risk youth” with employment opportunities. Violent, theft, burglary, and drugrelated arrests for 16- to 18-year olds in Evanston decreased by 219 percent from 2012 to 2018. Brown said he believes the job
program has “contributed to that decline.” Brown noted that the program’s public sector jobs pay twice as much as the starting federal minimum wage for employees under 20, which is $4.25 an hour. Evanston’s minimum wage is currently $12 an hour, and will increase to $13 an hour by 2020, following a 2017 Cook County ordinance that incrementally raised the wage. Subsidized temporary youth employment programs, however, are excluded from the wage increase. The program is currently » See YOUTH, page 6
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