Durham-Based Squord Scores with TechStars - Coleman Greene is a really nice guy. He's the kind of guy who phones you back immediately when your call is dropped.

I spoke with him over the weekend — earlier than I usually use my professional voice on Saturdays. I was in my bedroom still wearing my pajamas and silently pleading with AT&T's unreliable service to not cut out again, please, damn it. My phone rang, and he bushed off my apologies with an understanding laugh. Maybe he has AT&T, too.

Coleman Greene is also a really smart guy. A Vanderbilt graduate who got his MBA at UNC, he cofounded Sqord, which celebrates its two-year anniversary in June. Haven't heard of Squord yet? You will: The company recently was accepted by Chicago's TechStars, a highly competitive three-month mentorship program that nurtures and funds companies in the early stages of development.

Self-described as a “one part game platform, one part social media, and one part fitness tracker,” Squord encourages kids to lead healthy lives through active playtime.

Using its hardware and software platforms, kids can track their movement and upload activities to their social media accounts. Whether they're running, skateboarding, riding bikes, or even taking out the trash, when they swipe their PowerBands over a Sqord SyncStation (located at home and in schools), they score points, get medals, win competitions, and can, basically, brag online to their friends about all the cool, active stuff they're doing. High five, kids. I should probably hit the gym.

Squord's inclusion in TechStars gives the company access to an impressive network of mentors and investors that can really push it from the “early seed stages” into the next, more mature phase.

“We're using this as an opportunity to polish the rough edges,” Coleman says in a subtly southern accent, his own children clamoring in the background. “We want to build a platform and a brand that is a leader in health and fitness.”

Located in American Tobacco, Squord is in good company, as that downtown destination has become pretty popular among hip Durham start-ups. But a program in Chicago, Coleman explains, makes a lot of sense for them, because they do a lot of work with BlueCross BlueShield and the YMCA, both of which are headquartered in the Windy City. (Plus, his wife grew up there.)

Colman originally reached out to TechStars in 2011 but was turned down. However, he got some good feedback. They encouraged him to keep in contact, so, throughout the year, he'd send the investors updates on the company's progress.

With four full-time employees and one heavily involved contractor on board, he reapplied — and, this time, luck was on his side. TechStars has accelerated companies like Distil, and Ubooly, putting them into the big leagues by helping them raise millions of dollars. What start-up wouldn't want that?

Keep your eye on Squord and the interesting things they're doing in the digital arena. And, if you haven't already, tell your kids to sign up.

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Telling ‘Advantage’ for Chinese Applicants - Wake Forest University is launching a new programme for
Chinese high school students intended to help “bridge the gap” between the Chinese and US educational systems and provide students with “incontrovertible” video evidence of their academic readiness, which Wake Forest will send to college admissions offices on their behalf.

“Our notion was by going to the high schools and providing exposure to Western-style pedagogical
practices, we’ll both have a better sense of who’s applying, at least in some cases, and we’ll have a head start on integrating students once they’re here,” said Rogan Kersh, Wake Forest’s provost.

American colleges have struggled both with validating the credentials of the increasing numbers of applicants from China - the number of Chinese students in the US has increased by 139 per cent in five years, and the heavy involvement of agents in the application process has brought with it concerns about fake transcripts, essays and letters of recommendation - as well as with helping students adjust to American classroom practices once they arrive. Intensive English or pathway programs frequently cover acculturative academic content, such as oral presentation skills or citation practices, but Wake Forest wants to bring that content to Chinese students before they graduate from high school.

Ann Cunningham, an associate professor of education at Wake Forest, has spearheaded the development of what’s called the Wake Forest Advantage curriculum, which focuses on four core learning skills - academic research and inquiry, academic discourse and communication, exploring US college and university culture, and refining individual learning strategies - and emphasises collaboration and reflection.

Wake Forest has partnered with the company EdisonLearning, and will be offering the curriculum in several formats. It will offer a two-week intensive summer academy, taught by its own education faculty and teacher education alumni and students; it will employ and train local teachers to deliver the curriculum in an after-school setting; and it will train instructors at partner high schools to teach the content during the normal school day. In the latter case, Wake Forest enters into a financial relationship directly with the high school; otherwise, the 72-hour summer academy costs $1,500 (£970), while students who take a 90-hour after-school programme pay $2,500.

One key difference is that students in the after-school programme, but not the summer academy, produce a “digital portfolio” that Wake Forest will distribute directly to US admissions offices upon their request. The student-created DVDs will show the students engaging in common Western-style classroom practices – such as giving presentations, debating with classmates, and working in groups - as well as reflecting on those experiences. A team of school teachers in North Carolina will evaluate the videos, which will be placed in envelopes sealed with gold, silver or bronze stickers to indicate the students’ level of preparedness for a US classroom.

“Just having a course like this under their belt is going to be a good sign for a university admissions office,” Dr Cunningham said.

However, Parke Muth, a consultant and former director of international admissions at the University of Virginia, questioned the value both to students and to admissions officers given that the only evaluative grade is a colour-coded seal. “For $2,500, you get a star,” he said. “That to me just isn’t worth it.” By contrast, he said, a signed letter from a Wake Forest faculty member describing the student’s progress in the classroom would be much more valuable to admissions officers.

“This sounds like a really good money-making venture potentially,” Mr Muth said.

Professor Kersh, the Wake Forest provost, maintained that profit isn’t a main motive behind setting up the programme. “It’s much more important that we have a clearer sense of who these applicants are, and that we can at least in a small way help prepare them for the very different college and university experience in the US. If it winds up being more lucrative than we imagine that certainly would be nice, but that’s not what we’re modelling or expecting,” he said. The programme has been piloted at the Dulwich College International High School Programme, in Jiangsu Province, China. The intensive academy will be run for the first time this summer and Wake Forest hopes to enter into partnerships with up to five high schools this autumn.

“These [types of] programmes really are designed to ensure student success,” said James Cross, associate provost and senior international officer at Champlain College, in Vermont. Champlain also has a presence in Chinese high schools: it offers a one-year bridge programme at Datong High School in Shanghai which focuses on English language skills and American classroom and university culture. Students are granted conditional admission to Champlain pending successful completion of the programme.

