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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
U.S. News & World Report
The recent arrest of a 14-year-old Muslim boy whose teacher mistook his homemade clock for a bomb led to widespread ridicule of school officials and accusations that Islamophobia may have played a part. It earned Ahmed Mohamed an invitation to the White House, where the Irving teen will attend astronomy night Monday. But it also got him a three-day suspension, which he says the district insisted he serve even after it was clear it was just a clock. Ahmed's suspension — his parents have since withdrawn him from the school — reflects the rigid disciplinary policies that many U.S. schools adopted in the 1990s.
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District Administration Magazine
Several months into the school year, many districts nationwide still face the worst bus driver shortage in recent years. Some are offering signing bonuses and increased wages to attract more people to the job. Only 6 percent of school bus contracting companies nationally had enough drivers this year, compared to 15 percent with no shortage in 2014, according to a survey from School Bus Fleet magazine. Nearly 30 percent of respondents said they had a "severe or desperate" shortage of bus drivers this year.
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Education Week
Weeks of creating our classroom environments are now behind us, and we are well into the school year. We know our students. We know our content. We are set with our planning, teaching, and learning routines. The excitement of the new school year is still in the air. But let's be real — as the weeks move along and the curriculum picks up steam — teachers and students may need a little spark to keep an ongoing connection between learners and classroom-learning environments.
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MindShift
In the classroom, subjects are often presented as settled and complete. Teachers lecture students on the causes of World War I, say, or the nature of matter, as if no further questioning is needed because all the answers have been found. In turn, students regurgitate what they've been told, confident they've learned all the facts and unaware of the mysteries that remain unexplored. Without insight into the holes in our knowledge, students mistakenly believe that some subjects are closed. They lose humility and curiosity in the face of this conceit.
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Edutopia
Though teachers across the nation share the goals of successfully educating all students, disproportionate numbers of low-income students and students of color are pushed out and fail to graduate. So what prevents us from meeting each student's educational needs? We propose that one barrier is educators who often don't recognize the link between students' social and cognitive development, and that without addressing each student's needs for belonging and value, we cannot successfully teach them.
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Science Weekly Magazine
Science Weekly Magazine
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Education World
Game developers all over the country are working to align some educational games to Common Core State Standards, while educators and video game makers are seeing benefits in using games in a classroom context, despite concerns from administrators. This could be the golden age of educational video games. "You're going to see teachers and students build games together," said EdTech insider Garrett Fuller at New York's 10th Annual Comic-Con.
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The Christian Science Monitor
Even after some 4,700 guiding documents from the United States Department of Agriculture on the country's new experiment with healthier school lunches, the nation seems to have once again failed to advance a century-long effort to get kids to eat their peas. Five years after Congress passed the Healthy Hungry-Free Kids Act, an offshoot of first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign aimed at curbing childhood obesity, participation in school lunches across the U.S. has declined by 4 percent — or 1.5 million kids — food wastage has gone up, and growing numbers of lunch rooms are operating in the red.
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American Reading Company solutions increase teacher quality by enhancing teachers’ ability to successfully diagnose students’ reading difficulties and providing expert coaching to act on those issues. Our district partners across the country have seen increased test scores and changes in the literacy culture of their communities.
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ADDitude Magazine
IDEA regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Education in March, 1999, make it clear that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is included in the list of conditions that could render a child eligible for special education services. However, including ADHD does not automatically mean that all children with ADHD qualify for an Individual Education Plan or other provisions under IDEA.
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EdTech Magazine (commentary)
Ryan Petersen, a contributor for EdTech Magazine, wrties: "Since the new school year started, I've been reminded of a few important facts about technology and education. The first is that devices can be used for more than just gaming and watching YouTube videos. The second is how much of an impact putting the right technology into students' and teachers' hands can make. From encouraging greater participation in the STEM fields to allowing access to the web from whatever device students have in hand, technology-backed education continues to shift instruction and learning."
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Education Week
Community groups and sports not connected to school can help students stay more connected academically during a critical transition period, according to a study of low-income students in New York City. The move from elementary to middle school can be rough for kids. Beyond the rising cacophany of puberty, students also often face moving from smaller schools and self-contained classes to new, larger campuses and room changes throughout the day. Often high school dropouts can be traced back to bumpy starts in sixth grade.
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District Administration Magazine
A district's website presents contrasting demands. It needs to be a constant digital presence: always up and always available. Yet its content and functionality are ever changing. District leaders nationwide solve this two-pronged challenge with commercial, locally-developed or open source software that lets them add new functions and content to keep their communities informed and engaged. A district's choice of software depends largely on the IT resources. "It's a classic technology decision-making process," says Greg DeYoung, chief information officer and executive director for information technology at Blue Valley Schools in Kansas.
