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Saturday, February 22, 2014
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The snowiest winter ever Will March come in like a lion or a lamb? By Donna Barker dbarker@bcrnews.com
PRINCETON — From one extreme to another … Mother Nature appears to be somewhat temperamental.
The Quad Cities area, including Bureau County, has recorded its snowiest winter on record but saw temperatures this week near 50 degrees, creating lots of melting snow and potential flooding.
On top of that, there was rain with thunder and lightning. To make things even more unpredictable, the weather turns colder again this weekend, with a chance of some light snowfall on Monday. Mother Nature apparently can’t make up her mind.
On Thursday, WQAD meteorologist James Zahara said the whole Midwest has experienced a grab bag of weather this week, with blizzard conditions to the northwest of the Quad Cites and the potential for severe weather off to the southeast. Though those
extremes were missed by the Quad Cities area, the entire area was still hit with a lot of rain, thunder and lightning. “At least this weekend, we finally break the six-weekend streak of recorded snowfall with no worse than passing flurries on Saturday,”
Zahara said. “But that may change later Monday with some light snowfall expected as the coldest of the air arrives early next week with highs in the teens and lows in the single digits.”
See Winter Page 4
Hall talks curriculum Building progress is on schedule By Becky Kramer news@bcrnews.com
SPRING VALLEY — Curriculum changes are coming to Hall High School. Science teachers Nicky Barto, Rob Malerk and Bettianne Harrison presented information to the board about the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) also known as Common Core Science to the Hall High School Board on Wednesday evening. Barto explained the standards were adopted in the summer of 2013 and are performance standards for all students. The Next Generation Science Standards cover the areas of life science, physical science, earth and space science, plus engineering and technology. The NGSS are aligned to the Common Core State Standards. When students are learning about science, they are also enhancing their skills in reading, writing and math. The science department has recently visited two schools to get ideas for their new science rooms and STEM Lab, but as a result, they decided it was time to align the science curriculum at Hall High School to the new standards. “We are designing rooms to last 50-60 years in the new building, and we decided to update our curriculum as well,” Barto said.
See Hall Page 4
BCR photos/Daniel Acker
A river ‘usually’ runs through it Water rushes through a resident’s backyard in Tiskilwa on Thursday morning after melting snow and ice cause a small creek to overflow its banks. A portion of the house spans the creek and typically sits about 5 feet above the water. During the past few weeks, this portion of the creek had slowly filled to within 1 foot of the house with ice. The creek is outside its banks on the south side of town as it runs along Arch Street to where the photographed house sits on the corner of Arch and Main streets. As the creek flows north, there weren’t any other flooding problems.
What’s the safest route to school? SVE and SV Council have differing opinions By Goldie Currie gcurrie@bcrnews.com
SPRING VALLEY — The Spring Valley Elementary School Board and Spring Valley City Council are still at a disagreement on where a new traffic signal light and pedestrian crossing should be placed in the downtown area.
While the city would like the Safe Routes to School Grant to be applied at the intersection of Dakota and Strong streets, the school board has concerns about the intersection being too traffic heavy with the future supermarket and other businesses near the location. The board believes a safer location for the traffic signal would be at the intersec-
tion of Dakota and Richards streets or Dakota and Taylor streets. Currently, the school tries to route students to cross at Richards Street. With the grant, the city would receive funding from Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) for the construction of sidewalks from the school to the intersection, a traffic light and the city would provide a crossing guard for the students.
See Routes Page 4
For breaking news, sports and current weather conditions, go to bcrnews.com Year 168 No. 23 One Section - 20 Pages
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