South Dakota public schools would be required to teach a specific set of Native American historical and cultural lessons if a bill unanimously endorsed by a legislative committee Tuesday in Pierre becomes law.
The bill would mandate the teaching of the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings. The phrase “Oceti Sakowin” refers to the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people. The understandings are a set of standards and lessons adopted seven years ago by the South Dakota Board of Education Standards with input from tribal leaders, educators and elders.
Use of the understandings by public schools is optional. A survey conducted by the state Department of Education indicated use by 62% of teachers, but the survey was voluntary and hundreds of teachers did not respond.
Republican state Sen. Tamara Grove, who lives on the Lower Brule Reservation, proposed the bill and asked legislators to follow the lead of Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Chairman J. Garret Renville. He has publicly called for a “reset” of state-tribal relations since the departure of former Gov. Kristi Noem, who was barred by tribal leaders from entering tribal land in the state.
“What I’m asking you to do today,” Grove said, “is to lean into the reset.”
Joe Graves, the state secretary of education and a Noem appointee, testified against the bill. He said portions of the understandings are already incorporated into the state’s social studies standards. He added that the state only mandates four curricular areas: math, science, social studies and English-language arts/reading. He said further mandates would “tighten up the school days, leaving schools with much less instructional flexibility.”
Members of the Senate Education Committee sided with Grove and other supporters, voting 7-0 to send the bill to the full Senate.
The proposal is one of several education mandates that lawmakers have considered this legislative session. The state House rejected a bill this week that would have required posting and teaching the Ten Commandments in schools, and also rejected a bill that would have required schools to post the state motto, “Under God the People Rule.”
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: [email protected].
Historic Foust Elementary School has had a game changing start to the year. School and district leaders, parents, and community members were eager to get inside one of Greensboro’s newest elementary schools for their ribbon cutting ceremony on Feb. 3, 2025 to witness an innovative progression in the school’s history. They were greeted by students and the school’s robotic dog, Astro.
Foust Elementary School, part of Guilford County Schools (GCS), is the country’s first public gaming and robotics elementary school, according to the district. The school still sits on its original land, but the building has been rebuilt from the ground up. They began welcoming students into the new building at the start of 2025.
Foust Elementary School’s history goes all the way back to the 1960s. Foust student Nyla Parker read the following account at the ribbon cutting ceremony:
“Since its construction in 1965, Julius I Foust Elementary School has prided itself in serving the students and families of its community, with the goal of creating citizens who will leave this place with high character and academic excellence. … Now, almost 60 years later, we welcome you to the new chapter of Foust Gaming and Robotics Elementary School. As a student here at Foust, I am excited about various opportunities that will be offered to me as I learn more about exciting industries such as gaming, robotics, coding, and 2D plus 3D animation. Thank you to the voters of our community for saying yes to the 2020 bond that allowed this place to become a reality for me and my fellow classmates. Game on!”
Foust is a Title I school in a historically underinvested part of Guilford County. Several years ago, the district conducted a master facility study, which resulted in Foust getting on the list to receive an entirely new building.
“Foust was one of the oldest buildings in the district and it was literally falling apart, so we were on the list to have a total new construction,” said Kendrick Alston, principal of Foust.
“During that time, we also talked with the district and really thought about, well, building a new school. What can we also do differently in terms of teaching and learning, instead of just building a new building?”
The mission of Foust is to “envision a future where students are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and tools to lead the new global economy,” according to their website. The new global economy, featuring high projected growth in fields that include technology, was a driving factor for planners as they decided to focus the school on gaming and robotics.
There are many jobs that can come from learning the skills necessary to build video games and robots. Looking at recent labor market trends, many of those jobs are growing. Web developers and digital designers have an 8% projected growth rate from 2023-2033 with a median pay of $92,750 per year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We looked at a lot of studies, we looked at research, and one of the things that we looked at was something from the World Economic Forum that looked at the annual jobs report. We saw that STEM, engineering, those kinds of jobs, were some of the top fastest growing jobs across the world,” said Alston. “When we think about school looking different for our students and being engaging, well, let’s make it something that’s relevant to them but is also giving them a skill set that they can be marketable in the global workforce as well.”
The team at Foust, including teachers and staff, have spent several months in specialized training on a new and unique curriculum designed to help prepare students for the ever evolving world of work. The building, designed to bring 21st century learning to life, is part of the first phase of schools constructed from a combined $2 billion bond.
“I am excited for what this new space is going to produce,” said Hope Purcell, a teacher at Foust. “With the continued support from our robotics curriculum, students will have the opportunity to tap into a new world of discovery that will prepare them for the future.”
Many community and education leaders were present at the ribbon cutting, including several county commissioners and Guilford superintendent Whitney Oakley. Oakley shared excitement about the new school and reminded everyone that the leaders who came before her who advocated for the passing of the bond and were open to the vision of a school like Foust were a huge part of making this new school a reality.
