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6 -9
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D-428 weighs technology options decision during the meeting, Superintendent Doug Moeller told board members he would like a decision by mid-March. “It’s the right thing to do for our kids,” Moeller said. For about $4.5 million over ing Tuesday, school district By KATIE DAHLSTROM the next three years, the diskdahlstrom@shawmedia.com administrators laid out four trict could roll out a one-tooptions for the district to add DeKALB – DeKalb School thousands of new devices or one technology program districtwide. District 428 leaders are grapcomputers as a means for imRolling out the same effort pling with how to add more technology to the district in a proving the district’s curricu- over four years would cost way that will benefit the stu- lum and handling state man- only slightly more, according dated testing. to information from Assistant dents and protect the budget. During the board meetWhile they didn’t make a Superintendent of Business
Costs, benefits of 4 proposals discussed by school board
trict could add several computer carts that could be wheeled to different classrooms. School leaders cautioned those computers used in the cart system Doug Moeller need to be replaced more often. DeKalb School District 428 A final option including superintendent adding several computer labs, which would push the district to open a new school because and Finance Andrea Gorla. In of space. The last option would a one-to-one technology pro- cost $8.2 million, Gorla said. gram, students would use their All of the options leave the devices during the school day district with more than $2 and take them home at night. million in deficits every year Or, for $3.1 million, the dis- through 2020, although staff
“It’s the right thing to do for the kids.”
said those projections could shift. The district spent nearly $1.5 million on a pilot one-toone technology program at Lincoln Elementary School and eighth grade in Clinton Rosette and Huntley middle schools in fall 2014. Teachers and students report those pilots are going well, although the lack of hard data concerned board member Tom Matya. He also questioned if the
See D-428, page A5
Immigration plans on hold after ruling White House vowing to appeal judge’s order By ERICA WERNER and JIM KUHNHENN The Associated Press
Photos by Danielle Guerra – dguerra@shawmedia.com
Genoa-Kingston fan Patricia Leffelman, 77, stands and waves her blue and orange pompom as the Genoa-Kingston varsity boys basketball team takes the floor for warm-ups Friday before playing Rockford Lutheran in Genoa. Leffelman was nominated as runner-up by the senior class for “most school spirit.”
Cog wild cheers Genoa-Kingston high-schoolers vote grandma runner-up for ‘most spirited’ By KATIE DAHLSTROM
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kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com GENOA – Give her a “G,” give her a “K,” but don’t give Patricia Leffelman any guff about her shouting. At 77, Leffelman’s hollers and shouts are regarded as regular sounds of home games for Genoa-Kingston High School athletics, regardless of the sport. Her frenzied cheers from the front row of the bleachers have made Leffelman a super senior in more ways than one. “I just love everybody,” Leffelman said. “I just cheer for them all. If they make the basket, get the touchdown or score the goal. I just scream and holler.” Her enthusiasm is so widely recognized that 60 years after she graduated from Genoa-Kingston High School, enough members of the senior class wrote “Megan’s grandma” on the ballot for “most school spirit” that she was
Name: Patricia Leffelman Age: 77
Hometown: Genoa Favorite sport: “I love them all.” Inspiration: Her father, Ole Kline, who was the captain of the Kirkland basketball team in the 1920s.
Genoa-Kingston senior Megan McCausland (left) and her grandmother Patricia Leffelman, 77, take a break from cheering Friday during halftime of the Genoa-Kingston varsity boys basketball game against Rockford Lutheran in Genoa. the runner-up. She shares the title with her granddaughter, Megan McCausland, and senior Marcus Holley and re-enacted her spirited display for a yearbook photo with those two. “I was shocked and honored,” Leffelman said. “I
didn’t expect it, but I do go to a lot of the different games.” A lot of different games, indeed. After more than a decade – about four of them holding down the front row of spectator sections at basketball, baseball, football, soccer and softball games – Leffel-
man’s game count is likely in the hundreds. Sporting a Cogs shirt, Leffelman throws her arms in the air and wails a hearty, “Woo.” Sometimes McCausland, 18, or McCausland’s mother, Susan, attend the games with her. Other times, Leffelman is a one-woman shouting machine. Her enthusiasm has garnered the occasional glare, but mostly Leffelman tries to be courteously spirited. Courtesy does have its limits, however. Leffelman employed the timid golf clap
See GRANDMA, page A5
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration put its new deportation-relief program on hold Tuesday on the eve of its launch, complying reluctantly with a federal judge’s order that roiled immigrant communities nationwide and seemed to harden an already-tense stalemate on Capitol Hill. President Barack Obama promised an appeal and predicted he’d prevail. But for tens of thousands of immigrants in line to begin applying Wednesday for work permits and deportation stays under his directives, their plans were canceled, at least temporarily. Talking to reporters in the Oval Office, Obama said he disagreed with the ruling by U . S . D i s t r i c t President Judge Andrew Barack Hanen of Texas Obama that the administration had exceeded its authority. But he said that, for now, he must abide by it. “We’re not going to disregard this federal court ruling,” Obama said, but he added that administration officials would continue to prepare to roll out the program. “I think the law is on our side, and history is on our side,” he said. On Capitol Hill, the Homeland Security Department stood 10 days away from losing funding, but Hanen’s ruling made a compromise on that dispute look more distant than ever. Republicans are blocking funding for the agency unless Democrats agree to cancel Obama’s immigration orders, and they seized on the ruling as validation for their position. “Congress must reassert its waning power. We must re-establish the constitutional prin-
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ciple that the people’s representatives control the purse,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a leading immigration hardliner. Yet Senate Democrats, who have been blocking a Housepassed bill that would fund the department but also undo Obama’s actions, said the ruling from Hanen did nothing to budge them. “Democrats remain united in our belief that funding for the Department of Homeland Security should not be used as a ransom by Republicans, period,” said Chuck Schumer of New York. The agency’s $40 billion budget runs out Feb. 27, and with Congress now on recess lawmakers will have only a few days to reach an agreement once they return to Washington next week. One possibility is a short-term extension of current funding levels, but House Speaker John Boehner said over the weekend that the House had done its job and he would “certainly” let a shutdown occur if the Senate didn’t act. If the political impasse seemed severe, so were the implications for millions of immigrants in the country illegally who have cheered Obama’s executive directives in the face of congressional inaction. “We feel powerless but not defeated, sure that it will all work out,” 46-year-old Claudia Ramon, a native of Colombia, said at a rally in Houston, one of dozens nationwide where immigrants and their advocates vowed to continue with preparations under Obama’s programs. Obama’s directives would make more than 4 million immigrants in the United States illegally eligible for three-year deportation stays and work permits. Mostly those are people who have been in the country for more than five years and have children who are
See IMMIGRATION, page A5
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