More than half of US public schools now have a sworn police officer on site at least weekly, but most families cannot say what that officer is allowed to do, who employs them, or how they differ from a security guard. Here is the plain version, and the questions worth asking your school.
Mary Johnson
The Board of Regents voted Monday to end the century-old exams as a diploma requirement after the class of 2027 and to collapse three diploma types into one. Rules are due in February and a vote in June. Critics say the state is tearing down the measuring stick before it has built a new one.
Mary Johnson
Most states land between 20 and 24 credits, but the number on your child's transcript is set by the district, not the state, and the two are rarely the same. Here is what a credit actually is, what states require, and why the district number is the one that counts.
Kate Carter
Julie Kaputa knew about Beaver River Central School's new ban on outside drinks when she carried coffee into first period and refused to toss it. Her target was the process, not the coffee: New York law requires a public hearing before a district changes its code of conduct, and the superintendent has now conceded the notice fell short.
Kate Carter
One in ten public school students carries the English learner label, and most families first encounter it through a form they filled out at registration. The classification is not a judgment about intelligence or immigration status. It is a legal trigger for services the school must provide, and a status you can contest.
Arthur Chen
In more than half the states, a third grader who fails the reading test can be held back whether or not the parents agree. The research on whether that works is more interesting than either side of the argument admits: the gains are real, and they mostly fade.
Kate Carter
PISA 2025 landed last week with the worst reading and math averages in the program's history, and one in five 15-year-olds now a low performer in every subject. The obvious suspect is screen time, and the evidence for it is real but narrower than the headlines. The sharper clue is who is falling: American elementary and middle school scores went up last year.
Arthur Chen
The recommended caseload for a school counselor is 250 students. The national average is 372, and only four states meet the standard. High schools have quietly gotten there. Elementary and middle schools are running caseloads near 700.
Mary Johnson
A student at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary discharged what police called a fart spray in a hallway, a restroom, and a classroom. Ten children were evaluated for trouble breathing and three went to the hospital. Hazmat crews found no actual hazard, which is exactly why these keep happening.
Mary Johnson
Nearly every state requires districts to offer kindergarten in some form. Far fewer require a full day of it, which means two families 20 minutes apart can face completely different childcare math for the same five-year-old. Here is how the rules break down and what the research actually shows.
Kate Carter
Springfield Public Schools canceled classes for more than 23,000 students after an outside group got into its network. The detail that forced the closure was not email or phones. It was the system school nurses use to check which child is allergic to what.
Arthur Chen
Federal law gives you the right to see everything in your child's education file, to challenge what is wrong in it, and to stop the school from publishing basic details about them. Most families never use any of it, because the annual notice explaining these rights arrives in a stack of first-week paperwork nobody reads.
Mary Johnson
Four days after five Lincoln-Way East students were filmed making monkey gestures at Homewood-Flossmoor fans, three H-F cross country runners say they overheard a Lincoln-Way East coach call them monkeys before a meet. The school says the coach was recounting a story about a course section called the jungle. Students plan to leave class at 11:50 Wednesday.
Mary Johnson
An IEP meeting is the one hour a year when a school's plan for your child gets written down and signed. Parents walk in outnumbered and often unprepared. Here is what the meeting is for, what you are entitled to before it, and how to leave with a plan you can hold the school to.
Kate Carter
Valdosta, Georgia has been named the top finalist to become the permanent home of the National High School Football Hall of Fame, ahead of Massillon and Berea, Ohio and Pittsburgh. The choice fits: Valdosta High owns more wins than any program in the country, and its crosstown rival is one of the largest high schools in Georgia.
Mary Johnson
A magnet school is a free public school run by the district, built around a theme, that draws students from across the district instead of one neighborhood. Here is where they came from, how they differ from charters, and what the selective ones require.
Arthur Chen
A 22-year-old was charged with a felony after investigators say he described a plan to attack Serna Elementary, a 312-student school near his home, in messages to an Anthropic chatbot. The FBI flagged the chat 17 days later and traced it through phone, internet, and Google records. He is held on $250,000 bond.
Mary Johnson
The average public high school enrolls about 700 students, but the typical one enrolls 420, because a few thousands-strong giants pull the average up. Elementary schools average about 424. And the state you live in changes the answer by a factor of five.
Mary Johnson
Video from Friday's varsity game in Flossmoor, Illinois shows students from the visiting school taunting fans of a majority-Black high school with monkey sounds and gestures. Lincoln-Way East says it has identified the students and apologized. Homewood-Flossmoor says it is weighing legal options.
Mary Johnson
Nearly a third of America's public schools are rural, but they enroll a fifth of its students. Suburbs run the biggest schools and the most of them. Here is how the four kinds of communities compare on size, staffing, and what that means for a child in each one.
Arthur Chen