“There are other benefits to this – branding and the like. But more Chinese students do want to come to the United States, and those schools that want to accept them want to make sure they’re quality students who can be successful in the classroom. That really is the bottom line,” he said.
Source : www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

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Why Students lag in financial literacy - The Wall Street meltdown of 2008 and the ensuing recession did little to help make high school seniors In real terms, that might mean that students might have difficulty understanding the impact of a poor credit rating, the relationship between consumer spending and higher unemployment or how inflation can eat away at pay raises.
Students’ scores of economic literacy changed little between 2006 and 2012, suggesting that the national discussion about the millions of jobs that were lost and homes that were foreclosed didn’t translate to

higher academic achievement. During that period, several states added an economics course to high school offerings and some started requiring it to earn a diploma.

The findings show that more than half of students leave high school without an economic knowledge that federal officials consider proficient. In 2012, 39 percent of students had a basic understanding of economics while 18 were considered below basic.

“This is exactly what I would have expected,” said Annamaria Lusardi, a distinguished scholar at George Washington University who on Wednesday testified to a Senate subcommittee about students’ economic skills. (See HERE)

“Financial literacy is like every topic; they don’t learn by osmosis. Just because you read the Wall Street Journal, you’re not going to learn about interest compounding,” Lusardi said, noting headlines were no substitute for instruction.

About 10,900 high school seniors at 480 public and private schools took the economics test as part of the 2012 National Assessment of Educational Progress, more commonly called “the nation’s report card.” (See HERE)

But among Hispanic students, performance rose, narrowing the gap between their scores and those of their white classmates.
financially savvy and less than half of them have a solid understanding of economics, according to an Education Department report released Tuesday.

Source : www.spokesman.com

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Ohio State Men's Basketball Student Managers - The squeaking of brand new Nikes against polished hardwood fills the expansive interior of an empty Schottenstein Center. Bouncing basketballs, blowing whistles and exhausted grunts combine to form the soundtrack of a Buckeye basketball practice. Some of the members of the Ohio State men’s basketball program stand drenched in sweat, hands on their hips and watch as others participate in drills.

These spectators and participants combine to comprise an indisposable crew on the floor, but they aren’t the basketball team. They’re the seven members of the Ohio State men’s basketball managerial staff.

While the actual team wins the games and earns the headlines, the staff supporting the team is happy to sit behind the bench on game days, out of the spotlight. They’re OK with the idea that the outside world has no clue how important they were to coach Thad Matta and his teams’ preparations for victory.

“A lot of people just think we’re all ‘water and towels’ and just kind of there,” said Weston Strayer, manager and a fourth-year in marketing. “But they don’t understand just how much time and work we put in each week to the program.”

Their contributions are noticed by those who pay attention though.

“The managers do everything you really don’t want to do, and they do it with a smile on their face,” said senior forward Evan Ravenel. “They’re one of the key components to our team, and we wouldn’t be half as good without those guys.”

A typical OSU student gets up, goes to class, maybe goes to work afterward and then juggles homework with a social life. The managers have those same obligations, but in addition to their school obligations, they deal with between 35 and 40 hours a week of unpaid work for basketball activities.

They show up for 10 a.m. practice an hour before to set up. They stay two hours after to rebound for players who want to get extra shots up or to run errands for coaches. It can end up being a five-hour shift. On game days, they’re there for the pre-game shootaround five hours before tip-off and will stay at the arena for the next eight hours, through the pre-game team meal and the game itself.

During the games, they take advanced stats for the coaches, set up chairs on the court for the team during timeouts and manage Matta’s play-calling whiteboard.

“Once the game starts, nothing we have done is going to change anything, but preparation-wise, we definitely help them out where we can,” Strayer said. “We try and do our best to help them prepare and make everything a little bit easier for them.”

The man in charge of the managers is David Egelhoff, director of basketball operations. He’s been on the OSU staff for 10 years and in his current position for seven. In addition to handling the day-to-day, off-court activities of the basketball team, he handles the application and hiring process of the team’s managers and serves as their boss.

It’s a position his past has qualified him for.

Egelhoff served as a student manager for OSU’s basketball team from 1998 to 2002 under former OSU coach Jim O’Brien. He said his times as a manager make up some of his favorite college memories.

“I’ve made lifelong friendships, not only with the managers but the coaching staffs and players I’ve worked with as well,” Egelhoff said. “We had a really enjoyable time doing a lot of things … those experiences we had were pretty special to me.”

The sheer quantity of time the managers spend with each other has allowed them to form a special bond.

“It’s a great group of guys, we joke and mess with each other and it’s a lot of fun,” Strayer said. “We kind of joke when we walk out of the tunnel (during home games), they announce the ‘three-time defending Big Ten champions’ and then we all kind of just come out before everyone, so I always wonder what people think when they see us in the suits walking out by the team.”

Evan Kurt, a third-year manager and a fourth-year in marketing, said the experiences of going to the Final Four and to different venues around the country have made managing the “best time” of his life.

While the managers know they will never make the game-winning shot, they also are aware that their weeklong contributions before the 40-minute games are vital.

“There’s a lot that goes on at practices that people don’t see. If you don’t know all about what goes on behind the scenes, you don’t really understand,” Kurt said. “Game to game, it’s players and coaches who determine success, but behind the scenes, it’s us helping everybody improve and helping everybody get better.”

The managers’ reward for the hours upon hours of dirty work isn’t fame, money or recognition. It’s something less tangible, but something the managers say is much more important.

“The sense of being a part of the team,” Strayer said. “It’s one thing to be a fan, but to be emotionally involved, and to be with the team all the time and to be a part of the team is something I’ll never forget.”

Ravenel, a player who has played on three Big Ten championship teams and two Final Four teams, expressed the team’s gratitude for its managers.

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Early Education According Senate Dems - Senate Democrats unveiled their education budget Thursday, Like the budget unveiled by House Democrats this week, Senate Democrats are focusing on education for Minnesota's youngest students.

Much of the Senate budget's $356 million in new spending would fund free all-day kindergarten statewide. About two-thirds of the state's school districts currently offer all-day kindergarten, but many of them charge for it. The Senate budget also boosts early learning scholarships for 3- and 4-year-olds, from $3 million a year to almost $50 million.

"We will have students prepared for kindergarten and much more likely to succeed in life," said Sen. Chuck Wiger, DFL-Maplewood.

Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton also voiced his support for early education in his own budget proposal.

