by Beth Holmes | Jan 31, 2022 | News, Parent Issues, Student Issues, Teacher Issues
A budget surplus in the Minnesota state government is being turned into big changes for early childhood education. On Tuesday, Minn. Governor Tim Walz announced his office’s plan to focus state infrastructure improvements on increasing child care options, Head...
by Beth Holmes | Jan 24, 2022 | News, Student Issues
The CDC recommends schools postpone all social extracurricular activities during this COVID surge, from football to band. Only a few weeks ago, the CDC altered their recommendation about isolation after Covid from 10 days to 5, although they cautioned recoverees to...
by Beth Holmes | Jan 17, 2022 | News, Student Issues
The University of Pittsburgh has taken a hardline stance on vaccination: Get vaxxed, or be disenrolled. On December 6, UPitt announced a vaccine mandate – all students, faculty, and staff were required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 1st. The...
by Beth Holmes | Jan 10, 2022 | News, Student Issues, Teacher Issues
Insurrection Day is tomorrow, though history probably won’t call it that. Thursday, January 6 is the one year anniversary of the Capitol riot, the first violent breech of our nation’s capitol in its 221-year history. Teachers have been debating how to...
by Beth Holmes | Dec 27, 2021 | News, Other, Teacher Issues
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas announced Monday that $123.3 million in federal relief money would be going to Texas schools. The money is from the Coronavirus Response and and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, the bill passed by Congress in 2020. It contained...
by Beth Holmes | Dec 20, 2021 | News, Teacher Issues
The Chicago Board of Education has reached a $9.25 million settlement in a discrimination case over a series of layoffs that took place in 2012-14. In those years, the CBE enacted “turnaround” procedures as a matter of policy at 18 schools which were not meeting goals...
by Beth Holmes | Dec 13, 2021 | News, Teacher Issues
Teacher burnout is driving schools around the country to pull back a little from full-time in person learning. In mid-November, all Detroit public schools and a school district in Utah announced that through the rest of the calendar year, Fridays would be virtual...
by Beth Holmes | Dec 6, 2021 | News, Parent Issues, Student Issues, Teacher Issues
Corporal punishment in schools is still around, and Kentucky schools are dithering about whether they want it to go away. The current state statute on violence by teachers against students is KRS 503.110. It says that teachers and caregivers are allowed to use...
by Beth Holmes | Nov 29, 2021 | News, Student Issues, Teacher Issues
Tribal education gets an injection of cash from the $2 billion March 2021 COVID stimulus plan, only a few months late. Announced on Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education, $20 million in grants are going to be given out of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) for...
by Beth Holmes | Nov 22, 2021 | News, Student Issues, Teacher Issues
Major changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program are finally here, and they’re bigger than previously estimated. Under the previous administration, the Department of Education had the PSLF program, but it was made so restrictive that an...
