Education News Roundup

Editor's note

There are a couple of big stories that I want to give their own posts. One is about gender and students, the other is about COVID and vaccines for children. They are both going to be difficult conversations because we will be talking about the health - physical and mental - of children and their lives. 

Look for that soon.

From the Cato Institute - Public Schooling Battle Map. Pretty astonishing the volume of issues nationwide.  I do think the one case of the district that refused to take fundraising dollars from a high school satanic club is sad.

From the New York Times - Health Panel Recommends Screening All Kids 8 and Up for Anxiety

A panel of medical experts on Tuesday recommended for the first time that primary care doctors screen all children ages 8 to 18 for anxiety, new guidance that highlights the ongoing mental health crisis among American youth.

In making its recommendations, the task force hopes to reduce the number of children whose mental health conditions go undetected and untreated.  “We are talking about screening young people who are not presenting with explicit signs or symptoms of anxiety or depression at the time that they come to their primary care physician for a visit,” Dr. Kubik explained.

Both of the task force’s recommendations highlight the benefits of early detection and treatment, pointing to research that links childhood anxiety and depression to those conditions in adulthood. The panel also emphasizes that both can hamper children’s developmental trajectories.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is ever helpful to parents on the issue of school shootings via The Today Show:

Texas schools send parents DNA kits to identify their kids’ bodies in emergencies

In 2021, the Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill No. 2158, a law requiring the Texas Education Agency to "provide identification kits to school districts and open-enrollment charter schools for distribution to the parent or legal custodian of certain students." 

According to the legislation mandating the kits be provided to qualifying Texas families, the fingerprint and DNA verification kits were intended to “help locate and return a missing or trafficked child.” 

The law passed after eight students and two teachers were shot and killed inside Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, and almost a year before 19 fourth graders and two teachers were gunned down inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. 

Many of the children gunned down inside Robb Elementary were not easily identifiable as a result of their catastrophic injuries. Some close family members provided DNA swabs in order to positively identify the children's remains.

"Elected officials, both national and Texan, have given up," she added. "They've decided our kids aren't worth restricting guns, but they're offering us this as some kind of consolation. It's disgusting that they can't do any better than to admit that they won't protect our children." 

The Texas public school system will provide ink-free fingerprint and DNA identification cards to all K-6 students who are eligible. Parents are not mandated to use the kits.

Education Week's Savvy Principal - Take Control of TikTok Challenges

The gist: The “one chip” challenge—in which young people make TikTok videos of themselves eating a dangerously spicy potato chip—is sending students across the country to the nurse’s office and even to the hospital. It’s the latest in a string of viral challenges on the video platform that’s causing headaches for educators.

• Talk to students. Schools can discuss TikTok challenges—and the peer pressure that perpetuates them—as part of digital citizenship education, says Christine Elgersma, the senior editor of learning content strategy at Common Sense Media.

• Don't judge. In talking with students, resist the urge to “dismiss and diminish [the behaviors] as stupid because that causes [students to think], ‘you don’t get us, you old fart,’” Elgersma said.

• Get students to think critically. Ask: Why do you think these things are popular, even though they can be harmful? Have you participated in these? Why or why not? What do you think happened to students who did those things afterwards?

• Alert parents. But don’t alarm them; just be factual. Suggest that they ask their children if their friends are doing these things. (It's less confrontational.)

 One thought I had was telling your kids about dumb things you did in high school but maybe that would just give them one more dumb thing to think of doing. And don't alarm parents? They should be alarmed; their kid could die from one of these challenges. Thoughts?

 Also from Education Week (and on the heels of the Board vote to extend the school year in June to make up teacher strike days) -  

The School Year Is Getting Hotter. How Does Heat Affect Student Learning and Well-Being?

I have no real idea how SPS is on ventilation and AC. Anybody? I would assume the newer buildings are better than the older ones. I do want to note that I did ask three teachers in Arizona whether they would want the school year extended in June OR shave off days from various breaks. Unanimously, shave days off breaks. 

I am more and more suspicious that the decision to extend the school year in June was to serve those at the tops and not necessarily teachers and really not parents/students.