6 things school nurses want parents to know as kids head back to school

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Back to school: School nurses share ways to keep your child healthy.  (Photo: Getty Images)
Back to school: School nurses share ways to keep your child healthy. (Photo: Getty Images)

In what seems like the blink of an eye, summer is nearly over and it’s time for back to school. Along with gathering school supplies and packing lunches, parents also need to think about their child’s health while in school. It’s understandable that some parents may be wondering what the COVID protocols will look like this year and how to decide when to keep their child home from school.

So Yahoo Life reached out to five school nurses from across the country and asked them to share what they want parents to know to help ensure that their kids are healthy and ready for the school year.

No. 1: Consider testing for COVID before back to school and after holiday breaks

How schools handle COVID-19 this school year will differ from last year. “It’s not

Turkish pop star jailed over joke about religious schools

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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish pop star Gulsen has been arrested on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity” with a joke she made about Turkey’s religious schools, the country’s state-run news agency reported.

The 46-year-old singer and songwriter, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken away from her home in Istanbul for questioning and formally arrested late Thursday. She was then taken to a prison pending trial.

The arrest sparked outrage on social media. Government critics said the move was an effort by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to consolidate support from his religious and conservative ahead of elections in 10 months.

The charges were based on a joke Gulsen made during an April concert in Istanbul, where she quipped that one of her musicians’ “perversion” stemmed from attending a religious school. A video of the singer’s comment began circulating on social media recently, with a hashtag calling for her

Pennsylvania school district accused of banning Girls Who Code book series

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A school district in Pennsylvania temporarily banned the Girls Who Code book series for young readers, according to an index of banned books compiled by the free expression non-profit, Pen America.

The books are four of more than 1,500 unique book titles that have been banned by various schools across the country after conservative pushes to censor books. According to a report released by Pen America in April, 138 school districts across 32 states have banned books from their classrooms and school libraries, sometimes temporarily, even if only for a day, sometimes on an ongoing basis.

A recent update to Pen America’s banned book index included the Central York school district in Pennsylvania as banning the books The Friendship Code, Team BFF: Race to the Finish!, Lights, Music, Code! and Spotlight on Coding Club! They were among a suggested new list of more diverse teaching resources that ended up being

California school district tries new way to retain teachers

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School districts across the country are grappling with teacher shortages — and communities with unaffordable housing are often hit the hardest.

“There’s been times when we didn’t have a math teacher, or we didn’t have a language teacher,” Megan Carey, the principal of Terra Nova High School, located just south of San Francisco, told CBS News.

The reason? “High cost of living — 100%!” she said.

Now, her school district is trying something new: affordable housing on school property. It’s a 122-unit apartment complex that was approved by local voters and built for teachers and staff on property owned by the Jefferson Union High School District.

“It’s very spacious,” said Michaela Ott, who teaches biology at Jefferson High School, which is also in the district. “Extremely roomy!”

Ott said that an average two-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood would cost more than $3,000 per month. Her rent is $1,600.

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When students’ basic needs are met by community schools, learning can flourish

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“The suspension rate was high. MLK lamentably had the highest rate of disciplinary referrals in the entire district,” said Leslie Hu, MLK’s community school coordinator who added that standardized test scores were really low. The principal wanted to incorporate PBL, but knew students were distracted by a lack of basic needs that could not be met at home. Shifting to a community school model helped students with needs like food and medical care, and teachers like Founds were able to invest more time in developing their teaching practice.

Schools aren’t typically designed to offer more than instruction, but by addressing basic needsthey’re finding that students can learn better. Cincinnati Public School Learning Centers, Oakland Unified School District and even Lebron James’ I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, are community schools that lend a helpful framework for closing achievement gaps and improving student outcomes.

“The community school approach is where you