Talent & Education

Remember the monotony of 9-to-5 worklife? Doesn’t seem so bad compared to the daily disruption of omicron, with changing school schedules, child quarantines and cross-city trips for test kits.

Keeping students in classrooms amid a volatile pandemic remains an all-consuming topic for school leaders. Children are suffering from years of disruption as districts weigh how to spend billions in additional federal dollars.

Parents in the Detroit Public Schools Community District have until Jan. 31 to turn in COVID testing consent forms if they want their children to learn in person.

A new analysis confirmed what had been feared: Online learning wasn’t as effective as in-person during the COVID-interrupted 2020-21 school year, and academic gaps between racial groups grew.

Scholarships for aspiring teachers and loan forgiveness for current educators won’t stop Michigan schools from closing now, but it could lessen the state’s teacher shortage long-term, says the state’s top school official

Michigan campuses had massive COVID outbreaks in the first year of the pandemic, which have been largely sidestepped this year. Officials are trying to be proactive amid the latest surge, with some going remote in January.

School mask mandates are declining across Michigan even as COVID cases rise to crazy levels. And with a surge in teachers and other staffers out sick, the state is taking a harder line on quarantines.

State police believe OK2SAY has stopped suicides, assaults, vandalism, and worse.

With students in and out of classrooms because of COVID or just plain stress, one teacher describes the struggle of kids learning “how to do school again” in an unsustainable year.

Trying to head off infections from the new omicron variant, the University of Michigan and MSU are mandating employees and students who were vaccinated more than six months ago to get booster shots as soon as possible.

It's unclear if Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will sign the bill waiving some requirements for substitutes this year to ease a nationwide shortage.

It seemed like a common-sense accountability law. A decade later, though, almost all teachers are rated effective and students’ test scores have declined.

A bill allowing current school support staff to work as substitute teachers, even if they’ve never been to college, is meant to address a teacher shortage hobbling Michigan schools.

1978 was an era of school fire drills, not active-shooter training. Former students and a teacher recall how unprepared Everett High School was when a 15-year-old shot and killed one classmate and injured another.

Trying to change gun laws hasn’t worked, says a mother whose son died in a school shooting. Instead, she encourages compassion and relationships.

Students are finding fewer selections in school cafeterias this year because of supply chain issues.

Education is required from ages 6-16. State Board member Tom McMillin says that after a deadly school shooting in Oxford it’s time to rethink that practice. Other state education leaders dismissed the suggestion.

Oxford school officials are coming under scrutiny for what they did, and didn’t do, following disturbing interactions with the 15-year-old suspect before the shooting spree.

Chalkbeat put together a list of resources for families that help them understand how to monitor threats in their school and where to go for help dealing with trauma.

School districts are working with local law enforcement to probe the credibility of the online threats, with some school leaders saying it is not yet possible to keep up.