The Claxton Elementary School Health Program was developed to improve school/community health. Using the Community Oriented Primary Care process, a health advisory board was organized and a comprehensive needs assessment was implemented. Teachers, parents, students, and professionals agreed on perceived health problems. The board selected two…

This study explored stages of alcohol acquisition and risk factors associated with stages based on the Multi-Component Motivational Stages model. Subjects were 254 urban middle schoolers (90% black, 62% female). Questionnaire results indicated that most students were in a precontemplation stage for alcohol use. Alcohol use was found to be the best…

A tear-out folder provides information on alternative student assessment versus standardized testing, describing what alternative assessments do and do not consist of and involve. Information on student assessment statewide and nationwide is presented along with a discussion of the costs of alternative assessment. All information is presented in…

Examines the importance of using student portfolios to monitor progress, assess learning, integrate subjects, encourage independent learning, foster collaboration, ease anxiety about grades, and facilitate parent/teacher conferences. The article helps teachers examine what they should already know about portfolios and presents suggestions about…

Presents suggestions for teachers who want to integrate the arts into their classrooms. Three sections explain how to use the newspaper's comics to stimulate students' interest, create community partnerships that would help students communicate in the arts, and use design technology to create original concepts from readily available materials. (SM)

Provides information to teachers who need grant money to fund projects their schools cannot afford, explaining how to begin, what items grants typically pay for, what type of information must be on a grant proposal about the project, how to work with corporate foundations, and how to determine project success. (SM)

Two elementary teachers discuss their experiences of having children with attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities in their second-grade classrooms, focusing on the process involved in deciding whether or not to medicate the children with Ritalin to enhance their ability to learn. (SM)

Compact disk-interactive (CD-i) offers high technology learning without computers. CD-i machines work like a VCR, combining video images with interactive aspects of playing a computer game. The paper explains how classes can use CD-i, how to learn and use CD-i, why teachers like CD-i, and what the costs are. (SM)

By giving each student a number to keep throughout the school year, teachers can maintain efficient classrooms. The paper describes this classroom management system, in which students apply for classroom jobs. The numbers can be used for homework and classroom assignments, organizing attendance, choosing teams, drawing names, and teacher files.…

Creative ways to motivate students to read and report on books include having them retell the stories differently, invent products related to the stories, share snacks like those the characters ate, illustrate action from the story, write imaginary conversations between themselves and the characters, and turn the stories into short skits. (SM)

Schools can harness the power of the media to tell communities about exciting things they are doing. This article presents five steps to getting good publicity: developing a media contact list, writing a press release, sending the press release to the media contacts, calling the media contacts, and being persistent. (SM)

This paper discusses how, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, unequal educational funding is impacting student learning. Six major categories typically affected most by funding disparities are children at risk of failure, student/teacher ratio, student enrichment opportunities, technology, teacher salaries, and learning ambiance. (SM)

Examines the ways roles and responsibilities change when schools include students with disabilities in general education classrooms. Because there is considerable overlap in effort between inclusion and restructuring when schools commit to democratic change, improving educational practices for students with special needs implies improvements for…

Describes five disorders (attention deficit disorder, traumatic brain injury, fetal alcohol syndrome, prenatal substance abuse, and fragile X syndrome) that are part of a proliferation of categories of behavioral disorders, examining how special and general education might approach problems potentially inherent in the process of including students…

Describes the experiences of two graduate education professors in initiating and expanding the use of portfolios as a primary assessment tool in Educational Administration and Curriculum and Instruction courses, comparing their experiences in individual class settings and their collaborative application of the concept to a class in authentic…