The budget bill passed through the Senate education finance committee on a voice vote, its first stop as both chambers work to nail down financing the state's education for the next two years.

The Senate's bill doesn't address the roughly $850 million that the state owes schools from previous borrowing to balance deficits. House Democrats plan to pay off the entire school shift in the next two years. Legislative leaders have been split on that issue from the start of session.

Wiger said school officials have told him they support the Senate's plan to pay back that shift over time.

The Senate budget adds $52 per pupil to the state's bedrock funding formula, which would bring it to $5,276 per student. The House plan aims to add $209 to that formula.

Another $9 million increase in the Senate bill would go to special education, which the House didn't address.

Senate Democrats are also looking to increase the age at which a Minnesota student can drop out of school — from 16 to 17 — to boost graduation rates.

They also want to retool testing practices to "move the state in a direction of teaching the subject matter, not teaching for the test," said Sen. Patricia Torres Ray, DFL-Minneapolis. By moving college entrance exam preparation up to as early as eighth grade, Torres Ray and other Democrats say schools can help those who need an extra hand and better prepare all students for college. (see HERE)

Republican Sen. Sean Nienow criticized the newer approach, saying that students would graduate regardless of whether they understood the material or earned a passing grade.

Echoing House Republicans, Nienow said he supported several measures of the Senate budget but would rather take money allocated for specific purposes — like all-day kindergarten — and add it to the state's general funding formula.

"That doesn't help schools with their funding concern. Local control is better than a state mandate," Nienow said.

Part of the Senate's budget also buys out old local property tax levies. Sen. Leroy Stumpf, DFL-Plummer, said that property owners statewide will see a decrease on their bills, though the structure of those levies makes it hard to guess how big, or small, the relief may be.

But Stumpf said it will also ease school districts' reliance on local property tax increases. School districts in cities and counties where education taxes haven't passed have suffered, leading to a funding gap in which some schools get far more funding per pupil than others.
a $15.6 billion package that would add to the state's basic per-pupil funding formula, increase Minnesota's school dropout age eliminate some local property tax levies. (see HERE)

Source : www.nujournal.com

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Detailed Overview Kenyon College 2013 - Kenyon is one of the nation's finest liberal arts colleges, a small school where academic excellence goes hand in hand with a strong sense of community.We bring together 1,600 young men and women to study with nearly 200 professors on an exceptionally beautiful hilltop campus in central Ohio. Their curriculum is rooted in the traditional liberal arts and sciences, and enriched by interdisciplinary programs. We set high academic standards and look for talented students who love

learning. Small classes, dedicated teachers, and friendly give-and-take set the tone. (See HERE) Kenyon welcomes curiosity, creativity, intellectual ambition, and an openness to new ideas. We see learning as a challenging, deeply rewarding, and profoundly important activity, to be shared in a spirit of collaboration.
Their greatest strength is their faculty, outstanding scholars who place the highest value on teaching. Close interaction with students is the rule here: professors become mentors and friends. Requirements are flexible enough to allow for a good deal of exploration. Other notable strengths include their distinguished literary tradition, many opportunities for research in the sciences, and programs connecting students to their rural surroundings. The Kenyon experience fosters connections of all kinds—to classmates and teachers and friends, to the life of the mind, to global perspectives, to their own unique traditions and history, and to a place of inspiration. (see HERE)

Source : www.kenyon.edu

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University helps Erica combine study and rugby - WHEN Erica Fowler first picked up that oval-shaped
ball at age six, she was surrounded by a bunch of smelly little boys.

Rather than running away, she embraced being the only girl on the field.

Erica played rugby union with boys until Year 5 when she was told she could no longer be a member of the team - a bunch of kids she considered her best mates.



The 20-year-old Peregian Beach resident went on to play with girls, which she says was when the "rough stuff" began.

"When I was playing with the boys, they didn't want to touch me because I was a girl," she said.

"It was a shock to the system when I first played with the girls because I was actually being tackled.

"Girls are rough."

Now a member of the Noosa Dolphins Phinettes Women's team and the Stingrays Women's Sevens side, Erica juggles her love of rugby with her paramedic science studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Her dual passion for sport and her career was recognised yesterday when she received one of two USC Encouragement Foundation Rugby Scholarships. (see HERE)

Erica is believed to be the first female rugby sevens player in Australia to receive the scholarship, which will provide $3000 for each year of her degree.

Fellow scholarship recipient Luke Kimber, a Sunshine Coast Stingrays player studying to be a physiotherapist, said seeing a woman recognised for her success in rugby was great.

"It's a pleasure to watch Erica play," he said. "She's a great player and she deserves all the recognition."

The scholarship will help Erica complete her degree while undertaking work experience with Queensland Ambulance Service, doing part-time work with ASSIST First Aid and playing rugby.

She hopes to realise her ultimate dream - making the Australian Women's side - by 2016 for the Rio Olympics.

Source : http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au

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Collaboration is Key to School Success - The lack of diversity on the Abilene Independent School District’s board of trustees’ was frequently brought up by the community during the four-plus months the board took to fill its Place 7 vacancy.

With all six current board members being white in a district where 41.6 percent of its students are Hispanic, 40.2 percent are white and 12 percent are black, the need to address the ethnicity issue was pushed to the forefront.

Hardin-Simmons University associate professor and board appointee Kelvin Kelley said it’s disappointing that race played such a large role in the discussion leading up to Monday night’s unanimous vote to name him the board’s seventh member.

Kelley is the first African-American to serve on the board since 2000, only the third to serve in the district’s history and only fifth minority trustee ever.

“It’s disappointing and I acknowledge it for what is, but in reality I don’t have to play by those rules,” said Kelley, Hardin-Simmons’ student diversity programs coordinator. “If your primary goal is student achievement, then it doesn’t matter who the student is. I had Hispanics, Caucasians and African-American students in our (Campus Advocacy) Program.” (see HERE)

Board President Stan Lambert reiterated Tuesday that seeking diversity wasn’t the board’s “main focus” in the appointment.

“We were looking for the best qualified individual,” Lambert said. “(Kelley) had outstanding qualifications and experience and was very eager and willing to jump into a middle of what is very difficult and challenging times for school boards.”

However, trustee Robert Laird said he was looking for a diverse candidate to appoint.

