New scholarship opportunity removes barrier for homeless students in Twin Cities

New scholarship opportunity removes barrier for homeless students in Twin Cities

Minnesota Spokesman Recorder logo

As the cost of college grows, research shows that so does the number of hungry and homeless students at colleges and universities across the country.

Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless is offering 10, $2,000 scholarships for the 2018-2019 school year to Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) students who are currently homeless or have experienced homelessness in the past two years. Funds can be used for education or living expenses.

With demand for technical and skilled trade positions at an all-time high, and with MCTC’s nearly 100 percent job placement rates for students graduating from their career and technical education (CTE) programs, Open Your Heart is confident that the benefits of this scholarship are twofold.

In addition to filling high-demand jobs, students are offered a real and permanent escape from a homeless life.

Since 1986, Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless, a Minnesota non-profit, has supported hunger, homeless, and domestic violence programs throughout the state.

Entirely funded by the private sector, mostly individuals, Open Your Heart has also worked to ensure that homeless students have the same access to educational opportunities as all Minnesotans.

For more information please visit www.oyh.org. Scholarship applicants should apply online at www.minneapolis.edu/collegescholarships by the June 1 deadline.

—Information provided by Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless

 

BOOK CORNER: Author offers insight to the world of autism

BOOK CORNER: Author offers insight to the world of autism

Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability in the world and in “Help Me Understand My Child: A Mother’s Truth About Autism,” author Florence Bracy introduces readers to the world of special needs.

Inside her new memoir, Bracy chronicles her inspirational journey of how she advocated for 12 years for her son who has autism. She shares the secrets of how she overcame many challenges and obstacles and what it took to support her son successfully.

One of the challenges she mentions was the act of gaining access to the proper services in school districts and regional centers that help assist children with special needs.

“Most parents are overwhelmed upon learning how to secure services and live with a child with autism,” Bracy said. “There are a lot of feelings and acceptance issues that come up. This book provides strategies on how to cope through this process.”

Florence Bracy

Florence Bracy

The book is a story of hope that will definitely interest families who have children with autism or adults with autism, and others who have an interest in the population. Bracy hopes that family members who have someone with autism are filled with a sense of empowerment after reading her book.

In addition to being an author, Bracy is a paralegal in a domestic violence clinic. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

To learn more about the author and to join her support group, visit her website, florencebracy.com. Meetings are held in the Los Angeles area.

Bracy will have a book signing at South Central Los Angeles Regional Center from 6 to 8:30 p.m. May 4. To attend, rsvp at florencebracy.com. 

“Help Me Understand My Child: A Mother’s Truth About Autism” is available for $18.95 or $9.99 (e-book) on Amazon.

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Districts Are Supposed to Use Evidence to Improve Schools Under ESSA. Will They?

Districts Are Supposed to Use Evidence to Improve Schools Under ESSA. Will They?

Education Week logoThe Every Student Succeeds Act is supposed to bring about a big change in school improvement. The law says states and districts can use any kind of interventions they want in low-performing schools, as long as they have evidence to back them up.

But the provision has some experts worried. They’re concerned that there just aren’t enough strategies with a big research base behind them for schools to choose from. These experts also worried that district officials may not have the capacity or expertise to figure out which interventions will actually work.

Districts, they’ve said, may end up doing the same things they have before, and may end up getting the same results.

“My guess is, you’ll see a lot of people doing the things they were already doing,” said Terra Wallin, who worked as a career staffer at the federal Education Department on school turnaround issues and is now a consultant with Education First, a policy organization that is working with states on ESSA implementation. “You’ll see a lot of providers approaching schools or districts to say, ‘Look, we meet the evidence standard,'” Wallin said…

Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.

