Despite room to improve, more plant-based school meals are available than ever in California

California’s largest school districts have made significant inroads in providing culturally diverse, plant-based school meals to students, according to a recent report from Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit that advocates for environmentally sustainable practices. Plant-Based Trends in California’s School Lunches shows that availability of […]

Strategies to improve attendance among American Indian/Native Alaskan students

An increasing number of American Indian/Native Alaskan (AI/NA) students were considered chronically absent since the pandemic, 47 percent in the 2021–22 academic year compared to 30 percent in 2017–18. WestEd’s recent brief, “Missing More Than School: Reducing Chronic Absence for American Indian and Alaska Native Students,” explores the issue and offer strategies for improvement.

Survey shows school shooter drills do not make teachers feel safe or prepared for a real incident

One in six teachers nationwide works in a district impacted by gun violence since the 2019–20 school year, according to a Rand Corp. report released Sept. 18. Additionally, teachers were more concerned about being victims of gun violence in the 2023–24 school year than in […]

New report details reasons for charter school closures, recommendations for improvement

More than a quarter of charter schools close within the first five years of operation, according to a recent report by the National Center for Charter School Accountability that examined charter school closures from 1998 to 2022. By year 20, the rate reaches 55 percent. […]

Study finds Black girls face disproportionately high discipline rates

Black girls face higher rates of discipline and more severe punishments than girls from other racial backgrounds for the same infractions, according to a report released Sept. 19 by the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO). A first-of-its-kind snapshot of the disciplinary disparities that Black girls […]

Research network provides first look at lessons learned in school discipline

Negative trends related to disproportionate disciplinary rates have crept back into schools following pandemic closures, according to first-year findings of the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools and UC Berkeley Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity’s Race, Education, and Community Healing (REACH) Network. […]