It was in physical education class when Laila Gutierrez  Vaping.

Like students across the country, Gutierrez got dragged between vape manufacturers, who used celebrity marketing and fruity flavors to hook kids on e-cigarettes, and educators, who鈥檝e turned to surveillance tools and discipline to crack down on the youngest users. Gutierrez was suspended for a week after she was nabbed vaping in a crowded school bathroom during her lunch hour. 

In my latest investigative deep dive, , I reveal how school districts across the country have spent millions to install vape-detecting sensors in school bathrooms 鈥� once considered a digital surveillance no-go. The devices prioritize punishment to combat student nicotine addiction.

My analysis of public records obtained from Minneapolis Public Schools reveals the sensors inundated administrators with alerts 鈥� about one per minute during a typical school day, on average. Their presence brought a spike in school discipline, records show, with and younger middle school students facing the harshest consequences. 

The sheer volume of alerts, more than  across four schools, raises questions about whether they鈥檙e an effective way to get kids to give up their vape pens. And some students voiced privacy concerns about the sensors, the most high tech of which can now reportedly detect keywords, how many young people are in the bathroom at one time and for how long. 

鈥淪urveillance is only a diagnosis,鈥� Texas student activist Cameron Samuels told me. 鈥淚t only recognizes symptoms of a failed system.鈥�  

In the news

Charlotte, North Carolina, school officials reported more than 30,000 students absent on Monday, two days after federal immigration agents arrested 130 people there in their latest sweep. That more recent data point underscores the 81,000 school days missed by more than 100,000 students in California鈥檚 Central Valley after immigration raids earlier this year, according to a newly peer reviewed Stanford University study. | 

• Los Angeles schools have lost thousands of immigrant students 鈥� from 157,619 in the 2018-19 school year to just 62,000 this year 鈥� because of the city鈥檚 rising prices and falling birth rates. Now, that trend has intensified after the 鈥渃hilling effect鈥� of recent federal immigration raids, district officials said. | 

• Student enrollment is dropping in school districts across the country amid President Donald Trump鈥檚 immigration crackdown. In Miami, for example, the number of new immigrant students has decreased by more than 10,000 compared to last year. | 

Ten Commandments: Siding with the families of students who argued they infringed on their religious freedom, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered some Texas public school districts to remove Ten Commandment displays from their classroom walls by next month. | 

• 28 Bills, Ten Commandments and 1 Source: A Christian Right 鈥楤ill Mill鈥�. | 

Online gaming platform Roblox announced it will block children from interacting with teens and adults in the wake of lawsuits alleging the platform has been used by predators to groom young people. | 

Furry and freaky: 鈥淜umma,鈥� a Chinese-made teddy bear with artificial intelligence capabilities and marketed toward children, is being pulled from shelves after researchers found it could teach its users how to light matches and about sexual kinks. | 

A teenage girl from New York reported to a police officer at school that her adoptive father had been raping her at home for years. The officer, who didn鈥檛 believe her, bungled the case 鈥� and she was abused again. | 

鈥楤razen cruelty鈥�: A federal judge has ordered the release of a 16-year-old Bronx high schooler who has spent nearly a month in federal immigration custody despite having a protective status reserved for immigrant youth who were abused, neglected or abandoned by a parent. | 

Civil rights groups have decried proposed federal changes to the Education Department鈥檚 data collection on racial disparities in special education that could make it more difficult to identify and address service gaps. | 

鈥楧ead-naming鈥� enforced: A Texas law now requires school employees to use names and pronouns that conform to students鈥� sex at birth. Several transgender students whose schools are complying say it has transformed school from a place of support to one that rejects who they are. | 

ICYMI @The74

Emotional Support

鈥淟et鈥檚 circle back in 2026.鈥�

-Taittinger, already

The robots have 

New research suggests that a majority of  at school. To write essays. To solve complicated math problems. To find love. 

Wait, what? 

Nearly a fifth of students said they or a friend have used artificial intelligence chatbots to form romantic relationships, according to . Some 42% said they or someone they know used the chatbots for mental health support, as an escape from real life or as a friend.

Eighty-six percent of students say they鈥檝e used artificial intelligence chatbots in the past academic year 鈥� half to help with schoolwork.

The tech-enabled convenience, researchers conclude, doesn’t come without significant risks for young people. Namely, as AI proliferates in schools 鈥� with help from the federal government and a zealous tech industry 鈥� on a promise to improve student outcomes, they warn that young people could grow socially and emotionally disconnected from the humans in their lives. 

• Dig Deeper: 

In the news

The latest in Trump鈥檚 immigration crackdown: The survey featured above, which quizzed students, teachers and parents, also offers startling findings on immigration enforcement in schools: 
While more than a quarter of educators said their school collects information about whether a student is undocumented, 17% said their district shares records 鈥� including grades and disciplinary information 鈥� with immigration enforcement. 

In the last school year, 13% of teachers said a staff member at their school reported a student or parent to immigration enforcement of their own accord. | 

• Call for answers: In the wake of immigration enforcement that鈥檚 ensnared children, New York congressional Democrats are demanding the feds release information about the welfare of students held in detention, my colleague Jo Napolitano reports. | 
• A 13-year-old boy from Brazil, who has lived in a Boston suburb since 2021 with a pending asylum application, was scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after local police arrested him on a 鈥渃redible tip鈥� accusing him of making 鈥渁 violent threat鈥� against a classmate at school. The boy鈥檚 mother said her son wound up in a Virginia detention facility and was 鈥渄esperate, saying ICE had taken him.鈥� | 
• Chicago teenagers are among a group of activists patrolling the city鈥檚 neighborhoods to monitor ICE鈥檚 deployment to the city and help migrants avoid arrest. | 
• Immigration agents detained a Chicago Public Schools vendor employee outside a school, prompting educators to move physical education classes indoors out of an 鈥渁bundance of caution.鈥� | 
• A Des Moines, Iowa, high schooler was detained by ICE during a routine immigration check-in, placed in a Louisiana detention center and deported to Central America fewer than two weeks later. |
• A 15-year-old boy with disabilities 鈥� who was handcuffed outside a Los Angeles high school after immigration agents mistook him for a suspect 鈥� is among more than 170 U.S. citizens, including nearly 20 children, who have been detained during the first nine months of the president’s immigration push. | 
  

