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D-428 to spend $1.5M on upgrades District to enhance technology, launch new program By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com DeKALB – DeKalb School District 428 will spend nearly $1.5 million to upgrade technology across the district and to launch a pilot program that would give some students computers. District 428 board members unanimously approved Tuesday spending $938,051 to upgrade the district’s technology infrastructure to prepare
for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers assessment. They also approved $548,035 to be spent on a pilot one-toone technology program, an initiative that would give every student a computer they would also take home at night. The upgrades will be funded with the $21 million construction grant the district received. Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Student
Services Doug Moeller said the upgrades will better align the classroom with the digital world students experience outside of school. “They are digital natives and the only place they don’t have access to technology is in the classroom,” Moeller said. The pilot one-to-one technology program would give every eighth grade and Lincoln Elementary School student a mobile technology de-
vice. District officials will buy 550 Chromebooks for eight grade students, but have yet to decide what the 350 devices for elementary students will be. As part of the projects, the district will upgrade its online network, bandwidth, and power supply to ensure masses of students can be online simultaneously without the network crashing, which will be essential when the school administers the PARCC assess-
Russia, West try to hammer out Ukraine diplomacy By LARA JAKES and MARIA DANILOVA The Associated Press PARIS – The United States and Western diplomats failed to bring Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers together Wednesday for faceto-face talks on the confrontation in Crimea, even as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voiced optimism that an exit strategy was possible. “I’d rather be where we are today than where we were yesterday,” he said. The flurry of diplomatic activity came as NATO punished Russia by suspending military cooperation, and the European Union extended $15 billion in aid to Ukraine, matching the amount the country’s fugitive president accepted from Moscow to turn his back on an EU trade accord. After an intense round of diplomacy with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and several European counterparts in Paris, Kerry said the meetings were “very constructive, without promising something that is not defined yet, without raising hopes that are inappropriate to raise.” “I want to be realistic. This is hard, tough stuff, and a very serious moment,” Kerry said. “I personally feel that I have something concrete to take back and talk to President Obama about,” he added, without specifying what that was. Speaking separately after what he called “a very long day” of discussions on Ukraine, Lavrov said the sides agreed to continue talks in coming days “about how we can help in efforts to normalize the situation and overcome the crisis.” Still, there was no direct meeting between Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart,
Andriy Deshchytsia, though the Ukrainian foreign minister said Kerry asked him to delay his flight home in hopes of getting the two to sit down together. In an interview with The Associated Press, Deshchytsia said he had hoped to brief Lavrov on a Ukrainian plan to offer Crimea more autonomy while still claiming it within the country’s borders. Any vote taken toward autonomy would require international observers to replace armed groups in order to work, he said. “Our position is to use all the peaceful means, all the diplomatic ways to settle the issue without victims and tragedy – and without taking territory away,” Deshchytsia said. “We don’t want war with Russia.” But Lavrov was not ready to meet. Leaving the French Foreign Ministry, he was asked by reporters if he had met with his Ukrainian counterpart. “Who is it?” Lavrov answered. “I didn’t see anybody.” At a news conference at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, Kerry played down the failure, saying there had been “zero expectation” of that, though U.S. officials said that is still the goal. Kerry also repeated the West’s demand that Russia pull its forces from the Crimean Peninsula, saying “Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity has actually united the world in support of the Ukrainian people.” Ukraine’s prime minister told the AP in his first interview since taking office that he still feared Russian President Vladimir Putin might attempt more land grabs: “Mr. President,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk said, “stop this mess.”
ment next year on computers. Moeller added the effects of the network and bandwidth changes will reach into daily instruction. “It’s also essential to planning and reliability,” Moeller said. “If a teacher plans for something on computers, they need to rely on the network not going down.” The success of the oneto-one technology program could effect whether the district proceeds with the re-
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See UPGRADES, page A4
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Jaelyn Paulsen (left) and partner Darla Cook of DeKalb are hoping to get legally married by their civil union anniversary date of March 17.
County clerk: Marriage licenses on hold until June 1 By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com SYCAMORE – Darla Cook wants to marry her partner, Jaelyn Paulsen, on March 17. The DeKalb resident believed her marriage could happen after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan issued a letter Tuesday encouraging county clerks across Illinois to start issuing marriage licenses to samesex couples immediately. But unless something changes, Darla and Jaelyn won’t be married before June 1 in DeKalb County. DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder Doug Johnson will not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples until June 1 unless a court orders it or the law changes, despite Madigan’s opinion and legal advice from DeKalb
County State’s Attorney Richard Schmack. Schmack told Johnson on Friday that refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples opens him to a lawsuit he can’t win. “I need a judge to tell me what to do in cases like this,” Johnson said. “If I lose, I have guidance from the court, which I think would add validity to the marriage license.” In a memo Schmack wrote Friday, he advised Johnson his office couldn’t defend a lawsuit claiming Johnson violated a same-sex couple’s 14th Amendment rights by denying them a marriage license before the state’s same-sex marriage law takes effect June 1. “... There would be no defense to a legal challenge, on Equal Protection grounds, to continued enforcement of the laws banning same-sex mar-
riage,” Schmack wrote in a memo to Johnson. Cook and Champaign counties started issuing the licenses once federal Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman determined Illinois’ original ban was unconstitutional in the Lee vs. Orr ruling. Coleman said her decision applied only to Cook County, but officials in Champaign and Grundy counties have decided to follow suit. The ruling only applied to Cook County, but Madigan told Macon County Clerk Stephen Bean on Tuesday that because current restrictions on gay marriage are unconstitutional, same-sex couples asking for a marriage license in any county can be given one. “Even though the ruling in Lee is
See MARRIAGE, page 4
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mainder of the technology upgrades. District officials approved spending $462,000 so the district has one computer lab for every 200 students, a computer to student ratio PARCC official recommend. However, if the one-to-one technology program shows measurable success, the district would not need to add computer labs because it would instead implement the program districtwide, Moeller said. Board member Cohen Barnes echoed Moeller’s
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