Child Welfare
Student Well-Being
Many Seats Still Empty as Schools Outside New Orleans Reopen
Life in this community near New Orleans took an important step toward returning to normal this week, as students filed into Bonnabel High School and 78 other Jefferson Parish public schools for the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August.
Federal
Gulf Coast Schools Prepare to Reopen Amid Uncertainties
With many Louisiana and Mississippi schools expected to open this week for the first time since Hurricane Katrina savaged the Gulf Coast, school leaders were working hard last week to prepare despite uncertainty over how many students would actually show up.
School Climate & Safety
Rita Closes Many Texas, Louisiana Schools
School districts in southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas were still struggling to assess damage, make repairs, and reopen nearly a week after Hurricane Rita swept ashore.
Federal
States Address Academic Concerns
State and local officials are slowly untangling complicated webs of accountability, testing, and graduation policies, hoping to give thousands of students displaced by Hurricane Katrina a better handle on their academic standing.
School Climate & Safety
Bush Proposes Evacuee Aid for Districts, School Vouchers
The Bush administration is proposing up to $1.9 billion in federal aid to help school districts and charter schools that are enrolling some of the 300,000-plus students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Student Well-Being
Needs of Displaced Students Emerge as Issue for Districts
As schools scrambled to absorb hundreds of thousands of students displaced by Hurricane Katrina, experts last week urged administrators to consider and plan for a host of academic and emotional issues that could come along with them.
Student Well-Being
Schools Address Health Concerns of Evacuated Students
In the first two days of the school year in Dallas, Rosemary Allen has witnessed a gamut of emotions among children displaced by Hurricane Katrina: older students crying as they board the bus to school; some who are reluctant to talk in class; and others who seem happier keeping to themselves.
School Choice & Charters
Private-Sector Students Hit by Disaster Finding Opportunities in New Schools
Educators in private schools reached out last week to offer seats in schools to students uprooted by Hurricane Katrina. They tended to give top priority to helping students from schools that looked most like their own.
Student Well-Being
La. Schools Chief Seeks $2.8 Billion in K-12 Aid
Louisiana school districts decimated by Hurricane Katrina will need $2.8 billion in federal aid this school year to recover from the devastating storm, Louisiana’s top education official said Sept. 8, adding that as many as 100,000 of the public school students displaced in the New Orleans area may return to their home schools by January.
Student Well-Being
Teens Released From Foster Care Too Early, Report Says
States should extend foster-care services to youths until age 21 because young adults who leave the child-welfare system at 18 face steeper challenges in becoming independent adults than those who stay in foster care, a national study unveiled last week says.
Student Well-Being
Suicide Spurs Va. District To Revise Misconduct Probes
The Roanoke, Va., city school district has fine-tuned its policy on investigations of alleged employee misconduct following a teacher’s suicide last year.
School & District Management
Foster-Care Children Are Poorly Educated, 3-State Study Charges
The future of young people who "age out" of foster care is severely compromised because they lack strong academic backgrounds, concludes a three- state study of 17-year-olds ready to leave the system.
Early Childhood
Controversy Erupts Anew Over Tenn. Child-Services Agency
In the latest development in an ongoing controversy, Gov. Phil Bredesen has ordered major changes in the Tennessee Department of Children's Services after a court-ordered audit found the agency was mismanaging many of its obligations to the children it serves.
Federal
Education Issues High On the U.N.'s Agenda For Session on Children
Providing all of the world's children with a free, high-quality primary education by 2015 and giving girls the same access to schooling as boys by 2005 were among the targets expected to be endorsed late last week at the United Nations' Special Session on Children.