Trigger warning: After a Washington state teenager hanged himself on camera, the 13-year-old boy鈥檚 parents set out to find out what motivated their child to livestream his suicide on Instagram while online users watched. Evidence pointed to a sadistic online group that relies on torment, blackmail and coercion to weed out teens they deem weak. | 

Civil rights advocates in New York are sounding the alarm over a Long Island school district鈥檚 new AI-powered surveillance system, which includes round-the-clock audio monitoring with in-classroom microphones. | 

A federal judge has ordered the Department of Defense to restock hundreds of books after a lawsuit alleged students were banned from checking out texts related to race and gender from school libraries on military bases in violation of the First Amendment. | 

More than 600 armed volunteers in Utah have been approved to patrol campuses across the state to comply with a new law requiring armed security. Called school guardians, the volunteers are existing school employees who agree to be trained by local law enforcement and carry guns on campus. | 

No 鈥淛ackass鈥�: Instagram announced new PG-13 content features that restrict teenagers from viewing posts that contain sex, drugs and 鈥渞isky stunts.鈥� | 

A Tuscaloosa, Alabama, school resource officer restrained and handcuffed a county commissioner after a spat at an elementary school awards program. | 

The number of guns found at Minnesota schools has increased nearly threefold in the last several years, new state data show. | 

More than half of Florida鈥檚 school districts received bomb threats on a single evening last week. The threats weren鈥檛 credible, officials said, and appeared to be 鈥減art of a hoax intended to solicit money.鈥� | 

ICYMI @The74

Emotional Support

New research has found that rural LGBTQ+ teens experience significant challenges in their communities and turn to the internet for support.

The from Hopelab and the looked at what more than 1,200 LGBTQ+ teens faced and compared the experiences of those in rural communities with those of teens in suburban and urban communities. The research found that rural teens are more likely to give and receive support through their online communities and friends than via their in-person relationships.

鈥淭he rural young people we’re seeing were reporting having a lot less support in their homes, in their communities, and their schools,鈥� Mike Parent, a principal researcher at Hopelab, said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. 鈥淭hey weren’t doing too well in terms of feeling supported in the places they were living, though they were feeling supported online.鈥�

However, the research found that rural LGBTQ+ teens had the same sense of pride in who they were as suburban and urban teens.

鈥淭he parallel, interesting finding was that we didn’t see differences in their internal sense of pride, which you might kind of expect if they feel all less supported,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat was surprising, in a very good way, was that indication of resilience or being able to feel a strong sense of their internal selves despite this kind of harsh environment they might be in.鈥�

Researchers recruited young people between the ages of 15 and 24 who identified as LGBTQ+ through targeted ads on social media. After surveying the respondents during August and September of last year, the researchers also followed up some of the surveys with interviews, Parent said.

According to the study, rural teens were more likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to find support online. Of the rural respondents, 56% of rural young people reported receiving support from others online several times a month compared to 51% of urban and suburban respondents, and 76% reported giving support online, compared to 70% of urban and suburban respondents.

Conversely, only 28% of rural respondents reported feeling supported by their schools, compared to 49% of urban and suburban respondents, the study found, and 13% of rural respondents felt supported by their communities, compared to 35% of urban and suburban respondents.

Rural LGBTQ+ young people are significantly more likely to suffer mental health issues because of the lack of support where they live, researchers said. Rural LGBTQ+ young people were more likely to meet the threshold for depression (57% compared to 45%), and more likely to report less flourishing than their suburban/urban counterparts (43% to 52%).

The study found that those LGBTQ+ young people who received support from those they lived with, regardless of where they live, are more likely to report flourishing (50% compared to 35%) and less likely to meet the threshold for depression (52% compared to 63%).

One respondent said the impact of lack of support impacted every aspect of their lives.

鈥淣ot being able to be who you truly are around the people that you love most or the communities that you鈥檙e in is going to make somebody depressed or give them mental issues,鈥� they said in survey interviews, according to Hopelab. 鈥淏ecause if you can鈥檛 be who you are around the people that you love most and people who surround you, you鈥檙e not gonna be able to feel the best about your well-being.鈥�

Respondents said connecting with those online communities saved their lives.

“Throughout my entire life, I have been bullied relentlessly. However, when I鈥檓 online, I find that it is easier to make friends鈥� I met my best friend through role play [games],鈥� one teen told researchers. 鈥淲ithout it, I wouldn鈥檛 be here today. So, in the long run, it鈥檚 the friendships I鈥檝e made online that have kept me alive all these years.”

Having support in rural areas, especially, can provide rural LGBTQ+ teens with a feeling of belonging, researchers said.

鈥淥ur findings highlight the urgent need for safe, affirming in-person spaces and the importance of including young people in shaping the solutions,鈥� Claudia-Santi F. Fernandes, vice president of research and evaluation at Born This Way Foundation, said in a statement. 鈥淚f we want to improve outcomes, especially for LGBTQ+ young people in rural communities, their voices鈥揳nd scientific evidence鈥搈ust guide the work.鈥�

Parent said the survey respondents stressed the importance of having safe spaces for LGBTQ+ young people to gather in their own communities.

鈥淚 think most of the participants recognize that you can’t do a lot to change your family if they’re not supportive,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat they were saying was that finding ways for schools to be supportive and for communities to be supportive in terms of physical spaces (that allowed them) to express themselves safely (and) having places where they can gather and feel safe, uh, were really important to them.鈥�

Hopelab seeks to address mental health in young people through evidence-based innovation, according to its organizers. The Born This Way Foundation was co-founded by Lady Gaga and her mother, West Virginia native Cynthia Bisset Germanotta.