“Today is not just about celebrating a building,” Oakley said. “It’s about celebrating what this building really represents, and that’s opportunity and access to the tools of modern K-12 education. It represents the culmination of years of planning and conversation and design to make sure that we can build a space that serves families and students for decades to come. The joy on the faces of the staff and the families and the students is just a reminder that teaching and learning is more effective when everybody has the resources that they need to thrive, and that should not be the exception, that should be the rule.”
Students sometimes need different levels of support and resources in order to thrive. Foust hopes to be a place where all students can succeed. Another school district in New Jersey, the Morris-Union Jointure Commission, is using gaming and technology to engage students with cognitive and behavioral differences. They have created an esports arenadesigned specifically for students with cognitive challenges, like Autism Spectrum Disorder. This is just one example of how gaming can create an inclusive learning environment.
As Foust settles into its brand new building, they are already planning for new opportunities ahead, including partnerships with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University for innovative programming for students and parents.
This article first appeared on EducationNC and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
While Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘s Senate confirmation to head the Department of Health and Human Services was not unexpected, it still shook medical providers, public health experts and parents across the country.
Mary Koslap-Petraco, a pediatric nurse practitioner who exclusively treats underserved children, said when she heard the news Thursday morning she was immediately filled with “absolute dread.”
Mary Koslap-Petraco is a pediatric nurse practitioner and Vaccines for Children provider. (Mary Koslap-Petraco)
“I have been following him for years,” she told The 74. “I’ve read what he has written. I’ve heard what he has said. I know he has made a fortune with his anti-vax stance.”
She is primarily concerned that his rhetoric might “scare the daylights out of people so that they don’t want to vaccinate their children.” She also fears he could move to defund Vaccines for Children, a program under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that provides vaccines to kids who lack health insurance or otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them. While the program is federally mandated by Congress, moves to drain its funding could essentially render it useless.
Koslap-Petraco’s practice in Massapequa Park, New York relies heavily on the program to vaccinate pediatric patients, she said. If it were to disappear, she asked, “How am I supposed to take care of poor children? Are they supposed to just die or get sick because their parents don’t have the funds to get the vaccines for them?”
And, if the government-run program were to stop paying for vaccines, she said she’s terrified private insurance companies might follow suit.
Vaccines for Children is “the backbone of pediatric vaccine infrastructure in the country,” said Richard Hughes IV, former vice president of public policy at Moderna and a George Washington University law professor who teaches a course on vaccine law.
Kennedy will also have immense power over Medicaid, which covers low-income populations and provides billions of dollars to schools annually for physical, mental and behavioral health services for eligible students.
If Kennedy moves to weaken programs at HHS, which experts expect him to do, through across-the-board cuts in public health funding that trickle down to immunization programs or more targeted attacks, low-income and minority school-aged kids will be disproportionately impacted, Hughes said.
“I just absolutely, fundamentally, confidently believe that we will see deaths,” he added.
Anticipating chaos and instability
Following a contentious seven hours of grilling across two confirmation hearings, Democratic senators protested Kennedy’s confirmation on the floor late into the night Wednesday. The following morning, all 45 Democrats and both Independents voted in opposition and all but one Republican — childhood polio survivor Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — lined up behind President Donald Trump’s pick.
James Hodge, a public health law expert at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, said that while it was good to see senators across the political spectrum asking tough questions and Kennedy offering up some concessions on vaccine-related policies and initiatives, he’s skeptical these will stick.
“Whatever you’ve seen him do for the last 25 to 30 years is a much, much greater predictor than what you saw him do during two or three days of Senate confirmation proceedings,” Hodge said. “Ergo, be concerned significantly about the future of vaccines, vaccine exemptions, [and] how we’re going to fund these things.”
Hodge also said he doesn’t trust how Kennedy will respond to the consequences of a dropoff in childhood vaccines, pointing to the current measles outbreak in West Texas schools.
“The simple reality is he may plant misinformation or mis-messaging,” he said.
During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy tried to distance himself from his past anti-vaccination sentiments stating, “News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety … I believe that vaccines played a critical role in health care. All of my kids are vaccinated.”
He was confirmed as Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Education, was sitting down for her first day of hearings. At one point that morning, McMahon signaled an openness to possibly shifting enforcement to HHS of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — a federal law dating back to 1975 that mandates a free, appropriate public education for the 7.5 million students with disabilities — if Trump were to succeed in shutting down the education department.
This would effectively put IDEA’s $15.4 billion budget under Kennedy’s purview, further linking the education and public health care systems.
In a post on the social media site BlueSky, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote she is “concerned that anyone is willing to move IDEA services for kids with disabilities into HHS, under a secretary who questions science.”
Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union and a parent of a child with ADHD and autism, told The 74 the idea was “absolutely absurd” and would cause chaos and instability.
Kennedy’s history of falsely asserting a link between childhood vaccines and autism — a disability included under IDEA coverage — is particularly concerning to experts in this light.
