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The article presents a calendar of events in the United States in the year 2006. March 1, 2006 is the last date for fellowships for high school teachers of American history to apply for the James Madison Memorial Foundation awards. March 15, 2006 is the deadline for full-and part-time K-12 teachers for one week American history and Culture workshops. May 15, 2006 is deadline for the scholarships to women in an ABET-accredited engineering or computer science program.

This article presents information on the forthcoming events in the United States related to the field of education. The Laboratory Waste Management Workshop will be held on October 18, 2005, in Natick, Massachusetts. The 26th Annual Fall Conference on Mainstreaming Students With Hearing Loss will be held from October 20 to 21, 2005, in Springfield, Massachusetts. The conference has been sponsored by the Clarke School for the Deaf. The Eastern Area Convention, sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association, will be held from October 20 to 22, 2005, in Hartford, Connecticut.

The article reports that school leaders across the U.S. have made multimillion-dollar investments in technology, but the costs of maintaining and supporting computers have left many districts searching for long-term financial solutions. Having a well-developed approach to technology planning and spending has become an important goal for Ed Zaiontz, the executive director of information services for the 36,500-student Round Rock Independent School District, located just north of Austin, Texas. Zaiontz's district began heavily funding school technology in the late 1990s.

The article informs that student-run foundations across the U.S. are empowering a new generation of teenagers to play larger roles in their schools and communities. Sophia Njaa, a student representative on the district school board of Maine has strong feelings about the latest school board debate over restructuring sex education in Maine's 7,500-student Portland public school system. Njaa, with the informal support of 45 fellow students from Portland High School, has fought to preserve the program at the middle and high school levels by presenting arguments at school board meetings.

In 2000, the U.S. surgeon general issued a groundbreaking report that concluded that one out of every five children in this country has a mental-health problem, and that between 10 percent and 15 percent of children and adolescents have some symptoms of depression. A 2002 report by the Arlington, Virginia-based American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education, for instance, found that two surveys— the National Institute of Mental Health Epidemiological Catchments Area Program and the National Comorbidity Survey— which are often cited to substantiate the growing need for mental-health treatments for adults, overstate the scope and severity of the problem. INSET: Research.

Reports on the introduction of dental care in community schools in the U.S. Factors contributing to the move; Various schools in which dental care programs have been introduced; Benefits obtained by students from such programs.

This article presents information on the forthcoming events in the United States related to the field of education. In celebration of its 20th anniversary, Trumpet Book Club, which provides students in pre-kindergarten through the 6th grades with high-quality books from award-winning authors and illustrators, will give 20 preK-6 teachers $1,000 each toward professional development and their classrooms on November 15, 2005 in New York City. LaMotte Co., a provider of environmental education equipment, offers teachers a chance to win free materials for their schools or other educational programs through its Environmental Education Photo Contest. The contest will be held on November 28, 2005 in Chestertown, Maryland..

This article focuses on the safety check on in-school violence in the U.S. after the incident of the Columbine High School shootings. School district officials in the small, quiet town of Port Huron, Michigan, unearthed a similarly violent student plot targeted for one of their middle schools. Four students from Holland Woods Middle School had allegedly written out a detailed plan of attack that included stealing firearms, capturing their principal, and then killing numerous students and staff members. In the city of Port Huron, which sits on the Canadian border, local school administrators and community members decided to try to improve school safety by improving their relationships with those who are at the heart of the issue: the students.

Focuses on solutions and strategies employed by schools in various countries in dealing with bullying. Problem-solving interventions such as student or teacher mediators in Australia; Presence of police and lighting along school routes in Israel; Enforcement of training in teachers on bullying in Japan.

A few weeks before the fifth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings, Principal Frank DeAngelis settled into his office chair to reflect on how his school has changed over the past five years. Most of the teachers and administrators who staffed the school before the killings here have left. The building has undergone an internal makeover. New security cameras track the movements of people in the building. And there is a heightened awareness, among everyone, of the potential for violence.

Presents news briefs related to developments in the field of education in the U.S. as of April 2003. Agreement signed by a Minnesota superintendent; Dress code clause to be considered by the school board in the 15,000-student Citrus County district in Inverness, Florida; Arrest of the organizers of a would be local mob in Summit County, Ohio.

