Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

For school leaders, routine decisions aren’t so routine

Key points:

In the tapestry of leadership, decisions are often viewed through a lens of routine or regularity. It’s easy to fall into the belief that some choices are mundane, merely navigating the day-to-day operations of an organization. However, beneath this seemingly commonplace surface lies a profound truth: no leadership decision is truly routine. Each choice, whether seemingly minor or monumental, has the potential to send ripples through the fabric of an organization or impact an individual in ways that may extend beyond the leaders’ view.

Understanding the potential consequences of seemingly routine decisions is not just an important leadership skill; it’s a necessity. Every leadership decision, regardless of its apparent simplicity, possesses the potential to have a far greater impact than it appears viewed on the surface. A few examples illustrate this premise:  …Read More

Two Remarkable Educators Honored with YouScience® Innovative Educator Award

AMERICAN FORK, Utah /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — In recognition of their exceptional contributions in guiding and inspiring students, Margaret Rice of Washougal School District in Washington and Kathy Peres of Blue Valley Schools in Kansas have been awarded the esteemed  YouScience® Innovative Educator Award. This honor celebrates their outstanding contributions in leading students towards successful career exploration and readiness for the ever-evolving professional landscape.

Margaret Rice: Paving Pathways for Student Success

Hailed as a beacon of excellence in the Washougal School District, Rice’s impact as the Career and Technical Education (CTE) director has been profound. Her overarching goal is to ensure every student has access to job readiness education in their K-12 educational career and every senior has a seamless transition into their best-fit post-high school experiences. Dr. Mary Templeton, Superintendent of the district, commended Rice’s pivotal role, emphasizing the importance of CTE programs in empowering students for future career opportunities.…Read More

Excite, expand, equitize: Using data to support reading

Key points:

Five years ago, we were already well into discussions about investing in a digital reading application. Our overall objective was to expand access to literacy and use real-world data in curating and individualizing collections to better serve the needs of the district’s highly diverse student population. A priority was to give students seamless connection to the digital collections of the Lexington Public Library that serves our local area. As was the case for most districts in the country, the pandemic precipitated an even greater push to provide digital content.

The platform we selected—OverDrive Education’s Sora reading app—aligns with our public library system for easy access to its wealth of digital materials. The solution also allowed us to ease into the use of digital content at our own pace and within funding availability.…Read More

American Student Assistance Announces Strategic Alliance with Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

BOSTON – American Student Assistance ® (ASA), a national nonprofit changing the way kids learn about careers and navigate a path to postsecondary education and career success, today announced that the organization has entered into a 10-year, $25 million affiliation agreement with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), the nation’s leading entrepreneurship education organization.

Through this strategic alliance, NFTE and ASA will expand access to high-quality entrepreneurship education programs, services, and opportunities for middle and high schoolers from rural, marginalized, and economically disadvantaged communities—both in-person and digitally—through school district partnerships, curriculum development and collaborative programming, and business plan competitions. 

The agreement between ASA and NFTE consists of an immediate $5 million unrestricted grant and annual matching grants of up to $2 million for the next 10 years. ASA’s support will help NFTE move from a school-by-school approach to a more systemwide strategy to work with states and school districts to more effectively and efficiently expand the number of schools, teachers, and students that the organization works with each school year. NFTE currently serves 50,000+ students annually across 30 U.S. states. ASA’s support will allow NFTE to expand its position as one of the nation’s largest entrepreneurship education nonprofits.…Read More

Schools have struggled to add learning time after COVID–here’s how one district did it

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

It was just after 2:30 p.m. on a recent Wednesday, and the school stage hadn’t yet transformed into a reading room.

Christopher VanderKuyl, an assistant principal in Chicago’s west suburbs, hurriedly dragged brown folding chairs across the wood floor. He made a mental note to figure out who’d rearranged the furniture.…Read More

4 simple ways to put the science of reading into practice

Key points:

In districts across the country, educators are continuing to support students with post-pandemic learning recovery. Many students are still reading below the level appropriate for their grade–roughly one-third of fourth graders in the United States read at or below what’s considered the basic level. And unfortunately, even before the pandemic, reading achievement has been low over the past several decades.

