For some families, going back to school means going back to lunchroom debt

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Before Minnesota banned school lunch shaming, children who owed money to the cafeteria might be handed a cold cheese sandwich for lunch. Or no lunch at all.

They might come home from school wearing a humiliating sticker or hand stamp to let their parents — and every other kid on the school bus — know they were in debt.

They might be banned from field trips or fun class activities until someone paid up.

But Minnesota did ban lunch shaming. State lawmakers, who don’t agree on much, came together across party lines on that one last year. Because a child’s biggest worry at lunchtime should be more along the lines of whether today is Pizza Day or not.

The law changed. Many school district policies did not.

As students head back to school, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid — which has battled for years to identify and eradicate lunch shaming — went

Should high school start later? Wake County schools wants your thoughts on new start times

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CARY, NC — The Wake County Public School System is taking another step exploring later high school start times and end times and earlier elementary school start times and end times.

The district will host town halls and focus groups later this fall and will soon send out a survey soliciting feedback. No changes would be made until the 2024-25 school year, at the earliest.

The switch is grounded in research on natural sleep rhythms and potential academic implications. But the likely wide-reaching impact has kept the school system from moving quickly toward making a change.

“We know that in 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that school set bell schedules no earlier than 8:30 am to improve the physical, mental health, safety and academic achievement of older students,” said Wake County Public Schools Chief Academic Advancement Officer Dr. Edward McFarland.

A change could affect parents’ schedules, students’ after-school

New York City schools cancel snow days in disturbing new trend

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More bad news from the post-pandemic department: Snow days are canceled.

“There are technically no more snow days,” New York City School Chancellor David C. Banks announced ahead of the start of the 2022-23 school year this past week.

Now students will miss out on one of the only good things about the cold weather. But it’s not just denying my family the magic of snow days that upsets me.

As a New York City parent I have one reaction: UGH.

Now students will miss out on one of the only good things about the cold weather. But it’s not just denying my family the magic of snow days that upsets me. It’s that school officials still don’t seem to understand that online classes can’t substitute for the real thing.

Across the snowbelt, school districts are eliminating snow days, cutting them back or weighing both options. This change to a

You may qualify for free or lower cost internet

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The school year is just around the corner, and local organizations in Springfield are stepping up to ensure you have what you need.

Saturday, the Springfield Dream Center held a back-to-school carnival to help out families in the area.

“We have a back to school outfits for 400 students that are pre-registered, so they get a shirt, pants, socks, undies, and a backpack,” said Jody Dow, Executive Director. “We plan for food for 800 to 1000 people, and if I had to guess, I’m gonna say we’re gonna go through everything.”

Internet at home is essential during the school year, and the Affordable Care Act can help you get lower costs or even free internet if you qualify, which was one of the many services at the event.

“One of our community partners that we have today is Xtreme which is through media com, and they have some free internet

Lawmaker, Florida school at odds on alleged bathroom attack

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Police in Florida say they will investigate a lawmaker’s allegation that a transgender student may have sexually assaulted a female student in a middle school bathroom over the summer — a rumored attack that school district officials say never occurred and that investigators say they received no reports about.

After reading Republican State Rep. Randy Fine’s social media posts about the alleged assault on Thursday, police in the eastern coast city of Melbourne, just south of Cape Canaveral, assigned two detectives to investigate the allegations, though they said they had received no previous word of an attack.

Fine told The Associated Press on Friday that some parents approached him, saying a teacher at the school told them about the incident but that the teacher was “afraid to go public because of fear of retaliation by the school district.”

Brevard Public Schools spokesperson Russell Bruhn disputed Fine’s allegations. “There was no