December 12, 2016

Delaware News

Cape Gazette
Spanish immersion program coming to Milton elementaries
Students at both Milton elementaries will have a chance to habla espanol and English when a new immersion program begins next fall. “I’m so excited for this program,” said board member Jessica Tyndall. “This is such a positive thing for our district.” The goal is to have 50 students at each elementary – Milton and H.O. Brittingham – commit to an immersion program starting in kindergarten and going through fifth-grade, said Donna Kolakowski, supervisor of elementary curriculum.

Delaware Public Media
Flexible seating catches on in First State schools
An alternative approach to traditional classroom design known as flexible seating is catching on in some Delaware schools, including New Castle Elementary. Students in Victoria Pala’s 5th grade class are listening to a Kid President video about how to disagree respectively. They’ll be writing letters to President elect Trump expressing their opinions, but first they’re talking in groups – and sitting on the floor, on chairs and couches or stability balls.

Middletown Transcript
A.G. Waters Middle School works in harmony with Delaware Symphony Orchestra
For a second year, the Alfred G. Waters Middle School 7th and 8th Grade Orchestra has partnered with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra (DSO) in the “Build the Orchestra” program. This program, which was piloted last year, is an educational outreach effort led by Marjorie Ripsom, the DSO Educational Director, and DSO Executive Director, Alan Jordan.

Newsworks
Secret Santa pays off meal balances at Wilmington school
An anonymous donor has made the holiday season brighter for families at Frederick Douglass Stubbs Elementary School in Wilmington. Christina School District’s Child Nutrition Services Department announced it received a check in the amount of $1,283.07 on behalf of Stubbs. That is enough money to clear all outstanding meal account balances at the school.

Office of the Governor
Governor’s Weekly Message: Expanding Pathways to Career Success for Delaware Students
In his weekly message, Governor Markell discusses the significant and growing impact of Delaware’s Pathways to Prosperity initiative in creating opportunities for students to graduate high school with the skills, education, and opportunity to achieve career success in fast growing industries. “Delawareans and all Americans face a changing global economy, one where employers can increasingly move anywhere in the world to find talent and, because of technology, they produce more with fewer employees,” Governor Markell said.

Philly.com
In Delaware, Gov. Markell worked to make Democrats the jobs party
Fifteen U.S. states have AAA credit ratings: they’re so careful with a buck, they can borrow money as cheaply as the U.S. Treasury. (Pennsylvania and New Jersey pay extra.) Twenty-five states have Republican governors and legislatures. Just six are run by Democrats. (The rest, like Pennsylvania and New Jersey, are split.) Only one of the AAA states is run by Democrats. That’s Delaware, where Gov. Jack Markell, a onetime Nextel and Comcast manager, has spent the last eight years grappling with issues Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders raised in this year’s presidential race: the collapse of heavy industry and hometown corporations that used to pay solid family wages.

Sussex County Post
Family ties at Sussex Central part of Dr. Layfield’s history
History will show that Sussex Central High School Principal Dr. Bradley Layfield wasted no time in beginning his career as an educator. The 1998 Sussex Central graduate got his first diploma from the University of Delaware in three years. His course work was completed in 2 ½ years. Opportunity knocked for a possible return to his SCHS alma mater.

Sussex Countian
Welch Elementary donates over $20,000 to St. Baldrick’s Foundation
Major George Welch Elementary School Principal Jason Payne and assistant principal Jean Miclette presented Susan Heard of St. Baldrick’s Foundation a check for $20,075 Dec. 8. The check was given on behalf of first grade student Von Kleiv and his family. Von is currently battling lymphoma. Since the beginning of the school year the Welch community has been raising money for cancer research in Von’s name as part of their “Laps For Lymphoma” fundraiser.

The News Journal
Teachers weigh in on school safety report
Opinion by Lisa Mims, fifth-grade teacher at Pleasantville Elementary School, and Robyn Howton, high school English teacher at Mount Pleasant High School
Following the high-profile and tragic deaths of two Delaware high school students this year, school safety reemerged as a hot-button issue, and the legislature convened a special committee on school safety. Last month, after two committee meetings and four information gathering meetings, the group released its findings and recommendations. It contains some good ideas that almost anyone could get behind, such as increasing the number of mental health professionals in schools.

Christina teachers awarded science, environment grants
Eleven Christina School District teachers have been awarded grants by FMC Health and Nutrition Plant and its Community Advisory Panel. This is the 10th consecutive year the Newark Plant and its CAP have sponsored the educational mini-grant program for teachers in the district. The program enables teachers to apply for mini-grants ranging from $100 to $500 to help fund special classroom projects and activities.

National News

Education Week
Majority of English-learner students are born in the United States, analysis finds
The majority of English-language learners in U.S. K-12 schools were born in the United States, according to an analysis from the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute. The institute’s analysis of U.S. Census data found that 82 percent of prekindergarten to 5th grade English-learners and 65 percent of 6th and 12th grade English-learners are U.S.-born. The data included children ages 5 to 17 who live with at least one parent.

NPR
How investing In preschool beats the stock market, hands down
If you got 13 percent back on your investments every year, you’d be pretty happy, right? Remember, the S&P 500, historically, has averaged about 7 percent when adjusted for inflation. What if the investment is in children, and the return on investment not only makes economic sense but results in richer, fuller, healthier lives for the entire family? That’s the crux of a new paper out today, The Life-Cycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program co-authored by Nobel Laureate James Heckman, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development.

The Washington Post
Education Department civil rights officials urged to work through ‘tough times ahead’
A celebration of the Education Department’s civil rights work morphed into a pep rally Thursday to bolster federal workers and advocates who are expecting difficult years ahead under president-elect Donald Trump. “We’ve got some tough times ahead, but we are up to it,” Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and an education civil rights icon, told the audience at the department’s D.C. headquarters.

The New York Times
Google effect rubs off on schools in one rural Oklahoma town
Students at Pryor High School study robotics. Elementary schools have basic computer programming classes using free laptops, online collaboration software and Wi-Fi spread across this small town in Oklahoma’s Green Country. “We have to prepare them for their future, not our past,” said Don Raleigh, superintendent of the town’s schools. “You have to have new skill sets.”