“You obviously have a contingent of kids who are beneficiaries of IDEA that are navigating autism spectrum disorder,” said Hughes, “Could [we] potentially see some sort of policy activity and rhetoric around that? Potentially.”
Vaccines — and therefore HHS — are inextricably linked to schools. Currently, all 50 states have vaccine requirements for children entering child care and schools. But Kennedy, who now has control of an agency with a $1.7 trillion budget and 90,000 employees spread across 13 agencies, could pull multiple levers to roll back requirements, enforcements and funding, according to The 74’s previous reporting. And Trump has signaled an interest in cutting funding to schools that mandate vaccines.
“There’s a certain percentage of the population that is focused on removing school entry requirements,” said Northe Saunders, executive director of the pro-vaccine SAFE Communities Coalition. “They are loud, and they are organized and they are well funded by groups just like RFK Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense.”
Kennedy will also have the ability to influence the makeup of the committees that approve vaccines and add them to the federal vaccine schedule, which state legislators rely on to determine their school policies. Hodge said one of these committees is already being “re-organized and re-thought as we speak.”
“With him now in place, just expect that committee to start really changing its members, its tone, the demeanor, the forcefulness of which it’s suggesting vaccines,” he added.
Hughes, the law professor, said he is preparing for mass staffing changes throughout the agency, mirroring what’s already happened across multiple federal departments and agencies in Trump’s first weeks in office. He predicts this will include Kennedy possibly asking for the resignations “of all scientific leaders with HHS.”
Kennedy appeared to confirm that he was eyeing staffing cuts Thursday night during an appearance on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
“I have a list in my head … if you’ve been involved in good science, you have got nothing to worry about,” Kennedy said.
Student accommodation platform University Living and the National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) have launched the Living Scholarship – worth £12,000 (INR 13,10,832).
The scholarships will be provided to 10 “outstanding students” from India, who are planning to pursue higher education in the UK.
“Accommodation is the second-largest expense after tuition for students studying abroad, and we believe financial challenges should not be a barrier to achieving academic dreams,” said Saurabh Arora, founder and CEO, University Living.
“Through this scholarship, we are committed to providing meaningful support to Indian students so they can focus on their education and future careers with greater confidence.”
Beyond financial assistance, recipients will benefit from exclusive mentorship, participation in student ambassador programs, and access to internship opportunities, through the organisations, all aimed at fostering their professional growth and future career success.
Accommodation is the second-largest expense after tuition for students studying abroad, and we believe financial challenges should not be a barrier to achieving academic dreams Saurabh Arora, University Living.
“NISAU has long worked to ensure Indian students in the UK are set up for success, and the Living Scholarship is a vital step in reducing financial stress for them,” said Sanam Arora, chairperson, NISAU UK.
“Together with University Living, we aim to empower students with not just financial aid but also networking and professional growth opportunities.”
The Living Scholarship will open for applications on February 14, 2025, with more information available on www.universityliving.com.
Indian students and alumni are recognised as an integral part of the UK higher education system, with organisations like NISAU celebrating their achievements annually through events such as the India-UK Achievers Honours and Conference, which took place in central London on January 13.
Despite the UK emerging as one of the most sought after study destinations among students from India, in recent years poor job prospects, and stricter rules on students bringing dependents into the country with them have led to falling numbers.
As per a report by the Times of India, students from India have seen the largest drop, falling from nearly 140,000 in 2022/23 to 111,329 in 2023/24 – a decrease of over 20%.
Applications from other major sending countries such as Bangladesh and Nigeria have also fallen.
However, new data from the UK Home Office reveals that 28,700 sponsored study visa applications were submitted in January 2025 – a 12.5% increase compared to the 25,500 applications recorded in January 2024.
Though there are encouraging signs, Home Office data continues to show a broader downward trend over the past year with applications from main applicants totalling 411,100 in the year ending January 2025 – a 13% decrease compared to the previous year.
“The Turkish young, sitting at the centre of Europe and Asia, are true globalists. Their appetite for winning on the international stage is a delight to watch,” said Akshay Chaturvedi, CEO of Leverage Edu announcing the news that the edtech firm, which specialises in study abroad services, will be launching its services in Türkiye.
“To fuel those dreams, we are incredibly excited to launch LeverageTürkiye — starting with our AI tools for counsellors, the Leverage Edu consumer app for students, Student-ops 360 for partners, and a line-up of special exclusive products tailored to meet that ‘education to career’ arc.”
With over 50,000 Turkish students pursuing higher education abroad in 2024 – a number that continues to climb – the country has emerged as a critical player in the global education landscape.
Leverage Edu CEO and founder, Akshay Chaturvedi with Ali Can Cirak, regional manager, business development.
Factors fuelling this growth include Türkiye’s youthful population, where more than 50% of its citizens are under 30, and an increasing demand for globally recognised degrees in fields such as engineering, medicine, and business.
