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November 10, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Study finds higher screen time among elementary students is consistently associated with lower math and reading scores.Indiana seeks federal approval to combine education funds into flexible state-controlled block grants.San Diego preschool supporting children with trauma shows academic and behavioral improvements in students and families.
Research and Practice
K-12 Dive: Students Express Hope — and Fear — Over Classroom AI UseProject Tomorrow, an education research nonprofit, surveyed sixth through twelfth graders on their opinions surrounding AI in the classroom. Conducted across the 2024-2025 school year, responses came from 65,000 students, school employees, and parents across 670 schools. Two-thirds of students shared that they believe AI will significantly improve their education and introduce them to new concepts. AI helps them access more resources to support learning in the classroom and to prepare them for college and careers. However, students are concerned that AI spreads misinformation and harms others, and that their teachers may falsely accuse them of cheating. The majority of students reported being unsure about what their school's AI policy is, and the usage of AI is typically uneven across classes in the same school. Educators believe that creating clear instructions for AI in classrooms should be K-12 leaders' top priority to support students. See also: Heightened AI Use in Special Education Brings Elevated Risks
Peabody Journal of Education: The Role of Linguistic Course Concentration in Secondary English Learners’ Attainment: Intersections of School Context and Student CharacteristicsSchools often concentrate English learners (ELs) in the same classes for logistical reasons or targeted language support. Concentration can happen at both the school and individual level; schools might be more likely to cluster students in certain classes, and a student's language proficiency may impact their class placement. In the present study, researchers examined the frequency of concentrating ELs in the New York City Public Schools system and its impact on graduation rates, college enrollment, and retention. The concentration of ELs at the school and individual level was associated with a lower likelihood of graduating from high school and enrolling and staying in college. All students had worse outcomes in more concentrated classes compared to their EL peers at the same school. The research points to schools using alternative methods for placing ELs in classes to support their academic growth and life outcomes.
Policy
The Washington Post: Trump Administration Says It Is Paying Out Half of November’s SNAP BenefitsThe Trump administration will release partial funding for food assistance benefits. After the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) lost funding on November 1 due to the government shutdown, the government will use contingency funding, which will cover half of all households’ current allotments. SNAP provides food assistance benefits to 42 million Americans and costs $9 billion a month for the federal government to run. Funding will also be allocated for food assistance programs in Puerto Rico and American Samoa. There will be no additional funding for new SNAP applicants or emergency assistance. Lawmakers have urged the president to tap into other food insecurity-related funds to support the full cost of SNAP; however, the Trump administration asserted that taking those funds would leave gaps in other initiatives. The federal government reports that the partial assistance will be delayed and could get to recipients anywhere from the next few weeks to months. See also: Gov. Healey Launches SNAP Resource Hub, Announces $8M in Food Aid Amid Federal Benefit Freeze
The New York Times: WIC Food Aid Program for Families Gets Funding StopgapThe Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) received an additional $450 million from the Trump administration to continue benefits into November. In mid-October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) used $300 million to continue funding the program through customs revenue that is typically used to fund child nutrition programs. WIC provides nutrition support, infant formula, and healthy produce for 6.7 million women and children and 41% of infants across the country. The program costs $150 million a week to run, and with the government shutdown, states have seen an increase in applications and recipients using their benefits at a faster rate. Due to disruptions to SNAP, administering services have also been impacted; clinics that deliver support have staffing shortages, delays in providing benefits, and interruptions to services. The USDA believes there are sufficient funds to support WIC services during the shutdown.
Around the Nation
Chalkbeat: NYC Pilots ‘Panic Button’ and Direct 911 Access for 51 SchoolsNew York City public schools are piloting an emergency alarm system to alert 911 in case of an active shooter. The devices, which come with a red button that can be affixed to the wall or worn as a lanyard, will initiate a 911 response in under 10 seconds. The devices will be tested at 51 public schools in 25 school buildings across the city. The pilot is the first of its kind in the United States and builds upon other safety measures already in place. The device informs schools that 911 has been alerted, and the call goes straight to dispatch rather than to a call center. The new technology will help schools receive a quicker response in emergencies. The number of school safety agents, New York Police Department employees stationed at schools, has decreased by 28% in the past six years. Across the United States, the highest number of school shootings and the number of victims in school shootings occurred in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Fox 13 Tampa Bay: Middle School Trades in Traditional Desks for Movement-Based LearningThrough an Action-Based Learning initiative, students in St. Petersburg, Florida, use furniture to promote movement-based learning. Instead of traditional desks, students in every classroom can use pedal desks, balance stations, boomerboards, and treadmills in class. The magnet school has a focus on health and wellness and partners with the YMCA to support these goals. Movement on the equipment is also built into their curriculum; for example, in math class, students might count or do exercises based on the answer to a word problem. Educators and students have reported that the alternative equipment helps students have structured movement and keeps them more engaged, especially for those who often fidget in class. Students are also performing better academically and have fewer behavioral difficulties. One student shared, " more fun for me, because usually I sit and do work, and sometimes I fall asleep when I'm bored."
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November 6, 2025Opportunities matter. There’s a powerful link between access to opportunities in childhood—like high-quality child care, excellent classroom instruction, and structured after-school activities—and educational attainment and success in early adulthood. Research from Boston College’s Center for Thriving Children underscores the power of opportunity, showing that when children from low-income backgrounds are exposed to additional opportunities, their chances of graduating from a four-year college skyrocket.
“With more opportunities, kids have better math and literacy skills, better attitudes towards school, stronger connections with teachers, and are more likely to report being hopeful about their futures. All of those things matter for how far they go in their education. But there is also something more robust that happens when children are exposed to opportunities throughout their life. They land in a culture and community of thriving that surrounds them like a river. The current of opportunity is something that’s bigger than any one of those individual impacts on a child,” said Eric Dearing, Executive Director of the Center for Thriving Children.
Dearing is a leading expert on the impact of opportunity. His research over the past two decades has emphasized the power of families, early education and care, and neighborhood supports to bolster achievement for children growing up in poverty. Now Dearing and his team have launched the Growing Opportunities Lab, a key component of the Center for Thriving Children that will reframe their work through the lens of opportunity.
“It’s a misnomer to define the differences in achievement between children as achievement gaps, because it’s not an achievement issue, it’s an opportunity issue,” Dearing said. “For most of my career I was thinking about my work from an antipoverty standpoint. But we realized how valuable it would be to rebrand the work we’ve been doing—which has been going on in various forms for more than 20 years now—to connect with the very powerful framing around opportunities. This helps us identify and inform others about the things in life that build a child’s chances of thriving.”
The Growing Opportunities Lab has a three-pronged approach to improving developmental and educational opportunities for children: research when, how, and why opportunities matter; investigate how government policies impact opportunities for children; and partner with practitioners to bring more opportunities to more children.
Researching When, How, and Why Opportunities Matter
A cornerstone of the work of the Growing Opportunities Lab is conducting descriptive studies using long-term, longitudinal data to better understand the impact of opportunity on children.
A pivotal 2024 study by Dearing and his associates analyzed 26-year longitudinal data of children from low- and higher-income families in the United States to determine the impact of opportunities on educational attainment and life success. They found that the majority of children born into low-income households experienced one or fewer opportunities for thriving at home, childcare, school, afterschool, and in the neighborhood while nearly all children born into higher-income households repeatedly gained access to these opportunities. For children from low-income backgrounds, an increase from none to four opportunities was associated with increasing the likelihood of graduating from a four-year college from about 10 percent to about 50 percent.
Now, the Growing Opportunities Lab is expanding on this work by investigating when opportunities matter most.
“How much do early childhood opportunities matter? What about middle childhood and adolescent opportunities? The short answer is that opportunities matter in all of those stages. They are all associated with going further with your education and having a higher salary. But none of them can compete with getting repeated opportunities across all three stages. Children who get opportunities at each stage, are much more likely to graduate from college than anyone else. Opportunities always matter, they matter early and they matter later,” said Dearing.
Next, the Lab is investigating why opportunities matter.
“Is it because opportunities improve your math and literacy skills? Is it because they improve your attitude toward yourself and toward school? Is it because it improves hope? Is it that it allows you to find your niche in life? We’re finding that it’s all of the above and then some,” said Dearing. “When you’re in a neighborhood, in a home, in a school, and in an afterschool context in which you are being given repeated opportunities, you are exposed to a social and cultural capital of opportunity that has an even bigger impact than any individual opportunity.”
Identifying Policies to Increase Opportunities for Children
The Growing Opportunities Lab is also working to investigate how national policies can impact opportunities for children. The team is currently partnering with the Center for Educational Equity at the University of Oslo to study the impact of Norway’s progressive universal childcare and family leave policies.
“We want to find out how variations in national policies are impacting opportunities," Dearing said.
One study is looking at the impact of affordable, high-quality, universal childcare on educational outcomes for children. The longitudinal study of hundreds of thousands of children has, so far, found that children who attend Norway’s universal childcare see improved academic performance through eighth grade. A second study is looking at ways in which Norway’s early childcare policy affects women’s wellbeing as they return to work from family leave and how that impacts overall family wellbeing.
Partnering with Communities to Grow Opportunity
The Growing Opportunities Lab team isn’t just researching the impact of opportunity, they’re working to create more opportunities for more children. Through a number of research-practice partnerships, the Lab is working to grow opportunities for early math learning.
“For children who have less access to opportunities because of poverty, even one additional opportunity can make a really big difference. So our work with different partners to grow opportunities in health clinics and libraries and other places where families are spending their time can impact children’s life outcomes,” said Sara Schnitzer, Programs Director for the Growing Opportunities Lab.
The team has partnered with Brookside Community Health Center in Jamaica Plain and MathTalk to make playful early math learning opportunities a part of pediatric visits through physical installations outside the health center and in its waiting and exam rooms. They also worked with Math Talk and a number of community organizations to create and study the impact of physical and virtual math trails in Boston’s Nubian Square. And next year, they’ll be installing math trails in Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo.
The team is also partnering with Revere Public Library to expand early math opportunities for local families.
“Libraries are doing an amazing job already in growing opportunities for children. But how can we grow opportunities within libraries for families, especially for math? Families think about libraries as being a place for reading opportunities, but we are working with librarians to think about what we can co-design and implement to bring more math opportunities to the community that utilizes that library,” said Schnitzer.
A Critical Piece of the Center for Thriving Children
The Growing Opportunities Lab is a pivotal part of the work of the Center for Thriving Children, which also houses City Connects. Dearing and his colleagues see the two working symbiotically to grow opportunities, with the scholarly work of the Lab directly informing the work of City Connects. Dearing added that City Connects itself offers a prime example of the power of opportunities.
“The opportunities that are being provided through City Connects—when children get tutoring, when children get to be in a club or activity they really enjoy, when they get support for social and emotional needs—they are building these connections that, when combined, are greater than the sum of their parts,” said Dearing.
Eric DearingExecutive Director Center for Thriving ChildrenGrowing Opportunities Lab “When opportunities surround a child and their family, it builds to something more than just skill growth or just improved social-emotional wellbeing. It creates a social and cultural community of hope.”
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November 3, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Study finds higher screen time among elementary students is consistently associated with lower math and reading scores.Indiana seeks federal approval to combine education funds into flexible state-controlled block grants.San Diego preschool supporting children with trauma shows academic and behavioral improvements in students and families.
Research and Practice
The 74: Survey: Nearly Half of Families with Young Kids Struggling to Meet Basic NeedsNew data from the Stanford Center on Early Childhood found that almost half (49%) of American families with children under six years old report being unable to access basic needs. Due to financial hardships, families cannot afford food, housing, and child care. The percentage of families experiencing hardships is 13 points higher than the last research released in June and is among the highest recorded since the research began in 2020. Since the pandemic, at least a quarter of families share that they cannot afford necessities. Caregivers with financial hardships are likely to experience emotional distress, such as increased rates of anxiety and depression. These stresses often affect children; three out of four parents shared that their kids also have poor mental health symptoms. Families report having to skip meals to afford food for their children and are concerned about the rising costs of diapers, infant formula, and utilities.
American Enterprise Institute: Why Were You Absent? Students’ Reasons for Missing School Before and After the PandemicResearchers compared why students were chronically absent—defined as missing 10% or more of the school year—before and after the pandemic. Data was analyzed from Rhode Island students in grades three through 12 between the 2017-2024 school years. The main reasons that students missed school pre- and post-pandemic were due to illness, lack of sleep, disengagement, or safety concerns. Absences due to illness rose in 2024 compared to 2020, with rates increasing between 2.4-3.6 percentage points depending on grade level. The likelihood of missing school due to lack of sleep increased post-pandemic, particularly among elementary and middle school students and students in lower-performing schools. Third-grade students were the most likely to report missing school due to feelings of disengagement. Safety-related concerns, such as those due to acts of bullying or rumors, have increased slightly since the pandemic.
Chalkbeat: Virtual Tutoring is Here to Stay. New Research Points to Ways to Make it Better. Two research studies from Stanford University's National Student Support Accelerator investigated the benefits and drawbacks of virtual tutoring. After the pandemic, virtual tutoring continues to be used by school districts because it is cheaper, easier to schedule, and providers can support students outside of their immediate geographic area. Researchers measured tutoring sessions to assess the literacy skills of young children. The first study measured the time spent on topics during virtual tutoring sessions and found that 19% of the tutoring time was lost to disruptions, including technological issues and distracted students. The second study focused on the relationship between the tutor and tutee. While tutors spent more time talking in the session when working with two students, only 21% of their speech was individualized instruction, compared to 65% of the time during one-on-one sessions. These findings indicate that while virtual tutoring can be effective, schools should provide a dedicated space for students to meet without disruptions and have an adult present to help with any issues.
Policy
The Hechinger Report: ‘The Clock is Ticking’: Shutdown Imperils Food, Child Care for Many On November 1, families and children lost access to education and nutrition programs due to the government shutdown. Head Start, which serves 58,400 children across the country, did not receive its annual funding at the start of November, though some states are not impacted if they are on a different financing cycle. Families did not receive money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on the first of the month. The $300 million in emergency funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) was also depleted. Many lawmakers have advocated for alternative funding sources for food assistance programs and will pay to keep WIC going in their states. Head Start may use local money to fund its programs on a temporary basis. These changes will impact low-income families who rely on government assistance for food, child care, and essential items. *This is a developing story.*
Chalkbeat: NYC is Piloting Free Child Care for Kids Ages 2 and Under. These Neighborhoods Get Priority. New York City will open 240 free child care seats for children ages two and under, regardless of family income level. The funding is part of a $10 million pilot initiative to create a system of care for children and families in the city. Seats are subsidized for up to 10 hours a day throughout the year, which differs from other programs that only provide funding during the school year. The program will prioritize high-needs neighborhoods, which are designated based on poverty rates, the number of eligible children not already enrolled in programs, and families who fall slightly above the income level to qualify for city-subsidized programs. Previously, free child care seats were given to families who made below 85% of the state median income. The city had difficulty filling the spots and, thus, had over 4,100 unfilled seats, likely due to the intensive application process. Applications for the 2026-2027 school year will open in January.
Around the Nation
K-12 Dive: Educators Push for Virtual Schooling in Response to ICE RaidsSchool officials are pushing to increase virtual schooling options for students concerned about the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers who are stationed in schools. In January, the Trump administration changed a policy that prohibited ICE agents from entering school grounds without a judicial warrant. This school year, several people were arrested on or near school grounds in Chicago. Families and educators have created initiatives to ensure students feel safe attending school, through school patrols, walking school buses, and neighborhood watches. However, students are concerned about walking to and from school, and educators hope to increase virtual schooling opportunities for these students. To create a remote learning policy, the Illinois governor would need to declare a state of emergency. New York State and Los Angeles, California, created similar opportunities for students to attend school virtually. A report released in July found that uncertainty surrounding immigration policies causes chronic anxiety in students, and federal immigration policy is linked to absenteeism, classroom disengagement, and heightened emotional distress.
