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Crafting Thorough Cleaning Plans
Few educators may link school cleanliness with student performance, but cleaner buildings can mean higher attendance and more learning. Included: Tips for developing a comprehensive cleaning program that creates a healthier environment for all.

Improving School Environments Through Green Cleaning
As research mounts about the link between indoor air quality and health, and as more children enter school with respiratory problems, schools, districts, and even whole states are switching to more environmentally-friendly cleaning agents.

Guide Helps Schools Guard Against Violence
The Department of Education and the Department of Justice have joined forces to create a 68-page "how-to" guidebook to help schools and communities prevent school violence. The manual, Safeguarding Our Children: An Action Guide, is a follow-up to Early Warning Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools, published by the government in 1998 (and still available).

An Education World e-Interview: Youth Violence Expert James Garbarino
This week, the nation remembers the school killing spree that a year ago left 15 dead and 21 injured at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. James Garbarino ---a national expert on youth violence and author of Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them --- talked with Education World earlier this week. Included: Garberinos ideas about how we can make our schools safe again.

New Standards Should Help Children in Noisy Classrooms
For more than two decades, research has established a link between noise and poor academic progress. New standards for classroom acoustics will be the first step in the effort to change all that. Taking control of noise in the classroom and in other places in the community is part of International Noise Awareness Day --- April 12, 2000.

Are Our Children Safe in School?
The shots that killed 15 people April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School were heard throughout the nation -- but the changes prompted by that tragedy were still unable to prevent another school killing. On February 29, 2000, a first-grader shot and killed a classmate in a Michigan elementary school. What have we learned from the Columbine tragedy? What do we still need to do? Are our children safe in school? Included: Experts suggestions to prevent school violence!

What Can We Do to Curb Student Cheating?
A 1998 national survey found that four out of five top students admitted cheating at some point. In another nationwide study, nine out of ten high school teachers acknowledged cheating is a problem in their school. Is cheating a problem in your school? Has the Internet added some new dimensions to the problem? This week, Education World explores the problem of cheating. Included: Ways in which teachers combat cheating!

From the Principal Files: The School of My Dreams!
This month, Education World challenged our Principal Files principals to dream. "Imagine your dream school!" we told them. Dreams are relative things, one principal told us in response. And that is reflected in the dreams of 20 P-Files principals from around the world. Join Education World's P-Files principals as they share their visions of what a dream school might include. Most of their ideas are quite simple, practical, doable. So why are so many schools so far from their principals' dreams?

A Slow Healing: Jefferson County Schools Move On
Six months after the shootings at Columbine High, how is the community doing? What changes have been made? Are they moving on? This week -- America's Safe Schools Week -- Education World looks back at the tragic events and looks at how schools in Jefferson County, Colorado, are coping now.

Safe Schools: Four Web Sites Help Administrators Address a Complex Issue
What can be done to prevent violence and make schools safe? Which ideas are right for your school or district? Which are most effective? This week, Education World recognizes America's Safe Schools Week (October 17-23) with a comprehensive examination of four valuable Web sites that address the complex job of creating safe schools.

Detroit School Repair Program: A Model for Others
A marathon ten-week effort this summer resulted in some major improvements to Detroit's public schools. But the effort could not have succeeded without the cooperation and involvement of the city's business community. Organizations from Northwest Airlines to the Detroit Pistons provided personnel to see the program through in this renovation blitz that could serve as a model for other cities and towns large and small.

School Building Boom: BUILD Before the Schools Go BOOM!
A 1996 study clearly draws a correlation between the condition of school buildings and the student learning that goes on in those buildings. Recognizing the sorry state of many of America's schools ---along with a growing student population and the need to make room for new technology--- many cities and towns are taking long-overdue action. This week, experts Paul Abramson and Joe Agron share with Education World readers their observations and predictions about the current building boom in America's schools. Included: On-line resources to help educators make a case for school construction or renovation.

School Uniforms: Panacea or Band-Aid?
Does requiring students to wear uniforms directly affect school environment and student achievement, or is it the equivalent of painting the walls of a crumbling building -- merely cosmetic? What does the research say? What do students, teachers, and parents say?

Is the Teacher in the Classroom Next Door a Convicted Felon?
Discovering that felons work in school systems happens more often than one might wish. This week, Education World examines the problems that have led many communities and states to require background checks for all school personnel. Included: Practical tips from attorneys and other experts who specialize in school safety issues.

Stop Bullying Before It Starts!
Bullying is no longer seen as the norm in the school or the community at large, and prevention has become the name of the game. Included: Poor and good solutions to bullying.

Is Character Education the Answer?
As incidents of in-school violence become more common, and strict disciplinary techniques and increased security measures fail to control the problem, many parents, educators, politicians, and social leaders are looking for reliable methods of prevention. Is character education the answer?

Hard Hat Area: The Deteriorating State of School Buildings
The spending bill passed last month by Congress didn't include the monies President Clinton had asked for to address the crumbling state of America's school infrastructure. Education World examines the problem, offers resources for school administrators, and shares news of what some communities are doing to put their schools on "firm foundations."

Fighting for Better Indoor Air Quality in Schools
Is the air in your school building healthful to breathe -- or is it making people sick? If your school suffers from "sick" air, you can take action.

Turning Around Troubled Schools
Yes, it is possible to turn around consistently low-performing schools. That's the message of a recent Department of Education report. Read of some schools that turned around performance. Learn how they did it!

Can Uniforms Save Our Schools?
The New York City School Board recently voted to require students in all city elementary schools to wear school uniforms beginning in September 1999. The unanimous ruling, which is expected to affect more than a half-million students in the nation's largest school system, is the most recent development in a trend that is rapidly spreading across the country.

Schools Combat Violence
What's being done to combat violence in America's schools? What can school administrators and teachers do? Should disruptive students be expelled? These are some of the problems educators, lawmakers, and other experts are tackling today.

Programs Combat A Community Problem-Chronically Truant Students
What is the connecting link between restricted driving privileges, enforced community service, and reduced welfare payments? These strategies are components of truancy-prevention programs in effect throughout the United States.

Can Schools Stop Promoting Failure?
The "social promotion" pendulum swings back and forth. Educators in Chicago, DC, and North Carolina are setting new standards for student promotion and retention. And a new report from the American Federation of Teachers -- "Passing on Failure: District Promotion Policies and Practices" -- examines the issue.

1998 Education Appropriations Signed Into Law
The 1998 appropriations bill provides "what is plainly the best year for American education in more than a generation," says President Clinton.

School Bus Discipline: Solving the Problem
Is school bus discipline a problem in your school? Two school bus discipline policies available on the Web might serve as effective models.

Bully-Proof Your School
Recognized as more than just a problem between kids, schools are called upon to put forth a team effort to end bullies' longtime reign of terror.