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When whooping cough first turned up in Westchester County, New York, a year ago, it wasn't necessarily noteworthy. True, the contagious bacterial infection was once a major cause of death among infants and young children in the U.S. But that was before widespread immunization, and Westchester County typically sees only five or six cases a year. Typically, studies show, such youngsters are members of racial or ethnic minorities living in poverty in urban areas with mothers who lack college degrees. But the growing number of children who receive no vaccines at all fit a different profile, says Philip J. Smith, a mathematical statistician with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Immunization Program. INSETS: Combination Vaccines;Immunization Schedule;What if a Child Misses a Shot?.

The Broad Acres clinic is one of the 1,500 school-based health centers in the United States that bring a wide range of medical, nutritional, and mental-health care to millions of students and their families. The centers, the first of which sprang up in the early 1970s in Dallas, Texas and Saint Paul, Minnesota provide an important safety net for children and adolescents— particularly the more than 10 million today who lack health insurance, according to the Washington-based Center for Health and Health Care in Schools.

Discusses social phobia disorders in school children as well as adolescents. Obstacle to early diagnosis and treatment of the disorder; Benefits from behavioral therapy treatment of social phobia to teenagers; Efforts of researchers to treat social phobic school children.

Focuses on the role of teachers toward classroom discipline in Florida. Creation of single school culture standardizing rules from one classroom to the next; Initiation of verbal judo works to manage classroom discipline; Assistance given by Junior ROTC class to improve safety and security around the school.

Despite all its efforts to crack down on the bomb scares that disrupted classes again and again last year, North Carolina's Orange County district fell victim to yet another false alarm this school year— on the very first day of classes. In all, classes at the district's Cedar Ridge High School were disrupted by bomb threats six times between the first day of school, August 10, 2004 and August 24, 2004 district spokeswoman Anne D' Annunzio said. Each time, students, teachers and staff members had to stand outside in the humid summer weather while county emergency service responders and school employees searched the building for explosives that weren't there. School safety consultant Kenneth S. Trump suggests that schools mount preemptive strikes against bomb threats by putting students on notice that everyone will pay the price for these hoaxes.

Schools across the U.S. are examining the quality of the water their students and staffs are drinking and reaching the decision that the water is contaminated. With school buildings aging faster than they can be replaced or renovated, lead-contaminated water is a problem for just about every school district in the country, claim public-health advocates. Yet few schools conduct water-quality tests as a matter of course, critics say. Last week, though, after parent leaders in the capital complained that random testing was an insufficient safeguard, the local water and sewer authority announced it would expand testing in the 63,000-student district.

Just as violent incidents inside schools in the U.S. forced officials to upgrade safety and security measures within their walls, recent events are now raising questions about what should be done to protect students as they travel to and from school. At least 26 deaths have occurred from violent incidents at or near public schools or school bus stops since August. Roughly half happened outside of school buildings at bus stops, street corners, and parking lots, places frequented by students before and after school hours, according to National School Safety and Security Services, a school-safety consulting firm in Cleveland that tracks school crime. Safety experts are becoming increasingly concerned about violence outside school buildings. School safety and law-enforcement officials alike believe that efforts to protect students outside school buildings must come from the entire community. INSET: Violence Off School Grounds.

Hunterdon Central Regional High School officials offer a simple argument in favor of testing students for illegal drug use. After three years of screening athletes and one year of including students in all other extracurricular activities, a 1999 poll of the Flemington, New Jersey, school's 2,900 students showed decreases in 20 of 28 categories of drug use. Despite such statistics, student drug-testing programs have remained scarce and controversial, with only 5 percent of public schools nationwide screening student athletes for drug use, and only 3 percent testing students involved in other extracurricular activities. The decision last year expanded the scope of legal drug testing in public schools beyond a 1995 ruling by the court that upheld the testing of student athletes.

Reports on the failure of School Superintendent Mary Ward in finding affordable health insurance for employees for the Dripping Springs school district in Texas. Increase in the cost of private health insurance; Considerations of school districts in forming an insurance cooperative; Legislation on for school employee benefits package.

Reports on the struggle of urban schools against violence in Richmond, Virginia. Statistics on the number non-fatal violent crimes committed in or near schools; Prevention programs in Houston; Developments reported by urban districts related to the reduction of school violence.

Focuses on the influence of teasing of bullying on student violent behavior in Pennsylvania. Names of students abused by classmates; Concentration on antibullying rules and zero tolerance; Importance of teacher-student relationship.

Reports on the lack of funding for classroom facilities in charter schools in the United States. Difficulty in securing private financing for independent public schools; Direct funding for leases or renovation costs in schools in California; Awarding by the United States Department of Education of grants to states on a competitive basis.

