This story was originally published by The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint and NNPA Newswire. Sign up for The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint newsletters.

The White House announced a series of new policies on Aug. 2 aimed at preventing family separation and creating opportunities for families and youth during a convening that brought together policymakers from federal, state, local, and tribal governments, along with leaders from philanthropy, child welfare, and family support organizations, and individuals with personal experiences in the child welfare system.

The event focused on encouraging innovation, building partnerships, and sharing best practices.

One central area of focus is the distinction between poverty and neglect. The Biden-Harris administration demanded that children should not be separated from their families solely due to financial hardship. States like Kentucky, Indiana, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Kansas have already clarified that poverty should not be a reason for child removal.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new policy guidance encouraging states to update their definitions of maltreatment under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to exclude situations where families are unable to provide adequate housing, childcare, and other material needs due to financial constraints.

Mandated reporter training and prevention measures

Additionally, HHS officials asserted that the agency remains committed to developing training guidance for mandated reporters to help them connect economically fragile families to support services and recognize these new definitions of neglect.

[Related report: Foster care or foster con? Preserving the federal benefits of America’s most vulnerable children]

Further, the administration plans to expand how states and tribes can use federal funding for prevention activities, including offering more flexibility to tribal governments to use accepted prevention services in collaboration with state child welfare agencies. Officials said the policies also permit federal administrative funding to help families engage with prevention programs through services such as case management, peer navigation, and transportation. In a fact sheet, the White House said future guidance will detail how to integrate the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to prevent involvement in the child welfare system.

Kinship care is prioritized

Officials said the administration also prioritizes the needs of children and youth. Recognizing that children with relatives and other kin have better outcomes, the new policies incentivize jurisdictions to ensure children can live with kin when they cannot be with their parents. This includes allowing child welfare agencies to use federal funds for background checks to expedite the licensing process for kin caregivers, creating a new website to spotlight states and tribes that have adopted kinship licensing rules, and publishing a resource guide for grandparents and kin caregivers.

[Related: Healing the children of Horse Nations]

Additionally, the administration promised to conduct listening sessions to identify federal flexibilities for states and tribes to adopt kinship-first approaches.

Research support

HHS announced several projects to develop actionable research on the intersection between prevention, family support, and child well-being outcomes. The projects plan to highlight innovative prevention approaches that rely on service integration and agency collaboration to prevent homelessness among youth aging out of foster care and to build family resilience.

[Related report: Survey of kinship care policies shows the need for better data collection by states]

They will also enable researchers to study linked Medicaid and child welfare data to understand better the health needs of children and parents involved in the child welfare system and examine the characteristics and experiences of families who relinquished or voluntarily placed their children in child welfare custody.

Biden-Harris child welfare track record

Officials insisted that the Biden-Harris administration has a strong track record on child welfare. Since taking office, they have accelerated the Title IV-E Prevention Program uptake, approved 38 prevention plans, and expanded evidence-based services. They have also respected tribal sovereignty by increasing the scope of Public Law 102-477 plans and celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision in Haaland v. Brackeen, which upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Additionally, the administration has doubled funding for home visiting programs, increased support for kinship care, and provided significant housing relief for families. They have also taken steps to protect parents and children with disabilities from discrimination, cut child poverty nearly in half by expanding the Child Tax Credit, and secured almost a 50% increase in childcare funding.

[Related: Parents tote toddlers to D.C. to press for expanded child tax credit, child care funds]

“The President and Vice President believe every child should have the opportunity to reach their full potential and grow up in a safe and loving home with their families,” administration officials stated. “Over four million families are referred to child protective services each year, and around 200,000 children enter foster care. Child welfare systems are prepared to step in when a child’s safety is at risk, but they are frequently tasked with intervening when families are simply impoverished and could be best helped in the long run by meeting their economic and service needs.”

This historic package of regulations to ensure children in the child welfare system thrive was released in honor of National Kinship Care Month that recognizes the importance of grandparents and relatives caring for children when their parents are unable. Across the nation, approximately 2.7 million grandparents and 1.4 million other relatives are providing kinship care for children.

***

Stacy M. Brown is a New York-based a senior national correspondent for the NNPA/Black Press of America and senior writer for The Washington Informer. His work had been published in the Washington Informer, Baltimore Times, Philadelphia Tribune, Pocono Record, the New York Post, and Black Press USA.

The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint has been reporting on news from an African-American perspective and African-American communities of San Diego County for over six decades. The print publication can be found in all 89 zip codes of San Diego and has readership of over 20,000.

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Of the nearly 45,000 children in the California foster care system, over 8,000 are placed in resource family homes supported by nonprofit foster family agencies. Many of the state’s 220 foster family agencies are on the verge of losing their liability insurance, without which they cannot legally operate. Foster family agencies’ contract with counties who require the agencies to maintain liability insurance.

Currently, people in the system can file claims against foster family agencies for abuse or neglect — without a statute of limitations. The lack of a statute of limitations has resulted in a rise in claims and large settlements.

The national insurance company, Nonprofit’s Insurance Alliance — a single nonprofit risk pool — recently announced it is refusing to offer foster family agencies liability insurance.

On June 12, Nonprofit’s Insurance Alliance stated on it’s website, “NIAC (Nonprofit’s Insurance Alliance of California) insures 90% of foster family agencies (FFAs) in California and we will be forced to non-renew all of these FFA’s soon — unless immediate changes are made to the judicial process. The judicial system has changed. Right now, it’s crushing foster family agencies across California.”

If the vast majority of agencies will no longer be covered by commercial general liability insurance they will be forced to shutdown. This means that over 8,000 youth in foster care in California will be displaced and have nowhere to go as early as September 30.

Jessie Torrisi, director of communications at Reimagine Freedom, that works with women and girls experiencing poverty, exploitation, and incarceration, stated in a recent press release, “[This will be] terrible for young people. We know there is a real problem in making sure young people are safe and not subjected to violence, but if thousands of youth are suddenly kicked out of their placements, the violence, poverty and homelessness they face will become far worse.”

What does commercial general liability insurance cover?

NIAC’s website explains why foster family agencies (FFAs) need insurance:

• California counties rely on and contract with FFAs to recruit, approve, train, and support these resource parents, thereby reducing the number of children in congregate care.
• Working with foster children exposes FFAs to the risk of large jury verdicts. FFAs are increasingly being held responsible for the bad acts of others and are on the verge of becoming uninsurable.
• Without [commercial general liability] insurance, FFAs would not be able to serve children in thousands of safe and stable family settings across the state.
• Runaway verdicts that punish nonprofit FFAs for the unforeseeable actions of others threaten the health and safety of the nearly 9,000 children that rely on FFAs for a safe place to live.
• Most insurers have left or are leaving the market. A single nonprofit risk pool, Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC), now insures approximately 90% of the FFAs operating in California.
• However, NIAC is no longer accepting new FFA business and has announced its intention to no longer renew FFA insurance policies unless legislation is passed that ensures that FFAs will not be held responsible for matters over which they have no control.
• This elimination of liability insurance would cause a collapse of California’s FFA system. Without insurance, FFAs would be required to return foster children to congregate care — which could include juvenile detention centers.

What is the Foster Family Agency Accountability Act?

NIA’s website states, “The Foster Family Agency Accountability Act (AB 2496), sponsored by NAIC, is necessary to avoid a shutdown of California’s foster family agencies.”

Courtesy Gail Pellerin

Rep. Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, CA.

AB 2496 was authored by California Rep. Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz.

AB 2496 would prohibit counties from contractually transferring their legal liability for any wrongful actions of county employees to FFAs.

Here’s a summary of what AB 2496 does:

• It assures that foster family agencies will not pay for the wrongdoing of others.
• It would curb jackpot verdicts that punish nonprofit FFAs for the bad acts of others and threaten the health and safety of the children in California’s foster care system.
• It would encourage more insurance options for FFAs in California.
• Most importantly: Nothing in AB 2496 will prevent injured foster children from recovering damages from responsible parties.
• AB 2496 does nothing to absolve FFAs from the consequences of their own negligence.

AB 2496 would ensure that:

• FFAs are not held responsible for unforeseeable harms.
• FFAs that substantially meet their responsibilities under state licensing laws may not be held accountable to a different standard by the courts.
• FFAs are not held responsible for the negligence of others.
• FFAs are given sufficient facts and time to evaluate claims made against them.

This bill is sponsored by the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California (NIAC) and is supported by over 391 organizations, including other nonprofits insured by NIAC, insurance brokers, and FFAs, as well as over 400 individuals.

This bill is opposed by the Children’s Advocacy Institute, the Children’s Law Center of California, and Consumer Attorneys of California.

Current status of AB 2496

On July 2, 2024, the California Senate Judiciary Committee passed AB 2496 with a unanimous vote of 11-0 (see page 10), however, according to NAIC, ” … it was amended in a manner that does not allow FFAs to be insurable.”

This vote was the first step of many on a path to making AB 2496 law. This result gives stakeholders time to work toward a resolution and add final language that will allow California FFAs to be insurable.

Because of the uncertainty around AB 2496 final language, NIAC has begun sending out nonrenewal notices to California FFAs. However, NIAC will rescind all class-based nonrenewals if AB 2496 becomes law with language that allows these California FFAs to be insurable, by September 30, 2024.

Foster family agencies speak out

One agency that would be affected by the loss of insurance is Beloved Village, an innovative housing and case management program based in the Bay Area of Northern California. They develop community-based housing solutions for women, girls, and trans people of all genders who have experienced violence, incarceration, poverty, and life on the streets. The agency’s goal is to create solutions that don’t further criminalize families but rather support their self-determination with housing and resource solutions.

Courtesy Beloved Village

Alex Volpe, executive director, Beloved Village.

Alex Volpe, executive director of Beloved Village and a a licensed clinical social worker said, “If state and county leaders don’t act immediately to stabilize the insurance market and support nonprofit foster family agencies, more than 8,000 young people in foster homes will have nowhere to go. We can’t let this happen!

Right now, there is no backup plan for these youth who deserve a stable, loving home. This crisis accentuates what we already know: we must collectively pivot and invest in true community solutions and not just “placements” or band-aid fixes for foster youth. We need adequate pay for providers and foster parents and resources to help families hold onto their kids.

We urge the government to invest in holistic case management services where families get personalized support, financial resources and access to programs like ours, designed around what young people truly need to succeed. The kids we work with deserve more than a bed to sleep in and clothes on their back; they deserve to thrive, experience safety, community, a sense of belonging, and joy. We are failing our children. It’s time we aim higher.”

Courtesy YWFC

Julia Arroyo, executive director, Young Women’s Freedom Center.

Another agency that would be affected is Young Women’s Freedom Center (YWFC), based in Oakland, California. For more than 30 years YWFC has provided social services, financial and emotional support, and leadership programs to girls and trans youth that have grown up in poverty, experienced the juvenile legal and foster care systems, have had to survive living and working on the streets, and who have experienced significant violence in their lives.

Julia Arroyo, executive director of YWFC, said, “Foster family agencies can’t fully provide what young people need, but neither can the state operate without them.

I know because I was a teenager in the system and was constantly running away from placements that were far from my friends and family. What young people really need is a place that feels like home.

We need to find a fix to the insurance crisis before 8,000 kids are sent onto the streets, or worse to juvenile detention centers.

But we also need to start helping families to advocate for their children with schools, healthcare, as well as cover rent, food, groceries. Stabilizing housing for parents and caregivers is incredibly successful and costs far less than throwing a young person into the system.”

A synopsis: How did it come to this?

Many California nonprofit foster family agencies are already operating on a razor’s edge because rent, staffing, and operating expenses have soared while the state has cut support for community-based organizations. Most do not have the funds to pay for increased insurance premiums that might result from changing commercial general insurance providers.

In June, the one insurance provider that insures virtually all California foster family agencies announced they are planning to leave the California market. They will  not be renewing any foster family agencies policies due to:

• the the lack of a statute of limitations on lawsuits against foster family agencies, and
• the increased lawsuit settlement costs.

Currently, the lives and stability of more than 8,000 kids in foster family agency programs are hanging in the balance, waiting for California’s Foster Family Agency Accountability Act (AB 2496) language to be finalized and signed into law.

