April 28, 2016
Delaware
Delaware 105.9
Pleasantville Elementary students “Stick it to Cancer”
A New Castle-area Elementary School principal was in a sticky situation Wednesday Pleasantville Elementary School Principal Jennifer Alexander was covered from head to toe in duct tape. “It feels heavy like I’m starting to feel like it’s holding me up, like I’m not holding my arms anymore–the tape is actually holding my arms in place. “The tape was actually holding her entire body against the wall!
Delaware State News
Simpson Elementary student wins NASCAR design contest
W.B. Simpson Elementary fifth-grader Sabrina Morelli got a unique surprise Wednesday — seeing a NASCAR Toyota pace car covered in a design she created last month. Sabrina’s design was chosen from more than 500 submissions from 11 schools across the state as part of the Monster Mile Youth Nation Design Challenge. “It’s kind of crazy, I really didn’t think I would win,” Sabrina said when she first saw the pace car.
Rodel Blog
Searching for solutions in the shadow of tragedy
Blog post by Paul Herdman, president and CEO of the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
In the shadow of Amy Joyner-Francis’ death last week, there have been countless posts on social media, all searching for the right thing to say. What can we possibly say to explain this? Can anyone’s words serve as a balm for the pain? As the father of a sixteen-year-old, I doubt any words can do either. That said, as the head of a nonprofit looking to make a difference in our schools, the unspeakable tragedy pushed me to think even harder about what we can do to help prevent this from happening again in the future.
The News Journal
Indian River district puts financial officer on leave
The chief financial officer for the Indian River School District, Patrick Miller, has been put on paid administrative leave for reasons that the district won’t disclose. Miller has been the CFO since September of 1998, according to the district’s spokesman, David Maull, and his salary this year is $162,258. He oversaw a discretionary budget of about $50 million for the district in the last fiscal year. Indian River Superintendent Susan Bunting said in a prepared statement: “Effective April 24, 2016, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Miller has been placed on paid administrative leave by the Indian River School District.
WBOC
Last day of school for Indian River students moved to June 8
The Indian River Board of Education on Monday approved a series of changes to the 2015-2016 school district calendar. The last day of school for students will now be Wednesday, June 8. The last day for paraprofessionals will be Thursday, June 9 and the last day for teachers will be Friday, June 10. Officials said the changes are the result of unused surplus hours built into the calendar to compensate for weather-related school cancellations.
National
Chalkbeat
Sen. Lamar Alexander on the nation’s new education law, and how it could shape Tennessee schools
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has one underlying message to share about the federal education law he co-authored and co-sponsored last year in Congress: Leave decisions about schools up to local stakeholders. Alexander, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, spoke Monday to an audience of Tennessee educators and policymakers at Belmont University in Nashville about the revised federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, formerly called No Child Left Behind and now known as the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Education Week
Emotions help steer students’ learning, studies find
Despite what Star Trek’s Dr. Spock would have you think, emotions are not the enemy of reason. Rather, new research suggests emotions underpin how students learn in the classroom. “People think of emotion getting in the way of cognition, but it doesn’t. Emotion steers our thinking; it’s the rudder that directs our mind and organizes what we need to do,” said Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, an associate professor of education, psychology, and neuroscience at the University of Southern California, in an interview with Education Week.
LoudonNow
Judge sides with Loudoun parent seeking teachers’ names, student test scores
A years-long fight between a Loudoun County parent and the Virginia Department of Education over the release of student performance data has come to an end. A Richmond Circuit Court judge has ruled that VDOE must release Loudoun County Public Schools’ Student Growth Percentile scores by school and by teacher. Brian Davison, a parent of two Loudoun students, has said the scores are a better indicator of students’ year-over-year progress and they would help administrators identify the division’s most effective teachers.
NPR
Most high school seniors aren’t college or career ready, says ‘Nation’s Report Card’
The latest results of the test known as the Nation’s Report Card are in. They cover high school seniors, who took the test in math and reading last year. The numbers are unlikely to give fodder either to educational cheerleaders or alarmists: The average score in both subjects was just one point lower in 2015 compared with the last time the test was given, in 2013. This tiny downtick was statistically significant in mathematics, but not for the reading test.
The Hechinger Report
Will giving greater student access to smartphones improve learning?
Walking the hallways between classes at Fern Creek High School in Louisville, Kentucky, I dodge students whose heads are turned down to glowing screens. Earbuds and brightly colored headphones are everywhere. And when I peer into classrooms, I see students tuning out their peers and teachers and focusing instead on YouTube and social media. These are issues I deal with as an English teacher at Fern Creek.