Published Work

Florida now leads the country in book bans, new PEN report says. How did that happen?

More books were pulled from shelves in Florida public schools compared to any other state during the past school year, a new report released Thursday by PEN America found.

The nonprofit, which advocates for freedom of expression, recorded 3,362 instances of bans in public school classrooms and libraries from July 2022 to June 2023 across the country. Out of these, about 1,400 — or 40% of the national total — took place in Florida.

“Florida is not an aberration,” said Tasslyn Magnusson, a consu

In Miami-Dade Schools, all you need to be a substitute teacher is a GED degree

Barbara Hochman, a retired physical therapist, decided she wanted to become a substitute teacher. After applying for the position, submitting her college transcript and completing the necessary training, she started working in Miami-Dade County Public Schools about a year and a half ago.

Over the summer, Hochman received an email from the district alerting her that all hiring and management of substitutes, also known as temporary teachers, would be outsourced to a company called Kelly Education

‘Shouldn’t be a war that’s fought on a college campus.’ Tensions rise for Florida students

When Mona Abuzahra moved from the West Bank in 2020 to begin her freshman year at the University of Miami, she was struck by how little Americans knew about Palestinian life.

Many UM students assumed all the Palestinians living in the two territories in the Middle East — the West Bank and Gaza — were governed by Hamas, the armed Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Unlike the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2007, some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank

‘It’s hard to survive and live.’ Broward teachers rally for raises, against insurance costs

Broward Teachers Union members rallied Wednesday evening, protesting the district’s proposed 1.7% pay raise, which would be funded exclusively by state funds, rather than the district’s budget.

Gathered inside the Broward School Board building, teachers in blue and red BTU tee-shirts also were outraged that they may be asked to contribute to their health insurance for the first time, effectively exceeding the raise being offered, according to a union statement.

If the union and the district ar

New York City’s graduation rate rose during the pandemic, bucking national trends. Why?

When high school teacher Rachel King welcomed a new cohort of 10th graders to her classroom in the fall of 2021, she made a discovery: a number of her students had never completed their coursework from the previous year.

At the time, the 36-year-old taught English at The Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in downtown Brooklyn. It was her 13th year teaching and her third at the all-girls middle and high school, which serves predominantly Black and Latino children from l

Florida now leads the country in book bans, new PEN report says. How did that happen?

More books were pulled from shelves in Florida public schools compared to any other state during the past school year, a new report released Thursday by PEN America found.

The nonprofit, which advocates for freedom of expression, recorded 3,362 instances of bans in public school classrooms and libraries from July 2022 to June 2023 across the country. Out of these, about 1,400 — or 40% of the national total — took place in Florida.

“Florida is not an aberration,” said Tasslyn Magnusson, a consu

Pop star Pink will give away thousands of banned books at Miami, Sunrise concerts

International pop star Pink is teaming up with PEN America and local bookseller Books & Books to give away thousands of copies of banned books at her concerts in Florida this week, including one in Miami.

The 44-year-old singer, whose legal name is Alecia Beth Moore, will hand out over 2,000 books at the two Florida stops of her Trustfall Tour, Kaseya Center in Miami on Tuesday and Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on Wednesday.

“Books have held a special joy for me from the time I was a child, an

One Florida school district removed over 400 books. See books restricted in your district

A school district in northeastern Florida removed more than 400 books from classroom and library shelves during the past school year, the most of any of the state’s 67 school districts.

Clay County District Schools, near Jacksonville, was one of four districts in the state that banned or restricted over 100 books between July 2022 and June 2023, according to a report released Thursday by PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for freedom of expression.

Escambia County Public Schools in the Pa

School bus delays help drive chronic absenteeism, parents and advocates say

One morning in late October, 8-year-old Eric Vilchis’s school bus picked him up on Bushwick Avenue at 7:30 a.m. About three and a half hours later, his mother, Araselis Pedrasa, received a phone call from his school: Her son had never arrived.

Panicked, the Brooklyn mom began calling the bus driver and bus attendant. Neither answered their phones.

“We didn’t know where the bus was,” she said in an interview translated from Spanish.

Pedrasa learned later that the bus had never left Brooklyn. A

Maine homeschooling numbers remain high following a pandemic spike

In the fall of 2016, Jessica Coakley became increasingly concerned that her son, Braden, was falling behind in school. The fourth grader had an Individualized Education Program, requiring certain services for students like him with different learning needs.

But his mother worried it was not enough.

“I was feeling like the teachers and the principals and the people weren’t listening to me,” said Coakley, who lives in Bradley, just north of Bangor. “I would go to these IEP meetings and I’d be cr

Miami art university to close, leaving hundreds of students scrambling. A week’s notice

Miami International University of Art & Design, along with its Tampa branch and six other Art Institute campuses, will shutter its doors, effective Saturday, leaving nearly 2,000 students and faculty members displaced and scrambling.

The Miami campus, 1501 Biscayne Blvd. in the former Omni mall site, and its Tampa branch are two of eight Art Institute schools. The other six campuses are in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio in Texas, and Virginia Beach.

The Art Institutes consist
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