What are immediate and long-term solutions?

“Family foster agencies cannot legally operate without liability insurance. We need state leaders to step up to stabilize this market – to create a shared risk insurance pool as they’ve done for homeowners with big fire or earthquake risk who need insurance. Another option would be to support agencies in paying higher premiums while a long-term solution could be found,” Torrisi explained.

Key elements to successful solutions for agencies and individuals working with youth

Reimagine Freedom has been in the business of breaking cycles of incarceration, sexual violence, and involvement in the underground street economy for 30 years in some of the most poverty-stricken places in California.

Based on the agency’s experience, the following elements are essential for success, according to Torrisi:

• Support the family unit by prioritizing a safe, stable place to live, strengthening and healing the emotional bonds, and finding out what kind of physical, logistical resources each guardian is struggling to provide.
• Understand every family has different needs. Support organizations like Beloved. Their Family Resource Fund provides a wide array of support including childcare coverage, rental subsidies, support with transportation or utilities, and more.
• Understand that young people crave a family and will run away from group homes or foster care placements that are far from their community.
• Support organizations that offer services to a diverse youth population. Reimagine Freedom is getting our Foster Family Agency license because young people need gender-affirming culturally-affirming spaces with adults from the same neighborhoods they come from, from the same circumstances, people who have walked in their shoes.

***

Additional links:

• AB 2496 complete bill: Foster Family Agency Accountability Act
• AB 2496 One Pager
• AB 2496 Fact Sheet
• AB 2496 FAQ Sheet
• AB 2496 Additional FAQs

For more information about California’s Foster Family Agency Accountability Act contact:

• Pamela Davis, CEO, NIA, pdavis@insurancefornonprofits.org or 831-621-6018
• Damien Zillas, corporate compliance counsel, NIA, dzillas@insurancefornonprofits.org or 831-900-9431

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Source

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)

Summary

“CoSN’s Driving K-12 Innovation initiative proudly convenes an international Advisory Board of approximately 140+ education and technology experts to select the most important Hurdles (challenges), Accelerators (mega-trends), and Tech Enablers (tools) Driving K-12 Innovation for the year ahead. The Advisory Board engages in discussion via CoSN’s online forum, synchronous virtual calls via Zoom, and also participates in two surveys to select the top themes in each category that are transforming teaching and learning. This year, the Advisory Board’s work took place over approximately 10 weeks.

Hurdles: (1) Attracting & Retaining Educators and IT Professionals; (2) Ensuring Cybersecurity & Safety Online; (3) Scaling Innovation & Inertia of Education Systems.
Accelerators: (1) Changing Attitudes Toward Demonstrating Learning; (2) Building the Human Capacity of Leaders; (3) Learner Agency.
Tech Enablers: (1) Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI); (2) Analytics & Adaptive Technologies; (3) Rich Digital Ecosystems.”

Read Full Report →

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This story was originally published by ProPublica.

Police video, audio, texts and emails released Saturday by Uvalde, Texas, city officials offer new details about the Robb Elementary school shooting while also largely reaffirming reporting about law enforcement’s failure to engage a gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers.

The release comes after a yearslong legal battle involving nearly two dozen news outlets.

In one report, a Uvalde municipal police officer said that law enforcement had to rely on a parent to use bolt cutters to break the locks to the gated fence the shooter had scaled to enter the school. That same officer also indicated in his report that he overheard a female relative of the shooter discuss how he’d expressed suicidal thoughts the night before the May 24, 2022, massacre. And in a 911 call, the shooter’s uncle pleaded with police to speak to the teenager, saying he believed he could talk him down. The call, however, came six minutes after law enforcement killed the gunman.

Text exchanges between Uvalde officers also provide insight into their frustrations after Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw blamed local police in the days following the shooting.

A Texas House of Representatives report released two months later, by contrast, spread blame onto the scores of local, state and federal law enforcement officers — including McCraw’s at least 91 DPS troopers — who also responded to the scene and failed to take charge.

The day after McCraw’s public comments, Uvalde Police Lt. Javier Martinez, who was shot within the first few minutes of the response, said that he had received a call from U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

In a text detailing the conversation, Martinez said the senator told him McCraw “should NOT have done that.” Martinez said he told Cornyn that McCraw had “screwed us all” and that the local officers were all receiving death threats.

Eric Gay/AP

Felicia Martinez, mother of Xavier Lopez who was killed by a gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, center tries to hold back tears as she and other surviving family members attend a news conference at the Texas Capitol with Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, in Austin, Texas, on Jan. 24, 2023. For the first time since the Uvalde school massacre, Texas Republican lawmakers on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, allowed proposals for stricter gun laws to get a hearing in the state Capitol — even though new restrictions have almost no chance of passing.

Cornyn’s spokesperson declined to comment, while McCraw did not immediately respond. An attorney for Martinez and the Uvalde police officers said that he was not aware of the text exchange. Martinez did not respond to a message inquiring about it.

[Related: Uvalde families plead for languishing Texas gun bills]

Most other records released by the city, such as body camera footage and audio of 911 calls from children inside the classrooms, were detailed in previous reporting from The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE after the news organizations independently obtained hundreds of hours of investigative material through a confidential source.

The Saturday release is the first major disclosure of documents by a government agency involved in the flawed response to the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.

It was part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit between the city and the news organizations. Three other government agencies — the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office — continue fighting not to release any records.

Former Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, who is now a Republican candidate for the Texas House, said in a phone interview Saturday that the other government entities in the lawsuit should follow the city’s example.

“The only way we’re going to know what truly happened is for everybody to release their records, put them out there,” McLaughlin said.

“Mistakes were made. There’s no denying that. Take your lumps.”

By now, law enforcement’s failures during the response to the Uvalde shooting are well documented, including the fact that officers wrongly treated the shooter as a barricaded subject, rather than an active threat, and failed to confront him for 77 minutes. No officer took control of the response, which prevented coordination and communication between agencies. According to records released Saturday, for example, a DPS aircraft official struggled to coordinate logistics for two helicopters, SWAT team members and the San Antonio Police Department because they couldn’t reach an incident commander.

The newsrooms published 911 calls that showed the increasing desperation of children and teachers pleading to be saved and revealed how officers’ fear of the shooter’s AR-15 prevented them from acting more quickly. In a collaboration with FRONTLINE that included a documentary, the newsrooms also showed that while the children in Uvalde were prepared, following what they had learned in their active shooter drills, many of the officers who responded were not.

The U.S. Justice Department later published a report that heavily criticized the delayed response and said that some victims would have survived had officers followed their training.

According to the records released Saturday, Uvalde municipal police officer Bobby Ruiz Sr. said in an incident report after the shooting that law enforcement had to rely on a parent to cut a lock on the gates of a fence around the school. Once the gate was open, students and teachers began running toward the opening.

“I ran up along with two other male individuals in which we hurried the students and school staff behind cover,” the officer said.

[Related: Uvalde mom sues police, gunmaker in school massacre]

Ruiz was then sent to the nearby house where the gunman lived with his grandparents. The teenager had shot his grandmother in the face and taken his grandfather’s truck to the school. Ruiz said that while at the house, he overheard a relative say they’d stayed up with the gunman the night before after he expressed a desire to die by suicide.

In one 911 call, the shooter’s uncle, Armando Ramos, urged police to let him speak with the shooter, confident he could persuade him to stop.

“Everything I tell him, he does listen to me,” a distraught Ramos said. “Maybe he could stand down … or turn himself in.”

But his nephew was already dead, killed minutes earlier by police after he emerged from a classroom closet and fired at them.

An attorney for the news agencies as well as the uncle of one of the children killed at Robb Elementary said information about the shooting — and law enforcement’s response — helps grieving relatives get closure and will better prepare authorities for future massacres. They pushed other agencies to follow the city’s move and release records.

Eric Gay/AP

Family of those killed by a gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, stand with Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez during a news conference at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Texas, Jan. 24, 2023.

Jesse Rizo’s 9-year-old niece Jackie Cazares was one of the fourth graders killed. He was elected to the Uvalde school board in May and has pushed the district to release information the news organizations have requested. He said the piecemeal nature the public releases is spurring residents to suspect government officials are involved in a cover-up.

“And then we begin to lose faith and trust,” he said.

“And the longer that things get delayed getting made public, then the more of a lack of trust we have.”

Brett Cross, the father of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, who was also killed that day, said that he is infuriated that the city released information to media organizations through the settlement without first notifying families. He demanded more documents be released.

“They need to show everything, the world, how this actually is,” Cross said. “This isn’t something that we can just turn off. The world gets to turn off the TV and walk away. We don’t get to. We have to live this daily.”

[Related: Demand soars for kids’ books addressing violence, trauma]

Two state district judges in Texas have ordered the county, DPS and the school district to release records related to the shooting. All three have appealed the decisions.

Only the city has settled with the news organizations, saying in a statement Saturday that it wished to comply with the court order and end a legal battle.

DPS representatives and a school district spokesperson did not immediately return calls or emails Saturday. Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco said in a statement that the potential release of records was “under the purview” of the office’s attorney.

Only a handful of responding officers have been publicly disciplined and no trial date has been set for the two who were indicted by a grand jury in June.

Evan L'Roy/For The Texas Tribune

Former Uvalde school police Chief Pete Arredondo and a former officer have been indicted on charges of child endangerment in connection with the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Those two men — Pete Arredondo and Adrian Gonzales — pleaded not guilty. An attorney for Gonzales called the charges “unprecedented.”

[Related: Former Uvalde schools police chief indicted for role in Robb Elementary shooting response]

Uvalde city officials chose to release records against the longstanding wishes of District Attorney Christina Mitchell, who is preparing to prosecute those two school district officers, including the agency’s former chief, for alleged inaction. Mitchell has argued that releasing records will interfere with those cases.

Attorneys representing the news organizations have said there is no proof to support her claims and that agencies cannot withhold the records under state laws.

Laura Prather, a media law chair for Haynes Boone who represented the news agencies in the legal fight for the records, called the city’s release a “step toward transparency,” though she noted the legal battle continues.

“Transparency is necessary to help Uvalde heal and allow us all to understand what happened and learn how to prevent future tragedies,” Prather said.

***

The reporting team:

• Lomi Kriel is an investigative reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative.

• Lexi Churchill is a research reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative.

• Zach Despart  is a politics reporter for The Texas Tribune. He investigates power — who wields it, how and to what ends — through the lens of Texas.

• Terri Langford is the Texas Tribune’s health and human services editor. A veteran journalist, her work, covering criminal justice and health and human services  has appeared in  the Florida Times Union, The Associated Press, The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, WNYC, Honolulu Civil Beat, and Texas Standard/KUT.  

• Kayla Guo is an Austin-based general assignment reporter for The Texas Tribune. She reports on stories about the law & courts, the safety net and the power grid.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

This article was co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

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Parents know they should talk and read to their young children. Dozens of nonprofit organizations have promoted the research evidence that it will help their children do better in school.

But the focus has been on improving literacy. Are there similar things that parents can do with their children to lay the foundation for success in math?

That’s important because Americans struggle with math, ranking toward the bottom on international assessments. Weak math skills impede a child’s progress later in life, preventing them from getting through college, a vocational program or even high school. Math skills, or the lack of them, can open or close the doors to lucrative science and technology fields.

Mentioning numbers during everyday activities could be more beneficial than workbooks and exercises.

A new wave of research over the past decade has looked at how much parents talk about numbers and shapes with their children, and whether these spontaneous and natural conversations help children learn the subject. Encouraging parents to talk about numbers could be a cheap and easy way to improve the nation’s dismal math performance.

A team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Irvine, teamed up to summarize the evidence from 22 studies conducted between 2010 and 2022. Their meta-analysis was published in the July 2024 issue of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

1. There’s a link between parent math talk and higher math skills

After looking at 22 studies, researchers found that the more parents talked about math with their children, the stronger their children’s math skills. In these studies, researchers typically observed parents and children interacting in a university lab, a school, a museum or at home and kept track of how often parents mentioned numbers or shapes. Ordinary sentences that included numbers counted. An example could be: “Hand me three potato chips.” Researchers also gave children a math test and found that children who scored higher tended to have parents who talked about math more during the observation period.

