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.

3 strategies to support student well-being and SEL

The pandemic’s on students’ social and emotional well-being continues to be felt in schools nationwide. Here at Lincoln County R-III School District in Missouri, we are no different. Many of our students are struggling with regulating their emotions. We’re seeing students needing more social and emotional support.

The Lincoln County Resource Board (LCRB) Mid-year School Based Programs Assessment (January, 2022) listed the most critical behavioral/mental health (BH/MH) issues school personnel believed students were facing. 

  • The second most critical BH/MH issue was “anxiety, worry a lot, fear” (93 percent).
  • The third most critical BH/MH issue was “controlling emotions, anger management, and conflict resolution” (78 percent), similar to the May and December of 2020 results. 

These challenges are not unique to our school district; in fact, the demand for social and emotional learning (SEL) programs has grown rapidly as more and more districts see this need grow and recognize the value of implementing these programs. A 2021 Tyton Partners report noted school and district spending on SEL grew approximately 45 percent between November 2019 and April 2021 and that student wellbeing had become the top priority among schools and districts.…Read More

Singlewire Software Acquires Visitor Aware to Add Visitor Check-in and Student Management to Its Suite of School Safety Offerings

MADISON, WIS. (PRWEB) — Singlewire Software, the leader in solutions that help keep people safe and informed, announces its acquisition of  Visitor Aware, a robust tool for visitor and student management. The acquisition enables Singlewire to expand its suite of safety and communication offerings with visitor and student management capabilities that add to the emergency notification and incident management offerings of its  InformaCast software.

“It’s becoming more evident that school safety starts at the front door, so when our school customers started asking us for help with visitor check-in and student management, we went looking for a partner that could offer a solution that would exceed their expectations,” said Paul Shain, president and CEO of Singlewire Software. “Visitor Aware develops state-of-the-art safety solutions that help organizations keep their building secure and their people protected, which pairs perfectly with our mission of keeping people safe and informed, everywhere. Every time.”

Visitor Aware provides schools and other organizations the tools to screen visitors so they can identify threats before unwanted guests gain access to sensitive areas. Visitors have their IDs scanned when they enter a building. That information is used in conjunction with encrypted facial recognition to screen visitors against national sex offender and government watchlists and active legal injunctions. Potential issues are flagged to prevent guests from further entering a building, and approved guests are given a printed pass so they can proceed. Visitor Aware also offers tools for volunteer management, tardiness tracking, secure student release and pick-up, rostering and reunification, and setting up a tip line for potential threats.…Read More

Virtual school nurses can play a pivotal role in schools

Both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes requires extremely careful management.  The process of counting carbs, monitoring blood sugar, and injecting insulin throughout the day can be complex and confusing.  As difficult as this is for adults, it can be exponentially harder for children – especially during the school day.

While the need is there – a recent CDC report details how both Type I and Type II diabetes are on the rise in youth populations – not every school has access to a qualified nurse on premises to assist children with their routine diabetes care.  In fact, only 39 percent of schools in the US employ a full-time school nurse and just 35 percent employ a part-time school nurse.  In rural areas, or communities struggling with healthcare staffing shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those numbers can be much lower.

As school districts search for a viable solution to this worrying gap in care for young students, they can find an opportunity in telemedicine.…Read More

Navigate360 Advances Whole-Child Student Wellness and Safety Suite with Latest Acquisition in Continuing Effort to End School Shootings, Teen Suicide and Bullying

RICHFIELD, OHIO (PRWEB) — Navigate360, the nation’s leader in K–12 student wellness and physical safety solutions, has acquired  PBIS Rewards, a SaaS platform that simplifies the implementation and management of the evidence-based, tiered framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional and mental health. The acquisition expands Navigate360’s leading whole-child safety suite, giving district leaders the tools, expertise and confidence they need to create safe school environments for 50 million U.S. students and strengthen the academic performance of our youth.

PBIS, which stands for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, provides a framework for schools and educators to create a safe learning environment where students feel valued and connected through tiered support. With the addition of PBIS Rewards, Navigate360 is setting the new standard for whole-child safety through modern, holistic solutions that address school climate and culture, full-cycle emergency management, early detection, assessment and violence prevention—issues that all desperately require action in today’s schools.…Read More

Learn how to modernize your K-12 financial operations

Over the past several years, K-12 school districts experienced the limitations of legacy systems. With the recent government funding available for pandemic recovery, a window of opportunity opens for K-12 schools to modernize and bring resilience to their spend management systems.

Automating your school district’s spend management solution should be a top priority. Market uncertainty has shown that faculty and staff spending data is often dispersed and hard to track, meaning you are missing complete spend visibility. This lack of reliable, consistent data is leaving school districts vulnerable to risks.