The Turkish young, sitting at the centre of Europe and Asia, are true globalists Akshay Chaturvedi, Leverage Edu
“Türkiye represents a very dynamic opportunity, just given where it sits on our planet,” said Chaturvedi. “As a country with a vibrant young population and increasing global mobility, it not only offers immense potential for growth but also serves as a bridge linking two of the most dynamic educational ecosystems in the world – the East and the West – hence an important first-level brick on top of which we’d like to build much more.”
To support its Turkish students and partners, Leverage is deploying a dedicated team on the ground in Türkiye, including a country manager to oversee operations and drive business success in the region. Additionally, several university representative desks will be dedicated to Turkish students.
In the coming months, Leverage’s ancilllary services Fly Finance and Fly Homes will also be available in Türkiye.
“We are committed to creating many win-wins, for students and institutions alike,” Chaturvedi added.
For more than a decade, University of Kansas researchers have been developing a virtual reality system to help students with disabilities, especially those with autism spectrum disorder, to learn, practice and improve social skills they need in a typical school day. Now, the KU research team has secured funding to add artificial intelligence components to the system to give those students an extended reality, or XR, experience to sharpen social interactions in a more natural setting.
The U.S. Office of Special Education Programs has awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant to researchers within KU’s School of Education & Human Sciences to develop Increasing Knowledge and Natural Opportunities With Social Emotional Competence, or iKNOW. The system will build on previous work and provide students and teachers with an immersive, authentic experience blending extended reality and real-world elements of artificial intelligence.
iKNOW will expand the capabilities of VOISS, Virtual reality Opportunity to Integrate Social Skills, a KU-developed VR system that has proven successful and statistically valid in helping students with disabilities improve social skills. That system contains 140 unique learning scenarios meant to teach knowledge and understanding of 183 social skills in virtual school environments such as a classroom, hallway, cafeteria or bus that students and teachers can use via multiple platforms such as iPad, Chromebooks or Oculus VR headsets. The system also helps students use social skills such as receptive or expressive communication across multiple environments, not simply in the isolation of a classroom.
IKNOW will combine the VR aspects of VOISS with AI features such as large language models to enhance the systems’ capabilities and allow more natural interactions than listening to prerecorded narratives and responding by pushing buttons. The new system will allow user-initiated speaking responses that can accurately transcribe spoken language in real-time. AI technology of iKNOW will also be able to generate appropriate video responses to avatars students interact with, audio analysis of user responses, integration of in-time images and graphics with instruction to boost students’ contextual understanding.
“Avatars in iKNOW can have certain reactions and behaviors based on what we want them to do. They can model the practices we want students to see,” said Amber Rowland, assistant research professor in the Center for Research on Learning, part of KU’s Life Span Institute and one of the grant’s co principal investigators. “The system will harness AI to make sure students have more natural interactions and put them in the role of the ‘human in the loop’ by allowing them to speak, and it will respond like a normal conversation.”
The spoken responses will not only be more natural and relatable to everyday situations, but the contextual understanding cues will help students better know why a certain response is preferred. Rowland said when students were presented with multiple choices in previous versions, they often would know which answer was correct but indicated that’s not how they would have responded in real life.
IKNOW will also provide a real-time student progress monitoring system, telling them, educators and families how long students spoke, how frequently they spoke, number of keywords used, where students may have struggled in the system and other data to help enhance understanding.
All avatar voices that iKNOW users encounter are provided by real middle school students, educators and administrators. This helps enhance the natural environment of the system without the shortcomings of students practicing social skills with classmates in supervised sessions. For example, users do not have to worry what the people they are practicing with are thinking about them while they are learning. They can practice the social skills that they need until they are comfortable moving from the XR environment to real life.
“It will leverage our ability to take something off of teachers’ plates and provide tools for students to learn these skills in multiple environments. Right now, the closest we can come to that is training peers. But that puts students with disabilities in a different box by saying, ‘You don’t know how to do this,’” said Maggie Mosher, assistant research professor in KU’s Achievement & Assessment Institute, a co-principal investigator for the grant.
Mosher, a KU graduate who completed her doctoral dissertation comparing VOISS to other social skills interventions, found the system was statistically significant and valid in improving social skills and knowledge across multiple domains. Her study, which also found the system to be acceptable, appropriate and feasible, was published in high-impact journals Computers & Education and Issues and Trends in Learning Technologies.
The grant supporting iKNOW is one of four OSEP Innovation and Development grants intended to spur innovation in educational technology. The research team, including principal investigator Sean Smith, professor of special education; Amber Rowland, associate research professor in the Center for Research on Learning and the Achievement & Assessment Institute; Maggie Mosher, assistant research professor in AAI; and Bruce Frey, professor in educational psychology, will present their work on the project at the annual I/ITSEC conference, the world’s largest modeling, simulation and training event. It is sponsored by the National Training & Simulation Association, which promotes international and interdisciplinary cooperation within the fields of modeling and simulation, training, education and analysis and is affiliated with the National Defense Industrial Association.