The link between parents’ math talk and a child’s math skills was strongest between ages three and five.

During these preschool years, parents who talked more about numbers and shapes tended to have children with higher math achievement. Parents who didn’t talk as much about numbers and shapes tended to have children with lower math achievement.

With older children, the amount of time that parents spent talking about math was not as closely related to their math achievement. Researchers speculated that this was because once children start school, their math abilities are influenced more by the instruction they receive from their teachers.

None of these studies proves that talking to your preschooler about math causes their math skills to improve. Parents who talk more about math may also have higher incomes and more education. Stronger math skills could be the result of all the other things that wealthier and more educated parents are giving their kids –  nutritious meals, a good night’s sleep, visits to museums and vacations –  and not the math talk per se. So far, studies haven’t been able to disentangle math talk from everything else that parents do for their children.

“What the research is showing at this point is that talking more about math tends to be associated with better outcomes for children,” said Alex Silver, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh who led the meta-analysis. “It’s an easy way to bring math concepts into your day to day life that doesn’t require buying special equipment, or setting aside time to tutor your child and try to teach them arithmetic.”

2. Keep it natural

The strongest link between parent talk about math and a child’s math performance was detected when researchers didn’t tell parents to do a math activity. Parents who naturally brought up numbers or shapes in a normal conversation had children who scored higher on math assessments. When researchers had parents do a math exercise with children, the amount of math-related words that a parent used wasn’t as strongly associated with better math performance for their children.

Silver, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research & Development Center, recommends bringing math into something that the child is paying attention to, rather than doing flashcards or workbooks. It could be as simple as asking  “How many?” Here’s an example Silver gave me:  “Oh, look, you have a whole lot of cars. How many cars do you have? Let’s count them. You have one, two, three. There’s three cars there.”

When you’re doing a puzzle together, turn the shape in a different direction and talk about what it looks like. Setting the dinner table, grocery shopping and keeping track of money are opportunities to talk about numbers or shapes.

“The idea is to make it fun and playful.”

Silver said, “As you’re cooking, say, ‘We need to add two eggs. Oh wait, we’re doubling the recipe, so we need two more eggs. How many is that all together?’ ”

I asked Silver about the many early childhood math apps and exercises on the market, and whether parents should be spending time doing them with their children. Silver said they can be helpful for parents who don’t know where to start, but she said parents shouldn’t feel guilty if they’re not doing math drills with their kids. “It’s enough to just talk about it naturally, to find ways to bring up numbers and shapes in the context of what you’re already doing.”

3. Quality may matter more than quantity

In the 22 studies, more math talk was associated with higher math achievement. But researchers are unable to advise parents on exactly how much or how often to talk about math during the day. Silver said 10 utterances a day about math is probably more beneficial than just one mention a day. “Right now the evidence is that more is better, but at some point it’s so much math, you need to talk about something else now,” she said. The point of diminishing returns is unknown.

Ultimately, the quantity of math talk may not be as important as how parents talk about math, Silver said. Reading a math textbook to your child probably wouldn’t be helpful, Silver said. It’s not just about saying a bunch of math words. Still, researchers don’t know if asking questions or just talking about numbers is what makes a difference. It’s also not clear how important it is to tailor the number talk to where a child is in his math development. These are important areas of future research.

Technology may help.

The latest studies are using wearable audio recorders, enabling researchers to “listen” to hours of conversations inside homes, and analyzing these conversations with natural language processing algorithms to get a more accurate understanding of parents’ math talk. The 22 studies in this meta-analysis captured as little as three minutes and as much as almost 14 hours of parent-child interactions, and these snippets of life, often recorded in a lab setting, may not reflect how parents and children talk about math in a typical week.

4. Low-income kids appear to benefit as much from math talk as high-income kids

Perhaps the most inspiring conclusion from this meta-analysis is that the association between a parent’s math talk and a child’s math performance was as strong for a low-income child as it was for a high-income child.

“That’s a happy thing to see that this transcends other circumstances,” said Silver.

“Targeting the amount of math input that a child receives is hopefully going to be easier, and more malleable than changing broader, systemic challenges.”

While there are many questions left to answer, Silver is already putting her research into practice with her own three-year old son. She’s asked counting questions so many times that her little one has begun to tease her. Every time he sees a group of things, he pretends to be Mommy and asks, “How many? Let’s count them!”

“It’s very funny,” Silver said. “I’m like, ‘Wow, Mommy really drilled that one into you, huh?’ Buddy knows what you’re up to.”

The post A little parent math talk with kids might really add up, a new body of education research suggests appeared first on Youth Today.

Source

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Summary

“The Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report provides data on health behaviors and experiences of high school students in the United States. Data highlight students’ behaviors and experiences in 2023, changes from 2021 to 2023, and 10-year trends. The report focuses on: Sexual behavior, Substance use, Experiences of violence, Mental health, Suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and other important issues, like social media use.

Key Findings

• In 2023, female students and LGBTQ+ students experienced more violence, signs of poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors than their male and cisgender and heterosexual peers.
• From 2021 to 2023, there were early signs that adolescent mental health is getting better. There were also concerning increases in students’ experiences of violence at school.
• From 2013 to 2023, 10-year trends were similar to what data showed in 2021. There were decreases in students’ use of substances. There were increases in students’ experiences of violence, signs of poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Students’ sexual activity decreased, but so did their protective sexual behaviors, like condom use.”

Read Full Report →

View Youth Today's Report Library

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This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.

The proposals in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project — known as Project 2025 and designed for Donald Trump — would reshape the American education system, early education through college, from start to finish.

The conservative Heritage Foundation is the primary force behind the sprawling blueprint, which is separate from the much less detailed Republican National Committee 2024 platform, though they share some common themes.

Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage and its lobbying arm, Heritage Action, said in an interview with USA TODAY that Project 2025 should be seen “like a menu from the Cheesecake Factory.” No one president could take on all these changes, he said. “It’s a manual for conservative policy thought.”

From Head Start to student loans: Conservative proposals for a new Trump administration have wide reach

The fast-changing political landscape makes it difficult to say which of these proposals might be taken up by Trump if he wins reelection. He has claimed to know nothing about it, though many of his allies were involved in drafting it. The exit of President Joe Biden from the presidential race may have an impact on Project 2025 that is still unknown. Finally, many of the broadest proposals in the document, such as changes to Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, would require congressional action, not just an order from the White House.

However, it remains a useful document for outlining the priorities of those who would likely play a part in a new Trump administration. The Hechinger Report created this reference guide that digs into the Project 2025 wish list for education.

Early education

Child care for military families

Project 2025 calls for expanding child care for military families, who have access to programs that are often upheld as premier examples of high-quality care in America. – Jackie Mader

Head Start and child care 

Project 2025 calls for eliminating the Office of Head Start, which would lead to the closure of Head Start child care programs that serve about 833,000 low-income children each year. Most Head Start children are served in center-based programs, which have an outsized role in rural areas and prioritize enrolling a certain percentage of young children with disabilities who often struggle to find child care elsewhere. Head Start also provides a critical funding and resource stream to other private child care programs that meet Head Start standards, including home-based programs. – J. M.

Home-based child care

A conservative administration should also prioritize funding for home-based child care rather than “universal day care” in programs outside the home, Project 2025 says. That funding would include money for parents to stay home with a child or to pay for “familial, in-home” care, proposals that could be appealing to some early childhood advocates who have long called for more resources for informal care and stay-at-home parents. – J. M.

[Related: Parents tote toddlers to D.C. to press for expanded child tax credit, child care fund]

On-site child care

If out-of-home child care is necessary, Congress should offer incentives for on-site child care, Project 2025 says, because it “puts the least stress on the parent-child bond.” Early childhood advocates have been wary of such proposals because they tie child care access to a specific job. It also calls on Congress to clarify within the Fair Labor Standards Act that an employer’s expenses for providing such care are not part of the employee’s pay.– J. M.

K-12 education

Data collection  

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” should release student performance data based on “family structure” — in addition to existing categories such as race and socioeconomic status — Project 2025 argues. Family structure, the document says, is “one of the most important — if not the most important — factor influencing student educational achievement and attainment.” The document goes on to endorse “natural family structure” of a heterosexual, two-parent household, “because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.” — Sarah Butrymowicz 

LGBTQ students 

Project 2025 advocates a rollback of regulations that protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It calls for agencies to “focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of ‘sex.’”

[Related: Don’t let conservatives fool you: Anti-trans laws don’t protect youth and families, they endanger them]

The plan also calls on Congress and state lawmakers to require schools to refer to students by the names on their birth certificates and the pronouns associated with their biological sex, unless they have written permission from parents to refer to them otherwise.

[Related: New Title IX rules offer ‘comprehensive coverage’ for LGBTQ+ students and sexual violence survivors]

The plan also equates transgender issues with child abuse and pornography, and proposes that school libraries with books deemed offensive be punished. — Ariel Gilreath

Privatization 

In place of a federal Education Department, the blueprint calls for widespread public education funding that goes directly to families, as part of its overarching goal of “advancing education freedom.”

The document specifically highlights the education savings account program in Arizona, the first state to open school vouchers up to all families. Programs like Arizona’s have few, if any, restrictions on who can access the funding. Project 2025 also calls for education savings accounts for schools under federal jurisdiction, such as those run by the Department of Defense or the Bureau of Indian Education.

[Related: As Oklahoma adds virtual charter schools — including nation’s first religious one — some wonder if there’s a ‘saturation point’]

In addition, Project 2025 calls on Congress to look into creating a federal scholarship tax credit to “incentivize donors to contribute” to nonprofit groups that grant scholarships for private school tuition or education materials. — Ariel Gilreath and Neal Morton

School meals 

The federal school meals program should be scaled back to ensure that only children from low-income families are receiving the benefit, the document says. Policy changes under the Obama administration have made it easier for entire schools or districts to provide free meals to students without families needing to submit individual eligibility paperwork. — Christina A. Samuels

Special education 

Project 2025 says that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which provides $14.2 billion in federal money for the education of school-aged children with disabilities, should be mostly converted to “no-strings” block grants to individual states. Lawmakers should also consider making a portion of the federal money payable directly to parents of children with disabilities, it says, so they can use it for tutoring, therapies or other educational materials. This would be similar to education savings accounts in place in Arizona and Florida.

The blueprint also calls for rescinding a policy called “Equity in IDEA.” Under that policy, districts are required to evaluate if schools are disproportionately enrolling Black, Native American and other ethnic minority students in special education. Districts must also track how these students are disciplined, and if they are more likely than other students in special education to be placed in classrooms separate from their general education peers. Current rules, which Project 2025 would eliminate, require that districts that have significant disparities in this area must use 15 percent of their federal funding to address those problems. — C.A.S.

Teaching about race 

Project 2025 elevates concerns among members of the political right that educating students about race and racism risks promoting bias against white people. The document discusses the legal concept of critical race theory, and argues that when it is used in teacher training and school activities such as “mandatory affinity groups,” it disrupts “the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness.”

[Related: Walking on eggshells: Teachers’ responses to classroom limitations on race- or gender-related topics]

The document calls for legislation requiring schools to adopt proposals “that say no individual should receive punishment or benefits based on the color of their skin,” among other recommendations. It also calls for a federal Parents’ Bill of Rights that would give families a “fair hearing in court” if they believed the federal government had enforced policies undermining their right to raise their children. — Caroline Preston

Title I

This program, funded at a little over $18 billion for fiscal 2024, is the largest federal program for K-12 schools and is designed to help children from low-income families. The conservative blueprint would encourage lawmakers to make the program a block grant to states, with few restrictions on how it can be used — and, over 10 years, to phase it out entirely.

[Related: 2024 race for results: Building a pathway to opportunity for all children]

Additionally, it says, lawmakers should allow parents in Title I schools to use part of that funding for educational savings accounts that could be spent on private tutoring or other services. — C.A.S.