The organization is focused on ending bullying and building up communities, while using research, programming, grants, and partnerships to engage young people and connect them to mental health resources, according to the foundation鈥檚 website.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

鈥淚 don’t see much positive representation from our community all the time,鈥� Kaba said. 鈥淚 was thinking 鈥榤y scholarship won鈥檛 get picked.鈥� But it did 鈥� and I was able to bring something so big to my community, a community that already doesn鈥檛 have the most funding in the world.鈥� 

The scholarship, , asks students to answer, 鈥渋f you had $1 million how would you target the lives of those in Rhode Island and how would you create change?鈥�

Kaba鈥檚 investments resulted in a number of youth-centered spaces and opportunities popping up across the city, including 120 calm corners in elementary classrooms to support students’ sensory functions, new physical education equipment for all Woonsocket elementary schools, job fairs, hundreds of donated books, and field trips to local colleges & universities, among others.

Kaba, who is now a rising sophomore at Northeastern University, describes the experience of winning the scholarship as surreal.

鈥淚t didn’t occur to me that I was the last person standing and I won $1 million,鈥� Kaba said. 鈥淏ut when I won, the first thing I thought was, 鈥極K, let’s get to work. I’m given this opportunity to help improve my community. What steps can I take? And when does the groundwork start happening?鈥欌��

When a teen leads, adults follow

Bringing Kaba鈥檚 vision to life meant working alongside adults with experience in project management and community engagement while keeping up with her student life at Woonsocket High School.

鈥淚n high school, I managed both classwork and extracurriculars like student council, being a peer mentor and participating in Future Business Leaders of America,鈥� Kaba said. 鈥淏alancing those things with my work with the scholarship came easy to me.鈥�

Kaba partnered with community organizations across the state like nonprofit . This collaboration helped lay out a roadmap for Kaba鈥檚 proposal, manage the scholarship funds and coordinate meetings with community leaders. 

The winning student also sits on the board of the Papitto Opportunity Connection Foundation for a year. This provides an opportunity for them to build their network and connect with leaders in Rhode Island. 

High schoolers can make a difference through spaces and support like this, Kaba said, and also advises teens interested in engaging with their community to 鈥渘ot be afraid to start off small.鈥�

This 鈥渟mall鈥� gesture, Kaba added, can be as simple as gathering a group of friends to organize a community cleanup or starting a school club or Instagram to advocate for something they鈥檙e passionate about.

鈥淪tarting off small is going to give you those steps to leading these big impactful projects,鈥� Kaba said.

The feedback Kaba received on her community investments, primarily from peers, community members and teachers in Woonsocket, was overwhelmingly positive.

鈥淧eople told me, 鈥業 was able to go to this job fair and I got connected to this job,鈥� or, 鈥業’m going to the Harbour Youth Center to get items from the food pantry you created and it’s been helping my family a lot,鈥欌�� Kaba said. 鈥淐ommunity organizations reached out to me to let me know they would love to find a way to work together and do their part to take action too.鈥�

Before the pandemic, the idea of communicating with a therapist via text seemed unthinkable. Then COVID closures and an unprecedented surge in changed everything.

I know what a difference it makes for teens because I talk to them almost every day.

I am a therapist who works for , New York City鈥檚 free mental health service connecting young people with licensed multilingual therapists through the secure (and ) platform Talkspace. This effort is breaking down barriers to mental health care, especially for those who may struggle to find a therapist who meets their needs.

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The program, launched a year ago this month by Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, is available to anyone ages 13 to 17 living in New York City, regardless of their school, immigration status, income level, or insurance status. No payment or insurance information is required.

While we ask all teens to share a parent or guardian鈥檚 information so that they can provide consent, in special circumstances, permits waiving that requirement, for example when the young person is emancipated, incarcerated, or if notification is deemed detrimental to their well-being. That is something that the licensed therapist assesses.

For many teens, it鈥檚 the first time they鈥檝e ever talked with a therapist. And my goal is to create a space where teens feel like they can be themselves. Asking questions, staying curious, and not making assumptions are key to helping young people feel supported.

While many of our interactions are asynchronous and over text, I always encourage a live face-to-face video session or offer to send asynchronous audio or video messages. I want them to know that it鈥檚 OK to ask questions that can help them better understand therapy, mental health, themselves, and how to advocate for their needs.

They鈥檙e often curious to learn about depression, ADHD, PTSD, and other diagnoses they may have heard about or from their friends. Sometimes, they ask if I鈥檓 a real human or if I鈥檓 AI. They like hearing that I grew up in New York, in the Bronx and Yonkers, that I have a cat, and the types of music I enjoy.

Teens may be experiencing anxiety or depression, or they may be grieving. But they don鈥檛 need to be experiencing symptoms of mental illness or living with loss to participate. They may be navigating a new relationship or breakup, adjusting to changes in their family dynamics, or experiencing uncertainty about what they want to do after high school.

We talk about what鈥檚 causing them stress and what will improve their quality of life. It鈥檚 rewarding when I hear from a teen client who has tried a technique we鈥檝e practiced, like deep breathing, , , or communication skills, and found that it works. From my experience, teens are more likely than adults to share their progress as it鈥檚 happening, rather than to reflect on it several months later.

How effective is NYC Teenspace? More than 16,000 teens have signed up for the service so far. that 65 percent of users reported improvement in their mental health, and that number is growing. Underserved neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx lead the city in signups, and 60 percent of users identify as Black or Hispanic.

Going forward, I hope to see even more teens using it, especially boys. shows that teenage girls have been more than three times as likely to seek help on the platform. We have work to do to increase reach to teen boys, who may encounter more .

Still, I鈥檓 astonished by telehealth鈥檚 ability to promote strong connections with users, particularly Gen Z. These digital natives communicate effortlessly through text and other online media. They express themselves in ways an adult patient typically wouldn鈥檛. They share photos of their pets, selfies, memes, audio clips 鈥� and, yes, lots of emojis 鈥� offering glimpses into their world that enrich the therapeutic process.

NYC Teenspace therapists can communicate in 13 different languages, and the platform uses translation support in 120 languages.

