A scramble across city as school drivers strike

Boston school bus drivers went on strike Tuesday morning — with no advance warning to families — leaving thousands of children stranded at home or at bus stops as the city grappled with its first such strike in more than two decades, The Boston Globe reports. Drivers showed up before dawn, but most refused to board their buses to protest myriad grievances, from payroll problems to a new Web page that allows parents to track their children’s buses. Bus yard managers eventually ordered them off the four lots and locked the gates, as union members shouted back and forth, with police cruisers parked nearby…

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State board boosts math requirement

Getting admitted to a four-year public university in Massachusetts just got harder, reports the Boston Globe. The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted unanimously yesterday to require high school students seeking admission to a state university to take four years of math in high school, in an effort to boost college completion rates and to expose students from low-income communities to a more rigorous curriculum that better meets the expectations of colleges…

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Nearly all schools file antibullying proposals

Ninety-nine percent of Massachusetts school districts filed bullying-prevention plans with the state by the Dec. 31 deadline–a marked turnaround from nearly two weeks ago when just 60 percent had complied with the mandate, reports the Boston Globe. Only six schools–two public, one charter, and three private special education schools–failed to file plans with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as required by the new law that seeks to protect students from bullying in schools and beyond. The law, signed by Governor Deval Patrick last May after the suicide of bullied South Hadley student Phoebe Prince, requires schools to adopt clear procedures for reporting and investigating cases of bullying, as well as methods for preventing retaliation against those who report problems…

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First virtual school in Mass. opens today

The Massachusetts Virtual Academy opens in Greenfield on Sept. 2, not only as the first in the state, but also as the first virtual school in New England to serve students from kindergarten through high school, reports the Boston Globe. At the virtual school, students will take all of their classes online and have a learning coach make sure they complete their assignments. A parent could be certified, for instance, to be the learning coach. The student can work anytime of day, and some might never see their teachers in person. Greenfield Superintendent Susan Hollins said a small fraction of students find the size and fixed structure of traditional schools unworkable for them, adding: “I’m delighted to spearhead something that opens doors and provides another opportunity for children and parents.” Greenfield officials believe 10,000 to 20,000 students in Massachusetts could benefit from a virtual school, but the school is limited to 500. Greenfield has been working on opening a virtual school for 18 months. Provisions of the state’s education overhaul law, passed this year, allowed for virtual schools. But Greenfield faced a roadblock in the state’s requirement that 25 percent of the students live in the district operating the virtual school, and 10 percent if the school is intended to serve a target population. The state granted Greenfield an exemption Aug. 13 to those rates and requires only 2 percent instead…

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School administrator resigns over Facebook posting

A Massachusetts school administrator has resigned after she called residents of the town where she worked “snobby” and “arrogant” in a Facebook posting, reports the Boston Globe. When the Cohasset School Committee discovered this week that an administrator had posted Facebook comments disparaging residents of the South Shore town, the reaction was swift. Unhappy parents eMailed the committee, alerting members to the postings by June TalvitieSiple, said Alfred Slanetz, vice chairman of the committee. Talvitie-Siple was asked to resign within 24 hours, and she stepped down Aug. 17. “The unfortunate thing is that it’s a lesson that we try to teach our kids about use of the internet,” Slanetz said. “It almost doesn’t matter if it’s on the web or in a newspaper these days. … It’s all out there.” Talvitie-Siple was the supervisor for engineering, math, science, and technology at Cohasset High School. Her Facebook profile was no longer publicly available, but newspaper accounts say Talvitie-Siple wrote she was “so not looking forward to another year at Cohasset Schools,” calling residents “so arrogant and snobby.” In an interview, Talvitie-Siple said she’s worried her actions have ruined her career and said she takes full responsibility. She said she posted the comments following tension in the school district that she would not detail, and she thought her Facebook profile was set to allow only friends she has approved to view her page. “You would assume if you have to confirm people as a friend, [other people] can’t see,” she said. “I have a lot of background with technology, and yet I still get caught with my pants down.”