Higher education

Affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion 

The document calls for prosecuting “all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers” that maintain affirmative action or DEI policies. That position matches the views expressed by Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, about the use of race in college admissions and beyond. — Liz Willen

Data collection 

In higher education, the proposal argues that college graduation and earnings data need a “risk adjustment” that factors in the types of students served by a particular institution. While selective colleges tend to post the highest graduation rates and student earnings, they also tend to enroll the least-“risky” students. A risk adjustment methodology could benefit community colleges, which often have low graduation rates but enroll many nontraditional students who face obstacles to earning a degree. It would also likely benefit for-profit colleges, which similarly tend to accept most applicants. Historically, for-profit schools have received scrutiny under Democratic administrations for poor outcomes and for allegedly misleading students about the value of the education they provide. Republican administrations typically have supported less regulation of for-profit institutions. — S.B. 

[Related: State laws threaten to erode academic freedom in US higher education] 

Parent PLUS loans and Pell grants 

The blueprint calls for the elimination of the Parent PLUS loan program, arguing that it is redundant “because there are many privately provided alternatives available.” Originally created for relatively affluent families, the PLUS loan program has become a crucial way for lower- and middle-income families to pay for college. In recent years, it has sparked criticism due to rising default rates and fewer protections than are afforded to other student loan borrowers.

At present, interest rates for private loans are significantly lower than Parent PLUS rates, but they come with fewer protections, and it is more difficult to get approved for a private-bank loan. Project 2025 would also get rid of PLUS loans for graduate students.

If the federal PLUS programs were eliminated, it could stem one portion of the rising tide of families’ education debt, but it would also make the path to paying for college more difficult for some families.

Project 2025 does not call for a change to the Pell grant program, which provides federal funding for students from low-income families to attend college. Some advocates have called for doubling the annual maximum allotment, which is $7,395 for the 2024-25 school year, far below the cost to attend many colleges. — Meredith Kolodner and Olivia Sanchez

Student loan forgiveness 

Project 2025 would end the prospect of student loan forgiveness, which has already been largely blocked by federal courts; the Biden administration, in a sort of game of Whac-a-Mole, has proposed still more forgiveness programs that are being fought by Republican state attorneys general and others. Project 2025 would also dramatically restrict what’s known as “borrower defense to repayment,” which forgives loans borrowed to pay for colleges that closed or have been found to use illegal or deceptive marketing. Largely restricting the Education Department to collecting statistics, Project 2025 would shift responsibility for student loans to the Treasury Department. — Jon Marcus

***

 For The Hechinger Report:

• Jackie Mader, senior reporter
• Christina A. Samuels, deputy managing editor
• Sarah Butrymowicz, senior editor for investigations
• Ariel Gilreath, southern education reporter
• Neal Morton, western education reporter
• Caroline Preston, managing editor
• Liz Willen, editor in chief
• Olivia Sanchez, higher education reporter
• Meredith Kolodner, senior investigations reporter
• Jon Marcus, senior higher education reporter

This story about Project 2025 was produced by The Hechinger Report, a national, nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

The post How could Project 2025 change education? appeared first on Youth Today.

This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. 

This summer, everyone from homeschoolers to large urban districts like Los Angeles Unified is trying to process what artificial intelligence will mean for the coming school year. Educators find themselves at a crossroads — AI’s promise for revolutionizing education is tantalizing, yet fraught with challenges. Amid the excitement and the angst, and the desire to recover from COVID learning losses, a powerful but often overlooked tool for boosting student achievement lies hidden in plain sight: strategic testing.

By harnessing AI to create frequent, low-stakes assessments, teachers can unlock the scientifically proven benefits of the testing effect — a phenomenon in which students learn more by taking tests than from studying. This summer, it is worth challenging assumptions about testing and exploring how AI-powered strategic assessments can not only boost student learning, but save teachers valuable time and make their jobs easier.

Summer is the perfect time to consider the benefits of frequent, low-stakes strategic assessments powered by artificial intelligence.

Unlocking the promise of AI requires first understanding the testing effect: Students’ long-term retention of material improves dramatically — 50% better — through exam-taking than through sophisticated studying techniques like concept mapping. This effect isn’t limited to rote memorization; it enhances students’ inference-making and understanding of complex concepts. The advantages emerge for multiple disciplines (e.g., science and language learning) and across age groups, and even extend to learners with neurologically based memory impairment. Additionally, teaching students about the phenomenon of the testing effect can boost their confidence.

Unfortunately, in most classrooms, opportunities for students to practice retrieving, connecting and organizing knowledge through testing happen rarely — think occasional quizzes or infrequent unit tests. This isn’t surprising, given all the pressures teachers face. Developing and grading tests is time-intensive — not to mention thankless — work.

But AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude 3.5 Sonnet can change that. They can generate diverse, personalized assessments quickly, potentially helping teachers leverage the testing effect more effectively — converting a counterintuitive research finding into a classroom practice that could save time and help students learn more. With AI handling the creation and analysis of tests, educators can easily incorporate frequent, low-stakes assessments into their lesson plans.

How does it work?

To illustrate, we asked ChatGPT to create a 10-minute test on natural resources for sixth graders in Maryland. In less than 10 seconds, the tool provided options for multiple choice, true/false, short answer, matching and diagram interpretation questions. We even got a creative thinking essay prompt: “If you were a superhero tasked with protecting Earth’s natural resources, what would be your superpower and why?” By picking and choosing test items, running the prompt a second time and lightly editing a couple of questions, we had a compelling quiz, created in 10 minutes. The AI tool also provided comprehensive instructions and an answer key.

Teachers can tailor this process in dozens of ways. They can input key concepts and learning objectives to fit their curriculum needs. They can fine-tune test questions for relevance and difficulty. They can inform ChatGPT about the class’s interests to bolster student engagement.

What about grading? Not only can AI grade test papers and even essays, but it can guide students in assessing their own work and that of their classmates. For example, when students grade each other’s assignments, they can check their feedback against ChatGPT. Doing so provides another opportunity to practice recalling key material. Teachers’ evaluations and personalized feedback will remain critical, but these do not have to happen every time.

Take, for example, a language class with a ChatGPT-generated vocabulary test. For objective parts of exams, like multiple-choice questions, students might self-assess by using ChatGPT to grade these items quickly. For tasks like sentence construction, students might engage in peer assessment to gain new insights from classmates on word choices and sentence structure. Teachers can step in for more complex tasks such as creative writing. Rotating among AI, peers and teachers lightens the grading load significantly while ensuring diverse, rich feedback.

Embracing AI-assisted strategic testing could create a more effective and fulfilling educational experience for students and teachers alike. As educators navigate the evolving landscape of AI in education, strategic testing offers a balanced approach. It leverages AI’s capabilities to enhance teaching and learning while preserving the crucial role of human teachers in the classroom. This summer, as educators reflect and plan for the future, they should reconsider testing not as a mere assessment tool, but as a powerful catalyst for learning.

***

Xue Wang is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education, focusing on learner autonomy, meta-analysis and AI tools for education research.

Hunter Gehlbach is a professor and director of the Ph.D. program at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. He has worked for Panorama Education and is an occasional consultant.

The 74 is a nonprofit news organization covering America’s education system from early childhood through college and career. The 74’s journalists aim to challenge the status quo, expose corruption and inequality, spotlight solutions, confront the impact of systemic racism, and champion the heroes bringing positive change to our schools. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74.

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This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters.

A new coalition is on high alert for violations of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that guarantees children the right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status.

Known as Education for All, the campaign is working to counteract anti-immigrant rhetoric and conservative policy proposals seeking to limit the educational rights of undocumented children, which are protected by the 1982 Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe.

The campaign, which launched in May, comes as The Heritage Foundation, a think tank with ties to former President Donald Trump, is pushing states to charge undocumented children tuition to attend public school. Doing so, Heritage says, could lead the Supreme Court to reconsider the Plyler ruling.

Supporters of the idea say the costs of educating undocumented children have grown too high and that migrant students are drawing resources from U.S. citizens. Critics argue these policies would deny hundreds of thousands of kids the fundamental right to an education — and send shockwaves through the nation’s economy, social safety net, and criminal justice system.

Lawmakers in at least four states have tried to pass such measures since 2022. Already, some districts have thrown up barriers that prevent newcomers from enrolling, while some school board members have suggested collecting data on students’ immigration status.

The Heritage Foundation, a think tank with ties to former President Donald Trump, is pushing states to charge undocumented children tuition to attend public school.

“We want to take everything seriously,” said Will Dempster, the vice president of strategic communications for the National Immigration Law Center, which is leading the coalition. “They’re testing the boundaries of what’s possible.”

Three dozen organizations have joined the coalition, including immigrant rights groups, education and legal advocates, and the nation’s two largest teachers unions. Their work spans border states like Arizona and Texas, and states that have enrolled a large share of migrant students in recent years, such as New York, California, Colorado, and Illinois.

Together they will be watchdogging school board meetings, lobbying state lawmakers, educating families about their rights, and making sure school officials understand the Plyler decision. The goal is to “coordinate when things pop up in different states and be ready to mobilize,” Dempster said.

Amid cost concerns, schools support migrant students

The coalition is also pushing back against claims from Trump and other conservative politicians about newly arrived migrant children.

“They’re taking over our schools,” Trump said last month during the presidential debate. Earlier this year, Trump falsely claimed that migrant children had displaced other students in New York City schools, though the district actually has empty seats it’s trying to fill.

Similarly, in June, U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean, a Florida Republican, held an education hearing titled “The Consequences of Biden’s Border Chaos for K-12 Schools” where he spoke about the “staggering” cost of educating undocumented kids.

“Educating illegal immigrant children requires substantial resources, altering the learning environment for all students,” Bean said.

“Overcrowded classrooms, the need for new facilities, and strained student-to-teacher ratios are just some of the challenges.”

He pointed to Colorado giving schools an extra $24 million this year to help offset the costs of educating newcomer students, and a pair of schools in Austin, Texas where teachers taught classes in hallways after a big uptick in refugee students.

Some schools have struggled to meet the needs of newly arrived immigrant students. That’s often because they do not have enough bilingual staff or receive limited funding to educate immigrant students.

In 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the Plyler ruling should be revisited “because the expenses are extraordinary” and he called on the federal government to pay states’ costs. A lawmaker in his state tried to bar undocumented children from enrolling in public schools unless the federal government did just that, but the bill didn’t go anywhere.

Similar proposals were floated in Utah, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, but none passed — suggesting the idea remains controversial, even among conservatives.

Newly arrived students’ needs aren’t unique. Many U.S.-born children also need language support, trauma-informed counseling, or help catching up after interrupted schooling. And some schools have stepped up by training staff to provide additional mental health support or adding summer programs to help kids adjust to life in the U.S.

The coalition plans to highlight the many benefits immigrant students can bring to their classmates and school communities, too.

“Part of what we can do is show that immigrant students can succeed when given the right supports,” said Liza Schwartzwald, the director of economic justice and family empowerment at the New York Immigration Coalition, which belongs to Education for All. “These are not kids that are throwing our education system into turmoil.”

Enrollment barriers, data collection could violate student rights

Still, even without official state restrictions, undocumented children commonly face barriers to school enrollment, including in Democratic-led states.

• Last summer, New York’s attorney general said the state had learned of school policies that made it “difficult or impossible” for undocumented students to enroll — likely in violation of state or federal protections. Some districts required students or their parents to provide voter registration cards, which aren’t available to non-citizens, or threatened to make home visits if a student couldn’t establish residency with a lease, which can be difficult for undocumented families to obtain.
• Throughout New York City, newly arrived immigrant youth have encountered wait lists or been told there are no spots as they sought to enroll in school, City Limits reported. On the flip side, some newcomer high schoolers have been pressured to leave their school when they needed more support to graduate.
• In Massachusetts, some districts said they didn’t plan to enroll migrant children who were housed in temporary shelters, until the state told them they had to.
• Hundreds of schools in dozens of states recently told The 74 they wouldn’t admit a 19-year-old Venezuelan student with limited English skills, even though he was legally entitled to enroll.

Coalition members are alert to these and other examples of schools potentially violating the rights laid out in Plyler.

