Archive for November 2015

Schools Considering Later Start Times for Safety

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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), earlier this year released a statement that adolescents who do not get enough sleep can suffer from physical and mental health problems, an increase in automobile accidents, and a decline in academic performance. Unfortunately, teens’ natural sleep cycle makes it difficult for them to fall asleep before 11:00 p.m. and then attend a 7:30 a.m. — or earlier — first class the next day.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The AAP recommends that middle and high schools delay the start of class time to 8:30 a.m. or later. This would bring school times in alignment with the biological sleep rhythms of adolescents, for whom sleep-wake cycles begin to shift up to two hours later at the start of puberty.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents is one of the most common – and easily fixable – public health issues in the U.S. today,” said pediatrician Judith Owens, MD, FAAP, lead author of the policy statement, “School Start Times for Adolescents,” published in the September 2014 issue of Pediatrics.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“The research is clear that adolescents who get enough sleep have a reduced risk of being overweight or suffering depression, are less likely to be involved in automobile accidents, and have better grades, higher standardized test scores and an overall better quality of life,” Dr. Owens said. “Studies have shown that delaying early school start times is one key factor that can help adolescents get the sleep they need to grow and learn.”</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">In Guilford, Connecticut, several school districts are considering giving an extra hour of sleep to its older students, believing that the change will reap safety, physical, and academic benefits, writes Kate Ramunni of the New Haven Register. Although changing schedules is always a headache for school districts, it can be done. The Wilton School District was one of the first to do it in 2003; at that time, teachers were against the shift, but parents supported the change.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“It can be costly in terms of rearranging bus schedules, and a lot of students and parents are concerned with sports programs because changing times can affect their ability to participate in sports,” said Rachel Gary, director of the Greater Hartford chapter of Start School Later. “There are always obstacles, but if there are things we can do to make lives healthier and safer, we owe it to them to address that. I feel like there has to be a way to come to a middle ground, and that has been done in a lot of different ways.”in Maryland’s Anne Arundel County, a survey has shown that most people think that changing school starting times to a later hour is best for students. Annapolis Patch‘s Deb Belt writes that four options were presented on how to make this change happen, all of which would result in high school students starting their first class at least 30 minutes later than the existing 7:17 a.m. bell.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">New Jersey legislators have endorsed a bill to study the advantages of later start times for middle and high school students as well. The New Jersey Association of School Administrators supports the change, but believe it should be decided by local districts and not by a statewide mandate, according to Phil Dunne of the Courier-Post .teens who sleep later are less prone to have car accidents, researchers have found. An excellent example of this can be found by comparing two adjacent counties in Virginia, says Nicholas Bakalar writing for The New York Times. These two counties are almost identical when it comes to ethnicity, percentage of congested roads, and socioeconomic characteristics. One difference, however, is that in Henrico County, high school begins at 8:45 a.m., and in Chesterfield County, school begins at 7:20 a.m. In 2009-2010, the rate of accidents involving 16- to 18-year-old drivers was 48.8 per thousand in Chesterfield. In Henrico County, the rate was 37.9. In 2010-2011, in Chesterfield the rate was 51.9 per thousand and in Henrico 44.2. However, for adults during that same time, accidents fluctuated between 13 and 14 per thousand in both Chesterfield and Henrico Counties.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The November issue of The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine included the Henrico/Chesterfirld experiment, but gathered no information on other risky behaviors or other factors that could have affected the results. Dr. Robert Verona, associate professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School understands that the study does not specifically prove causal effect, but he does say:</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">“There is a growing literature that shows that early start times are a problem, and school systems should take a look at the data and seriously consider whether they should delay them.”</span></i></div>
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Schools Considering Later Start Times for Safety

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), earlier this year released a statement that adolescents who do not get enough sleep can suffer ...