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Massachusetts panel wants to set limits on virtual public schools

The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, apprehensive about a new state law that allows public schools to operate almost entirely in cyberspace, will consider imposing limits on the growth of these virtual schools, much to the dismay of supporters, reports the Boston Globe. The goal of the proposed regulations is to allow some experimentation in Massachusetts with these kinds of schools, while not allowing them to grow unfettered without knowing what works and what doesn’t, said Jeff Wulfson, an associate education commissioner. Among the proposed limits: capping enrollment at each virtual school at 500 students and requiring at least 25 percent of those students to reside in the school district that is operating the virtual school. “We’re trying to find the right balance,” Wulfson said. But some virtual-school advocates say the proposed regulations go too far in controlling growth, crippling the ability of most districts across the state to open these schools…

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Virtual schools will soon become reality in Massachusetts

Massachusetts is about to join a growing virtual-school movement that already has taken hold in many other states, reports the Boston Globe. Virtual public schools could open in Massachusetts as soon as this fall, enabling hundreds of students to take all their classes online. The first such school is poised to open this fall in Greenfield, a small city of rolling pastures in Western Massachusetts. Last week, its School Committee set an enrollment goal of up to 600 students and is seeking a principal to further develop the “Massachusetts Virtual Academy at Greenfield,” which will be open to students statewide in kindergarten through grade 8. The schools are being developed under a little-known provision of the state’s sweeping education law enacted in January. The law, which urges districts to pursue innovations, gave local school committees authority to create public schools that operate almost entirely in cyberspace. Having students tap the internet for all their courses marks the next evolution of online learning in Massachusetts. Typically, school districts—mostly high schools—turn to the web to supplement elective course offerings. About 40 percent of Massachusetts school districts had at least one student enrolled in an online course last school year, state officials said. But across the nation, virtual public schools have been growing in popularity in such states as Texas, Colorado, and Arizona, online education specialists say…

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Anti-bullying law could face free-speech challenges

When Gov. Deval Patrick signed Massachusetts’ first anti-bullying law May 3, supporters heralded it as the most far-reaching effort yet by a state to deter behavior that has driven youngsters to suicide. But a number of civil-rights lawyers say the new law might go too far and will almost certainly lead to legal challenges, reports the Boston Globe. Fueled in large part by soaring recent complaints about “cyber bullying,’’ some 44 states, including Massachusetts, now have laws that prohibit bullying of students in school and online. But federal lawsuits also have increased, because parents of students who have been disciplined are fighting back. Massachusetts state Rep. Martha Walz, the primary sponsor of that state’s anti-bullying bill, said she took pains to draft a bill that would address bullying while preserving the free-speech rights of students. For one thing, she said, Massachusetts now requires that every student from kindergarten through 12th grade participate in an anti-bullying curriculum every year. Moreover, laws in other states specifically ban bullying that targets individuals based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or other traits. The Massachusetts law deliberately eschewed that, Walz said, because bullies elsewhere have avoided discipline by claiming they never intended to target a member of a certain group. “We look at the bully’s actions, rather than the bully’s intent,’’ she said. But some aspects of the law are so general that civil-rights lawyers are concerned about how schools will apply it…

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Mass. officials target Facebook to dull bullies’ barbs

Boston-area students and school officials say they have found at least 15 Facebook pages over the last few days that use obscene or hateful language to target female students, as well as a handful of male students, school administrators, and teachers at schools in Boston and surrounding communities, reports the Boston Globe. School and police officials say they consider the pages to be acts of cyber bullying, a form of harassment that has garnered more public awareness after the suicides of two Western Massachusetts students who had been bullied. Boston officials have been scrambling to have the pages removed and have been meeting to figure out how to address the apparent cyber bullying and find the culprits. But as the offending Facebook pages come down, new ones go up. Ranny Bledsoe—principal of Charlestown High School, one of the most severely afflicted schools—said, “It seems to be an absolute epidemic.’’ Nearly 10 percent of the 900 students at Charlestown High have been victimized, Bledsoe said. Students targeted on the Facebook pages say they have been taunted and laughed at by classmates. “It’s a very ugly modern crime,’’ Bledsoe said. “I don’t think students understand the implications of the powerful technology they are using.’’ Boston and school police sent a letter to principals about the bullying issue April 1, and school officials plan to send letters next week to parents to provide them with tips on determining whether their children are victims or instigators…

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