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NYC schools get $150 million for cafeteria upgrades and $20 million extra to save popular food items
Café-style seating. Deli-like grab-and-go meals. This is what school lunch looks like in nearly half of New York City’s middle and high schools.And soon, the rest will get similar upgrades.With $150 million in capital funding committed through the city’s recently passed budget, thousands more middle and high schools students will see their cafeteria experiences transformed over the next five years. This funding builds on $125 million previously secured for the initiative, and it will allow the Education Department to also begin exploring an expansion to elementary school cafeterias, officials said.The changes are designed to make the school dining experience more...
More young Denver students are reading at grade level, but not as many as before the pandemic
Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.After switching its elementary reading curriculum to one aligned with the science of reading, Denver Public Schools is celebrating an increase in the percentage of kindergarten through third grade students who ended the school year reading on grade level.But the test scores are still below pre-pandemic levels — a vexing outcome the district is acknowledging by adopting a new intervention program to help the most struggling learners. Studies show that students who don’t read proficiently...
Newark students can benefit from free meal programs, summer activities
Sign up for Chalkbeat Newark’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.Free city and school programs are available to Newark families this summer to keep students academically engaged and reduce hunger, which is more pronounced when kids are out of school.Studies show summer learning programs can prepare students for the upcoming school year. In Newark, more than 6,000 public school students are attending summer programs, a combination of mandatory academic programs and specialized and recreational programs.Newark Public Schools Superintendent Roger León said summer school is about “moving kids forward” by helping students refine basic skills in...
Where will Chicago’s new, larger school board sit? CPS has not yet said.
Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.In just six months, Chicago’s Board of Education will swell to 21 members, half elected for the first time. But it’s not yet clear where the board will sit to make decisions every month about Chicago Public Schools.The Chicago Board of Education, currently made up of seven members appointed by the mayor, typically meets twice a month at its downtown headquarters at 42 W. Madison St., where it holds public meetings and votes on financial and policy decisions that impact Chicago’s 600 public schools and...
Colorado high school students had big drops in math scores. Is the new digital SAT to blame?
Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.Most Colorado students continue to make progress on state tests, with scores nearly recovering from dropping after the pandemic. That’s according to preliminary data previewed for the State Board of Education in June.But one area of concern is that high school math scores were significantly lower than in previous years as the state transitioned to a new digital PSAT and SAT.Ninth grade scores seem particularly concerning. In 2019, 49.6% of ninth graders met or exceeded...
These 6 NYC high schools are exempt from a new math curriculum mandate
Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.New York City’s sweeping effort to overhaul algebra instruction with a new curriculum mandate will exempt some campuses — all of which are specialized high schools, officials confirmed this week.By next fall, 420 city high schools will be required to use a curriculum called Imagine Learning Illustrative Math for Algebra 1, part of an effort to address plummeting math achievement in the wake of the pandemic.The Education Department has granted just six exemptions to that mandate, all of them specialized high schools that admit students...
Indiana’s revamped reading law could have big consequences for students from low-income families
Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.To get students to attend summer school, the staff at Global Preparatory Academy in Indianapolis do whatever it takes: Flyers and messages, conferences, and even stopping parents to talk at pick-up and drop-off.They strongly encourage some students to attend for “more at-bats,” or to practice key reading skills before taking the state’s third grade reading test, known as the IREAD. Others are there to prevent summer learning loss, said Assistant Principal Jessica Pumphrey.Known as Summer Learning Labs, —...
College Together provides different path for Philadelphia students to earn their degrees
Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.Sanya Sek worked hard in high school. She got all As, including in Advanced Placement courses. She applied to college and even got into Bryn Mawr.But her parents, both of whom had fled the Khmer Rouge in war-torn Cambodia when they were young, could not afford college, even though they prized education. The financial aid she was offered fell short of covering all the costs, including room and board, books, and the myriad ancillary fees. So she enrolled instead in Community College of Philadelphia.“I took...
Newark promotes vice principals, department supervisor to lead schools in September
Sign up for Chalkbeat Newark’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.The Newark Board of Education has announced the appointment of eight new principals who bring years of experience working in other district roles to their new positions.District leaders tapped former vice principals and a supervisor for the Office of Special Education to lead seven elementary schools and a high school for the upcoming school year. Seven of the new principals this fall are women, and most bring knowledge of the schools they will lead this year.Combined, the new principals bring decades of experience with the...
Philly students rally for more school funding at state capitol as budget debate grinds on
Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.Students from 17 Philadelphia high schools rallied at the state capitol in Harrisburg last week to demand that lawmakers provide adequate support to their underfunded public schools.The roughly 40 students who participated in the rally were part of a Youth Leadership Fellowship at PhillyBOLT — which stands for Building Our Lives Together — to learn how to create change in their communities through field trips and curriculum. They also went on a similar trip to the city in May to stress the importance of school...