Alejandra Vázquez Baur, who directs the National Newcomer Network, which includes 250 teachers, school leaders, community advocates, and researchers from across the country, said members share possible infringements when they meet every other month.

Jimena Peck/Chalkbeat

The National Newcomer Network has led storytelling training to help teachers, school leaders, and others talk about their work with immigrant children.

Her organization has filed federal civil rights complaints on behalf of students or helped families file their own, though she knows that process is often too slow to help a child before they decide to enroll elsewhere or not to enroll in school at all.

Tessa Petit, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said her organization is urging its 80 member organizations to “be alert” for potential Plyler violations. That includes working with partners that organize high schoolers to see if they’ve heard about any cases of undocumented kids not being able to register for school.

[Related: It takes a village — A Brooklyn high school and NYC nonprofits team up to enroll older immigrants]

They are keeping their eye on Sarasota County Schools after Bridget Ziegler, a school board member and a co-founder of the conservative political group Moms for Liberty, raised questions about whether the district could collect data on students’ immigration status.

“I’ve heard both from staff and members of the community in general about a concern about being able to respond to the language barriers, but also it kind of becoming more of a burden than usual,” she said at a board meeting in March. “Is that just the perception? Is there a way to evaluate that?”

The Heritage Foundation plan calls on schools to collect data on students’ immigration status as a way to conduct cost analyses. Schools typically do not do this because it can scare families and cause them not to send their children to school, in violation of Plyler.

Undocumented students’ supporters work to convince voters

The Florida Immigrant Coalition is also reaching out to teachers unions and school board members to raise awareness about this issue, and meeting with state lawmakers to try and secure pledges that they would not support legislation that could harm immigrant students.

“We realize that there is a lot of education that needs to be done,” Petit said. “The reaction that we’re getting is ‘No, wow, that wouldn’t happen.’ Some people can’t even imagine the idea of kids not going to school.”

The national coalition is also looking for states or communities that would be willing to pass policies that support the educational rights of immigrant children.

One example is a recent Connecticut law that ensures immigrant families know their kids are entitled to a public education and that they should receive certain translation services.

[Related: As migrants arrive, some schools need more buses, books and bilingual teachers]

And the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has had preliminary conversations about putting the Plyler decision into state law to make it “super clear” that undocumented children are entitled to a public education, said Fred Tsao, the organization’s senior policy counsel.

There are other ways the coalition is being proactive that don’t involve statutes.

[Related: Hundreds of high schools wrongfully refused entry to older, immigrant student]

Vázquez Baur’s organization has been conducting storytelling training over the last few months to help its members talk about their work with newcomer students. They plan to share those “on-the-ground” experiences in the lead-up to the presidential election.

“That is often what changes minds,” Vázquez Baur said. “For folks who might be making a voting decision that would otherwise harm this community, telling those stories and saying ‘Those are your neighbors’ — that is impactful. That is primarily how we’re going to be pushing back.”

Know your rights

• Children who live in a school district have the right to enroll regardless of their immigration status.
• A school can ask for proof that you live in the district, but you do not have to disclose your child’s citizenship or immigration status. Typically there are multiple ways to show where your family lives, such as mail or a utility bill.
• A fact sheet from the federal government — available in English and Spanish — provides more information about what schools may ask about your residency.
• If you think your child has been improperly denied admission to a public school, there are a few things you can do:
• – Ask the school to provide a written explanation for why they have denied your child enrollment. Be sure to save any emails or paperwork about the decision.
• – Many districts have an appeals or hearing process to challenge enrollment denials. Ask the district what your options are.
• – You can file a state or federal complaint. Reach out to an immigrant rights group in your area for help. Some examples include: CHIRLA (California), Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, Florida Immigrant Coalition, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, New York Immigration Coalition, Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights (national).

***

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Previously, she covered education for The Chicago Reporter, Catalyst Chicago and the suburban Chicago Tribune. She is a former Spencer Fellow in Education Reporting at Columbia University and has taught journalism at Loyola University Chicago.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

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This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. — At the end of a semester that presaged one of the hottest summers on record, the students in Associate Professor Michael Sheridan’s business class were pitching proposals to cut waste and emissions on their campus and help turn it into a vehicle for fighting climate change.

Flanking a giant whiteboard at the front of the classroom, members of the team campaigning to build a solar canopy on a SUNY New Paltz parking lot delivered their pitch. The sunbaked lot near the athletic center was an ideal spot for a shaded solar panel structure, they said, a conduit for solar energy that could curb the campus’s reliance on natural gas.

The project would require $43,613 in startup money. It would be profitable within roughly five years, the students said. And over 50 years, it would save the university $787,130 in energy costs.

“Solar canopies have worked for other universities, including other SUNY schools,” said Ian Lominski, a graduating senior who said he hopes to one day work for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. “It’s well within the realm of possibility for SUNY New Paltz.”

Sheridan’s course is an example of an approach known as “campus as a living lab,” which seeks to simultaneously educate students and reduce the carbon footprint of college campuses. Over the past decade, a growing number of professors in fields as diverse as business, English and the performing arts have integrated their teaching with efforts to minimize their campuses’ waste and emissions, at a time when human-created climate change is fueling dangerous weather and making life on Earth increasingly unstable.

Engineering students have helped retrofit buildings. Theater students have produced no-waste productions. Ecology students have restored campus wetlands. Architecture students have modeled campus buildings’ airflow and worked to improve their energy efficiency. The efforts are so diverse that it’s difficult to get a complete count of them, but they’ve popped up on hundreds of campuses around the country.

[Related: Youth take lead in mapping heat impacts across communities]

“I think it’s a very, very positive step,” said Bryan Alexander, a senior scholar at Georgetown University and author of the book “Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis.” “You’ve got the campus materials, you’ve got the integration of teaching and research, which we claim to value, and it’s also really good for students in a few ways,” including by helping them take action on climate in ways that can improve mental health.

Professors are increasingly combining classroom instruction with efforts to ‘green’ campuses

That said, the work faces difficulties, among them that courses typically last only a semester, making it hard to maintain projects. But academics and experts see promising results: Students learn practical skills in a real-world context, and their projects provide vivid examples to help educate entire campuses and communities about solutions to alleviate climate change.

From the food waste students and staff produce, to emissions from commuting to campus and flying to conferences, to the energy needed to power campus buildings, higher education has a significant climate footprint. In New York, buildings are among the single largest sources of carbon emissions — and the State University of New York system owns a whopping 40 percent of the state’s public buildings.

About 15 years ago, college leaders began adding “sustainability officers” to their payrolls and signing commitments to achieve carbon neutrality. But only a dozen of the 400 institutions that signed on have achieved net-zero emissions to date, according to Bridget Flynn, senior manager of climate programs with the nonprofit Second Nature, which runs the network of universities committed to decarbonizing. (The SUNY system has a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2045, per its chancellor, John B. King Jr.)

Campus sustainability efforts have faced hurdles including politics and declining enrollment and revenue

“Higher ed is in crisis and institutions are so concerned about keeping their doors open, and sustainability is seen as nice to have instead of essential,” said Meghan Fay Zahniser, who leads the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

But there’s change happening on some campuses, she and others noted. At Dickinson College, in Pennsylvania, a net-zero campus since 2020, students in statistics classes have run data analyses to assess why certain buildings are less efficient than others. Psychology students studying behavior change helped the campus dining hall adopt a practice of offering half, full and double portions to cut down on food waste. Physics students designed solar thermal boxes to boost renewable biogas production on an organic farm owned by the college.

Neil Leary, associate provost and director of the college’s Center for Sustainability Education, teaches classes in sustainability. Last fall’s students analyzed climate risks and resilience strategies for the campus and its surrounding county and then ran a workshop for community members. Among the recommendations emerging from the class: that athletic coaches and facilities staff receive training on heat-related health risks.

[Related: After a child’s death, California weighs rules for physical education during extreme weather]

Similarly, at SUNY Binghamton, Pamela Mischen, chief sustainability officer and an environmental studies professor, teaches a course called Planning the Sustainable University. Her students, who come from majors including environmental studies, engineering and pre-law, have helped develop campus green purchasing systems, started a student-run community garden and improved reuse rates for classroom furniture.

And across the country, at Weber State University in Utah, students have joined the campus’s push toward renewable energy. Engineering students, for example, helped build a solar-powered charging station on a picnic table. A professor in the school’s construction and building sciences program led students in designing and building a net-zero house.

SUNY’s living labs in many programs

On the leafy SUNY New Paltz campus about 80 miles north of Manhattan, campus sustainability coordinator Lisa Mitten has spent more than a decade working to reduce the university’s environmental toll. Among the projects she runs is a sustainability faculty fellows program that helps professors incorporate climate action into their instruction.

One day this May, Andrea Varga, an associate professor of theatre design and a sustainability fellow, listened as the students in her honors Ethical Fashion class presented their final projects. Varga’s class covers the environmental harms of the global fashion industry (research suggests it is responsible for at least 4 percent of greenhouse emissions worldwide, or roughly the total emissions of Germany, France and the United Kingdom combined). For their presentations, her students had developed ideas for reducing fashion’s toll, on the campus and beyond, by promoting thrifting, starting “clothes repair cafes” and more.

Jazmyne Daily-Simpson, a student from Long Island scheduled to graduate in 2025, discussed expanding a project started a few years earlier by a former student, Roy Ludwig, to add microplastic filters to more campus washing machines. In a basement laundry room in Daily-Simpson’s dorm, two washers are rigged with the contraptions, which gradually accumulate a goopy film as they trap the microplastic particles and keep them from entering the water supply.

Ludwig, a 2022 graduate who now teaches Earth Science at Arlington High School about 20 miles from New Paltz, took Varga’s class and worked with her on an honors project to research and install the filters. A geology major, he’d been shocked that it took a fashion class to introduce him to the harms of microplastics, which are found in seafood, breast milk, semen and much more. “It’s an invisible problem that not everyone is thinking about,” he said.

“You can notice a water bottle floating in a river. You can’t notice microplastics.”

Around campus, there are other signs of the living lab model. Students in an economics class filled the entryway of a library with posters on topics such as the lack of public walking paths and bike lanes in the surrounding county and inadequate waste disposal in New York State. A garden started by sculpture and printmaking professors serves as a space for students to learn about plants used to make natural dyes that don’t pollute the environment.

In the business school classroom, Sheridan, the associate professor, had kicked off the student presentations by explaining to an audience that included campus facilities managers and local green business leaders how the course, called Introduction to Managing Sustainability, originated when grad students pitched the idea in 2015. The projects are powered by a “green revolving fund,” which accumulates money from cost savings created by past projects, such as reusable to-go containers and LED lightbulbs in campus buildings. Currently the fund has about $30,000.

“This class has two overarching goals,” said Sheridan, who studied anthropology and sustainable development as an undergraduate before pursuing a doctorate in business. The first is to localize the United Nations global goals for advancing sustainability, he said, and the second is “to prove that sustainability initiatives can be a driver for economic growth.”

[Related: Campus divestment movement targets schools’ nonprofit status]

In addition to the solar canopy project, students presented proposals for developing a reusable water bottle program, creating a composter and garden, digitizing dining hall receipts and organizing a bikeshare. They gamely fielded questions from the audience, many of whom had served as mentors on their projects.

Jonathan Garcia, a third-year business management major on the composting team, said later that he’d learned an unexpected skill: how to deal with uncooperative colleagues. “We had an issue with one of our teammates who just never showed up, so I had to manage that, and then people elected me leader of the group,” he said later. “I learned a lot of team-management skills.”

The solar panel team had less drama. Its members interviewed representatives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Central Hudson Gas & Electric and a local company, Lighthouse Solar, along with Mitten and other campus officials. Often, they met three times a week to research and discuss their proposal, participants said.

Lominski, the senior, plans to enroll this fall in a graduate program at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, in Syracuse. Before Sheridan’s class, he said, he had little specific knowledge of how solar panels worked. The course also helped him refine his project management and communication skills, he said.

His solar panel teammate Madeleine Biles, a senior majoring in management, transferred to New Paltz from SUNY Binghamton before her sophomore year because she wanted a school that felt more aligned with her desire to work for a smaller, environmentally minded business.

