Education
Covering topics such as K-12, higher education and online education.
By investing in solar arrays, building efficiency and other clean energy infrastructure, schools could save billions annually while significantly cutting carbon pollution. And federal money is available to help with the upfront costs.
Local leaders say changing directives and confusing guidance from state officials are hampering efforts to comply — even as potentially heavy penalties await them if they don’t.
The state opened the school year with 3,584 teaching vacancies, almost a 20 percent drop from the previous year, but many of the new hires are less qualified. There’s been a 51 percent decrease in the last decade in traditional teacher preparation program enrollment.
The top 10 counties with the largest population gains grew 10 times faster than the national average, impacting school resources, farmland prices and more.
A first-of-its-kind school construction project will save a Maryland school district hundreds of millions of dollars — and create exceptional learning environments.
School officials are implementing new rules to prevent bullying and improve the mental health of teens. But some of the new policies, like a cellphone ban, are controversial. In 2021, 16 percent of high schoolers said they had been cyber bullied.
Greater investment is key, enabling smaller classes with better-paid teachers, and most state and local governments have the money. But our public schools also need leadership stability and more parental involvement.
A survey of more than 4,250 faculty across four states, including Florida, found that faculty are becoming increasingly discouraged by recent legislation impacting higher education and many are considering leaving.
A review by the state attorney general found that safeguards to prevent double counting of votes were not in place, resulting in a miscount of Monmouth County’s ballots that declared the wrong winner for an Ocean Township school board seat.
A $25 million loan program was established in 2006 as a way to pay for maintenance and repairs of aging school buildings. But lawmakers made the program “difficult to use” and only two districts have been able to access the aid.
The Livingston Parish School Board has filed a lawsuit against TikTok and Instagram, claiming the platforms are so addictive they have created a mental health crisis among the district’s students.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced the formation of a safety task force that will be charged with finding ways to improve safety on school buses, including possibly requiring seat belts. Last week an Ohio school bus crashed, killing one student and injuring 23.
Proposed legislation would give Atlanta Public Schools ownership of a 1.5-acre building parcel in exchange for a two-acre vacant property so that the city can develop housing and services for homeless residents.
State legislators have passed more than 700 new laws and a variety of notable or controversial laws will take effect this week, including policies surrounding transgender athletes, chaplains in schools and a tampon tax.
The Florida county’s State Attorney’s office declined to formally investigate former Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie and two other former administrators for attempting to hide a massive March 2021 ransomware attack from the public.
Baltimore County assigned 133 students to its Virtual Learning Program as a means of punishment, which experts say is opposite of what students facing discipline need to keep them engaged and enrolled.
