School Board Relations

YONKERS, N.Y.—Brian Schulder, the security and safety director at Yonkers Public Schools, considers himself an educator, first and foremost. He’s not some hardened, former city beat cop or detective—he’s spent a majority of his 20-plus years in this large urban district teaching and coaching. “I think being an educator lets me see things from a perspective […]

School investigations—whether at a private or public high school, or other institution—pose special problems for school administrators and counsel. The risks are often high, and school leaders, even those well-versed in the typical legal issues affecting their institutions, may be inexperienced in conducting investigations. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, here are six best practices […]

In his new book What School Could Be, innovation expert Ted Dintersmith profiles schools that focus on innovation and “real” learning, rather than endlessly drilling on formulas and definitions that don’t matter in today’s world. Our archaic model of education trains kids for a world that no longer exists, and accelerating advances in technology are eliminating millions of […]

Ware County School District in Georgia has downsized its inventory of assistive technology. Thanks to a slew of technological advances, many of the specialized tools their special education students had used to communicate and learn are now redundant. “We don’t need portable keyboards or word processors anymore” says Barbara Sonnier, the district’s assistive technology coordinator. […]

How do you ensure students who excel at math remain engaged? Heidi Williams intended to solve that challenge by starting an after-school coding club while she was a gifted-and-talented teacher at Bayside Middle School near Milwaukee. Instead of using pen and paper, her students created an interactive children’s book on Scratch, the MIT Media Lab […]

For the past two years, leaders at Muhlenberg South Middle School in Greenville, Kentucky, have been working to decrease the number of teacher absences as part of a wider effort to improve school culture. Although this has occurred during a financial crisis in which all Muhlenberg County School District staff took a 10 percent pay […]