Teacher’s Lounge Podcast: Some of Our Best Education Stories of 2023

Between 12:40-22:43 of this 55-minute Teacher’s Lounge Podcast, Peter Medlin highlights access and systems issues in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), including findings from the Birth to Five Illinois Early Childhood Regional Needs Assessments and interviews with our Region 8 Council Manager, Lou Ann Hayes, our Region 4 Council Manager, Livia Bane, and a Region 8 Family Council Member, Lauren Dick.

Original coverage by Peter Medlin for Northern Public Radio.

As we wind down the year, we’ve already shared our favorite conversations of 2023, but Teachers’ Lounge is even more than the interviews we have with educators you nominate.

This show is also a platform for the in-depth education reporting we produce at WNIJ.

And when we ask you for nominations – we also always ask for you to send story ideas to teacherslounge@niu.edu. And you do! You’ve sent in topics and stories, things happening in your school or maybe your child’s school that you think people should know about. We’ve covered a lot of those story ideas here on the show!

So, today we’re going to revisit a few of the stories from Teachers’ Lounge that stuck out to us this year. Some of them are very serious, some are uplifting or even fun. But I think they’re all important.

Let’s get into it and then we will be back with brand-new episodes of Teachers’ Lounge in 2024!