“My desire in the appointment process was to find a candidate with diversity in mind,” Laird said. “He works at Hardin-Simmons, he’s an ACU (doctorate) graduate and the diversity concept is very strong here. I don’t think he has an agenda, he only wants to do what’s best for our kids and I think that’s great.”

Kelley said he indeed doesn’t come into the position — for which he plans to seek election in May 2014 — with an agenda.

“For most of us, we have been influenced by ethnicity and you can’t deny that reality,” Kelley said. “But what you have to do is understand you have to take responsibility for that. If you acknowledge it, then you’re willing to make a decision that’s different from what the constituency demands.

“To make a viable education system, we have to work together; there must be collaboration.”

Kelley said student success is at the heart of his educational philosophies. (see HERE)

“The reality is that the learning space should be conducive to student discoveries,” said Kelley, the senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Cisco. “What that means is the teacher and instructor, as well as the student, have a responsibility of what’s going on in that environment. We (might) put an onus on the teacher or the student, and the reality is it’s a relationship.”

Along with those philosophies, Kelley also is adamant that people shouldn’t refer to some student populations as “at-risk.”

“I don’t use ‘at-risk students,’ I use ‘underperforming students’,” Kelley said. “Underperforming doesn’t mean you can’t do it, it just means you’re not doing it.”

Source : www.reporternews.com

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Compares College Costs Regionally and Nationwide 2013 - The cost of attending colleges and

Graduation rates, meanwhile, put regional institutions mostly in the middle of the pack nationally.

North Dakota University System Chancellor Hamid Shirvani, who has expressed concern with costs and graduation rates, said he thinks North Dakota institutions can do better.

The college scorecard is available through the White House website and helps students find colleges based on affordability, location, future occupation and other factors.

The site also allows students to see how a university compares to institutions nationwide that offer the same education level. For example, the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks primarily offers bachelor’s degrees, and it was compared with others that do the same.

universities in eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota are still mostly on the low end compared to similar institutions nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s new online “college scorecard.”

Better bang

Among four-year institutions around the nation, UND, North Dakota State University, Valley City State University and Minnesota State University Moorhead are all considered low-cost universities with medium graduation rates.

It cost a North Dakota State University student an average of $13,284 a year in 2010-11, including tuition and room and board. Of students who began in the fall of 2005, 53.7 percent graduated within six years with a bachelor’s degree. (see HERE)

The annual cost at MSUM was $11,684, while the six-year graduation rate was 44.7 percent.

For UND, the annual cost was $11,952, and the graduation rate was 54.3 percent.

At VCSU, the annual cost was $9,947, and the graduation rate was 42.1 percent.

Some four-year institutions in the three-state region boast better graduation rates.

Concordia College – a medium-cost institution at an annual price of $19,948 – ranked as having a high graduation rate, with 69.4 percent.

South Dakota State University is also low-cost at $12,815 but boasts a high graduation rate of 59.7 percent. The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, is medium-cost at $16,019 and has a high graduation rate of 70.2 percent.

Among two-year institutions, Lake Region State College in Devils Lake and North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton and Minnesota State Community and Technical College, which has a campus in Moorhead, are all considered medium-cost colleges. Lake Region costs $7,460, MSCTC costs $10,578 and NDSCS costs $9,365.

Lake Region and NDSCS both have what’s considered a high graduation rate among their peers: 52.4 percent of students graduate with an associate degree within three years at Lake Region and 52 percent and NDSCS. MSCTC has a medium graduation rate of 35.4 percent.

Earlier this week, Shirvani said he believes graduation rates can be improved with the statewide education reform plan he introduced last year, which aimed to pair students with institutions they are most suitable for. He stressed the importance of students at four-year institutions graduating in four years, particularly for the state’s two research universities, UND and NDSU.

The college scorecard does not show how many students graduate in four years, but Shirvani said Thursday that 23 percent of UND students and 22 percent of NDSU students do so compared to 47 percent of U of M students.

Student debt

Student debt was considered medium at the majority of colleges and universities in the region. After completing or leaving school, former UND students pay a median $197.02 per month. For former NDSU students, it’s $182.98, and for those who attended MSUM, it was $175.50.

Loan payments for former VCSU students were deemed low at $151.53.

Concordia’s monthly loan payments were ranked as high at $272.44.

Former Lake Region students pay $77.68, considered low. Median monthly loan payments for former students at MSCTC were $109.33, while it was $123.62 for former NDSCS students.

The median monthly payments were based on an interest rate of 6.8 percent and included all federal loans borrowed by a student who graduated or withdrew in 2010-11.

The cost of higher education in North Dakota has skyrocketed in recent years, with total student debt at the Bank of North Dakota alone reaching $1.68 billion at the end of 2012.

Shirvani said the college scorecard data is evidence that UND and NDSU have avoided charging high tuition adopted by other public colleges and universities in the mid-1990s, and he expects the state’s two research universities to keep costs low. (see HERE)

“Given the state’s newfound wealth,” he said, “we would expect both our institutions to steer clear of what has become a national embarrassment with so many low- and middle-income families choosing to opt out of postsecondary educational opportunities due to the high level of debt from borrowing.”

Source : www.inforum.com

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American Liberal Education (The Decline and Fall) - Liberal education once stood for something grand Conservatives have complained of this for decades, with little effect. A slew of books over the past 25 years have exposed what goes on in the ivory towers, from Allan Bloom's treatise "The Closing of the American Mind" to Dinesh D'Souza's polemic "Illiberal Education." But none had provided a careful, in-depth study of a single school until the National Association of Scholars (NAS) this week released its 360-page report "What Does Bowdoin Teach?"

and good: the study of the arts, humanities and sciences with the aim of improving the mind through the acquisition of knowledge and the pursuit of truth. But some of America's most elite colleges and universities have all but abandoned this goal. Instead, many selective schools favor the faddish, the politically correct and the dogmatic, all the while proclaiming their devotion to promoting "critical thinking" and tolerance.

Bowdoin College is a small private "liberal arts" school in Brunswick, Maine. Its admissions standards are demanding. Bowdoin accepts fewer than one in five who apply (though the school admits about a third of black and other "underrepresented" applicants to satisfy its commitment to "diversity"). The cost of tuition, room, board and fees for the school's roughly 1,800 students is hefty: $56,128 for the 2012-13 academic year, a sum that exceeds the annual income for half of all American households. (See HERE)

The school was founded in 1802 and boasts a distinguished cast of graduates, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and U.S. President Franklin Pierce. But as the report's authors, Peter Wood and Michael Toscano, demonstrate, Bowdoin is not the school it once was. Nor does it provide the education, I venture, that most parents who send their children there believe they are getting, nor one most donors to the school's nearly $1 billion endowment would approve.

