Illinois’ community colleges see nearly 9% spike in spring enrollment

Spring enrollment tops 285,000, marking third straight year of growth

By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com

SPRINGFIELD — Enrollment at Illinois community colleges grew to more than 285,000 in the spring semester this year, an 8.9% increase over a year ago and the largest spring-to-spring enrollment increase since the Illinois Community College Board began collecting systemwide data in the late 1990s.

In a report released Tuesday, the ICCB said 40 of the state’s 45 community colleges reported enrollment growth this spring. 

There was significant growth in several enrollment categories, including a nearly 20% increase in students enrolled in dual credit programs, which allow high school students to earn college credits. But there was an even greater increase, 23.4%, in students seeking general associate’s degree programs.

“With the largest spring-to-spring enrollment increase and the third straight year of growth, our community colleges have not only bounced back from the pandemic — they are now stronger than ever thanks to our historic investments in education,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement. 

Since Fiscal Year 2019, the year Pritzker came into office, state funding for the Monetary Award Program, also known as MAP grants, the state’s need-based financial aid program, has increased 77%, to just over $710 million. 

During that time, Illinois has been able to increase both the number of grants it awards each year to more than 151,000 this year, as well as the maximum grant amount, which now stands at $8,604.

For Fiscal Year 2026, which begins July 1, Pritzker has proposed another $10 million increase in MAP grants, bringing the total to $721.6 million.

Martin Torres, Pritzker’s deputy governor for education policy, said in an interview that increased funding for financial aid has made higher education in Illinois more accessible to moderate-income students, especially those who choose to attend a community college.

“If you're at a community college, combined with the (federal) Pell grant and the MAP, the vast majority, nearly every single student who's at or below median income level can go for free in terms of tuition and fees,” he said in an interview.

Illinois community colleges also saw year-over-year enrollment increases in the fall semester. ICCB reported in October the total headcount enrollment had grown to 265,227, up 7.4% from the previous fall. That was also a higher growth rate than the state’s public universities, which saw only a 2% increase in undergraduate enrollment over that same period, according to the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

In his budget address to the General Assembly in February, Pritzker also proposed giving community colleges a larger role in the state’s higher education system by allowing them to offer four-year bachelor’s degrees in high-demand career fields in their local areas. He said that is intended to make four-year programs more accessible to people who don’t live in or near cities with major universities.

Read more: Pritzker to call for expansion of 4-year degree offerings at some community colleges

Torres said he expects that legislation to come up soon in the General Assembly, possibly as early as this week. 

“The community colleges who pursue this, if the General Assembly creates this authority, will have to go through the same accreditation process as four-year institutions,” Torres said. “And so from a quality standpoint, students will be able to expect the same level of quality, and the instructors will be required to be trained in the same way.”


Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 


The spring 2025 enrollment report shows enrollment at community colleges in Illinois grew at a record pace compared to a year ago. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Campbell)

Proposal stalls to strengthen law mandating foster kids move placements with luggage, not trash bags

Advocates urge child welfare agency to ensure full compliance with existing law

By ERIN DRUMM
Medill Illinois News Bureau
news@capitolnewsillinois.com

SPRINGFIELD — Four years ago, the General Assembly unanimously approved a law aimed at ending a routine indignity faced by foster children who, lacking luggage of their own, sometimes moved from home to home with their belongings in a trash bag. 

As a result, the Department of Children and Family Services was required to “ensure” that children being removed from their homes or placed in a new foster care setting have “appropriate baggage and other items,” according to the law. While follow-up legislation to strengthen the law has flagged in recent years, a pair of Democratic lawmakers earlier this session introduced a bill to strengthen the law — and a formalized process for keeping track of times when DCFS falls short. 

The legislation, House Bill 10, would add the luggage mandate to the Illinois Foster Child and Youth Bill of Rights and require DCFS to purchase luggage the agency can’t otherwise provide through donations from nonprofits or grants. It would also clarify that once a foster child has been given luggage, it belongs to him or her and the agency can’t reclaim it.

The bill would also require DCFS to record and report instances where the agency failed to provide the luggage and to file an annual report providing an explanation for the times a trash bag was used to move the belongings of a foster child. 

But HB 10 isn’t moving forward this year. Its sponsor, Rep. Margaret Croke, D-Chicago, said after she filed the legislation, DCFS informed her that the agency was largely in compliance with the 2021 law. Croke said she and advocates want to keep a focus on the agency to ensure full compliance. 