Safety Experts, Doctors Urge Parents to Be Vigilant Around Water

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<b><i>With summer in full swing, parents are being warned by health professionals and child safety advocates to monitor their children more closely around water.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>When Lindsey Kujawa took her eyes off her son for just a few seconds at a pool party, her toddler jumped into a hot tub and the jets pushed him to the other side. After about 20 seconds Kujawa pulled her son out and he seemed fine. WCHS-TV reports that Kujjawa, in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, said after about an hour, she noticed that her son was coughing and lethargic and rushed him to the emergency room. There she was told that her son was was suffering from a little known, but very dangerous condition, often called secondary drowning.the condition, which is a result of fluid that is left in the lungs after the intake of water, prevents tiny air sacs in the lungs from sending oxygen into the bloodstream.  This can eventually cause the heart to stop beating.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>“This case is not a total surprise and it can happen, but not in the majority of cases,” said Dr. Paul Pepe, chair of emergency medicine at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who has conducted numerous studies on drowning in Texas and in Florida, where rates are high.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Pepe added that although this is not a common event, it does occur. In medical terms, even when a child is resuscitated after falling in water, pulmonary edema can develop in the first three to four hours after water has been taken into the lungs.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Last week, the USA Swimming and the Pool Safely campaign announced that 95 children under 14 have drowned in pools and spas in the US this year as of May 31. Of that number, 74 involved children under 5 years of age. The organization does not keep records of deaths from secondary drowning.ellyn Pollack, spokesman for the organization, said “secondary drowning” is not a phrase that her group uses because the child has died from drowning even if the death occurs two days later. The data used comes from the Consumer Product Safety Commission which urges parents to teach their children how to swim. The CPSC reports that there are up to 400 drownings per year in the US among children under the age of 15. Approximately 75% of the children are under 5 years old. Drowning is the number one cause of death for children under 5.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Another type of drowning is known as “dry drowning” says Asher Fogle, writing for Good Housekeeping, with some experts estimating that dry and secondary drowning account for about 1 to 2% of these fatal events.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>“This smaller percentage, while rare, is really scary because the symptoms can be delayed,” Dr. Mark Zonfrillo, from the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, tells GoodHousekeeping.com.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>In cases of “dry drowning”, however, water never reaches the lungs, but occurs when a small amount of water is taken in through the mouth or nose making the airway spasm and close up. It can take place in water or briefly after exiting.for both dry and secondary drowning, the symptoms to watch for are trouble breathing, coughing, sputtering. Additionally, with secondary drowning, parents should look for vomiting, sleepiness, lethargy, chest pain, fever, or unusual mood change.waiting too long to administer CPR, or to take the child to an ER, can cause complications. Swimming lessons are crucial according to the CDC, along with learning CPR, close supervision, and constructing barriers around pools and spas.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Jenna Birch of Yahoo! Health details 6 types of drowning, and although the World Health Organization simplified things in 2005 by putting all types of drowning under the one umbrella term “drowning,” knowing the distinctive manners in which people can drown may be helpful.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Wet drowning is when a body is underwater and the victim inhales water into the lungs making it impossible to take in oxygen. Dry drowning is when the throat reflexively closes and the victim dies of asphyxiation. Silent drowning takes place when there are no warnings, no sounds, no splashing, and no cries for help. The victim silently goes underwater and drowns.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Active drowning is when the victim is fighting and flailing. This type of victim’s thrashing can make rescue dangerous or impossible. Passive drowning describes a victim who is unconscious and in the last stages of the drowning incident. Secondary drowning occurs when a person has a near drowning experience, or a serious intake of water, but does not show symptoms until up to 24 hours after the episode.the settings in which drownings can occur differ dramatically. Children can drown in larges bodies of water, lakes, pools, spa tubs, bathtubs, and even in large buckets. Emergency medicine physician Darria Long Gillespie, an assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine, implores parents to never let their guards down. One moment of distraction is the first step to most childhood drowning events.</i></b></div>
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Safety Experts, Doctors Urge Parents to Be Vigilant Around Water

With summer in full swing, parents are being warned by health professionals and child safety advocates to monitor their children more clo...

Virginia School Bans Open-Flame Science Labs After Accident

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<i><b>W.T. Woodson High School in Virginia’s Fairfax County was the location of a fire in its chemistry a week ago, leading the superintendent of one of the largest school districts in the country to suspend all science experiments that would include open flames, write Moriah Balingit, Justin Jouvenal, and T. Rees Shapiro of The Washington Post.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>The fire occurred when a teacher used a flammable liquid to demonstrate how chemicals can change the color of a flame. Five students in the classroom were hospitalized, the teacher was burned, and all students were evacuated from the school. Students said no one was wearing protective garments.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>Fairfax County Schools Superintendent Karen Garza said a review of the county’s curriculum would ensue and safety guidance education for teachers would occur. The county plans for security updates for all science teachers before the semester ends.high school students will be most affected by the ban. Lab procedures in physics, biology, and chemistry classes all include open flames, said a veteran teacher.the teacher repoured flammable liquid on a dying flame, causing a “splash of fire” to hit the observers. Two students were taken by helicopter to hospitals in the area, three students were taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, and the teacher’s burns were minor. Officials described the fire as accidental.t</b></i><i><b>he US Chemical Safety Board and the American Chemical Society say that “the rainbow experiment” that was the lab performed has left students with severe injuries and should not take place in classrooms.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>“These demonstrations present an unacceptable risk of flash fires and deflagrations that can cause serious injuries to students and teachers,” the American Chemical Society said.calais Weber knows about preventable accidents like the one that happened at W.T. Woodson High School. Weber was 15-years-old when ten years ago the same event occurred in her chemistry class.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>“It was called the rainbow experiment,” said Weber. “It was meant to show how different chemicals burn at different light frequencies, so the flames end up being different colors when you burn them.”</b></i></div>
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<i><b>Her teacher took out a bottle of methanol at her desk in front of the classroom. She poured it into the open fire, reports Laura Evans for Fox 5 Washington, D.C. The flame exploded, and since Weber was in front of the experiment she bore the brunt.she says the solution to the problem is proper training, the reduction of complacency, and increased knowledge.“I really think there are teachers that for whatever reason don’t understand the chemical properties of methanol and exactly why it’s so dangerous and therefore don’t understand how to use it properly,” she said.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>The flame burned Weber over 40% of her body and she was in the hospital for two and a half months. She was a model, so the accident changed her life dramatically. Weber has worked tirelessly to raise awareness so no one else will go through what she has endured.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>But in the last year and a half there have been four accidents across the US like the one at Woodson that have injured over 20 people. Still, Weber continues working with lawmakers and educating students and parents.</b></i></div>
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Virginia School Bans Open-Flame Science Labs After Accident

