Sunday, December 22

Tag: schools

We Asked 6 Education Experts – How Should Schools Teach Kids About What Happened At The US Capitol On Jan. 6?
No Comments
EDUCATION

We Asked 6 Education Experts – How Should Schools Teach Kids About What Happened At The US Capitol On Jan. 6?

Teachers scrambled to create lesson plans to help students make sense of the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol right after it happened. It’s a fraught task. Even the news media wasn’t sure what to call this unprecedented attack on U.S. democracy. Was it a coup? A riot? An act of domestic terrorism? Likewise, it’s not clear where lessons should begin. The Conversation U.S. asked six education experts how teachers – and parents – can help young people comprehend, analyze and process what happened. Don’t avoid the topic Dr. David Schonfeld, director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and professor of clinical pediatrics, University of Southern California Educators may worry they don’t know the right thing to say and will unnecessarily ...
Read More
A Lasting Impact On Schools And Equity – Fewer Kids Are Enrolled In Public Kindergarten
No Comments
EDUCATION

A Lasting Impact On Schools And Equity – Fewer Kids Are Enrolled In Public Kindergarten

Public school enrollment is down across the country. For example, enrollment is down by 15,000 in Chicago public schools and by more than 20,000 in the District of Columbia’s public schools. The trend is particularly acute among pre-K and kindergarten students. In an NPR survey of 60 U.S. districts in 20 states, public kindergarten enrollment was down 16% on average. CC BY-ND Delaying children’s kindergarten entry is not new, but the pandemic has broadened its scope. And that has the potential to exacerbate already wide educational inequities. As a child and family policy researcher and a parent of two children under 7, I believe the new trend is concerning. Why enrollment dropped In a typical year, about 5% of kindergarten-age children are “redshirted” – their entry to school delayed. Th...
Read More
Cyberattacks Taken More Seriously By K-12 Schools
No Comments
EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY

Cyberattacks Taken More Seriously By K-12 Schools

Teachers in Baltimore County Public Schools knew something was wrong late in the day on Nov. 24 when they began to experience trouble entering grades into the school district’s computer system. Around the same time, the video for a meeting of the district’s school board abruptly cut off. Both situations were the result of a cyberattack that had hit all of the school district’s computer networks, disrupting online classes for 115,000 students. The episode was by no means isolated. Rather, it was just one of several in an uptick of ransomware attacks in which cybercriminals have targeted public schools throughout the United States – from Hartford, Connecticut, to Huntsville, Alabama – since the 2020-21 school year began. Federal cybersecurity officials say the attacks – which involve thi...
Read More
Support From Schools Can Reduce Parents Anxiety During The Pandemic
No Comments
COVID-19, EDUCATION

Support From Schools Can Reduce Parents Anxiety During The Pandemic

Our recent survey found that schools can affect the mental health and well-being of not just students but their parents, too. From April through June 2020, we surveyed 152 parents – primarily mothers – in Detroit, Michigan, who were managing the new demands of remote schooling for their children. Not surprisingly, they reported high levels of anxiety (34%) and depression (27%) during this stressful period, but some indicated that support from their child’s school played an important role in reducing their mental health difficulties. Generally speaking, the more school support parents in our survey felt they had received, the less anxiety and depression they reported. However, this finding did not extend to families that were highly affected by COVID-19 due to lost income, food insecurity ...
Read More
Several schools find harmful bacteria in water systems, reminding all reopening buildings to check the pipes
No Comments
HEALTH & WELLNESS

Several schools find harmful bacteria in water systems, reminding all reopening buildings to check the pipes

As schools cautiously reopen for the fall semester, several have discovered potentially harmful bacteria in their water systems. Parents are likely concerned about what this means for their children, and other districts may be checking their own water’s safety. Schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania have already found Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease, in their water systems. Andrew Whelton/Purdue University, CC BY-ND As researchers who investigate water quality in buildings, we warned earlier this year that the pandemic stay-at-home orders could allow bacteria and harmful metals to accumulate in water as it sat unused in buildings’ pipes. Some building managers looked for those problems as they reopened and found them. More than 10 schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania hav...
Read More
Reopening elementary schools carries less COVID-19 risk than high schools – but that doesn’t guarantee safety
No Comments
LIFESTYLE

