Thursday’s Varsity Results
Girls Volleyball
Stevenson d. Palatine, 25-21, 25-17: The Patriots won the IHSA Class 4A Palatine Regional championship, their ninth title in the past 10 years and 28th in program history. The regional crown also is the 14th in head coach Tim Crow’s 18 seasons. SHS (23-14) will face Cary-Grove (24-9) in the Warren Sectional semifinals at 6:30 p.m. Monday. Stevenson is the No. 3 seed in the sectional, while Cary-Grove is No. 2. Against sixth-seeded Palatine (24-13), Grace Tully sparked SHS with her setting and serving. The senior’s serving broke a 8-8 tie in the first set, and helped the Pats build a 7-2 lead in the second. She had two of her team-high five aces during the second-set run. On the night, Grace was 59-of-59 setting with 24 assists. Her primary beneficiaries were sophomore Amanda Holsen and senior Lily Cozzi, who had 12 and nine kills, respectively. Lily added nine digs and Amanda had six. Junior Makayla Uremovich returned from illness to contribute four kills. Senior Abby Keevins served three aces, while junior Emerson Kouri also had an ace to go along with eight digs. Stevenson gained revenge for a three-set loss to the Pirates on Oct. 21. – Daily Herald
Quick Hits
The fifth-place finish by senior Athena Kolli and sophomore Alaina Kolli at last weekend’s IHSA girls tennis tournament marked the ninth straight year Stevenson has earned a state doubles medal. The streak began with current head coach Lexxi Kiven and her partner Kendall Kirsch in 2011, the first state doubles medal for the program in 25 years. Kiven and Kirsch won the state championship in 2013. The Kolli sisters finished the season with a 28-3 record, and went 52-6 in two seasons together. … The varsity boys and girls cross country teams compete at the IHSA Class 3A Hoffman Estates Sectional on Saturday. The girls will look to return downstate for the first time since qualifying three straight times from 2015-17. The boys last qualified as a team in 2005, and are looking for their first individual qualifier since Nikita Smyrnov in 2017. … After an injury-plagued 4-5 season, head football coach Brent Becker is looking forward to 2020. “Our freshman A and B teams went a combined 15-3 and our freshman A went 7-0 in the conference,” he told the Daily Herald. “Our sophomores went 8-1 and we had five of the sophomores up with us on varsity.”
Freshmen, Sophomores Can Submit to the Half Wit
With the semester more than halfway over, it’s the perfect time for freshmen and sophomores to submit to the Half Wit! Poetry, prose, art and photography will be accepted. Feel free to submit anything you have! Please submit your piece(s) to Mr. Barnabee at jbarnabee@d125.org. Include your name, ID, and the genre of the work.
ILLINOIS EDUCATION NEWS
Chicago’s teachers union contract still needs to be ratified, but now that an agreement exists, it’s fair to start assessing what teachers gained during their 11-day strike. It’s clear that Chicago teachers are walking away with more than they had before the strike. But the city also ended the impasse having met its goal of limiting new spending to $500 million or less each year. Here’s what happened to the five big issues that the Chicago Teachers Union said were the biggest sticking points in negotiations.
The University of Chicago is projected to become the first college or university to cost $100,000 per year. The current cost of attending is $57,642, but using annual college cost growth rates from 2008-18, the university would likely hit the six-figure mark by 2025. Three other schools — Harvey Mudd College in California, Columbia University in New York and Southern Methodist University in Texas — are projected to cost almost as much.
After nine months of negotiations, pay is the only issue keeping Grayslake Elementary District 46 officials from finalizing labor contracts with the unions representing teachers and support staffers. But the impasse is significant enough that the unions have announced their intent to strike as soon as Thursday.
Alma Otter may have gone down in defeat, but mascot talk at the University of Illinois goes on. The latest entry: the belted kingfisher, an appropriately colored bird native to Illinois and inspiration for the UI senior who came up with the idea.
NATIONAL EDUCATION NEWS
Anxiety about the effects of social media on young people has risen to such an extreme that giving children smartphones is sometimes equated to handing them a gram of cocaine. The reality is much less alarming. A close look at social media use shows that most young texters and Instagrammers are fine. Heavy use can lead to problems, but many early studies and news headlines have overstated dangers and omitted context.
The University of Michigan will not reinstate its Bias Response Team as part of a settlement with a nonprofit that had argued the team’s policies had the potential to interfere with open expression and alter students’ views. The agreement was reached between UM and the Washington D.C.-based Speech First last week. The settlement came about a month after a federal appeals court vacated a federal district judge’s ruling against the nonprofit.
The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday published its final rules for accreditation and state authorization for distance education, which it says will foster innovation and reduce the regulatory burden on colleges and accreditors. Critics of the rules, however, say they will reduce oversight on colleges and universities and potentially harm students.
A company called CampusReel has created an online platform that provides virtual college campus tours for prospective students. Since its launch last year, CampusReel users have generated a library of more than 17,000 searchable videos across 350 colleges and universities. On the applicant side, CampusReel has been used by more than 4,000 high school and college counselors.
Stevenson Daily Digest 