Bowdoin requires all freshmen to take a first-year seminar, which is supposed to provide the gateway to the "critical thinking" skills the college purports to value. Among the 35 courses from which students must pick, easily half are either frivolous or, worse, tendentious exercises in identity politics. The titles alone tell the story: "Fan Fiction and Cult Classics," "Beyond Pocahontas: Native American Stereotypes," "Racism," "Fictions of Freedom," "Sexual Life of Colonialism," "Prostitutes in Modern Western Culture" and "Queer Gardens," to name a few. The latter course "examines the work of gay and lesbian gardeners and traces how marginal identities find expression in specific garden spaces." One can only infer that the college deems such knowledge a necessary building block to every student's intellectual development.

Wood and Toscano do more than catalogue the obvious excesses of the modern academy, however. Wood brings his training as an anthropologist to the examination of campus life and culture, painstakingly researching the college's records, including minutes of academic meetings, to reveal how Bowdoin's mission changed over the past 40 years. In a series of appendices and within the actual report, the authors document the decision-making process that has transformed Bowdoin into the school it is today. (see HERE)

The study also looks at the college's implicit promotion of sexual promiscuity and the "hook-up" culture among students, which begins during first-year orientation. A play called "Speak About It," which all incoming students must attend, includes what its authors say are autobiographical sketches from current and former Bowdoin students. The play depicts graphic on-stage sexual encounters between heterosexual and gay couples -- complete with simulated orgasms. Paradoxically, the Bowdoin community also seems obsessed with preventing sexual assault, which administrators seem to believe is rampant on campus despite the low incidence of reporting alleged attacks.

If Bowdoin were unique in its abandonment of traditional liberal education, this study might be of no more than passing interest. What the authors found at Bowdoin, however, exists to some degree at many if not most elite colleges and universities. This study deserves widespread dissemination and discussion -- first among Bowdoin's alumni, donors and the parents of current and potential students. But anyone interested in the future of higher education in America should take note.

Our colleges and universities shape the next generation of leaders and citizens, for better or worse. And the country's most elite schools will influence disproportionately who we become as a nation and a people in the future. What has happened to Bowdoin College should matter to all of us. Examiner Columnist Linda Chavez is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

Source : http://washingtonexaminer.com

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Universities Don’t Know How Much is a B.A. Worth - Last week, I tried finding basic information

about student outcomes on five university websites: The University of Alberta, York University, McGill, Simon Fraser and the University of New Brunswick. It was not a scientific study, just a rough and random approximation of what an undergrad and their family may do at this time of year, as they are weighing admission offers.

I looked for things like employment rates, starting salaries, the number of graduates who continue their education. (The need for info doesn’t stop with undergraduates; potential graduate students are also curious about professorial jobs, percentage of

drop-outs, and how many of those who came before them are now getting employee discounts at Target.)

At each site, I spent a few minutes looking at two or three departments and clicking on the button that says “Graduate employment and salaries.” Oh, right. That button doesn’t exist.

Such information as did exist – rarely – was buried in institutional documents and presented only on a university-wide basis rather than broken out by department. Most departments have posted a document under a “Careers” heading that listed occupations a graduate in the discipline could pursue. Occasionally, faculties included the names of prior students who’ve gone on to become the Lionel Messi’s of that field.

In social science, these kinds of “small n” studies have been replaced by sophisticated statistical analysis that can account for the impact of multiple variables (so goes the claim anyway). Yet when it comes to their own outcomes, the postsecondary institutions themselves have not made that shift.

If university websites are not overly generous with their information, they nevertheless expect students to understand the many routes to admission, the costs of education, the scholarships and loans available and the number of reference letters and extracurriculars required to be considered for admission and financial aid. Data on what you can do to get into your university was plentiful.

Recently, we’ve had a lot of arguments that the value of a university degree is in decline. The most recent brouhaha is in Alberta: Thomas Lukaszuk, the Advanced Education Minister, has sent letters to the province’s postsecondaries asking them to take steps to make their programs relevant to the labour market. The underlying message is that universities are now producing PhDs in grande lattes, and central planning is needed to lead us to a future where chemical engineers and finance quants will be as common as English majors. (Presumably the increase in supply will make the engineers cheaper too.)

Universities may well be right to worry that a bureaucracy setting up goals could erode their autonomy without helping students. And that focusing on jobs detracts from the learning and campus experience. But they don’t help their cause when they can’t point to statistics we can all see and students can use.

Source : www.theglobeandmail.com

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Detailed Overview University of Kansas 2013 - Since its founding, the University of Kansas has Nearly 150 years later, KU has become a major public research and teaching institution of 28,000 students and 2,600 faculty on five campuses (Lawrence, Kansas City, Overland Park, Wichita, and Salina). Its diverse elements are united by their mission to educate leaders, build healthy communities, and make discoveries that change the world.

A member of the prestigious Association of American Universities since 1909 (see HERE), KU consistently earns high rankings for its academic

programs. its faculty and students are supported and strengthened by endowment assets of more than $1.44 billion. It is committed to expanding innovative research and commercialization programs.

KU has 13 schools, including the only schools of pharmacy and medicine in the state, and offers more than 345 degree programs in 200 fields. Particularly strong are special education, city management, speech-language pathology, rural medicine, clinical child psychology, nursing, occupational therapy, and social welfare. Students, split almost equally between women and men, come from all 50 states and 105 countries and are about 15 percent multicultural. The University Honors Program is nationally recognized, and KU has produced 26 Rhodes Scholars, more than all other Kansas schools combined.

The University of Kansas Cancer Center is the state's only designated National Cancer Institute. Eleven other major centers oversee research in life span issues, the humanities, transportation, the environment, biosciences, biodiversity, and polar ice sheets, among others.