School Safety Forum Held by Florida Senators Highlights Prevention, Security

School Safety Forum Held by Florida Senators Highlights Prevention, Security

Education Week logoWashington, DC — A school safety forum on Capitol Hill hosted by Florida’s U.S. senators focused on how to help students head off threats from their peers, and on improving security measures for schools, among other topics.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican, also used the event here on Wednesday to tout their support for having the federal government offer states incentives to adopt “red flag” laws that prevent those who represent a threat to themselves or others from accessing or purchasing firearms, while preserving legal protetions for those individuals. Rubio and Nelson introduced a bill to this effect, the Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act, last month, after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

Advocates and public officials also emphasized the importance of communication at various stages to help address school violence, from making it easier for students to share their concerns with adults, to helping law enforcement respond to violent incidents more quickly.

Nicole Hockley, whose son was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, highlighted the “Start With Hello” training program that helps children communicate with each other about their difficulties. The program is run by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit group led by Hockley that works to prevent children from violence. “It sounds so simple. But the best programs are,” Hockley said.

And Indiana officials attending the session pointed to a school that’s become a model for new security measures, from bullet-resistant classroom doors to smoke bombs that can fill a hallway and disorient a school shooter. (The latter clocks in at a cost of $400,000.) Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill said the state has emphasized “what we can do to harden our schools, but not make them a prison.”

In expressing interest in creating national school safety standards, Rubio pointed to the Americans With Disabilities Act that created national building standards to address the needs of people with disabilities. While he said the analogy to gun violence and school safety isn’t perfect, “It’s an indication of where federal policy could help over time.” He also expressed an interest in making it easier somehow for school leaders to discover “best practices” for safety, so that “they can hear from one another about what other places are doing…”

Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.

Iowa review teams release recommendations to reform developmental education

Iowa review teams release recommendations to reform developmental education

DES MOINES – Two work groups charged with studying ways to reduce the need for developmental college coursework today released recommendations that support Iowa’s vision for all students to graduate from high school ready for college and for college students to have the support they need to complete a degree or credential.

Developmental (or remedial) education refers to undergraduate instruction that does not count toward a degree, but typically must be completed by students who are considered underprepared before advancing to college-level coursework. More than one out of every five Iowa students (21.6 percent) who enroll in an Iowa public college or university within one year of high school graduation take at least one developmental English or math course the first year of college. The rate is almost twice as high for black and Hispanic students (39.1 percent) as it is for white students (19.6 percent).

“Reducing the need for developmental education is a high priority because students who are placed in these courses are at risk of failing to progress and never completing a credential or degree,” said Iowa Department of Education Director Ryan Wise. “These recommendations expand on efforts underway in our schools and colleges to further enhance student success and strengthen Iowa’s workforce talent pipeline.”

Two work groups were established in response to recommendations released last year by the Future Ready Iowa Alliance aimed at reaching the goal of 70 percent of Iowa workers having education or training beyond high school by 2025. One of those recommendations specifically calls out the need to improve remediation at both high school and postsecondary levels.

The High School and Community College Developmental Education Partnerships Working Group focused its recommendations on identifying and closing gaps in reading, writing, and math in high school. The group identified strong partnerships between high schools and community colleges, use of diagnostic tools to identify learning gaps, and meaningful course-taking during the senior year as components for effective transition from high school to college.

The Developmental Education Working Group evaluated best practices for supporting students who aren’t ready for college coursework and focused its recommendations on ways to improve advising, assessment, placement, teaching and delivery methods.

“The length of time spent in developmental courses can impede college persistence, increasing the time and cost it takes to earn a degree,” said Linda Allen, a work group member and Hawkeye Community College president. “Our goal is to identify gaps early and improve instruction and support services in order to make sure all students have a clear path to successful degree completion.”

The groups’ final reports emphasize the need for a statewide commitment to strategically reform developmental education to increase student completion and offer evidence-based strategies to better support Iowa’s increasingly diverse student population.

The work groups also recommend maintaining and nurturing partnerships between high schools and community colleges, with a shared definition of college readiness that outlines expectations of students ready for postsecondary coursework and experiences.

