Local School Topics

School lunches have been getting a makeover in school districts across the country, but few have gone to the extraordinary step of Public School 244 in Flushing, New York. This school has done away with meat completely in its school lunch program, becoming the first vegetarian school cafeteria in the state and across the country. Surprisingly, students don’t seem to miss their chicken nuggets and “mystery meat Thursdays,” preferring the highly nutritious – and completely delicious – menu selections they can enjoy every school day.

Moving to a Meatless Menu

NBC News reports that P.S. 244 made the move to a meatless menu somewhat gradually. The school opened in 2008 and began serving a few vegetarian meals in the beginning, to see how students responded to the menu. School staff began noticing that many students were bringing vegetarian lunches, rather than purchasing the meaty fare at the cafeteria, and the move to meatless was born. Slowly, typical student lunches like chicken nuggets were replaced with entrees made up of tofu, beans and pasta.

P.S. 244 was the perfect school to begin such an experiment in Flushing. The large majority of students in the school are from either Asian or Hispanic descent, where rice and other vegetarian choices make up a large portion of the menu at home. The school’s head cook is also a vegetarian and parent at the school. To transition students to a similar menu at school was not exactly impossible.

Students have found themselves out of school in the small district of Buena Vista in Michigan. Unfortunately, the impromptu vacation in a district made up of mostly minority and low-income students had nothing to do with the up-and-coming summer vacation. Buena Vista students have found themselves without a school to go to because the district has run out of money. Now, teachers are without a job, income, or benefits, and students are left wondering whether they will be able to officially complete their current school year.

A Financial Emergency

According to mLive, parents and students received almost no advance notice that schools in the district would be closing. On May 6, district officials decided to close the schools and lay off all the teachers in the midst of what they called a “financial emergency” under Michigan law. A letter on the district website announced the district-wide closure to parents and students on the morning of May 7, the day the schools closed their doors.

The district states in the letter that it declares a financial emergency under Michigan Public Act 436 of 2012. That financial emergency stems partly from state money the district accepted for funding Wolverine Secure Treatment Center, an alternative high school that is no longer in operation. When the state required the district to pay back the $402,000, it was discovered district officials had already spent the money and did not have funds in the coffers to reimburse the state.

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Desegregation may have occurred decades ago, but some areas of the country are still dealing with segregation to this day. In Texas, thousands of schools are nearly as segregated in 2013 as they were at the time of Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954. With a rising percentage of minority students in the state, segregation could have serious implications on the future education of Texas students, as well as the readiness of those students to graduate and enter the state’s workforce.

The Rise of Minorities in Texas

The Dallas Morning News reports that segregation issues, coupled with disparities in education affecting schools made up of mostly minority students, could have serious long-term effects on education and economic conditions in the state. The problems are particularly pronounced in the Dallas Independent School District, where just 5 percent of the entire student population is white. Compare that number to the one in 1970, when the district was cited for failing to desegregate schools effectively. White students comprised around 60 percent of the entire student population at that time.

The school board president for Dallas, Lew Blackburn, told the Dallas Morning Star he is concerned about the fact that students are not getting exposed to the racial diversity in their schools that they see in their communities. Blackburn also believes that while he doesn’t know precise reasons for the dwindling number of white students in Dallas schools, he suspects it might be linked to an

A recent Opens Doors Day by Detroit Public Schools gave parents and students the chance to catch a glimpse of the wide range of schools available in one of the largest school districts in the country. Among other possibilities, this tour featured a unique school in Michigan and one of the only schools of its kind in the U.S. Who would have suspected that a district-wide open house could cumulate into a tour of the city by air – in a private plane used at a high school that prepares students for a career in the aerospace industry?

Future Students in Flight

According to a report at mLive, students who recently visited Davis Aerospace Technical High School as part of their tour of Detroit Public Schools got a welcome surprise. One of the instructors at the school, who also happens to be a pilot, took students and their parents on free airplane rides using one of the small private planes kept at the school for training purposes. The four-seat aircraft was the smallest many of the guests had ever flown in, and the tour of Downtown Detroit from miles above the ground could only be described as “breathtaking.”

Flights took off from a small runway adjacent to the Davis Aerospace Technical High School campus. The pilot of the flights, Captain Miller, is an instructor at Davis, and a veteran of the U.S. Air Forces with more than 35 years of flying experience. Captain Miller

A recent study revealed some startling statistics about teacher retention in Duval County Public Schools. The Jacksonville Public Education Fund study found that this large U.S. county loses more than half of its public school teachers within five years of their careers. This high turnover rate may be costing the school district a significant amount of money and impacting the quality of education provided to public school students. As the statistics come to light, theories begin to circulate on how to promote public school teaching as a long-term career choice in Duval County.

The Human Capital Issue

WTEV was one of the first to broadcast the results of the study by the Jacksonville Public Education Fund. The news station reported that researchers in the study surveyed 600 Duval County public school teachers to explore the possible reasons for the high turnover rate. The teachers interviewed told the station that salary and benefits are both factors that could either keep teachers in the profession – or drive them away.

Teachers were also asked what would make them stay in the profession rather than search for greener pastures after just a few short years. Trey Csar, president of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, said that most teachers told them compensation and benefits, increased autonomy, and a louder voice in policy decisions could be the driving force behind the long-term employment of public teachers in the county. Calling the findings a “human capital” issue, Csar also told