AP News: Mobile College and Career Planning Services Offered to Students in Mississippi DeltaSchools in the Mississippi Delta are receiving free college and career planning services through a 17-foot truck equipped with private offices. The Get2College Mobile Center serves rural and underserved areas that traditionally face barriers to college admissions. The new space is the fourth in the state and its first mobile center. The mobile center is available for students outside of regular school hours, which is especially helpful for parents who cannot make meetings during the school day. The truck is parked at church events, apartment complexes, and football games. Because the majority of high schools in the area have one or two school counselors to serve all students, counselors from the mobile center work as a team to provide additional support and act as invested adults in students’ progress. A mobile center’s counselor shared, "It's an all-hands-on-deck effort... Those students need way more than that one person pulling the load." See also: More First-Generation Students in Texas are Applying for College
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October 31, 2025Ensuring that every child in a City Connects school is seen and known means going deeper than their academic performance.
It means discovering their needs as well as their passions. One student may be hungry at home, and love to play and invent with LEGOs. Another student may be worried that dad is out of work and mom is sick, but finds joy and comfort in singing on stage with friends.
City Connects is intentionally designed to understand and support the whole child. It provides tailored support that addresses needs while also helping each child to flourish and grow.
The reason behind City Connects' commitment to supporting each student's strengths, interests, and needs is rooted in developmental science.
“Access to diverse opportunities, including after-school programs, the arts, and sports, are vital to helping children build self-confidence, mastery, and connections to peers and adults. Approaches to student support that address needs and cultivate student strengths show robust positive outcomes,” City Connects executive director Mary Walsh explained.
Centering Student Voices
Finding these strengths and interests is at the heart of a City Connects Coordinators’ work. They are learning about students as they talk with teachers, coaches, nurses, counselors, and others in their school as part of a Whole Class Review process. They talk with the child’s family.
Importantly, they also ask students what they are curious about or enjoy doing. That’s why Coordinators have a student interest survey available to them. The survey helps students to tell the Coordinator what they enjoy, by selecting activities or interests from a list, or writing in their own choices.
The survey is also adapted to meet students on their level. There is flexibility for students to provide feedback via the survey online, on paper, verbally with a teacher or Coordinator, and in both English and Spanish. Surveys for younger students have pictures of activities that they can circle.
Gathering students’ responses and combining them with the information gathered from a Whole Class Review helps build a more well-rounded understanding of each student – the foundation for creating a tailored, comprehensive, integrated student support plan for each child.
“Including student interests in the Whole Class Review process ensures that student voice is part of every support plan,” said Cynthia Scheller, Director of Programs and Practice. “It helps Coordinators to better understand who students are—their passions and strengths and what motivates them to thrive”.
Expanded Possibilities
Understanding students' interests is also useful to teachers and school administrators. Teachers who know more about their students can create lessons and projects that tap into a variety of students’ interests. Teachers and administrators can set up after-school activities, such as a LEGO club, film club, or basketball league, or form new community partnerships.
In Springfield, Ohio, Coordinators discovered students' interest in gardening, so the school partnered with Springfield Neighborhood Promise to help students work outside in their community, raking, planting seeds and flowers, and painting murals.
“My favorite activity has been the garden,” City Connects Coordinator Shannon Baker said in this blog post. “We have a community garden through Springfield Neighborhood Promise, and they have volunteers who work on the garden and plant food. Then the community is invited to come and reap the harvest of the garden.”
Zoom out on student interests across a whole community, and powerful change can be enacted.
That’s the goal of the ConnectIndy dashboard. This dashboard aggregates information about student interests, service gaps, and community partnerships.
“The goal of ConnectIndy is to show what matters most to our students, schools, and communities,” said Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett in this blog post. “From cooking classes and robotics clubs to reading and math support, our young people have a wide range of interests and needs that can be met through local partnerships with nonprofits and businesses. With the dashboard, these partnerships will be more effective by targeting already-identified needs and interests.”
Student voices matter. City Connects helps to amplify them and make students’ strengths, needs, and interests something that teachers, school leaders, community agencies, and even the Mayor’s office, can respond to. They are powerful and important in shaping the opportunities that children need to thrive.
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October 27, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Study finds higher screen time among elementary students is consistently associated with lower math and reading scores.Indiana seeks federal approval to combine education funds into flexible state-controlled block grants.San Diego preschool supporting children with trauma shows academic and behavioral improvements in students and families.
Research and Practice
K-12 Dive: Teacher Turnover Contributes to Suspensions and Referrals, Study FindsA new study from New York University found that higher rates of teacher turnover are associated with increased student suspension and disciplinary measures. The study used ten years of data from New York City Public Schools’ sixth through twelfth grades. If a teacher left mid-year, students' likelihood of receiving a suspension or disciplinary referral increased by 20-30% for each year of experience the departing teacher had. Students were also less likely to be disciplined if their teachers stayed through the year; when the rate of teachers leaving midyear dropped by 4.5%, suspensions and discipline referrals dropped by 2.4% and 1.9%, respectively. Students from underrepresented backgrounds were most likely to be impacted by their teachers leaving mid-year. The research highlights the importance of teacher-student relationships and suggests that if school officials and policymakers increase strategies to retain teachers, it could have a direct impact on student well-being and achievement in the classroom.
JAMA Network Open: Screen Time and Standardized Academic Achievement Tests in Elementary SchoolYoung children's technology habits typically inform their behavior patterns later in life. However, most studies focus on the relationship between older children's technology usage and academic achievement. Using Canadian youth data, the study assessed whether screen, media, and video game time were associated with academic tests in third or sixth grade. Results indicate that with each additional hour of total screen time, children had 9-10% lower odds of a higher academic level in grade three reading, grade three math, and grade six math. High television and digital media usage was linked with lower achievement levels in third-grade reading and math and sixth-grade math. Video game usage was associated with lower reading achievement in third grade. There was no relationship between writing achievement and media usage. The data, collected from 2008 to 2023, remained stable in these associations, indicating consistent levels of screen time and academic achievement within the past 15 years. See also: Cellphone Bans Give Modest Boost to Test Scores, New Study Finds
Journal of Affective Disorders: Associations Between Multiple Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Mental Health in ChildrenThe diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD), which includes intellectual disabilities and learning disorders, has increased in recent years due to improved tools, increased awareness, and changes in environmental and social factors. The present study assesses the relationship between children with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders and mental health symptoms. Researchers used data from the U.S. National Survey of Children's Health to assess children ages 3-17. Of the sample, 10% of children had multiple NDDs. With each NDD, children had increased rates of depression and anxiety symptoms; compared to children without multiple NDDs, they were 4.7 to 5.3 times more likely to have depression and 5.8 to 12.9 times more likely to have anxiety. Children with five or more NDDs were most likely to have severe depression and anxiety. These findings suggest that children with multiple NDDs are a vulnerable subgroup and further interventions are needed to support their mental health and well-being.
Policy
Chalkbeat: Indiana Submits Plan for Education Funding Flexibility to Trump OfficialsIndiana officials submitted a plan to use federal education funds with fewer restrictions. If approved, the plan would merge funding for several federal Title programs, which are designated for specific initiatives and groups of students, into a block grant that can then be spent on other education-related needs. The proposal's goal is to ensure that state officials can focus on spending time directly helping students rather than dealing with administrative tasks associated with receiving federal funding. Iowa and Oklahoma also submitted similar proposals, which are aligned with the Trump administration's goal to “return education to the states.” Critics of the plan are concerned that the proposal will take away funds from certain groups of students and transfer money designated for low-performing schools to higher-performing schools. If the proposal is approved, it will go into effect during the 2026-2027 school year.
Chalkbeat: Federal SNAP-Ed Program Cuts Mean Less Nutrition Education for Colorado Students and FamiliesDue to budget cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed), school districts will no longer receive funding for nutrition education programs. The federal government spent $536 million annually on SNAP-Ed. Research indicates that every $1 spent on SNAP-Ed saves up to $10.64 on healthcare costs due to the program's focus on nutrition and health education. Colorado received over $6 million each year to fund programs, such as teaching families how to eat healthy on a small budget and why it is important for their health. In one district serving mostly low-income students, children were also able to try foods they had never had before and were given recipes they could make at home. The district collaborated on programming with a local nonprofit and the Colorado School of Public Health. Colorado officials have included a proposition in November's election for residents to vote on funding for school meal and food programs, including SNAP-Ed. See also: Upgrades are Coming to MO Head Start Nutrition Programs
Around the Nation
CalMatters: This Preschool Serves Kids with Traumatic Backgrounds. Here's What Researchers Learned From ThemA preschool in San Diego, California, serves children who have experienced domestic violence and other traumatic events. Mi Escuelita provides students with academic, social-emotional, and health support in the classroom. Each classroom has a therapist, students participate in individual and group therapy sessions, and parents learn best strategies for supporting their children. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego found that children in the program had increased academic abilities and relationships at home compared to students in other preschool programs. After graduating from the program, many children met math, reading, and writing standards and demonstrated high standardized test scores. Families also reported that they saw fewer conflicts from their children and felt closer to them.
K-12 Dive: A Side of Life Skills With Your Coffee? North Carolina School Serves BothA public school in Charlotte, North Carolina, recently opened a cafe run by students with cognitive disabilities. The program is run out of Metro School, which serves 250 students ages 3 to 22. Previously, students ran a pop-up shop throughout the building on a cart. In September, the school opened up a full cafe, where 125 students work each year. Students also designed and built the cafe space. The program aims for students to develop real-world job skills during the school day, which will support them post-graduation upon entering the workforce. Students also develop increased self-confidence and independence. The school has a long history of providing work opportunities for its students, ranging from working in a greenhouse, at a local Goodwill, and in community improvement programs. The programs are created to ensure that school officials are "identifying strengths and making sure tie them to workplaces and work skills that meet their needs."
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October 23, 2025The start of the school year is a busy and dynamic time. For City Connects Coordinators, it’s an exciting and essential period for building relationships—with students, families, and school staff—that form the foundation for success throughout the year.
“While the beginning of the year is really busy it’s also such a pivotal time to set a positive tone. Establishing the culture of your school, the mission, the values, and bringing that to life and embodying it,” said Springfield Program Manager Stephanie Sanabria. “Coordinators play a big role in that.”
What Is a Whole Class Review?
At the heart of the City Connects practice is the Whole Class Review—a process that helps Coordinators get to know every student holistically. Through this review, Coordinators leverage the collective knowledge of teachers, staff, students, and families to understand each individual student’s strengths, needs, and interests.
To conduct the review, Coordinators meet with teachers and school staff to discuss every student across multiple domains: academics, social-emotional well-being, family, and health. At the secondary level, a fifth domain—college and career readiness—is also included. Importantly, student interests are gathered and integrated into these conversations, ensuring that each student’s voice helps shape the supports and services they receive.
By completing Whole Class Reviews at the start of the year, Coordinators can create individualized support plans that connect students to the right services and opportunities from the outset. This process launches a cycle of follow-up and follow-through that continues throughout the school year—ensuring that students receive what they need to learn, grow, and thrive.
“Tailoring services is a critical component of the City Connects Coordinator’s practice,” said Cynthia Scheller, Director of Programs and Practice. “It ensures that every student receives the right support at the right time—and that their strengths continue to be built upon.”
"It ensures that every student receives the right support at the right time – and that their strengths continue to be built upon."
Making Sure Every Student Is Seen
An added benefit of the Whole Class Review process is that it gives teachers time and space to reflect holistically on their students. By engaging in structured discussions about strengths, needs, and interests, teachers deepen their understanding of each student and gain insights that help them support success in the classroom.
“The biggest benefit of City Connects is that it helps us support the whole child—not just academically, but socially, emotionally, and even with things going on at home,” said a teacher from a City Connects school in Indiana as part of our anonymous end-of-the-year survey. “It connects students to the right services based on their individual needs, so we’re not missing anything important. It really takes some of the pressure off us as teachers because we know there’s a system in place to help students with challenges that might otherwise get in the way of learning.”
Improving the entire school
Through the Whole Class Review process, Coordinators set the foundation to ensure that students have the supports they need to be ready to learn. By engaging teachers, families, and other caring adults who support students, relationships are strengthened.
As students get connected to both in-school and community-based opportunities – whether a social skills group or an after-school baseball or theater program, students also build stronger relationships with one another. Together, these relationships and the supports each student receives, help to transform the school and its capacity to care for students.
“I believe student support has significantly improved at our school as a result of City Connects, largely due to the incredible work of our Coordinator,” a principal from Indiana said. “She has been a true asset to our school community. Her dedication, compassion, and relentless commitment to supporting students and staff alike have made a visible difference. She goes above and beyond because she genuinely cares about every child and every adult in the building.”
Another principal from Ohio summed up the effect of City Connects and the Whole Class Review process more simply.
“Each year that we have continues to build a culture of full student support, for the holistic approach to fulfilling every student's needs.”
To learn more about the City Connects practice, visit www.CityConnects.org.
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October 20, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Meta-analysis finds positive childhood experiences linked to lower adult depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptomsCalifornia becomes first state to ban ultra-processed foods in schools under new “Real Foods, Healthy Kids Act.”Detroit high school boosts attendance by giving all students free bicycles to improve transportation access.
Research and Practice
K-12 Dive: Nearly 3 in 4 Families Lack After-School Program AccessAccording to a new report from The Afterschool Alliance, 23 million families lack access to after-school programming. The organization surveyed over 30,000 parents with school-aged children, and it is the first study to measure after-school initiatives since the COVID-19 pandemic. Low and middle-income families are the most likely to miss out on activities, often due to the high cost of programs and transportation issues. High-income families spend nine times more on out-of-school activities compared to low-income families. Additionally, federal funding has not grown to meet the rising demand for out-of-school activities. Research indicates that after-school programs impact children's social-emotional outcomes and school engagement, while also reducing the likelihood of committing a crime or substance use. After-school activities also help parents to increase their productivity, keep their jobs, and reduce stress. Funding for public after-school programs is largely bipartisan, and parents surveyed reported a 95% satisfaction rate for their children's after-school programs.
Development and Psychopathology: Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental Health Symptoms: A Meta-Analysis The current study examines the relationship between positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and adult mental health symptoms through a meta-analysis of 41 studies. Results indicate that higher levels of PCEs are linked to lower anxiety, depression, PTSD, and overall mental health symptoms. The relationship between PCEs and adult mental health symptoms is the strongest in early adulthood and gradually weakens as participants get older. The number of adverse childhood experiences also acts as a moderator for the relationship between PCEs and mental health symptoms, specifically for depression, PTSD, and anxiety symptoms. The study is the first to understand the impact of PCEs on adult mental health symptoms and variables that moderate the relationship. The research indicates the importance of experiences in childhood and points to creating opportunities for PCEs and reducing exposure to ACEs in order to improve mental health across the lifespan.
Frontiers in Psychology: The Impact of Touchscreen Digital Exposure on Children’s Social Development and Communication: A Systematic Review Recent research has found that children under eight years old spend an average of 2.5 hours per day on screens, and most of their technology usage is influenced by their parents and teachers. The systematic review analyzed 81 studies to understand children's device usage and its impact on social and communication skills. Of the studies examined, children mostly used tablets, smartphones, and interactive whiteboards and tabletops. Touchscreen devices improved children's collaborative learning, peer interaction, social play, and creative expression. Screens increased interactions between friends and family, multilingual language usage, and confidence online. However, excessive screen time impacted children's ability to engage face-to-face with friends and reduced the time spent by parents engaging with their children. The study suggests several research-based initiatives for families and schools to implement, including training teachers on educational apps, promoting screen-free family time, and creating more after-school programs for children to spend time outside.