Focuses on developments towards dental care in the U.S., as of January 2003. Implementation of a dental care program by Lord Stirling Community Elementary School in New Jersey; Factors that prevents access to basic dental services for children from poor families; Concerns of the U.S. Department of Health related to the prevalence of dental disease.

This article presents information on the report issued by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University related to large urban districts serving poor and minority students in the U.S. According to the study, large urban districts serving poor and minority students have disproportionately fallen short of adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The study examined the effects of AYP requirements on districts in six states. It found that large urban districts have more often been tagged with the laws in need of improvement label than other districts. The report recommends changes to the law that would provide more time for improvements to take place, and it calls for including a broader definition of student outcomes in the law.

This article reports that when police in St. Petersburg, Florida, handcuffed an unruly 5-year-old kindergartner at Fairmount Park Elementary School one day this spring, school officials had been trying to calm the girl down for more than an hour. Many educators and school safety experts agree, calling the use of handcuffs on a child so young extreme because a boy or girl that age doesn't pose a significant physical threat to adults. Handcuffing elementary-age children is "uncalled for," said Alphonse Shropshire, the administrator of school social-work services for the 64,000-student New Orleans school district.

The article reports that as American schools pitch in with an array of charitable projects in response to the tsunami in South Asia, experts say educators and students should consider carefully how they can most effectively support relief groups, avoid fund-raising scams, and incorporate their efforts into service-learning programs. The district is encouraging parents, teachers, and students to make donations toward the relief effort at their local school offices until Jan 31, 2005 what it believes is an appropriate end date for the current effort.

This article reports that testing irregularities in Nevada's public schools, including incidents involving student cheating and teacher misconduct, increased by more than 50 percent in 200304 from the previous school year, according to an annual report. The report, which was mandated by the legislature in 2001, found 24 incidents of student cheating and 10 incidents that involved the improper disclosure of testing materials to students by teachers in the past school year. In the report, submitted to the Assembly's committee on education last month, officials with the state department of education contend that the increase in test irregularities is due in large part to the testing demands of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. A majority of cheating by Nevada students and teachers occurs in grades 8-12 where more students have access to electronic gadgets that they use to give then an edge. Teachers who improperly disclose testing materials or help students on tests can have their licenses suspended or revoked.

This article reports that fake firearms pose risks for school police and students. Those sophisticated look-alikes, they say, are more than just toys. A spate of recent incidents has involved students' use or possession of such imitations on campus or at school-sponsored events. Baseball players from Juan Diego High School in Draper, Utah, for instance, used imitation guns that fired plastic, air-propelled pellets to shoot at one another in the dugout during an away game last spring and on the bus ride home. The coach confiscated about a half-dozen of the guns. A 17-year-old student at the 2,200-student Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis was suspended this month pending the outcome of a school investigation involving an imitation firearm.

This article reports that roundbreaking statewide study released last week evaluating the body weights of nearly all public school students in Arkansas has found that 38 percent of them are overweight or are at risk of becoming overweight. Researchers in Arkansas analyzed "body-mass index" data for more than 345,000 students at all grade levels in 93 percent of the state's public schools during the 2003-04 school year. National experts said it was the most comprehensive statewide survey of the body-mass index of public 'school students ever conducted.

A recent ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court to uphold a lower-court decision finding the state's 2003 voucher law unconstitutional could make vouchers a campaign issue in state elections this fall and has stirred fresh speculation about the prospects for such laws nationwide. The June 28 decision by the high court effectively put the Colorado tuition-voucher effort— which would have been paid for entirely with local tax money— back on the legislative drawing board because there are no further avenues of appeal.

Colorado legislators have approved a first-in-the-nation program that will give high school graduates vouchers to pay for college tuition and make sweeping changes in how the state finances higher education. The plan won legislative approval last week and now awaits the signature of Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, a Republican and a supporter of the measure. Known as the College Opportunity Fund Act, the initiative redirects how universities receive millions of dollars in state aid. Currently, the bulk of the funding for higher education is appropriated by the legislature to Colorado's 13 state college and university systems. Under the new plan, a big chunk of that money will go directly to undergraduate students in the form of $2,400 yearly vouchers that each student could redeem at a public college or university.