W.T. Woodson High School in Virginia’s Fairfax County was the location of a fire in its chemistry a week ago, leading the superintendent ...

UK Government Approves First New Grammar School in 50 Years

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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Weald of Kent school in Tonbridge, England will build an ‘annexe’ new grammar school in Sevenoaks, Kent after Education Secretary Nicky Morgan gave the green light. The school, which is not considered a separate grammar school establishment, but rather an annexe of the existing school, is expected to welcome its first 450 students by 2017. It is the first new grammar school to be approved in 50 years.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Opening new grammar schools have been banned since 1997, and the Education Minister says the Kent grammar school case should not be construed as a ban lift, nor should it make other schools hopeful they can get their proposals approved. Explaining her decision, Morgan said it was a natural expansion, the Daily Mail reports, and that the decision shouldn’t be thought of as government approval of selective schools.several proposals for grammar schools have been rejected in the past largely in view of bureaucracy, the UK Telegraph reports.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Proposals for new grammar schools are prohibited by law and they can only be considered when they “meet the criteria for being a genuine expansion” — in other words, when there’s sufficient demand for new school places, Morgan said.“I don’t want to fight the battles of selective and non-selective… This is one particular application with one particular set of circumstances. Why would I deny a good school the right to expand?”“I don’t think this will open any kind of precedent or floodgates,” the Education Minister added.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Labour party characterized the decision as a “backward step”. The party banned the introduction of more grammar schools in the late 1990′s on the grounds that academic selection shouldn’t determine students’ educational opportunities.shadow education secretary Lucy Powell said the decision makes equal access to education difficult for students:</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">”David Cameron should look at the clear evidence on grammar schools: They do not increase equality of opportunity, they make it worse.”the Weald and Sevenoaks sites will be under one leadership and management while governance, curriculum and admission processes will also be centrally administered.grammar schools in England are run by the state and choose their students through the 11-plus examination, an exam students take at the age of 11 and which determines the top students qualified to attend. The rest attend a standard secondary school.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The system is highly controversial in view of its discrimination against students with less-than-excellent academic abilities. Hannah Richardson of the BBC says of the grammar school concept:</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“[T]he system effectively divided students into two types – those destined for university and better jobs, and those deemed more suitable for less celebrated professions.”</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Currently there are 164 state-run grammar schools in England. Citing the pros and cons of grammar schools, The Week says in a balanced analysis of the news that they help the brightest children thrive.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Grammar schools proponent Boris Johnson, London Mayor and an MP, says the ban of selective schools is a ‘tragedy’ considering how they have helped children from poorer backgrounds access quality education. He characterizes a grammar school as “a great mobilizer and liberator,” TheWeek says.another oft-cited advantage of grammar schools is the sheer number of successful alumni these schools boast and the fact that grammar school students excel at national exams.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On the other hand, Grammar schools can discriminate against less able students at a young age, which critics say is something that places hurdles in front of the aspirations and social mobility of students, The Week writes.</span></i></div>
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UK Government Approves First New Grammar School in 50 Years

The Weald of Kent school in Tonbridge, England will build an ‘annexe’ new grammar school in Sevenoaks, Kent after Education Secretary Nic...