Policy
AP News: WIC Food Program Receives $300M to Keep Running During Government ShutdownThe Trump administration provided $300 million in funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The program provides funding for 6 million low-income parents to purchase nutritious ingredients and infant formula for their families. Due to the government shutdown, WIC did not receive its annual appropriation. Instead, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is using $300 million of unspent tariff revenue from the last year. The law allows tariff revenue to fund many USDA programs, and allows for allocated funds to be transferred to keep WIC funded. Alaska and Washington State have reopened their programs; Washington was unable to pay for WIC with state funds due to a budget shortfall, and Alaska only had funds to operate through October 11. Without the stopgap funding, states would have had to fund SNAP and WIC for children and families and later ask for reimbursement from the federal government once it reopened.
The New York Times: California Will Ban Certain Ultraprocessed Foods in SchoolsThe state of California has banned ultra-processed foods in schools through "The Real Foods, Healthy Kids Act." Ultra-processed foods make up 62% of the calories children in the United States consume, and they are linked to health risks such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The law has created the first science-based legal definition of ultra-processed foods in the United States: foods containing one or more of certain additives and high amounts of saturated fats, sodium, added sugar, or artificial sweeteners. This law will impact several products sold by food companies to schools, including certain cereals, yogurts, and muffins. Now that a definition has been created for ultra-processed foods in school cafeterias, it is likely that other states will adopt similar policies. Scientists at the California Department of Public Health have until June 2028 to determine which foods should be eliminated, and these foods will be banned by July 2035.
Around the Nation
Chalkbeat: Students at This Detroit School Got Free Bikes. Here’s How They Say It Helped AttendanceAt Davis Aerospace Technical High School in Detroit, Michigan, the principal gave every student a bike as an attempt to reduce chronic absenteeism in her school. Forty-two percent of students missed more than 10% of classes in the 2024-2025 school year, a 14% decrease from the previous school year. Many students shared that the bicycles helped them save time walking to and from school and gave them a sense of independence to travel around the city and get exercise. The principal noticed increases in attendance during nice weather in the fall and spring. The school has employed other methods to increase attendance, including rewarding students who missed less than one day of school per month, and offering free clothing and hygiene products to ensure students are ready to learn. Other high schools in the district may soon follow suit and collect bikes for their students to increase attendance.
The Washington Post: School Offers Hikes Instead of Detention. Teachers Are Seeing Results.A high school counselor in Bath, Maine, takes students on nearby hikes for detention instead of spending time in a classroom. During the three-mile hikes, students immerse themselves in nature, chat with each other, and listen to a poem that aims to encourage them to start anew. About 20 hikes were run last year, with some parents opting out of the alternative detention option because they felt it was not a harsh enough punishment. Many students were at first reluctant to leave the classroom and opted for a more traditional detention, but over time, they enjoyed spending time outside. Students shared that the hikes gave them a different perspective on their actions. In the 2024-2025 school year, fewer students have gotten detention in school. However, now even students who do not have detention have discovered a love for hiking and join the trips.
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October 17, 2025City Connects Program Manager, Stephanie Sanabria, hosted an after school Zumba Class to celebrate Hispanic Culture through dance and movement. MA State Representative, Orlando Ramos, visited the Dorman School to read the incredible story of Roberto Clemente to their second grade class. The students took part in hosting their own Hispanic Heritage Parade in partnership with Bomba de Aquí and The High School of Technology "Pride of Springfield" Band.
On a warm Sunday in September, thousands filled Main Street in Springfield, MA for the city’s 35th annual Puerto Rican Day Parade. More than 100 groups participated in the parade, including many of Springfield’s schools. Marching proudly alongside the Freedman Elementary School community were City Connects Program Manager Stephanie Sanabria and City Connects Coordinator Dionisio Perez.
“The parade puts the culture on display in such a vibrant way, with music, dance, community organizations, athletic teams, and schools. It's a great way for people to come together in such a positive way. It was really special." said Sanabria.
The parade kicked off a slew of Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations in Springfield, where nearly 70 percent of students are Hispanic or Latino. The City Connects team—which supports 40 schools in Springfield—has spent the last month shining a light on the many Spanish-speaking cultures that make the Springfield community so vibrant.
“Our school community here in Springfield represents all these different cultures that make up what it means to be Hispanic. We have families from many Spanish-speaking cultures including Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador, and El Salvador,” Sanabria said. “Celebrating the richness of all our different Spanish-speaking countries here is so important.”
Sanabria herself has been visiting Springfield schools to teach Zumba classes, each with a special focus on a different Spanish-speaking culture. In addition to enjoying music and movement, students learn about the featured culture, discussing its history, geography, flag, and native animals.
As part of the month’s celebrations, several schools brought in local dance and music group Bomba de Aquí to perform and teach Afro-Puerto Rican traditions.
“Music and dance are so important to so many cultures. You can really feel the energy and the culture come alive. Bringing awareness and appreciation to the beautiful diversity of cultures in Springfield enriches the lives of all our students and our community as a whole,” said Sanabria.
Danielle Mitchell, City Connects Coordinator at the Dorman School in Springfield, says her school highlighted Hispanic culture of the past and present in many ways. In addition to Zumba lessons and a visit from Bomba de Aqui, the Dorman hosted a Hispanic Heritage Parade and had a visit from State Representative Orlando Ramos who read the story of Roberto Clemente to second grade students.
Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations are an important example of the City Connects model of Integrated Student Support, an approach that centers and taps into the strengths of each community.
“It’s about celebrating the strengths of our community, of our students, of our families,” said Sanabria. “But it isn’t confined to a month. This month highlights the important work we need to do to celebrate and support families throughout the year.”
Sanabria adds that uplifting the many cultures of Springfield’s students and families is more important now than ever.
“In the times we’re living in, there is a fear that lives with many of our immigrant families,” Sanabria said.
"For us to acknowledge the vibrancy of the cultures that exist here is so important. These might be some scary times but we want our students and families to know that we see you, we acknowledge you, and we want to celebrate you."
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October 14, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Most states now restrict cellphones in schools, and educators report improved focus and engagement.Federal government shutdown pauses education grants and investigations but spares most daily school operations.
California filmmaking program improves student academics, collaboration, and engagement.
Research and Practice
Science of Learning: Sleep Duration and Subject-Specific Academic Performance Among Adolescents in ChinaPrevious literature has established that students sleep less than experts believe is necessary, which can impact their cognitive function, well-being, and physical health. The study measured the relationship between sleep duration and academic performance, utilizing data from 54,102 Chinese eighth-grade students. The majority of students slept for an average of seven hours on school nights. Girls, students living in urban areas, and students attending public schools had higher sleep duration compared to their peers. Across all subjects, sleep duration was significantly associated with increased academic achievement. However, too much sleep (over eight hours) and too little sleep (fewer than seven hours) were associated with lower academic scores. Excelling in certain subjects— like math, science, and Chinese—is linked with increased sleep. Several factors may contribute to decreased sleep and, therefore, lower academic performance, including excessive homework, high levels of screen time, and sleep-related health disorders.
K-12 Dive: Most School Leaders Report Cellphone Restrictions, Widely Seen as BeneficialTwenty-six states now require local K-12 school boards to ban or limit cellphones in the classroom, and the majority of policies have been enacted in the past year. Researchers have explored several trends and impacts of the phone policies on students and teachers. Students, teachers, and principals generally view cellphone restrictions as positive. However, students are happier when bans are more lenient, while teachers prefer a stricter approach. During bell-to-bell bans, students have increased focus, especially when their phones are not in their backpacks or pockets. High-poverty schools were more likely to have strict bans in the 2024-2025 school year compared to low- or medium-poverty neighborhoods. Younger grades were more likely to have stricter bans compared to high school students. While some parents continue to be resistant to the ban, typically because of safety concerns, adult approval of cellphone restrictions has increased. Compared to 68% last year, now almost three-quarters of adults support cell phone policies for middle and high school students.
Policy
K-12 Dive: How the Federal Government Shutdown Affects K-12On October 1st, the federal government shutdown began, impacting federal funding and operations for K-12 schools. Most day-to-day operations will not be affected as most funding is through state or local budgets, and schools can still use money from federal grants that were awarded over the summer. Approximately 330 of 2,447 employees at the U.S. Department of Education will remain on the job during the shutdown. The Office of Civil Rights investigations, grant-making opportunities, and technical assistance are paused during this time. Longer shutdowns would impact Head Start programming and school meal reimbursements. Impact Aid, which reimburses school districts for lost revenue and additional spending due to being on nontaxable Federal property, is the only federal K-12 education program that receives funding after the start of the new school year, and its payment will be delayed. Education advocates and politicians across the political spectrum are concerned about the shutdown and its impact on children and families.
Chalkbeat: Applying to College? Application Fees Waived for NY Students at Many Schools Across the StateNew York State has continued to waive application fees for students applying to college this month. The initiative is in its third year and aims to help reduce financial barriers to college and boost applications, which decreased after the pandemic. 130 universities are participating in the program, including New York state and city schools, and private colleges. The program has seen noticeable effects on applications and enrollment. For example, the City University of New York's (CUNY) enrollment decreased by 10% between fall 2021 and 2022, compared to 2% across the state. After starting the program, CUNY received 60,000 applications from freshmen, which was a 13% increase from the year prior, and students enrolled at higher rates. The increase in applications may be due to schools sending students personalized outreach that detailed the process for waived fees. By omitting fees, students may view college as more financially attainable and may be eager to apply during the fee-waived months.
Around the Nation
The Hechinger Report: Fires, Floods and Other Disasters Are Multiplying. Schools Are Adding Training for Workers to Combat ThemHigh schools and community colleges are offering disaster preparedness opportunities due to a rise in natural disasters and student interest. Classes such as fire science and forest management prepare students for fires and floods that may happen close to home and future careers as first responders. In Santa Cruz, high school students take a hands-on fire science course, which teaches them about the responsibilities of firefighters and the path to becoming one. This class and other initiatives work to reduce the shortage of firefighters in California. Another class, "resiliency careers in forestry," trains students as foresters, fire program managers, and log truck drivers, and now enrolls 700 students across five community colleges. When it started three years ago, it had only 37 students. The increase in interest in natural disaster-related classes may be because students are drawn towards fields that “visibly help” during natural disasters, such as paramedics, nursing, fire and rescue, and police officers.
EdSurge: In the Land of Hollywood, Filmmaking Is a Natural Teaching ToolStudents in the Youth Cinema Project learn how to write, shoot, and edit a short film, then attend a premiere showcasing their work. 2,000 students from fifth through twelfth grade participate in the program, which is affiliated with the Latino Film Institute. The program follows an academic approach to filmmaking; students have to revise scripts like they would English papers. The program is a group project, with student directors and assistant directors leading. The Youth Cinema Project reports measurable impacts on students’ academics and social-emotional development. The director shared that students who participate in the program score between 10-30% higher on test scores because they participate more in class. Students' social skills and well-being increase due to the collaborative nature of the project and close-knit relationships developed on set. The program also benefits English Language Learners, as well as students in a dual-immersion school, who participate in the project by creating a film in Spanish.
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October 9, 2025How do you create a space where a child feels like they belong? How do inclusive environments foster opportunities for a child to thrive?
These questions were top of mind at the first-ever International Leadership for Inclusion in the Early Years (LINC) Conference held at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland. Center for Thriving Children executive director Eric Dearing gave the keynote address at the conference and pointed to how inclusion and belonging are intertwined with creating opportunities to thrive.
“The International LINC Conference was a powerful opportunity to renew, strengthen, and widen our efforts to ensure all children get repeated opportunities to thrive, at home, in early education and care, and in their communities,” Dearing said. “While challenges to children thriving appear around nearly every corner of society, the conference demonstrated how we can help children, families, and educators meet these challenges through inclusion and by reinforcing the many strengths that all children possess.”
Dearing and colleagues recently published a study on how impactful opportunities early in life can be for children.
“The number of opportunities children have almost entirely explains why those born into low income families graduate at lower rates and have lower levels of income in their mid 20s,” Dearing said. “The strongest predictor of educational attainment that we have in our models is opportunities. It’s not how much money your parents have. It’s not how highly educated your parents are.
“Even more eye-opening is that each opportunity mattered more for the poorest kids. So going from six to seven opportunities for a high income child does not matter nearly as much as going from one to two opportunities for a low income child.”
Dearing and his research found a receptive audience in Ireland. The country supports many whole-child approaches to education, building on a child’s strengths while providing supports for out-of-school needs. At the school, community, and government levels, people in Ireland are working to deliver integrated student support to their students.
That’s why the Irish Department of Education and Youth established the National Centre for City Connects Ireland last year. It’s why schools in the North-East Inner City area of Dublin embraced City Connects over the past four years, bringing a whole child approach to student support into their schools and communities.
It’s also why Mary Immaculate College, which is a leading University-level College of Education in Ireland, thought it important that their students should hear from Dearing about the impact of access to opportunities early in life.
“It was these students’ third week at university,” Dearing said. “They filled an auditorium with 250 first-year teaching students, most of whom will be pursuing careers as primary school teachers. They all had their notebooks out, listening intently. And they were there because the the Dean of Education, Early Childhood and Teacher Education, Prof. Emer Ring wanted them to hear about this work. They want to build this thinking into their foundations, saying ‘this is how we do education’ from their students’ first weeks in university.”
That attitude was echoed by the President of Mary Immaculate College, Prof. Dermot Nestor in his welcome address to the LINC conference.
“This was something far greater than an academic gathering; it was a call to action,” Nestor said. “In a context where 225,000 Irish children currently live below the poverty line, the wide-ranging work shows that inclusive practice is fundamental to quality early childhood education. At MIC, we believe the early years are not just ‘preparation for life’ they are life, happening right now.”
The National Centre for City Connects Ireland is based out of Mary Immaculate College. It serves as the hub to bring the City Connects practice to schools nationwide, with fidelity and rigor in how the system is implemented.
This fall, City Connects is extending into post-primary schools in Dublin.
City Connects executive director Mary Walsh is encouraged by this growth. “Many people in the government, in schools, and in the community have been convinced this strategy works for Irish students,” Walsh said. “We’ve demonstrated that City Connects is useful and provided additional support the schools and students don’t currently have. It’s providing a way to intentionally narrow opportunity gaps so all children can thrive.”
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October 6, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
College enrollment and graduation rates remain far lower for students from high-poverty high schools.
Texas expands career and technical education programs to create more non-college job pathways.
Phone bans spur a surge in student book borrowing and reading in Kentucky schools.
Research and Practice
JAMA Network Open: School Provision of Universal Free Meals and Blood Pressure Outcomes Among YouthsA new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association measured the blood pressure of children participating in Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which provides universal free meals to schools. High blood pressure in childhood can lead to medical problems in adulthood, like cardiovascular and kidney diseases. The study used data from 1,052 schools, with the majority adopting CEP policies between the 2013-2014 and 2018-2019 school years. Participation in CEP meals was associated with an 11% decrease in students with high blood pressure over a five-year span. The relationship was only found in elementary school students and was the strongest for children who participated in the program the longest. These findings build upon previous literature that suggests that implementing CPE and high nutrition standards are associated with decreased obesity rates in children. The research indicates that free school meal programs can be a tool for improving child health.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications: Preschool Education and Non-Cognitive Skills: Evidence from Rural China’s Junior High Students Researchers examined the impact of preschool education on non-cognitive abilities. Previous literature on the relationship is mixed; some studies show that preschool leads to increased educational outcomes and behaviors, while others only find improvement in cognitive skills. The study utilized data from the China Education Panel Survey, which tracks middle school students across their lives. Non-cognitive abilities were defined across five dimensions: conscientiousness, positive emotion, agreeableness, openness, and extraversion. Researchers controlled for several family characteristics, including parental income and education level. Results indicate that children who attended preschool had increased development in non-cognitive dimensions compared to their peers who did not attend preschool. This relationship was especially true for children’s positive emotions and extraversion tendencies. The study highlights the importance of universal preschool programs that can positively impact child development and yield societal and economic benefits.