Recommendations include:

  • Adoption of a common diagnostic tool to determine appropriate senior-year interventions in high school to get them back on track.
  • Requiring all high school students to complete a math course during the senior year to reduce the erosion of math skills between high school and college.
  • Use of multiple measures to assess college readiness for student placement in college-level coursework.
  • Providing holistic and intrusive advising and academic supports in college to address individual student needs.
  • Implementing strategies that efficiently mainstream underprepared students into college-level courses while providing the supports they need to be successful.

Community college leaders have expressed commitment to implementing this reform and will lead continued efforts to improve and accelerate developmental education in Iowa. Additionally, the recommendations will be shared with the Iowa State Board of Education.

Visit the Developmental Education Work Group webpage for more information.

Treasury: 529 Plans Provide Michiganders a Way to Save for College

Treasury: 529 Plans Provide Michiganders a Way to Save for College

In honor of April as National Financial Literacy Month, the Michigan Department of Treasury is reminding Michiganders about the importance of saving for college and using a 529 plan as a way to save.

A 529 plan is an education savings plan designed to help families set aside money for future education expenses. Contributions provide state income tax deductions and earnings in a plan grow tax free and are exempt at the federal and state level.

These plans get their name from Section 529 of the federal Internal Revenue Code.

“Financial Literacy Month is a great time for parents, grandparents and others to begin thinking about how they can reduce potential student loan debt based on the overall cost of higher education,” said Robin Lott, executive director of the state of Michigan’s 529 plans. “Each of our plans provide an excellent avenue for savings, depending upon each student’s goals.”

The state of Michigan offers three Section 529 college saving plans that potentially provide state and federal tax benefits: Michigan Education Trust (MET), Michigan Education Savings Program (MESP) and MI 529 Advisor Plan (MAP). These plans can be broken up into two categories:

  • Prepaid Tuition Plan (MET) allows for the pre-purchase of tuition based on today’s rates and then paid out at the future cost when the beneficiary is in college. Performance is often based upon tuition inflation. Prepaid plans may be administered by states or higher education institutions.
  • Investment-Based Savings Plans (MESP and MAP) are different in that your account earnings are based upon the market performance of the underlying investments, which typically consist of mutual funds. Investment-based savings plans may only be administered by states.

To learn more about 529 plans, go to SavewithMI529.com. For more information about saving for college, contact MI Student Aid at mistudentaid@michigan.gov, 1-888-4-GRANTS or @mistudentaid on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.

MI Student Aid Information Hotline: 888-447-2687

COMMENTARY: Autism: moving from acceptance to action 

COMMENTARY: Autism: moving from acceptance to action 

Minnesota Spokesman Recorder logo

by 

In honor of April being National Autism Awareness Month, Sheletta Brundidge shares the first of a two-part story chronicling her discovery that three of her four children were on the autism spectrum.

My son Brandon was two years old when our autism journey began. He was playing with a couple of toys in the restroom while I was nearby bathing his then-one-year old sister Cameron (I was pregnant with their soon-to-be-born baby brother Daniel at the time). She was splashing around in the tub having fun and I guess he decided he’d look for a neighboring body of water to splash around in, too.

Brandon made a bee-line for the toilet and took a nose dive. Being a germaphobe I yelled out, “Noooooooooooo!” before sprinting over to pull his head out of the bowl. His face was wet, his hair was damp and he was as happy as he could be.

I immediately took Cameron out of the tub and put Brandon in, scrubbing him as hard as I could trying to get those toilet germs off his face. I remember looking at him in the eye and pleading “Son, don’t play in the toilet, okay?”

He looked beyond me with a blank stare, as if I wasn’t standing there. I knew instantly something was wrong. The light that had been in my son’s eyes was dimmed ever so slightly.

He couldn’t figure out what I was saying to him, and worse yet, he didn’t know how to respond. He began babbling and looking around as if imaginary butterflies were capturing his attention. He couldn’t give me direct eye contact.

“Oh no,” I thought, “Something is wrong with my baby!” Then I wondered, “How long has this been going on?” I blamed myself for not noticing sooner. How could I not see that my son was slipping into darkness?