Decreases in state spending on anti-smoking programs may be contributing to a leveling-off of a decline in teenage smoking in the U.S., according to a federal analysis. The federal health agency attributes the decline to increases in school-based efforts to prevent tobacco use, a 90 percent increase in the retail price of cigarettes, and broader exposure to anti-smoking campaigns in the mass media. Anti-smoking groups say state policymakers are falling down on the job, despite having a pot of money that could be dedicated solely to tobacco-use prevention. Together, the states cut smoking-prevention funding from a high of $749.7 million in fiscal 2002 to $541.1 million in fiscal 2004, according to the Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Of the Arkansas health department's total $18.5 million budget for tobacco-use prevention in fiscal 2004, 4.5 percent was spent on school programs, said Linda M. Lehing, the director of the health department's program for smoking prevention and education.

A growing controversy involving the San Francisco, California public schools and an anti-drug organization with alleged ties to the Church of Scientology has prompted a state investigation of the program the organization offers in schools. In a June 9, 2004 letter, the San Francisco school district gave Narconon Drug Prevention and Education until June 24, 2004 to revise parts of its curriculum and provide detailed content outlines for the various drug-prevention presentations it offers city schools. The district's ultimatum was issued to Narconon the same day the San Francisco Chronicle ran stories detailing what the newspaper said were the anti-drug group's connections to Scientology and parts of the group's drug-abuse-prevention curriculum for children that allegedly preach church concepts.

This article focuses on Tim Pawlenty's, governor of Minnesota, plans to restore Minnesota to greatness. Despite the past year's budget problems, the governor gave his administration a pat on the back for enacting new educational standards and sparing per-pupil education spending from the cuts that affected other budget areas. The first item on the governor's education agenda is to revamp education finance. Pawlenty, however, appears to want to dramatically alter the state's traditional per-pupil funding formula. According to Pawlenty, task force on school finance that he appointed last year is expected to release its recommendations soon on overhauling the system.

U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal to almost double the amount of money the federal government spends on abstinence education to $273 million in fiscal 2005 has raised the stakes in the battle over what to teach children and adolescents about sex. This fiscal year, total federal aid for such programs is expected to reach $140 million. The news was a boost for those who believe students should be taught a single rule of thumb, no sex outside marriage. Proponents of "comprehensive sex education," on the other hand, accuse Mr. Bush of playing politics with the health of young people.

U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal to spend an additional $23 million on random student drug testing in schools has ignited protests from groups that say such programs are a waste of money. In his January 20, 2004 State of the Union Address, Bush cited an 11 percent drop in drug use among high school students over the past two years and credited the decrease in part to school-based drug testing. To drive home that point, the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance have mailed an informational pamphlet to more than 17,000 school officials nationwide.

U.S. President George W. Bush homed in on the needs of older students, from middle school to adulthood, in his State of the Union Address as of January 28, 2004, as he rolled out a set of proposals that would help struggling students and produce a more highly skilled workforce. Bush would create a $100 million reading-intervention program for middle and high schoolers, spend an additional $120 million on mathematics education for secondary students, and launch a $250 million community-based job training program for community and technical colleges linked with local employers seeking more skilled workers. The proposal and Bush's contention that such programs have lowered drug use among teenagers, drew swift criticism from American Civil Liberties Union.

A flu outbreak at Madison Junior High School in Ohio prompted school officials to close the school for two days, as of January 7, 2004. In Washoe County, Nevada, district officials were concerned that confusion over a tougher attendance policy was leading some parents to send their children to school even if they had flu-like symptoms. Health and school officials in the U.S. are bracing for the contagious viral disease to begin having a similar impact as students return to classes after the holiday break. INSET: Flu-Prevention Tactics for Schools.

The article reports that the elected officials are proposing measures to put the nation's children on a diet in the United States. State policymakers appear particularly eager to join the war on fat, and many are choosing vending machine sales in schools as their first target. Governor Gray Davis of California signed a bill on September 17 that places restrictions on the kinds of foods and drinks that can be sold in school vending machines. And Arkansas enacted a school nutrition law in June that prohibits access to vending machines in elementary schools and requires middle and high schools to restrict those sales to students until after lunch. Similar legislative proposals to ban or curtail soda and candy sales in schools have been introduced in at least 19 other states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has lifted its ban on irradiated ground beef in the National School Lunch Program, paving the way for districts to serve the specially treated meat in federally subsidized student meals. Responding to direction from the U.S. Congress in the 2002 farm bill that ordered the USDA not to exclude approved food-safety technologies from the federal school meal programs, the agency wrote regulations specifically allowing irradiated ground beef for subsidized meals. Irradiation has emerged as an issue for meal programs against a backdrop of rising concern over food-borne illnesses at schools. Critics of irradiation argue that its effects on human health and the nutritional value of food need more study before the technique is used on products served to the 27 million children who rely on the federal government's subsidized school meals. INSET: Irradiation Basics.

Allegations that bureaucratic lapses allowed deliveries of ammonia-tainted meals to schools across Illinois in 2002 are encouraging demands for a reorganization of the agencies and rules intended to protect the students from dangerous food in the U.S. Outbreaks of food-borne illness are increasing in U.S. schools — increasing by 10 percent a year in the 1990s. Food poisonings in schools have been due to poor hygiene in processing plants, improper storage and heating of food in school kitchens, and even the unwashed hands of students. Given the prominent role of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the distribution of food to schools and the reauthorization of the federal School Lunch Program, members of the U.S. Congress and various agencies are increasingly requesting the department to account for lapses in safety. U.S. Senator Richard J. Durbin and Representative Jan Schakowsky introduced companion bills in the U.S. Congress in 2003, called the Safe School Lunch Act, which would allow the USDA to recall contaminated food that posed a serious health risk. The bill would also require the department to notify states that they were in possession of contaminated food, and mandate that the states pass on that warning to all schools within 24 hours. INSET: Washing Hands Is Key for Food Safety.

