TOP NEWS WTVD The districts are suing state officials to collect hundreds of millions of dollars owed to schools across the state. In 2008, the state Supreme Court determined the legislature owed the schools nearly $750 million but said it did not have the authority to make the legislature pay up. Read more>> Sponsored Sponsored by Rowan University Rowan University’s nationally recognized College of Education offers an Ed. D. in Educational Leadership for pre-K through 12 educators who want to develop the leadership skills necessary to transform educational institutions. Read more>> WPRI Gov. Gina Raimondo announced she is reprioritizing existing state funds for school repairs to focus on “relatively low-cost, high impact” security upgrades. The $10 million in funding can be used for new locks, cameras and intercom systems, but metal detectors will not be funded. Read more>> The Boston Globe Teachers, parents and advocates blasted the Legislature for failing to overhaul the state’s antiquated education funding formula. Many placed blame squarely on House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo’s leadership team, accusing them of blocking any resolution to the demands to overhaul the funding formula. Read more>> KXAN The FBI and Department of Homeland Security participated in safety and security training for Texas school resource officers, administrators and mental health counselors as part of a continued effort to make schools safer statewide. The event was aimed at emergency response to threats and prevention of future attacks. Read more>> Louisville Courier Journal Kentucky's interim education commissioner has taken the unusual step of offering a settlement to Jefferson County Public Schools to avoid a contentious takeover dispute. Read more>> CBS Chicago She’s in federal prison, but the disgraced former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Barbara Byrd Bennett, is at the center of a new scandal. The operator of six CPS alternative schools allegedly hired two of her former associates to gain access to $67 million in CPS contracts. Read more>> OPINION The Hour It’s time for educators to seize an extra-credit assignment. We know through data day-to-day classroom outcomes that Connecticut needs more minority classroom teachers. This is underscored by a Connecticut Voices for Children report that details the disparity between Latino students in our cities’ schools and teachers. Read more>> The Detroit News Though state law prohibits concealed weapons in schools, the statute does not expressly prohibit permit holders from openly carrying. In an era of school shootings, districts are actively engaged in keeping unauthorized guns out of their schools. It would be irresponsible to ask them to sort out which open carriers are safe. Read more>> Education Dive With almost all state plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act now approved by the U.S. Department of Education, the question related to school improvement isn’t so much what works to help low-performing schools, but how to implement strategies in the most effective way, a panel of speakers said. Read more>> INDUSTRY NEWS Casio America, Inc. Students and teachers can go to ClassPad.net and draw geometry figures freehand and input calculations as they would on real scratch paper. Users also have the ability to plot data points, and add text labels, expressions, and pictures to graphs or geometry diagrams. Read more>> Indiana Digital Learning School A full-time, tuition-free online public school, Indiana Digital Learning School is open to students in grades K-11 throughout the state. The school will expand to offer grades K-12 for the 2019-20 academic year. Read more>> iFolio The Museum School of Avondale Estates has implemented the iFOLIO Digital Portfolio Platform for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students to learn and bring their stories to life. Read more>> ✭ Visit the District Administration's PR Portal ✭ CONSTRUCTION WATCH Arkansas Online An advisory committee proposed changes to the state's system of distributing millions of dollars to school districts for building-related costs to favor the ones that have had sharp declines in student enrollment. The committee also called for the state to budget $90 million a year for its share of the cost of school construction. Read more>> WJAR The Rhode Island city's council approved a $160 million bond initiative for the November ballot. If passed, the city of Providence will be able to borrow that amount for school repair projects. Read more>> The San Diego Union-Tribune The bond money would go to improving the California district’s aging facilities and includes safeguards to prevent money from going to salary or pensions costs. In many ways, the vote was the result of a multiyear effort to recover from bribery scandals that haunted several South Bay school districts in 2011. Read more>> | 