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The numbers of Los Angeles children who need the meals have been rising sharply in recent years. In 2015-2016, 72.4% or 405,338 LAUSD students qualified for the free or reduced price meals, according to a 2017 Food Research Action Center report. “We have the highest participation of students who are served breakfast in the classroom,” said Monica Garcia, a member of the LAUSD School Board. “Also, most of our schools (75%) are in the Community Eligibility Program, where all students get all...

Black people, including youth, are less likely to receive adequate care for mental health issues for a number of reasons: disparities in access to care, stigma about mental illness and lack of culturally competent mental health practitioners. According to a study published in the International Journal of Health Services , black children are about half as likely as white children to get mental health treatment. As the CBC task force, mental health experts and policy makers mull over ideas to...

Many of us take the ability to read for granted. Because for those with dyslexia or another learning disorder, the struggle to read can be frustrating and create chaos in the classroom. The Sandhills School in Columbia is flipping the script and the entire learning environment. The school is reimagining learning through the power of sporadic movement during the day. Rather than cutting recess and making kids sit and try harder, they are incorporating specific movement to help them focus and...

By Ashley Ruano, Fix School Discipline, October 1, 2019 The #StudentNotSuspects coalition has long worked in Los Angeles to end the random searches policy that discriminate against students and create a hostile campus environment for students to learn. For many years, Los Angeles Unified School District implemented mandatory random metal detector searches in middle and high schools. The searches did not make campus environments more secure. Instead, the policy targeted, and criminalized...

By Joie Tyrrell joie.tyrrell@newsday.com @JoieTyrrell Updated September 29, 2019 District officials are touting a newly created wellness room at Ward Melville High School as a lesson in serenity, where the surroundings help teachers and staff de-stress over the course of a hectic workday. The "WellVille" classroom, part of the wellness program in the Three Village school district, has been transformed into an "experience," with soft lighting, relaxing music and lounge chairs, school...

By NINA AGRAWAL, SONALI KOHLI, OCT. 1, 2019, LA Times In middle school, Anthony Avila would stand up in class, talk to friends when he wasn’t supposed to and sling his legs across a second chair. His disruptive behavior got him sent to the office a lot, where he would sit in silence, often stewing. In high school, Avila’s math teacher used another tactic. She kept him in class when he acted up and opened her room early so they could talk. When other teachers still sent him to the office, the...

By ESTELLE SLOOTMAKER | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2019, Published in Second Wave Michigan This article is part of State of Health, a series examining integrated care and its potential to improve Michiganders' health. It is made possible with funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund. Divorce, a parent's death or imprisonment, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and the daily experience of racism. They're all sadly common events, known as adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. But the...

By Risa Johnson, Palm Springs Desert Sun, September 30, 2019 Native American students in California's public schools face higher-than-average suspension rates, according to a new report. A joint effort between California State University, San Diego, and the Sacramento Native American Higher Education Collaborative, the report outlines what it calls troubling trends regarding how school administrators discipline students. Racial disparities in school discipline, particularly for African...

Foster youth face multiple obstacles that make it hard to succeed in high school. According to the National Foster Youth Institute , only about half of the nation’s youth raised in foster care end up finishing high school. As such, Learn4Life identified the challenges and solutions for this student population and set up a needs-based support team. Over the past three years, Learn4Life has doubled its foster student graduation rate to 77 percent in the 2018-19 school year, exceeding the...

By Joie Tyrrell for Newsday, September 29, 2019 District officials are touting a newly created wellness room at Ward Melville High School as a lesson in serenity, where the surroundings help teachers and staff de-stress over the course of a hectic workday. The "WellVille" classroom, part of the wellness program in the Three Village school district, has been transformed into an "experience," with soft lighting, relaxing music, and lounge chairs, school officials said. The room, believed to be...

I am sharing my remarks from the press conference held by Congresswoman Lauren Underwood to bring attention to the impact of gun violence in schools. We are asking for the Senate to bring the Background Check Bill to the floor for a vote. Democracy is built on the voice of “The People” and yesterday, I had the ultimate privilege of being one of the voices. I spoke on behalf of school nurses across our country who are managing the aftermath of school shootings or the stress of active shooter...

Perhaps the biggest challenge we face when accessing information is confronting our biases before we are able to unpack the opinions and insights of other people. Often these biases are unconscious or implicit, meaning we might not even be aware we have them. But these implicit biases have real implications, and educators are no less immune than students. Research has already shown, for instance, that adults see black girls as less innocent than white peers, even before they meet them.