Nine core service laboratories and affiliated centers specialize in such fields as biomedical research, molecular structures, technology commercialization, and oil recovery. KU has service centers statewide that offer training and professional development in law enforcement, firefighting, child development, health education, and public management. (see HERE)

The main campus in Lawrence tops Mount Oread, known informally as the Hill. This long, curved limestone ridge was named by the town founders who for a decade endured bitter conflicts with pro-slavery factions from Missouri. A horrific guerrilla raid in August 1863 burned the town and killed 200 men and boys. Yet a few months after the Civil War ended, KU was founded, opening in September 1866.
embodied the aspirations and determination of the abolitionists who settled on the curve of the Kaw River in August 1854. Their first goal was to ensure that the new Kansas Territory entered the union as a free state. Another was to establish a university.

Source : http://www.ku.edu/about

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Telling How to Make College Affordable 2013 - The California Senate introduced legislation this month. The Senate’s concerns surely include some basic facts: The cost of getting a college degree is no longer affordable to most young people, and even if they can afford college, they cannot get the general education courses they need to progress in their academic career. Major problems to be sure.

More universities are looking at blended learning – a form of distant education – or even at Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs, as one possible solution. It’s true that to accommodate larger student bodies, the large lecture hall combined with some online activity makes sense. Indeed, some courses can as easily be taught outside the classroom or lecture hall.

Allowing students to learn when and where it is most convenient for them is extremely attractive. Given the widespread availability of technology, it is not surprising that the “cyberschool” approach is fast becoming ordinary and acceptable at high schools and colleges in America, Europe and in other developed nations.

But collaboration and cooperation between most universities really hasn’t taken hold. Last month, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Steven G. Poskanzer and David R. Anderson, the presidents of Carleton College and St. Olaf College talked “about how these two colleges could work together more closely in areas like the library, the colleges’ technology infrastructure, human resources and payroll, and, ultimately, their academic programs.” And they did it.

There was criticism that they could’ve done more … and it’s still early. But while this collaboration occurred between smaller universities, isn’t there an opportunity for all universities?

The motto of the modern day corporation, as Robert Logan and Louis Stokes wrote 10 years ago, was “Collaborate to Compete.” The basic idea is to determine your core strength or strengths and leverage them while finding ways to cooperate with others … to provide things that must be done but in which your organization has no special talent.

The purpose is to make your organization more competitive in the marketplace. (see HERE)

The concept has worked and gained widespread acceptance, at least in the corporate world, but this same philosophy seems not to be applied to nonprofits, local governments, or to universities.

In the California State University (CSU) system and other state systems there must be similar opportunities to lower the costs and increase efficiency and availability. And, for curriculum too. Each university, for example, has an undergraduate program full of courses that everyone should take in their first two years; and subsequently, courses that are duplicated – depending on the major – in each of the 17 universities that are part of the CSU system.

Are they each so unique that there cannot be collaboration – even if they are team-taught? And aren’t we able to find ways to have the best faculty use blended learning techniques to all the CSU student body? Of course we can.

Furthermore, the idea of logging on when its convenient for many students and asking questions whenever they need to without the formality – and often embarrassment of more traditional classroom settings – also has its appeal. And, according to many experts in the online field, the new media make lectures more accessible and even more entertaining.

that could reshape higher education by requiring the state’s public colleges and universities to give credit for online courses.

Social media, email, and texting have displaced personal contact in a way that would have been hard to predict just a few years ago. Electronic media have become the standard way of communicating, according to Glenn Hartz a professor of philosophy at Ohio State University (See HERE). “Assuming that the content is there, the course is now judged largely on how artfully and smoothly the elements meld together into a coherent, pleasing whole,” Hartz said.

If we really want to be more accessible, more affordable and more efficient at delivering basic college education to more students, we need to ask how we can collaborate, where we can work together, and determine what we can do that is so unique to our university that it becomes our basic mission.

In short, we must find where we can collaborate … and, using technology, better serve young people in our region, and our country.

Eger is Van Deerlin Chair in Communications and Public Policy Director, Creative Economy Initiative School of Journalism and Media Studies San Diego State University.

Source : www.utsandiego.com

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New Lure Technology for Caroline Robins School 2013 - Caroline Robins elementary school is about to get

an $800,000 investment to make it a technological hub. If all goes as planned, by next September the underused Westview-area school will be home to a newly renovated resource centre with computers, tablets, video cameras and other equipment, in an effort to change the way students learn.

"We're really trying to set Caroline Robins up as a bit of a lighthouse school for the system, so we can see what's in the realm of the possible," Saskatoon Public Schools deputy director of education Barry MacDougall said.

Teachers from other schools will be invited in to see how Caroline Robins students not just consume information using tech tools, but are challenged to analyze, evaluate, and create.

"The technology is evolving so rapidly, so we want to get out a little bit in front of it," MacDougall said.

Earlier this week, the public school board approved $700,000 to renovate parts of Caroline Robins. Earlier, the board approved another $100,000 for equipment.

The investment comes to a school that already has one of the highest ratios of computers per student of any school in the division - partly due to previous investments in hardware, and partly because of low enrolment.

MacDougall said the plan is to renovate the school's existing prekindergarten and kindergarten areas to become a modern learning resource centre. The division will then renovate classrooms at the front of the school into a primary years suite, adding a door to a new outdoor play area designed for the tots.

The division has also submitted a proposal to the ministry of education to open a new daycare centre in the school's existing library space, MacDougall said.

Withman Jaigobin, division superintendent for Caroline Robins, says beefing up digital equipment isn't simply meant to move work that could be done on paper onto computers (see HERE).

"That will be impressive, the technology we have, but what we want to be more impressive is the instruction and the learning style, and how the students will be interacting - how the students will be learning, and what they'll be producing in the process, which will look different," said Jaigobin, who is also the superintendent responsible for technology in the division.

The initiative, which will start with a focus on children in kindergarten to Grade 4, will challenge students to express their ideas in ways other than putting pen to paper.

Jay Salikin, educational consultant for technology, says class assignments could be done in the form of a video, or a blog post, or in collaboration with someone in another country.

"We're trying to really change the look of the classroom, from the teacher standing at the front lecturing to 30 students, to having the kids working together collaboratively and creating things, and getting into critical thinking," Salikin says.

The program follows the introduction this year of another experiment at two public elementary schools and Marion Graham Collegiate. Rather than confiscating cellphones at the door, teachers encourage students to use them for schoolwork, and loan out some devices from the libraries.