No matter what their language, teens tend to find on-demand messaging a more comfortable, accessible option in which to open up about their challenges in ways they might find difficult IRL. Between school, commuting, extracurriculars, and other responsibilities, some teens have avoided therapy because it has been challenging to get to an in-person appointment. Having a private space can often be a challenge for any New Yorker, and this is no different for teens. More than half of all users prefer exclusively engaging with their therapist via messaging.

The current is 1 for every 272 students, and there are even fewer licensed mental health professionals. Last year, nearly in New York City reported experiencing mild to severe depressive symptoms. They worry about the future or something bad happening to them or to their families, which may be a sign of anxiety.

Skeptics of therapy in a digital space may say that the experience of in-person treatment can鈥檛 be replicated. In some instances, this is true. However, therapy that can happen via telehealth can connect with teens in a way that meets their needs. As any teen today can tell you, messaging is how they communicate with their closest friends. Online therapy is also much easier than in-person appointments to scale amid unprecedented teen mental health needs.

As with any treatment, it鈥檚 important to know the limitations. NYC Teenspace therapists are responsible for assessing clients for risks, including risks to themselves or others. If a teen presents with significant concerns like self-harm or suicidality, their therapist is expected to share resources, make appropriate referrals, and intervene as needed to ensure safety.

For the majority of teens who are not in crisis, NYC Teenspace offers a vital space where they can explore their emotions, develop coping strategies, and build resilience. These are skills they can bring with them as they grow into adulthood.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Amber Govan often can be found inside an unassuming building off 12th Street in Little Rock working with students during after-school programs or consulting federal agencies on community violence intervention through her nonprofit, Carter鈥檚 Crew.

helps teens in Central Arkansas who have been in the justice system or live in crime-heavy neighborhoods; it stems from Govan鈥檚 personal experience of being considered 鈥渁t-risk鈥� in her own life.

With $200,000 in settlement funds from the , the nonprofit will add opioid prevention education to its repertoire.

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鈥淲e want to be a one-stop shop for everything that families need, as much as possible,鈥� Govan said. 鈥淧art of our process is that families, not just the teens but the whole family, go through an intake [process] and identify areas they need assistance with. Substance abuse is a major one, right behind mental health.鈥�

More than 108,000 people in the United States died of a drug overdose in 2023, according to preliminary data from the . The same data shows Arkansas had 572 drug overdose deaths in 2023, though the figure could change as the data is finalized.

Carter鈥檚 Crew will use the settlement funds to hire a peer recovery specialist, substance abuse educator and a case manager tasked with mitigating risk factors for misuse among teens. Staff will manage a program that will run four 12-week sessions annually, followed by nine months of follow-up for each participant, Govan said.

The program mimics a 12-step program and participants will be referred for outside assistance, such as inpatient services or medication management, when necessary, Govan said.

The settlement funds will also help staff develop an online opioid prevention curriculum, which Govan said will be the first of its kind in Arkansas for the demographic.

Content will include 30-minute videos led by other young people and quizzes to test participants鈥�  knowledge along the way. They will receive certificates upon completion, and Govan said she鈥檚 currently working to have court judges accept them as part of the conditions for teens who are completing substance abuse programs.

The program is similar to one used for medical professionals at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Govan said.

Along with creating new programs, Govan also hopes the funding will help break down a stigma among different communities.

鈥淚n the Black community, people are afraid to bring up the topic of, 鈥業鈥檓 struggling with being addicted to prescription pills,鈥� or whatever it may be,鈥� Govan said. 鈥淔or us鈥e want families to understand that there are more people out there who are like you, who need this assistance as well. It鈥檚 not a bad thing. It鈥檚 just something we need to provide services for.鈥�

Breaking down that stigma will hopefully help people feel more comfortable self identifying and letting any agency or healthcare provider know they need help, Govan said.

Available funding

The funding for Carter鈥檚 Crew is part of $26 billion in opioid settlement funds to be distributed nationwide. Of that total, Arkansas is set to receive $216 million over 18 years.

The Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership was created in 2022 using city and county settlement funds. The initiative works to distribute funds to projects aimed at abating the opioid epidemic through prevention, treatment and recovery.

Kirk Lane, director of the initiative, said staff look for several features of a project when considering funding, including heart, innovation, location and prevention efforts. For Carter鈥檚 Crew, Lane said he was intrigued by the nonprofit receiving referrals from the juvenile courts.

鈥淲e look for the heart first,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f people are looking at the money as money, that鈥檚 not the direction we鈥檙e wanting to go.鈥�

Every Arkansas county has at least one active program funded by the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership, according . The announcement from Carter鈥檚 Crew increased the funded projects in Pulaski County to nine, joining the Pulaski County Sheriff鈥檚 Office, the Crisis Stabilization Unit at UAMS, the Natural State Recovery Center and others.

鈥淸Carter鈥檚 Crew] was one of the ones that we weeded through,鈥� Lane said. 鈥淭hey were providing something different that the state was doing, was in a county that had a tremendous overdose situation and it was empowering young people that came from strong problem areas.鈥�

Meeting the needs in every Arkansas county is one of Lane鈥檚 goals, and he said funding a project in a county that has fewer active programs may be prioritized if it has met the requirements.

Funding opportunities are ongoing, and the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership doesn鈥檛 have a deadline for organizations to submit applications. Funding proposals must follow a list of , including evidence-based strategies to abate the opioid epidemic and signatures from the county judge and mayor where the program will take place.

Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde and Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. pledged their support for Carter鈥檚 Crew.

After an organization has been awarded funding, the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership conducts regular check-ins over the course of five years to ensure the goals are being met. The initiative collects quarterly data specific to the milestones of each program and completes an annual review.

If money was distributed to an organization and not used toward abating the opioid crisis, that amount is returned to the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership. So far, approximately $1 million has been returned, Lane said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

Solving chronic absenteeism involves tackling big structural problems like transportation and infrastructure. But we also have to make our schools places where young people want to learn. Too many teens, in particular, had negative feelings about school even before the pandemic. Yale researchers conducting found most teens spent their days 鈥渢ired,鈥� 鈥渟tressed,鈥� and 鈥渂ored.鈥� Fewer than 3 in 100 reported feeling interested while in school.

