The connections between the parents of students with special needs and a school district are often intense. The social and academic challenges are complex, the advocacy parents bring is urgent, the relationship between teacher, parent and student can bring an intimacy that goes beyond a typical school and home situation.

Yeah, I wasn't born in Forest Park. I didn't live here in the 1980s like many of you. Been thinking for years about what makes someone a "Forest Parker" because it seems to be the thing that every once in a while is used in an exclusive club sort of way, a badge of honor. 

As we get older, it gets tougher to find the right word and easier to find the wrong one. I think it's because the synopsis in our brains are not firing correctly. I exhume it's because we're losing our vocabulary.

Hunger is an issue that is very important to us. Once again we are participating as part of the planning team for the Hunger Walkathon West (Oak Park Area) CROP Walk. We would like your support.

Harlem Avenue is not exactly a calling card for either Forest Park or Oak Park. From north to south there are patches where these villages turn their hind end to the busy roadway.

I know what you're thinking: didn't the Equal Rights Amendment pass in the 1970s, back when mood rings and love beads were popular? Why are we bringing this up now? 

I can remember when April showers came in liquid form. I'm not a horticulturist but suspect that April's blizzards and snow showers are not bringing May flowers. Rather than cursing the cold, the folks at Empowering Gardens Inc. (EGI) held a heartwarming event to raise funds for the nonprofit. 

"Part of what we do in a master plan, we ask the hard questions." That's what a representative of the Perkins+Will architectural firm told a recent community meeting focused on what to do with Proviso Township High Schools' three aging and underutilized high school campuses.

Fifty years ago today when Dr. King was killed, I was an exchange student at Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Alabama — 3,000 black students plus eight of us who were white.

Trade laws and, ultimately, imposing tariffs are designed to protect American interests and jobs. That's a concept everyone can agree on.