An avid rock climber whose parents were outdoor educators, she’d developed some financial skills in past business classes, she said, but the exercises had always felt theoretical.

This class made those lessons about return on investment and internal rate of return feel concrete.

Before it was just a bunch of formulas where I didn’t know when or why I would ever use them,” she said.

This summer, Biles is interning with the Lake George Land Conservancy, and hopes to eventually carve out a career protecting the environment. While she said she feels fortunate that her hometown of Lake George, in New York’s Adirondack region, isn’t as vulnerable as some places to climate change, the crisis weighs on her.

[Related: Youth and climate change: How a generation is adapting while fighting for their future]

“I think if I have a career in sustainability, that will be my way of channeling that frustration and sadness and turning it into a positive thing,” she said.

She recently got a taste of what that might feel like: In an email from Sheridan, she learned that her team’s canopy project was chosen to receive the startup funding. The school’s outgoing campus facilities chief signed off on it, and, pending approval from the department’s new leader, the university will begin the process of constructing it.

“It’s cool to know that something I worked on as a school project is actually going to happen,” said Biles.

A lot of students can’t really say that. A lot of projects are kind of like simulations. This one was real life.”

***

Caroline Preston is managing editor who helps oversee Hechinger’s K-12 and higher ed coverage. She previously worked as a features editor with Al Jazeera America’s digital team and a senior reporter with The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Her writing has appeared in publications including NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Wired.com.

This story about campus sustainability was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

The post How colleges can become ‘living labs’ for combating climate change appeared first on Youth Today.

Source

Annie E. Casey Foundation

Summary

A comprehensive survey of kinship care policies across 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, identifies increasing efforts to promote kinship care and support kinship caregivers of children and youth who are known to the child welfare system. Read the policy data and analysis from the survey, fielded in 2022 for the Annie E. Casey Foundation by Child Trends.

The survey

To help build an understanding of the full landscape of kinship policies across states and to identify needed improvements, the ACF asked Child Trends to conduct a survey of state child welfare administrators.

New insights on state kinship diversion policies

Most child welfare agencies facilitate kinship caregiving arrangements — when relatives step up to raise children when their parents can’t care for them — without moving a child into state custody and formal foster care. The intervention, known as kinship diversion, is a common practice used to keep children out of foster care and connected to a sense of stability, belonging, community and culture. It’s sometimes described as the most common out-of-home placement facilitated by caseworkers and affects an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 children.

[Related: When grandparents raise grandkids]

Recently, many researchers, advocates and practitioners have argued that in some jurisdictions, agencies’ diversion practices circumvent their legal responsibility to provide for children’s safety and welfare and infringe on the parents’ due process rights without providing access to counsel for parents or any court oversight.

Findings from the Foundation’s 2022 survey shows many states that allow kinship diversion continue to lack policies that would help ensure children’s safety, protect parents’ legal rights and provide kinship caregivers with sufficient resources to care for the children entrusted to them.

[Related: Grandfamilies disproportionately at-risk for food insecurity, advocates say]

The survey data also confirms that, because states define and practice kinship diversion differently and because there are no federal reporting requirements on diversion practices, the child welfare field lacks important data to explain how states’ practices can achieve the goal of protecting children, parents and families and providing the support they need to thrive.

Data tables

The data tables in the report provide a detailed look into state-by-state responses on kinship diversion policies from the 2022 survey, including comparisons of services offered by child welfare agencies for children or caregivers in licensed, unlicensed or diversion arrangements.

Read Full Report →

View Youth Today's Report Library

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This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education.

For lack of a washing machine, a seventh-grader was nearly lost.

This student, who lives in temporary housing in the Bronx, missed the first two weeks of class. When his mother finally agreed to a visit from a social worker, she revealed that she had no money for laundry and her child had no clothes or shoes for school. Working with a city organization, the school obtained two pairs of sneakers, new clothes and a haircut for the student, plus detergent and a laundry card for his mom. His attendance increased by 25 percentage points over the course of the school year.

With students missing class at alarming rates, it’s well past time to acknowledge that chronic absenteeism has become an educational emergency. Considered a hidden educational crisis before the pandemic, COVID accelerated the problem. In 2022, nearly 16 million students were defined as chronically absent, meaning they missed over 10% of school days — nearly four weeks of class. That’s double the rate of pre-pandemic absences.

NYC community schools are battling chronic absenteeism through emotional support, financial aid, free health checks and access to food pantries

Educators are urgently asking: What kinds of interventions actually work to get students in the classroom? Community schools have some answers. Through the holistic support they provide, from free school health check-ups to food pantries, community schools have reported significantly lower rates of chronic absenteeism than traditional New York City public schools. The 20 community schools in New York City’s Children’s Aid network saw an average decrease in chronic absence of 4 percentage points in 2022-23 from the previous school year.

Start a success mentors program

A major factor in absenteeism is that students face tremendous personal barriers outside the classroom that impact their attendance, and educators don’t have the opportunities or bandwidth to touch base with them individually and help find solutions. As a result, students fall through the cracks because intervention comes too late. To address this, several community schools in New York piloted a success mentors program that pairs students with adult staffers, including teachers, coaches, custodians, security guards and administrative professionals. These mentors create a welcoming environment that can foster consistent attendance and improved academic performance.

The post From success mentors to washing machines, ways to help kids stay in school appeared first on Youth Today.

This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. 

When they voted earlier this year to let police officers use a dangerous form of restraint on students in schools, Minnesota Democratic lawmakers said they did so because they had brokered a compromise. A task force made up of law enforcement agencies, disability advocates and others would create a model policy aimed at minimizing the use of prone restraint — the face-down hold Minneapolis police officers used to immobilize George Floyd as he suffocated.

Now, however, some advocates say they fear that the task force’s law enforcement majority wants to shut down discussion of the issues at the core of the raging debate over the perils of stationing cops in schools.

Representatives of kids with disabilities, children of color say task force is shutting down discussion of guidelines for cops in schools.

At the task force’s first meeting, in June, the executive director of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training announced that the group would not discuss prone restraints or use of force, says Khulia Pringle, the task force member who represents Solutions Not Suspensions. Her coalition consists of community groups including disability and racial equity advocates.

“He said, ‘This is not a philosophical debate and we are not going to go beyond the substance of the statute,’ ” Pringle quoted Erik Misselt as saying. “I thought for sure we would get into the weeds of what we were there for.”

The board, which licenses law enforcement officers, is responsible for overseeing development of the model policy.

The compromise legislation, Pringle and other advocates say, requires the committee to address a number of issues pertaining to the use of school resource officers, whose campus presence dramatically increases student arrests. They believed the model policy — to be adopted by law enforcement agencies whose officers work in schools — would specify when police can act in schools and lay out alternatives to the use of force.

The task force is scheduled to hold the second of four planned meetings July 18 and to agree on a finished model policy in mid-September. So far, members of the group have been given little research on policies guiding police presence in schools, causing some advocates to fear the end product won’t reflect best practices.

“The public was told this was sorted out, that children would be protected by a model policy,” says Erin Sandsmark, another Solutions Not Suspensions leader.

“To say you can’t do the job without holding a child face-down in a dangerous hold seems extreme to us.”

By law, the task force had to include representatives of the police licensing board and five other law enforcement organizations, four statewide education organizations and three community groups — one of them representing special education students. Maren Christenson, executive director of the Multicultural Autism Action Network — one of two disability-focused organizations in the Solutions Not Suspensions coalition — is concerned about the lack of representation for the students most impacted.

“We know who is on the receiving end of most types of disciplinary actions in schools,” she says, “especially students of color with disabilities. Limiting their representation in this discussion doesn’t help.”

The U.S. Department of Education has called for banning prone restraints, and the Justice Department in 2022 issued extensive recommendations for in-school policing.

More recently, the Government Accountability Office released research that draws on federal arrest data, which revealed dramatic disparities by race, gender and disability status. At schools where police are stationed, teachers and administrators often call on them to deal with student misbehavior, the report notes, dramatically ratcheting up arrest rates.

[Related: What happens when suspensions get suspended?]

In the wake of Floyd’s 2020 murder, numerous districts throughout the country — including Minneapolis — stopped stationing police in schools. In 2023, Minnesota lawmakers banned the use of in-school prone restraints altogether.

But with election year politics already in play, in-school policing remained a red-hot topic. Although they control the state House of Representatives, state Senate and governorship, Minnesota Democrats have straddled a rural-urban divide on policing since Floyd’s death. After in-school prone restraints were outlawed

… at least 16 suburban and rural law enforcement agencies pulled officers out of schools, arguing that they could not work if they were not allowed to use the holds.

Fearing the controversy would cost the party seats in November, this year Democrats stripped the ban from state law but added detailed requirements regarding training, data collection and the creation of a model policy. Among other things, the law says the policy must prohibit calling on cops to enforce school rules or assist educators with discipline; specify de-escalation techniques and other alternatives to the use of force; create a timeline for school resource officers to complete extensive, new training on juvenile issues also called for under the law; and protect student data.

Debate during the legislative session was hampered by a near-total lack of data on police presence in Minnesota schools. No one tracks how many school systems have contracts with law enforcement agencies, how many officers are stationed in schools and how often they intervene with students — much less which ones and why.

“Reporters kept asking, ‘Do you know how many kids are restrained?’ ” says Pringle, the only person of color on the task force. “And [lawmakers] kept saying, ‘That’s one of the things we will now know.’ ”

It’s not clear to her or other advocates present at the group’s first meeting if data will be collected or whether any agency will track law enforcement contracts with school systems.

Disability advocates nationwide for years have campaigned to outlaw prone restraints, which were linked to 79 child deaths between 1993 and 2018.

In 2015, Minnesota passed a law prohibiting school staff from using the hold and requiring education and school leaders to reduce other types of physical holds and seclusion, which are used disproportionately on children with disabilities.

Though COVID-related school closures skew the data, the use of physical restraints involving students with disabilities in schools fell from 19,000 in the 2017-18 school year to some 10,000 in 2021-22. Black and Native American children are disproportionately likely to experience restraint, as are autistic students and those with emotional behavioral disorders.

In preparation for the July 18 meeting, participants were asked to submit examples of model policies for discussion. Solutions Not Suspensions submitted the only guidance to go beyond the law’s basic scope, according to a meeting preparation packet emailed to participants. Created by the American Civil Liberties Union, it contains detailed information on many of the topics raised by the legislature.

The ACLU document distinguishes between disciplinary misconduct, which should be handled by school staff, and criminal behavior requiring police intervention.

School resource officers can’t be called in when a student is disruptive or involved in a fight that doesn’t involve a weapon or result in injury, for example. The rules also require police to collect data on their in-school activities and make it publicly available.

Other models submitted include a policy drafted by the Minnesota School Boards Association and manuals used by a school system in Georgia that operates its own police department. The Georgia materials do not address prone restraint, instead defining different levels of physical force, ranging from benign redirection to lethal steps.

[Related: School interventions offer best shot at reducing youth violence]

Like most school board organizations, the Minnesota association typically creates policies for its members, many of whom serve on boards of districts that are too small to generate their own. So that it can be used in many contexts, this type of model policy is typically very general. The Minnesota version simply reiterates the main points of the new state statute without addressing alternative strategies.

The task force will use the school board policy as a starting point, law enforcement board officials said in an email sent to members along with an agenda for their July meeting. The group is supposed to have a finished model policy by September, after which the law enforcement board will decide whether to adopt it.

In an emailed response to The 74’s request for comment about advocates’ concerns, Misselt wrote, “All members of the working group have the opportunity to discuss their opinions and viewpoints during the meetings and all participants are expected to do so.”

Lawmakers who voted both for and against allowing police to use prone restraints said they have not yet received updates on the development of the model policy and thus can’t comment. Disability advocates said they expect several legislators will be present at the task force’s next meeting.

In the end, Pringle is concerned that the task force won’t have time to come up with a nuanced recommendation. “I’m just confused as to how in the world this is supposed to work,” she says. “It feels like whatever happens in this model policy is going to be focused on the adults.”