Decades of research prove that students learn more when they experience high levels of academic engagement and social belonging in school. That鈥檚 why XQ developed grounded in the science of teaching and the importance of cultivating caring, trusting relationships within schools. These principles are being used to rethink the traditional high school experience in across the country to make learning more relevant and engaging for the needs of this generation.

Our partnerships are still new. But so far, we鈥檙e finding graduates from our first 17 schools have more interest in their classes and a stronger sense of belonging at school than their national counterparts. More than three-quarters of the XQ class of 2023 鈥� which includes 17 high schools 鈥� said they were at least somewhat interested in their classes. And 52% of the XQ class of 2023 felt like they belonged 鈥渃ompletely鈥� or 鈥渜uite a bit鈥� at their school, versus only 40% nationally.

I spoke with four students from XQ schools across the country to hear what makes a difference in creating high schools young people want to attend. They are: Evan Bowie, Class of 2024 from Ron Brown College Preparatory High School in Washington, D.C.; Karisse Dickison, Class of 2024 from Elizabethton High School in Elizabethton, Tennessee; Henry Montalvo, Class of 2025 from 颁铆谤肠耻濒辞蝉 in Santa Ana, California; and Lillian Roberts, Class of 2024 from Brooklyn STEAM Center. 

Create Bonding Activities

has fewer than 200 students, but Henry Montalvo didn鈥檛 know most of them when he started there as a ninth grader. That small size helped him adjust to the Santa Ana high school, but he also credited bonding activities. One called Community Week provides an opportunity for students to celebrate, pause and reflect. Students create their own schedules based on available sessions. Montalvo said they may lead the sessions alone or partner with teachers for non-academic, fun classes on topics like putting on a thrift shop and even Pok茅mon card-collecting.

鈥淚t’s just basically a time to come together as a community,鈥� he said of the most recent event this past spring. 鈥淪ometimes you write a letter to yourself, and then they give it to you at the end of the year so you can reflect on it.鈥� 

Evan Bowie said teachers at , an all-male district school in Washington, D.C. that鈥檚 part of the partnership, also look for creative ways to help students bond. Students might be asked, for example, to stand or move their desks into circles and answer a question like, 鈥淲hat’s your affirmation today?鈥� Or, 鈥淗ow was your weekend?鈥� He said sometimes it can feel like you鈥檙e being put on the spot, but it works.

Bowie said if he answered with, 鈥溾�業t was boring.鈥� They’d be, like, 鈥榊ou got to give a real answer.鈥欌�� The upshot: 鈥淚t just pushes the student to think a little bit better.鈥�

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Seek Student Feedback

Check-ins like this can also happen more formally, as they do at the The program takes students from several local high schools for mornings or afternoons, five days a week, offering them concentrations in career pathways including cybersecurity, design and engineering, filmmaking and more. Brooklyn STEAM Center is in the Imagine NYC

Lillian Roberts chose culinary arts as her concentration. She enjoys how teachers meet with students quarterly. She said they ask how students feel about their classes, which includes 鈥渢he way they’re teaching, if you have any input.鈥� There are also student-led town hall meetings where students can give feedback anonymously on 鈥渢hings that you might not feel comfortable with.鈥�

Bowie said his teachers at Ron Brown College Preparatory High School also solicit feedback on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on the instructor. They鈥檒l ask questions like, 鈥淲hat went well this week? What can I improve on? What ways can you improve your grade?鈥� Bowie said students are also asked to rate the classes on a scale of one to five stars and provide suggestions for how to make a class better, such as including more hands-on activities or more Socratic seminars instead of written assignments.

Make Personal Connections

is located in northeast Tennessee, an area that has struggled for years with the loss of manufacturing and the opioid epidemic. It was selected as an XQ Super School largely because of its teens鈥� proposal for more student-centered learning to benefit the community.

Karisse Dickison, who graduated this year and is heading to college, described a close relationship with school librarian Dustin Hensley 鈥� who regularly talks to students about what they鈥檙e reading and their extracurricular activities. When Dickison helped start a group dedicated to ending gun violence, she said Hensley would ask her about related events in the news.

鈥淚t was just nice to have him reach out and make sure that I knew what was happening in the world,鈥� she said.

Bowie also valued a personal connection with English teacher Teresa Lasley, who encouraged him to apply to Georgetown University, where he鈥檚 attending this fall. He recalled her showing the class a video about how Black students didn鈥檛 feel welcome at the prestigious school. When he spoke with Lasley, he said she told him he doesn鈥檛 have to work extra hard to prove he belongs. 鈥淕oing to Georgetown means you’re adding more to Georgetown,鈥� he remembered her saying. 鈥淚t’s better for them than it is for you. You belong. You already have it in you.鈥�

He said that exchange allowed him to 鈥渂e seen,鈥� and that he鈥檚 witnessed similar exchanges between other students and teachers.

At Brooklyn STEAM Center, Roberts recalled one guidance counselor who reached out after he saw her crying. 鈥淎nd then we set up weekly meetings just to have someplace to talk about what’s happening,鈥� she said. But at her other high school, she thought guidance counselors seem to focus more on 鈥減urely more academic things.鈥�

Leave the Building

Students at all four schools experience internships, work-based learning and partnerships with community organizations, which they said make classwork feel more relevant. 

Montalvo said teachers at 颁铆谤肠耻濒辞蝉 helped him land internships at a congressional campaign and with a law firm. He said these outside experiences lead to presentations in class. At Brooklyn STEAM Center, Roberts earned an OSHA 10 as well as a New York Food Protection Certificate, and joined a class trip to Italy to study cuisine. 

