Florida K-12 who have been at the forefront of battling state leaders over masks are now beginning to loosen their mandates as dozens of districts in once hard-hit areas are going mask optional.
The COVID shift to remote instruction—when parents became their children's second teachers—has made families more discerning about how students learn best.
Experts say that multiple factors are driving the sudden education labor shortage and that the COVID-19 health crisis has exacerbated a problem that has been festering for years.
School District of Palm Beach County's new superintendent Mike Burke is pitching in as a substitute to help the nation's tenth-largest district overcome staffing challenges.
Mask mandates are dropping like dominos in schools throughout the South and parts of the Midwest even as districts in COVID hotspots farther north grapple with controversies over face coverings.
Waves of districts are ending their mask mandates even as some administrators elsewhere impose them for the first time this school year because of ongoing COVID outbreaks.
Students and teachers may love three-day weekends but there is some evidence that districts may be sacrificing achievement in shortening the school week.
