October 6, 2017
Delaware News
Cape Gazette
Work to move forward on Rehoboth elementary
The Cape Henlopen School District cleared its final hurdle to build a new Rehoboth Elementary School, as the city’s planning commission unanimously gave conditional approval to the site plan. The planners said that they would re-examine conditions imposed on the site plan at their Friday, Oct. 13 meeting. The school district plans to begin construction of the new school in January.
Two new teachers hired at Love Creek Elementary
Two new teachers hired to ease overcrowding in Love Creek Elementary’s fifth- and third-grade classes began teaching on Wednesday, about a week after parents attended a Cape Henlopen school board meeting asking for more information about what the district planned to do. “There’s lots of talk, and it’s not positive,” said Casey Hastings, a parent of a fifth-grader who could end up in a new classroom.
Delaware 105.9
Trans-gendered students rights were discussed at Sussex Central High
A modest amount of Sussex Countians showed up to Sussex Central High School for a public meeting Thursday night that focused on LGBTQ discrimination. The meeting, planned by the Anti-Discrimination Development Team formed by Governor Carney, was held to get public feedback on the anti-discrimination regulation and model policy.
Delaware State News
Rising costs put schools consolidation idea to the test
Philadelphia has 199,000 public school students and just one school district. Delaware, in contrast, has 137,000 students and 19 separate school districts, plus 25 charter schools around the state. The state’s 19 districts, three of which are vocational, range in size from 16,000 students in Red Clay to 1,200 in Polytech. Over the years, many Delawareans have wondered if that makes for an efficient use of taxpayer dollars.
Newark Post
UD Lab School opens state’s first nature-based preschool
As she stood in the sun-dappled forest surrounded by a dozen grinning, muddy preschoolers, Katie Pollock asked her young charges if they wanted to run through the woods. “Remember, when you safely run in the forest, you have to look up and down because of the tree roots,” she said as the students paired up and got ready for their sprint through the trees. At Pollock’s command, the three and 4-year-olds took off down the wood chip-covered trail back to the grassy area that serves as the class’ home base, laughing, and screaming the whole way.
The News Journal
Childcare center owners: Delaware not fulfilling commitment to kids
Unless the state invests more in early childhood education, childcare providers say they may soon drop out of a program intended to increase access to early childhood education for low-income kids. That could spell trouble for Delaware Stars for Early Success, which offers training for early childcare providers and rates them on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.
By cutting Pre-K funding, we’re lying to our youngest kids: Delaware Voices
Opinion by Atnre Alleyne, founder and executive director of DelawareCAN: The Delaware Campaign for Achievement Now
A few weeks ago, I celebrated my birthday and my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter sang “Happy Birthday” to me — in English and then in Spanish. As she belted out “cumpleaños feliz,” I was reminded that one of my greatest gifts is the opportunity to watch her learn and grow. It is a gift to see and support her language acquisition, to watch her be able to distinguish between an oval and a circle, to see her hold a writing utensil correctly, to watch her put her socks and shoes on by herself, to see her dance to a beat, and to see her understand the difference between an inside and an outside voice.
National News
Education Week
Growing Number of States Embrace Career Education
After years of focusing intensely on college readiness, states are turning their attention to students’ futures as workers, enacting a flurry of laws and policies designed to bolster career education and preparation. “What we’re seeing is that there’s been a shift from focusing purely on college readiness to thinking also about career readiness,” said Jennifer Thomsen, who analyzes policy for the Education Commission of the States.
eSchools News
Survey: Daily classroom edtech use on the rise
Sixty-three percent of K-12 educators use edtech in their classrooms each day–an increase from the 55 percent reporting the same in 2016, according to an annual survey from the College of Education at the University of Phoenix. Laptops are most commonly used (86 percent), while other technologies include educational apps (58 percent), 3D printers (21 percent), and social media (41 percent, up from 32 percent in 2016).
NPR
For DACA Teachers, Uncertainty Lingers on the Last Day to Renew
There are nearly 700,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and Thursday is the final deadline for them to renew their DACA status, which the Trump Administration announced would be discontinued unless Congress steps in to save it. With an application fee of $465, the program allows the recipients, often called DREAMers, to renew their temporary two-year work permits. But with no contingency plan, many are left with a feeling of uncertainty.
The Atlantic
Learning While Homeless
Alison is only 14 but she knows what she wants to be when she grows up: A surgeon. It’s not easy to study, however, when you’re so exhausted and hungry you can barely get through 9th-grade biology. An immigrant from Colombia, Alison is one of more than 200,000 K-12 students in California considered homeless because they lack stable housing. And like most of those students, she lives with her family in a home shared with other families—in her case, two other families.