I was working full-time, raising a growing family, being a mom, a wife, a daughter, an employee. I was busy keeping my house clean and too preoccupied with chores to have a handle on my child’s mental development.

I hadn’t taken a moment to notice —until my son dunked his head in a toilet — that he wasn’t behaving like a normal two-year-old.

He was lining his food up and not eating it. He was still drinking from a bottle.

He wouldn’t make eye contact. He was babbling instead of talking. He didn’t respond to his name when I called for him. I missed all the warning signs. I ignored all the clues.

My. Son. Had. Autism.

I cried. I stopped eating. I got down to 96 pounds. I was curled up in the fetal position under the table, unable to do anything except feel sorry for myself. My momma had to come and take care of my kids. I couldn’t even fold laundry or brush my teeth, because, of course, I made it all about me. I’m a narcissist after all.

Somehow I thought I had failed as a parent and caused my son to have autism. So, instead of getting busy finding help for my child, I cowered in fear of what life had to offer a Black boy with special needs.

Since he couldn’t speak, would the police shoot him if he didn’t respond to their commands?

Would he ever be able to get a job and support himself? What about college? Without words, could he find a wife?

All the dreams I had for little Brandon were taking a nose dive out of the freakin’ window.

I had decided, that at age two, my son’s life was over and there was no hope for him.

But God reached down and snatched me out from under the kitchen table and said: “I chose you!” My spirit awakened and I realized this was a blessing: Of all the women in the world, God picked me to be Brandon’s mother. What an honor that He selected me to be the shepherd of this little life.

I had to get it together for my baby, so he could live out his God-given destiny and reach his full potential. It was all on me to get it done.

First I went to the folk closest to me for assistance. But since I didn’t have friends who had kids with special needs, nobody could tell me what to do. I tried to call on my family but that quickly backfired.

My momma brushed off my suspicions about Brandon having autism as just me being dramatic. “Ain’t nothing wrong with that damn boy. You just looking for attention; he gon’ talk when he gets ready. Your cousin Meme didn’t talk until she was 3.”

My grandmother outright blamed me for everything, “If you had just got an epidural during your pregnancy,” she quipped, “the boy would be fine now. But you wanted to do that natural childbirth [expletive]. He probably ain’t get no oxygen to his brain. That’s why he ain’t talking. It’s your fault, Sheletta.”

Since family and friends wouldn’t come to my rescue, I turned to the professionals.

Everything that I read about having an autism diagnosis said early detection and intervention is the key to success. So I made an appointment at a children’s hospital to get Brandon evaluated and tested for autism.

After three hours of checking out my son, the doctor stepped out of the room and declared, “Yep, you were right, your child has autism. Have a good life.”

Now what? What do I do with my special needs child? Does he need a prescription to keep him from flapping his hands? Or some speech sessions a couple times a week to help him learn how to talk? They didn’t give me one damn referral — not even a tip on what kind of therapy he needed or how I could go about getting services for Brandon.

I didn’t know what to do or where to turn, but I kept hearing God say, “I chose you!”

I knew this was gon’ be a “Roll up your sleeves — against all odds — me and my baby against the world” situation. So I went to my husband Shawn and asked if I could quit my job.

Without the worry of working every day, I dedicated my life to learning more about autism spectrum disorders and looking for ways to heal my child.

I didn’t want to get help for him. Forget help! I wanted Brandon healed from this autism diagnosis, so he could grow up to be the man God designed him to be without deficit or deficiency. I prayed for God to send the answer and He did.

But in the meantime, both Cameron and my newborn son Daniel were diagnosed with autism as well.

Next week, Sheletta encounters an angel who guided her through the proper therapy and medication to heal her son Brandon from the effects of his autism diagnosis. She will provide a blueprint for other parents to find services for their special needs children and scholarships that are available to pay for it all.

To learn more about autism, go here

Middle School In Concord Opens Food Pantry For Students Struggling With Food Insecurity

Middle School In Concord Opens Food Pantry For Students Struggling With Food Insecurity

Over the past few years, schools across the country have been opening up food pantries for students who may be struggling with food insecurity.

