The Christian Science Monitor (11/14, Khadaroo) reports, “Imagine if students could choose to leave high school as early as age 16 – not to drop out, but because they’re ready for college or career training. New Hampshire is considering changing its system to allow students to do just that.” The Monitor adds that this “controversial” program is “just one part of a comprehensive set of education reforms that the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce is urging in order to prepare workers to be competitive in the 21st-century global economy. Now, three states – Massachusetts, Utah, and New Hampshire – have agreed to pioneer some of those proposals.” The Monitor notes that the National Education Association “is allowing its state affiliates to help implement parts” of the “Tough Choices or Tough Times” agenda, which “calls for restructuring school systems to save money and redirecting those savings toward elements such as universal prekindergarten and higher teacher salaries.” NEA executive director John Wilson says the NEA is endorsing parts of the program “because it emphasizes the need to give ‘teachers the same kind of control over their work that other professionals have.’”

USA Today (11/14, Bruno) reports that parents of twins in five states have won laws allowing them to “overrule” principals who want to separate twins into separate classes. “Advocates of the laws say blanket policies requiring separation of twins are outdated. Educators typically separate twins and triplets, saying it helps the children develop separate identities. Parents of multiples say separation can cause their offspring anxiety, especially when there is stress from a divorce or death in the family. … Leading the effort is Kathy Dolan, a Queens, N.Y., mother of 9-year-old twins Ryan and Nicholas. She needed a doctor’s note to keep her sons together in kindergarten. After her battle, she founded twinslaw.com to push for laws in every state.”

Arizona’s JackCentral (11/13, Barela) reported, “Arizona high school juniors from eight different school districts will be taking the American College Test (ACT) simultaneously on April 22, 2009. Students will be able to take the test in their home school for free as opposed to paying a $31 fee and attending a testing site.” JackCentral added that Barbara Hickman, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the Flagstaff Unified School District, “said this pilot program has never been done before. … Hickman said even if higher education is not in the future of certain students, the test is still offered.”

KHAS-TV Hastings, NE (11/14, Klanecky) reported that Hastings Mayor-Elect Vern Powers “”said he has an idea that will save the local school district money. The plan would allow students to graduate after 10th grade.” Under the plan, students, with the help of counseling, “could decide if they would like to move on to a junior college or trade school after the 10th grade. The program is being used in New Hampshire.”

The Green Bay (WI) Press-Gazette (11/13, McBride) reported that in some local classrooms, “a different approach to management and discipline is being practiced – an environment that is about connecting and creating school ‘families.’ The approach, called conscious discipline, is a social-emotional program that employs eye contact, touch and other methods of connecting as part of the learning and discipline process.” According to the Press-Gazette, the program “focuses on the brain’s role in basic versus more advanced responses to certain situations.” Also, Cindy Parent, a 4-year-old kindergarten teacher at Our Savior Lutheran Preschool in Green Bay, WI “attended a two-day conscious discipline workshop and now uses some of the techniques with her students,” who “have classroom jobs, and a ’safe place’ with reminders on breathing techniques instead of the more traditional ‘time out’ spot. The approach has made a difference, Parent said.”

KOCO-TV Oklahoma City, OK (11/13) reported, “National school bullying experts have come to Oklahoma to help teachers learn how to prevent problems in their classrooms. The visit follows several incidents at metro schools in the past few months, including fights, the discovery of guns and lockdowns.” KOCO added, “Experts said bullying sometimes leads to more violent problems, and one out of every three Oklahoma elementary and middle school students have said they’ve either bullied another child or have been bullied themselves.” Also, experts “said teachers and parents should not ignore sexual or racially based remarks that they hear from their children. They said that’s a chance to discuss the reasons behind the comments.”

KNDO-TV Yakima, WA (11/14) reports that the Yakima School District “is cracking down on truant students, and the results are showing. It took a community approach between the district and police.” According to KNDO, the district and police “wanted to stop kids from skipping school because they could see how it affects the drop out rate and daytime crime. … The extra enforcement has lowered truancy rates. That improves Yakima’s dropout rates too.”

The AP (11/14) reports, “People across Southern California on Thursday looked like they had stepped out of a disaster movie. Children ducked under their desks. Victims with fake blood lay on the ground.” The “controlled chaos was all part of a mock ‘Big One’ – an earthquake drill billed as the largest in U.S. history and aimed at testing the preparedness of governments, emergency responders and residents.” According to the AP, “At Bishop Alemany High School, a San Fernando Valley campus badly damaged by a 1971 quake and destroyed by the 1994 Northridge event, the football field was filled with mock mass casualties wore colored wristbands indicating the severity of their fake injuries. Many of the students posing as faux victims said they were too young to remember Northridge, the last damaging quake in Southern California, which toppled bridges and buildings.”

Florida’s Herald Tribune (11/13, O’Donnell) reported, “Name calling, threats and intimidation have always been a problem in schools, but in recent years technology has made it even easier for students to abuse others and tougher for teachers and principals to prevent. Known as cyber-bullying, it includes sending insulting text messages to a student’s phone or posting hurtful rumors about a student on the Internet.” The Herald Tribune adds that, Manatee County (FL) School District officials “are cracking down on the problem with a new bullying and harassment policy. The new rules [set] penalties for students who bully and require school administrators to investigate alleged bullying within 10 days.”

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (11/14) editorializes that in the wake of a school shooting that claimed the life of a 15-year-old student at Dillard High School in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, “the question of the day – and it’s the wrong question,” is “why aren’t there metal detectors to stop guns from getting into schools?” According to the Sun-Sentinel, metal detectors “at school entrances aren’t the answer, and they aren’t happening. Not when the Broward School District has to cut another $34.2 million from the budget, and Palm Beach County schools are cutting $23.4 million. Even if money was available, turning schools into fortresses is not the answer.” According to the Sun-Sentinel, students, teachers, counselors and parents “have to be more alert to problems – emotional or otherwise – that may be brewing in a particular student. … The new anti-bullying policy in place statewide helps, but everyone has to be alert to problems that go deeper than bullying.”

