Schools thrive on free and open exchanges of information, but as soon as a principal reviews attendance records or examines student grades held on a district server, that openness must end. Schools thrive on free and open exchanges of information, but as soon as a principal reviews attendance records or examines student grades held on a […]
By combining the plumbing of the internet with heavy-duty encryption, a VPN can help keep a district's secrets. Under the surface, VPNs use a technique known as tunneling to create an encrypted data path from sender to receiver and back. The key is that everything from the web address to the actual data is encoded […]
Every morning, principals in the West Bridgewater School District in Massachusetts get on the PA system to lead students through a few minutes of mindful breathing exercises.
District Administration welcomed education policy expert Robert Balfanz for this web seminar about what the last 10 years of research has found when it comes to improving the most challenged and lowest-performing schools, as well as the implications of the Trump administration and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on these efforts. Balfanz is research professor […]
Many district administrators seem to agree that teenagers need more sleep. A new study released in February indicates that attendance and graduation rates may match the science, too. Published in Sleep Health, the journal of the National Sleep Foundation, the study includes data for 30,000 students in 29 high schools from eight districts across seven […]
Educators want more effective ways to implement new teaching methods into lesson plans. The professional development market is advancing, offering flexible and sustainable solutions rather than one-off workshops, lectures and in-service programs. Many companies offer PD tools that show teachers how to embed lessons into learning management systems, so students have universal access to educational […]
When the central Connecticut town of Cheshire moved to reduce power use, it upgraded six of its eight public schools with the latest internet of things technology. The plan combined energy-efficient LED fixtures with sensors and cloud-based servers that automatically turn the lights off in an empty room or adjust brightness. The district cut its […]
Los Angeles USD and the New York City Department of Education both received electronic bomb threats on December 15, 2015. LAUSD called off school. New York students remained in class. Which district made the right call? The lack of a clear answer to the question speaks to exactly why district administrators find threat assessment and […]
Efforts to implement new high school graduation exams in Ohio and New Jersey are faltering, as some educators grow more concerned about the number of students struggling to meet the strict requirements. In Ohio, more than one-third of juniors have yet to earn the scores they need from the seven exams they must pass to […]
On the first Friday of every school year, the new kindergartners of Utah's Canyons School District look ahead to the future—far ahead. To mark Kindergarten College-Ready Day, the children make construction-paper mortar boards and march in mock graduation ceremonies, applauded by high school and college athletes and cheerleaders. Teachers come to school wearing T-shirts and […]