Statewide teacher strikes and walkouts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado and Kentucky left students out of school for days while superintendents scrambled to communicate with parents, to make up missed class time and to reschedule state tests. In West Virginia, all schools in the state’s 55 districts were closed for nine days in February […]
How do you ensure students who excel at math remain engaged? Heidi Williams intended to solve that challenge by starting an after-school coding club while she was a gifted-and-talented teacher at Bayside Middle School near Milwaukee. Instead of using pen and paper, her students created an interactive children’s book on Scratch, the MIT Media Lab […]
After the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, Matthew Mayer and Shane Jimerson knew they had some work to do. Mayer, from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, and Jimerson, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, both specialize in studying school violence. “In 2006, there were several school shootings, and we […]
When Wicomico County Public Schools implemented common core state standards six years ago, complaints from parents rolled in regarding challenging homework assignments. “Parents did not understand so they couldn’t help their children” explains Julie Dill, elementary math supervisor for the 15,000-student district on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Then came Everyday Mathematics 4, a comprehensive […]
Bay Shore Union Free School District, located on the south shore of Long Island and about 50 miles east of New York City, is a small, diverse district of approximately 6,500 students and 8.9 square miles to cover with school transportation. Rich Gallagher, director of transportation and purchasing agent for Bay Shore, used Transfinder starting […]
Shawn Stover helps principals move beyond what he calls “the tyranny of the urgent.” Stover, an instructional superintendent in District of Columbia Public Schools, says it’s all too easy for principals to devote the bulk of their days to busing, athletic schedules, discipline, building maintenance and other issues that can demand immediate attention. Yet mounds […]
Donald Fennoy now leads the School District of Palm Beach County in Florida, the 10th largest district in the U.S. Fennoy has prioritized upgrading security, improving third-grade reading skills and increasing teacher pay, among other goals. He previously supervised transportation, maintenance and planning as the district’s chief operating officer. Superintendent Tiffany Anderson of Topeka Public […]
Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, made headlines for their articulate arguments for gun control after a February shooting at their school left 17 dead. Their eloquence and activism did not come as a surprise to district leaders: Broward County Public Schools operates a systemwide debate program in more than two dozen […]
When Upton High School in Wyoming switched from a traditional to a self-paced education model last year, Weston County School District Superintendent Summer Stephens’ 15-year-old daughter reacted the way many students did. “‘I don’t know how to make choices,’ she kept saying” Stephens recalls. “But now a year later, she has organized her classes and […]
