Education

Tampa’s Fox affiliate reports: A Florida school district banned a book about a real-life same-sex penguin couple from classrooms and school libraries. The award-winning 2005 children’s book, “And Tango Makes Three,” tells the story of a real-life same-sex penguin couple that creates a family together. “We removed access to ‘And Tango Makes Three’ for our Kindergarten through third-grade students in …

CBS News reports: The teacher, identified as 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner, was teaching a lesson when the child drew the weapon, Police Chief Steve Drew said a a news conference. The teacher “took a defensive position” and held up her hand, Drew said; the bullet passed through her hand and entered her chest. He said there had been no physical fight …

The Washington Post reports: The first-grade class at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News was in a small reading group about to go to art when one of their classmates pulled a handgun from his backpack and pointed it at his teacher, according to Brittaney Gregory, whose son was in the class. “She was going to confiscate it, and that’s …

The New York Times reports: The 6-year-old, a first grader at Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Va., shot a teacher with a handgun on Friday afternoon, the Newport News Police Department said, in an incident that the police said was “not an accidental shooting.” The boy and the teacher had been involved in an altercation in a classroom before the …

CBS News reports: A 6-year-old student shot a teacher during an altercation at a Virginia elementary school on Friday, police said. No students were injured in the incident at Richneck Elementary School, Newport News police said in a statement. “This was not an accidental shooting,” Police Chief Steve Drew told reporters during an evening press conference. The boy was taken …

Bloomberg News reports: Hillary Clinton will join Columbia University as a professor focusing on global politics and policy in the fall. The former US secretary of state will work as a professor of practice at the School of International and Public Affairs and as presidential fellow at Columbia World Projects, Columbia President Lee Bollinger announced today. Clinton, 75, will work …

ABC News reports: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office has requested data on courses and programs that include “diversity, equity and inclusion” and “critical race theory” despite legal challenges to his law restricting such content. In the memo, Office of Policy and Budget Director Chris Spencer asked State University System and Florida College System administrators to document “the expenditure of state …

The Associated Press reports: Incoming Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday named a top Florida schools official as her pick to lead the state’s education agency, the latest signal of the direction of the Republican’s nascent administration. Sanders tapped Jacob Oliva, a senior chancellor at the Florida Department of Education, to serve as secretary of the Arkansas Department of …

The Texas Tribune reports: The U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm has launched an investigation into a North Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books. Education and legal experts say the federal probe of the Granbury Independent School District — which stemmed from a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union …

Military.com reports: Six months after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state’s veteran to teacher certification pathway into law, only a handful of veterans have been approved for certification across all 70-plus school districts, Military.com has learned. When the school year started in 2022, there were more than 5,000 teacher openings in the state, and the June law was intended …

Florida Politics reports: A law that more tightly restricts public schools’ approach to gender identity and sexual orientation has caused school districts to pull LGBTQ support guides and restrict some students’ use of bathrooms and locker rooms to gender assigned at birth. Those are some of the changes presented to the State Board of Education Wednesday as the Board heard …

The New York Times reports: J.R.O.T.C. programs, taught by military veterans at some 3,500 high schools across the country, are supposed to be elective, and the Pentagon has said that requiring students to take them goes against its guidelines. But The New York Times found that thousands of public school students were being funneled into the classes without ever having …

The Miami Herald reports: Florida’s State Board of Education will meet next week to scrutinize whether 10 school districts — including Miami-Dade, Broward and Hillsborough counties — are carrying out the state’s parental rights law. The state put the districts on notice last month when it sent letters detailing the policies that each of their districts “may not comport with …

Orlando’s ABC affiliate reports: Days after the Brevard County School Board ousted the superintendent, plans are underway for a new school disciplinary policy in Brevard Public Schools. Flanked by Sheriff Wayne Ivey and State Attorney Phil Archer, School Board Chairman Matt Susin went on camera Monday in front of the Brevard County Jail in Sharpes to announce plans to impose …

Politico reports: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis put his weight behind dozens of conservative school board candidates across Florida during the midterms. Now they’re in office — and are purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates. New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked their school superintendents over the span of one week. The ousters were spurred by how …

Tampa’s NBC affiliate reports: A lawsuit filed by a professor and student at the University of South Florida, contesting the state’s “Stop WOKE Act,” officially titled the “Individual Freedom Act,” has temporarily blocked the law’s impact on public universities, thanks to an order from a federal judge. House Bill 7, dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act” when first announced by Gov. …

Richmond’s ABC affiliate reports: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is overhauling former Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration’s proposal that would have set history and social science standards in Virginia schools. Youngkin’s VDOE’s new draft proposal would determine what students learn about American history and Virginia history inside the classroom. If adopted by the Virginia Board of Education, …

NBC News reports: A middle school teacher in Texas has been fired after a video posted on social media showed him telling students his race is “superior.” “Deep down in my heart, I’m ethnocentric, which means I think my race is the superior one,” the teacher was recorded telling students of various races last week inside a classroom at Bohls …

The Texas Tribune reports: A federal judge in North Texas ruled on Thursday that President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program is “unlawful,” the latest challenge to the policy that has seen several attacks from conservative groups. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman said in court files that he declared the loan forgiveness plan unlawful because Biden did not follow federal …

Axios reports: Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s controversial school tip line drew complaints from around the state about pandemic precautions, a symbolic “equity month” and, in one case, a 12th grade English teacher’s take on poetry. Youngkin created a national uproar just days into his administration when he launched the tip line, urging parents to report schools teaching “inherently divisive concepts” — …