Policy
K-12 Dive: Education Department Brings Back Mental Health GrantsThe U.S. Department of Education will resume accepting grant applications for programs to support student mental health that were canceled last spring. The $270 million in funding will work to increase the number of school psychologists during a nationwide shortage, through the School-Based Mental Health Services and Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration grants. While the recommended ratio of school psychologists is one for every 500 students, the ratio for the 2023-2024 school year was one to 1,065 students. The money will also bring back school-based services that were eliminated or paused during the start of the school year in accordance with federal priorities. Many educators are pleased with the return of the grants, but they are also concerned that only school psychologists will receive funding through the grant programs. School social workers and counselors are not outlined in the grant, but typically work with school psychologists as part of a student support team.
Ideastream Public Media: Trump Administration Pulls College Mentorship Grants From More Than 200 Schools Over DEIThe Trump administration cancelled grants to fund college mentoring programs for high school students. The funding is through Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), which was founded in 1998. The $170 million served 200 schools across the country to help students plan for college and careers after high school. The U.S. Department of Education shared that the majority of grants will be continuing, but stated that those suspended use "overt race preferences or perpetuate divisive concepts and stereotypes." The cut funds will be reinvested into other programs. Four of the nine canceled grants were in Ohio. Akron Public Schools appealed the decision, which went into effect on October 1, and impacted mentors for 1,500 students and seven staff. Many of the students who participated in the program were the first in their families to go to college.
StateScoop: FCC Votes to End E-Rate Funding for WiFi Hotspots, School Bus ConnectivityThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to end discounts for schools and libraries’ internet connections through the federal E-Rate program. The program was founded in 1996 to provide affordable phone and internet access to schools and libraries, which aimed to lessen the digital divide faced by low-income students. In 2024, the initiative provided $48 million to fund Wi-Fi on buses and for 200,000 hotspot connections for students off school campuses. The FCC decided to end the program because it increased unsupervised screen time for children and duplicated other governmental programs. Advocates of the E-Rate initiative shared that the termination of the program will not only affect students long-term but also others who rely on internet access to complete daily tasks; they stated that the disparity "will likely leave those who we care about less prepared to compete and win the jobs of the future."
Around the Nation
Chalkbeat: Mental Health First Aid: NY Schools Train Teens to Help Each OtherStudents in high schools across New York are learning how to provide mental health first aid to their peers. The initiative is run through the National Council for Mental Wellbeing's Teen Mental Health First Aid program, which teaches students how to spot mental health warning signs and take initial steps, such as involving a trusted adult. Governor Hochul announced $20 million to fund the program, which would train 2,500 adults and teens each year. Early results show that Teen Mental Health First Aid training can improve teens' confidence in helping others, reduce stigma towards mental illness, and prepare them to act appropriately during a mental health crisis. The new funding will go towards expanding the program to more rural areas in the state that typically have fewer mental health professionals. While mental health support from peers can help fill needed gaps, mental health advocates believe that teens should not feel the burden of providing services, and their support should not be in place of professionals.
WWLP: Massachusetts to Start AI Curriculum Pilot in 30 DistrictsThirty districts in Massachusetts will soon have a new AI program for eighth-grade and high school students. The Massachusetts STEM Advisory Council and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative are partnering with Project Lead the Way (PLTW), which provides curriculum on STEM subjects. The course on Principles of Artificial Intelligence will teach students foundational concepts of AI through project-based learning, with a focus on how AI can support fields like science and engineering. The pilot program will teach 45 educators and 1,600 students across the state through a semester-long course. State officials created the initiative to ensure that all students, regardless of background, have access to learning opportunities. The president of PLTW shared, "This partnership marks the next step in preparing students for the age of AI and will serve as a national model to help students understand and create safely, ethically, and with purpose, while giving teachers the professional development and materials to implement with confidence.” See also: At This Rural Microschool, Students Will Study With AI and Run an Airbnb
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October 2, 2025Jillian O’Neil’s passion for education started at an early age. During her summers as a high schooler, she worked as a counselor at a summer day camp hosted by Saint Columbkille Partnership School in the Boston area.
The camp was attended by grade schoolers with the goal of providing children with enrichment across disciplines, including various sports and non-academic activities. “Every week had an educational theme,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil’s experiences at the camp prepared her to think about student success as something that stems not only from academics, but also from a curated mix of hands-on activities, socialization, recreation, and other factors.
Her own academic journey led her on a path to become a school counselor, elementary school assistant principal, high school principal, and now, City Connects’s Senior Manager of Coaching & School Partnerships.
“I’m a big believer in the idea that we can’t grow if we aren’t learning, and this role allows me to learn, think, and collaborate with so many talented people,” she said.
“I’m a big believer in the idea that we can’t grow if we aren’t learning, and this role allows me to learn, think, and collaborate with so many talented people,” she said.
In her role as Senior Manager of Coaching and School Partnerships, O’Neil works with Massachusetts schools and their Program Managers.
“The mission of City Connects truly resonates with me,” O’Neil said. “I saw how much of a need there was for our mission when I was working in the field of education. When I was looking for another opportunity, I was lucky to have this opportunity to work directly with City Connects, and to serve students on a wider scale.”
As the new school year opened this fall, she is working with colleagues on the City Connects implementation team to prepare their professional development sessions, identifying coaching trends in the MyConnects database, and talking with the Program Managers to learn more about the kinds of support they want in order to better implement City Connects.
Prior to her current position, O’Neil experienced City Connects from many different vantage points. She began as a graduate student at Boston College studying under Mary Walsh, founder and executive director of City Connects. O’Neil also introduced City Connects to a middle school where she was a principal.
“Jill has been able to establish strong relationships with the Program Managers she supports, as well as with school and district personnel, helping Program Managers navigate challenges, problem-solve effectively, and strengthen Coordinators' implementation of the City Connects practice in their schools,” said Director of Student Support Programs & Practice Cynthia Scheller.
What resonated with her about City Connects and integrated student support was its whole-child approach.
When she worked at campuses without a system of student support like City Connects, she saw the impacts of out-of-school factors on students’ behavior as well as on academics.
“It was kind of like putting out fires instead of building a system for real, holistic student support,” O’Neil said. She learned that grades alone are limited in providing educators with an understanding of how best to support students’ learning, and how important it is to have insight into their lives out of school.
When O’Neil became a principal, she brought this broader perspective to her staff to help address common student dilemmas such as dozing off in class, dilemmas that in many cases have more to do with off-campus stress and circumstances than academic motivation. It also led to her bringing City Connects to her school.
With City Connects in place, O’Neil worked with faculty and staff to learn about their students beyond their academic performance, to find the root cause of what was presenting a challenge.
The value and importance of that work brought O’Neil back to City Connects, where she is building on her experience as a school counselor, assistant principal, and principal to help schools implement the practice.
O’Neil values working with the City Connects team. “There are people here from a wide variety of fields,” she said. “When you have so many experts come together to make a difference for students, it’s really powerful.”
To highlight the diverse backgrounds and talents of the people who work at City Connects, we have been releasing videos that showcase our staff members on our YouTube channel.Here are a few of our exceptional staff members whom we’ve posted videos of recently. It really does take a village to provide integrated student support in schools, and we’re glad to have these staff members join us in this mission.
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September 29, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
College enrollment and graduation rates remain far lower for students from high-poverty high schools.
Texas expands career and technical education programs to create more non-college job pathways.
Phone bans spur a surge in student book borrowing and reading in Kentucky schools.
Research and Practice
K-12 Dive: The K12-to-College Pipeline is Rockier for High-Poverty StudentsData from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center's High School Benchmarks report measures college enrollment and performance for students who attended high or low-poverty high schools. The study used data from 2 million students with high school graduation years between 2018 and 2024. Schools were labeled as high-poverty when 75% or more of the student population is eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, compared to low-poverty schools where 25% or less of students are eligible. Results indicated that 74.2% of students who attended low-poverty schools enrolled in college immediately after graduation, compared to 51.4% of students who attended high-poverty schools. Students from low-poverty high schools were over twice as likely to graduate from college within six years compared to their peers. Additionally, students who attended low-poverty schools were almost three times as likely to complete a degree in a STEM-related field compared to students from high-poverty high schools.
Development and Psychopathology: Screen Time, Problematic Media Use, and Clinical Concerns in the ABCD Study: Differences by Sex and Race/EthnicityResearchers from the University of Minnesota examined the relationship between screen time, media use behaviors, and mental health concerns. The study used data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study), which captures information from over 10,000 children. Parents filled out surveys on their children's overall screen media activity, as well as problematic media use. This measure included prompts like "My child's screen media use causes problems for the family." Screen time for educational usage was omitted. Results indicate that while both forms of screen media use are related to youth mental health concerns, problematic media use is more strongly related to suicidal ideations and non-suicidal self-injury. These findings are consistent across child sex and the majority of races and ethnicities surveyed. Results suggest that in order to reduce the negative impact of media on children’s well-being, a larger focus should be on targeting specific technology-related behaviors rather than limiting all electronic usage.
Policy
The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Cancels Annual Hunger SurveyThe Trump administration is ending the annual Household Food Security reports, which analyze data to inform government officials on food-assistance programs. The 2024 report will still be released in October, but the 2025 survey has been discontinued. The survey asks participants to respond to statements, including "We worried whether our food would run out before we got money to buy more." Around 40,000 households are surveyed each year. The results of the survey highlight causes and consequences of food insecurity and how it relates to disability status and health issues. In 2023, the report estimated that 13.8 million children lived in households that struggled to get food. The administration cancelled the survey due to it being "overly politicized" and an unnecessary initiative of the USDA. The termination of the program coincides with other changes to food insecurity programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is used by many families with children, and an increase in food bank usage by families.
KSST Radio: Governor Abbott Signs Laws To Expand Texas’ Career Training ProgramsGovernor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 20 and House Bill 120 to expand career and technical education (CTE) programs. In the past two years, the state has invested over $7 billion into career training initiatives for students. House Bill 20 created the Applied Sciences Pathway Program, which provides high school juniors and seniors with the opportunity to earn diplomas while also completing certificates. House Bill 120 expanded CTE programs to support military training opportunities and provide college counseling in a more data-informed way. These state initiatives aim to provide students with alternative pathways to completing a traditional four-year college degree. The programs also align with plans to adapt to the quickly changing workforce to ensure that Texas is "making career and technical education bigger and better than ever before." The bills build upon other initiatives prioritized by Texas officials, including the Rural Pathway Excellence Partnership, which increases access to pathways post-graduation for rural students.
Around the Nation
The 74: Credential Chaos: Career Certificates Boom in High School, But Not All Have ValueMore students have graduated from high school with career credentials, but many have trouble finding jobs. The majority of credentials that students are earning are not appealing to employers. Schools typically offer workplace readiness classes, rather than technical certificates that may be more useful for certain industries. Some states have taken steps to gather information to better curate class offerings. In a recent report, 34 states asked employers what credentials they recommend school districts offer. Eight states began tracking student employment and the impact of credentials on their salaries after graduation. In Ohio, each credential a student can earn is given a “value,” which goes towards their diploma. They also designate credentials of “extra value,” which leads to schools gaining extra funding through the Innovative Workforce Incentive Program. However, even when students are given recommendations by the state on which courses to take, they are more likely to complete certificates that are less valuable to future employers.
AP News: Hurricane Helene Hit North Carolina a Year Ago. Some Students Never Returned to SchoolAfter Hurricane Helene's destructive floods and winds impacted North Carolina in September 2024, over 2,500 students became homeless. The hurricane damaged over 73,000 homes and left residents without electricity and water for weeks or months. The harm to infrastructure, in addition to school closures from snow, led to some students missing over two months of school. Some families enrolled their children in other schools, and others never returned to class. Many districts received federal funding under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Act to support homeless students. However, some schools did not receive funding and have to wait until the next application cycle to request funds. The storm's impact led to increased difficulties for low-income families in the area who struggle with housing and food insecurity. Educators have developed resources to help students process trauma and feel supported in school, as it is anticipated that natural disasters will continue to impact students and school communities.
Newsweek: Students Turn Back to Books as More School Districts Implement Phone BansDue to recent phone bans, students in Kentucky are checking out books at the library at high rates. Jefferson County Public Schools is the largest school district in the state. At one school, the schedule allows teachers to bring their students to the library at least twice a week. The librarian uses book displays and popular titles to encourage students to read. Students borrowed 67% more books in August and 39% more books in September so far this year, compared to the same months in 2024. In another high school, students have borrowed 1,200 books during the first 17 days of school, which is close to half of all borrowed books from the entire last school year. In addition to reading more, teachers have witnessed other positive benefits from the phone ban in classrooms, such as increased student engagement.
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September 25, 2025City Connects Coordinators Focus on Building Trust and Relationships as School Gets Underway
“Trust occurs over small moments,” City Connects Program Manager Stephanie Sanabria said as she reflected on the start of the school year in her city of Springfield, Massachusetts.
Sanabria’s team of City Connects Coordinators—who support 40 schools in Springfield—is focused on creating opportunities for those small moments of connection amid the often hectic first few weeks of school.
“Relationship building takes time,” said Sanabria. “It’s really important that we establish those connections early on so if a student is facing any challenges we already have the rapport that we’ve built with the child or family and they know we are there for support.”
Coordinators are greeting families at arrival and dismissal, getting to know students and teachers through classroom check-ins at breakfast and visits to the lunchroom and playground, and connecting with families at back-to-school nights. One Springfield Coordinator volunteered to help with uniform checks each day, a seemingly small act that could have a big impact.
“It gives her a chance to get to know the kids and let the teachers know she is available for support in the school. It can also be a chance for early detection. Maybe a student needs a uniform, or is new to our school district, or the family needs more information about the uniform policy. There are so many different things that come up that could lead to continuous support and outreach,” said Sanabria.
Beyond being there for the small moments, Springfield’s Coordinators are starting off the year by leading or taking part in school-wide support teams, coordinating support for students with critical needs, and planning events to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.
“While the beginning of the year is really busy it’s also such a pivotal time to set a positive tone. Establishing the culture of your school, the mission, the values, and bringing that to life and embodying it,” said Sanabria. “Coordinators play a big role in that.”
Peyton Schick, City Connects Program Manager in Minnesota, says the start of the year is a critical time for connecting and reconnecting with students, families, teachers, and community partners. Her team of Coordinators support 10 Catholic schools across the Twin Cities and are eager to understand the strengths, needs, and interests of their students.
“It's more than just thinking about things students might need in the classroom to be set up for success; it's the things they need both at school and outside of school that we are really focusing on at this time of year to help create that sense of belonging for our students,” said Schick.
At the Saint Helena Catholic School in Minneapolis, City Connects Coordinator Nicole Derke hits the ground running at the start of the school year by reaching out to parents of students with accommodation plans and scheduling one-on-one meetings with new students within the first few days of school. She also visits each classroom, starting out with a lesson to help students get to know her and understand her role.
“I do ‘get to know you’ projects with the students that go beyond favorite things—they also touch on how students learn best, how I can recognize when they’re having a tough day, what I can do to help, and what subjects they feel confident or less confident in,” said Derke. “I prioritize being present around the school—joining students at lunch and recess, and being at the car line to greet families. These informal moments are just as important for building trust and relationships as the structured ones.”
Coordinators in Minnesota are also focused on reconnecting with community partners. Several schools have already hosted Helen Keller International, a community partner that provides students with free eye exams and glasses. They’ve also connected with Ready Set Smile, an organization that provides free dental cleanings for students, and Every Meal, which provides weekend meals for families.
Fall has only just begun, but Coordinators in Minneapolis are already engaging community partners to prepare for the winter.
“Here in Minnesota at the beginning of the year we are already thinking about winter. We meet with our new-to-country students to make sure they have warm clothing and are prepared for how cold it gets in the winter months. We partner with the Knights of Columbus for winter clothing donations for our families,” said Schick.
