TOPPENISH, Wash. - When four teams from Toppenish Middle School in south-central Washington compete in a championship robotics tournament next month, it will be at least partly the result of their after-school program. In more Washington schools and after-school programs, the focus is on science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

For the big competition - the VEX Robotics World Championships in Anaheim, California - the students are building robots that can pick up beanbags and toss them into containers, while competing with other teams' robots on the same course.

According to Kai Christianson, site supervisor for the 21st Century After-school Program at the school, the designs involve some very technical skills.

"Well, the kids need to know things about gear ratios, because they'll run these electric motors and they'll gear the wheels to move or the arms to lift," he related. "They also need to know about some mechanical engineering, structure, structural engineering, stress engineering."

Washington is one of five states that has just received a planning grant to develop a statewide system of STEM programs for after-school and summer learning.

Melanie Willis, who directs the 21st Century Learning Programs in the Yakima Valley, said it's a way to make tough topics fun and practical.

"I do believe that it's the linkage connecting the math and the science to real-life experiences," she said. "Because you hear, more often than not, 'When am I ever going to use this?' or 'Why is this important?' And so, I think they're really starting to make those connections, and then the light bulbs go off."

Christianson said the parts cost about $1,000 per robot, and his school has four of them. Add the travel and fees to attend the tournaments, and keeping a program running can be a financial challenge. However, he added, it's paying off in terms of getting students interested in career fields they might not otherwise have considered.

"A couple of them have indicated a real interest in wanting to pursue a field of study, maybe in mechanical engineering; or one student is fairly proficient at the programming and so, maybe computer engineering or electrical engineering," he said. "And so, those conversations have popped up more and more often."

The after-school STEM programs at Toppenish and other area schools are sponsored by the Northwest Community Action Center, which is part of the Yakima Valley Farmworkers' Clinic. Test scores have shown there is an achievement gap in STEM subjects for students of color in Washington, and after-school activities can offer opportunities to catch up.

More information about the VEX Robotics event is at RobotEvents.com.




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Virginia advocates believe more can be done to make higher education accessible to incarcerated people.

Only a handful of community colleges partner with less than half of the state's correctional facilities to help people obtain associate's degrees.

In 2023, incarcerated people became eligible for federal Pell Grants, supporting tuition costs for low-income individuals.

Terri Erwin, director of the Virginia Consensus for Higher Education in Prison, an initiative of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, said the General Assembly can help grow the programs.

"I think that the General Assembly can be kind of a third leg in the stool in supporting the collaboration as it develops between the Department of Corrections and the institutions of higher education," Erwin asserted. "What might be needed depends in part on how those relationships develop."

Higher education's shift to technology was one big challenge in maintaining this access during the pandemic. She noted Virginia did not pivot the same way, yet technology solutions in states such as Tennessee and Maine provided secure learning management and intranet access to incarcerated students. Despite the challenges, higher education in prison has grown nationwide in recent years.

Studies show some benefits of these programs are a 43% reduction in recidivism and a 13% increase in post-release employment. Erwin emphasized the programs can be transformative for people.

"It's an opportunity to reenter society with just one more similarity to folks who have been on the outside all along," Erwin pointed out. "It helps to move past some of the stigma. It gives them a hook to put their hat on as they move forward in looking for jobs and telling the story about who they are."

Formerly incarcerated people reentering society face numerous obstacles. Programs such as SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are proven to reduce recidivism by 10% but having a criminal background disqualifies someone's eligibility for both social programs and unemployment insurance.


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A new report shows Black girls are enduring disproportionate discipline, sexual harassment and public humiliation from school-based police and security guards in Miami-Dade public schools.

The report, "Keep Her Safe: Centering Black Girls in School Safety," compiles the experiences of Black girls and young women between the ages of 14 and 24, sharing their stories through surveys and focus groups about mistreatment by school safety personnel who make them feel unsafe.

Bayliss Fiddiman, director of educational equity at the National Women's Law Center, which produced the study along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the girls were being treated differently for their appearance, often unaware of the lines of sexual harassment.

"The girls express school security guards making inappropriate comments about their appearance that could range from. 'Oh, she looks ghetto,' or 'she's too big to wear that outfit. I would never let my daughter wear that,'" Fiddiman explained.

The report urged the school system to use proven behavioral interventions in such cases, rather than using policing, surveillance and harsh student punishment. Miami-Dade schools has not responded to a request for comment on the study.

Fiddiman pointed out in listening sessions, the girls also did not have a clear understanding of whom to tell if they felt violated. She argued it is an opportunity for school leaders to step in and explain school safety procedures by engaging students in the conversation.

"Schools can definitely implement policies around explaining what sexual harassment is, what boundaries are, what is safe and healthy," Fiddiman recommended. "That was missing."

The report underscored incidents of security using excessive force, such as a 16-year-old Black girl being slammed to the ground, rendering her unconscious and subsequently handcuffed to prevent a fight in 2021. In 2023, a Miami-Dade security guard faced allegations of attempting to seduce three teenage girls.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act in response to the 2018 Parkland shooting aimed to bolster school safety. However, it also led to heightened law enforcement presence in schools and increased surveillance measures.


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Advocates for the rights of people with disabilities have joined the Montana Quality Education Association in a suit to stop a school voucher bill in the state.

Montana is the latest to enact a plan allowing parents to pay private school tuition with public money. Senate Bill 393 is much more narrowly focused than Educational Savings Accounts in other states. In Montana, the money is limited to reimbursing services for special-education students and those with disabilities.

Rylee Sommers-Flanagan, executive director of Helena-based Upper 7 Law which is overseeing the suit, said Montana's version of Educational Savings Accounts requires special-ed students to renounce their right to a free, quality education under the state constitution and forgo federal assistance.

"In exchange for renouncing that, they can gain access to anywhere between $5,000 and $8,000 annually," Sommers-Flanagan explained. "Which, as we all know, is not enough money to educate a child for a year under any circumstances, let alone a student who may have special needs and may have particularity expensive special needs depending on the circumstances."

School voucher measures are growing across the nation, 29 states now having some form of them. The suit to block the Montana bill was filed in state court in Helena.

In addition to the critics' standard argument which holds funding Educational Savings Accounts with state education money comes at the expense of public K-12 classrooms, Sommers-Flanagan added the accounts will not make enough money available to adequately fund special-needs students anyway.

"It's a lose-lose situation," Sommers-Flanagan contended. "It's incredibly harmful. It appears just to be a gambit to try to privatize public money and to send it to vendors and to folks who have no accountability and no responsibility to genuinely meet the needs of kids who have disabilities in Montana."

Supporters have said they can do a better job educating their own kids than the state can because they understand the students' strengths and weaknesses.