Districts incorporating the science of reading into their curricula are seeing improved student outcomes. However, because the science of reading refers to broad research in a variety of fields on how a child learns to read, practical applications have not yet been widely taught to educators and there is a sizeable gap between theory and action.…Read More

Demystifying the role of the school board director

Key points:

In the often stormy waters of public education, there’s an analogy I like to use to describe what school boards do: I think of each school district as being a ship–not a smaller size boat, but more like an ocean liner. In a time when there is confusion around what school board directors do and don’t do, this analogy can help clarify the role of the school board.

Think of the superintendent as the captain, the one who’s responsible for steering the ship and making sure everyone is doing their job to ensure it’s heading in the right direction. School board directors are akin to the navigators. They’re looking out across the horizon and pointing toward where the ship should be heading. That direction should align with the community’s desires as well as the needs of the students. School boards lay out big, long-term priorities such as strategic planning, budgetary goals, and financial stability. They also support and evaluate the superintendent, who is their only employee.…Read More

Indian Prairie Community Unit School District 204 Uses Rise Vision for Digital Signage Across District

Rise Vision, the #1 digital signage software, is excited to announce the release of its newest case study featuring Indian Prairie Community Unit School District 204 (CUSD 204). Indian Prairie CUSD 204, a large school district in Illinois, uses Rise Vision to bolster its school communication strategy and increase student engagement. This case study highlights how Indian Prairie has successfully implemented digital signage to communicate with its student body population.

Efficient communication to reach students effectively and engage them in critical announcements, events, and activities is a challenge in any school – but it’s even more challenging in a large school district with over 34 sites. Digital signage is a tool that makes disseminating information across any sized campus simple. Brian Grinstead, the Director of Technical Support Services, was looking for a cost-effective, user-friendly, and feature-rich solution to meet their evolving needs.

Indian Prairie CUSD 204 is a large, one-to-one school district with over 26,00 students and a significant number of devices to manage. Brian needed to ensure that the digital signage solution the district implemented wouldn’t be a burden on his team. Implementing digital signage through Rise Vision was a solution that didn’t require extensive management from the technology department and could be handled by the individual schools after the initial deployment was completed.…Read More

Most states don’t actually know if teachers are qualified to teach reading

Key points:

  • States are using inadequate elementary reading licensure tests
  • States should transition to stronger tests and test providers should clearly identify weaknesses in tests
  • See related article: Teacher Q&A: Strengthening PD with AI
  • For more news on teacher prep, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership page

Most states (29 states and the District of Columbia) use a weak elementary teacher reading licensure test, meaning that they do not effectively measure teachers’ knowledge of scientifically based reading instruction prior to entering the classroom, according to a new analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).

In fact, one state, Iowa, requires no reading licensure test at all. This shortcoming means that, every year, nearly 100,000 elementary teachers across the country enter classrooms with false assurances that they are ready to teach reading.…Read More

Leveraging the K-12 generative AI readiness checklist: A guide for district leadership

Editor’s note: This story on how to manage academic integrity as generative AI moves into classrooms originally appeared on CoSN’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

The rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology present both incredible opportunities and significant challenges for educational settings. Whether or not a school district is considering leveraging AI, the influence of this technology on educational ecosystems is undeniable. As AI increasingly becomes a part of our daily lives, district leaders have a responsibility to understand its impact in educational settings and make informed decisions accordingly. This is true whether the aim is active adoption or simply preparation for a future where AI tools become more prevalent in educational settings.

To ensure school districts are adequately prepared for the integration of generative AI into their instructional and operational systems, the Council of Great City Schools, CoSN – Consortium for School Networking, and Amazon Web Services have partnered to create the K-12 Gen AI Readiness Checklist Questionnaire. There are several ways in which district leadership can best use this checklist for assessing and enhancing their readiness for integrating generative AI technologies into both instructional and operational systems.…Read More