Planning for all students to return to in-person learning

•May 5, 2021•
by Ariana Cherry
NP Writer

"I am pretty proud of where we are. We are in good shape. I feel pretty confident we will continue to move in that direction,” noted Superintendent Shannon Cheek when he presented COVID-19 updates to the board during his superintendent’s report. At the time of the meeting, there were 16 students who were in quarantine and only one student in quarantine due to a positive test. No staff was in quarantine. Since August 19, the district has had only 75 positive cases among students and 21 positive cases among staff.
The district is planning on a full return with pre-COVID schedules for the next school year. This means that all of the buildings are looking at a full school day with everyone returning to in-person learning. There will be guidelines that the district may have to follow, and if there are students with health conditions who have a note from their doctor that requires them to have remote learning, then the district will make plans for that. Read More

•April 28, 2021•
The Illini Prairie CEO Board of Directors will be hosting the Illini Prairie Trade Show on Wednesday, May 12 from 5 – 7 pm in the Arcola High School Gym located in Arcola. At this event, this year’s class of high school students that were part of the Illini Prairie CEO class will be displaying and presenting on the businesses they have developed as part of this course.
“CEO” stands for Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities. It is a year-long, experientially learning based course, designed to utilize partnerships in our community to provide an overview of business processes and development. Read More

•April 28, 2021•
By Sharon Barricklow
Correspondent

They’re loud, messy and everywhere in 2021. Periodical Cicadas are getting ready to emerge from their 17-year embryo sleep, molt, mate, spread their wings and wreak havoc with outdoor activities for a three to four-week period this summer.
Periodical Cicadas, known as the 17-year cicada, are the longest living insect known in the natural world. The eggs are buried in the ground and take almost two decades to reach maturity before emerging and wreaking havoc during their short lives. Also known as Brood X – for Roman numeral 10, the bugs are native to areas with large plains, largely in the eastern half of the United States. In Illinois, Shelby County sits almost on the dividing line between Brood X, more common to Northern Illinois and the 13-year Cicada, known for populating the southern part of the state. The Chicago Botanical Garden says Brood X are not found anywhere else in the world. Read More

•April 28, 2021•
Illinois Farm Bureau will be the financial sponsor of this year’s Illinois Press Foundation mini-grants program that assists existing media programs at public and private high schools throughout the state.
Selected schools receive grants of up to $1,500 from the Illinois Press Foundation to pay for a computer, software or other equipment needed for a high school’s student media program to produce print or online newspapers. School media programs will be receiving application information Monday, with requests due on or before May 14. Funds or equipment will be received in September. Read More

Photo by Crystal Reed
Macie Fleshner uses a compass to measure on her corn hole board project during Sheri Bruyn’s calculus class at Okaw Valley High School. Bruyn was one of two teachers in the area to receive a grant from the Illinois Retired Teachers Foundation.

•April 14, 2021•
By Crystal Reed
NP Writer

Sheri Bruyn’s students are taking what they have learned in her math classroom and using it to build cornhole boards and bags in the shop at the high school. The creation of the bean bag toss game utilizes several math concepts.
Pythagorean’s theorem is used to make the board a perfect rectangle, surface area is used to calculate the amount of paint needed and volume is used for the cornhole bags which are filled with corn. Another math concept, a quadratic function, will be used to record the path of the bags when they are thrown. Students will measure the height and distance the bags travel, transfer it to a graph and then find the quadratic equation relating to the bag’s path. Read More