One legislative priority for Elsie Arntzen, Montana's public schools chief, is to make it illegal for teachers to have sex with students, including those who have reached the age of consent. Another priority is to restore more than $20 million cut from K12 schools by the 2017 Legislature and the budget-cutting special session. Student safety […]
The Wyoming Legislature is moving forward on policies that would require all schools to engage in training and create safety plans in the event of a violent intruder. As it currently stands, the bill would allocate $100,000 to help schools with school safety training and planning. The Wyoming Legislature is moving forward on policy that […]
Franklin County Sen. Bill Stanley chairs a subcommittee that will recommend a statewide bond referendum that could raise up to $4 billion for school modernization. The panel will support legislation that would determine who is first in line for funding. Another bill would help communities with public private partnerships that could make school construction more […]
Wyoming schools would be required to create a comprehensive safety plan and conduct nationally recognized, proactive security training under a bill advanced by a state legislative committee last week, a measure that represents lawmakers' primary attempt to better safeguard schools from active shooters. Wyoming schools would be required to create a comprehensive safety plan and […]
Most public school teachers still have access to a state-funded pension plan. But for the majority, their retirement benefits will be worth less than what they contributed during their years in the classroom, according to an analysis by the Fordham Institute. The study, which examined the largest school districts in each state and in Washington, […]
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 […]
A small but growing number of states are requiring school districts to provide recess. Pending legislation in Massachusetts would require schools to provide at least 20 minutes of daily recess in K5. Trends in the U.S. In Florida and Rhode Island, recess laws took effect this year. Four other states already require it, and 11 […]
Fourteen teachers in Utah's Ogden School District reached the classroom via a nontraditional, perhaps looser route. Rather than attend a teaching college and earning the standard credentials, they leveraged their bachelor's degrees and professional expertise. The new state rule that allows this—called Academic Pathway to Teaching—mimics new policies a handful of other states have passed […]
One month before the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, Turlock USD was still short five speech-language pathologists. The salary offered by the Central California district was high by area standards, but even so, the positions remained unfilled. In fact, no one had even applied. Alice Solis, Turlock's director of special education, struggled to hire […]
The growing and dangerous perception among some that America is a post-racial society is fueling the transition back to separate but equal schools, says Bryan Joffe, project director of education and youth development for the School Superintendents Association. "Some people would say this case is indicative of a Southern problem, when I think this is […]
