On the walls of Tim Cline’s office hang samples of outstanding work completed by students in Interior Distance Education of Alaska (IDEA), the public school program he runs. Visiting parents are often impressed. Nothing unusual about that??except that IDEA’s students are homeschoolers who may never enter a public school classroom, and those impressed parents are […]
Kelley Castlin-Gacutan was unanimously chosen superintendent of Alabama’s Birmingham City Schools in May. Birmingham City is the fourth-largest district in the state, with more than 30,000 students. Castlin-Gacutan is a native of the area, and was the interim superintendent for Bibb County Schools in Georgia. She has worked as a teacher, principal and administrator. She […]
The U.S. public school system's focus on struggling students leaves high-achieversÁ'especially minorities, the economically disadvantaged and English-language learners Á'without a challenging enough education, experts say. A lack of federal funding and patchwork policies across states often leave decisions on identifying and serving gifted students to district administrators. An estimated 3 million to 5 million academically […]
Students in Port Angeles School District in Washington get a taste of the real world of science from their local river. For the past 10 years, they have been working like true scientists collecting and analyzing data gathered from the Elwha River, which is in nearby Olympic National Park near the Pacific coast. Between 2011 […]
Transforming school libraries into communal learning "playgrounds" offers students technology support, remote access to research resources and expanded opportunities for creative exploration. Librarians can collaborate with teachers to develop lesson plans that incorporate a multifunctional library's media programs, books and other online resources. For instance, students in a history class at New Canaan High School […]
A "culture of safety"—at all levels of a district—is the first and most critical step in dealing with occupational injury. It also guides the prevention of, response to and mitigation of hazards in the workplace, including staff behavior. Students arrive in three days. A staff meeting starts in five minutes. A teacher wants to hang […]
Principals shifting their roles from building manager to instructional leader need more extensive PD to ensure top performance from teachers and students, according to a new policy brief from ASCD. Race to the Top's requirements linking teacher evaluations to student test scores is largely responsible for the change in the principal's responsibilities, says Susan Race, […]
Millions of students took Common Core tests this springÁ'and while it was business as usual in many districts, the spreading opt-out movement left some administrators caught between concerned parents and state requirements. The largest opt-out numbers are from New York, where by mid-April over 177,000 students had refused to take Common Core math and ELA […]
For a number of years, an aging student information system (SIS) plagued Bethlehem Central Schools, located near Albany, New York. By spring 2013, it was apparent new software was needed to maintain the data about the district's 4,900 students. "We correctly predicted our SIS would soon be considered end-of-life and would no longer be supported," […]
When a classroom is sweltering, nobody is productive. More and more teaching days are being lost to hot, humid weather even though there is a way to mitigate the problem: air conditioning. The challenge is justifying the cost of installation and maintenance at a time when competition for budget money is fierce. The place to […]