“These bills are supposed to be conversation starters,” she said. “It’s a problem that the department knows that I’m now paying attention to. And if it persists, then we’re going to have to figure out some different ways of solving it.” 

There are more than 18,000 youth in Illinois’ foster care system. While roughly half of them live with extended family, others are placed in a variety of foster settings over the course of their time in the system, requiring numerous disruptive moves. Even before lawmakers took up the 2021 law, several nonprofits had begun filling the gap, collecting secondhand backpacks, luggage and cash donations for those items to distribute to DCFS.

250313 Foster Luggage - Illinois Youth in Care by County – Erin Drumm - ED Flourish

“At the end of the day, DCFS is responsible for everything that happens to a child, for making sure the child is safe, for making sure the child has an appropriate placement, for making sure that the child isn’t treated like garbage by giving them garbage bags for their possessions,” said Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, who represents several thousand children in abuse and neglect cases.

Foster children owning their luggage would be a seemingly small change but a powerful one, said Richard Blackmon, director of education and pathways at Court Appointed Special Advocates of Cook County. CASA supports court-appointed volunteer advocacy for children who have been neglected or abused. 

“Some baggage that young people in care have is emotional, mental and psychological,” Blackmon said. “Just having the security of knowing that ‘I have a place to keep my clothes, I have a place to keep my personal hygiene items’ — which is what we use luggage for — could make that burden of the transfer of placements a lot easier and a lot less complicated.” 

DCFS said it currently provides children entering their care or switching placements with a duffle bag that they can keep — abiding by key provisions of the current law. But supporters of HB 10 said the legislation was necessary to inform children of their rights and gain a fuller accounting of how DCFS has responded to the existing mandate.

250319 Foster Care Luggage provided.jpg

The agency already records court-approved transportation of a child as a “significant event,” which requires a special report, but it does not record whether the child has luggage.

Golbert said he was unaware of any children currently using trash bags as luggage in Cook County but emphasized the importance of recordkeeping.

“Unless you add on reporting and record keeping requirements, it’s often not clear whether it’s actually being complied with or not,” he said. 

The 2021 law requiring DCFS to “ensure” foster children had “appropriate baggage” during a move from one placement to another amended a part of existing state law aimed at maintaining “normalcy” for youth in care, including stipulating that kids are entitled to participate in extracurricular activities. But advocates say HB 10’s addition of a luggage mandate to the Illinois Foster Child and Youth Bill of Rights would have been extra meaningful.

“Putting the right to have appropriate luggage whenever moving on the Youth Bill of Rights is going to make sure that not only are the workers reviewing this every year with every child, so the worker is aware that they need to prioritize this need, but that the caregivers are aware as well,” said Madalyn Steege, program supervisor at Brightpoint, a children’s home and aid organization serving Illinois. 

Brightpoint’s foster care services provide case management and support for families in an effort to move towards reunification. The bill of rights is reviewed with a child when they move to a new home or, if they remain in the same home, on an annual basis, Steege said.  

“Every time that we can put a piece of information in kids’ hands about what they’re entitled to demand, I think that’s a very important thing to do,” said Heidi Dalenberg of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “We need to empower kids to ask for things that they’re not getting that they are supposed to get.”

The ACLU has a long history of pressing for reforms at DCFS; Dalenberg is director of the ACLU’s Institutional Reform Program Project, which seeks systemic change at the agency. 

Blackmon recalled instances where foster children have arrived at CASA using “trash bags, milk crates, anything they can really get their hands on, particularly depending on the type of circumstances being moved from” to carry their belongings. CASA then provides them with luggage.

“These young people need the same thing that I would provide for my children,” Blackmon said. “If all of my children have suitcases and luggage in case we have to move, or in case we go on a trip, or in case we change our location, why do we expect anything less for children in state care?” 


Erin Drumm is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois. 

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

Per a 2021 law, the Department of Children and Family Services is required to “ensure” foster children have “appropriate baggage” during a move from one placement to another – instead of moving their belongings in trash bags or pillowcases. Though the agency is not in perfect compliance, DCFS now gives out duffel bags like this one in addition to donated luggage and backpacks collected by nonprofits. (Photo provided by DCFS)

Illinois lawmakers pursue restrictions on search warrants after botched raid in Chicago

Illinois lawmakers pursue restrictions on search warrants after botched raid in Chicago

Bill would ban ‘no-knock’ warrants, restrict times warrants could be served

By BEN SZALINSKI
Capitol News Illinois
bszalinski@capitolnewsillinois.com 

SPRINGFIELD — Chicago police executed a search warrant at the wrong address more than six years ago that left social worker Anjanette Young handcuffed and naked in her home as she was getting ready for bed. 