***

Beth Hawkins is a senior writer and national correspondent at The 74. She has covered education since 2000, writing about K-12 schools for Minnesota’s nonprofit public policy news site, MinnPost, followed by a recent stint as Education Post’s writer-in-residence. Hawkins’ stories have appeared in More, Mother Jones, the Atlantic, U.S. News & World Report, Edutopia, EducationNext, the Hechinger Report and numerous other outlets. 

The 74 is a nonprofit news organization covering America’s education system from early childhood through college and career. The 74’s journalists aim to challenge the status quo, expose corruption and inequality, spotlight solutions, confront the impact of systemic racism, and champion the heroes bringing positive change to our schools. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74.

The post Advocates fear Minnesota students will again be subject to restraint used on George Floyd appeared first on Youth Today.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on edication.

Many teachers want to keep AI out of our classrooms, but also know that future workplaces may demand AI literacy.

As the use of artificial intelligence grows, teachers are trying to protect the integrity of their educational practices and systems. When we see what AI can do in the hands of our students, it’s hard to stay neutral about how and if to use it.

What AI literacy might look like in a new era?

Of course, we worry about cheating; AI can be used to write essays and solve math problems.

But we also have deeper concerns regarding learning. When our students use AI, they may not be engaging as deeply with our assignments and coursework.

They have discovered ways AI can be used to create essay outlines and help with project organization and other such tasks that are key components of the learning process.

Some of this could be good. AI is a fabulous tool for getting started or unstuck.

AI puts together old ideas in new ways and can do this at scale: It will make creativity easier for everyone.

But this very ease has teachers wondering how we can keep our students motivated to do the hard work when there are so many new shortcuts. Learning goals, curriculums, courses and the way we grade assignments will all need to be reevaluated.

The new realities of work also must be considered. A shift in employers’ job postings rewards those with AI skills. Many companies report already adopting generative AI tools or anticipate incorporating them into their workflow in the near future.

A core tension has emerged: Many teachers want to keep AI out of our classrooms, but also know that future workplaces may demand AI literacy.

What we call cheating, business could see as efficiency and progress.

The complexities, opportunities and decisions that lie between banning AI and teaching AI are significant.

[Related: AI chatbots in schools — Findings from a poll of K-12 teachers, students, parents, and college undergraduates]

It is increasingly likely that using AI will emerge as an essential skill for students, regardless of their career ambitions, and that action is required of educational institutions as a result.

Integrating AI into the curriculum requires change

The best starting point is a better understanding of what AI literacy looks like in our current landscape.

In our new book, we make it clear that the specifics of AI literacy will vary somewhat from one subject to the next, but there are some AI capacities that everyone will now need.

Before even writing a prompt, the AI user should develop an understanding of the following:

• the role of human / AI collaborations
• how to navigate the ethical implications of using AI for a given purpose
• which AI tool to use (when and why)
• how to use their selected AI tool fully and successfully
• the limitations of generative AI systems and how to work around them
• prompt engineering and all of its nuances

This knowledge will help our students write successful prompts, but additional skills and AI literacy will be required once AI returns a response. These include the abilities to:

• review and evaluate AI-produced content, including how to determine its accuracy and recognize bias
• edit AI content for its intended audience and purpose
• follow up with AI to refine the output
• take responsibility for the quality of the final work

The development of AI literacy mirrors the development of other key skills, such as critical thinking. Teaching AI literacy begins by teaching the capacities above, as well as others specific to your own subject.

[Related: Banning tech that will become a critical part of life is the wrong answer for education]

While the inclination may be to start teaching AI literacy by opening a browser, faculty should begin by providing an ethical and environmental context regarding the use of AI and the responsibilities each of us has when working with AI.

What is an employer’s perspective?

Amazon Web Services recently surveyed employers from all business sectors about what skills employees need to use AI well. In ranked order, their answers included the following:

1. critical thinking and problem solving
2. creative thinking and design competence
3. technical proficiency
4. ethics and risk management
5. communication
6. math
7. teamwork
8. management
9. writing

Higher education is quite adept at teaching such skills, and many of those noted are among the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) list of “essential learning outcomes” for higher education.

What are ‘next steps’ for teachers?

Faculty will need to improve their own AI literacy and explore the most advanced generative AI tools (currently ChatGPT 4o, Gemini 1.5 and Claude 3.5). A good way to begin is to ask AI to perform assignments and projects that you typically ask your students to complete — and then try to improve the AI’s response.

Understanding what AI can and cannot do well within the context of your course will be key as you contemplate revising your assignments and teaching.

Related: TEACHER VOICE — My students are afraid of AI

Faculty should also find out if their college has an advisory board comprised of past students and/or employers. Reach out to them for firsthand insight on how AI is shifting the landscape — and keep that conversation going over time. That information will be essential as you think about AI literacy within your subjects and courses.

These actions will ultimately position you to be able to navigate the complexities and decisions that lie between ban and teach.

***

C. Edward Watson is vice president for digital innovation with the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). José Antonio Bowen is a former president of Goucher College and co-author with Watson of “Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning.”

This story about AI literacy was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our Higher Education newsletter.

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This story was originally published by ProPublica.

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This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.

ATLANTA — Science teacher Daniel Thompson circulated among his sixth graders at Ron Clark Academy on a recent spring morning, spot checking their work and leading them into discussions about the day’s lessons on weather and water. He had a helper: As Thompson paced around the class, peppering them with questions, he frequently turned to a voice-activated AI to summon apps and educational videos onto large-screen smartboards.

When a student asked, “Are there any animals that don’t need water?” Thompson put the question to the AI. Within seconds, an illustrated blurb about kangaroo rats appeared before the class.

Thompson’s voice-activated assistant is the brainchild of computer scientist Satya Nitta, who founded a company called Merlyn Mind after many years at IBM where he had tried, and failed, to create an AI tool that could teach students directly. The foundation of that earlier, ill-fated project was IBM Watson, the AI that famously crushed several “Jeopardy!” champions. Despite Watson’s gameshow success, however, it wasn’t much good at teaching students. After plowing five years and $100 million into the effort, the IBM team admitted defeat in 2017.

“We realized the technology wasn’t there,” said Nitta, “and it’s still not there.”

Since the November 2022 launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, an expanding cast of AI tutors and helpers have entered the learning landscape. Most of these tools are chatbots that tap large language models — or LLMs — trained on troves of data to understand student inquiries and respond conversationally with a range of flexible and targeted learning assistance. These bots can generate quizzes, summarize key points in a complex reading, offer step-by-step graphing of algebraic equations, or provide feedback on the first draft of an essay, among other tasks. Some tools are subject-specific, such as Writable and Photomath, while others offer more all-purpose tutoring, such as Socratic (created by Google) and Khanmigo, a collaboration of OpenAI and Khan Academy, a nonprofit provider of online lessons covering an array of academic subjects.

As AI tools proliferate and their capabilities keep improving, relatively few observers believe education can remain AI free. At the same time, even the staunchest techno optimists hesitate to say that teaching is best left to the bots. The debate is about the best mix — what are AI’s most effective roles in helping students learn, and what aspects of teaching should remain indelibly human no matter how powerful AI becomes?

[Related: Banning tech that will become a critical part of life is the wrong answer for education]

Skepticism about AI’s place in the classroom often centers on students using the technology to cut corners or on AI’s tendency to hallucinate, i.e. make stuff up, in an eagerness to answer every query. The latter concern can be mitigated (albeit not eliminated) by programming bots to base responses on vetted curricular materials, among other steps. Less attention, however, is paid to an even thornier challenge for AI at the heart of effective teaching: engaging and motivating students.

Nitta said there’s something “deeply profound” about human communication that allows flesh-and-blood teachers to quickly spot and address things like confusion and flagging interest in real time.

AI-Supported, Not AI-Led

He joins other experts in technology and education who believe AI’s best use is to augment and extend the reach of human teachers, a vision that takes different forms. For example, the goal of Merlyn Mind’s voice assistant is to make it easier for teachers to engage with students while also navigating apps and other digital teaching materials. Instead of being stationed by the computer, they can move around the class and interact with students, even the ones hoping to disappear in the back.

Others in education are trying to achieve this vision by using AI to help train human tutors to have more productive student interactions, or by multiplying the number of students a human instructor can engage with by delegating specific tasks to AI that play to the technology’s strengths. Ultimately, these experts envision a partnership in which AI is not called on to be a teacher but to supercharge the power of humans already doing the job.

Merlyn Mind’s AI assistant, Origin, was piloted by thousands of teachers nationwide this past school year, including Thompson and three other teachers at the Ron Clark Academy. The South Atlanta private school, where tuition is heavily subsidized for a majority low-income student body, is in a brick warehouse renovated to look like a low-slung Hogwarts, replete with an elaborate clocktower and a winged dragon perched above the main entrance.

As Thompson moved among his students, he wielded a slim remote control with a button-activated microphone he uses to command the AI software. At first, Thompson told the AI to start a three-minute timer that popped up on the smartboard, then he began asking rapid-fire review questions from a previous lesson, such as what causes wind. When students couldn’t remember the details, Thompson asked the AI to display an illustration of airflow caused by uneven heating of the Earth’s surface.

At one point, he clambered up on a student worktable while discussing the stratosphere, claiming (inaccurately) that it was the atmospheric layer where most weather happens, just to see if any students caught his mistake (several students reminded him that weather happens in the troposphere). Then he conjured a new timer and launched into a lesson on water by asking the AI assistant to find a short educational movie about fresh and saltwater ecosystems. As Thompson moved through the class, he occasionally paused the video and quizzed students about the new content.

[Related: Teens are looking to AI for information and answers, two surveys show]

Study after study has shown the importance of student engagement for academic success. A strong connection between teachers and students is especially important when learners feel challenged or discouraged, according to Nitta. While AI has many strengths, he said, “it’s not very good at motivating you to keep doing something you’re not very interested in doing.”

“The elephant in the room with all these chatbots is how long will anyone engage with them?” he said.

The answer for Watson was not long at all, Nitta recalled. In trial runs, some students just ignored Watson’s attempts to probe their understanding of a topic, and the engagement level of those who initially did respond to the bot dropped off precipitously. Despite all Watson’s knowledge and facility with natural language, students just weren’t interested in chatting with it.

Personal AI Tutors Could Be Near

At a spring 2023 TED talk shortly after launching Khanmigo, Sal Khan, founder and CEO of Khan Academy, pointed out that tutoring has provided some of the biggest jolts to student performance among studied education interventions. But, there aren’t enough human tutors available nor enough money to pay for them, especially in the wake of pandemic-induced learning loss.

Khan envisioned a world where AI tutors filled that gap. “We’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,” he declared. “And the way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.”

One of Khanmigo’s architects, Khan Academy’s chief learning officer, Kristen DiCerbo, was the vice president of learning research and design for education publisher Pearson in 2016 when it partnered with IBM on the Watson tutor project.

“It was a different technology,” said DiCerbo, recalling the laborious task of scripting Watson’s responses to students.

Since Watson’s heyday, AI has become a lot more engaging. One of the breakthroughs of generative AI powered by LLMs is its ability to give unscripted, human-like responses to user prompts.

To spur engagement, Khanmigo doesn’t answer student questions directly, but starts with questions of its own, such as asking if the student has any ideas about how to find an answer. Then it guides them to a solution, step by step, with hints and encouragement (a positive tone is assured by its programmers). Another feature for stoking engagement allows students to ask the bot to assume the identity of historical or literary figures for chats about their life and times. Teachers, meanwhile, can tap the bot for help planning lessons and formulating assessments.

Notwithstanding Khan’s expansive vision of “amazing” personal tutors for every student on the planet, DiCerbo assigns Khanmigo a more limited teaching role. When students are working independently on a skill or concept but get hung up or caught in a cognitive rut, she said, “we want to help students get unstuck.”

Some 100,000 students and teachers piloted Khanmigo this past academic year in schools nationwide, helping to flag any hallucinations the bot makes and providing tons of student-bot conversations for DiCerbo and her team to analyze.

[Related: AI chatbots in schools: Findings from a poll of K-12 teachers, students, parents, and college undergraduates]

“We look for things like summarizing, providing hints and encouraging,” she explained. “Does [Khanmigo] do the motivational things that human tutors do?”