For City Connects schools across the nation and in Ireland, the first month of school also means student interest surveys. These surveys are part of the City Connects practice and help inform individual student plans and whole class reviews.
“This is the time of year we are really focused on student interest surveys. We want to make sure we capture students’ voices and find out what they’re interested in, what they’re excited about, and what they want to explore. Then we are able to share that information with their teacher because sometimes they don’t already know,” said Cynthia Scheller, Director of Student Support Programs and Practice at Boston College’s Center for Thriving Children.
Like all the City Connects practices at the start of the school year, interest surveys can be used to make connections and build that sense of belonging for students.
“Coordinators have utilized the student interest surveys many different ways. It can inform our clubs, lunch activities, or influence attendance. But really it’s about letting students' voices be heard so that they can be included,” said Sanabria.
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September 22, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
California’s community schools program reduced absenteeism and suspensions while boosting test scores, especially for high-need students.
New Mexico becomes first state to offer universal free child care, saving families about $12,000 a year.
Bronx high schoolers launched a gun violence–awareness streetwear line now sold in the NBA store.
Research and Practice
K-12 Dive: States Struggle with Increase in Special Education ComplaintsThe Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education (CADRE) released new data on special education state complaints from the 2023-24 school year. The number of written state complaints, which involve a state-led investigation on a special-education-related concern, increased by 22% from the previous school year. The majority of state complaints were resolved within 60 days, though this rate has dropped significantly over the past ten years. Most complaints came from California, Massachusetts, and Texas. Families who worked with mediators had higher agreement rates with the school districts, which may be due to mediators helping families reduce costs for cases and working with school officials more collaboratively. Experts believe that the national rise in state complaints is due to delays from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which reviews disability discrimination concerns, as well as a decrease in certified special educators to support students.
Learning Policy Institute: Community Schools Impact on Student Outcomes: Evidence From CaliforniaThe Learning Policy Institute released an analysis of the California Community Schools Partnership Program’s (CCSPP) impact on high-need students. CCSPP was founded in 2021 and is the largest community schools initiative in the United States. The study examines the first cohort of 458 schools that received up to $500,000 annually for five years to sustain existing community school initiatives. CCSPP schools experienced a 30% decrease in chronic absenteeism rates, a 15% reduction in suspension rates, and an increase in English language arts and math scores. Black students, English language learners, and low-income students had the largest improvements on these metrics compared to other students. Schools that had improved rates of chronic absenteeism saw greater gains; for each standard deviation increase in attendance rates, the impact on academic achievement doubled.
Policy
K-12 Dive: What Does the MAHA Strategy Mean for School Meals?The recently released "Make Our Children Healthy Again" report promotes initiatives for healthy school meals across the country. The document outlines the importance of limiting artificial dyes and promoting whole foods in school meals. Government officials are working to create a uniform definition for ultra-processed foods to ensure all schools meet the same nutrition standards for purchasing ingredients. The report also emphasizes that the farm-to-school grant should be improved to support relationships between schools and local producers. The spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association shared that recommendations for improving school meals must be "operationally feasible," as schools need to make changes without increases in budget or operational support. The Big Beautiful Bill may also impact schools' ability to alter school meals, as cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could decrease school funding for meals.
The 74: New Mexico Governor Announces Free Universal Child Care New Mexico is the first U.S. state to offer universal free child care. The Early Childhood Education and Care Department will expand existing rules that offer free child care for families whose income is up to 400% of the federal poverty level. Families will now save an estimated $12,000 annually on child care costs. The state will also allow local governments and schools to apply for low-interest loans to expand or create child care facilities, which could add up to 13,000 new child care slots. Child care providers who meet certain requirements are also eligible to receive additional funding. These policy developments are a result of the state's six years of work on early childhood supports, as well as an increased budget to support these efforts. The law will go into effect on November 1.
Around the Nation
The 74: Child Care Scholarships Help Families Experiencing Sudden Household DisruptionsA child care center in Toledo, Ohio, has a scholarship program to help families experiencing unexpected financial difficulties. Research has indicated that parents may quit their jobs or drop out of school to care for their children instead of enrolling in child care due to high costs. This trend is prominent in Ohio, where child care programs have closed or are consistently under-enrolled. Toledo Day Nursery is the oldest child care center in Ohio and the fourth oldest in the United States. It has a long relationship with working-class families. The scholarship program was launched last summer and differs from other initiatives because it is funded by a family foundation, and families do not need to complete a long application process. The director of the child care center started the program because of her personal experience with encountering financial stress while parenting young children. Many families in the program are not eligible for government-subsidized daycare programs and rely on Toledo Day Nursery for support.
The New York Times: They Created a Streetwear Line From Scratch. In High School.Students at Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball School participated in an after-school entrepreneurship and finance course, where students learned about savings accounts, credit cards, and how to run their own businesses. The school in the Bronx was created to inspire students through basketball, with related courses on sports analytics, journalism, and nutrition. The business program was developed in response to a question posed to the ninth-grade class: “What more do I want out of school?” One group of students created streetwear apparel that would appeal to young customers in their community. The clothing is orange to symbolize gun violence prevention efforts, and is called “EVNTLLY” as a “beacon of hope for young people like us.” The students successfully pitched their products to be included in the official NBA store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in a section for emerging designers.
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September 18, 2025The Program Manager for Ohio, Megan Bettelon, knows what it takes to support City Connects Coordinators, because she served as one herself for seven years. She understands deeply how important supporting the whole child can be, and the importance of data in discovering trends that can help schools to better care for and educate the students in their community.These beliefs and experiences give Bettelon a rock-solid foundation to support her team of Coordinators, especially during the beginning of the school year, as they start to implement the City Connects practice.
“I believe wholeheartedly that each student, no matter where they are from or their socioeconomic status, deserves the same access to quality education and opportunities,” Bettelon said. “As a Program Manager, I can assist Coordinators in this job by coaching them, being a sounding board for their ideas, and supporting them through the difficult aspects of their work.”
Bettelon supports the Coordinators of Catholic Central Elementary and High School in Springfield and Our Lady of the Rosary School in Dayton. She previously served as a Coordinator at Our Lady of the Rosary from 2015 to 2022.
As a Program Manager, Bettelon provides leadership, coaching, and supervision to Coordinators. She also builds partnerships with school leaders such as principals and helps them to utilize data to drive decision-making.
For example, if many students could use support making new friends, the principal can work with the Coordinator, teachers, and staff to come up with a range of approaches to help students forge new connections. If many families are facing food insecurity, Bettelon can help Coordinators to identify community partners and resources.
“I found that often the most impact I had with families was not in the tangible work I did, but in just being a supportive presence and friendly face in a school system that they otherwise may have found overwhelming,” Bettelon said.
“I found that often the most impact I had with families was not in the tangible work I did, but in just being a supportive presence and friendly face in a school system that they otherwise may have found overwhelming,” Bettelon said.
“Now as a Program Manager, I know a lot of the resources that are available to families that I can share with the Coordinators. I can also speak to the importance of the school-family partnership and the real impact it can make in the lives of the students.”
“I love the data-driven aspect of this work, so I will start either one of our first coaching sessions or group professional development sessions with goal-setting,” Bettelon said. “Using the data from the previous year, we can work together to identify any new trends for the students—and look to what services we can bring in to meet those emergent needs or interests—or see if there was any practice element they wanted to improve.”
At its core, Bettelon’s work centers on supporting her Coordinators. That involves “coaching,” a word she finds especially significant as a Program Manager.
“ requires the ability to look at an issue from an objective lens and see ways forward that the person who is directly experiencing the issue may not be able to perceive.
“My 2025/26 school year will have been a success if all Coordinators end it feeling that they have directly impacted the well-being of their students through the program and are ending the year with a sense of accomplishment and hope,” Bettelon said. [...]
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September 15, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
NAEP shows record-low 12th grade math and reading scores, with fewer students college-ready.
Texas’ new parental consent law leaves school nurses uncertain about what care they can provide.
New York City opens the first HBCU preparatory high school, offering dual enrollment and guaranteed admission to Delaware State.
Research and Practice
Chalkbeat: NAEP Scores for Class of 2024 Show Major Declines, with Fewer Students College Ready The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released The Nation's Report Card, highlighting 12th graders' academic performance. Students scored historically low on math and reading assessments. The gap between high- and low-performing students in math was the highest gap identified in the report’s history, and only the highest performers in the 90th percentile received the same scores as those in 2019. These results are similar to a January report on fourth- and eighth-grade performance, as well as eighth-grade science results released this month. Students who completed the testing missed more days of school in the month before the assessment compared to 2019 test takers. This may be one reason for the decline in performance, as research has shown that higher attendance in school is linked to increased NAEP scores. Students also reported feeling less confident in their math and reading abilities compared to 2019 respondents. Educators are concerned that students will not be as prepared for college-level courses compared to students in past years.
K-12 Dive: California Discipline Data Show Widespread Disparities Despite ReformsA new report from the National Center for Youth Law found that despite California's efforts to reduce discipline disparities, some students are still suspended and expelled at high rates. The report uses data from the 2017-19 to 2023-24 school years and includes a metric that calculates the number of school days lost by offense category. Most student suspensions were due to minor misconduct, such as profanity. Researchers found that Black foster youth had the highest discipline rate, which led to 15 times the rate of lost instruction compared to white students. Students with disabilities lost 23.4 days of instruction, which is almost three times higher than students without disabilities. Several schools have made improvements in disproportionate discipline, which may be due to the districts connecting students with individual services rather than focusing on punitive measures. The report suggests that state officials should focus on providing services and increasing support for students who are more susceptible to being suspended and expelled.
JAMA Network Open: COVID-19 Pandemic Exposure and Toddler Behavioral Health in the ECHO ProgramA new study measures the relationship between toddlers experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic and parent-reported internalizing (e.g., anxiety and depression) and externalizing problems (e.g., conduct and behavioral issues). Previous research exploring the impact of the pandemic on children showed mixed results. These researchers hypothesized that toddlers assessed during the pandemic would have higher internalizing and externalizing problems due to pandemic-related stressors. Utilizing toddler-aged data from the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes program, researchers found that toddlers born before or during the pandemic and assessed during the pandemic had fewer internalizing and externalizing problems compared to toddlers born and assessed before the pandemic. These results suggest that the pandemic did not have a strong impact on toddlers’ behavioral difficulties, and future research can explore what promoted resilience in toddlers during this time.
Policy
The Hechinger Report: State Preschool Program Helps Kids Catch Up — But Many Are Missing OutIn the 1980s, the landmark court case Abbott v. Burke (1985) aimed to equalize state funding for public schools in New Jersey. Districts in areas with higher property values were spending more than schools in low-income districts, which violated the state's constitutional obligation to provide a strong education for all children. The ruling led to important legislation, including a ruling in 1998 that required free preschool for children in New Jersey's highest-poverty urban districts. Recent research has shown that in the program's 25th year, over 10,000 eligible children are still not enrolled in the program. Educators believe that this may be because families are unaware of the programs or do not want to send their children to school at an early age. Research has shown that these preschools have closed educational gaps for Black, Latino, and low-income children and have led to higher scores in academic tests and decreased grade retention.
The Texas Tribune: Texas' New Parental Consent Law Leaves School Nurses Confused About Which Services They Can Provide to Students In June, Governor Greg Abbott signed the Texas Parents Bill of Rights, which outlines a diversity, equity, and inclusion ban in K-12 schools. One aspect of Senate Bill 12 requires school health providers to ask for parental consent so their children can receive medical services at school. School nurses expressed concerns that the bill had vague language, which led to some refusing to provide Band-Aids or ice packs without parental consent in fear of legal repercussions. New guidance was shared after the September 1 release, stating that school nurses can provide "general caretaking" for students, such as feeling a child's forehead or applying a Band-Aid. School districts have responded in various ways to the new bill, with some sending families a list of medical services a student may need and asking if families want to opt out. Other schools have told parents that if they want to opt out of one service, the school will call them for each issue, regardless of severity, unless it is life-threatening. See also:New Texas Education Agency Guidance for Healthcare and Consent in Schools Amid "Fear ... and Vague Language" Concerns
Around the Nation
K-12 Dive: Immigration Enforcement Causing Trauma and School Avoidance, Educators and Advocates SayEducators across the country have reported that families are fearful of returning to school due to concerns over Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. School districts have taken different approaches to prepare for the school year and lessen concerns from parents and children. For example, in Los Angeles, school staff called 14,000 families and went to 2,000 homes to provide resources to families on students' legal rights. The school district increased on-site counselors and social workers and is working to distribute money from the district’s foundation to families for legal aid. Teachers' unions have collaborated with school boards to adopt safe zone policies, which provide information for the community and procedures for law enforcement. A child clinical psychologist shared the importance of creating safe spaces in schools to support all children: "a sense that no one and nowhere is safe is fundamentally damaging.”
ABC News: 'It's Important Because it Doesn't Exist': First-of-its-Kind HBCU Prep School Opening in New York CityNew York City officials have opened the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) preparatory high school in Queens. 1,000 students competed for only 100 spots, with students’ applications including responses on how they will use their degree to help others in their community. The school is designed to prepare them to be active members of society, with the new principal sharing, "We want them to know that from the minute they walk into the doors, how much we love and care for them." Starting in 11th grade, students can begin dual enrollment and obtain college credits. Upon graduation, students will receive up to 64 college credits for an associate's degree and are guaranteed admission to Delaware State University. HBCUs enroll 10% of all Black undergraduates, with high numbers of students becoming doctors, lawyers, and judges. Students in New York may have less exposure to HBCUs compared to students in other states, as the northernmost HBCUs on the East Coast are in Pennsylvania.
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September 11, 2025Thanks to Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Sara Stetson and a $345,000 grant from Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Needham, City Connects has been implemented in Dedham’s early childhood center and in its four elementary schools.
Stetson started working in Dedham in 2022-23, and she was working with Dedham’s student services team to achieve the goal of increasing students’ sense of belonging in ways that could be measured by mental health screening tools like the Metro-West Adolescent Health Survey.
“We reviewed district data and developed a strategic plan with specific action steps,” Stetson says. And along the way, Stetson discovered City Connects.
“Our action steps included many elements that are embodied by the City Connects model. For example, we had an action step for acuity mapping in each school, which is similar to the City Connects’ protocol for interviewing teachers to conduct whole class reviews.”
The City Connects model also meets other needs, helping to achieve Dedham’s goals of being proactive, improving family engagement, increasing cultural competence, and creating a global system that would provide a structure for the district’s existing Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS).
“We had a lot of interventions but there was no organization structure,” Stetson says. “This raised concerns about efficiency and the management of resources, but more importantly it raised concerns about equity.”
“City Connects encapsulated everything we were trying to do in one model.”
Dedham is providing City Connects with more insight about how the model can be used in an urban ring community.
Dedham has a strong economic profile. In 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Dedham’s median household income was $118,877, which is higher than the state average of $96,505.
However, economic well-being is not spread evenly across the city. There are also health disparities. And just over 40% of students are in the state’s “High Needs” category, meaning they live in low income households or have disabilities or are English language learners.
Another challenge, Stetson says, is that the city’s population of Multilingual Learners has doubled. And Stetson wants to avoid the problem of “overidentification,” which can happen when students who would benefit from support are referred to special education programs because there is nowhere else to send students.
City Connects addresses this problem by identifying each students’ strengths and needs and ensuring that students are referred to a range of customized services and opportunities. Recruiting community partners who can provide these services and opportunities is a key part of our model.
Stetson says City Connects helps Dedham track the impact of the student support that it provides at the individual level, the school level, and over time — all to help create a stronger school culture that boosts students’ success.
One advantage Dedham has in this work, Stetson says, is a “talented and well staffed mental health team, led by clinician Dr. Ashley Dube. Because we have existing staff in all schools, we are able to incorporate the City Connects model.”
