The Perfect Classroom, According to Science

Since starting up in Nigeria in 2018, the Kayode Alabi Leadership and Career Initiative, has reached about 6400 rural teenagers through their Skill2Rural bootcamp project. The multi-day bootcamp rotates between a selected school, internally displaced persons camp, or a community center. Participants have co-created about 70 prototypes to minimize issues related to poverty and unemployment within their communities.

Across Alabama, districts are using summer school breaks as a chance to bridge learning gaps for elementary school students who struggled to adjust to remote schooling or didn’t get as much face time with teachers during the pandemic. In Madison, English-language learning students were able to participate in a summer program to practice their language skills while incorporating field trips and fun activities, like cooking.

A teacher in San Diego took matters into her own hands when she couldn't find a social justice curriculum tailored to students with disabilities. That’s partly why she created what she calls the “Social Justice League,” a group of students at her school who meet weekly by Zoom and discuss a variety of issues, such as Native American land, gender privilege, the representation of disabilities in the media and systemic racism.

Schools in the Richardson Independent School District of Texas are updating the methods and measurements they've used to identify gifted students. One way is by testing all second and sixth graders in the district, which helps diminish implicit bias coming from teachers who may discriminate against certain students. Students' scores are also being judged differently by comparing them against others from similar backgrounds, from within their own school, and nationally.

U-46, Chicago's second-largest school district faced a legal suit in 2005 for discrimination of Hispanic students in its gifted programs and is now setting an example for how programs can be upended for good. By 2018 U-46's gifted program consisted of 48% Hispanic students, a better representation of a 57% Hispanic district. The changes implemented by the district included addressing systemic issues by not relying on teacher recommendations and instead testing all third and sixth graders, expanding the number of seats for gifted students. The district also has teachers undergo antiracism training and more.

Evictions can have devastating effects on a student’s access to education, forcing some to drop out of school. In Delhi, a city in India, a school was built by students, community members, and volunteers using locally-sourced materials. The community had been forcibly removed from their homes, and the students were left without a school.

In Boston, four organizations that serve Black and Latino families formed an alliance to provide low-cost learning pods to students of color. Run out of two churches, the full-day learning pods “serve nearly two dozen kindergarten through sixth-grade students.” The service comes at a crucial time, since pandemic learning is leaving behind students of color who already were at a disadvantage.

A school district in Atlanta found success in a program designed to keep students involved in remote learning. Henry County School District turned to optional evening school to provide flexibility to parents and K-5 students with varied schedules across its schools. The program also condensed six hours of school into three in order to reduce the amount of time younger students need to stay logged on. Close to 250 students participated in the program. Parents are also able to opt their children in or out of the program based on their preference.

More than 160 children from near the Singhu border in northern India attend Sanjhi Sathh, a makeshift school run by farmers. The school is open on weekdays from 11:30am to 2pm, and helps children keep up with their school lessons by providing a safe space for them to study, as well as actual lessons on topics like English, Hindi, math, science, and art classes.

School districts and cities in California are looking to create their own local Wifi networks as a long-term solution to the digital divide, and an alternative to hotspots. Some are even becoming internet service providers themselves (ISP) — efforts, they say, that will make it easier to provide internet access to those who can’t afford it.