About one in three teens has used an AI companion for friendship, emotional support, or other social reasons, one national survey found. A newer Pew survey puts teens who get emotional support or advice from chatbots at 12%. Psychologists quoted by the American Psychological Association worry about what the bots are built to do.
Kate Carter
Only 52 public schools in the country show a 0% proficiency rate in our data, and almost none of them are what the number implies. Most are very small, several teach newly arrived immigrants still learning English, and the figure often says more about testing rules than teaching.
Arthur Chen
At least 39 states and Washington, D.C., now require schools to ban or restrict student cellphones, and 29 of those states plus D.C. call for rules that last the whole school day. Those places enroll about 72% of the country's public school students.
Mary Johnson
The Justice Department says it has ended more than 50 decades-old school desegregation cases, most of them in five Southern states. Officials call the orders outdated and costly. Critics say they still protect equal funding and access for Black students.
Arthur Chen
Cursive was left out of the Common Core standards more than a decade ago, and states have been adding it back one at a time. At least 25 now require it, most in grades 3 through 5. Here is the list, the newest laws, and the argument over whether it is worth the class time.
Mary Johnson
Hannah Jorgensen, a 24-year-old fifth-grade teacher at Borlaug Elementary in Coralville, and 10-year-old student Ahmed Osman died after going into the water near the Coralville Reservoir spillway during a class trip. The Johnson County Sheriff's Office is investigating how each of them got into the water.
Mary Johnson
Fewer than half the states have a recess law, and not all of those require recess every day. Arkansas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma now set the highest bar at 40 minutes. Here is each state's daily minimum and the rules on taking recess away as punishment.
Kate Carter
Two Detroit Lakes families and the ACLU of Minnesota sued the district and four board members Tuesday, arguing the ban on rainbow stickers violates the state constitution and the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The suit also accuses the four of arranging the July vote in private, and cites texts obtained through a records request.
Mary Johnson
Your address is assigned to a specific public school for each grade level, and the listing site's schools tab is the wrong place to check it. Here is how zoning actually works, the three ways to find your real assigned schools, and why the assigned school is not the end of the story.
Mary Johnson
Three years into Minnesota's universal school meals program, lunch participation is up 15% and breakfast 40%, and the state's bill has climbed to an estimated $306 million. A new survey finds a third of students who didn't qualify for free lunch used to skip meals. Longer lines are the main complaint.
Kate Carter
There are 5,612 alternative public schools in the country, and most people only learn what they are when a principal suggests one for their child. Some are punishment. Some are a second chance at a diploma. The label covers both, and the difference matters enormously.
Kate Carter
The Detroit Lakes school board added a rainbow ban to its agenda at the start of a July meeting and passed it 4-2 with no public comment. The stickers never came down, a vote to pause the ban failed, and the board is now weighing a rewrite that drops the word rainbow but limits what employees can display.
Mary Johnson
Timber Ridge Elementary in East Cobb posts the highest test proficiency of any public elementary school in Cobb County. Almost the entire top of the list sits in East Cobb, the scores track neighborhood income, and two separate districts share the county. Here are the top 15.
Kate Carter
Ngone Talla, a Cincinnati Public Schools student with cerebral palsy, was found unresponsive in her wheelchair when her bus reached home Wednesday. The coroner says the death appears natural and shows no trauma. Her family says the bus sat outside for 10 to 15 minutes before anyone told them, and police have opened a death investigation.
Mary Johnson
A gym syllabus at Lakeview High School in St. Clair Shores requires a parent note stating how long a girl's period lasts before she can make up missed swim days. Parents call it an invasion of privacy that applies only to girls, one says it cost his straight-A daughter a C, and another is asking whether it violates Title IX.
Mary Johnson
Parents escalate to the wrong person constantly, usually the superintendent, and the complaint comes back down to the person they skipped. The chain is short and the divisions are real. A board cannot fix your child's grade, and a principal cannot change the calendar.
Mary Johnson
At the most diverse elementary schools in the country, no racial or ethnic group comes close to a majority. One city runs the list: Anchorage, Alaska, takes 10 of the top 15 spots, a reflection of a student body split almost evenly across every group federal data tracks.
Arthur Chen
The District 210 board voted unanimously Thursday to let six students leave rather than be expelled over racist taunting at a Homewood-Flossmoor football game. An expulsion can follow a student to their next district for up to two years. A withdrawal does not carry that rule. Homewood-Flossmoor is weighing a lawsuit.
Mary Johnson
A new NBC News poll finds 56% think a school that prohibits AI prepares students better, up nine points since June 2025. The same survey finds only 31% say no AI use is acceptable on schoolwork. Both numbers are real, and the space between them is where district policy has to live.
Arthur Chen
Most people know Title IX as the reason girls' teams exist. In a K-12 building it also reaches harassment, pregnancy, dress codes, and retaliation, and it requires your district to name a coordinator and publish a grievance procedure. Almost no parent knows who that coordinator is.
Mary Johnson