A Kentucky law that requires children to undergo eye examinations before they start school helped 7-year-old Dakota Jenkins get the glasses he needed to correct his farsightedness before he entered kindergarten. Passed in 2000 as part of a comprehensive bill on children's health care, the Kentucky eye-exam requirement is the only law of its kind in the United States. In other states, the responsibility for spotting vision problems in children falls to pediatricians, primary-care physicians, and school nurses, who typically rely on simple vision screenings that test distance vision. To underscore the importance of eye exams, Joel N. Zaba, a Virginia Beach, Virginia, optometrist who has written about the social and emotional problems children suffer when vision problems go untreated, points to a study he led of the Kentucky program.

The article focuses on a controversy related to the orders of the Dearborn High School principal to 17-year-old student Bretton H. Barber to take off the T-shirt that labeled U.S. President George W. Bush an "International Terrorist." Barber remarked that the administrators are violating his First Amendment right to freedom of expression by refusing to let him wear the shirt to school. Explanation of superintendent John B. Artis regarding the incident as a violation of the school's dress code. "There are no freedom-of-expression rights stronger in America than the right to criticize your government-- it's called political speech, and it's what the nation's founders had in mind," said Ken Paulson, the executive director of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. In another incident in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, high school administrators ordered student journalists who were videotaping a student anti-war walkout to turn off their cameras, arguing that their coverage was encouraging the student protesters. The U.S. courts have recognized that school administrators have a special relationship with students, and also that school administrators have the responsibility to take care of the rest of the children in a school and to provide an environment appropriate for their education.

Reports on the efforts by a group of education experts selected by the Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's Academy Standards Committee to examine Minnesota's rules on the profile of learning for public school students. Requirements of profile of learning to be met by the students; Obligation of the members; Opinions of various people regarding the committee.

Reports on the issue of allowing lawyer participation and protection of students' civil rights in cases that involve discipline hearings. Court cases that suggest complete representation to an accused student even without lawyer participation; Views that are suggestive of the idea that lawyer participation is important to protect students' civil rights; Suspension of Nicholas R. Roberts for sexual harassment at his high school in North Carolina.

Reports that an evaluation results of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education curriculum (DARE) are giving its advocates hope for the future despite that it was criticized. Findings suggesting the performance of the DARE program in the first year; Corrections of misconceptions that adolescents have about the prevalence of substance abuse; Aims of DARE to curb childhood and adolescent drug use; Nationwide launch of the program.

Reports on speculations among some experts that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. may have something to do with the absence of large-scale violence in U.S schools in the succeeding months. Success that communities and schools have had in their efforts to prevent school violence; Uncertainty about whether the terrorist attacks will have as much impact in curbing school violence over the long term.

Reports on the failure of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign of the U.S. government against drug abuse among youth. Views of John P. Walters, director of the National Drug Control Policy; Suggestions for the campaign.

Discusses the different approach of European and U.S. style of school security. Difference in intensity of the problem in Europe and in the U.S.; Europeans' disapproval of U.S. response to school violence; Strategies to be undertaken by schools in order to avoid dealing these types of incidents; Comparison of a shooting at Gutenberg High School in Erfurt, Germany and the school shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.

Focuses on the punishment handed down by the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district to honor student Taylor Hess for carrying a weapon. Plans of the school to expel Hess; Criticism on the application of the Gun-Free School Act; Confusion over the degree of flexibility of the school district.

Focuses on the views of Governor Jesse Ventura on education in Minnesota. Impact of budgetary deficiency on several schools; Proposal of Ventura on the expansion of public schools system; Reduction of expenditures for K-12 education.

Reports the effect of vandalism on school equipment and buildings in the U.S. Costs of destroyed school equipment; Occurrence of vandalism in urban schools; Installation of surveillance cameras and silent alarm clocks.

Offers news briefs pertaining to education in the United States for February 13, 2002. Number of students at risk from toxic waste sites near their schools, according to a report from the Center for Health Environment Justice; Finding that the class-size reduction program in Wisconsin resulted in higher academic achievement for poor children; Positive impact of desegregated schooling in a Cambridge, Massachusetts high school; Survey of hate crimes in Massachusetts; Study by Judith A. Langer, a researcher at the State University of New York at Albany, on teaching English and literature by connecting with the experiences of students.

Focuses on approaches employed by teachers in involving sick students in class during hospitalization in the United States. Utilization of a palm-size device called Web camera; Difficulties in keeping children connected to school and friends; Presentation of case of a first grader diagnosed with leukemia; Adoption of a program 'Connect-2-Tomorrow.'