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Graceland University is ranked #5 in the country for Online Masters of Education programs by US News and World Report. We have a 98% graduation rate and 97% would recommend our program to a friend. We have 4 programs to meet the needs of practically any teacher.
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Scholastic Administration Magazine (commentary)
Kristina Holzweiss, a contributor for Scholastic Administration Magazine, writes: "In more than 20 years of teaching, I never thought that I would win a national award because of SLIME. You're probably picturing the ooey, gooey green stuff that kids buy at the local toy store. Or even better, what they might make at home using a recipe their parents found on Pinterest. I'm not talking about that slime. I'm talking about SLIME: the acronym for 'Students on Long Island Maker Expo.' An extension of my library makerspace, SLIME brought 400 students, educators, families and community members from 32 school districts together last May for a day of celebration and making."
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MindShift
Jasmine Bankhead went to a traditional teacher prep program in the early 2000s. She took about a year's worth of coursework that was all pretty general. Bankhead was expecting to learn a lot when she did her student teaching. But on her first day, she says, "my mentor teacher, she came in, we talked for a few minutes, and she was like, 'OK, I'll be in the library from now on.' And just like that, I was by myself. And although I complained a little bit to my student teaching supervisor, I still felt like I was expected to make it work."
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The Atlantic
Maggie Sunseri was a middle-school student in Versailles, Kentucky, when she first noticed a major difference in the way her school's dress code treated males and females. Girls were disciplined disproportionately, she says, a trend she's seen continue over the years. At first Sunseri simply found this disparity unfair, but upon realizing administrators' troubling rationale behind the dress code — that certain articles of girls' attire should be prohibited because they "distract" boys — she decided to take action.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Education Week
The pending departure of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the speaker of the House, seems to have lit a fire under negotiations on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In fact, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday that it could actually "help" ESEA's chances if Boehner stuck around for a few more weeks. Aides for all four of the lawmakers that will be involved in crafting a "conference report" (that's Congress-speak for a compromise bill developed after both the House and Senate have passed competing versions) have been working very, very hard behind the scenes to reach agreement. The key lawmakers here are: Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Reps. John Kline, R-Minn., and Bobby Scott, D-Va.
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"The Fundamental 5 improves instruction. The power of these practices will transform classrooms and schools," E. Don Brown, NASSP past president. Order now at Amazon.com
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The Associated Press via The Huffington Post
A student election at a mostly Hispanic San Francisco middle school turned into a debate about the democratic process when the principal delayed the results because the winners did not reflect the school's diverse student body. Everett Middle School Principal Lena Van Haren announced the winners, more than a week after the results were known. Van Haren said in a phone interview that she had no intention of annulling the votes, but wanted to first engage all the candidates in a discussion about how to ensure underrepresented groups were heard. One idea was to add representatives to the student council, she said.
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NPR
It's been a year since thousands of unaccompanied minors surged into the U.S., overwhelming some school districts. These children, many of whom don't speak English and have lived through violence, trauma and abuse, pose a serious challenge to schools. Some districts weren't ready. Oakland, Calif., was. It was spring of 2014, well before the headlines had begun, when teachers at Oakland Unified realized something was wrong. A lot of students were missing class regularly — and not just playing hooky.
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NAESP
In collaboration with the Wahl Foundation, NAESP has launched a school grant program called "UNThink My School" that will award a total of $40,000 to schools that champion themes of innovation and creativity. The Wahl Foundation will award one $20,000 grant and 10 $2,000 "UNthink My School" grants to schools that use artistic concepts and creative expression to solve school problems and spur innovation. Applications will be accepted and reviewed from Oct. 6, 2015 until Feb. 15, 2016. Winners will be announced in March 2016.
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NAESP
NAESP's Best Practices for Better Schools Conference™ is the one event where you will find the most thought-provoking leaders in Pre-K-8 education. Principals, Assistant Principals, Aspiring Principals, Superintendents, Teacher Leaders, and other key-decision makers will benefit from making valuable connections, learning best practices and sharing ideas with colleagues from across the country. Keynote Speakers, Dr. Russ Quaglia and Pedro Noguera, will inspire you to overcome challenges and motivate you to reach new levels of success. The Super Early Bird conference rate for NAESP members ($379) is good until Nov. 1. Want to present at NAESP's Best Practices for Better Schools Conference™ or know someone who does? Submit a proposal by Nov. 2.
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ZipKrooz™ brings zip line-like adventure to the playground in an exciting, inclusive and safe way!
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Math Problem solving contests for teams of up to 35 students in grades 4 through 8.
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