September 29, 2015

Delaware News

The News Journal
New Delaware Met charter school decides not to close
The Delaware Met charter school will stay open after its leaders convinced the school’s board at a meeting Monday night they can address concerns over finances and school climate.

NBC 10
M. Night Shyamalan talks education in Delaware
He has directed, produced, and written some of his generation’s most frightening films. On Friday night, though, M. Night Shyamalan stepped into perhaps the scariest role of his career, that of mediator in the increasingly acrimonious debate over public education.

WMDT
DSU receive multimillion dollar grant
More college students and more college degrees is the goal of a couple million dollars worth of grant money for Delaware State University. The institution received $2.6 million from the U.S. Department of Education to their higher education access initiative.

Delaware Public Media
Committee focused on needs of students in poverty begins work
The Wilmington Education Improvement Commission has several committees, including one that focuses on children in poverty. That group met for the first time on Monday afternoon in Wilmington. They discussed trauma-informed educational models, given the high rate of violent crime in the state’s largest city.

Cape Gazette
Susan Donahue leaves Milford for top job at Rehoboth Elementary
New Rehoboth Elementary School Principal Susan Donahue says she feels like she’s come home. “I’ve lived in the Cape district for 23 years,” she said. “When the job opened up, it seemed like a good opportunity to bring my experience home.”

Sussex County Post
Mock orthopedic surgeries: IRHS students selected for Perry Initiative
A select group of Indian River High School students who have interest in the medical and engineering fields recently had the opportunity to preform mock orthopedic surgeries with support from prominent women surgeons and engineers. They were also able to learn about the many opportunities available to them in these fields.

Delaware State News
Polytech’s student election gets real
Class election voting was at an all-time high Thursday at Polytech High School with the help of the Department of Elections. Three real voting booths were used to hold class officer elections for grades 9-11. Junior class adviser John Link raved about the process of voting this year. “It lets students see how the process of real world voting works,” he said.

National News

NPR
Who are the ‘gifted and talented’ And what do they need?
Ron Turiello and his wife, Margaret Caruso, helped found a private school in Sunnyvale, Calif., exclusively for the gifted. It’s called Helios, and both of their children now attend the school, which uses project-based learning, groups children by ability not age, and creates an individualized learning plan for each student.

Hechinger Report
Why do more than half of principals quit after five years?
The teacher evaluation system requires principals to be in and out of the classroom and to drive instructional practices to be better. This new role has come with new expectations, pressures and risks.

The Atlantic
When schools overlook introverts
As the focus on group work and collaboration increases, classrooms are neglecting the needs of students who work better in quiet settings.

Education Week
Long Beach district sets course to personalize teacher PD
In an era where everything from book buying to online dating is personalized, why does professional development for teachers often seem so, well, cookie-cutter? This school year, in a bid to counter that dynamic, the Long Beach, Calif., district is debuting an ambitious effort to personalize teachers’ PD experiences, while still aiming to afford them a consistent level of high-quality training aligned to district goals. Its new online system is designed to offer teachers more ways to access PD better matched to their own needs, plus a way of tracking their own growth.

Math-modeling PD takes teachers beyond the Common Core
Many math teachers around the country have adjusted their expectations for students as a result of the Common Core State Standards. But a pilot professional-development program is going above and beyond the new benchmarks by teaching small groups of elementary teachers in three states to teach a math skill that’s typically been reserved for high school and college students.