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Last week, St. Xavier University in Chicago and Oakland University in Auburn, Hills, Mich., closed their campuses for a few days in the wake of graffiti found on each campus that threatened violence. (See Chicago Tribune article and Detroit Free Press article)
In light of the incidents, The Tribune reports, campus security experts were debating whether […]

High school students in Chicago can get a reduced-fare transit card so they can ride the Chicago Transit Authority trains and buses to and from school at a bargain rate. Now, The Chicago Tribune says, Chicago public school officials are looking into the possibility of using smart-card technology so they can track the […]

The Prince George’s County (Md.) district is spending up to $1 million a year to install voice amplification systems in every classroom, The Washington Post reports. Teachers wear infrared microphones that raise the volume and clarity of teachers’ voices above the distracting buzz of competing noises. But some advocates for better classroom acoustics say that […]

School district employees in Texas have begun submitting their fingerprints as part of a new state law that requires them to undergo national criminal background checks.

Writing in The Washington Post, a teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., says the school has been victimized by “technolust.” The teacher, Patrick Welsh, says the malady “manifests itself in an insatiable need to acquire the latest, fastest, most exotic computer gadgets, whether teachers and students need them or want them.” The […]

Sgt. Phil Esterhaus always concluded his beginning-of-shift message to the Hill Street patrol squad with a heartfelt “Hey–Let’s Be Careful Out There.”*
That’s a warning that many educators and administrators would be wise to heed as they conduct more of their business online.
Case in point: Catskill (N.Y.) Superintendent Kathleen P. Farrell. According to The New York […]

A study out of Seattle says putting automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) in every school may not be worth the cost. The Seattle Times says the survey of emergency response to schools in the Seattle area over 16 years found that students suffered cardiac arrests only 12 times and a third of these children had known […]

The Liverpool (N.Y.) Central School District, just outside Syracuse, has decided to phase out school-issued laptops starting this fall. They are among a handful of schools that adopted one-to-one computing programs and are now abandoning them. Mark Lawson, Liverpool’s school board president, says:
“After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on […]