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I grew up in Oxford, Ohio, home of Miami University, where I had a front seat to the shrinking local news industry.Our local paper, The Oxford Press, grew thinner each year before shutting down last winter. Miami’s on-campus NPR station stopped producing local programming in 2009. By the time I made it to the university in 2018, our student newspaper, The Miami Student, was the largest media organization in town.I led The Student’s design team, creating illustrations and building layouts for our weekly print newspaper late into the night every Monday. I also wrote fashion columns and edited a small...
How students can take advantage of Colorado’s new tax credit for college
Sign up for our free monthly newsletter Beyond High School to get the latest news about college and career paths for Colorado’s high school grads.Students who live in a household that makes $90,000 or less a year are now eligible for a Colorado tax credit that will help pay for the first two years of college.State leaders say accessing that credit for the first time should be an easy process for students attending school this year. Colleges or universities will track which students are eligible and then notify them. But students will still have to file their own tax return...
COVID aid funded big repairs at high-poverty schools. Will that give academics a boost too?
Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.When the air conditioning broke in a Terrebonne Parish school, it sometimes got so hot that kids fainted or had asthma attacks, and the school had to call an ambulance.More often, the school sent kids home early. In the best-case scenario, students packed into classrooms with working AC or relocated to the gym or cafeteria to escape the southeast Louisiana heat.So when the school district got its final federal COVID relief package in 2021, school officials made fixing the AC a top priority....
Detroit teachers union members approve new two-year contract with school district
Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.The Detroit teachers union overwhelmingly approved a new two-year contract with Detroit Public Schools Community District on Saturday, the first time in nearly three decades that the union has ratified a contract before the start of the school year.More than 1,100 members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers voted in the election with 83% approving the contract, a nearly 10% increase in approval compared to the previous agreement.The contract is under wraps until the school board officially votes to approve...
To help migrant students, Westminster created a summer program for English language learners
During the last week of summer school in Westminster, about 19 kids practiced forming English sentences that described pictures displayed on a smartboard at the front of the class.“I see kids playing fútbol,” one child, Mathias, said about a photo of a group of older kids playing soccer in the rain.But teacher Sydney Pollock wanted the class of third through fifth graders to practice starting sentences with the words “This” or “That,” and to use a singular verb in the sentence. She reminded Mathias that “kids” is plural. Writing the word on the board, she asked the class how to...
NYC budget deal invests more money in 3-K, but falls short of full early childhood restoration
Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.A tentative budget agreement announced on Friday will see additional dollars funneled to New York City’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds, but falls short of the full restoration sought by child care advocates.The deal on a total $112.4 billion city budget comes just days shy of the July 1 deadline and follows months of negotiations between City Council and Mayor Eric Adams’ administration. The turbulent budget process has seen Adams direct several rounds of cuts and restorations to the Education Department’s budget, as New York...
Rent-free housing: Denver real estate firm donates apartments to 10 early-career teachers
Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.Ten early-career Denver classroom teachers will get free rent for a year in a new upscale apartment building in the northwest part of the city — a novel, if incremental, approach to the problem of rising housing costs making it difficult for teachers to live close to where they work.Real estate investment firm Grand Peaks, whose founders attended Denver Public Schools, are donating 10 apartments in the 533-unit Skyline at Highlands development in the Jefferson...
Judge dismisses four-year lawsuit to void sale of Maple Avenue building, Newark schools can appeal
Sign up for Chalkbeat Newark’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.The Newark school board’s battle to reclaim a former building that reopened as a KIPP charter school was dismissed by a state judge earlier this month, a judgment the district could appeal.The fight to reclaim the former Maple Avenue school building first started in 2020 with a lawsuit against the city’s housing authority and KIPP schools, two years after Roger León became the first superintendent to lead the Newark school district under local control. According to the suit, the district wanted a state judge to...
New Jersey state school board nominees await confirmation to replace members with conservative views
Sign up for Chalkbeat Newark’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.The fight over “parental rights” on the New Jersey Board of Education is coming to a head as Gov. Phil Murphy gets closer to replacing one of the loudest opponents of recently updated sex education standards and the code for equity in schools.Murphy’s nomination of Claudine Keenan, interim vice provost of Stockton University, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee and could come up for a vote in the full Senate on Friday. Keenan would replace vice president Andy Mulvihill, whose supporters say has been a strong...
Philadelphia school board denies Global Leadership Academy charter application for fourth time
The Philadelphia Board of Education voted for the fourth time Thursday to deny a charter for a proposed Global Leadership Academy International High School because the revised application did not meet academic, financial, or operational standards.The board has five new members appointed by Mayor Cherelle Parker. But the board’s vote to reject the application from Global Leadership Academy (GLA) continues a significant multi-year trend: It has not approved a new charter school since Philadelphia regained local control of its schools from the state in 2018. Still, the privately managed but publicly funded schools — including cyber charters — now educate...
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Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization committed to covering one of America’s most important stories: the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to a quality education. Our reporters cover education nationally and at the local level, in Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Indiana, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, and Tennessee, with more locations to come.
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