Reopening elementary schools carries less COVID-19 risk than high schools – but that doesn’t guarantee safety

While only a fraction of the country’s 50 million public school kids headed back to school in-person this month, many have already found themselves back at home. Within two weeks of opening, multiple states reported school-based COVID-19 outbreaks, and thousands of students and school staff have been quarantined following possible exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Many of these districts are in areas with high community spread of COVID-19, and some didn’t enforce social distancing or require face masks. Our team of infectious disease epidemiologists collected data in the San Francisco Bay Area and ran computer simulations to examine how school closures and reopenings can affect the spread of COVID-19. What we learned points to three key strategies for minimi...
Read More
Kids are bigger coronavirus spreaders than many doctors realized – here’s how schools can lower the risk
No Comments
COVID-19

Kids are bigger coronavirus spreaders than many doctors realized – here’s how schools can lower the risk

The first U.S. schools have reopened with in-person classes, and they are already setting off alarm bells about how quickly the coronavirus can spread. Georgia’s Cherokee County School District, north of Atlanta, had over 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases by the end of its second week of classes, and more than 1,600 students and staff had been sent home after being exposed to them. By the third week, three of the district’s high schools had temporarily reverted to all-online learning. Schools in Mississippi, Tennessee, Nebraska and other states also reported multiple cases, quarantines and temporary school closures. Deciding whether to open schools for in-person classes during a pandemic is a complex decision. Children often learn better in school, where they have direct contact with expert t...
Read More
3 ways to get kids to tune in and pay attention when schools go virtual
No Comments
EDUCATION

3 ways to get kids to tune in and pay attention when schools go virtual

When nearly all U.S. brick-and-mortar schools suddenly closed in March 2020 and went online, large numbers of students simply didn’t log into class. Even if they did show up, many more weren’t paying much attention or doing their schoolwork. As a new school year gets underway, is there anything that teachers and families can do to curb these problems with remote learning due to COVID-19? Having spent our careers doing research on student motivation and learning with technology, we recommend these three strategies. 1. Go out of your way to build relationships The importance of the relationships that develop in classrooms is often taken for granted. With online learning, students and teachers can no longer greet each other with high-fives and fist bumps or develop a sense of connection thro...
Read More
Deciding how and whether to reopen schools is complex – here’s how rocket scientists would develop a plan
No Comments
HEALTH & WELLNESS

Deciding how and whether to reopen schools is complex – here’s how rocket scientists would develop a plan

Dealing with the social and economic upheaval from the coronavirus pandemic will require the skills and talents of many types of professions – medical personnel, public health experts, parents, students, educators, legislators, enforcement authorities and many others. Until now, though, the U.S. has struggled to mount a coordinated national response to effectively stamp out COVID-19, even as other countries in Europe and East Asia have shown that the disease can be controlled. In the past, the United States has successfully mobilized to address deeply complex challenges and I believe one of those – sending astronauts to the Moon – can be instructive today, even though a pandemic is a very different challenge. Twelve years after the famed Project Apollo to land men on the Moon in 1969, Ge...
Read More
‘Telepresence’ can help bring advanced courses to schools that don’t offer them
No Comments
EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY

‘Telepresence’ can help bring advanced courses to schools that don’t offer them

The big idea In schools where students want to take an advanced course that the school doesn’t offer, the telepresence model, which enables students in one school to use videoconferencing to take a course offered at another school, is an effective alternative that can keep students learning and engaged. To reach this conclusion, which we published in a recent study, we looked at the use of the telepresence model at the public school system in Milwaukee. Beyond videoconferencing equipment, the telepresence model uses smartboards, an online learning platform, and video and text chat to bring students from schools throughout the city together into a virtual classroom. Why it matters Using telepresence enables schools to offer students advanced courses they wouldn’t otherwise be able to take....
Read More