Florida School Boards Association
With parents and students no longer tied to neighborhood schools, the Miami-Dade County public school district offers more options to keep kids in the public system. When classes start Monday, more than half of the students in Miami-Dade County will stream into a school they and their families picked themselves. With charter schools, magnet schools…
DetailsNo doubt you’ve heard this: ‘Third grade is the year when students go from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn.’ The truth is not so clear-cut, as explained here by Joanne Yatvin, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English who now supervises student teachers for Portland State University. She also…
DetailsFlorida is the nation’s second most poverty-stricken state, at 19.5 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure in 2012, and reported by the Tallahassee-based Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy (FCFEP) in a new August brief released Monday. Entitled ‘The Condition of Florida by the Numbers,’ the FCFEP paper also notes…
DetailsPANAMA CITY — Brandishing an imaginary gun will no longer be punishable at Bay District Schools if the School Board approves additions to its zero-tolerance policy. The recommended additional lines in Bay District Schools’ student discipline policy would prohibit disciplinary actions to be taken against students who simulate “a firearm or weapon while playing or…
DetailsThe U.S. Department of Education today announced new guidance for schools and districts on how to keep parents and students better informed about what student data is collected and how it is used. In the guidance issued by the Department’s Privacy Technical Assistance Center, schools and districts are urged to be proactive in communicating how they use student…
DetailsThe U.S. Department of Education is on the verge of releasing the first draft of new guidance on the peer-review process for standards and tests, a document that could exert a powerful influence on how states set academic expectations. Little known outside the assessment world, the process is wonky and technical. But it is an…
DetailsSet a goal. Work hard. Then, take a short break to recharge. That’s the thinking behind the Pomodoro Technique, a time management method used by and deadline-driven professionals, including coders, developers and the organizers of the CodeNow camp we attended in Miami. The Pomodoro Technique was created by programmer and consultant Francesco Cirillo in the…
DetailsA few weeks ago, Valerie Fernandez didn’t know anything about computer programming. Now, the 17-year-old Pembroke Pines resident is coding an Internet game all by herself. Fernandez is one of 20 Broward County girls participating in a program called Girls Who Code, an effort to combat the lack of women in science, technology, engineering and…
Details“This idea is to learn a language you have to talk it…you have to engage in it.” That’s how Algebra Project founder Bob Moses described the principle underlying the program. Math is a language. And like any language, teachers need to help students translate the language into terms they understand. But like the students learning…
DetailsMIAMI — With more than 51,000 unaccompanied Central American children already here, and more expected to come, school officials ask the federal government for a helping hand. Border kids costs more to educate, about $1,900 per head. Teachers must be bilingual. The students will need health care and psychological services because many arrive sick and…
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