Student Success

First-time Superintendent Bilal Tawwab started work at Flint Community Schools in September, prepared to take on the district’s budget deficit of $10.5 million and a number of poor-performing schools. The city’s infamous water crisis erupted during his first month at the helm of the district of 7,000 students. Tawwab, formerly assistant superintendent at Detroit Public […]

Kicking a soccer ball might feel a bit like poetry—the power of your foot sending the ball curling through the air to a teammate or into the back of a net. Washington, D.C., teacher Julie Kennedy has for the past 20 years paired verse with the world’s most popular sport to provide an edifying, after-school […]

Students have more time for swings, monkey bars and outdoor games at four Texas elementary schools that have adopted a Finnish model structured around four short recess periods each day. Debbie Rhea, associate dean of research and health sciences at Texas Christian University, created the college’s Let’s Inspire Innovation ‘N Kids (LiiNK) program in 2013 […]

As more states legalize medical marijuana, administrators grapple with whether to permit the substance on campus for students with certain health ailments. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia legalized medical marijuana in the past two decades. In June, Maine became the first state to require all school districts to create a policy on use […]

A recent federal court decision on the statute of limitations for families to take legal action against schools sheds new light on compensatory services provided to special education students when IEP goals are missed. Parents still must take legal action within two years, but they may seek several years’ worth of special education services, according […]

Students living in states with an antibullying law that includes at least one U.S. Department of Education-recommended legislative component had lower reported bullying and cyberbullying rates compared to students living in states without such legal provisions, according to recent research. The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2015, examined data from 25 states to evaluate […]