Another advantage is Dedham’s strong commitment to students.
“Dedham’s leadership is just wonderful,” Cynthia Scheller says. She is City Connects’ Director of Student Support Programs and Practice. “They want to ensure that their students have what they need to succeed and thrive academically. And to do that, they’re looking at the whole child, and they are excited about supporting all students and about supporting students with the most intensive needs.”
And a third advantage is local knowledge. As it turns out, Dedham’s City Connects coach is Jillian O’Neil, who grew up in Dedham. O’Neil is City Connect’s Senior Manager of Coaching and School Partnerships. She is also a former principal and the City Connects coach in Salem and Springfield.
One early sign of success in Dedham, Scheller says, is that school leaders are already asking powerful questions.
“We met with principals, and they didn’t just want to hear about City Connects' overall success. They wanted to know how, specifically, on a daily basis, City Connects would help them make a difference for their students.” [...]
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September 8, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Study finds bullying is linked to higher anxiety and depression, but school connectedness helps reduce impacts.
Hawaii allocates $8 million to improve student safety through the Safe Routes to School program.
Princeton camp teaches AI to students from low-income families to bridge digital divides.
Research and Practice
BMC Public Health: Peer Bullying Victimization, Psychological Distress, and the Protective Role of School Connectedness among AdolescentsIn the United States, approximately 20% of youth are victims of bullying, which has been consistently linked to increased rates of depression and anxiety. The present study uses information from over 2,000 students to measure the relationship between peer bullying victim experiences and mental health outcomes, and how school connectedness and extracurricular involvement can impact this relationship. Results indicate that peer bullying victimization was linked to increased anxiety and depression symptoms. This relationship was more significant for adolescents who were bullied at age 15 compared to age nine. School connectedness, but not extracurricular involvement, impacted the relationship between bullying experienced during adolescence and rates of depressive symptoms, with students having higher school connectedness being less mentally impacted by bullying. The study highlights practical implications for schools to increase connectedness to foster peer relationships.
K-12 Dive: Severe Weather Eroding School Finances and Learning Natural disasters are occurring more frequently, which has an impact on children’s ability to learn in school. A new report from NWEA found that for every day students are out due to hurricanes and wildfires, they experience an average of 3.6 days of instructional loss. Similarly, students in schools without air conditioning and a 1-degree warmer school year have a 1% reduction in learning. Extreme weather events also impact students' mental health, leading to increased rates of anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and depression, and worse physical health outcomes. These impacts are higher for families of color and from more disadvantaged backgrounds; for example, Black and Hispanic students' test scores decreased due to extreme heat at a rate three times higher than those of white students. The report suggests several actions for states and school communities to take, including investing in school infrastructure and expanding mental health resources.
Policy
The 74 Million: Trump Administration Takes on School Emails as Parental Rights IssueThe U.S. Department of Education recently resolved a 2013 complaint: Should parents be allowed to read staff emails about their children? The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) asserts that parents have the right to inspect their children's educational records. However, courts have disputed whether emails should be considered a part of it, as they can be difficult to track and easily deleted. Despite rulings, families continue to request email files from school districts, which is often an expensive process, and the emails are usually heavily redacted. In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued a statement reminding schools about FERPA guidance, signaling possible changes in parents’ rights to access internal school communications about students, including those regarding student mental health and wellbeing.
Governing: Hawaii’s $8 Million Push to Get Kids Walking Safely to SchoolHawaii schools will receive $8 million to make it easier for students to walk or bike to and from school. The money is from the Safe Routes to School fund and will support improvements to infrastructure, including raised sidewalks and better lighting. The state's largest elementary school in Waipahu will receive funding from a $1 million project to install crosswalks, curb ramps, and other elements. The Safe Routes to Schools program was created by Congress 20 years ago to address traffic and pedestrian safety, and was dormant until 2023. The infrastructure improvements across the state are currently focused on students who live within a one-mile radius of the school, which encompasses 75% of Hawaiian residents. While the program was intended to serve low-income communities, future funding and initiatives will work to reach students who live further from schools, as a lack of transportation typically leads to higher rates of chronic absenteeism.
Around the Nation
NPR: An AI Divide is Growing in Schools. This Camp Wants to Level the Playing FieldResearch has shown that there is a digital divide in technology education between affluent and less-resourced districts, which has continued in the new age of AI. A summer camp hosted by Princeton University invites 30 high school students from low-income families to learn about the math behind generative AI. One lesson for the students was learning how AI can help drones fly more efficiently, and how math can account for unknown variables, such as the impact of weather on flight. Participants of the program expressed wanting to be part of who is building AI, and that coming from under-resourced areas can position them to better solve challenges facing their communities. Educators have mixed opinions on the benefits of AI in the classroom, and almost half of Generation Z students believe that AI impacts their ability to critically evaluate information. However, many agree that as AI becomes more widespread in education spaces, students should learn how to use AI in a hands-on way.
The Washington Post: In Phone-Free Schools, Analog Entertainment Brings Lunchrooms to Life34 states and Washington D.C. have passed laws restricting phone usage in schools. These new policies were informed by concerns over student mental health and distractions from technology. Now, in the new school year without phones, educators have noticed shifts among students. Spaces like the lunchroom have become much louder, with students playing “analog” forms of entertainment and interacting more with their peers. In Dayton, Ohio, students can be found playing classic games, like Pay Day, cards, and chess. In Poughkeepsie, New York, students can play with a jumbo Connect Four set, an air hockey table, and "old-school" arcade games, which, as the principal noted, lets them "continue to be kids." One student shared that the phone bans let them see "a lot more people being outgoing and finding people to talk to when they might not have in the past."
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September 4, 2025Eric DearingExecutive DirectorThe Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children
Dear Friends:I’m excited to welcome you to a new year at the Boston College Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children. In a time of challenge and change, we are continuing to grow our work promoting thriving for children, families, schools, and communities. This work includes new research and continuously improving practices that build on strengths and meet needs so that all children have a better chance to thrive. By moving our research into the real world, we are co-designing, testing, and refining strategies that truly make a difference in the lives of children, putting the wisdom of educators, practitioners, and families at the center of our work. Through these research-practice partnerships we are co-constructing evidence-based and scalable strategies for improving educational opportunities at home, in schools, and in their communities.
I invite you to keep apprised of the latest developments in our long-standing work on City Connects, the nation’s leading approach to integrating school and community resources to transform students’ near- and long-term outcomes. A note from Founding Executive Director, Mary Walsh and Associate Director, Claire Foley on City Connects and the new school year is below.
I also invite you to learn more about our work in the newly established Growing Opportunities Lab. In the GO Lab we are doing rigorous research and development studying and creating more educational opportunities at home and in the community. Examples of our work include co-creating enriching early math learning experiences throughout the neighborhood, including while visiting the pediatrician, the grocery store, the community center, and the zoo or while walking to school. Our aim is to surround young children with chances to learn in playful, family-centered, and meaningful ways.
Thank you for joining us in these efforts to promote thriving! We wish you a productive and rewarding year.
Sincerely,
Eric
Mary WalshExecutive DirectorCity Connects
Claire FoleyAssociate DirectorCity Connects
Dear Friends:The hum in the hallways. The excitement of connecting with familiar and new faces. Fresh pages and fresh starts. A new school year brings hope and a few questions for students and the educators and administrators who make schools places of connection, care, and learning. Many of our partners in the Midwest have already begun welcoming students into their schools, while many on the East Coast are opening their doors this week.
Our current moment makes the work of our City Connects Coordinators even more important. Alongside colleagues in each school, we are working to ensure every student is seen, supported, and connected to a personalized set of resources and opportunities that will help them to be ready to attend, engage, and learn in school.
Empowering teachers, families, and the local community to build the human community around each student is work that inspires each of us. We endeavor to provide leading-edge technology and actionable science about child development and learning to support our exceptional Coordinators and their schools. We also apply a pragmatic lens to quality implementation: helping schools to more effectively and efficiently build on existing personnel and processes; and helping schools, districts, community partners, and municipalities make data-informed decisions about how they can best direct limited resources in alignment with student and family needs and interests.
As a testament to how much City Connects student support is valued, our network continues to grow. This fall, we will welcome schools in Missouri and expand our domestic footprint in New York and overseas in Ireland. Our new sites recognize the large body of evidence that City Connects makes a difference for students, helping schools to ensure that each child has an opportunity to grow, learn, and thrive.
Thank you for your continued support of City Connects. Now, as ever, it is vitally important to make sure the strengths, needs, and interests of every child are met, so they can take full advantage of this new school year and build lives commensurate with their talents, interests, and promise.
With gratitude,
Mary & Claire [...]
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August 22, 2025A clear theme emerged at a recent gathering of state legislators from across the nation: learn more about shared concerns and find common ground.
This bipartisan spirit filled the Thomas M. Menino Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston as thousands of state legislators gathered for the 50th annual National Conference of State Legislators earlier this month. Some found the common ground they were looking for at a presentation on supporting the strengths and needs of students. The presentation—including Joan Wasser Gish, Director of Systemic Impact at Boston College’s Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children—highlighted the power of integrated student support.
“There was a sense of real bipartisanship, a feeling that regardless of which side of the aisle members sit on, everyone really connects to wanting to help the children and families in their districts and are looking for evidence-based ways to do that,” said Wasser Gish. “I was really heartened by how many conversations pointed to the potential for bipartisan support and collaboration to make continued progress.”
Wasser Gish was a panelist in a breakout session on Life Success: The Impact of Early Learning, Afterschool and Community Schools, which also featured remarks from Indiana State Representative Robert Behning, California State Assemblymember Darshana Patel, and University of California-Irvine Professor Sandra Simpkins.
Integrated Student Support is an evidence-based approach that any school can use to systematically and intentionally identify every student’s strengths and needs and connect them with school and community resources to support both. Wasser Gish gave legislators an overview of how this approach works in rural, urban, and suburban communities and how it significantly improves long-term outcomes for students.
“I spoke to legislators from Vermont, from North Dakota, from Maryland, from Massachusetts, with such different experiences. Folks really resonated in different ways with the importance of helping children to find opportunities that spark their interest, to ensuring that kids are not trying to learn while hungry. There were just a whole host of ways that people from very different corners of the country found resonance in the importance of the research and evidence we are generating here at the Center,” said Wasser Gish.
The Center for Thriving Children has decades of data from its City Connects program, an evidence-based model of integrated student support being used in schools across the United States and Ireland. Evidence links City Connects with increased attendance and reduced dropout rates, improved academic achievement, and increased teacher retention and satisfaction. Data also shows that this model improves cost effectiveness by using school and community resources more efficiently and effectively. City Connects produces $3 in benefits for every $1 invested. That means existing investments in children and families could produce triple the benefits if effective integrated student support were widely implemented.
“Policy makers can make small investments for big gains, particularly in a time when resources are tightening and students’ academic and mental health needs remain acute,” said Wasser Gish. “There are states using different types of strategies to scale more effective approaches to student support.”
At least 26 states are at some stage of policymaking to advance integrated student support. Some states are doing so by promoting frameworks and best practices. Washington, for example, will be requiring schools to implement an integrated student support protocol. Other states are promoting specific evidence-based models. Indiana, for example, used state and federal funds to create a City Connects technical assistance center at Marian University. Other states are scaling the implementation of interventions like BARR Center and Communities In Schools. A couple of states are taking a hybrid approach, promoting best practices and evidence-based approaches. In Massachusetts, the education department sponsors a school and district learning academy tied to the National Guidelines for Integrated Student Support, and state funding is available for comprehensive approaches to student support like City Connects.
Wasser Gish hopes the legislators she spoke with on both sides of the aisle left the conference with a greater understanding of the influence they can have when it comes to supporting the youngest members of their districts.
“State legislators have an important role to play in providing smart and sustainable investments in children and families,” added Wasser Gish. “In addition to ensuring core services are available, they can make a huge difference by better leveraging existing resources and supporting coordination of those resources through an approach like integrated student support that we know can vastly improve outcomes and children’s futures.” [...]
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August 14, 2025While the blog is on summer vacation for one final week, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s post highlights posts that focus on how City Connects engages families and their communities. From giving parents a voice to opening the door to opportunities with a library card, City Connects provides deep levels of family engagement.
City Connects & Shore Collaborative Back-To-School Event
City Connects organized a back-to-school event at Shore Educational Collaborative featuring Olympic-style games, food, and ice cream for students in the fall of 2024. This event, led by Coordinators Antonio Martinez and Brianna Mancino, was the first of its kind at Shore, which serves students with complex special educational needs. Families had the chance to meet teachers, tour classrooms, and connect with about 15 resource agencies, including the Parent/Professional Advocacy League and MassHealth Ombudsman.
The event aimed to build stronger connections between the school, students, and their families, while also linking families to community resources. With over 50 families and over 100 individuals attending, it was a great success in fostering a sense of community and engagement as the school year begins.
Read more here.
City Connects & Shore Collaborative Back-To-School Event
A Library, llamas, and City Connects
With one little card, families in Minneapolis can unlock a world of castles, llamas, and “crafternoons.” That’s why City Connects coordinator Maggie Longsdorf is on a mission to ensure the families in her school have library cards.
It’s easy to forget how much libraries have to offer, Longsdorf says. But a library card is a passport to a world of new opportunities. At nearby Hosmer Library, the building looks like a small castle outside and holds tons of resources and opportunities inside.
Learn how this valuable community partnership between City Connects and the local library can offer possibilities to students and families alike.
Read more here.
A Library, llamas, and City Connects
Food, fun, and family engagement at Belle Haven Elementary School
Anderson, the coordinator at Belle Haven Elementary School in Dayton, Ohio, teaches students about nutrition using her own upbeat energy, a cooking competition, and the help of a community partner.
Anderson worked with Donna Kuykendall to ensure that an afterschool nutrition program was both informative and fun. Kuykendall works as a Regional Program Assistant for Central State University Extension’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
When Anderson and Kuykendall put their heads together, they came up with two culminating events: a “Chopped” competition and a family dinner.
Read more here.
Food, fun, and family engagement at Belle Haven Elementary School
Raising parents’ voices in Gary, Indiana
When Valerie Oliveras started as the City Connects Coordinator at Banneker at Marquette Elementary School in Gary, Indiana, there was no parent-teacher organization at the school. So Oliveras set out to get to know families and elevate their voices in the school, creating a system that worked for the community.
How did she start? By simplifying what she did at the school. “I’m just here to be helpful," Oliveras told parents. "That’s my job. I’m the Banneker school’s helper, and that will look different for every family.”
Read more about how she helped increase parent involvement here.
Raising parents’ voices in Gary, Indiana [...]
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August 11, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Study shows juvenile justice risk rises with childhood trauma but levels off at higher trauma counts.
States build trust funds to support child care as federal relief ends.
Georgia expands electric school buses to cut pollution and improve student health.
Research & Practice
K-12 Dive: HHS: Fewer Adolescents Report Depression, Suicidal ThoughtsIn a report released by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, teen rates of suicidal thoughts and depression have declined between 2021 and 2024. 14,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17 responded to questions related to mental health disorders and treatment. One in five youth reported moderate or severe symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, which has not been measured before in this survey. Students with serious thoughts of suicide declined from 6.2% in 2021 to 4.6% in 2024. Students who attempted suicide in the past year also declined from 3.6% in 2021 to 2.7% in 2024. The majority of teens with both a major depressive episode and substance use disorder received treatment in that time frame. These trends highlight how, in recent years, mental health has been prioritized in education due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student well-being. However, education leaders assert that available school-based mental health services are not enough to meet the needs of students, and they continue to advocate for funding.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence: Are More ACEs Always Worse? Exploring Nonlinear Associations with Youth BehaviorThroughout existing literature, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are linked with an increased risk of poor developmental outcomes, including mental health disorders and the likelihood of incarceration. Historically, research has suggested that with each additional number of ACEs, the risk of negative outcomes increases. The current study examined the nature of the relationship between ACEs and outcomes, and whether it differs for boys and girls. Utilizing data from the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, researchers found that ACEs were significantly correlated with continued justice system involvement. The relationship is non-linear; the risk of rearrest increases with each additional ACE, but it levels off or declines with higher amounts of ACEs. The pattern is the same for readjudication, and both associations did not differ significantly by sex. The findings offer a deeper understanding of the relationship between trauma in childhood and later life outcomes.