Here in New Hampshire, teachers at Rundlett Middle School in Concord have opened up their own. Biz Logan is one of the teachers responsible for the creation that is known as the “Blue Duke Care Closet,” named for the school’s mascot. He spoke to NHPR’s Peter Biello.

What made you decide to start this at Rundlett?

I’ve been teaching here at Rundlett for ten years, I was a special education teacher, but most recently moved over to teaching health. So you’re talking a lot about nutrition in the classroom, realizing that food insecurity is an issue at our school, and it’s hard to talk about nutrition and eating healthy when students are struggling just to find food at home. That was the first thing. We have 36 percent, I think, of our population is free and reduced lunch at our school, which is higher than the state average. We knew that it was a problem and something that maybe we could target here at Rundlett.

When students come to the Blue Duke Care Closet, are they getting food for that day at school or are it for home after school or on the weekends?

The first goal for us was to provide food on the weekends because what we realized that these students who at least were qualifying for free and reduced lunch, they were being fed here at school, breakfast and lunch, so we were more worried about the weekends. What we do right now is students receive a bag on a Friday afternoon, they bring it home, and that will provide them with meals for the weekend…

Read the full article here.

ESSA Demands Full Transparency on K-12 Educational Funding

ESSA Demands Full Transparency on K-12 Educational Funding

By Lauren Poteat

Public school systems throughout the nation will now be required to be a lot more transparent when it comes to school funding.

According to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015, all public schools nationwide, will be required to give fully-detailed reports on how and where they spend institutional funding.

The ESSA reporting requirement for school funding begins in December 2019, and supporters of the rule, including the NAACP, believe it will help to encourage greater educational equity, particularly among schools serving large numbers of Black and Hispanic students in low-income neighborhoods.

“We need more equitable and adequate funding for all schools serving students of color,” said Victor Goode, the education director for the NAACP. “Why? Because education funding has been inadequate and unequal for students of color for hundreds of years. Second, privatization forces are working to eliminate our public schools and, with it, transparency, public accountability and access to all.”

Goode said that ESSA requires a breakdown of how student need is met with a focus on equity over equal distribution for funding.

Goode continued: “That explains the reason behind the school-by-school, per pupil spending report. This kind of public transparency is a good thing and can help provide more meaningful parental and community engagement, which is also essential to accountability and achieving educational equity.”

According to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization, based in Washington, D.C., that conducts research on solving societal problems locally, nationwide and globally, to date minority students are still far more less likely than White students to have adequate school resources.

In addition, the Brookings Institution reported that schools with predominantly Black and Hispanic children, on average, are nearly twice as large as White schools—reaching an estimated 3,000 students or more in most cities, with lower-quality curriculum offerings and less qualified teachers (in terms of levels of education, certification, and training in the fields they teach), all of which George H. Lambert, Jr., president and CEO of the Greater Washington Urban League, believes can be rectified through adequate funding.

“Through the availability of [ESSA] data, Black and [Hispanic] educators can begin to prove that Black and [Hispanic] students suffer from funding disparities and the lack of teachers in the classroom who look like them or represent their perspective,” Lambert said. “We need better, more transparent data on school funding. The availability of such data and our ability to access it forces greater urgency on what is, arguably the most important issue of our time.”

Lambert said that any discussion on educational equity should acknowledge the enormous achievement gaps that still plague Black and Hispanic students.

“If these gaps aren’t closed, our community doesn’t have much of a future,” Lambert said.” Even though high school graduation rates are better now than 30 years ago, we still face a situation where more than a quarter of Black students, for example, are dropping out. Most Black students in the largest U.S. cities are attending schools with high concentrations of poverty. Over half of our young, Black men are either dropping out or finishing K-12 late, hence 1 in 3 end up trapped in some fashion in the criminal justice system.”