The research team has implemented VOISS, available on the Apple Store and Google Play, at schools across the country. Anyone interested in learning more can find information, demonstrations and videos at the iKNOW site and can contact developers to use the system at the site’s “work with us” page.
IKNOW will add resources for teachers and families who want to implement the system at a website called iKNOW TOOLS (Teaching Occasions and Opportunities for Learning Supports) to support generalization of social skills across real-world settings.
“By combining our research-based social emotional virtual reality work (VOISS) with the increasing power and flexibility of AI, iKNOW will further personalize the learning experience for individuals with disabilities along with the struggling classmates,” Smith said. “Our hope and expectation is that iKNOW will further engage students to develop the essential social emotional skills to then apply in the real world to improve their overall learning outcomes.”
Mike Krings,KU News Service
Mike Krings is a Public Affairs Officer with the KU News Service at the University of Kansas.
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Discussions at the New Delhi event centered on India’s growing appeal as a destination for international students and a key partner for global institutions seeking to enhance their internationalisation strategies.
“In our recent visit to Sri Lanka, we saw over 3,000 students express interest to study in Indian universities due to them being affordable and providing high-quality education,” shared Pankaj Mittal, secretary general, Association of Indian Universities.
“Earlier, students from Sri Lanka were only looking at the US, UK, and Europe but that’s not affordable for them anymore, which is why they are focusing on India.”
Mittal stated that this phenomenon indicates a future where “India will prosper and become the destination where international students and educators will see potential.”
According to the Study in India portal, over 72,000 international students studied in India for the academic year 2024/25.
The rise in international students, especially from South Asia and Africa, has prompted the Ministry of Home Affairs to announce specialised visas dubbed the ‘e-student visa’ and ‘e-student-x visa.’
Additionally, a ‘G-20 talent visa’ has been announced for scientists, researchers, faculty members, and scholar academicians from G20 countries.
Elsewhere, reports suggest that IIT Madras is considering establishing a branch campus in Sri Lanka, joining other IITs in their plans for international expansion.
While international universities are making headlines concerning their expansion plans in India, Mittal highlighted that Indian universities are equally excited to collaborate with institutions abroad but need to find the right partners.
We are now handholding Indian universities to help them find the right partners and guide them on which areas they can collaborate in. Pankaj Mittal, AIU
“After the National Education Policy came into the picture, Indian universities are looking forward to more collaborations with international universities,” said Mittal.
“The only issue right now is that we need to help Indian universities, especially public ones, with capacity building. We are now handholding Indian universities to help them find the right partners and guide them on which areas they can collaborate in.”
Through its initiative ‘The Indian Network for Internationalisation of Higher Education’, which has 1,064 member Indian and international universities, AIU is helping Indian and international institutions advance their internationalisation strategies in India.
With a 17,000-strong student population, including over 210 international students, private institutions like UPES are partnering with top institutions across the world but want the benefits to be more ‘reciprocal’.
“Since the NEP, there have been a slew of regulations that are coming at a fast pace which are also overwhelming for us as Indian institutions,” said Ram Sharma, vice-chancellor, UPES.
“As an Indian institution we are pretty clear that we want the best for our students, which is why we have made it a policy to partner with the world’s top 100 universities, such as King’s College London, Edinburgh University, the University of Queensland, and more.”
Though joint and dual degrees are becoming major attractions in partnerships between Indian and international institutions, Sharma believes it’s not creating the same excitement among Indian students as expected.
“Except for our partnership with the University of Queensland, many of our partnerships have participation of less than ten students,” said Sharma.
“So now we are talking about a campus on campus model, wherein we can partner with a well-established existing institution and experiment with other models in light of increasing TNE interest.”
According to Rohit Kumar, director, international recruitment, partnerships, and mobility, University of York, a ‘culture of innovation’ that can benefit both Indian and international students can only be brought about by cross-disciplinary collaboration between the Indian education sector, international universities, and the Indian government.
“Dedicated funding streams are needed to strengthen research capabilities between institutions, while international universities entering India must actively engage with industry,” said Kumar.
Before starting at his Harlem high school, Jeurry always assumed he was progressing appropriately in school, despite having significant learning challenges.
However, in his freshman year, he began to notice himself struggling to read longer words and more complex sentences.
As he grew increasingly overwhelmed, it became clear that the small classes exclusively for students with disabilities that he had been in since kindergarten had not adequately prepared him for high school.
Still, Jeurry managed to pass nearly all his classes. His final meeting with his Committee on Special Education — which consisted of Jeurry’s mom and several faculty members — took place in December 2016. By then, the senior had earned 45 credits — 44 were required to graduate — and a C+ average, records show.
But Jeurry was devastated to learn that he would not earn a diploma.
The reason was based on a decision the committee made when Jeurry was in sixth grade and, according to records, never revisited while he was in high school. At that time, the educators concluded that Jeurry could not learn grade-level curriculum. They decided he would be “alternately assessed,” or evaluated based on lower achievement standards. New York State students who take alternate assessments through high school cannot earn a diploma, a prerequisite for military service, many jobs, and most degree- or certificate-granting college and trade school programs.
