Rockford Public Schools

“You’re trying to intimidate,” former-board member Michael Connor said to Stange after he swung at him outside of the meeting. Now, the lawsuit alleges that the school board tried to intimidate Moore’s family to get them not to sue.

Rockford Public Schools perennially have some of the highest student mobility rates in the state. Mobility Rate is the percent of students who experience at least one transfer in or out of their school during the school year. Experts say that disruption can be really harmful.

In 2022, that was the case. RPS’ graduation rate was around 66% -- that’s more than 20% lower than the state average. It also highlights racial disparities riddled throughout the report card. Black students in Rockford have a graduation rate just above 50%.

Since 2020, school districts across the country have been using millions of federal COVID dollars to improve air flow and quality in their classrooms. WNIJ’s Peter Medlin ended up on a middle school roof finding out how districts are bringing air conditioning to students who have never had it…

This year, there have been nearly 100 gunfire incidents on school property in America. There have been at least three incidents of gun violence on school grounds just in the WNIJ listening area of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.

At Rockford Public Schools, 754 bus routes were cut during the 2021-22 school year.

“I think for a long time, not just Summit but regional programs, in general, were thought of this place we put kids we don't know how to manage. We pay a reduced rate for them to come to school and we just hope to not hear a whole lot.”

“A great many of our students that get pulled out of their home schools on an EIA, would be for having a vape on them. Pushing that kid out of school, who is often a student on track and doing well in school, to kick them out -- we're not owning their education anymore, and outsourcing it. It really doesn't do anything to repair the harm that was done," said RPS' chief of schools.

“I was so disappointed and disoriented by people's complete lack of understanding. I actually brought it up right early at the beginning of the year, and it got tucked away for the first two quarters. And when we approached nonfiction, our third quarter of research-based writing, we're going, ‘Hey, we’ve got to be a little different.’”

Several Rockford elementary schools had zero students meet proficiency marks in math.