A school's "mileage club" started in the fall 2009 with the idea of handing out charms as an incentive for kids to run during recess has surprised everyone. Fitness scores have rocketed and disciplinary problems dwindled.
A U.S. Green Building Council partnership released its third annual report listing the greenest colleges nationwide. The online-only guide, available as a free download, includes brief summaries of sustainability initiatives at each of the top 311 school, as well a dozen or so data points on things like renewable power use, energy efficiency and waste disposal.
A new online education platform founded by Stanford computer scientists is on a mission to change the world by educating millions of people with free classes from top universities. Coursera offers Math, Science, Business and Humanities courses featuring videos, quizzes and electronic assignments created by 16 top universities. Already, a million students from 190 countries have enrolled.
The CMA Foundation has donated another $1.4 million to benefit music education programs for Nashville's public schoola through its Keep the Music Playing campaign, bringing the total to more than $6.1 million.
Children who get more exercise also tend to do better in school, whether the exercise comes as recess, physical education classes or getting exercise on the way to school, according to an international study.
Philadelphia baseball star Ryan Howard is helping students in 57 city high schools to dress for success -- in athletics. His Ryan Howard Family Foundation will donate Adidas sportswear valued at nearly $1.2 million to the cash-strapped Philadelphia school district.
Big news on several fronts: against the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and for healthier food for school children. The Chicago Public Schools announced that its main food-service company, Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, will begin buying and serving chicken drumsticks from birds raised in the local area without antibiotics. The deal will bring 1.2 million pounds of chicken to 473 schools per year.
For his herculean efforts to reopen schools buildings after five were destroyed by a May 22 tornado, Superintendent C.J. Huff has been honored as one of the top 2011 Heroes Among Us by People magazine.
Replacing stationary seats with inflatable bouncers has raised productivity in her fifth-graders at Westtown-Thornbury Elementary School, helping students focus on lessons while improving their balance and core strength, she said.
Scholastic has donated one million books to schools and libraries that applied for help after Hurricane Sandy. 400,000 have already been delivered. Said one teacher, It's like Christmas morning for teachers.
In the scrub-brush desert town of Queen Creek, Ariz., high school bullies were throwing trash at sophomore Chy Johnson. Calling her stupid. Pushing her in the halls. Chy's mother wanted justice, so she called the captain of the football team, who knew the girl.
There is a school at one Virginia county juvenile detention center where troubled youths work toward high school diplomas and credit their teachers with saving their lives from ruin. The jail's educational program is a little-known entity within Fairfax County Public Schools that offers the students hope for better days ahead.
More leading universities are offering free online courses through the fast-growing education platform Coursera. The new partners, including Brown, Columbia, Emory, Vanderbilt and Wesleyan universities, as well as Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of British Columbia, University of London, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, boost the number of courses offered free online to 200.
A new online education platform founded by Stanford scientists is on a mission to change the world by educating millions of people with free classes from top universities. Coursera offers Math, Science, Business and Humanities courses featuring videos, quizzes and electronic assignments created by 16 top universities from the US, Europe, and Canada. Already, a million students from 190 countries have enrolled.
When she was 15, Sarah Cronk set up her school's first inclusive cheerleading squad at Pleasant Valley High School in Bettendorf, Iowa. Now, at 18 she is the founder of The Sparkle Effect, which helps schools around the country to include boys and first with disabilities in the dance teams and cheerleading squads. While Pleasant Valley's program is now in its 6th season and includes 21 students, Sarah's national program has raised more than $150,000 and generated 65 inclusive squads across the country.
In Tultitlán, Mexico, where the police officers are considered some of the most corrupt in Latin America, children who are victims of domestic violence, susceptible to drug sales and bullying, are being helped by cops with big smiles and red noses.
An Indiana school district had an idea of how to get students and staff to show more kindness to each other. They are jotting down on colorful sticky notes the acts of kindness experienced throughout the day. The walls of every Vigo County school now blossom with tiny colorful thank-you's -- even at the high school level.
Perhaps no adult employed at Trinity High School has had more influence over students or changed more young lives than Charles Clark, the school's custodian. Clark has mentored countless kids in need of a father figure at the Texas high school, even housing several of them in his home over the years. In the beginning, he took the custodial position thinking he would keep it until he found something better, but 24 years later, he still hasn't found it. Now Clark, 63, has bested more than 400 teachers, administrators and school district employees from 33 states to become the LifeChanger of the Year Grand Prize Winner.
A new blog started by a 9-year-old in western Scotland shows daily photos of the lunches she was being served in her public primary school. Just started in early May, her lunch photos went viral in days. She had a million viewers within a few weeks; was written up in major magazines; and won the support of TV chef Jamie Oliver, who kicked off school-food reform in England.
For more than an hour and a half more than two dozen bystanders and first responders took turns performing CPR on a fallen Minnesota man. Their teamwork saved his life, in what may be one of the longest, successful out-of-hospital resuscitations ever.
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