The Macon (GA) Telegraph (11/14, Hubbard) reports that Bibb County (GA) school officials “proposed Thursday spending an extra $310,000 for construction at Ingram-Pye Elementary School. Cost of the $9 million project has increased because burglars broke into the school in September and stole copper from air condition units and electrical wire.” The construction funds are “part of a 2005 voter-approved penny sales tax school building project. … The money for repairs will now have to come out of the $1.5 million contingency reserved for unexpected problems with school construction,” said Bob Flowers, Bibb’s capital program administrator. According to the Telegraph, the “cost for copper replacement is about $40,000 and the remaining $270,000 is needed for fire alarms, emergency lights and other safety features requested by the fire marshal.”

New Jersey’s Star-Ledger (11/13, Washington) reported, “In 2000, the State of New Jersey passed legislation for a school construction program designed to decrease the disparity between school buildings in wealthy and needy districts.” According to the Star-Ledger, Gladys Hillman-Jones School, a middle school in Newark, NJ, “was on that list of needy schools. The existing 91,836 square feet of space was no longer adequate to educate the students who used it.” The “plan to upgrade the school” and change its name to Barringer Ninth Grade Academy “called for expansion. … All seemed well” for Gladys Hillman-Jones, and “then the School Construction Corp. disintegrated in 2005, freezing school construction throughout the state. … On July 9, 2008, Gov. Jon Corzine signed a bill releasing $3.9 billion in state financing toward the construction of schools, putting Barringer Nine back on track.”

The Baltimore Sun (11/14, Fuller) reports that the Anne Arundel County (MD) school board “has approved projects for three Annapolis schools totaling about $62 million. Though the board considered less expensive alternatives because of expected county and state budget shortfalls, the board voted overwhelmingly for the recommendations made by Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell to renovate Annapolis Elementary and the current site of Germantown Elementary – which would become the new home of the Phoenix Center – and to construct a new building for Germantown.” According to the Sun, the “vote came after a debate that touched on issues including the struggles of urban schools and the school system’s funding of schools with high minority populations versus schools in wealthier and overwhelmingly white communities in the county. The president of the county teachers union chastised board members for what he said was favoritism toward schools with majority white populations.”

The AP (11/13, Smyth) reported that Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) “has promised Ohio a plan in 2009 for fixing the way it pays for public schools, and circumstances are reaching a crescendo. A new state superintendent friendly to Strickland’s education philosophies, Cleveland Heights’ Deborah Delisle, takes over Dec. 1.” According to the AP, “A series of education forums Strickland hosted has wrapped up statewide. And on Nov. 4, fellow Democrats won control come January of the Ohio House, where the funding plan is likely to be introduced.” The “big question mark is whether Strickland will choose to make his school-funding plan his next state budget proposal, covering the two fiscal years that begin July 1, or introduce it as a self-standing legislative or ballot proposal.” The AP adds that one school funding model “may come from Ohio’s last Democratic governor, Richard Celeste, who introduced an underfunded budget and simultaneously proposed a revenue-boosting package of tax increases.” However, faces a conundrum as “he has pledged repeatedly not to raise taxes.”

The Lawrence (KS) Journal-World (11/14, Rothschild) reports that funding for Kansas public schools “would face a cut under a proposal made by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ (D) budget office, officials said Thursday. The current fiscal year budget would be cut $11 million, from $3.246 billion to $3.235 billion.” Also, the “fiscal year that starts July 1, 2009, would face another cut of approximately $1.5 million. Those reductions may not seem like a lot relative to the overall school budget, but education advocates point out that under current state law, schools were supposed to get an increase in funding of approximately $150 million.”

Florida’s Capitol News Service (11/13, Vasilinda) reported that on December 10th, the state of Florida “will send checks to operate local schools. The problem? The checks will be almost two percent less than expected.” According to Capital News Service, statewide, the “school cuts will total $355 million. … The school budget situation is so bleak, Florida school boards are talking about suing the state, trying to force it to meet it’s constitutional obligation. Article 9 of the state constitution calls a high quality education the ‘paramount duty of the state.’” The Florida Education Association “says the only way that duty can be met is by increasing revenues,” via sales tax hikes or “collecting taxes already owed, such as on internet purchases or on closing corporate tax loopholes.”

WTVJ-TV Miami, FL (11/13) reported that that Miami-Dade School District “has a $122 million deficit, and the man with the task of tackling the cash crunch is newly-elected Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. At a community forum Wednesday night, hundreds gathered to hear Carvalho’s plan to help troubled schools and at-risk students — they’ll be paid to learn, thanks to private donations.” Also, Carvalho’s “money-saving plan involves reorganizing the district, reducing the central office by nearly 30 percent and reducing or freezing non-classroom expenses.”

The Providence Journal (11/14, Edgar) report that Narragansett (RI) School System Finance Director Christopher E. Mallett ” had added to a growing list of accomplishments,” since taking the job last year, as he “simplified budget reports, oversaw the adoption of a state-mandated accounting system and helped the School Department adjust to new accounting software. So it was all the more surprising last month when a school accounting clerk noticed two transactions that raised questions about Mallett’s conduct.” According to the Journal, the clerk “found two purchase orders Mallett had handled himself, beginning to end, even issuing two checks totaling more than $50,000 – to himself, school and police officials said yesterday. … On Wednesday, Mallett, 43, was arrested and charged with two counts of unlawful appropriation and two counts of accessing a computer for fraudulent purposes, both of which are felonies.”

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