Daywatch: An unprecedented look into Madigan’s power

Good morning, Chicago.

Two years ago, at the urging of her teenage daughter, clinical psychologist Donna Marino ran for school board in far west suburban Oswego, thinking her background in mental health could help students recover from the isolation, stress and trauma brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken to slow its spread.

But less than a year after winning election and being selected by her peers to chair the board, Marino abruptly quit. She said she feared for her and her family’s mental and physical health following threats from some parents opposed to the district’s continued masking mandates as well as how culture, race and sex education were being addressed in the classroom and in books in Oswego’s elementary and high schools.

“I was excited to be able to contribute that mental health lens after all our children have been through. I wanted to be a catalyst for rebuilding our community and crossing that divide. I had high hopes. But I underestimated the severity of that fracture,” Marino wrote in her resignation letter when she stepped down from the board of Oswego Community Unit School District 308, recounting how she’d been called a “coward,” “F----n scum,” a “low IQ knuckle dragger and worse.”

Marino’s experience reflects how, at one of the most divided times in recent history, school boards across the country have become targets of both the ire and political ambitions of conservatives and far-right groups as they argue schools have been overtaken by teachers unions and other forces pushing liberal agendas.

And the Chicago suburbs have become a key battleground.

Read the full story by Dan Petrella and Rick Pearson.

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An ISU student created a media platform by and about people of color to fill a void in campus journalism

It was sickle cell anemia that brought Chicago-born, Detroit-raised Tiffani Jackson to Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal in 2017. Having endured some attacks, called pain crises, while attending Grambling State University, she made the decision to move closer to home.

With that, Louisiana lost a music technology major but Illinois gained a journalism major, a change in focus prompted by her professors’ suggestions. Jackson parlayed the new focus into creating Onyx Connect, a media source for the diverse population on and around campus.

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