Heartbroken, he begged the faculty to find a solution during the 2016 meeting. “They didn’t even care,” Jeurry said. “They just wanted me to ‘graduate’ and get out.”
Jeurry, who is now 26 and was diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability after graduating high school, requested that his last name be withheld over concerns about the stigma surrounding intellectual disabilities.
Special education advocates say the systemic failures that led to Jeurry’s situation eight years ago continue to jeopardize the futures of similar students. Last school year, 6,116 New York City students took the New York State Alternate Assessment, according to state data. Federal law requires that states offer such assessments for students with disabilities who are incapable of taking state tests. Importantly, it also states that only “students with the most significant cognitive disabilities” can take the alternate assessment, and that schools must fully inform parents of the potential ramifications. (State education departments are responsible for ensuring compliance with these mandates.)
Too often, however, those standards are neither maintained nor enforced, special education advocates, teachers, and families told Chalkbeat. Instead, factors like under-resourcing, nebulous procedures, and a failure to equip parents to make fully informed decisions have led schools to place some students without significant cognitive disabilities on a non-grade-level, non-diploma track. Students who take alternate assessments are typically placed in non-inclusive, low-rigor settings, which can deprive them of academic and socialization opportunities.
At the December 2016 meeting, the members of Jeurry’s special education committee said their hands were tied. According to documentation from the meeting, Jeurry’s mother said “she was not made aware of the long-term effects of alternate assessment when it was first initiated or during any supplemental [meetings].”
“They would always tell my mom, ‘His diploma is going to be real,’” Jeurry said. “She kept believing them.”
Throughout his time as a K-12 student in Harlem, Jeurry received inadequate academic support and struggled to advance past a first- or second-grade reading level.
In response to requests to interview state special education leadership, a New York State Education Department spokesperson said in an email: “NYSED is committed to working with schools and parents to determine the appropriate participation of students with disabilities in [the alternate assessment] and to fully understand the impact it has on these students.”
Since New York’s alternate assessment is used to meet federal special education law requirements, the spokesperson said, “there are very strict criteria for its development, administration, and applicability to students.”
Christina Foti, the city Education Department’s deputy chancellor for inclusive and accessible learning, acknowledged that there is room for more robust safeguards, and she said the Education Department recently recommended that the state consider several alternate assessment-related policy changes. They include clarifying definitions and participation criteria, requiring the use of a decision-making flowchart and checklist, and mandating that special education committees “conduct a complete and up-to-date battery of psychoeducational assessments” before making assessment decisions.
The Education Department is also pursuing local-level reforms, but officials are still in the early stages of developing a “definitive language and shift in practice [and] policy,” Foti said.
Inequitable outcomes for students on non-diploma track
In New York, special education committees determine annually how students will be assessed, usually starting around third grade. Although the state has established participation criteria for the alternate assessment, deciding whether students meet those criteria can be a relatively subjective process.
Data obtained through a public records request show that students placed on the non-diploma track are disproportionately Black or English language learners. Last school year, 29% of New York City students who took the alternate assessment were Black, while Black children represented only 20% of all students and 26% of those with disabilities. More than 29% of students who were alternatively assessed were English learners, while such students accounted for just 19% of the school system’s overall population and 14% of students with disabilities.
There have been some signs of progress toward ensuring that only students with the most significant cognitive disabilities are placed on the non-diploma track. Participation is declining in New York City and statewide, and racial disproportionalities among alternatively assessed students decreased between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, according to the data.
The New York City Education Department has worked to minimize subjectivity in assessment decisions “over the past five or six years,” said Arwina Vallejo, the department’s executive director of school-based evaluations and family engagement.
To more holistically determine students’ aptitude for grade-level learning and test participation, schools now administer “specialized assessments in reading, in writing, in math, in executive functions, in neurological abilities,” Vallejo said.
The Education Department also trains school psychologists in “culturally responsive, non-discriminatory assessment practices” to mitigate the impact of bias, she said.
But special education advocates and families say more must be done. School officials sometimes change the graduation track of children with mild intellectual disabilities or disruptive behaviors when they don’t have the will or means to try other options, said Juliet Eisenstein, a special education attorney and former assistant director of the Postsecondary Readiness Project at Advocates for Children of New York.
“It’s just a box that’s checked and not really talked about, because it’s an easier solution than figuring out a program that fits this more complex student profile,” she said.
Resources that could help such students — like one-on-one tutors or specialized placements — are often limited or nonexistent. This is especially true in New York City, where around 300,000 students qualify for special education services, and government audits have found that the Education Department regularly fails to meet its obligations to them. An estimated 2,300 special-education staff vacancies exist citywide.
