Monday's top education stories
compiled by
American School & University:
March 3, 2003
YALE STRIKE: For the eighth time in 35 years, Yale University workers have begun a strike Monday, joined on picket lines by some graduate students and workers from Yale-New Haven Hospital. (Yale Daily News)....The 5,000 striking workers include janitors, cafeteria workers, secretaries and graduate teaching assistants. (New York Times)
PLEDGE RULING: The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has reaffirmed its ruling that having public school students recite the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. It gave schools in California and eight other Western states until March 10 to stop the practice. (Los Angeles Times)
WISH LIST: Eleven new schools are on Denver Public Schools' $607 million list of building projects that could be included in a November bond issue. (Denver Post)
TEACHERS NEEDED: The Palm Beach County, Fla., district estimates it will need to hire about 2,000 new teachers this year--1,400 to keep up with student growth, retirements and resignations, and another 600 to meet the mandated class-size reductions. (Palm Beach Post)....Florida's class-size reduction mandates may dominate the state's legislative session. (Orlando Sentinel)
TEXAS BONDS: The Mesquite (Texas) district has won approval of a $150 million bond proposal that will provide for a new middle school, two new elementary schools and an alternative school. In the Grand Prairie (Texas) district, voters approved an $85.85 million bond package to pay for two new elementary schools and the district's seventh middle school. (Dallas Morning News)
NEW SCHOOL: Backers of a new Jesuit high school in Denver plan to buy the campus of a Catholic school in northwest Denver and locate the school there. Arrupe Jesuit High School will be situated in the former Holy Family Catholic School, which announced in January that it would close at the end of this academic year. (Denver Business Journal)
SITE FIGHT: Two years ago, the Newark, N.J., school district had a plan to move its administrative offices from one building to another. It set in motion a tug of war between landlords and a cascade of legal battles that are still being played out. (New York Times)
ONE BECOMES FOUR: The Seattle school district will dismantle the traditional school model at its Cleveland High School and break the campus into four small schools next fall. (Seattle Times)
CHARTER APPEAL: The Florida Board of Education has adopted new rules that may force school districts to approve charter schools that they don't want. (Orlando Sentinel)
HEADS UP: The wavy, sloping stainless-steel roof of the new, $61.7 million, Peter B. Lewis Building at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland has been delivering chunks of ice and snow to the sidewalks below. The university has had to close some of the sidewalks periodically this winter. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
GROUNDBREAKING: Johns Hopkins Medicine will break ground Monday on an $80 million research tower for scientists working to fight cancer. (Baltimore Sun)
JOLIET VOTE: Voters in Joliet (Ill.) Township High School District 204 face a tough choice on April 1 when they decide whether to raise the tax rate to restore class time and some athletics. (Chicago Tribune)
LAYOFF PROTEST: About 100 students picketed at Andrew High School in Tinley Park, Ill., to protest Consolidated High School District 230's plan to cut costs by replacing its maintenance staff with private cleaning firms. (Chicago Tribune)