The division chose Caroline Robins as a test site because it's one of a handful of Saskatoon schools that's so underused, it has empty classrooms. Families from the nearby new suburb of Hampton Village are sending most of their children to Dundonald School, which is now over capacity. Caroline Robins, however, could easily accommodate another 100 students (see HERE).

"We have overcrowding issues at Dundonald," MacDougall said. "We are setting out very deliberately to make Caroline Robins as attractive as possible to residents in the neighbouring community."

Including a childcare centre may also help draw more families to the school. This month's provincial budget included funds for 500 new daycare spaces across Saskatchewan. MacDougall hopes to find out later this spring whether Caroline Robins can host 50 of them.

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Richard Griffiths Glimpse of History Education - Richard Griffiths has died on Thursday in Coventry, England. He was 65. As a tribute to of his achievement this time I'll tell you about At 2007 Former RSC actor, Richard Griffiths, has been awarded an OBE for his services to drama.

The 65 years old actor, who lives in a small village just outside Stratford-upon-Avon, was born to deaf and mute parents on the 31st July 1947 at Thornaby-on-Tees, North Yorkshire. His father was a steel worker, and his mother a so called 'bagger' in a local supermarket.

Griffiths learned sign language as a young child so that he could converse with his parents, at the same

time developing his spoken English by listening to the radio.

Like many of his generation he left school at 15, getting himself a job as a porter. He returned to education some years later to study drama (he'd been smitten by acting after attending a drama class at Stockton and Billingham College) at the Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama (see HERE).

After graduating Griffiths was lucky enough to find a variety of acting and stage-managing parts with the last dying remnants of regional rep.

He was eventually discovered by the RSC, where his 1983 portrayal of the King in Henry VIII (alongside John Thaw as Cardinal Wolsey) was rightly received with great acclaim.

Although Griffiths had appeared in a string of TV series, such as The Sweeney and Bergerac, throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, it would be as a result of the high profile acclaim he received for his RSC work, and his iconic portrayal of Uncle Monty in the film Withnail & I , that pretty much ensured an eventual TV series of his own. This materialised in the form of the mid 1990s Pie in the Sky, where, as Henry Crabbe, he appeared as an ex-copper-cum-chef who, when not running a restaurant was still solving crimes. The BBC series ran for three years and undoubtedly brought Griffiths wider attention that has resulted, in the last few years, in many major film roles, not least as Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter series, and Hector in Alan Bennett's award winning The History Boys - a role he made his own in both the West End and Broadway productions.

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Detail Overview Miami HEAT Scholarships 2013 -The Miami HEAT is offering $10,000.00 in scholarship funds to high school seniors attending Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach schools. Scholarship applications are available each school year and recipients are awarded in May. This year’s application deadline is April 6th, 2013.

 

This will be the seventeenth year that the Miami HEAT has offered scholarships (click HERE). Scholarships are awarded based on academic performance and outstanding community service. Scholarships include the following:

•     Two (2) $2,500.00 HEAT Scholarships
•     One (1) $2,500.00 Dr. Jack Ramsay Scholarship
•     One (1) $2,500.00 Alec Kessler Student-Athlete Scholarship

 Click Here for Scholarship Application

Source : http://www.nba.com/heat/community/community_education_scholarships.html

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Strategic Approach to Dealing Lith Education Budget Shortfall - Faculty, staff and students at With its draft Letter of Expectation from Alberta Enterprise and Advanced Education in hand, the college knows its operating grant will be roughly $40.4 million, down from about $47 million last year.
Lethbridge College got a budget update last week at two town hall meetings.

At the town halls, people wanted to know how the college would balance its budget and whether it would dip into reserves. "We were clear about what our goal is, which is to submit a balanced budget to our board," said Paula Burns, president. The college will not be doing across-the-board cuts but will take a strategic approach to position the college in the new post-secondary reality. Burns said she couldn't yet say whether the budget cuts will mean job losses but that could happen.


Even before the letter arrived, Burns said the college was looking at its strengths and how it meets the need of the economy, both provincially and regionally. Her vision of the college is that it will be a leader in transforming the education system (see HERE).
"We are going to be a big part of the move toward whatever it's going to look like, which is very unclear at this point," she said.
Burns said she wasn't surprised by anything in the letter and added she believes there's plenty of room for consultation and for the college to provide leadership in defining itself and how it contributes to Campus Alberta.
Faculty at Lethbridge College are well aware of the possibility of job losses, even though that has yet to be finalized.
"It's very clear that administration wants to have a fairly collaborative process in which faculty members also contribute ideas to how the college could manage such a massive cut to their operating budget," said Rika Snip, president of the Lethbridge College Faculty Association.
The draft letters of expectation sent to all post-secondary institutions talk about reviewing the programs being offered to build on existing institutional strengths while advancing the Campus Alberta system and offering programs that employers and students want. The letters also talk about reducing program duplication.
"We're a comprehensive community college. As the system moves to creating these specialized centres and trying to reduce duplication they're also going to reduce access for students because there are going to be fewer programs, students are going to have to move. It will be more competitive because there will be fewer programs," Snip said.
Faculty also have concerns about the consequences of the budget cuts.
"It seems to me the government has decided that the professions are all too highly overpaid and particularly college administrators are too highly paid so we can darn well take a cut. What it means, though, is that the cut will be carried by particularly casual faculty and programs that are small," Snip said.
Casual faculty have no collective agreement and program cancellations could lead to further job losses.
"For those who remain the implications suggest that we will have larger classes and that faculty therefore will be forced to figure out ways to manage their workload with a higher student load," she said.
Snip said faculty are feeling generally disappointed in the government that, on the one hand, wants post-secondary institutions to educate people for the workforce and the economy but, on the other, doesn't want to pay for it.
The Lethbridge College Students' Association also came forward with concerns about the Letter of Expectation (see HERE).
"The thing with these mandate letters is once they're signed it gives the government a lot of leeway in making these decisions, possibly to the detriment of students," said Dillon Hargreaves, LCSA president.
The LCSA doesn't support the government's intentions for the post-secondary education system. Hargreaves said the government will be evaluating programs offered and deciding what programs will be offered where. And if students have to leave home anyway Hargreaves predicts they'll head right out of province.
Source : www.lethbridgeherald.com

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Civil Rights Issue Saving Public Schools - The fight against public school closings has become the new
civil rights battle in this country — and rightfully so. Faced with a $1 billion budget deficit, Chicago's public school system is the most recent urban district to announce a massive closure of schools. The city intends to shutter 61 elementary school buildings, nearly all of them in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Like other cities, Chicago claims that budget deficits and declining student enrollments have forced it to turn out the lights in these inner city schools.