Trevlon, 18, has been both alternatively and regularly assessed. He has a history of behavioral problems, an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis, and an intellectual disability classification from the Education Department. Trevlon struggled to keep up academically in elementary school and attended a middle school in District 75, a citywide district that caters to students with significant disabilities. There, he received intensive academic and behavioral support and made major strides, but he was not on a diploma track.
Trevlon, who requested that his last name be withheld because a complaint he filed against the Education Department has yet to be resolved, said he was unhappy in the highly restrictive environment. He committed himself to proving that he could be successful at a community high school. By the time Trevlon graduated middle school as valedictorian of his eighth grade class, his special education committee had agreed that he could transition back to the diploma track and into a community school.
However, Trevlon was placed in a school that did not offer the learning environment the Education Department had determined most appropriate for him: a self-contained special education classroom for 15 students. Instead, he attended large classes that integrated students with disabilities and their general education peers. He said he struggled to focus and keep up. As he fell behind academically, he became increasingly frustrated and started acting out.
After his tumultuous freshman year, Trevlon was moved back onto a non-diploma track in a District 75 school, where he felt out of place and insufficiently challenged. He begged for a different placement that might offer a path back to community school — or a diploma, at least — but nothing changed, he said.
Knowing he would never have a “real” high school experience, Trevlon grew disillusioned, started attending school infrequently, and finally dropped out last year.
“It’s not just, ‘Oh, I stopped going to school because I don’t like school,’” Trevlon said. “I feel like the system gave up on me to a certain extent, as a Black male. … All I ever really wanted to do was to work and sit down and be like everybody else.”
Parents often unaware of children’s placement on non-diploma track
Schools are legally mandated to inform a student’s parents abou
When Jeurry was in middle school, the faculty members of his Committee on Special Education pointed to his lack of academic progress and recommended that he be “alternately assessed.” Although his mother agreed to the change, she did not realize that the decision would take away her son’s opportunity to earn a high school diploma. (Sarah Komar for Chalkbeat)
t the long-term ramifications of the alternate track. However, special education advocates said they regularly work with parents who had no idea their children were on a non-diploma path — often until it was too late.
“Many parents do not even know to ask questions about alternate assessment, because they’re never informed,” said Young Seh Bae, executive director of the Queens-based Community Inclusion and Development Alliance and a parent of a student with disabilities. It’s only when graduation approaches that many parents say, “‘Oh, I didn’t realize my child wouldn’t receive a high school diploma … The school didn’t explain my child never will be able to go to college or get a license for certain things.’”
In New York, diploma-track students must pass a certain number of Regents exams, making it one of eight states that require high school seniors to pass standardized tests to earn a diploma. (New York State is planning to phase out Regents as a graduation requirement in fall 2027.)
Because Jeurry was on a non-diploma track and never took his Regents, he could only earn a Skills and Achievement Commencement Credential, which cannot be used to apply for college, trade school, the military, or many jobs.
Jeurry was reading and doing math on a first-grade level by the start of middle school and on second- to third-grade levels by the end of high school, records show. Over the years, the Education Department classified him with several different kinds of disabilities, including a learning disability at one point and an intellectual disability at another. While he was a student, he was not evaluated by an outside provider, which some families pay for if they think their children have been improperly classified by district professionals. Faculty members repeatedly told Jeurry’s mother he was incapable of progressing academically, his academic records show, and they eventually used his lack of progress to justify placing him on the non-diploma track.
From kindergarten through eighth grade, he remained in self-contained classes, receiving only speech language therapy as a supplementary service. In high school, Jeurry moved from a self-contained setting into integrated classrooms, which benefited him socially but only further highlighted how far his academics lagged behind his peers.
At no point did Jeurry’s special education committee suggest additional services or more intensive support, records show. Federal law mandates more intensive intervention if a special education student is not making progress toward his goals.
Kim Swanson, the principal of Jeurry’s high school who overlapped with him during his last year there, declined to comment on Jeurry’s situation. She said her school “always follows state guidance.”
The school’s special education committees have always informed parents of the ramifications of alternate assessment, but the school has implemented additional safeguards during Swanson’s 11-year tenure as principal, she said. These include sending home a form letter that was developed by the state with input from the city Education Department (a requirement of all New York schools since 2019), and ensuring that faculty members discuss students’ progress toward their goals before special education committee meetings.
Vallejo, who oversees school-based evaluations, said the Education Department worked with the state to develop the form letter because “there was a point where little information was available to students and families regarding alternate assessment and the impact of that designation.” Education Department faculty are committed to fully involving students’ parents in assessment decisions and revisiting them annually, Vallejo said.
Special education advocates have lobbied the state for specific alternate assessment reforms for years, with little success — including a 2022 push for policy changes that could have helped demystify the assessment decision-making process.
In August 2024, for the first time in at least five years, the state proposed policy tweaks of its own, including seeking feedback from special education advocates and families on how to clarify the existing eligibility criteria for alternate assessment and update existing decision-making tools and training materials.
In the future, Jeurry hopes to earn a four-year degree and go into marketing before someday opening his own restaurant.