Dickison worked on social media and advertising at a local nonprofit. Some classes at Elizabethton High include project-based learning, such as one in which students helped solve a cold case involving a serial killer (their work became the subject of the hit podcast this year). 颁铆谤肠耻濒辞蝉 also offers , which Montalvo said makes classes feel more interesting. In his first year, he recalled how he and another student in his English class interviewed local environmental justice experts about lead contamination and the lack of green space, then made a presentation to their school and invited the greater community.

All three students who graduated this year are going to college in the fall, and Montalvo plans to go to college after graduating next year; he wants to be a lawyer. In our senior survey, 72% of XQ students in the class of 2023 planned to attend college, illustrating a great example of students remaining engaged in school beyond their high school years. 

But a sense of belonging and engagement can only happen with student input. 鈥淪chool is about 鈥�飞颈迟丑鈥� not 鈥�蹿辞谤,鈥�鈥� Roberts said. 鈥淓verything is with the students. It鈥檚 not for the students. You have to do everything with the students in mind.鈥�

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Yet, 41 years after 鈥溾�� caused widespread panic about our public schools, fewer than half of American students are graduating high school ready for college or career. U.S. teens than students in many other countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea and Estonia. 

When young people are discouraged from pursuing a STEM-related career, they get locked out of , all of which come with salaries. And that means we all lose out 鈥� because the jobs needed to keep our country running go unfilled, and the inventions, treatments and technologies for our rapidly changing society go undiscovered. 

Our two organizations, and , are deeply committed to ensuring all students have access to joyful and rigorous schools where they know they belong and can succeed. Research shows those three qualities 鈥� joy, rigor, and a sense of belonging 鈥� will prepare them for the future, whether that鈥檚 STEM or any other pursuit. 

XQ partners with schools and districts to rethink the high school experience by making learning more meaningful and engaging through tools such as our Design Principles and Learner Outcomes. Beyond100K unites leading STEM organizations to co-develop and implement solutions to end the STEM teacher shortage by 2043, especially for those most excluded from STEM opportunities.

Sparking Joy in STEM

Guided by and insight from young people across the country, Beyond100K heard that to help spark the brilliance of millions more young minds, schools need to prioritize a focus on equity, representation, and especially belonging in STEM education. But that鈥檚 an increasingly difficult job.

Based on a recent conducted by Beyond100K, it鈥檚 clear that schools and educators are facing dueling pressures. They鈥檙e tasked with reshaping classrooms to foster inclusivity and joy while developing career- and culturally-relevant curricula. Simultaneously, they鈥檙e under heightened scrutiny due to residual pandemic learning loss, ongoing declines , and and teen mental health. 

Beyond100K interviewed educators who expressed concerns about the fear of repercussions for teaching about bias and inequity and the difficulty of creating classrooms of belonging amid pressure to focus solely on raising test scores. Identities of teachers were kept anonymous. 

One teacher noted that they are鈥渟cared to talk about the right thing, doing their own self-work to be able to talk about culture relative to their work鈥�.Regulations in states prevent teachers from having these conversations.鈥�

Yet a positive correlation between a sense of belonging in STEM classrooms and academic performance, retention, and persistence 鈥� particularly for Black, Latino, and Native American students. Similarly, students engaged in SEL programs improve and social well-being. 

Given that nearly 60% of girls and young women who were interested in STEM careers when they entered high school by the time they entered college, there is no question that developing a sense of belonging in the STEM fields is an essential element in nurturing learning environments that lead to STEM persistence. The rigidity of high school STEM education is preventing too many students from pursuing their dreams. 

We see an emerging trend: many teachers and other education leaders view joy, belonging and relevance not in conflict with academic rigor, but as the pathway by which academic success can be achieved. Evidence supports the idea that , particularly for students of color. 

The Beyond100K Foundational Math CoLaboratory, composed of partners from across the STEM learning ecosystem, has developed a of joyful mathematical resources and activities for educators and families to use in making math joyful for their students.

One Beyond100Kpartner, employs a student-belonging-centered science teaching approach in their Bay Area Scientists Inspiring Students program, where scientist and engineer role models bring real-world connections, diversity, and inquiry-based learning into school environments. Teachers observed that students who engaged with these career scientists demonstrated skills above their typical classroom level.

Eliminating Systemic Barriers in High School

Creating a greater sense of belonging is one way to encourage teens to enter STEM. But our young people 鈥� and our creativity 鈥� are also trapped by a structural problem. The American education system, as we know it today, was built around the Carnegie Unit, or 鈥渃redit hour,鈥� a concept developed in 1906 that defines the amount of time a student needs to devote to learning a subject and earning a degree. 

The Carnegie Unit made sense in its day, bringing order and even a degree of equity to a disconnected system. But that day has passed. There鈥檚 no need to limit math, science, English and other required subjects to 50-minute classes with no relationship to one another or to how learning relates to the world beyond the classroom. The Carnegie Unit as we know it today kills student curiosity, inhibits exploration and keeps educators from looking beyond the walls of their school to their communities and our world. Not to mention that clinging to a system that prioritizes time in the classroom over mastery of a subject is actually contributing to the inequity it was designed to prevent.

We are long overdue for It is time to redefine and re-credentialize what it means to be a high school graduate. It鈥檚 time to develop new ways to teach, learn, measure and recognize student achievement, knowledge and growth. We can and must offer young people more immersive, relevant, hands-on experiences that prepare them for a rapidly changing world. 

That鈥檚 our mission at XQ. When we launched in 2015 with an open call to design a transformational high school, 50,000 people signed up. Today, we鈥檙e working in about 60 schools. We have teamed up with school districts in , and the state of to transform high schools at the system level. Partnership is the common ingredient for these high schools and others like them. They鈥檙e forging ahead with new designs based on feedback from their local communities. They take the best ideas and visions 鈥� from educators, students, parents and other stakeholders 鈥� and turn them into life-changing progress for young people. 