Join an eSchool News panel of experts as they discuss understanding and managing your school expenditures with a single platform that captures employee spend, when and how it happens, and how investing in a digital spend management solution can help enable school districts to increase efficiency, transparency, compliance, and control.…Read More

ScribFolders from Scribbles Software Helps Schools Go Paperless

Pineville, NC – Scribbles Software, a leading provider of K-12 records and enrollment software, is offering a cumulative records management system that simplifies the records access and filing process for schools.  ScribFolders allows school districts to move all of their student information files online as students matriculate, which means authorized personnel can have instant, secure online access to the information they need to support students.

“Some of the biggest pain points for school districts who use paper records management systems are space requirements, security risks, long wait times to get needed records, and dealing with the inconvenience of housing records in different systems and locations,” said Marshall Simmonds, Scribbles VP of sales. “ScribFolders solves this issue. Moving to an online records management system also helps school districts better serve their families because as records accumulate from year to year, authorized staff members can access all the information that they need to support students quickly and easily, and districts can respond more quickly to records requests.”

Scribbles Software focuses on paperless processes, data security, choice management programs, and cloud-based solutions. Its software helps schools streamline K-12 student records and enrollment through a single, accessible, cloud-based system. ScribFolders is one of several tools that support records management. It streamlines the filing process, eliminates the need for transporting files, and protects records from data losses due to human error or catastrophic events that would damage paper records.…Read More

5 classroom management strategies to try this year

A rise in harassment and violence against teachers is taking a toll on already-exhausted educators. A recent survey from the American Psychological Association found that 6 in 10 teachers reported student violence or verbal aggression during the pandemic, with nearly half expressing a desire or plan to quit or transfer schools.

To create a teaching environment where educators feel safe, school leaders may want to consider adding evidence-based behavior management strategies to their back-to-school plan. The more preventative maintenance teachers can do through proactive strategies, the less likely they will encounter problem behavior.

Here are five classroom management strategies to help educators regain control of their classrooms: …Read More

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Navigate360 Sets New Standard for K-12 School Safety with Fully Integrated Visitor, Volunteer & Emergency Management Suite & Alyssa’s Law-Compliant Panic Alarms

RICHFIELD, OH, July 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Schools nationwide are working quickly to enhance safety and security plans to satisfy updated state mandates and give their students and staff the confidence they need to be successful. Navigate360 is proud to aid in their efforts with a new, fully integrated Safety & Security Suite that seamlessly provides the tools and technology schools need to ensure proper plans and processes are in place to prevent a critical incident and respond to a crisis if necessary. 

Navigate360’s Safety & Security Suite integrates state-of-the-art Visitor, Volunteer and Emergency Management systems with Alyssa’s Law-compliant panic buttons, enabling schools to directly – and silently – alert first responders when faced with an emergency incident. The cloud-based solution enables 360-degree visibility of both the site and the location of students, staff, visitors and volunteers, which is critical when every second counts for first responders and school security teams.     

“School safety is a complex, multifaceted issue, and it’s clear that point solutions aren’t enough on their own,” said Navigate360 CEO JP Guilbault. “We’re delivering on our ‘better together’ commitment by providing a modern, connected platform that eliminates schools’ functional and data silos by integrating visitor, volunteer and emergency management into a single platform with Alyssa’s Law-compliant panic buttons. This is the new standard for modern school safety.”  …Read More

Jamf Introduces Jamf Safe Internet to Power Online Safety Anywhere Students Learn

MINNEAPOLIS, July 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Jamf (NASDAQ: JAMF), the standard in Apple Enterprise Management, rolled out  Jamf Safe Internet to K-12 education customers across the globe. Designed to help schools protect minors from harmful content on the internet, Jamf Safe Internet allows customer admins to enforce acceptable-use policies without sacrificing the unmatched learning experience Apple devices provide.

Apple has already established a  strong presence in the education market as students spend more time learning online. This creates a growing need for digital safety to prevent students from accessing unsafe content and eliminate cyberattacks. Incorporating filtering technology and network threat prevention features currently available to commercial customers through Jamf’s security solutions, Jamf Safe Internet is the only Apple-first, education-focused cybersecurity solution that ensures students can navigate the internet safely. Jamf Safe Internet values student privacy by applying prevention over inspection principles.

“With technology now firmly embedded in the student experience, there is a growing need for digital safety to eliminate cyberattacks and prevent students from accessing unsafe content. Jamf combines best-in-class network threat prevention and a vast content-filtering database to block unsafe and malicious content so that students can safely learn online from anywhere,” said Suraj Mohandas, Senior Director of Education Strategy, Jamf.…Read More