The students at Gwinnett County’s newest high school don’t have to worry about missing the bus or forgetting their locker combinations. They don’t have to worry about hall passes, finding a seat in the cafeteria or making it to their desk before the tardy bell sounds. In fact, these students don’t have to worry about showing up to the school at all. In August, the Gwinnett Online Campus became the first virtual high school to open in the state of Georgia. The charter school, located in a suburb just northeast of Atlanta, is the latest addition to the state’s largest public school system that wrangles with more than 150,000 students each year.
In a four-part series, the Southern Education Desk and the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange are examining the new law and its impact on students, families and schools. After 11-year-old Jaheem Harrera committed suicide in 2009, some of state Rep. Mike Jacob’s constituents in DeKalb County, Ga., in suburban Atlanta, asked him to take a look at the state’s existing rules against bullying in schools. He did, and as he told an audience at a fundraiser for the group Georgia Equality last year, he didn’t like what he found. “It was so inadequate, in fact, that the Jaheem Harrera situation was not even covered by the existing law,” Jacobs said. “It only applied to grades six through 12.”
So Jacobs proposed making the state’s anti-bullying measures apply to elementary schools too.
Three Louisiana State University football players have been placed on suspension after testing positive for synthetic marijuana, a source told the New Orleans Times Picayune. Running back Spencer Ware along with cornerbacks Tyrann Mathieu and Tharold Simon will be suspended for Saturday’s game against Auburn University, and possibly longer, according to the unnamed source. The story was first reported by LSU's student newspaper, The Daily Reveille. Worried fans have been voicing their concerns on message boards and forums around the Internet. The suspensions come about two weeks before No.
It's no secret that technology is reshaping the educational landscape, but how exactly? This infographic from Knewton and Column Five Media offers a rather visual look at one new model of education. In the 'flipped classroom' no longer do teachers feel the 'sage of the stage' role, lecturing for hours on end, but instead shift to helper bee as a 'guide on the side.' Class time can be reserved for hands-on activities and problem solving, while internet-based video lecturers are the new homework. The statistics look promising, representing a substantial increase in performance by college freshman.
At a glance it can be hard to see the impact of the breadth of services offered by the Whitefoord Community Program (WCP) on the cluster of Atlanta neighborhoods they serve. The non-profit runs four health clinics in nearby schools, offers child development and pre-K services, after school programs, digital media training, summer reading and math workshops and even a Bike Rite health initiative.
In a time of tight city and state budget, more and more municipalities are looking for ways to deliver services to the communities that need them. In Atlanta, one such program, the WCP, has been in place for years and could prove to be a model for the nation. Through grants and other funding the project has proven sustainable. Through community involvement it has proven useful and effective.
Look a little closer at the project and you’ll see the evolution of a community support system that weaves together family, health and education. What stated with a one-square mile area and a single health clinic in Whitefoord Elementary School on the east side of Atlanta more than 15 years ago has evolved into a system that reaches into a number of communities in that area of the city.
All of these services work in tandem from just about the time the child leaves the womb until he or she graduates high school with one goal in mind: providing the children of this inner-city community with the tools they need to complete their education.
Clarence Jones, director of the WCP's Beyond School Hours program, has been with the organization since shortly after it's founding.
At nine weeks, infants can enroll, space provided, in the WCP’s Child Development program and start gearing up for their formal education. Unlike traditional daycare, this nationally accredited child development program employs HighScope Curriculum, a style of early childhood teaching and learning focused on active participation and educational development.
Who are today's college freshmen and what do they need to know? Those are two great questions those at Bachelor Degree Online's recent infographic seek to answer. Since 1971 priorities have changed for those entering college. No longer is family at the forefront of their mind. Today, it's all about financial well-being.
Thoughts of summertime and teens usually bring to mind images of baseball, swimming holes and lazy, nothing-filled afternoons. But nestled in the corner of a Midtown Atlanta high rise a group of teens have been passing the dog days of the season in a slightly different way. For nearly two decades VOX Teen Communications has been honing the journalism and leadership skills of a diverse cross section of Atlanta teens. Each year more than a hundred pass through the newsroom doors or slide into the seat at one of their workshops. During the school year, the non-profit publishes the city’s only teen-powered newspaper.
The U.S. military’s policy barring openly gay men and women from serving expires this morning. Known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the prohibition has been in place since 1993.
The repeal of the law has far-reaching effects not only for the military but also on the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) on college campuses. In recent years, some ROTC units have left public colleges rather than admit openly gay students.
But ROTC’s acceptance of openly gay men and women may not have a large impact on enrollment, says Jennifer Miracle, the associate director of intercultural affairs for the LGBT Resource Center at the University of Georgia.
“I do know [gay and lesbian students] involved in ROTC, mostly women,” Miracle said. “In the past, they have been afraid to come to our office. I do hope that will change, but there are still many barriers for students coming out, not just this.”
Miracle went on to say that in the South, especially, students face family and religious pressures that make it hard for someone to come out, regardless of whether there is a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.
Miracle however, is still excited about the repeal.
“It’s wonderful,” Miracle said, “but I think it is also unfortunate that it has taken this long. It would be great to say it is no longer an issue, but that’s just not the case. There will continue to be struggles and the cultural changes ahead will be difficult. These will take a long time. But, yes, it is exciting to see progress; it has been a long time coming.”
September is National Recovery Month in the United States. As the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration puts it Recovery Month “promotes the societal benefits of treatment for substance use and mental disorders, celebrates people in recovery, lauds the contributions of treatment providers, and promotes the message that recovery in all its forms is possible. Recovery Month spreads the positive message that behavioral health is essential to overall health, that prevention works, treatment is effective and people can and do recover.”
Nicely, and succinctly, put.
Simply ideas tend to make for movements. And that seems to be the case with Recovery Month. All over the nation events are going on aimed at increasing awareness and, yes, celebrating countless victories.
The JJIE is housed at Kennesaw State University, in metro Atlanta. We had a number of Recovery Month events here and we are fortunate enough to be the home of the Center for Young Adult Addiction and Recovery. Its director, Teresa Johnston, is an expert in the field and a forceful advocate for those in recovery.
In a front page story, the New York Times explores the problem of bullying and a controversial school policy concerning sexual orientation in a school district in suburban Minneapolis. The piece details a long struggle between advocates for homosexual students and Christian conservatives over how sexual orientation should be taught in schools. It also reports on a lawsuit filed against the Anoka-Hennepin School District claiming, in part, that district policy requiring teachers to be “neutral” on the question of sexual orientation has helped to bring about a hostile environment for gay and lesbian students and therefore increasing the number of incidents of bullying. The suit was brought on behalf of the students by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. News of the suit comes after reports that the Department of Justice is in the midst of a civil rights investigation of on-going harassment of gay and lesbian students in the the district of some 38,000.
