Author: Reporter

Aylah Levy had some catching up to do when she started first grade in the fall of 2023. After spending her kindergarten year at an alternative program that met exclusively outdoors, Aylah, 6, had to adjust to being inside a classroom. She knew only a handful of numbers and was not printing her letters clearly. To help her along, the teacher at her Bay Area elementary school has been showing her the right way to hold a pencil. “It’s harder. Way, way harder,” Aylah said of the new grip. Still, her mother, Hannah Levy, says it was the right...

Students in a Florida school district will be reading only excerpts from William Shakespeare’s plays for class rather than the full texts under redesigned curriculum guides developed, in part, to take into consideration the state’s new law that restricts classroom materials whose content can be deemed sexual. The changes to the Hillsborough County Public Schools’ curriculum guides were made with Florida’s new legislation limiting classroom materials that “contain pornography or obscene depictions of sexual conduct” in mind. Other reasons included revised state standards and an effort to get students to read a wide variety of books for new state...

On a recent afternoon, Grant Oh zigzagged across the University of Southern California campus as if he was conquering an obstacle course, coming up against police blockade after police blockade on his way to his apartment while officers arrested demonstrators protesting the Israel-Hamas war. In many ways, the chaotic moment was the culmination of a college life that started amid the coronavirus pandemic and has been marked by continual upheaval in what has become a constant battle for normalcy. Oh already missed his prom and his high school graduation as COVID-19 surged in 2020. He started college with online...

Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have popped up on an increasing number of college campuses following the arrest of more than 100 demonstrators at Columbia University. The students are calling for universities to separate themselves from any companies that are advancing Israel’s military efforts in Gaza — and in some cases from Israel itself. Protests on many campuses have been orchestrated by coalitions of student groups. The groups largely act independently, though students say they are inspired by peers at other universities. Here is a look at the protests on campuses in recent days: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Pro-Palestinian student...