The degree to which Khanmigo has closed AI’s engagement gap is not yet known. Khan Academy plans to release some summary data on student-bot interactions later this summer, according to DiCerbo. Plans for third-party researchers to assess the tutor’s impact on learning will take longer.

Nevertheless, many tutoring experts stress the importance of building a strong relationship between tutors and students to achieve significant learning boosts. “If a student is not motivated, or if they don’t see themselves as a math person, then they’re not going to have a deep conversation with an AI bot,” said Brent Milne, the vice president of product research and development at Saga Education, a nonprofit provider of in-person tutoring.

Since 2021, Saga has been a partner in the Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI), run by the University of Chicago’s Education Lab, to help scale high-dosage tutoring — generally defined as one-on-one or small group sessions for at least 30 minutes every day. The PLI team sees a big and growing role for AI in tutoring, one that augments but doesn’t replicate human efforts.

For instance, Saga has been experimenting with AI feedback to help tutors better engage and motivate students. Working with researchers from the University of Memphis and the University of Colorado, the Saga team fed transcripts of their math tutoring sessions into an AI model trained to recognize when the tutor was prompting students to explain their reasoning, refine their answers or initiate a deeper discussion. The AI analyzed how often each tutor took these steps.

When Saga piloted this AI tool in 2023, the nonprofit provided the feedback to their tutor coaches, who worked with four to eight tutors each. Tracking some 2,300 tutoring sessions over several weeks, they found that tutors whose coaches used the AI feedback peppered their sessions with significantly more of these prompts to encourage student engagement.

While Saga is looking into having AI deliver some feedback directly to tutors, it’s doing so cautiously, because, according to Milne, “having a human coach in the loop is really valuable to us.”

In addition to using AI to help train tutors, the Saga team wondered if they could offload certain tutor tasks to a machine without compromising the strong relationship between tutors and students. Specifically, they understood that tutoring sessions were typically a mix of teaching concepts and practicing them, according to Milne. A tutor might spend some time explaining the why and how of factoring algebraic equations, for example, and then guide a student through practice problems. But what if the tutor could delegate the latter task to AI, which excels at providing precisely targeted adaptive practice problems and hints?

The Saga team tested the idea in their algebra tutoring sessions during the 2023-24 school year. They found that students who were tutored daily in a group of two had about the same gains in math scores as students who were tutored in a group of four with assistance from ALEKS, an AI-powered learning software by McGraw Hill. In the group of four, two students worked directly with the tutor and two with the AI, switching each day. In other words, the AI assistance effectively doubled the reach of the tutor.

Experts expect that AI’s role in education is bound to grow, and its interactions will continue to seem more and more human. Earlier this year, OpenAI and the startup Hume AI separately launched “emotionally intelligent” AI that analyzes tone of voice and facial expressions to infer a user’s mood and respond with calibrated “empathy.” Nevertheless, even emotionally intelligent AI will likely fall short on the student engagement front, according to Brown University computer science professor Michael Littman, who is also the National Science Foundation’s division director for information and intelligent systems.

No matter how human-like the conversation, he said, students understand at a fundamental level that AI doesn’t really care about them, what they have to say in their writing or whether they pass or fail algebra. In turn, students will never really care about the bot and what it thinks. A June study in the journal “Learning and Instruction” found that AI can already provide decent feedback on student essays. What is not clear is whether student writers will put in care and effort — rather than offloading the task to a bot — if AI becomes the primary audience for their work.

“There’s incredible value in the human relationship component of learning,” Littman said, “and when you just take humans out of the equation, something is lost.”

***

Chris Berdik is a science journalist who has written about a wide variety of topics, including the intersection of science with ethical issues and the peculiarities of the human brain. Berdik has been a staff editor at The Atlantic and Mother Jones. His freelance articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and Boston Magazine, among others.

This story about AI tutors was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post What aspects of teaching should remain human? appeared first on Youth Today.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters.

When my work began as the supervisor of Cultural Proficiency and Inclusiveness with Austin Independent School District in 2010, my role was to support staff members to create safe, welcoming, and inclusive schools for about 80,000 students.

By the 2017-18 school year, I was still the lone staff member providing antiracist professional learning, coaching, and capacity-building for some 11,000 district employees. I was responding to racist incidents and viral videos; some included hateful words and phrases like:

“It’s N-Word Day.”

“You have bombs in your purse.”

“If you can’t speak English, then you need to go back to Mexico!”

These incidents went viral on social media, and some made the news.

Even as I was writing this piece, I received a call asking me to help an Austin school navigate the fallout from a racist incident. Today, many schools deal with these situations with little to no professional support.

That’s because some schools are eliminating top diversity and equity officer roles in response to political pressure and legislation aimed at silencing educators.

Here in Texas, a ban on DEI initiatives addresses higher education, but its message seems to have trickled into K-12 school districts. Meanwhile, a committed opposition to DEI professionals argues that their work is bureaucratic and harms the students they intend to support.

DEI officer responsibilities and priorities

Courtesy Angela Ward

Angela Ward, Ph.D.

In the Austin district, I was tasked with coaching campus and district leaders and their staff to address racist conflicts. Before providing recommendations or intervening, I had to understand the actions taken by leaders and staff and how students and families received those moves.

To that end, I would meet with school leaders and the staff most immediate to the students involved. Sometimes I met with students, too. These initial meetings would last three to six hours, helping me dig to the root cause of the issue, understand how leaders were supporting students, staff, and families, and determine where communication may have broken down.

My response prioritized the needs of those targeted by the racist incident.

I met with staff to create space for staff grievances and solutions. I also met with parents, ministers, and community organizations. Parents needed to understand how their children were being supported and be invited to offer input. Clergy and community leaders often brought additional perspectives. Only then would we create an action plan for all the students involved.

[Related: Breaking walls, building bridges — A call for restorative justice in school discipline]

In many cases, an immediate response was required. This meant engaging individuals while emotions were running high. Responding to the N-Word Day viral video incident, I walked into a high school cafeteria the size of a mall food court to face about 50 students. Moments before, they were outside prepared to walk to the district administrative offices. They were hurt and angry, and they wanted the adults to fix it all.

I recognized the hurt expressions on their faces, many of whose brown skin mirrored my own.

Listening with me were Black staff whose emotions palpitated from every corner of the room. I, too, was emotionally on what a popular rap song labels X (10). But I could not scream or flip tables. I could not leave without hearing students’ needs, sharing my personal commitment to helping them navigate their current reality, and making a plan.

Restorative circle process

I introduced these students to the restorative circle process, a practice Indigenous communities around the world use to maintain harmony and address issues impacting the community. This process required participation by both faculty and students.

Students volunteered to lead this campus-wide response and partnered up to facilitate small groups of students and adults. Administrators got parent approval, shifted the schedule one day the following week, and supported planning meetings for the circles.

Courtesy Dept. of Education, Victoria AU

The restorative circle process requires participation by both faculty and students.

In addition to addressing the underlying incident, the circle process elicited a list of things that are right in front of us but that we never really pay close attention to. The subsequent action plan highlighted the use of words that seemed commonplace in the community but held very different connotations in the school. Staff committed to addressing language and offering more opportunities for students to connect in class.

Repairing systemic issues

The school leadership began to engage in professional learning about better ways to handle racial conflict. To repair systemic issues, the school implemented advisory lessons focused on empathy and inclusiveness, and worked to address the lack of diversity in AP and pre-AP courses. I began working with the central office to respond to racial conflict and systemic disparities in our schools.

[Related: Report — Integrate SEL by focusing on strong relationships in diverse environment]

I know from years of experience that diversity and equity officers serve essential functions. They provide expertise, a listening ear, and a path through challenging situations.

Laws to censor educators do not eliminate the conflict that can disrupt teaching and learning.

***

Angela M. Ward, Ph.D. is a veteran antiracist educator with 13 years of leadership experience in district-level administration and a Public Voice Fellow at UT Austin with The OpEd Project. Ward has served on national, regional, and local Equity working groups and her work has been featured in Learning for Justice Magazine. Ward facilitates critically self-reflective dialogue and focuses her daily work on organizational development, equity, inclusiveness and capacity building. She is also the founder and CEO of 2Ward Equity.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

The post Schools can’t wish away the need for DEI officers appeared first on Youth Today.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters.

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Twenty-one Colorado school districts, seven charter schools, one cooperative education services board, and one youth residential treatment center have been awarded $11.4 million in funding over the next three years for vaping education and prevention programs.

The money comes from a $31.7 million settlement between the state of Colorado and e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc. Colorado sued Juul in 2020, alleging that it targeted youth with deceptive marketing and played down the health risks of vaping. In settling the lawsuit, Juul did not admit any wrongdoing.

Colorado is poised to spend the bulk of the settlement money on a $20 million grant program aimed at improving children’s mental health. But the state is also giving smaller grants directly to school districts, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced the recipients of the smaller grants in a press release Tuesday.

The school district and school recipients are:

• Alamosa School District: $244,968
• Atlas Preparatory School in Colorado Springs: $85,000
• Aurora Public Schools: $140,267
• AXL Academy in Aurora: $238,000
• Bennett School District: $218,547
• Center School District: $198,098
• Chavez-Huerta Preparatory Academy in Pueblo: $46,940
• Colorado Military Academy in Colorado Springs: $117,471
• Dolores County School District: $45,681
• Downtown Denver Expeditionary School in Denver: $78,000
• DSST Public Schools in Denver and Aurora: $114,000
• Eagle County School District: $213,353
• Elizabeth School District: $130,217
• Fountain-Fort Carson School District: $131,009
• Gunnison Watershed School District: $74,534
• Harrison School District: $253,405
• Lake County School District: $87,543
• Mancos School District: $54,300
• Mapleton Public Schools: $36,681
• Montrose County School District: $100,000
• New Legacy Charter School in Aurora: $71,624
• North Park School District: $187,545
• Pueblo County School District 70: $127,657
• San Luis Valley BOCES: $273,870
• School District 49: $126,961
• Sierra Grande School District: $100,985
• Southern Peaks Regional Treatment Center in Cañon City: $36,181
• Steamboat Springs School District: $125,635
• Strasburg School District: $91,500
• Summit School District: $50,000

Twelve nonprofit organizations and government entities were awarded a total of $6 million.

Those recipients are:

• 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Juvenile Diversion Lighthouse Program: $224,010 for a vaping education program for youth in Mesa County, with a focus on rural communities
• Boys & Girls Clubs in Colorado, Inc.: $855,979 for community engagement and youth substance use prevention and peer-led programs at 50 clubs across Colorado
• Broomfield Public Health and Environment: $202,184 for nicotine replacement therapy and peer support programs to help young people quit vaping, with a focus on LGBTQ+ youth
• Denver Department of Public Health and Environment: $541,158 for nicotine replacement therapy, community engagement, and trauma-informed counseling for youth
• Mountain Youth: $500,000 for vaping prevention education, media campaigns, cessation programs, and youth-led initiatives in the Eagle River Valley
• Jefferson County Public Health: $400,000 for vaping education and cessation services for youth
• Partners of Delta, Montrose & Ouray: $297,161 for mentors who will support middle and high school students with behavioral issues through school-based programs
• Partners for Youth: $335,487 for an initiative to connect youth in Routt County with trusted adults and engage them in positive activities to prevent substance use
• Rocky Mountain Center for Health, Promotion and Education: $800,000 for a program that will train adults to build strong connections with youth in school, family, and community settings
• Servicios de La Raza: $950,000 to deploy a bilingual vaping-cessation program for Latino youth
• University of Colorado/Colorado School of Public Health UpRISE: $544,018 to expand a youth-led social justice movement for tobacco control
• Youth Healthcare Alliance: $350,000 for a program in which school-based health centers will participate in an alternative-to-discipline initiative for youth who are caught vaping

***

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. She covers Denver Public Schools.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools and the effort to improve schools for all children.

The post Vaping: These Colorado schools will get $11.7 million of Juul lawsuit settlement money for education and prevention appeared first on Youth Today.