TOP NEWS CBS New York Richard A. Carranza, the former superintendent of the Houston ISD, has been hired by Mayor Bill de Blasio as New York City’s next schools chancellor. Carranza led the effort to re-open Houston schools after Hurricane Harvey, and previously served as the superintendent of the San Francisco USD. Read more>> Sponsored Sponsored by Learning Ally A failure to read for any student has far-reaching consequences. Jumpstart your action plan with these money and time-saving techniques. Read more>> Los Angeles Times Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer is forming a blue-ribbon panel to look at measures that would make schools safer and how to make them happen. LAUSD school board members will also introduce a resolution calling for stronger state and federal gun control and for a review of school district policies. Read more>> ESPN Seeing both a responsibility as the world's leading basketball league and an opportunity to move in on valuable territory, the NBA league is preparing to get involved again with elite high school basketball players. Read more>> The New York Times A fast-growing group of companies are trying to sell school safety equipment. But even as school districts rethink their security and seek to increase their budgets, they have little guidance from government agencies or independent consumer groups on which equipment would actually protect their students. Read more>> Miami Herald In a dramatic move designed to appease Gov. Rick Scott and other critics, the Florida Senate adopted a last-minute amendment to its school safety bill that will take some teachers out of an optional program to allow school personnel to carry firearms in schools. Read more>> New York Post Republican lawmakers are taking aim at the state Education Department for failing to increase school security despite voter approval for $2 billion in spending on technology that could protect kids. Read more>> District Administration Survey District Administration Coding can be much more than just teaching kids to become software engineers. DA would like to interview administrators whose schools use coding to teach K12 students problem-solving and computational skills that support learning across the curriculum. Contact us>> OPINION The Washington Post More than 22,000 educators in West Virginia have stood up for their themselves—surprising the political establishment and even some union leaders with a determination not seen since the last strike in the state, nearly 30 years ago. And the fact that the strike may not be legal has not deterred them. Read more>> Slate Part of the reason the Stoneman Douglas students have become so vocal is in no small part due to the fact that they are in a school system that boasts programs such as debating, forensics, public speaking, drama, journalism and more. Perhaps we should think about putting more money into the programs that foster political engagement and skills. Read more>> The Cinncinati Enquirer Preventing school violence does not have an easy solution, but there are procedures that make schools safer. Teachers are not police officers so having them carry guns is not part of their job. Learning requires a relationship in which students feel safe. That is a lot harder when a teacher is armed with a gun. Read more>> Sponsored Sponsored by Texas Instruments Timothy Collier has been teaching high school mathematics for more than 30 years, most of them at McAlester High School in south- east Oklahoma, where he is the department chair. State budget cuts have affected McAlester High School and the district's eight other schools, especially in the area of professional development for teachers, who were facing shifting state standards in math and science. Read more>> INDUSTRY NEWS Ameresco, Inc. Junction City School District has partnered with Ameresco for a $2.4 million dollar project to provide energy efficiency and infrastructure upgrades to four schools. Upgrades include lighting, plumbing, mechanical and HVAC improvements. Read more>> Discovery Education Florida’s Marion County Public Schools signed a new six-year partnership with Discovery Education to combine Discovery Education’s Science Techbook, Streaming Plus, and a professional development program. Read more>> Turnitin/W. W. Norton & Company Academic textbook content that has been published by W. W. Norton & Company will now be added to the Turnitin database. Turnitin writing resources are used by educators in K12 and higher education to support writing instruction, receive and grade student papers, and check for original content. Read more>> ✭ Visit the District Administration's PR Portal ✭ PEOPLE WATCH The Gazette Steve Woolf, most recently the superintendent of Kansas' Erie USD 101, will start in July as the new top leader for Woodland Park School District RE-2. He will replace Jed Bowman, who has been superintendent for more than eight years. Read more>> WBTW Tim Newman will head up Darlington County's school system as of the end of the school year. He is currently the superintendent of Orangeburg CSD 4. Darlington County’s previous superintendent, Eddie Ingram, resigned in August to become superintendent for the Berkeley County School District. Read more>> Portage Daily Register The Wisconsin district's school board chose Margaret Rudolph, who currently serves as the Portage CSD’s director of business operations, to be the next superintendent. She will succeed Charles Poches as district administrator. Read more>> | 