Johnston CDS Garden

                                        Take the time to relax your staff     It's not easy being in education. You have lesson plans, student issues, administration issues, district issues, and the list goes on and on. Then you come home and have to  cook, wash, help kids with their homework, grade papers, etc. But you can't let it get to you. You need to take the time to decompress and let yourself relax. But you have no time. The only time you have to yourself is the drive home.  And you don't want to risk taking off and using a sick day. What can you do? The World Health Organization (WHO) defines wellness as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”  This resource defines well-being in terms of the broad concept of ‘feeling good and functioning well. In other words, a ...

  NCLB to ESSA to ???      In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed into law by President Bush. This law was to ensure that all schools were accountable for students’ learning and achievement. The purpose of NCLB was to ensure that all students got an equal shot at education. All students were given an equal opportunity in education regardless of their race or disability. According to Krause (2012), with a name like “No Child Left Behind (NCLB),” one would assume this policy would help students. NCLB could help students get the proper education by having a highly qualified teacher teaching the core subjects to the students. And it put a special focus on ensuring that states and schools boost the performance of certain groups of students, such as English-language learners, students in special education, and poor and minority children, whose achievement, on average, trails their peers.      In 2010, President Obama signed the Every St...

  To Test or Not to Test Every year the schools prepare student to take their statewide test. The adoption of a test-driven educational system creates unhealthy competition between schools. This competition has led to inappropriate preparation strategies such as spending excessive amounts of time on tested content to the exclusion of mandated curricula. Some teachers also teach to the test, that is, they train students by using actual or look-alike items from previous assessments (Popham, 2001). Our district has spent a ridiculous amount of money on programs and training on how to be a better test taker. Each year we would stop teaching our regular curriculum and do test prep. We had books and workbooks for each of the students. The test is supoosed to help the teacher and the school with finding out where the studetn is struggling in abd find a way to help the studetn suceed in that area next year. The problem is with teachers getting new curriculum or being moved to another gr...

      Chronic Absenteeism in Schools According to the article Chronic Absenteeism (n.d), Chronic absenteeism is defined as students missing 10% of school days, or approximately 18 days in a school year, for any reason, excused or unexcused. In a report by the U.S. Department of Education for the 2022-2023 school year, more than 28% of students missed at least three weeks of school.  Missing school means missing valuable instructional time, seriously impacting students' overall academic success and well-being (Chronic Absenteeism, n.d.). While many studies have shown that not students who do not come to school can have lower reading levels, than their peers in the same grade level and age. Most Students miss days of school mostly due to illness, but some have a lack of family support or a family member who has health issues (Chronic Absenteeism, n.d.). While another area is a result of the lack of engagement and the school climate (Echo360, 2024) Health issues ar...

      Should Chrismahanukwanzakah be Allowed in Public Schools? Happy  Chrismahanukwanzakah !  Chrismahanukwanzakah  is a blend, in word and concept, of three holidays: the Christian Christmas, the Jewish Hanukkah and the African American Kwanzaa.  Chrismahanukwanzakah  is meant to be an inclusive celebration around December holidays for friends and family of diverse, interfaith backgrounds. It’s often used playfully, though, as a way to offset the dominance of Christmas in culture (Dictionary.com, 2021). Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa have always been celebrated at my school. I grew up with my grandmother on my father's side. My grandma was a Jehovah Witness. I was always jealous going to my friend's house around the holidays and seeing all the beautiful decorations. When I was young, I never understood why we couldn't decorate as they did. I would bring home the holiday things we made in school and put hang them up in the house. And the ne...

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) in schools Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as  intelligence exhibited by machines , particularly computer systems . It is a field of research  in computer science  that develops and studies methods and software  that enable machines to perceive their environment  and use learning  and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals. Schools will now have to adapt AI into the curriculum. According to Assembly Bill No. 2876, CHAPTER 927, passed in 2024. The bill would also require the commission to consider incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy content into the mathematics, science, and history-social science curriculum frameworks when those frameworks are next revised after January 1, 2025, and would require the commission to consider including AI literacy in its criteria for evaluating instructional materials when the state board next adopts mathematics, science...