News Items For The Week

Keep up with the National Initiative for Transforming Student and Learning Supports. For details and for free access to the new work entitled: Transforming Student and Learning Supports: Developing a Unified, Comprehensive, and Equitable System, see http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/newinitiative.html

The Following Recent Articles are Continuing Indicators of the Imperative for Transforming Student and Learning Supports

Reduced teen sexual activity & pregnancies in US.CDC researchers, using data from 2011 to 2015, found that nearly 44% of boys and nearly 42% of girls ages 15 to 19 said they had had sex at least once, compared with 60% of boys and 51% of girls who reported having sex in 1988. The findings also showed that significant increases in contraceptive use led to a drop in teen pregnancies and births, from 62 per 1,000 in 1991 to 22 per 1,000 in 2015, a record low since tracking began. The Washington Post (6/22)

Student with disabilities and career and technical education. Students with disabilities may be more likely to graduate if they are enrolled in general-education classes and exposed to career and technical education, according to a study of students in Washington state. Researchers tracked outcomes for 16,000 students. Education Week (6/12)

VI Governor Signs Anti-Bullying, Suicide Prevention Legislation. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed two bills into law designed to curtail student suicides and increase prevention efforts. (NBC-4 Washington, June 6) Click here

NYC schools launch diversity initiative. New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina has announced an initiative to foster diversity in the city's public schools. "While educators and researchers know that all children stand to benefit from greater school diversity, a lack of it is often the greatest disservice to those who need public education the most," she writes in this commentary. (Washington Post, 6/6) Click here

Why are we criminalizing behavior of children with disabilities? Students with disabilities are disproportionately arrested at school and too few school resource officers have specialized training for working in schools, writes Miranda Johnson, associate director of the Education Law and Policy Institute at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. "If school districts are going to continue to station police officers in schools, they should heed federal guidance to adopt written policies that clearly limit officers' roles to safety and security, not routine school discipline." (Washington Post, April 25) Click here

New York City mayor announces plan to provide free pre-K for all 3-year-olds (Washington Post, April 24) Click here

>County to pay rent so children don't have to change schools. To keep 26 children from being yanked out of their Northeast Portland (OR)elementary school mid-school-year, Multnomah County will spend $48,000 to cover the steep rent increases that threatened to displace them and their families. Rigler Elementary School is in the county's SUN Community Schools program, which provides after-school activities and social services to disadvantaged students. The county-connection made reallocation of funds possible. County officials decided that, through the SUN program, they'd made an investment in Rigler children's success and wanted to support that community. http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2017/02/county_to_pay_rent_for_26_port.html#incart_river_index

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We draw on a variety of standard sources to amass the above items (e.g., ECS e-clip at http://www.ecs.org/e-clips)