JV Girls Swim Team Wins Conference Title
The junior varsity girls swimming and diving team captured the North Suburban Conference championship last weekend. SHS easily outdistanced runner-up Lake Forest, 335-272, and five other schools. Stevenson won nine of 12 events and set JV conference records in four of them.
Freshman Anna Ryaguzova won two events and was part of two first-place relays. She set a new conference mark in the 200-yard individual medley (2:17.31), and also was part of the record-setting 200-yard medley relay (1:54.54) with juniors Brianna Liu and Anna Gates, and senior Hanna Cloeter. Anna also touched first in the 100 breaststroke (1:10.04), and swam a leg in the 200 free relay (1:43.58) with Hanna, sophomore Sana Arvind and freshman Elizaveta Kolbunova.
Junior Maria Mossakowski also won two events, the 200 free (2:02.86) and 500 free (5:32.77), and swam in the victorious 400 free relay (3:49.72) with Brianna, Elizaveta and Sana. Stevenson’s other JV conference records were set by Brianna in the 100 backstroke (1:01.12) and sophomore Nora Kowalski in 1-meter diving (347.40).
Football Alumni Part of Major Big 10 Storylines
Three Stevenson football alumni were part of three significant Big 10 stories on Saturday:
- Quarterback Aidan O’Connell (Class of 2017) led two fourth-quarter scoring drives in his first career start as Purdue defeated Northwestern on a last-second field goal, 24-22. The walk-on completed 34 of 50 passes for 271 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions, then gave this gratitude-filled post-game interview.
- In East Lansing, Mich., Michael Marchese (Class of 2017) saw action as Illinois overcame a 25-point deficit to stun Michigan State, 37-34, and become bowl-eligible for the first time since 2014. Marchese, a safety, has played in nine of the Illini’s 10 games this year.
- Wisconsin junior linebacker Mike Maskalunas (Class of 2016) and his Badger teammates remained in the hunt for the Big Ten West Division championship with a 24-22 win over Iowa. The Badgers are ranked No. 13 in the latest college playoff rankings.
STUDENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
FMP Information Meetings During Lunch Periods Friday
The Freshman Mentor Program will host informational meetings for potential new members on Friday. The meetings will be held during every half-period lunch in the Recital Hall. All are welcome.
COLLEGE
The Consumers Cooperative Association is offering 15 $2,000 scholarships for families that have been a member of the Consumer Credit Union for a minimum of one year in good standing. Seniors must plan on attending an accredited two- or four-year school. Applications are due by Dec. 31. Interested seniors can find more information at this link.
ILLINOIS EDUCATION NEWS
All 25,000 Chicago Teachers Union members will vote in secret ballots Thursday and Friday to accept or reject the tentative contract agreement reached the last week of October with Chicago Public Schools. Unlike the strike authorization vote, contract ratification needs only a simple majority. If members accept the deal, the strike — which at this point has only been suspended — is officially over. But what happens if they reject it?
As Chicago’s test scores have flattened, fewer schools are earning the city’s top rating, according to data released Friday for 2018-2019. Only 146 schools received a Level 1-plus compared to 185 the year prior.
The controversy that rocked Lake Park High School over a volunteer football coach could have been avoided at several points if the head coach and two top administrators followed the school’s accepted practices for conducting background checks, Superintendent Lynn Panega said Friday.
First-generation students make up about half of all college students, but only 27% complete a bachelor’s degree in four years — about half the national average for all students. North Central College in Naperville has seen extraordinary success with its Cardinal First program, which helps first-gen students adjust to college life. For students who started in the program in 2015, 81% graduated in May 2019 — earning their degree in four years.
The U.S. Department of Education last week announced it was canceling the student loan debt for people in Illinois who attended the now-shuttered Illinois Institute of Art. The Chicago and Schaumburg campuses — not related to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago — were among dozens that were closed throughout the U.S. last December.
NATIONAL EDUCATION NEWS
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today over whether the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program should continue. The key question isn’t about the program’s merits but whether the Trump administration two years ago tried to end it in the right way. The program allows young immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children certain protections from deportation as well as permission to work. Nearly 700,000 people, often referred to as “Dreamers,” are enrolled in the program.
The head of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents has broken decades of precedent by appointing a search committee for the next UW System president that does not include any faculty members or academic staff. The nine-member committee is the smallest in number and least diverse presidential search committee going back at least to the early 1990s.
A federal program to bolster science, mathematics and engineering at minority-serving colleges has been caught in a partisan tug of war in the Senate, where inaction and gridlock are starting to have real-world consequences. Stuck in the Senate’s morass is $255 million a year that both parties want to give historically black colleges, tribal colleges and higher education institutions that serve Hispanic students to help bolster science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — over the next two years.
Stevenson Daily Digest 