Nevada voters could be drawn into an all-out battle to decide how big a priority school funding should be if two initiatives to amend the state constitution find their way to the ballot. One initiative, proposed by the Nevada State Education Association (NSEA), would require state lawmakers to increase per-pupil spending to the national average by 2012. If approved, union officials say, the measure would provide the state's rapidly expanding student population with better educational opportunities by ensuring smaller class sizes, better technology, and adequate textbooks. But opponents say the NSEA initiative is not viable because it doesn't adequately define what" national average" means and doesn't provide a mechanism for funding the proposal.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California told school officials last week that in light of the state's severe, ongoing fiscal crisis school officials need to spend their money more wisely. Schwarzenegger also addressed the rapidly increasing cost of tuition and fees at the state's higher education institutions, which many education advocates say are hindering students from going to college. The state's current budget as of 2003 is about $90 billion. Some Democrats in the legislature believe that the only way to avoid major cuts in education and other programs would be new taxes.

About 1,200 educators crowded the halls of the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington last week, for the third annual Safe and Drug-Free Schools Conference, amid concerns over a perceived recent increase in violent incidents in or near schools. The conference, which was held a month after a 15-year-old boy in Cold Spring, Minnesota, fatally shot two classmates in a school building, briefed educators on issues such as raising the profile and effectiveness of school police officers, curbing teenage substance abuse, preventing bullying, addressing student mental-health issues, and increasing the relevance of character education. The role of schools in dealing with such issues has prompted a number of school officials to seek out policies to improve school performance, communication, and follow-up with law-enforcement agencies.

Members of the Florida Retirement System were surprised recently to learn that, in all likelihood, they are about to become the owners of the nation's largest for-profit school management company. Only in the past few weeks have those participants realized that assets from their fund have been proposed to buy Edison Schools Inc., the New York City-based school manager that has been the target of criticism by teachers' unions for years. Liberty Partners Inc., a New York City investment firm with authority to manage up to $1.8 billion of the Florida system's assets, has proposed to provide the majority of the financing for a management-led effort to buy up Edison's publicly traded stock and take the company private. Although Edison maintains it is not anti-union and does not seek to eliminate jobs where it is hired to manage schools, its critics point to the company's experience in the 200,000-student Philadelphia school district, where Edison laid off classroom assistants, hallway monitors, and school secretaries when it took control of 20 schools last year.

The article focuses on the destruction caused by twister in the U.S. during 2003.Four years ago one of the mightiest tornadoes on record slammed through Midwest City, killing more than 40 people, destroying scores of homes, and damaging an elementary school so badly that it couldn't be used anymore. Helen Owens, the principal of the 50-student Jackson Middle Magnet School for the Arts and Humanities, moved classes to the local community college after her school was destroyed. The Pope County schools, also in southern Illinois, postponed state testing and closed schools for at least eight days because of storm-related school damage, which included destruction of most of the district's mobile classrooms.

The article reports that according to a survey nearly a third of Americans believe that the quality of education in public high schools has fallen over the past five years. The Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based policy and research organization, surveyed 1,200 adults this month and found that 32 percent said they believed the quality of public high school education had declined nationwide.

This article reports that teenagers overwhelmingly favor the idea of allowing a moment of silence at school for students who want to pray, while a smaller majority supports spoken prayer, a poll by the Gallup Organization Inc. has found. The poll by the Washington-based firm surveyed 549 youths ages 13 to 17 in April and May 2005. The Gallup Organization found that 84 percent of respondents said they were in favor of a moment of silence, and that 58 percent said that spoken prayer without a specific religious reference should be permitted.

This article presents information on career changes of various people related to education. Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota has joined the board of directors of Achieve, a Washington-based nonprofit organization founded by governors and business leaders that helps states with efforts to improve education. Arlene Ackerman, is now the chairwoman of the Council of the Great City Schools' board of directors. Bethany M. Little is the new director of federal advocacy and policy development for the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based education policy, research, and advocacy organization. Little, who began her job June 27, 2005, formerly served as the director of government relations for the Children's Defense Fund.

The article presents information on the perspectives of young people. Most young people in the United States think positively about their futures, but they also suffer from stress, make poor health choices, and feel unsafe in their communities, according to a poll released this month by the Alexandria, Virginia based America's Promise, the Alliance for Youth. The poll, which surveyed more than 1,200 young people ages 10 to 17, found that 95 percent of youth have established personal lifetime goals and 88 percent are confident that they will have a good-paying job as an adult.

