Sunday, December 7

Tag: school

Feeling Worried, Unmotivated, The Pandemic Has Teens Disconnected From School
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LIFESTYLE

Feeling Worried, Unmotivated, The Pandemic Has Teens Disconnected From School

Leah M. Lessard, University of Connecticut When the COVID-19 pandemic started, many U.S. teens were more worried about the disruption to their education than the possibility of getting sick. A May 2020 survey of high school students found that they reported academics and work habits to be among their biggest challenges, ahead of mental and physical health. Nearly three-quarters (72%) indicated they were “very much” concerned with how COVID-19 would impact their school year. As a researcher who studies adolescent development, I was interested in whether and how teens’ school stress changed as the pandemic dragged on. So during the fall of 2020, my colleague and I surveyed adolescents about their academic concerns and the changes they noticed in school social dynamics. Our study, publishe...
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How Free School Meals For All Children Can Improve Kids’ Health
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IN OTHER NEWS

How Free School Meals For All Children Can Improve Kids’ Health

Matthew J. Landry, Stanford University Recognizing that millions of U.S. children are at risk of hunger, Maine and California have approved funding to offer free school meals to all students within their state. Meanwhile, a bill proposed in Congress aims to make free school meals a permanent fixture in all states. The Universal School Meals Program Act would provide free healthy meals and snacks to all children in public and nonprofit private schools regardless of income. Currently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed school districts to provide meals free of charge to families during the pandemic. Previously set to expire in September, the policy has been extended through the 2021-2022 school year. This marks the first time in the 75-year history of the National School Lunch...
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New Study Finds In One Urban School District Nearly 10% Of Youth Identify As Gender-Diverse
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LIFESTYLE

New Study Finds In One Urban School District Nearly 10% Of Youth Identify As Gender-Diverse

It seems that more and more teens are identifying as transgender, gender-fluid or nonbinary. But because linguistic and cultural norms are always evolving, it’s been challenging to pin down an exact number.   CC BY-NC-ND The 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 1.8% of high school students identified as transgender. But my team – made up of pediatricians, adolescent medicine specialists and public health researchers – suspected that this study underrepresented the prevalence of gender-diverse youth. That’s because not all people who are gender-diverse – an umbrella term for those whose gender identity does not fully align with the sex they were assigned at birth – identify as “transgender.” So we put tog...
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Essential Reads On America Goes Back To School – Parenting In The Pandemic
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IN OTHER NEWS

Essential Reads On America Goes Back To School – Parenting In The Pandemic

Beyond safety and survival, a paramount question throughout the pandemic has been: When will things get “back to normal”? But as the nation gradually gets vaccinated against COVID-19 and various facets of society begin to reopen, it becomes evident that a return to normalcy poses a whole new set of questions, challenges and concerns. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to the education and parenting of America’s school-age children, whose childhoods have been uprooted in unparalleled ways since the pandemic struck in early 2020. Here we highlight five articles that help parents and educators better understand and do what it takes to get kids back to their classrooms, friends and regular routines. 1. How can America’s schools safely reopen? That’s a question that Brand...
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The Latest Battleground Over Transgender Rights – High School Sports
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IN OTHER NEWS

The Latest Battleground Over Transgender Rights – High School Sports

This year, 20 states proposed to ban transgender girls – meaning those assigned male at birth but who live and identify as girls – from competing on girls interscholastic sports teams. The only bill to pass was in Idaho. That law bars transgender athletes from participating in high school and college sports. It also authorizes “sex testing” of athletes through genital exams and genetic and hormone testing. The ACLU is challenging the law, arguing that it violates civil rights, and a federal court has delayed its implementation. On Dec. 21, over 60 women’s and LGBTQ rights groups and nearly 200 women athletes, including Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe and Candace Parker, filed legal briefs contesting the Idaho law and supporting the full inclusion of transgender athletes. The right of gi...
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P-TECH – Pathways In Technology Early College High School, Connects Students College And Careers
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

P-TECH – Pathways In Technology Early College High School, Connects Students College And Careers

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama highlighted an innovative educational program called P-TECH – an acronym for Pathways in Technology Early College High School. The first P-TECH school opened in Brooklyn, New York, in 2011. It was profiled in a 2014 cover story in Time magazine as “The School That Will Get You a Job.” Obama stated that all students should have educational opportunities such as P-TECH. What makes the school unique is that students can earn an associate degree at no cost while still in high school. Students at the schools get the opportunity to compete for paid industry internships. They are also given mentors and a clear pathway from school to college to career with a commitment from business partners like IBM that they are first in line for a...
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Why safely reopening high school sports is going to be a lot harder than opening college and pro ball
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IN OTHER NEWS, SPORTS

Why safely reopening high school sports is going to be a lot harder than opening college and pro ball

Along with the revival of professional sports comes the yearning for a return to amateur sports – high school, college and club. Governing officials are now offering guidance as to when and how to resume play. However, lost in the current conversation is how schools and club sports with limited resources can safely reopen. As an exercise scientist who studies athlete health and an emergency medicine physician who leads Michigan’s COVID-19 mobile testing unit, we wish to empower athletes, coaches and parents by sharing information related to the risks of returning to play without COVID-19 testing. This includes blood tests to see if athletes have already had COVID-19 plus nasal swabs to test for the active SARS-CoV-2 virus. Regular COVID-19 testing on all athletes may seem like overkill, ...
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High School Health Workers A Medical School And Georgia Students
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HEALTH & WELLNESS

High School Health Workers A Medical School And Georgia Students

As part of his training to become a certified community health worker, 10th-grader Malachi Ward needed to monitor family or community members—checking their vital signs and setting health goals. When Ward first asked his mother, Fayron Epps, if he could monitor her, she expressed ambivalence. Epps considered herself to be in good health. Although she didn’t have a primary care physician, she always attended her annual women’s health checkup and, despite the occasional headache, felt fine. She agreed to be a study participant because Ward needed five people to monitor. “I was like ‘OK, you can monitor me, but you’re not going to find anything’,” she recalls. Except Ward did find something. “I was really taken aback,” Epps admitted. Her blood pressure was dangerously high. Over the course...
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School resource officers aren’t arrested often – but when they are, it’s usually for sexual misconduct
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IN OTHER NEWS

School resource officers aren’t arrested often – but when they are, it’s usually for sexual misconduct

The presence of law enforcement in schools – better known as school resource officers – has become increasingly common. These officers, who have full law enforcement powers, are supposed to keep students safe. Earlier this year, however, a former Michigan school resource officer – Matthew Priebe – was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail for doing just the opposite. Instead of protecting students from threats, Officer Priebe had been sexually preying on female students, using his power as a school police officer to engage in inappropriate and nonconsensual sexual acts with students. This latest headline is not a singular event. Within the past year, several other school resource officers have been arrested or convicted of sexual misconduct with students. The good news is this kin...
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Democratic candidates want to boost school funding – research shows that will help low-income students
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POLITICS

Democratic candidates want to boost school funding – research shows that will help low-income students

Research shows that school funding impacts student achievement. Rido/Shutterstock.com With few exceptions, the various Democratic plans for public education share a common theme: more funding, less privatizing. Candidates Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders have promised to dramatically increase or triple current federal funding for low-income students and curtail charter school growth. Elizabeth Warren recently went even further, promising to quadruple federal funding for low-income students and end federal funding for charter expansion. These proposals have provoked a deluge of harsh responses from commentators. Increasing public education funding and limiting charters, critics say, is nothing more than pandering to teacher unions and demonizing charter schools. While this cr...
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