Consider the , which is partnering with the computer engineering firm to offer students in the engineering and multimedia pathways an opportunity to take on industry-based projects and earn stipends for their work. Or the Purdue Polytechnic High Schools in Indiana, which resulted from a partnership between Purdue University, business leaders, the state and Indianapolis city leaders to increase the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds attending Purdue and going into STEM careers. PPHS students work on projects that combine math, science and other topics to solve local problems. PPHS has sent more than twice as many students to Purdue University as the entire Indianapolis Public Schools district, most of whom are students of color.  

These examples are only a small sampling of the national movement to transform high schools. XQ and Beyond100K are just two of many organizations engaged in this essential work. Let鈥檚 do everything in our power to give our high school students the tools, resources and inspiration to make that possible. Ensuring that STEM education in high school is inclusive, relevant, engaging and rigorous will help every learner achieve their dreams 鈥� and ours 鈥� in a changing world that will depend on their ideas.

Want to learn more about how to create innovative high school experiences in STEM and subjects? Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. Sign up .

Interested in how you can commit to ending the STEM teacher shortage? Learn more .

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In a recent robotics shop class the teacher was hard to spot among a sea of students working in small teams designing, coding and tinkering with their mechanical creations. Every student had a role, from shop foreman to time manager to cleanup crew. Allyson Ordonez, an 11th-grader, was a class ambassador, welcoming guests and showing them around the classroom.

鈥淵our normal classes 鈥� English, math, science 鈥� you learn fundamentals, but this class takes those subjects and combines them,鈥� Ordonez said. 鈥淢ath and science make up robotics and we use everything we learn from these normal academic classes and apply them to what we learn here.鈥� 

Ordonez sounded more like a seasoned engineer than a high school student as she showed off a small drone she was building and described the equipment. 

Edison attracts teens from all over the city thanks to its 13 career tracks 鈥� the most of any New York City public school. Students can earn college credits through a partnership with the City University of New York, take part in internships and work-based learning with companies like Apple and Google, and receive industry certifications. If students pass those industry-recognized exams, they can start working in technical jobs right out of high school 鈥� while also pursuing associate鈥檚 and bachelor鈥檚 degrees.  

In some ways, Edison鈥檚 offerings are similar to other innovative CTE models across the country that are applying the excitement and engagement of career classes to rigorous academics. But Edison is taking that a step further by giving students tremendous power in its redesign. 

Shifting to Career- and College-Readiness

Edison opened in the 1950s as an all-boys trade school. Today, it serves a diverse population of nearly 2,335 students. Principal Moses Ojeda is about as close to an Edison lifer as it gets: he graduated in 1993, later returning as a teacher before becoming an assistant principal and then principal in 2012. He transformed the school from the days of typewriter and copier repair programs to state-of-the-art offerings including robotics, automotive technology, graphic arts and cybersecurity. 

All of this stemmed from Ojeda鈥檚 early days as principal when a student asked him a question that would change the trajectory of Edison鈥檚 teaching.  

鈥淲e know we鈥檙e here for CTE,鈥� Ojeda remembered the student saying. 鈥淏ut why do we need the academics?鈥�

Ojeda asked the student, who was in the automotive track, if he had learned about Pascal鈥檚 law in his physics class. 鈥淎nd the kid was like, 鈥榊eah, I remember that.鈥� I said, 鈥極K, well, that鈥檚 your brake system.鈥� And I went across the room and made a connection to each academic area.鈥�  

Ojeda then turned to social studies teachers Phil Baker and Danielle Ragavanis to help students see the relevance of academic classes to their careers. 

鈥淔or them, CTE felt useful while academics too often left them wondering, 鈥榃hy are we learning this?鈥�” Baker said.

Ojeda supported Baker and Ragavannis in creating a Research and Development department to engage students in design thinking, including articulating what makes learning meaningful for them. The R&D department has grown to include teachers from every department working with students to figure out how to integrate essential skills into core academic classes. In this way, they鈥檙e applying one of the 鈥檚 crucial for innovative high schools: .

鈥淚n order to take on a project, teachers have to partner with one of the kids,鈥� Ragavanis said. 鈥淪tudents are fully at the table, and they have to be our equals, and in some cases, our bosses.鈥�

Edison was later selected for Imagine NYC 鈥� a dynamic partnership between New York City Public Schools and XQto design innovative, high-quality schools with equity and excellence at their core. Faculty members said brought additional support and resources to scale their ideas for making the academic courses feel as relevant to students as the CTE classes.

Mastering Essential Skills 

Driven by employer demand for 鈥渟oft skills,鈥� Baker and Ragavanis worked with student designers and teachers in the R&D department to establish 鈥渇ive essential skills鈥�: communication, collaboration, giving and receiving feedback, design thinking and professionalism. These skills reflect XQ鈥檚 and now guide the learning objectives in many of Edison鈥檚 academic classes. Research shows these outcomes, or goals, can help students succeed in college, career and life. 

English Language Arts teacher Jason Fischedick, for example, created a student-run community theater, which he called 鈥渢he most ambitious thing I鈥檝e ever tried to do in the classroom.鈥� Apart from selecting the four student directors, Fischedick ceded almost complete control of the process. Students were responsible for hiring a crew, casting actors and organizing and running rehearsals.  

鈥淲e鈥檙e on a time crunch and we need to figure out how to manage that time effectively to ultimately get a good product to show off,鈥� said 12th grader Colin Zaug, one of the student directors.鈥淚t鈥檚 all about teaching independence and preparing students for the real world. I don鈥檛 know how many of these kids will ultimately be actors, but it teaches time management and how to stay on task.鈥澛�

Baker said this is how the R&D department is modernizing Edison. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to make a link between academic classes and CTE classes, and bridge the gap that existed between the two, and make sure that academic classes have a career-centered application to them,鈥� he said.

Baker said ninth graders in the R&D department designed the essential skills rubric for their grade so that regardless of what content classes students take, they all get the same immersion into critical career skills. Student voice is now so integrated into Edison鈥檚 core that teachers work with student designers to plan their units. And he said teachers are becoming comfortable with the language of career-centered learning and essential skills while students appreciate the engagement and develop a new level of confidence. 

