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.

5 ways to keep schools safer with innovative visitor management

Key points:

One crucial aspect of school safety is monitoring who comes on and off campus, including visitors. Visitor management can be tricky, because school campuses tend to have various points of access. In recent years, schools have put in the effort to advance all safety measures within schools, including visitor management. In fact, recent research by Pew Research Center found that 98 percent of schools require visitors to check in and wear a badge. 

Schools can emphasize their protection of students and staff by requiring visitors to wear a visitor-specific safety badge that can monitor their location while on campus. Opposed to staff safety badges, which only provide location information once an alert is initiated to maintain staff privacy, the visitor badge will monitor the visitor’s location in real-time while on school grounds.…Read More

Crunch the Numbers: New Data on Student Wellbeing, the Skills Gap Crisis, and Tech Usage in Utah

The Social Institute, whose mission is to empower millions of students to navigate their social world — including social media and technology — in positive, healthy, and high-character ways, released its 2024 Student Insights Report: How Social Media, Tech, and Current Events Impact Student Well-Being. This report reflects insights shared by more than 29,000 students in TSI’s Annual Student Survey and more than one million responses from its K-12 collaborative learning platform, #WinAtSocial — making it the largest data set of its kind, spanning grades 3 – 12 in schools across the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Each year, The Social Institute asks students nationwide to share insights into trending apps, positive ways to navigate common but complex social situations, everyday challenges faced online and off, and what adults should know about well-being, social media, and technology. Educators can use the insights to gain a deeper understanding of their students, helping them to improve school culture and community well-being.

Among this year’s key findings:…Read More

Student mental health is still suffering–how should we address it?

Key points:

Between March 2020 and March 2021, K-12 schools in the U.S. saw an unprecedented influx in federal government aid, totaling nearly $190 billion. This funding aimed to help students recover both academically and emotionally from the pandemic. School districts across the country utilized these grants to hire counselors, social workers, psychologists, and other care providers. In theory, this should have been transformative; however, the available workforce wasn’t large enough to meet the demand, and traditionally underserved and rural districts faced the brunt of this shortage.

Subsequent follow-up funding has been deployed by the federal government in a necessary step to increase the workforce of care providers. As these funding opportunities come to a close, many districts are still left struggling to adequately address their students’ mental health needs.…Read More

Years after pandemic closures, we’re seeing their effects inside our schools

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

Since school buildings reopened after COVID closures, I’ve heard teachers say, again and again, that the older elementary children in their classrooms are just not the same.

I lead a small network of schools, and many of our current fourth graders remain dependent on adults’ opinions and find it hard to move from one problem to the next without reassurance. Our fifth graders can solve a basic math problem but often struggle to explain how to answer a word problem. Across fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, we’re seeing students have trouble with sharing, taking turns, and working with others — symptoms of the developmental milestones many children missed in recent years.…Read More

How to direct a districtwide tech transformation on a budget

Key points:

Irvington Public Schools is an urban district with the hometown feeling of a place where everyone knows each other. Our student body is predominantly Black, but we are quite diverse and have many cultures represented among our students. Approximately 20 percent of our scholars speak English as a second language.

I have been with the district for 20 years, though I didn’t become the superintendent until April 2020. When I came into the office, I had a tech-focused vision for the future of our district, but the pandemic was beginning to force us to move in that direction anyway, albeit without the careful consideration and planning we would have preferred. I gave our technology department marching orders to get every student and every teacher on a Chromebook and trained in the Google Suite within two weeks. It was immensely stressful for them, but they got it done and we haven’t looked back.…Read More

Phenix City Schools’ Beta Club Members Excel at State Convention, Advancing to Nationals

Phenix City, Ala.— Phenix City Schools have marked a significant achievement at the Alabama State JR/SR Beta Convention, with students securing 51 top placements, a testament to the district’s quality of education and student dedication. The Beta Club, emphasizing leadership and service, saw over 100 members from Phenix City compete and succeed in one of the nation’s largest junior conventions and a highly competitive senior convention.

This accomplishment comes when educational excellence and community service are more important than ever. “Our students have worked tirelessly, and their success at the state convention clearly indicates their hard work, talent, and the strong support system provided by our schools,” Dr. Weber remarked.

The achievement of Phenix City Schools at the Beta Convention is not just a win for the district but a shining example of educational excellence in Alabama. As these students prepare for the national convention, they carry with them the pride and support of the entire state.…Read More