Policy
The 74 Million: States Create Trust Funds to Bolster Child Care and Early Childhood EducationSome states have created trust funds to support child care and education in the absence of federal funding from the American Rescue Plan, which was created during the pandemic. New Mexico was the first to enact this type of program in 2022. The state's existing Land Grant Permanent Fund collects money from oil and gas development. With the trust fund, a portion of the money has been used for education, including making child care free for most families in the state. Several other states have since followed suit; after a budget surplus in 2023 and 2025, lawmakers in Montana wanted to use extra funding that could contribute to state priorities in a financially stable way. They established their trust fund for child care grants and the state's pilot preschool programs. While these trust fund programs have been beneficial, advocates assert that they should not be viewed as sufficient to meet the needs of children and their families.
K-12 Dive: Education Department Tells States to Seek Waivers from ESEAThe U.S. Department of Education has encouraged states to seek waivers from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) so states can spend money "free from bureaucratic red tape." The waiver request is in the public feedback stage, and the goal is to allow states to spend flexibly, like they could with federal pandemic aid. Leaders of the Education Department believe that ESEA hinders states' progress to improve their educational outcomes, and many families also want to see these changes for their children's education. These new priorities include expanding school choice and supporting alternative school models. ESEA was created in 1965 to address inequity in education and improve the quality of schooling. Education and civil rights leaders are concerned that the adoption of waivers will impact students who are most in need and shift state priorities for improving education.
NPR: Mental Health Warnings on Social Media? Minnesota will Require Them Next YearStarting in July 2026, Minnesotans using social media will receive a pop-up warning when they log on, asking users to acknowledge that social media can negatively impact their mental health. The message will be similar to a health warning used for products like tobacco and alcohol. Platforms must also include resources on their messages, such as information for using the Suicide and Crisis Hotline 988. Social media is linked to worse mental health, higher risk of an eating disorder, and body image issues for children and adolescents. Some lawmakers opposed the bill, citing concerns over free speech, and social media companies are also trying to block enforcement. Advocates believe that adding warning labels is a great start to protecting youth, but it is not the full solution to combating the negative effects of social media. Minnesota will be the first state to pass legislation requiring warning labels on social media platforms.
Around the Nation
Chalkbeat: Electric School Buses Give Students a Healthier Ride. The Break from Pollution Could Also Help Their Grades.Schools in DeKalb, Atlanta, and Clayton, Georgia, are receiving funding to replace their diesel-fueled buses with electric ones. Out of 20,000 buses, currently 124 are electric. Funding for the new initiative came mostly through the Clean School Bus program at the Environmental Protection Agency. Research links clean buses to improved scores on standardized tests and higher attendance, perhaps because students were less likely to get sick or have asthma attacks, as diesel school buses can damage children's lungs through air pollution. Educators also report that it is quieter on the new buses because children do not have to shout over the loud engine. The program has been on hold under the Trump administration, but funding for the Clean School Bus program is available. District leaders say that electric buses save on maintenance and fuel costs. Mothers and Others for Clean Air in Atlanta and other advocates are currently exploring additional opportunities for funding in order to scale electric and other anti-pollution technologies.
The 74: With Welding Tools and a Time Clock, How One New Mexico Teacher Is Giving HS Students a Leg Up on the FutureValley High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is an engineering-themed magnet school with a classroom dedicated to welding. Students get a head start on apprenticeship hours through partnerships with local trade unions. They are paid $15 an hour to complete projects and, upon graduating, receive 18 months of credit towards completing a four-year apprenticeship. In 2018, a district court found that New Mexico was not meeting students' right to a sufficient education, and that all students have a right to be set up for success in college and their careers. The program launched in the 2018-2019 school year for students across the district, with other programs including architecture, computer science, JROTC, engineering, and carpentry. The assistant principal who oversees the program shared that students in the program benefit greatly, building confidence to pursue careers or higher education having earned a paycheck, credits, and skills during high school.
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August 7, 2025While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s post examines the various ways data informs the work of City Connects. From supporting individual students to understanding the effects of poverty on learning, data helps inform decision-making.
A City View: Indianapolis Launches Dashboard Showcasing City Connects Data
City Connects' personalized student support plans help teachers and schools to better support students, but what if this information could help an entire city? The City of Indianapolis launched ConnectIndy, a first-of-its-kind dashboard. The tool uses City Connects data from nearly 30 local schools, highlighting students' top strengths, needs, interests, and barriers to accessing resources. With school-, community-, and city-wide insights, this dashboard opens the door to exciting possibilities for how people and resources across the city can work together to respond to student needs and interests.
Learn how Indianapolis is coming together for its students here.
A City View: Indianapolis Launches Dashboard Showcasing City Connects Data
Noman Khanani talks about data — and transforming education
Noman Khanani never expected to work in educational data analytics. But this former member of the Center’s research team reflects on his trajectory.
“I had always been interested in data,” he recalls. “When I was younger, I always enjoyed math and statistics, but I never really thought of pursuing this as a career. It was just something I was good at in the classroom.”
Working as a research assistant with the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children, he discovered the ways data can help create positive change.
“That was my first exposure to education research and the use of quantitative analytics and statistics to measure student learning and understand the impact of programs and interventions. This work combined my interests in statistics with working for social good.”
“People have been trying to reform education for a very long time,” Khanani says.
“A lot of what is left out of those conversations is how poverty is a huge contributing factor to the state of our educational system in terms of our outcomes relative to other nations.
“For me, research on City Connects confirms the idea that we need to provide students with the basic opportunities and support that everyone else gets if they grew up in households that are not economically disadvantaged.
Read more her
Noman Khanani talks about data — and transforming education
Using data to promote student success in Salem
Salem, Massachusetts was one of the first communities to implement City Connects across an entire city. As a city, Salem has rich cultural and community resources, but many of the city’s children still faced food and housing insecurity, and many children had other unmet needs. Teachers and school counselors had struggled to meet these needs because they didn’t have a structure to connect kids to community resources.
“The data makes our work come alive. It’s helping to guide our thinking on the framework and practice,” Ellen Wingard, Salem’s City Connects Program Manager, explains.
Read more about how data shaped the implementation here.
Using data to promote student success in Salem [...]
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August 4, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Study that children with greater social vulnerability is linked with lower kindergarten readiness and increased environmental burden.Federal government releases $1.3 billion for after-school programs, with restrictions tied to executive orders.Tennessee launches direct admissions pilot with student aid component.
Research & Practice
Sustainability: Environmental Burden and School Readiness in an Urban County: Implications for Communities to Promote Healthy Child Development
This study measures the relationship between children’s home environments and their readiness for kindergarten in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Children living in low-income communities are more likely to be impacted by environmental factors, such as air and water pollution, which can affect their development. The research suggests that children with greater social vulnerability, which is measured through several indicators such as household income, is linked with lower kindergarten readiness and increased environmental burden. Social vulnerability was experienced at the highest rate for census tracts with a higher percentage of Black residents, compared to other races and ethnicities. Additionally, higher environmental burden predicted lower kindergarten readiness to a larger extent than the impact of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic vulnerability. The findings highlight the importance of intervention programs that focus on improving environmental conditions in addition to educational opportunities, especially to benefit children from low-income areas.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology: Exploring Children's Naturalistic Educational Media Use: Prevalence, Domains, and Correlates
Researchers from The Ohio State University measured the prevalence of first graders' educational media usage. Educational media is defined as digital media that is used to convey information. Caregivers completed questionnaires measuring their children's top five shows and apps, time spent using media and reading, and demographic information. Almost 12% of media consumption was determined to be educational, with math content being the most prevalent. In previous literature, caregivers have reported that they are more comfortable supporting their children in reading and writing instead of STEM, which may be why they are more likely to turn to technology in those domains. Additionally, caregivers of girls were more likely to report higher educational media use for their children compared to caregivers of boys, and there was no difference in usage by socioeconomic status. Understanding the prevalence and purpose of technology usage for young children can help inform future technology to best meet children's educational needs.
Policy
The Washington Post: Trump Administration Releases Billions in Funding Withheld From Schools
On June 30, the Trump administration froze almost $7 billion of public school funding. The government first released $1.3 billion, and now the rest of the money is available. An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson shared that funders were frozen so the administration could review whether the money was being used by school districts for programs for undocumented immigrants or on LGBTQ+ topics. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia sued the administration, arguing that the cessation of funds violated the Constitution and federal law. Without the funds, three-quarters of superintendents said they would have to eliminate academic services for students, and half would have to lay off staff and teachers. The return of funds comes amid other changes at the Education Department, including cancelling programs, firing half of the workforce, and transferring duties to other government agencies.
Stateline: More than Half the States Have Issued AI Guidance For Schools
Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have policies in place for the use of artificial intelligence in K-12 schools. The report from AI for Education, which provides AI literacy training, outlines the policies states have adopted. Most state policies include the risks and benefits of AI in education and how it can be properly used in a school setting. The Trump administration loosened federal AI oversight to give more power to the states to spur innovative programs. While states have worked to provide AI guidance for schools, many do not have comprehensive frameworks. North Carolina was one of the first states to issue AI guidance, and the state's framework includes a definition of generative AI and how it can be used in the classroom successfully. Some states also emphasize which AI models are “ethical” for students and teachers to use.See also: Trump Says Fewer Regulations Needed to Win the AI Race.
Around the Nation
K-12 Dive: Tennessee Launches Direct Admissions Pilot with Student Aid Component
Tennessee is launching a pilot program in the fall to offer high school students direct admissions to two- and four-year colleges. TN Direct Admissions pilot will accept 41,000 students from randomly selected high schools across the state to have an opportunity to get into one of the 53 colleges participating in the program. To be eligible, students need to have a strong academic standing and complete the application. Students will receive a letter listing all of the schools that have automatically accepted them, and half will also be given tailored financial aid information based on need and academic merit. Researchers will then analyze the pilot program to understand how enrollment differs for students who received an automatic admissions offer versus those who have applied through the regular process, and how receiving financial aid impacts their decisions. Similar direct admissions initiatives have been enacted in Illinois and New York. The financial aid component of the Tennessee program is the first of its kind.
The 74 Million: From Classroom Drudgery to Joyful Enrichment: The Evolution of Summer School
In the past decade, many school districts started to emphasize programs to combat summer learning loss, which disproportionately impacts low-income students. One program is Summer Rising, a partnership between New York City Public Schools and the Department of Youth and Community Development, which provides students with free academic and enrichment programming for six weeks in the summer. In a study conducted by RAND that measured voluntary free summer learning programs for low-income students, researchers found that students who attended programs for at least 20 days had increased math and ELA skills and higher social-emotional wellbeing compared to their peers. The Executive Director of Boston After Schools & Beyond shared, "Summer learning arguably has the greatest impact at the lowest price on the greatest number of students of any policy solutions."
The Hechinger Report: $50 a Week for 40 Weeks: How No-Strings Cash Changed the Lives of Teens
"The $50 study" randomly selects students to receive $50 a week for 40 weeks. It began at Rooted School, a charter school in New Orleans, and has since expanded to other spaces. The goal of the experiment is to understand teens' spending habits, financial literacy, and whether the extra money impacts academic achievement. Students ended the study with an average of $300 in savings, which is triple the national average for American adults. The program also saw academic and social-emotional benefits; students who received the money attended 1.23 more days of school and reported feeling more confident and in control of their finances. A student who participated in the program shared, "You learn that money goes fast, especially if it's free… If you're stuck in a rut, it's expensive to restart. In this country, it's expensive to be poor."See also: Study May Undercut Idea That Cash Payments to Poor Families Help Child Development
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July 31, 2025Readers of this blog are familiar with the evidence demonstrating that City Connects helps students to put forward better effort in the classroom, have better attendance, and attain better grades and test scores. Researchers at the Boston College Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children, along with scholars from other institutions, have also pursued questions that allow for a more nuanced understanding of questions like: how does City Connects impact teachers and schools? And how big are “opportunity gaps” and how are children affected by them?
The briefs and papers below summarize the results of numerous peer-reviewed studies that help us to better understand the impacts of access to opportunity, and the role of interventions like the City Connects model of integrated student support.
New Study Provides Strongest Evidence Yet On Impacts of Integrated Student Support
In the most rigorous study of integrated student support to date, researchers confirm the positive impacts of City Connects on student achievement. The study, Estimating the Impact of Integrated Student Support on Elementary School Achievement: A Natural Experiment, finds that students who are randomly assigned to City Connects schools score higher on state standardized tests in both Math and English Language Arts than their peers in other schools.
City Connects—which aims to combat the impacts of poverty and other out-of-school factors by linking students with holistic support and enrichment—is a model of integrated student support that serves around 200 schools across five states and two countries. Over the past two decades, researchers have linked the program to a multitude of positive student outcomes, including higher standardized test scores, lower rates of chronic absenteeism and grade retention, higher academic performance and engagement, and increased high school and post-secondary graduation rates. While these previous studies have provided empirical evidence to show the impact of City Connects, this latest study is the first to utilize randomization—a powerful research method—across elementary schools in looking at the impact of this intervention.
“The large positive achievement gains we saw in this study matched previous findings from multiple other studies investigating the same thing. So there is a consistency to the story. And that story is that integrated student support seems to work. Children seem to do better when both their academic and non academic challenges are tended to,” said Jordan Lawson, Research Associate at Boston College’s Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children and lead author of the paper. “This latest evidence not only matches the previous findings, but it’s the strongest evidence we have regarding the efficacy of integrated student support thus far.”
Read more here.
New Study Provides Strongest Evidence Yet On Impacts of Integrated Student Support
New research on the opportunity gap and how children thrive
The number of educational opportunities that children accrue at home, in early education and care, at school, in afterschool programs, and in their communities as they grow up is strongly linked to their educational attainment and earnings in early adulthood, according to new research published recently by AERA’s Educational Researcher.
The results indicate that the opportunity gaps between low- and high-income households from birth through the end of high school largely explain differences in educational and income achievement between students from different backgrounds.
These findings come from a 26-year longitudinal study led by Center for Thriving Children Executive Director Eric Dearing (Boston College). His co-authors were Andres S. Bustamante (University of California–Irvine), Henrik D. Zachrisson (University of Oslo), and Deborah Lowe Vandell (University of California–Irvine).
Their study is the first to directly document opportunities and opportunity gaps as they accrue across early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence in multiple key areas of child development.
Read more here.
Center Studies Opportunity Gap, How Children Thrive
“The Impact of City Connects on Teachers and Schools”
Principals say that City Connects helps to improve school climate, and “ore than 94% of teachers reported that they were more patient with their students because they better understood the non-academic issues that contributed to their students’ struggles in the classroom, and thought about the factors influencing student behavior before reacting to the behavior.” This brief summarizes the impacts of City Connects on teachers and schools, including:
• an expanded understanding of students
• a greater feeling of support in their jobs
• stronger relationships with students and families
• successful modifications to classroom approaches
Read more here.
“The Impact of City Connects on Select Student Sub-Groups”
Every student is unique, and some students are at greater risk of struggling in school than others. Various studies have looked at some of the impacts of City Connects on sub-groups of students, including:
• first-generation immigrant and English language learners
• Black and Latino boys
• students who were on track to receive special education services
For example, Black and Latino boys who received comprehensive support via City Connects were half as likely to drop out of school than their peers who didn’t receive such support. Learn more here. [...]
