Two More Baseball Players Announce College Plans
Two more senior members of the baseball team have announced their college commitments. Jake Surane, an all-conference and all-area selection utility player last spring, will play for the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He hit .430 last season with seven doubles and 17 runs batted in, and stole 10 bases in 13 attempts. Jake also reached the IHSA state tournament in boys golf the past two years. Left-handed pitcher Brandon Frankel, meanwhile, will attend Ohio Wesleyan University. He pitched five innings last spring, striking out three with a 5.60 earned-run average. Jake and Brandon join Oberlin College-bound Jake Freed, whose commitment was reported in Tuesday’s Digest. Jake, also a left-handed pitcher, went 2-0 with a 4.03 ERA. He struck out 16 batters in 17.1 innings.
Quick Hits
Two members of the 2015 boys basketball state championship team squared off last week for the first time since their high school days. Justin Smith (Class of 2016) and his Indiana University teammates played host to Division II Gannon University, which includes Matt Johnson (Class of 2015). Both were in the starting lineup for the exhibition contest, an 84-54 win for IU. Smith led all scorers with 18 points, while Johnson had two. SHS head coach Pat Ambrose was on hand to see his former players.
Freshman and transfer student-athletes are required to attend one 30-minute meeting led by the athletic director during the 2019-20 school year. Meetings will be held on late-arrival days. The next opportunity is from 9:45-10:15 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 14 in the West Auditorium. Topics to be covered include: expectations of and leadership opportunities for student-athletes; the Co-Curricular Code of Conduct; sportsmanship; sports health and nutrition; and Stevenson Athletics’ awards program. Attendance will be taken by scanning student IDs.
ILLINOIS EDUCATION NEWS
Grayslake Elementary School District 46 teachers and support staff went on strike today. The contract sticking point is teacher pay. The school board president offered a 3.8 percent raise and the unions want a 4.6 percent increase. District 46 has about 300 teachers and 180 support workers at its seven schools. About 3,700 students are impacted by the decision.
Eight students from two high schools on Chicago’s south side were taken to hospitals Wednesday after they ate “infused” brownies and gummies. The incidents happened about an hour apart at Fenger Academy High School in Roseland and Epic Academy in South Shore.
Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200’s abrupt cancellation of a children’s book author visit to an elementary school has generated controversy. Robin Stevenson is the author of “Kid Activists: True Tales of Childhood from Champions of Change.” One chapter focuses on the early life of pioneering gay rights politician Harvey Milk. Stevenson believes parental objections to LGBTQ content in her book led to the cancellation, while the district says the school failed to follow policies meant to inform parents “well in advance” of author visits and the content of the book being presented.
McHenry County College is bucking a statewide trend of declining student enrollment. The Crystal Lake college has 7,475 students enrolled this fall — a 6.3% increase from the previous year and a 13.9% jump since 2015, according to a new Illinois Community College Board report. Statewide, college enrollment has dipped by 4.2% from last fall and 14% overall since 2015 — mirroring a nationwide trend.
NATIONAL EDUCATION NEWS
The Denver school board is on the verge of a historic shift, with two candidates backed by the teachers union scoring decisive wins and a third holding a narrow lead. This marks the first time in a decade that candidates supported by proponents of education reform won’t have the majority on the Denver school board.
The University of Utah hopes to become a national leader in mental health delivery with a $150 million gift to establish a new institute. The major gift will create the Huntsman Mental Health Institute to bolster the existing University Neuropsychiatric Institute and psychiatry department with a focus on improving public awareness of mental illness, research into genetic causes, and access — especially for college-age and rural patients..
Back in 2005, one of the biggest stories in tech was a project by a group of MIT professors to build a $100 laptop and give them to children in schools around the world. It was a feel-good story that was painted as beyond critique … and it also turned out to be a failure. The laptops had technical shortcomings, and they broke more easily than advertised. About 3 million laptops were made, most ending up in Latin America.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is the latest institution where students, faculty and staff can have meals and snacks delivered by autonomous robots, one of the most recent tech trends sweeping campuses. The university announced this week that it has deployed 30 robots on campus.