That's a penny-wise-and-pound-foolish decision that condemns the neighborhoods surrounding these soon-to-be-boarded-up schools to further decline.

Over the next decade, school officials predict that these closings will save the school system $560 million. But first the city will have to spend $233 million to move students from the schools that will be closed into classrooms elsewhere.

Even if the school closings actually produce the projected savings, the damage they will produce to the neighborhoods left without readily accessible public schools will be catastrophic (see HERE).

Who wants to raise children in a community with no neighborhood schools? While poverty and crime have decimated the population of many inner city neighborhoods, shutting down schools in those troubled areas will depopulate them even faster. The result will be a growing expanse of urban wastelands that could well deepen the budget deficits of the cities that are closing public schools.

Politicians and school officials must be challenged to justify their school closing decision beyond the dealmaking of Chicago's City Council. The U.S. Department of Education's civil rights division is investigating complaints that claim the school closing decisions of several urban school districts amount to a civil rights violation (see HERE).

If the school closings don't violate the law, they sure seem to trample upon its spirit. Those who push for massive school closings are taking a meat cleaver approach to deficit reduction — one that treats poor and inner city neighborhoods with the disdain of Jim Crow-era lawmakers. They should be forced to come up with ways to bring school budgets into balance that strengthen these communities.

In recent months, school systems in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Detroit and Newark have announced plans to close public schools, and in every case blacks and Hispanics will bear the biggest burden of these cost-cutting measures. These decisions signal an indifference to the damage such policy decisions will have on the neighborhoods.

"If we don't make these changes, we haven't lived up to our responsibility as adults to the children of the city of Chicago," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said, according to the Associated Press.

That's a pretty shortsighted analysis of a problem that, if not addressed properly, will render large swaths of Chicago's black and Hispanic neighborhoods uninhabitable education wastelands.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA Today.

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First Female Hispanic to Chair APCEF - The American College of Prosthodontists announces that its American College of Prosthodontists Education Foundation (ACPEF.) David A. Felton, D.D.S., M.S.D., F.A.C.P., will serve as Vice Chair. Dr. Garcia was confirmed as the new Chair of the Foundation at its February meeting effective immediately, with a term through February 2014.
Immediate Past President Lily T. Garcia, D.D.S., M.S., F.A.C.P, has been confirmed as Chair of the

“During the next year, the Foundation will focus on projects including New Horizons, an exciting new initiative for the support of the prosthodontic specialty,” said Dr. Garcia. “To be confirmed as the first female Hispanic chair of the American College of Prosthodontists Education Foundation is an honor.”


“Dr. Garcia’s vision, leadership, service and dedication to the Foundation and specialty of prosthodontics makes her the right choice at this critical time for advancing oral care for all,” said Dr. Felton.

In addition to serving as Chair ACPEF, Dr. Garcia was appointed Chair-Elect of the Board for American Dental Education Association (ADEA) and is the recipient of the 2012 Hispanic Dental Association (HDA) Women’s Leadership Award. Dr. Garcia is Professor of the Advanced Education and External Affairs in the Department of Comprehensive Dentistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (see HERE). An accomplished author, Dr. Garcia has published numerous articles and abstracts. She has edited several dental textbooks, served as a reviewer and editorial board member for several scientific journals, and co-authored the text Osseointegration and Occlusal Rehabilitation. Dr. Garcia is a Diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics and Fellow of the ACP. Dr. Garcia maintains a practice limited to prosthodontics. Dr. Felton is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Prosthodontics.

The ACP is the only prosthodontic specialty organization whose membership is based solely on education credentials. ACP members must be in or have completed an ADA-accredited advanced education program in prosthodontics.

The mission of the ACPEF is to secure and steward resources with the aim of advancing prosthodontics. As a catalytic agent for prosthodontics, the ACPEF provides funding to support education, research and growth of the specialty and discipline of prosthodontics.

The American College of Prosthodontists is the professional association of dentists with advanced specialty training who are the experts in the restoration and replacement of teeth to create optimal oral health, both in function and appearance including dental implants, dentures, veneers, crowns and teeth whitening. To learn more about prosthodontists and prosthodontic procedures or to find a prosthodontist near you visit http://www.gotoapro.org. The ACP is a proud sponsor of the Ad Council’s first oral health campaign in its 70 year history, the Partnership for Healthy Mouths, Healthy Lives. The ACP is committed to educating the public about preventative, proactive simple habits honed early in life.

Source :  http://www.prweb.com/

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Brevard Schools Drawing Interest - Richard Webb, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Paradise in Indialantic, told FLORIDA TODAY a sale could be worth millions.

“We’ve got a great opportunity to solve a problem here,” said Webb, who declined to identify his client for competitive reasons. A sale could help alleviate a financial crisis that’s causing Brevard Public Schools to eliminate teaching jobs and institute various student fees.

Another possible solution to keeping the schools open also is gaining steam. Clearlake Middle in Cocoa, Gardendale Elementary on Merritt Island and South Lake Elementary in Titusville are slotted to close at the end of this school year.


Late last week, Canaveral Port Authority Commissioner Bruce Deardoff said he plans on asking the port board to give enough money to Brevard Public Schools to keep the three schools open for two more academic years. Port commissioners could vote Wednesday morning on the $5 million proposal.

Webb is representing a company that has charter schools in Florida and other states, and is seeking to enter the Brevard market. Charter schools are publically funded but are privately-run schools.

When asked about a potential sale, Brevard School Board Chair Barbara Murray said the board is “open-minded,” but is interested in the district staff’s proposal to re-purpose the schools for internal use. Doing so is expected to save the district money because leased space will no longer be needed.

“We’re going to entertain and look at all of our options,” Murray said.

Consolidating adult education and alternative learning centers, for example, is expected to save up to $550,000 a year. It’s part of the prioritized list of $30 million in savings that was approved earlier this month.

School district leaders are planning to convert Clearlake to one such center. Other district offices, such as technology repair and virtual schools, also will move to the school.

Source: floridatoday.com

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