Editor's note: CIO Hot Topic is produced in collaboration with CoSN. Districts must provide learning materials that are accessible to all students. Digital accessibility—a challenging undertaking—involves making websites, learning platforms, videos, digital textbooks and portals available to students with physical, visual, speech, auditory, neurological or cognitive disabilities. The consequences of failing to do so can […]
Power in Numbers: Coaching principals to build teams that transform schools NYC Leadership Academy This guide helps principals improve instruction by strengthening their coaching techniques to mold teachers and staff into team-oriented leaders. The book poses questions that build self-awareness and also details exercises that promote team development. Principals will learn to design collaborative team-building […]
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.
While the controversial practice of corporal punishment declines, it remains legal in 19 states. In those states, boys, black students and children with disabilities are more likely to receive physical punishment than other students, according to recent report by the Society for Research in Child Development. The 2016 report found that black children in Alabama […]
In the wake of a divisive presidential election, hundreds of students from about a dozen high schools in Oakland, California, cut class last November to voice their discontent with President-elect Donald Trump. Rather than demand students return to school, faculty at Oakland USD supported the peaceful demonstration, where students could express their feelings, says David […]
The ever-increasing pace and variety of technological developments continues to be a challenge for K12 assistive technology products. As education content becomes available in more digital forms—videos, software programs and apps—adapting platforms for student use is critical to help those with special needs access information as easily as do their classmates. In addition, with more […]
Five years ago, Boston Public School's John Eliot School in the city's North End neighborhood was declared an innovation school. What that meant for principal Traci Walker-Griffith was more autonomy in choosing the elementary school's curriculum for her 570 students. One of the first curricular changes she made was bringing in Everyday Mathematics. School population […]
Educators in Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools intend to remove the obstacles that prevent students who have severe social anxiety from attending school, a phenomenon known as "school refusal behavior." The initiative, called Aspire, is housed at Quander Road School, a small district-run-and-funded therapeutic day program designed as an alternative setting for high school students […]
Young adults in Fulton County, Georgia, who have learning and developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy and autism, continue to gain career support from their school district even after they've completed high school. The Learning Independence for Employment (LIFE) program connects students age 18 to 22 with jobs at Atlanta-area employers, such as Georgia State […]
By revamping the much-maligned No Child Left Behind law of 2001 with the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, the federal government gives states more control over their own school accountability standards. Under ESSA, lawmakers maintained annual NCLB testing. But teachers' unions had sought to eliminate the "highly qualified teachers" provision, which ESSA did. It's […]
