School Personnel
School Staffing by the Numbers
How many people work in schools, what types of work do they do, and how much do they get paid? Education Week breaks it down for you.
School & District Management
From Our Research Center
Schools See Steep Drop in Librarians, New Analysis Finds
Nationwide, schools have lost 20 percent of their librarians and media specialists in the past 15 years. Here's why that could hamstring district literacy efforts.
Teaching
Opinion
School Librarians Are Rockstar Resources
School librarians are vital to student learning as early as kindergarten.
Student Well-Being & Movement
How a Persistent Student Sounded the Alarm on Unsafe School Bus Drivers
A student journalist caught dozens of school buses on camera as they rolled through stop signs, spurring policy change. Here's what his work says about student engagement.
School & District Management
Opinion
8 Reasons Why School Secretaries Deserve More Credit
Don't wait for a special day to thank your school secretaries.
English Learners
Video
Helping Immigrant Students Adjust to New Schools, New Lives
A growing community of Somali immigrant families in St. Cloud, Minn., has presented multiple challenges for local educators who have been grappling with not only how to meet the students' linguistic and educational needs, but also how to create a learning environment where they feel safe and welcome. Confronting anti-Muslim sentiment both inside the district and outside in the broader community has been especially vexing. Most of the Somali community in St. Cloud is Muslim.
To help build linguistic and cultural bridges between educators and the Somali community, school district leaders hired Ahmed Hassan and Bishar Hassan.
The two Somali brothers, who are bilingual communication support specialists, have duties that range from providing verbal and written translations into Somali and English, advising students, and helping both Somali residents and school district staff members navigate unfamiliar cultural terrain. The brothers are also leaders in St. Cloud's Somali community. Education Week Video
Education Funding
News in Brief
Wichita District to Use Bus Drivers as Custodians
The Wichita, Kan., school district says it plans to use bus drivers as part-time custodians as part of a pilot program to keep schools clean and costs down.
Professional Development
Opinion
Ideas for Tackling the Teacher Shortage
A mid-western farmer's daughter raised me, and she had a proverb for everything. But my personal favorite, and one that she repeated to me time and time again when I became a teacher is, "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar." In other words we all respond better to praise than we do criticism. I think the same thing can be said when looking at a looming teacher shortage.
School & District Management
Opinion
Why Looping Is a Way Underappreciated School-Improvement Initiative
Stay with the same group of students for more than one year to strengthen student-teacher relationships & have a powerful impact on learning.
Education
Friday Reading List: Bus Drivers, Teen Pregnancy, and the NH Primary
New faces at the Education Department, bus-driver voting patterns, and an AFT ad to get you through to the weekend.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Opinion
Preschool, Adult Ed, Counselors: All the Pieces Matter
I was picketing because the board, in issuing those reduction in force notices (RIF), is cutting vital personnel, and program pieces who serve the neediest students in our district. Sharing the streets with me that day were preschool students and their parents, high school students, and continuing education adult students. Several of them spoke and their stories reminded me of why it was important that we save those 609 positions. Why all the pieces in LAUSD matter.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Opinion
Funding to Create the Schools California Students Deserve
I am thankful to report that my district, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), and my union, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) have come to a tentative contract agreement and the possibility of a strike is no longer looming on the horizon. Like most agreements, compromise was made on both sides of the bargaining table. I won't bore you with all the details but I do want to talk about one - college counselors.
School & District Management
Opinion
Open Letter to UTLA President and LAUSD Superintendent
It's time to take advantage of a lapsed contract, a reorganization of district administration, and the mediation process to create something new in the Los Angeles Unified School District, hybrid positions. A hybrid position would be where administrators would support schools by spending part of every work day actually teaching and the other part of the day would be devoted to administrative tasks of supporting students and schools.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
What Would You Choose: a School Nurse or a Copier?
I have sat in on school budget councils where we had to decide between funding a school nurse a few more days per week or purchasing a maintenance plan for our copy machines. This happens a lot, robbing Peter to pay Paul. The issue of essential school personnel is a huge roadblock in the heated negotiations between my union, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and LAUSD. What personnel are essential for schools and their students to thrive?
Teaching Profession
Report Roundup
Nonteachers Swell Districts' Payrolls
Between 1970 and 2010, the number of nonteaching staff members expanded by 130 percent to more than 3 million—or about half of public school districts' overall staff.