April 8, 2016

Delaware

Cape Gazette
Cape High Wellness Center invites public for 20th anniversary celebration April 14
For 20 years, the Wellness Center at Cape Henlopen High School has partnered with parents, school nurses, and the students’ primary care physicians to provide free health education, nutritional help and emotional support. The Wellness Center is staffed by Beebe Medical Group team members and operates in partnership with Beebe, the Delaware Department of Health and Cape Henlopen School District to support teens in improving their health and wellness.

Newsworks
Beau Biden Foundation education program aims to prevent child sexual abuse
The Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children is educating the public about child sexual abuse. Education is a pillar for the foundation and understanding the warning signs and other important information can prevent abuse in the future, and help a child going through abuse quicker and more effectively. The foundation will partner with Widener University Delaware Law School in Wilmington to host the “Stewards of Children” training in April, which also is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

The Milford Beacon
High school students make calculated moves at math league
The final buzzer in sports could mean the difference between winning and losing. For students competing in the Delaware Secondary School Mathematics League, the same rule applies. Sarah Townsend, from A.I. Dupont High School in Wilmington, said the final countdown adds an element of excitement to the state competition. On April 5, Townsend’s team and other high school math students battled for the state championship.

Sussex County Post
Science fair project Sussex Central senior’s ticket to the White House
An award-winning science project is Sussex Central High School senior Mikayla Ockels’ ticket to the White House. Mikayla will visit Washington, D.C. April 12-13 during which she will present her science fair project to President Obama. She was one of only about 25 students nationwide to be selected for this honor. Mikayla’s’ project, “The Feed to Egg Conversion Rate of Heritage Hens,” received the Practical Impact Award at the National BioGENEius Science Fair in Philadelphia and a first-place award at the Delaware State BioGENEius Science Fair in 2015.

National

Education Week
Obama announces three assistant secretary nominations for the Ed. Dept.
Blog post by Andrew Ujifusa, federal policy reporter at Education Week
U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr., may not be the only person to drop the “acting” from his title this year. President Barack Obama announced plans on Thursday to nominate three current staffers in “acting” roles at the U.S. Department of Education to be assistant secretaries.

Masslive
Massachusetts Senate passes controversial charter school bill
The Massachusetts state Senate on Thursday passed a controversial charter school bill that would gradually lift a cap on charter schools in low-performing districts but would tie the cap lift to an increase in funding for district public schools. The bill passed 22 to 13, after hours of debate. “We’re at a unique moment in time where we can take whatever we’ve learned over more than 20 years of education reform and make sure we put in place the tools to fairly and adequately fund the education of all of our students,” said state Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Ashland.

Midland Reporter-Telegram
Educate Midland seeks more teacher participation, diversity
Educators and concerned residents packed a meeting room at First Presbyterian Church on Thursday night, and again the role of teachers in the upcoming education initiative was the dominant topic. Questions included why more teachers hadn’t been involved up to this point and what roles teachers would have moving forward. The questions were asked of four Educate Midland board members and two Midland ISD officials during an informative question-and-answer format.

The Hechinger Report
A new challenge as more schools go online: Can educators expand digital learning to every classroom and home?
School systems – even the most forward thinking – might have a handful of innovative classrooms to show off. But few can show that every classroom is using digital tools to improve students’ learning. It’s a puzzle for school officials who are gathering this week in Washington, D.C., at the annual conference of the Consortium for School Networking, widely known by its acronym, CoSN. Early Monday morning, before the event began, I caught up with CoSN’s CEO Keith R. Krueger, who told me about it.

U.S. News & World Report
In Arkansas, Career and technical education paying off
Career and technical education programs – which policymakers and business groups have been touting as solutions to help fill the skills gap, but which students and parents have been slow to embrace – are paying off in a big way in Arkansas, a new report shows. Those in the Natural State with greater exposure to career and technical education classes are more likely to graduate, enroll in a two-year college, be employed and have higher wages, according to the report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.