Certified strength and conditioning coaches bring athletic and legal benefits Strength and conditioning—or what some call strength training—continues to gain in popularity at high schools and colleges. Recent studies have confirmed its importance in long-term fitness and health, including strengthening bones, muscles, and tendons, as well as decreasing the likelihood of injury. Federal guidelines recommend […]
Traditionally, many school districts have focused on learning, testing, and meeting educational standards to prepare their students for college. Schools have cut many practical programs like shop class, which build valuable skills and work experience, and replaced them with advanced academic courses like AP Calculus. Many forward-thinking educators, however, are now renewing interest in helping […]
Stacey McNinch-Curschman, the secondary curriculum director for Visalia USD in California, knew that as her district was ramping up its training efforts around Common Core standards for mathematics in 2013, as well as its own district-level curriculum changes, both administrators and teachers would need to be continually learning and improving themselves. "If we work effectively […]
Champaign Unit 4 School District in Illinois wanted to give its teachers a very clear pathway to evolve their math instruction to meet rigorous, Common Core state standards. District leaders were very happy with earlier results from McGraw-Hill's Everyday Mathematics and saw Everyday Mathematics 4, its latest iteration, as an enticing solution, especially in teaching […]
District Administration welcomed education policy expert Robert Balfanz for this web seminar about what the last 10 years of research has found when it comes to improving the most challenged and lowest-performing schools, as well as the implications of the Trump administration and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on these efforts. Balfanz is research professor […]
Journalism classes at Junction City High School in Kansas—100 miles west of Kansas City—use the short-lived social media app Snapchat to learn long-lived lessons of storytelling. The students in those classes use "snaps"—which are either pictures or 10-second videos taken with their smartphones that are saved for 24 hours—to report on Geary County Schools' events […]
Seeking alternatives to expensive professional development that takes teachers out of their classrooms and requires substitutes, Madison County Public Schools in Virginia developed a solution. Teachers want relevant professional development to be available when they have time. They want choice and immediate feedback. The district needs effective PD that is incorporated into classrooms. As director […]
Educators want more effective ways to implement new teaching methods into lesson plans. The professional development market is advancing, offering flexible and sustainable solutions rather than one-off workshops, lectures and in-service programs. Many companies offer PD tools that show teachers how to embed lessons into learning management systems, so students have universal access to educational […]
Editor's note: DA's new security column will appear quarterly. The world of security can be daunting. Security tools and technologies are often expensive, and school leaders are not typically trained to know what will offer their institutions the greatest benefit. It is essential for schools to maximize safety and security, and the best way to […]
Pre-K programs for students with special needs vary widely in quality and scope. Some states and districts have long included students with special needs in pre-K classes alongside their more typically developing peers.