An Illinois House committee on Tuesday moved to overhaul how Illinois police officers execute search warrants in response to the botched 2019 raid at Young’s home, which includes banning what’s often called “no-knock” warrants. 

“What happened to her did not need to happen, and in fact, should never happen again,” bill sponsor Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, said. “Situations like this don’t just erode public trust, they also increase the danger to officers who are entering an unknown environment without reliable intelligence. That unpredictability puts them at a great risk of confrontation or injury.”

The House Judiciary- Criminal Committee voted 8-5 to pass House Bill 1611, but lawmakers in both parties expressed concerns about the logistics of implementing the new limitations. 

Under the proposed law, police must knock, announce themselves and allow a person at least 30 seconds to answer the door when executing a warrant at a residence. Entering a home without police announcing themselves or waiting 30 seconds for an answer would only be permitted in emergency situations to prevent injury or other harm others.

However, judges can sign off on an exemption to allow “no-knock” warrants if law enforcement successfully presents evidence that announcing themselves at the door would jeopardize a person’s life or evidence in the case. 

The 2020 death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville set off national calls to ban “no-knock” warrants. Taylor was killed during an exchange of gunfire between police and Taylor’s boyfriend.

“It is long past time to stop protecting bad policing and start protecting the people who you are paid to protect and serve,” Young said.

Police would also be required to execute residential warrants between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., unless they can convince a judge to approve the warrant for another time of day. Police would be required to be uniformed or be wearing a badge and have body cameras recording. 

Rep. Dennis Tipsword, R-Metamora, who is also chief deputy of the Woodford County Sheriff’s Office, said he worried the 30-second rule and limiting warrants to certain hours of the day when more people are around could pose safety hazards to police and the public. He stressed nighttime or early morning raids give police more secrecy and preserves the element of surprise. 

“I don't think we can put a time frame on law enforcement officers standing on the front porch and what could be a very dangerous situation,” Tipsword said. 

Other new requirements would including having paramedics close to respond to medical issues, prohibiting police from pointing guns at minors and a ban on handcuffing parents or guardians in front of children unless they are an “immediate threat.” 

The bill would also limit when police can obtain search warrants for drug-related offenses. Residential warrants could only be executed for manufacturing, sale or distribution of narcotics, not drug possession. 

Warrants would also have to be executed by a trained tactical team in counties with 90,000 or more people.

“This is not about tying hands and I really do believe that,” Buckner said. 

VIDEO

Young was captured on Chicago police officers’ body cameras surprised as officers entered her home in early 2019 to carry out a search warrant looking for a man with a gun. The footage shows police approaching her door and knocking and announcing themselves before forcing their way into the house. Young was handcuffed while naked as she had been getting ready for bed, but officers had entered the wrong house and she was eventually released.

“None of us who wear the badge ever want to hear a story like this,” Tipsword said. “I think we're all interested in tightening this so these situations don't happen.”

The Chicago Police Department sergeant who oversaw the raid was later fired, and Young reached a $2.9 million settlement with the city. 

“Money cannot erase the case,” Young said. “A check cannot restore our dignity. Let me be clear, we don't want the money, we never wanted the money. We want to feel safe in our homes. We want to trust that law enforcement will do their jobs without violating our rights.”

Young has pushed CPD to make more reforms to their warrant policies, but the Chicago City Council has not taken up an ordinance championed by Young and Ald. Maria Hadden. 

“It shouldn’t take six years for them to stand up and put some real policy in place that prevents police from harming black and brown communities,” Young said at a Capitol news conference Tuesday.

The Illinois State Rifle Association, normally a conservative advocacy organization, also supports the bill. Association lobbyist Ed Sullivan told the committee banning “no-knock” warrants will improve safety between armed residents and police.

“What happens if they don’t hear that this is law enforcement?” Sullivan said. 

Buckner said he expects to make further changes to the bill to address concerns police have presented before the House takes a vote on the legislation. 


Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 


Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, right, presents a bill in the House Judiciary- Criminal Committee on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, alongside Anjanette Young. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Ben Szalinski)

Cell phone ban legislation clears Senate committee

Advocates say bans are shown to improve school climate

By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com

SPRINGFIELD – Legislation that would prohibit public school students from using cell phones and other wireless communication devices during class time cleared a Senate committee Tuesday and could soon be considered by the full Senate.