The article reports that the legislature approved a $2.2 billion K-12 budget for the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years, an 18 percent increase over Nevada's previous two-year budget. Legislators set aside $12 million in continued funding for teacher signing bonuses, $22 million for full-day kindergarten, and a new pot of $10 million for teacher mentoring programs. They also appropriated an additional $92 million, including $78 million in new money, to support remedial education and outreach programs. Funding to give teachers who work in low-performing schools an extra one-fifth retirement credit for each year of such service more than doubled in this session, to $53 million. Kenny Guinn, a Republican who is serving his final term because of term limits, won approval of his plan to salvage the Millennium Scholarship program.

The article focuses on various issues related to the K-12 education budget. The 2005 legislative session was relatively quiet on the subject of K-12 education, despite tension over changes to the state's school accountability system between Colorado Governor Bill Owens, a Republican, and the Colorado legislature, which was controlled for the first time in 40 years by Democrats. Lawmakers approved a $4.5 billion K-12 budget in fiscal 2006, a 2.6 percent increase over fiscal year 2005. Colorado approved bills that made modifications to educator licensing, provide for kindergarten for 5-year-olds, and encourage school districts to improve their nutrition policies.

The article reports that nearly half of Americans will have a mental-health disorder in their lifetimes, and for many people, such problems begin to manifest themselves before or during high school. Researchers found that anxiety disorders and major depression are among the most common mental illnesses. Of those surveyed, 41 percent reported receiving some treatment, and about 13 percent said they had sought help from a psychiatrist. Another concern, the researchers report, is the fact that only one-third of the available treatments met minimum published guidelines established by the American Psychiatric Association.

The article reports that nearly 60 percent of the teenagers who participated in a recent survey said they know a fellow teen, who has been physically, sexually, or verbally abused while in a relationship. The online survey conducted by Teen Research Unlimited, a Northbrook, Illinois-based market-research company that specializes in studying teenage trends and behavior, polled 683 young people ages 13 to 18. It found that 12 percent of adolescent girls said they had been physically struck by their partners, 26 percent said they'd been verbally abused, and 18 percent said they had been threatened with physical violence after trying to end a relationship.

The article informs that during a special session this month, Nevada legislators unanimously approved a $22 million measure to support statewide finding for frill- day kindergarten. Republican Governor Kenny Guinn signs the bill, as he has pledged, it would be the first time Nevada has earmarked state aid for full-day kindergarten. Under the plan, beginning with the 2006-07 school year, the state department of education would distribute the money to public schools in low-income neighborhoods where at least 55 percent of students are eligible to receive free or reduced-priced lunches.

The article cites that according to a study, state and district guidelines for school improvement planning are focusing too heavily on standards and results-oriented improvements instead of promoting systemic changes to address barriers to teaching and learning. The report from the Center for Mental Health in Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles, recommends that future planning guidelines develop more programs to engage failing or at-risk students, increase community and parental involvement, reduce school absences, and bolster character education.

The article cites that according to a report by the National Center for Education Statistics, teenagers who perform poorly in school are more likely than their high-achieving peers to smoke. Only 5 percent of students who performed well academically smoked at least one cigarette a day, compared with 14 percent of low-performing students, the study found. The report analyzes data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, which followed the smoking behavior of 10,827 students over a 12-year period starting when they were 8th graders and continuing until 2000.

The article informs that when Norman Morrow became the principal of Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, California, four years ago, the art deco building was severely overcrowded, had poor security, and was one of 12 schools statewide to be audited because of low academic performance. It seems that school officials are still struggling for answers to the problems that have plagued the 3,800-student Jefferson High for years. Recently, the school attracted unwanted national attention for a series of incidents in which student brawls broke out on school grounds.

This article informs that most schools spend too much time focusing on how they can use security technologies and not enough time addressing the real problems that cause aggression and violence among students The report, released by SERAPH.net, a King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based consulting and training firm, bases its findings on more than 1,500 teacher and administrator interviews as well as research studies. It also found that most of the teachers and administrators interviewed believe that most parents lack the maturity to address their children's behavioral problems.