UK, China Increasing International Education Cooperation

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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The UK and China, which already have tight educational connections, are planning on expanding their partnership with programs designed to increase exchange between the nations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many Chinese students who want to study abroad go to the UK. China’s Minister of Education Yuan Guiren says that both countries have initiated programs to enhance their higher education collaboration.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In each of the past few years, China has increased the number of full scholarships. In 2014, 64,000 Chinese students studied in the UK.according to Richard Macauley of Quartz, even young children are going to the UK from China for schooling and make up 14% of the country’s total population of international students.programs will be encouraging students to travel from the UK to China, too. The government invited 200 British students to study in China at no cost. The British government will be sending 80,000 students to study in China in the coming years, according to CCTV.com.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Statistics show that Chinese universities are growing in quality, meaning that British students who want to study there will not be missing out on opportunity. Four of the nation’s universities were included in the Times Higher Education top 100 rankings, writes Alice Gast.earlier this year, the government tried teaching math in English schools with traditional Chinese teaching methods. According to Schools Minister Nick Gibb, this was extremely successful, with students who historically scored poorly in math doing particularly well. Now, groups of school teachers have traveled to Shanghai to study Chinese teaching techniques, and 30 Chinese teachers were transported to the UK to work with students and educators. Gibbs said:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When that’s brought to England and the approach has been tried in English schools, it’s been hugely successful. Teachers have been pleasantly surprised by how much some of the less-able children are achieving in maths as a consequence of this approach.gibbs described one Chinese teacher in a Harris academy, who spent an entire lesson describing how to multiply two double-digit figures ending in zero. He said:i walked around the classroom and all the children were understanding what was happening and could perform the calculation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The program’s focus on math was inspired by China’s notoriously successful math achievement. They consistently score the highest in the PISA exam, the Programme for International Student Assessment test administered by OECD. In 2012, Shanghai ranked first in math, reading, and science, ahead of both Singapore and Hong Kong, according to Xie Qiao of CRIEnglish.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">However, not everyone’s assessment of the program is as optimistic as Gibb’s. The three-part documentary Are Our Kids Tough Enough? showed that Chinese teachers struggled to discipline and control Western students, and the UK teachers disagreed with their methods. Over the course of four weeks, five Chinese teachers took charge of 50 students at a comprehensive school in Hampshire. The experience was very different from what the students were used to: the teenagers wore uniforms, attended from 7am to 7pm, had two meal breaks, and had the responsibility of cleaning their own classrooms. Lessons involved repetition, note-taking, and some group exercises. After the month was over, the students scored 10% higher in math and science than their peers.research so far has shown that Chinese teaching methods bring about a small improvement in performance, but experts say that there isn’t enough data and the methods need to be tested with a larger base.</span><br />
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UK, China Increasing International Education Cooperation

The UK and China, which already have tight educational connections, are planning on expanding their partnership with programs designed...

Open University Facing Staff Shakeup Amid Changing Needs

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<i>Staff at the UK’s Open University, which offers distance learning and education options for non-traditional students, are currently in a strike ballot over job losses and the closure of seven regional centers that has put more than 500 jobs at risk.</i></div>
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<i>The OU is looking to close seven locations, including Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Gateshead, Leeds, and Oxford, in an effort to streamline student support.  The institution is also considering closing its London location, although it may consider keeping a smaller location in the capital.</i></div>
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<i>According to a spokesman for the university, the decision comes as a response to the changing needs of its students rather than a change in funding.</i></div>
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<i>The staff members who currently work in these locations, who total around 500, would be offered the opportunity to transfer to one of the two other offices that focus on student support services, or to the OU’s headquarters in Milton Keynes.  Those who choose not to transfer would need to take voluntary severance or early retirement.</i></div>
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<i>Staff members argue that following through with the plan would limit opportunities for face-to-face interactions and change the ethos of the institution.  After a senate meeting last week resulted in a rejection of the plan, calling it “high risk” and “failing adequately to support the academic mission of the university,” the University and College Union (UCU) has decided to ballot for strike action over the closures because the university has decided to continue with the plans.</i></div>
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<i>UCU Open University branch president Pauline Collins said: “Axing over 500 staff across seven centres would be catastrophic to the Open University’s ability to provide the kind of support that students need.  We hope the university will now see sense and work with us to find a better solution for staff, students and the future of the Open University.”</i></div>
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<i>The OU maintains that the offices which may be closed were not mainly used as teaching centers.  Therefore, student services and support would not be affected.closing the centers could save the university around $7.5 million of a total budget of over $600 million.  The money could be beneficial to the institution, which has seen a decrease in the number of part-time students by about 10%, a result of changes to higher education funding, including the introduction of tuition costs, reports Harriet Swain for The Guardian.</i></div>
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<i>A new structure is set to be in place by February 2017 that would allow offices to remain open in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Milton Keynes, Manchester and Nottingham along with a smaller sub-office in Dublin.the university added that the plan calls for an expansion of the centers in Milton Keynes, Manchester, and Nottingham.</i></div>
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<i>Peter Horrocks, Vice-Chancellor, said: “This recommendation, if approved, would allow us to enhance student support in a way that’s simply not possible in our current office network, and offer our students the sort of support they expect and deserve.”a final decision will come from the university’s council in late November.the OU currently enrolls around 200,000 students, many of whom have jobs and other commitments along with their schoolwork.</i></div>
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