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July 28, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Study finds growth mindset teaching boosts academic interest and success in older high school students.Federal government releases $1.3 billion for after-school programs, with restrictions tied to executive orders.Miami fifth graders report benefits after completing a 21-day digital detox challenge.
Research & Practice
K-12 Dive: After 3-Consecutive-Year High, School Shootings Drop 23% in 2024-25In the 2024-25 school year, school shootings decreased by 22.5% compared to the previous school year. This decline represents the lowest number of school shootings in the past three school years, though the number is twice the number of shootings pre-pandemic. Similar to previous years, school shootings were most likely to occur when students were dismissed from school, in the parking lot, and because of escalated disputes. School safety experts are concerned that the elimination of a $1 billion student mental health grant, which includes supports that were established after the 2022 elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, will impact the frequency of school shootings in the upcoming school year. The National School Safety and Security Services president, Kenneth Trump, credits school and safety officials for their proactive interventions in mitigating violence and increasing social-emotional supports. He asserts that more work needs to be done to ensure all schools have adequate emergency plans and school safety teams.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence: Growth Mindset in Action: Teaching Practices That Fuel Student Interest and Academic SuccessA new study examined whether growth mindset teaching practices in the classroom predicted future student academic interest and achievement. Growth mindset in teaching refers to educators who share with their students that they believe they can succeed and the importance of effort. In a nationally representative sample from Korea, seventh through 12th graders completed surveys on their perception of teaching practices and academic interest, as well as their test scores to measure academic achievement. The research indicates that students have higher academic interest and achievement when their teachers use more growth mindset strategies. This relationship was true for students in the second half of high school, but not for ninth or tenth graders, which may be due to difficulties encountered during the transition to high school. Students who previously faced academic challenges were more impacted by their teachers' growth mindsets. The results emphasize the importance of teachers employing growth mindset methods in the classroom, which could lead to improved student performance and interest.
Policy
The New York Times: White House to Release $1.3 Billion in Frozen Funds for After-School ProgramsAfter more than $6 billion in federal grants for education programs were withheld on July 1, the Trump administration shared that it will release $1.3 billion. The money will be given only to programs that operate outside of school hours, and officials will ensure that the funding is not used for programming that violates President Trump's executive orders. Twenty percent of students in after-school programs are supported by federal money, including participants of the Boys & Girls Club and Y.M.C.A programs. The funding will benefit 1.4 million students, many of whom are low-income. The release of funds was likely due to bipartisan pressure, including a public letter signed by Republican senators and a lawsuit by Democratic leaders. Additionally, over 200 superintendents traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers about funding. About $5.5 billion of school funding is still on hold.
Chalkbeat: NY Approves ‘Portrait of a Graduate’ as Regents Exams Are on the Way OutNew York's Board of Regents approved a new framework for students to earn a diploma starting in the 2027-2028 school year, called the Portrait of a Graduate. It outlines six qualities that high school graduates should embody: a creative innovator, a critical thinker, an effective communicator, a global citizen, "reflective and future focused,” and academically prepared. Students can meet the requirements through activities such as participating in debates and research. The new initiative replaces the Regents exam, which has existed as a requirement to graduate since the mid-1800s. Only a few states still require exit exams, which have been shown to have little impact on academic achievement and motivation and lead to higher dropout rates. The state will release more specific guidance on how students will be assessed next school year.
Around the Nation
K-12 Dive: 3rd Graders Flagged for Retention Make Small But Meaningful Gains, Study FindsIn Michigan, students who are"flagged for retention," but not held back a grade, have higher reading scores in the following school year. The state implemented Public Act 306 in 2016, which requires third-grade students to be retained if they score more than one grade level behind on the state's English Language Arts test. However, schools can use good cause exemptions for students who may need more support, including English Language Learners, students with an individualized education plan, or who have been in public school for less than two years. Most educators dislike the retention policy because of its impact on student well-being and high financial costs. This has led superintendents to use good cause exemptions frequently for students. The study says the increase in reading scores is likely due to teachers providing extra academic support to students who are flagged, and parents may be more inclined to find additional resources for their children outside of school.
WLRN: Miami Fifth-Graders Unplug for a 21-Day Digital DetoxIn a fifth-grade classroom in Miami, Florida, students learned about how technology works, its history, and its impacts on mental health and well-being. The classroom was divided into two groups: the engineers who focused on the functionality of technology, and the social scientists who studied how it impacted social behaviors. The social scientists decided to create a 21-day digital detox challenge and recruited 19 students to participate. The students wanted to measure how technology impacts their sleep, focus, and social connectedness, which they documented through daily vlogs. All students reported increased social connectedness, with parents and teachers also noticing impacts. The fifth graders agreed that the experiment was beneficial and helped them understand how technology affects their brains. They hope to reduce their media consumption in the future, especially with the need to use their devices more in middle school. One student shared, "It's amazing how three weeks can change your whole life."The New York Times: The Tiny Home Construction Contest Is a Big Deal In This Texas TownRun by SkillsUSA Championships, 6,700 students participated in an annual competition centered around 115 trade contests. For the mock tiny home construction competition, participants build an eight-by-ten-foot tiny home inside the Atlanta Convention Center. Finalists then competed at the Georgia World Congress Center to design a three-story tiny home with a Juliet balcony, a window with an awning, and a brick wall, equipped with plumbing and electrical wiring. The rookie team from Belton High School in Texas attempted to defend the title, as their school has won three times, making the school have the most number of wins in the competition's 23-year history. Belton's team of four included a plumber, mason, electrician, and carpenter. The team was helped by Michael Carrillo, who has coached young people in home-building for the past nine years. After an intense competition, only five teams completed their tiny house. The Belton team finished in second place.
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July 25, 2025While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s post focuses on City Connects in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio.
“Strengthening the historic community at the St. Peter Claver School”
In Minnesota, Coordinator Sarah Jackson works at St. Peter Claver School. The school was built in 1950s in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul. This historically black neighborhood was disrupted by highway construction in the 1960s. The project closed businesses and forced hundreds of families to move out of Rondo.Today, 98 percent of the school’s 90 students are black and come from all over the city.Part of Jackson's work now is to connect to community partners that can help her students feel seen and represented.“It’s one of the few schools that kids can go to where they’re not the minority. It’s a place where students can be themselves and feel comfortable and thrive,” Jackson says. “It’s a big family, and the community that kids build here is pretty awesome.”
“Raising parents’ voices in Gary, Indiana”
When Valerie Oliveras started working as the City Connects Coordinator at Banneker at Marquette Elementary School in Gary, Indiana, there was no parent-teacher organization at the school. So Oliveras set out to get to know families and elevate their voices in the school, creating a system that worked for the community.How did she start? By simplifying what she did at the school. “I’m just here to be helpful," Oliveras told parents. "That’s my job. I’m the Banneker school’s helper, and that will look different for every family.”
“Ohio’s lieutenant governor visits a City Connects program – and calls on his state to invest in students’ success”
In 2019, then-lieutenant governor John Husted visited a City Connects school in a bid to increase funding for student support.Husted and other state officials, including then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria, visited Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School in Dayton to see City Connects in action.Husted was encouraging his state to increase its investment in students’ success. Husted, who is now a U.S. senator from Ohio, told the Daily News, “We know that additional resources for wraparound services that help students overcome the social-emotional challenges they face is critical to helping them have academic success… This is the direction Ohio is going educationally.”Husted also said that Ohio wants to help students “overcome their life challenges so that they are in a position to succeed academically and in life. We put Ohio, frankly, in a leadership role in the country. And we want to use successful models that are already out there to help other schools with stand up programs like this that we know are working.” [...]
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July 21, 2025Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!
Teens report high hopes for the future but expect greater challenges than previous generations.
New bill cuts SNAP benefits, raising concerns about food access for low-income families.
Oklahoma mandates free school meals and bans processed foods, with no added state funding.
Research & Practice
K-12 Dive: Youngest Students See Big Reading Gains Post-COVID on DIBELS AssessmentA new report from Amplify indicates that kindergarten through second-grade students improved in their literacy skills compared to recent years. The study used DIBELS, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, to measure 250,000 students' scores across the United States. Kindergarteners had the greatest improvement in skills, with 70% of students at or above reading benchmarks, compared to 68% in 2023-24 and 49% in 2020-21. The report also highlights gender differences; boys have the same or better reading scores as girls at the beginning of each school year, but girls start to outpace boys by the end of the year. The results highlight improved student literacy after the pandemic, with rates increasing each year. Amplify shares recommendations to school districts to continue to support early readers, by using data to inform interventions, increasing instruction on the science of reading for teachers, and creating exciting opportunities to encourage students to read at school.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence: Unveiling the Necessary Conditions for Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Girls and Boys: A Necessary Condition Analysis Study The study aims to understand differences in depressive symptoms for adolescents based on necessary conditions, factors that are essential for the outcome to occur. In a one-year longitudinal study, students in the United States self-reported cognitive vulnerabilities and stressful life events. For girls, all cognitive vulnerabilities and stressful life events included in the survey were determined as necessary conditions for depressive symptoms after 12 months. For boys, none of these variables were found as necessary conditions, indicating that other noncognitive factors may lead to depressive symptoms. The strongest necessary condition for girls to develop future depressive symptoms was ruminative brooding, which is repetitive self-critical thoughts. The study is the first to distinguish between girls' and boys' necessary conditions that can lead to developing high levels of depressive symptoms. These gender differences indicate the need for psychological interventions to be based on children's individual needs to understand cognitive factors that can lead to depressive symptoms.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs: Many Teens Want a Good Standard of Living but Feel it is Becoming Harder to Achieve Researchers used a nationally representative sample of U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 17 to capture their perceptions of the future. 82% of teens believe it is extremely/very important to pursue what you enjoy. 62% of teens view graduating from college as extremely/very important, with children whose parents graduated from college as viewing this and other milestones as more important. Teenage girls were more likely to view graduating from college as important compared to teenage boys. Teens believe that completing certain milestones will be much harder for them than for their parents, such as owning a home, achieving a good standard of living, and having a successful career. Among those surveyed, politics was not a central focus in their lives; 44% of teens do not follow politics closely. Respondents were split almost evenly along party lines, and 48% respondents shared that the political system is not currently working well.
Policy
The New York Times: Supreme Court Clears the Way for Trump’s Cuts to the Education Department In an emergency order, the Supreme Court voted to allow the Trump administration to fire federal employees and begin dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. Earlier this year, the department had 4,000 employees. Now, it will shrink to half its size, with some employees resigning. The changes at the department will impact most of its work, including providing support to marginalized students and overseeing civil rights cases, sexual assault cases, and federal loans for college. Some of these functions may be moved to other federal agencies. The Trump administration points to its efforts to shutter the department as a means of decreasing federal responsibility for U.S. schools and enhancing the power of the states. The court did not rule on the merits of whether it is within the President’s authority to terminate or cease the functioning of an agency created by law through Congress, only that a lower court injunction halting the firings is overruled. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissent that the President's actions are beyond his authority because "only Congress has the power to abolish the department."
The 74: Fears Big Beautiful Bill Will Leave Both Cupboards and School Lunch Trays EmptyThe One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduces funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by 20% which will impact an estimated 5 million people, including 800,000 children. The bill outlines several changes to eligibility for SNAP recipients. Those receiving SNAP without dependents had to work at least 80 hours per month until age 54 to receive benefits, and now the bill increases the age to 64. Families with children under 18 were previously exempt from this rule, and now this will only apply to families with children up to age seven. There are no changes in the bill to the Community Eligibility Provision, which reimburses schools that provide free breakfast and lunch to students. Many states are concerned about supporting families who no longer receive SNAP benefits with these new guidelines, and more onus will be placed on families to complete paperwork to prove their eligibility. The changes in SNAP will go into effect between 2025 and 2034.
Around the Nation
Oklahoma Voice: Oklahoma Superintendent Orders all Districts to Offer Free Meals, Threatens Sanctions State Superintendent Ryan Walters recently issued a mandate that requires all public schools in Oklahoma to provide free cafeteria meals for students without specific dyes and processed foods. Walters suggests that schools should reduce administrators' salaries to offset the cost of providing free breakfast and lunches. If school districts do not comply, they may lose state funding or district accreditation. Meals can no longer include "ultra-processed" snacks, sugary drinks, processed meats, specific artificial food dyes, and seed oils. The state joins others in offering universal free school meals, and is the first to receive no additional state money to fund the initiative. Nonprofit Hunger Free Oklahoma has advocated for free school meals, but the president and CEO shared, "There's not a way to feed every Oklahoma kid for free without additional investment." The budget will not be revisited until next year.
The Hechinger Report: High School Speech and Debate Allows Students to Find Common Ground 7,000 middle and high school students competed in the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa this summer, celebrating the program’s 100th anniversary. Students often debate timely and controversial topics, and this year, one of the debates was centered around the benefits and harms of presidential executive orders. A student from California took the national prize for his speech called "Living on a Prayer," tying his Sikh identity with the phrase "thoughts and prayers," uttered by politicians after a tragedy. In a time when Americans across the political spectrum feel that discourse has become combative, the event demonstrates otherwise for student debaters. Student participants enjoyed engaging with peers across the political spectrum and, in turn, thinking more deeply about their own beliefs. The National Speech and Debate Association president shared, “I don’t think there’s an activity in the world that develops empathy and listening skills like speech and debate. We’re continuing to create better citizens.”
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July 17, 2025While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s roundup looks at the people who make the work of City Connects possible. We often proudly highlight City Connects Coordinators who transform their schools' approaches to student support into a powerful, coordinated system that gets the right resources to the right child at the right time, over time.
To accomplish this, Coordinators work with colleagues in their schools and with City Connects Program Managers and Coaches. These behind-the-scenes staff bring their expertise and experiences to support implementation of this evidence-based model and make a difference for students.
“The Work We Do: Peyton Schick connects Minnesota Schools”
Program Manager Peyton Schick is a go-to source for understanding the impact of City Connects in Minnesota. The former classroom teacher and Senior Administrative Program Coordinator plays a large role in ensuring the success of 11 campuses.
“I was drawn to City Connects because of its commitment to comprehensive student support,” she said. “The model recognizes that academic success is deeply tied to a student’s well-being, and I wanted to be part of a system that prioritizes both.”
In recent years, Schick has spearheaded partnerships with a summer camp and a sports/fitness center, in addition to her work connecting Minnesota Coordinators to other partnership opportunities.
“The Work We Do: Springfield Program Manager – Stephanie Sanabria”
In Massachusetts, Stephanie Sanabria excels at, among other aspects of the Program Manager role, training a multitude of Coordinators for their work with students, teachers, and campus administrators alike.
“Improving my differentiation of professional development material has been my main focus over the last two years so that all Coordinators are able to get what they need to continue growing,” Sanabria said. “I am very aware of what it’s like to be in their shoes.”
Sanabria combines her lived experience of the region with her interpersonal skills and acumen with data. Since City Connects began in Springfield, the district’s graduation rate has increased from 56.4% to 84.6%, while the dropout rate has decreased from over 10% to 3.9%.
“Meet Our Team: Kevin McCaffrey & Michael Munroe”
This is the first full year that Kevin McCaffrey and Michael Munroe will be serving as City Connects coaches. Each of them came to the program with more than a decade of experience in Boston Public Schools.
“I saw as an opportunity for me to impact young people beyond the four walls of the classroom,” said McCaffrey. “What I found most rewarding in my teaching years was what I was doing beyond or in addition to the school day.”
The coaches embrace the blend of qualitative and quantitative problem-solving that goes into the job. As Munroe put it, “The technologies available to schools are evolving rapidly—becoming more advanced, efficient, and impactful—while the strengths, needs, and interests of students, along with the priorities of schools, are constantly shifting. With so many moving parts, it will be important to think about the systems and structures used for integrated student support—sustaining what works, rethinking what doesn’t, and refining strategies to ensure every student has the opportunities they need and deserve to thrive.” [...]
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