New research suggests districts with high chronic absenteeism rates lack coordinated strategies to reengage students. While some emphasize parental communication, experiences highlight the need for systemic improvements to address student absenteeism.

The Escondido Union School District's Farm to School initiative, in partnership with the Farm to Institution Center, introduces elementary students to nutrition and local farming, encouraging them to explore new vegetables and understand the journey of food from farm to table. Through engaging lessons and activities over five weeks, students in the California district learn about farming, local produce and the importance of supporting local farmers.

Strong leaders are generous, genuine, inclusive, able to listen and customize growth opportunities for their team, writes Joe Davis, a managing director and senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group and author of "The Generous Leader: 7 Ways to Give of Yourself for Everyone's Gain." "Leaders must be highly effective managers with exceptional core business skills. But they must also bring their hearts front and center into their leadership: they must be generous," Davis writes.

Developing a system of self-reflection can help leaders handle their emotions, identify self-defeating patterns and find ways to change them to improve their decision-making skills and self-awareness, writes Ben Bryant, a professor of leadership and organization at IMD in Lausanne. Bryant outlines five steps necessary to identify feelings, experience them, explain them, see limiting patterns and intentionally change them.

Middle school students in Michigan learned about the physical and emotional effects of social media through an interprofessional program that sought to spark their curiosity rather than punish. The program, coordinated through the schools of social work, education and information at the University of Michigan, "has had a lot of joy, which feels different from the shame often associated with school-related talks/lectures on digital safety and citizenship," said Liz Kolb, an education professor.

The $2 million Prisms of Reality virtual reality teaching tool is coming to Cobb County, Ga., schools to give students immersive, interactive, practical experiences with math and science problems. The "life-changing" technology, developed by a former teacher and MIT graduate, gives students a better, real-world understanding of complex, theoretical concepts, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale says, such as working as a train conductor who must brake safely during high speeds.

The Biden administration's proposed loan forgiveness plan offers relief to educators burdened by student debt, potentially forgiving accrued interest and principal amounts for about 30 million borrowers, but it faces regulatory hurdles and political challenges. Despite its broad scope, the plan excludes recent borrowers already enrolled in repayment programs, prompting debate over its effectiveness and fairness.

Unlocking true inclusion hinges on our perception of disability—it's the core of the challenge, and it’s the key to our solution. Read more on the ASCD Blog.

The April issue of Educational Leadership examines key factors for school leaders and teacher leaders to consider when getting STEM programming off the ground.

Teacher unions are pushing for cellphone policy changes at the local and state levels, advocating for clearer guidelines and, in some cases, outright bans on student phone use during instructional time. Frustrated by persistent distractions, unions are bringing the issue to the bargaining table, seeking collaborative solutions to improve classroom management and educational focus.

Two-thirds of Americans believe that US K-12 STEM education is on par with or worse than that of other wealthy countries, a Pew Research survey indicates, and while standardized test scores show that US students are, indeed, behind in math, they're performing better than the other countries' students in science. The beliefs track similarly with responses before the pandemic's school disruptions, and Pew offers demographic breakdowns of the latest views and the US' position in relation to the best- and worst-scoring wealthy countries.