Minneapolis school board approves teacher contract

The Minnesota district's school board approved a new two-year contract with its teachers. The contract includes pay raises for teachers and a commitment to maintain class sizes of 18 to 24 students at low-performing schools, increase classroom preparation time for teachers and reduce the number of student assessments. Read more>>

The Chicago Board of Education is seeking more than $65 million in damages and penalties in a lawsuit against a former district CEO and her co-defendants in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme. Read more>>

In an effort to satisfy the state Supreme Court’s objections to charter schools, a revision of the 2012 Washington voter-approved charter-school law adds oversight, taps lottery funds and says the privately run schools won’t be eligible to receive dollars from local school levies. Read more>>

Alison DeNisco

First-time Superintendent Bilal Tawwab started work at Flint Community Schools in September, prepared to take on the district’s budget deficit of $10.5 million and a number of poor-performing schools. The city’s infamous water crisis erupted during his first month at the helm of the district of 7,000 students. Read more>>

Thirty school buildings in New Jersey's largest school district are temporarily using alternative water sources after recent testing found elevated levels of lead in the schools' drinking water. Read more>>

A hearing was canceled for a bill that would move who administers school finance in Kansas. The cancellation comes after lawmakers heard from many people opposing the bill that would give control over school finance to the state's department of administration instead of the department of education. Read more>>

Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. pledged to have a full-time nurse and counselor in every Philadelphia district school next fall. But the plan is contingent on approval of Gov. Tom Wolf's proposed 2016-17 budget. Read more>>

Young athletes need to learn that calls won't always go their way and that they do make mistakes in the heat of competition. Coaches and parents must instill in youths an unwavering respect for officials—and then model proper behavior themselves. Read more>>

A new study confirms what many Americans already knew deep in their hearts: We're not good at math. When it comes to technology skills, we're last compared with other developed countries. Read more>>

Extremely small districts in Indiana no longer work well. When they were established, there were fewer courses to teach and fewer requirements to meet. Now they can’t provide all of the needed services, and change is inevitable. Eventually, they must unite with neighboring districts. Some of them already have. Read more>>

With Kickboard’s new behavior Response To Intervention (RTI) System, K12 educators can create, implement and monitor individual behavior intervention plans across all RTI tiers. Read more>>

EducationSuperHighway is partnering Texas' governor and state departments to create an action plan for scalable and affordable access to high-speed broadband for all Texas school districts. EducationSuperHighway network experts will also begin working with the nearly 1,000 schools that currently lack access to high-speed fiber. Read more>>

The latest iteration of Reading Horizons Discovery includes a tool to guide the pacing of whole-class and small-group instruction, an assessment to provide a reading level for each student, and a new iPad app. Read more>>

Lori Simon will take over from Tim Mitchell, who has served as the South Dakota district's superintendent for the past six years. Simon is currently the director of academics and elementary schools for Robbinsdale Area Schools in New Hope, Minnesota, a district with 13,000 students where she has served for over five years. Read more>>

Bellevue Public Schools Superintendent Frank Harwood will assume leadership of the De Soto USD No. 232 at the end of the school year. The district, which covers more than 100 square miles, serves about 7,000 students in 12 schools. Read more>>

Brent Curtice is the new superintendent of Garfield School District Re-2. Curtice comes to the district from Moffat County School District Re-1, where he has served as superintendent since 2014. Read more>>