JCPS says it's solved its bus driver shortage. Could it happen again?

We Stand Up for Croydon Students formed as a backlash to severe school budget cuts that resulted from a lack of civic participation among residents. The nonpartisan group collected enough signatures to set a special meeting to overturn the budget and, to get at least 50% of the town’s residents to participate in order for a new vote to be binding, volunteers organized community members through door knocking, phone banks, and lawn signs.

Part 1 of 3 - A progressive funding model has been a boon to schools in Berlin’s poorer neighborhoods, which receive a baseline of staff and resources that would make them the envy of many of their counterparts in Pennsylvania. But schools in poorer neighborhoods face a myriad of struggles that additional resources haven’t been able to quell, due to the deep socioeconomic disparities between the home neighborhoods of wealthy and poor students. This "social wall" lies exactly along the lines of the once physical Berlin wall.

The homeless population in NYC stands at the highest number since the Great Depression. The Bowery Residents Committee has suggested changes to how shelters emerge, run and are funded. With a focus on results-based funding, the BRC advocates for the prioritization of impact on the people served. It rewards locations that demonstrate a high ratio of people moving in to those returning; "building to the function" of helping people re-enter society; and eliminating private landlords.

Finland’s National Core Curriculum incorporates “multiliteracy” across all subject areas, and students begin learning about misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation from their first year in school. The country has consistently ranked first in the European Media Literacy Index.

To safely get students back into in-person learning environments amid ongoing Russian attacks, the Ukrainian government has prioritized building underground schools, some of which are in repurposed metro stations while others are dedicated shelters attached to existing schools. So far, the country has completed 20 underground schools, with 221 more under construction, but concerns have also been raised about potential corruption among contractors.

Nebraska’s Journey to Inclusion program focused on providing educators with training and resources to help schools keep more students with disabilities in general classrooms rather than separating them in specialized classrooms. Since implementing changes, the state has seen proficiency rates and graduation rates rise among students with disabilities.

The Alamance Behavioral Center aims to be a “one-stop shop” for mental health services, with a walk-in clinic, an urgent care facility, outpatient appointments, an on-site pharmacy, a mobile crisis team, monthly support meetings, and a peer living room where people can connect with peer support specialists without needing an appointment or screening. In January, nearly 1,000 people visited the center, and roughly 90 percent of people who have used the services would have otherwise ended up in the emergency room or jail.

To encourage in-person absentee voting, one Wisconsin County offered up special funding to municipalities to offset administrative costs, allowing many to extend their early voting hours and bring on additional help. More than 13,000 county residents cast absentee ballots in person in the most recent election, which is almost triple the number cast by the same point in the 2023 voting cycle.

Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) are research centers that support states and school districts as they implement new practices, such as in Mississippi, where an REL helped the state train its teachers in the science of reading and successfully bring its fourth-grade reading proficiency scores from 49th in the nation to 29th. However, the federal government recently terminated all of its contracts with RELs, jeopardizing the future of programs already in progress.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program is funding zero-emission, electric school buses and low-emission buses for schools looking to make the switch from diesel.