Restorative practices have gained a foothold in Pennsylvania schools as districts look for ways to reduce suspensions and improve their school climate.

Craig Adamson, president of the model programs for the International Institute for Restorative Practices, said his organization works with more than 60 school districts, along with at-risk youths through the juvenile justice and child welfare systems in eastern Pennsylvania.

He explained restorative practices are used as an alternative to suspension, and their peer-mediated small groups give students an opportunity to talk, ask questions and air grievances.

"A lot of our work is about relationships, and working in groups and circles, and working through different issues," Adamson outlined. "The students can return back to their home schools as soon as they can make those transitions."

Adamson pointed out at their Restorative Reporting Center in Bucks County, students participate six days a week in a 20-week program which is an alternative to detention and placement. He added it is an intense program with structured homework time and behavioral interventions resulting in grades improving along with enhancing their social and emotional skills.

Applying restorative practices in Pennsylvania schools is not without its challenges. Proper training and ongoing support for educators are critical for successful implementation.

Keith Hickman, executive director of the institute wears many hats, including building relationships with state education departments and national collaboratives in the education and civic-engagement space. He works closely with school district leaders and school administrators on creating a climate of trust within the school.

"I help them use restorative practices as a way to problem-solve complex issues relevant to the climate and culture of their schools," Hickman noted. "This includes using restorative practices to improve their work climate for staff and learning environment for students."

Hickman argued Pennsylvania schools should become less reliant on punitive discipline because data show disproportionate suspension rates impact mostly Black and brown students.

He emphasized the institute and other organizations in the Pittsburgh area are helping educators, principals and superintendents develop valuable relationships to prevent the overreliance on punitive measures such as suspensions.

With just over a month before Indiana university students return, a new law affecting college professor tenures is in full effect.

The law targets public universities, mandating diversity committees to review faculty, administration, and policies on "cultural and intellectual diversity."

Professors must undergo reviews every five years. Trustees are required to accept complaints if professors fail to meet criteria related to free inquiry, expression, and intellectual diversity, though specifics are not detailed.

Ball State University student Michaela Ayeh said the law promotes bigotry.

"This is a prime example of Board of Trustee and government overreach, restriction of academic freedom and censorship," said Ayeh. "This bill is exemplary of the racism, homophobia, sexism, classes of ableism and other bigoted ideologies that bigots harbor."

Proponents say the law gives the board the ability to determine whether faculty are eligible for tenure or promotion depending on their performance in promoting intellectual diversity every five years.

State Sen. Spencer Deery - R-West Lafayette - helped author the bill. He argued it addresses concerns of ideological bias in universities.

"Pew Research Foundation actually researched this of why do you lack trust in our institutions of higher education," said Deery. "The number one issue for Republican respondents was professors pushing political views irrelevant to the classroom."

Some scholars are concerned with how their speech will be restricted because their positions are now on the line.

Some of the pushback claims the law encourages conformity, and may discourage professors from engaging in topics that run the risk of violating what they deem is vague criteria.




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Montana has been granted $41 million to create a training and education program for new jobs in the high-tech sector.

The Headwaters Hub is part of a larger federal program designed to build the U.S. workforce in key areas, including artificial intelligence and photonics.

The U.S. Department of Commerce says Montana's rugged terrain, vast road system and largely rural setting make it the perfect place to train people in photonic remote-sensing systems, which use light to generate energy.

Headwaters Hub Executive Director Tim Van Reken said the focus will be on training people in Montana's new "innovation corridor" to learn the technology behind the systems.

"That runs from Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, up through Butte up through Missoula and up into the Flathead through Kalispell," said Van Reken. "So, it is all of the metropolitan-micropolitan areas along that corridor, and all of the rural and tribal areas in between."

Van Reken said in addition to developing this cutting-edge technology, the Headwaters Hub could generate as many as ten-thousand jobs in Montana over a decade - and create new avenues of employment for the state's large Indigenous population.

The University of Montana, Montana State and Salish Kootenai College will be involved in the hub - but Van Reken said those won't be the only places students can learn, and most won't have to travel far to take classes.

"Montana is a big, distributed, wide-open space," said Van Reken. "We want to make sure that, as much as we can, we're having the training be close to home so that folks can get the training they need and prepare for jobs while still managing their day-to-day lives."

Nearly 200 applicants competed for funding for 31 tech hubs, which stretch across rural and urban areas in 32 states and Puerto Rico.

New Mexico teachers educating young people about climate change don't want them to feel hopeless - and they've developed an educational curriculum to match that outlook.

Fiana Shapiro, environmental education instructional coordinator for the Sandia Mountain Natural History Center, part of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, said young people recognize that climate change is going to shape their futures - where they live, their vocation and quality of life. As part of the 350 New Mexico Climate Education Committee, Shapiro has helped develop Climate Hope, a middle-school climate curriculum.

"Most students know what it is, know some basics about it - they might know how it's connected to drought and even dryness," she said, "not necessarily a whole lot beyond that - but it really does depend on the school."

The 350 project has piloted the education curriculum in a handful of Albuquerque middle-school classrooms and held a recent teacher workshop to help them prepare lesson plans.

New Mexico has been hit by major forest fires followed by flooding this summer resulting in deaths, and the destruction of at least 500 homes.

In addition to adapting to a warming world, Shapiro said young people need climate education in order to develop green skills and understand what's needed to combat climate change - starting with reduction and eventual elimination of fossil fuels and including conservation of water and the thinning of forests. In order to engage, she believes kids need to know what's happening in New Mexico and around the world, "and that there are things that are being done already, and that can be done.

"We don't want to leave them with the idea of doom and gloom and everything's going wrong and that's it," she said. "We want to leave them with the idea that there are things that can be done and there's things they can do."

She said the four-lesson curriculum includes information about climate justice - the fact that people contributing the least to climate change are often the most affected.