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A wide-ranging bill in the Missouri legislature includes provisions to address the state's struggle to recruit and retain teachers, but also includes controversial school choice measures.
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Ward Worley, executive director of Plaza Academy, was charged in September with a misdemeanor. Because it's a private school, the state has no oversight on personnel issues. The mother of the victim has since enrolled her child at a different school.
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Missouri and Kansas public schools enroll thousands of fewer students compared to before the pandemic, in part, because of a homeschooling boom and declining birth rates.
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Over 30% of Missouri school districts, mostly in rural parts of the state, have shortened their school weeks to four days as a responsive to chronic teacher shortages. As larger districts like Independence adopt the practice, state lawmakers are considering bills to reign it in.
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The program would provide $40 in food benefits for each month an eligible child is on summer break, loaded onto a card that can be used like a debit card to purchase groceries. Missouri's decision is nonbinding, and the state now has until Feb. 15 to submit a detailed plan to the federal government.
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Roughly 429,000 Missouri children would be eligible to receive $51.5 million in food benefits next summer if the state chooses to participate in the federal program. Missouri has until January 1 to decide.
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Missouri's education department has released new performance data finding chronic absenteeism remains a problem for many schools. Attendance rates have dropped in Missouri by 10% since 2019, and they're especially low for Black students.
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Karla Eslinger, a Republican state senator from Wasola, will succeed current commissioner Margie Vandeven in the state's top education job in June 2024.
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Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program is now statewide in Missouri. The program provides children with a free book in the mail each month until their fifth birthday. The goal is to nurture a love of reading and improve literacy.
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Missouri’s state board of education decided to provide schools with optional guidelines on social-emotional learning to help them cope with worsening student behavior. Commissioners are concerned about potential political pushback to the learning standards, which have been criticized by conservatives.
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Margie Vandeven became the Missouri Commissioner of Education in January 2015, but was briefly ousted by Gov. Eric Greitens before being reinstated. Vandeven led the education department through the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaw a transition to a new standardized testing regime.
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Poor classroom behavior is pushing some teachers out of the profession. The Missouri state education department wants to implement learning standards that include self-awareness, respect and empathy.