Sensory rooms not only help students with special needs feel more comfortable and empowered in the classroom, they may also keep them in their neighborhood schools, according to K12 administrators. The carefully designed rooms may include dim lights to help students who are sensitive to light, weighted blankets to give them comfort or a swing […]
More than a decade after Response-to-Intervention and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) took root on school campuses across the country, multi-tier strategies have become the standard for identifying and assisting struggling students. Yet, the way educators use these and similar systems continues to evolve. Educators now understand far more about the neuroscience of learning […]
When Gary Brantley began his career as an IT leader 14 years ago, he primarily provided technical support and made sure the hardware was running. “It had everything to do with techy stuff” he says. Since then, Brantley’s role as chief information officer at DeKalb County Schools in Georgia has expanded significantly. He now spends […]
Districts devote nearly 80 percent of their budgets to personnel costs—leaving little wiggle room for administrators tasked with maintaining fiscal responsibility and boosting the quality of education in a time of nearly stagnant funding. John Hutchison, chief financial and operations officer at Olathe Public Schools in Kansas, began budgetary planning for the 2017-18 school year […]
K12 district leaders are collaborating with entire communities and using new curricula to help combat the opioid crisis sweeping the nation. Middle school students at Norwin School District in Pennsylvania are among the first to pilot a new curriculum that offers a science-based approach to how drugs affect the brain, says Superintendent William Kerr. The […]
The number of young people suffering from depression has increased almost 40 percent in the last three years. And, as the Hamilton Southeastern School District has found, mental health issues are hardly limited to teens. After the city of Fishers, an Indianapolis suburb of about 90,000, had 13 suicides in 2016, city officials launched a […]
The economy is rapidly feeling the impact of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, which allows computers to make decisions, recognize speech and perform other traditionally “human” tasks. Nearly half of all jobs in the U.S. in the next 10 to 20 years will be related to AI, according to a 2016 Obama administration report, […]
Free or low-cost resources exist to help districts start or improve computer science education. Free or low-cost resources exist to help districts start or improve computer science education: 1. Plan. Develop an ambitious but realistic plan, says Chris Stephenson, head of computer science education strategy at Google. Districts should prioritize needs and first focus on […]
Fast disappearing from schools are internet “lock and block” policies that keep students off social media and restrict them to carefully curated websites. Even with sophisticated filters and firewalls, today’s learners carry all the access in the world in their back pockets. “We’re past trying to stay ahead of the digital native” says Morgen Larsen, […]
