MICHAEL MELIA

The devastation from Hurricane Ian has left schools shuttered indefinitely in parts of Florida, leaving storm-weary families anxious for word on when and how children can get back to classrooms.

The police official blamed for not sending officers in more quickly to stop the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting is the chief of the school system’s small police force, a unit dedicated ordinarily to building relationships with students.

Some relatives of the victims of the 2012 attack on the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, who channeled grief into advocacy have claimed success, gradually, in areas including gun safety, attitudes around gun violence, and mental health awareness.

In Harvard’s pledge to atone for its ties to slavery, it identified dozens of people who were enslaved by the university’s first leaders and faculty members.

Responsibility for school mask mandates is shifting back to local leaders, who are caught in the middle of one of the most divisive issues of the pandemic.

Teachers around the U.S. are confronting classrooms where as many as half of students are absent.

The explosion in omicron-fueled coronavirus infections has caused a breakdown in basic functions and services across America.

Principals, superintendents and counselors are filling in as substitutes in classrooms around the United States as the surge in coronavirus infections further strains schools already struggling with staffing shortages.

Many elementary schools around the U.S. are preparing to offer COVID-19 shots that educators see as key to keeping students learning in person and making the classroom experience closer to what it once was.

Critical race theory has become a lightning rod for Republicans and an issue in the Virginia governor's race.

In school board races around the country, activists are running against critical race theory.

In a story published September 27, 2021, about vaccine mandates for health care workers, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Dr. Jeff Smith was the CEO of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Residents across the waterlogged Northeast are clearing mud and tearing out soggy carpets after deluges dropped by Tropical Storm Henri.

Laws setting guiderails for classroom instruction on race passed this year in Republican-controlled states have left some teachers worried about how they will be enforced.

The verdict in the trial George Floyd’s killing marked the latest challenge for teachers around the U.S. who have grappled all year with how to address the country’s reckoning with racial injustice.

Schools across the U.S. are weighing how to use a windfall from the federal government's latest coronavirus relief package.

FILE - In this Friday, March 19, 2021, file photo, teacher Laura Bonanni prepares her kindergarten classroom for planned in-person learning at Nebinger Elementary School in Philadelphia. The only problem is many of the school districts' current problems can't be solved by money. The new funding will help with the return to in-person learning, he said. In Ohio's largest school district, Columbus, most students are back in classrooms part time under a hybrid schedule. AdAnother hurdle, district treasurer Stanley Bahorek said, is uncertainty about what’s ahead and how schools might have to adapt.

Colleges throughout the U.S. are assuring students that this coming fall will bring a return to in-person classes, intramural sports and mostly full dormitories. (AP Photo/Lisa Rathke, File)TOLEDO, Ohio – Colleges throughout the U.S. are assuring students that the fall semester will bring a return to in-person classes, intramural sports and mostly full dormitories. AdLike many colleges, Ashland University in Ohio is seeing that freshmen who have been accepted are slower to enroll this year. “It wasn’t worth the money.”AdShe’s hopeful that she’ll be on campus next fall for a somewhat normal college experience. Schools have gotten a boost from about $80 billion in federal coronavirus relief to colleges, universities and students.

Conn. School counselors in many urban, high needs districts have been consumed with efforts to help students engage with their schoolwork since the pandemic hit. This is high school and we are pampering you. Nevertheless, counselors in Bridgeport generally need to spend more time engaging families and connecting them with resources outside of school, said Michael Testani, Bridgeport's superintendent and a former school counselor. AdNationally, high school counselors who serve predominantly students of color attend to 34 more students than others, according to a 2019 report by the American School Counselor Association, the Education Trust and Reach Higher. A shift to emphasize student attendance and well-being — and not necessarily academic counseling — has taken place even in suburban districts, said Amanda Fitzgerald, an assistant deputy executive director at the school counselor association.

A year later in the pandemic, the unplanned experiment with distance learning continues for thousands of students like Leahy who have yet to set foot back in classrooms. A year later, the unplanned experiment with distance learning continues for thousands of students who have yet to set foot back in classrooms. The Associated Press followed four students on a typical day to find out how they’re coping a year into the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s exhausting doing this work day in and day out. You can just do it whenever.”A new type of extracurricular activity wraps up her school day.

With instruction time reduced as much as half by the coronavirus pandemic, many of the nation's middle school and high school teachers have given up on covering all the material normally included in their classes and instead are cutting lessons. With instruction time reduced as much as half by the coronavirus pandemic, many of the nation's middle school and high school teachers have given up on covering all the material normally included in their classes and instead are cutting lessons. But teachers are largely on their own to make difficult choices — what to prioritize and what to sacrifice to the pandemic. In every other school year, English teacher Cristin Espinoza in Denver would have her ninth grade students read graphic novels in groups modeled on book clubs. The skill his eighth grade students at Carlos F. Vigil Middle School miss out on in that exercise, Madsen said, is comparing and contrasting text.

In this photo provided by Julie Mackett, the kindergarten teacher conducts her class at Ft. Meigs Elementary School, in Perrysburg, Ohio. Contact tracing and isolation protocols meant to contain the spread of the coronavirus are sidelining school employees and frustrating efforts to continue in-person learning. “If you can’t staff a school, you have to bring it to remote.”Around the country, contact tracing and isolation protocols are sidelining school employees and closing school buildings. The staffing challenges force students out of classrooms, even in districts where officials say the health risks of in-person learning are manageable. He said available substitute teachers would be shifted to elementary schools to keep up in-person learning for younger students.

The vast majority of American school districts have yet to announce when they will resume in-person instruction. As schools reopen it will cost the average school district about $1.8 million to make social distancing possible, according to an estimate published by AASA, the School Superintendents Association, and the Association of School Business Officials International. You have a significant increase in costs for school districts at a time when school districts are going to have less money. Based on the demands of social distancing and precautions, there will not be enough money to have the old system back in a fully functional way, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. To keep up social distancing when buildings reopen, Superintendent Toni Jones has said the district could use media centers, cafeterias and other spaces for classrooms to spread out staff.

The states new standards are going out to schools as a national conversation on racial injustice brings new scrutiny to how African American history is taught nationwide. There is no national curriculum or set of standards for teaching black history in America. A University of Texas professor involved in developing the curriculum, Kevin Cokley, said his college students say they are taught a sanitized version of black history in high school. King provided training last year for 300 educators around the country who are interested in teaching black history. The push for diversity in education so far has led to mostly cosmetic changes, he said, without enough emphasis on the entry points and perspective of black history.

I want to make sure youre still learning, OK?Nearly a third of her students at Rawson Elementary School in Hartford, Connecticut, have been unplugged from distance learning. It will be another if distance learning resumes in the fall, when the stakes are raised by the return of formal grading and attendance tracking. Across the Hartford school system, roughly 80% of students are at least partially active in distance learning. I just want to know if they are safe.Many districts report engagement has improved since the scramble of the March transition to distance learning, but it's nowhere near full participation. Don't let that stop you, Batchelor told the third-grader's parents, assuring them the technical issue could be figured out later.