It’s a policy change that Gov. JB Pritzker called for in his State of the State address in February and one that has been gaining popularity in recent years throughout the United States.

According to the health policy website KFF.org, at least nine other states have adopted statewide policies limiting or banning the use of cell phones in schools. Elsewhere, even in the absence of a statewide policy, individual districts have begun acting on their own, including Peoria Public Schools, which implemented its own ban this year.

“This policy has proven effective in reducing distractions, enhancing student focus and better fostering social interaction,” Peoria Superintendent Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat told the committee. “Our data indicates it has also contributed to reducing reduction in bullying and physical fighting, thus creating a safer environment for students.”

Read more: Pritzker wants Illinois to be latest state to ban cellphones in classroom

Senate Bill 2427, sponsored by Sen. Christina Castro, D-Elgin, would require all school boards to adopt policies prohibiting the use of wireless communication devices during instructional time. That would include any wireless device such as cell phones, laptops, tablets and gaming devices that can provide voice, messaging or other data communication between two or more parties.

However, it would not include school-issued devices or devices that students are required to possess or use for educational purposes.

The district policies would, at a minimum, prohibit the use of those devices during instructional time. But the policies would also have to allow exceptions that allow students to use them during emergencies or in response to an imminent threat to someone’s health or safety. 

The policies must also provide exceptions if the devices are needed as part of an individual educational plan for a student with disabilities, or if they are needed for medical care.

The new policies would have to be in place in time for the 2026-27 academic year.

Castro said she’s aware that some districts have already adopted policies that are stricter than the standards set forth in the bill, while other districts have not yet adopted any type of limitation on cell phone use.

“This is a floor,” she said. “So if school districts want to get more aggressive, like saying they don't want elementary school students to have cell phones, they can. But again, this is the floor. The reason this policy is coming forward is because not everyone's been creating this policy. This sets a standard that all school districts have to follow.”


Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 


Sen. Christina Castro, right, and Samir Tanna, deputy legislative director for Gov. JB Pritzker, testify before a Senate committee Tuesday on a bill that would require all school districts in Illinois to adopt policies restricting cell phone use in classrooms. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter Hancock)

Traffic stop leads to arrest of Oakland City man

On March 17, 2025, at 8:17 p.m. Gibson County Deputy Wes Baumgart conducted a traffic stop on a White 2000 Chevy Blazer after witnessing an equipment violation while on State Road 57 near County Road 350 South.  Upon approaching the vehicle Deputy Baumgart identified the driver as 34 year old Colton Doerner of Oakland City.  During a roadside investigation illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia were discovered.  At the conclusion of the investigation Deputy Baumgart placed Mr. Doerner into custody and transported him to the Gibson County Jail.  Upon arriving at the jail Mr. Doerner was charged with Possession of Methamphetamines, Possession of Paraphernalia, and Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated.
 
Deputy Baumgart was assisted in his investigation by Deputies Eric Powell and Shawn Holmes.  Also assisting in the investigation was Oakland City Officer John Pace.
 
All criminal defendants are to be presumed innocent until, and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

City Council Considers 1% Sales Tax Instead Of Property Tax Hike To Pay For Pool

It looks like Mt. Carmel property owners won’t be paying higher real estate taxes for the new city pool after all. Last year, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker eliminated the state’s 1% grocery tax that had been returned to municipalities. The Governor gave cities the right to not only reinstitute the tax on groceries but all other goods as well.

At their regular meeting yesterday, the city council heard the first reading of an ordinance that would place a 1% sales tax on everything sold in the corporate limits of Mt. Carmel with the exception of gas and vehicles. Mayor Joe Judge said the trade off for the new tax is one property owners will like…

JOE JUDGE SALES TAX #1 3 17 25

The additional 1% will bring Mt. Carmel’s sales tax to 8.25%, which Judge said is still lower than many in southern Illinois including Olney and Harrisburg where the rate is 8.75%; Carbondale’s is 11.75%; Marion and Benton are at 9.5%; and Grayville is also at 8.25%.

The mayor said the city will soon benefit from increased sales tax receipts with the opening of the new cannabis outlet this Spring in Mt. Carmel.

The council is expected to hear the second reading of the ordinance and adopt it at their next meeting in two weeks.