Teachers For Indian Schools: The Peace Corps and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs have signed a five-year agreement under which returning Corps volunteers can teach in BIA schools. The arrangement was made under the Peace Corps’ new Fellows/ USA program, which allows former volunteers to teach in understaffed public schools across the country while they study for master’s degrees.
Schools At Risk: Forty-five high schools throughout the Northeast have been warned by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges that their accreditation is at risk because of cuts in programs and deteriorating school conditions. The number is much higher than in past years. Many schools have had to cut budgets because of the flagging economy.
Saving Jobs: To prevent massive layoffs throughout the district, New York City’s public school teachers and paraprofessionals have agreed to a 1 percent to 1.5 percent wage deferral. Under the agreement, which will save the beleaguered system about $40 million dollars this year, the school employeeswill be reimbursed for the cuts in 1995 and 1996.
A Good Cause: The DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund has awarded $1 million to Recruiting New Teachers, the sponsor of a public service campaign encouraging people to enter teaching.
A Call For Prayer: President Bush, speaking in late January at the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, reasserted his support for voluntary public school prayer. The president said that he continues to support the “belief that students who go to school to nourish their minds should also be allowed to nourish their souls.’'
Doing Time: Leaders of the teachers’ union in New Jersey’s South Orange-Maplewood school district have completed 84 hours of community service for defying a back-to-work order last fall during a strike over salary and working conditions. A judge ordered nine teachers to tutor recovering addicts at a drug- rehabilitation center and four members of the union’s support staff to help out at a Veterans Administration hospital.
