Education

Kentucky’s House Subcommittee on School Safety will listen to testimony from officials Friday afternoon for the second time since its creation. House Speaker Greg Stumbo created the special temporary subcommittee to address school safety following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The 20th biennial international conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children is coming to the Galt House this summer. Louisville will join host cities such as Barcelona, Spain; Sydney, Australia; Istanbul, Turkey; and Prague, Czech Republic according to The Lane Report. The program is being held Aug. 10-14 and will celebrate "Giftedness and Creativity."

A national report released today has good news about the nation’s high schools. Fewer students dropped out of high school in 2009-10 than the previous year, and more students overall graduated. That’s according to a preliminary report from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Meanwhile, state data shows the Newport Independent School District is making progress in curbing its dropout rate. The Enquirer reported in May that the dropout rate for the urban district had skyrocketed to 8.4 percent in 2008-09, the highest rate in Northern Kentucky and the state.

The Kentucky Department of Education is planning to release data next month on the state’s alternative schools for the first time as they look to improve transparency and accountability for the population the schools serve. Over 70,000 students are estimated to attend alternative programs in the state, many of which are in specialized schools that range in services and purposes.

What could certainly be dubbed a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ came for 20 middle school students at Eastern Kentucky University today.  They posed questions to a NASA astronaut aboard the international space station.  The connection was made through a downlink in the university’s Hummel Planetarium.  Kentucky Educational Television also participated in the event.

Kentucky has broken into the top ten in a national assessment of education improvements.  Each year, a national publication called ‘Education Week’ tracks key education indicators and grades states in these areas.  Kentucky’s public education system moved up four spots to number ten in the U.S.   The review covers such categories as kindergarten through 12th grade achievement, accountability, the teaching profession, and school finance.

Frankfort - Teacher quality reaches a new milestone in Kentucky today with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ announcement that 268 Kentucky teachers were awarded the prestigious National Board Certification in the class of 2012. The achievement recognizes these educators among the top in the profession and promises to improve student learning and achievement in classrooms across the state.

A charter school bill has been filed in the Kentucky House and supporters hope the less aggressive approach will help get it passed this year. Rep. Brad Montell, R-Shelbyville , crafted the law with help from the Kentucky Charter School Project. It’s a coalition including several organizations that have argued for charter schools the past couple years.

The federal fiscal cliff was averted, but an agreement that delayed decisions about major spending cuts until late February has Kentucky school officials worried about potential layoffs and lost services for needy students. If Congress doesn't reach a compromise on the scheduled spending cuts, Kentucky's 174 school districts will lose $61 million a year in federal support during the next decade, according to numbers generated by the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Many of Kentucky's gains in K-12 education during the past 20 years could be erased, said Stu Silberman, director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, a Lexington-based non-profit.

New security plans couldn’t be implemented at a better time in Hardin County Schools, as school safety becomes a top concern across the nation. HCS is adding extra security measures at some of its schools to ensure everyone in the building was allowed to enter by school personnel. The district is installing cameras at the front doors and buzz-in systems, which force visitors to ask for entrance into the buildings and to show an I.D.

Many Kentucky school officials reviewed and strengthened their security policies on Monday in light of last week's school shooting in Connecticut, even as a false rumor about possible violence frightened hundreds at Lexington's Henry Clay High School. School safety experts had predicted that rumors would be a problem at schools this week in the wake of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children and eight adults dead.

The Administrative Regulation Review Subcommitee approved the Kentucky Department of Education’s new restraint and seclusion policy proposal Monday. Kentucky is one of several states that don’t have a state law governing restraint and seclusion in schools so it's up to KDE to set that policy. The changes would increase training and parent communication and allow restraint and seclusion of misbehaving students in cases of imminent threats.

With the funerals underway of 26 shooting victims in Connecticut, Kentuckians have joined the nation in grief.   Many are also seeking an end to gun violence.   For Richard Mitchell with the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice says a priority is removing semi-automatic weapons from the hands of young people.   Mitchell says more American students must learn how to resolve differences without violence.

The Kentucky Department of Education’s new restraint and seclusion policy proposal is in the final stages of approval this week and will go before the state’s Administrative Regulatory Review Committee Monday. Kentucky is one of several states that don’t have a law regulating restraint and seclusion for misbehaving students. Instead, the Kentucky Board of Education sets the governing policies, but the department has acknowledged changes to the regulations are needed.

The overall academic success of preschoolers is increasingly tied to social and emotional preparation.  Under the current assessment process, the director of the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development, says there are no good measurements.  Terry Tolan says simply emphasizing language, reading, and motor skills isn’t enough.

The Bank of Kentucky has committed the first-ever million-dollar donation to Gateway Community & Technical College. The $1 million donation to Gateway’s affiliated foundation will go to help develop Gateway’s Urban Campus in Covington. The college and the foundation already are spending up to $17 million on the campus, which eventually will spread over about six square blocks in Covington.