After legal battle, NYC pays for more than 1,300 hours of services
Knowing that he wouldn’t receive a diploma, Jeurry skipped his June 2017 graduation.
He then languished in a city-funded GED program for more than a year. In fall 2018, on the recommendation of a teacher, Jeurry contacted Advocates for Children. Within months, a pro-bono legal team arranged by the organization filed an action against the city school system, accusing it of denying Jeurry a free, appropriate public education as required by law.
While the legal process unfolded, Jeurry’s advocates helped him apply for his diploma through a “superintendent determination,” a safety net for students with disabilities who are unable to earn the Regents scores needed for graduation but meet all other requirements. In June 2019, he received his high school diploma.
As part of the 10-month legal process, a neuropsychologist evaluated Jeurry and diagnosed him with a mild intellectual disability, concluding that he could have benefited from more rigorous support, such as one-on-one literacy tutoring.
The city ultimately agreed to compensate Jeurry for what he missed during his 14 years of school by paying for 1,308 hours of academic tutoring, life skills training, and transition services. For more than a year, he attended all-day tutoring sessions that started with phonics and built upward.
“At first, I was like, ‘It’s not helping,’” Jeurry said. But then, little by little, I started noticing my reading level going up … and I was like, ‘Oh, it is working!’”
Although it has required him to work through significant education-related trauma, Jeurry now attends community college online while working full time. He’s considering transferring to a four-year institution after he earns his associate degree in business administration.
“I didn’t want to go back, but I had to do it, you know?” Jeurry said. “I needed to get a better education.”
Sarah Komar is a New York City-based journalist. She reported this story while at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
OKLAHOMA CITY — As state officials anticipate a smaller budget in the next fiscal year, lawmakers on Tuesday appeared doubtful of requests to spend millions on Bibles for public schools and salary increases at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
The agency’s leader, state Superintendent Ryan Walters, again asked for $3 million to purchase copies of the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to place in every public school classroom. He also requested $2.3 million for a 6% cost-of-living salary bump for Education Department employees, who last saw a pay raise in 2019.
Although his total budget request would increase the agency’s funding by $113 million, Walters hinted at “potential staff cuts” to limit the Education Department’s operational expenses during a meeting Tuesday with the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“I do believe we can save $1.3 million in some of the costs that we’ve been able to absorb through rolling positions together, cutting positions that are duplicated in their services,” Walters said during the meeting.
Members of the influential appropriations committee heard Walters’ budget requests for the 2026 fiscal year. The state is required to pay some of the projected expenses, such as an extra $88.6 million for the rising cost of health insurance for public school employees.
Another $4 million would increase the teacher maternity leave fund, which Walters said is growing in popularity. He also asked for $500,000 to offer firearms training to teachers.
Senators of both parties questioned Walters’ request for $3 million to buy 55,000 copies of the King James Version Bible, which they suggested could be donated to schools or found for free online.
The state superintendent has advocated for more instruction on the Bible to help contextualize American history and the beliefs of the country’s founding fathers. He said he doesn’t intend for schools to preach Christianity to students.
Last year, he ordered all school districts in the state to incorporate the Bible into their lesson plans and proposed new academic standards for social studies that would mandate instruction on biblical stories. His agency already spent under $25,000 on 532 copies of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA Bible, which is informally known as the Trump Bible because it has the president’s endorsement.
Walters’ Bible instruction mandate already faces a legal challenge on church-state separation grounds.
Sen. Brenda Stanley, R-Midwest City, said she never encountered a classroom that didn’t have a Bible available to students during her 43-year career in education.
Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa, encouraged Walters to exhaust all resources for Bible donations before having the Legislature consider spending $3 million.
“We could take the $3 million elsewhere, if somebody is willing to make those available to us at no cost,” Rader said during the hearing.
The Senate committee also appeared dubious of funding a COLA increase for an agency that has lost dozens of employees over the past two years. Walters told the committee the Education Department employed 520 people when he took office in January 2023 and that it now counts 460 employees.
“If you have decreased your (full-time employees), it would appear to me that there are already dollars inside your operating budget to offer salary increases,” Sen. Kristen Thompson, R-Edmond, told Walters during the hearing.
Walters disagreed that staff departures would be enough to fund the increase. A complicating factor is the large number of federally funded salaries at the agency, he said.
The projection is preliminary, and the Board of Equalization will meet again this month for updated numbers.
“After the last Board of Equalization meeting, we really went in and tried to do a deep dive into can we continue to see cuts, and we believe that we do need to be able to do that,” Walters said.
Legislative leaders are preparing to limit expenses in light of the budget projections, especially as Gov. Kevin Stitt pushes for further tax cuts, flat agency budgets and “eliminating wasteful government spending.”
House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said Monday that he shares many of the governor’s priorities “as we seek to tighten our belt fiscally this year.” Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, echoed Stitt’s tax-cut message when he endorsed “improving the lives of Oklahomans by allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned money.”
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: [email protected].