Despite high approval from many civil rights organizations, school district administrators, like Robert Lowry, the deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents still believe that the new law might shine light on imbalanced revenue and create the perception that some students are being shortchanged, even when this may not be the case.

“We question whether the state officials would even have the expertise and the capacity to evaluate spending levels between schools,” Lowry told Education Week.

Though Lowry’s concerns may be valid, Lambert believes that full transparency is a plus.

“This is a good way to learn about flaws in the system and how those flaws are aggravated by a lack of Black and [Hispanic] expertise and perspective in the curriculum, the classroom and the leadership office,” Lambert said. “We can also find out if school districts with a larger number of Black and [Hispanic] educators are experiencing high levels of funding disparities and uneven attention from policymakers.”

STEM, Students and Space: HCC to Launch Innovative New Challenger Learning Center in Houston

STEM, Students and Space: HCC to Launch Innovative New Challenger Learning Center in Houston

BY: JEFFREY L. BONEY

Houston Community College (HCC) is on a mission to thrill and educate young students in simulated flights to Mars, the Moon and beyond. That mission was officially launched in Greater Houston area this past Thursday, April 12, when HCC joined Challenger Center President and CEO Lance Bush to announce the new Challenger Learning Center – a place where elementary, middle and high school students will be taught how to apply the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math to a trip to outer space.

This past February, HCC submitted a formal application to Challenger Center, headquartered in Washington D.C., to open a Challenger Learning Center at the HCC Southeast College-Felix Fraga Campus. HCC found out it had received approval late last month, clearing the way for the start of a $2 million fundraising campaign to support construction of the 10,000 square foot Challenger Learning Center.

“HCC is proud to have been selected as the site for the newest Challenger Learning Center,” said HCC Board Chair Carolyn Evans-Shabazz. “Houston put a man on the moon and now HCC is adding to Houston’s heritage as Space City with this project. This new partnership with Challenger Center is a perfect match made in the heavens.”

As a leader in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, Challenger Center provides more than 250,000 students annually with experiential simulation-based programs that engage students in hands-on learning opportunities. These programs, delivered in Challenger Learning Centers and classrooms, strengthen knowledge in STEM subjects and inspire students to pursue careers in these important fields. Challenger Center was created by the Challenger families to honor the crew of shuttle flight STS-51-L.

“We are incredibly impressed with Houston Community College’s vision for a seamless STEM pathway that launches students on a trajectory to higher education and 21st century skills,” said Challenger Center President and CEO Lance Bush. “I congratulate everyone at Houston Community College on this extraordinary step to provide students in the area with a STEM experience that will spark a passion for learning that lasts a lifetime. We share both this vision and a passion for inspiring today’s youth, and we look forward to working together to open the doors of this new Center.”

The Challenger Learning Center at Houston Community College will join a network of more than 40 Challenger Learning Centers around the globe. Each Center is a fully immersive experience, including a Mission Control Room and Space Station where students work with hands-on labs, conduct experiments and analyze data during a Challenger Center Mission. Students learn teamwork, communicate with one another to complete tasks and solve problems when emergencies arise. Aligned with national education standards and informed by real science data, Challenger Learning Center Missions introduce students to careers in STEM fields and help them build important 21st Century skills.

“This will add to HCC’s growing innovative educational offerings that already include participation in the city’s new innovation corridor in Midtown and partnerships with NASA and the University of Houston to build a Mars surface habitat and other additional facilities for manned missions to Mars,” said HCC Chancellor Cesar Maldonado. “Today’s students are the innovators, explorers and designers of tomorrow. We must nurture their excitement and inspire their imagination.”

The Felix Fraga Campus, located on 11 acres at 301 N. Drennan St. in southeast Houston, offers a rigorous STEM curriculum that includes engineering, maritime logistics, drafting, math, physics and astronomy. It also has an astronomical observatory to serve students and the community.

The Challenger Learning Center will be a fantastic addition to the Houston community and will add to HCC’s growing innovation- based educational offerings.

For more information about Challenger Center, please visit www.challenger.org.

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