Kelly Smits
Education and Environmental Reporter | Belleville News-DemocratKelly Smits joined the Belleville News-Democrat as a news intern in July 2023 before becoming the education and environment reporter. She recently completed a joint master’s program at Sciences Po Paris, where she studied journalism and environmental policy. Previously, she has reported for the Green Bay Press-Gazette and PolitiFact Wisconsin and freelanced for the River City Journalism Fund.
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In fiscal year 2025, the district will reduce its expenditures by about $266,000 due to staff attrition and some students not being placed in out-of-district programs. -
The lawsuit filed in St. Clair County alleges the metal plant in Sauget — formerly Big River Zinc — improperly stored chemicals, illegally dumped waste and contaminated standing water. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency referred the suit to the attorney general's office. -
Total solar eclipses occur every year or two, but it is exceedingly rare for the paths of two of them to intersect only a handful of years apart, as it has in a swath of southern Missouri and Illinois. -
A handful of Metro East schools near to, or within, the eclipse’s path of totality — the area where people can see the moon completely cover the sun — will be closed. -
The Grant District 110's school board meeting was relocated from its usual setting in the school library to accommodate the crowd. -
The Illinois State Board of Education found Grant Community Consolidated School District 110 as being in "financial difficulty" last week. The teachers' union says the superintendent should resign. -
Aviston School District 21 has asked voters to approve an increase to its educational fund tax rate three previous times. Each time, it failed by three votes or less. -
For the past two and a half years, the 90-some students of Venice Elementary have been going to a makeshift school in Granite City after their school was condemned. -
Notre Dame Academy in Belleville and St. Ann in Nashville, Illinois will both close at the end of the school year, citing declining enrollments. -
Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville will receive a $595,000 grant to be become a U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Assessment Center. -
Despite some progress in recent years, teacher diversity in Illinois continues to significantly lag the growing diversity of the student population. -
The program was founded by Brianna Morales — the young East St. Louis teacher named the 2023 Illinois Teacher of the Year last spring.
