Districts strive to bridge color gap between students, teachers

A talk about the schools is what brought Yavonnda Smith into the Urbana school district about 12 years back.

The former teacher and current principal at Prairie Elementary School said she first learned about the district when now-Superintendent Preston Williams came to speak at Illinois State University, where she was in a minority teaching program.

"That's what made me look at Urbana, because I'm originally from Danville," she said. "And I haven't left since."

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