Yordani Rodriguez, a 12th-grader, employed the essential skills in a number of leadership positions, from his work on Model UN to serving as editor-in-chief of the school鈥檚 literary magazine. And those are abilities that will serve him long after he leaves Edison. 

鈥淲hen you lead somebody and they look to you, you have to be sharp,鈥� Rodriguez said, noting these skills are always in the back of his mind now. 鈥淚 have to communicate, I have to take feedback and most importantly, I have to be professional.鈥�  

Rodriguez will be a first-generation college student when he enters Columbia University in the fall. Baker emphasized, however, that the essential skills will serve students wherever they go next. 

鈥淭his is the kind of thing that all of our students should be able to use no matter what they do in college or in a career,鈥� he said. 

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Making Time for Innovation

The R&D Department鈥檚 work touches students in every grade. Nearly 40% of 9th graders are involved in classes taught by R&D members, with plans to expand. In addition to essential skills, students also participated in using a . Thanks to word of mouth, as well as student showcases to exhibit their work, Baker and Ragavanis have grown their R&D department to include 18 faculty in ELA, math, and science, including new recruit  Fischedick.

鈥淭hey鈥檝e been letting me innovate every year and that鈥檚 why I joined this team because I鈥檓 someone who likes to try new things,鈥� he said. If something doesn鈥檛 work, he added, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 OK. I鈥檝e become more open with my classroom and what I can do in the classroom because I feel supported to do so.鈥� 

Edison’s lessons are now influencing broader change in New York City high schools. It is an anchor school among the 100-plus city high schools participating in , a bold new vision for career-connected learning. 

Edison students are also applying their essential skills off campus. Once a week, a group of them visit PS 175 in Queens. They lead 10-week cycles for students in kindergarten through 5th grade in more than 25 different courses, from cooking to robotics and Model UN. 

As with the other opportunities at Edison, Baker said students are getting a much deeper understanding of learning and careers by applying the essential skills outside of the classroom.  

鈥淚t鈥檚 been an incredible experience for our students,鈥� Baker said of the teaching opportunity. 鈥淭hey gain so much in terms of professionalism, confidence, and the ability to explain complicated processes to people, which is a really difficult skill.鈥�

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That kind of itinerary would be nearly impossible for Gestel at any traditional high school, which is why she chose to attend A School Without Walls, a first-of-its-kind hybrid program in New York City that blends in-person and remote learning. 

鈥淚 do a lot of other stuff, so I thought it was easier than going to another school and being extremely exhausted and late with work,鈥� Gestel said. 

While hybrid learning might still hold negative connotations for many students and families after years of COVID-19-disrupted schooling, leaders at SWoW say their model reimagines the hybrid structure for a truly student-centered program 鈥� allowing students like Gestel to follow their passions while still mastering rigorous academics. It鈥檚 the first public school to win approval from New York State for a hybrid learning model.

鈥淭he hybrid schedule is really not meant for students who just don鈥檛 want to be in a building every day,鈥� SWoW principal Veronica Coleman said. 鈥淭he goal of the hybrid schedule is for students to have flexibility so that they do real-world learning.鈥� 

Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom 

SWoW launched in 2022 in partnership with , a nonprofit that supports a network of public schools that incorporate an expeditionary learning model through project-based curricula. It鈥檚 also part of Imagine NYC Schools, a dynamic partnership between New York City Public Schools and the to design innovative, high-quality schools with equity and excellence at their core.   

Through support and funding from New York City Public Schools, XQ and the , SWoW designed its program to emphasize 鈥� one of six research-based XQ . 

Students were deeply involved in shaping the school from the start. SWoW recruited 50 students from other schools across the city during its pilot year to serve as interns and test program ideas, provide feedback on what worked and what didn鈥檛 and help think through the school鈥檚 grading policy (an approach that鈥檚 been gaining momentum nationally, and which is also ). 

In place of traditional letter grades, teachers use narrative reports to guide students in developing seven competencies: collaboration, investigation, interdisciplinary connection, analysis, design, communication and reflection. Students receive quarterly progress reports and reflect on their learning through student-led conferences that occur twice yearly.   

鈥淲e鈥檝e really tried to amplify student voice and choice,鈥� Coleman said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the piece for us that feels like the focus and all of the other pieces fit into that being the center of what we鈥檙e really trying to do.鈥� 

Students learn in person at the Lower Manhattan campus two to three days a week. The rest of the time is a mix of synchronous and asynchronous online learning and real-world learning, including internships, fieldwork and early college coursework through the City University of New York. 

Every Friday, students and staff also meet in an auditorium to discuss what鈥檚 going well and share their wants and needs, from designing new clubs to giving input on school-wide policies and procedures. 

鈥淲hat I like about this school is that you can really communicate with them,鈥� Gestel said. 鈥淚f I鈥檓 feeling really stressed or overworked, they help me balance it out and help me organize.鈥� 

SWoW borrowed many of its principles from NYC Outward Bound Schools and expanded them within its model. These include 鈥淐rew,鈥� an advisory and community-building time with teams made up of a dozen or so students and an adult. At SWoW, however, Crew is more than an advisory period. It鈥檚 also where students earn their humanities credits by working on their passion projects 鈥� student-led and student-designed research projects that are the core of the SWoW curriculum.  

Passion-Driven Projects 

Students select a passion project based on a topic that is meaningful to them and their communities. is another . Working with their advisor, each pupil creates an individualized learning plan, setting project goals that align with New York State curriculum standards.  

In 9th grade, students research a service learning project that can address a broad range of issues, from youth homelessness to the environmental impact of illegal fireworks in New York City. In 10th grade, each student starts a passion project in earnest, formulating a research question through reading materials and interviews with experts in the field, culminating with an internship in the spring to put their learning to the test in the real world. All students will take on full-fledged independent projects by 12th grade and find an internship. 

鈥淭he goal is to build that agency and independence while the students are exploring something they are passionate about,鈥� Coleman explained.

For her passion project, 10th grader Gestel is exploring the lack of representation of different body types and skin tones in ballet and how to create a more inclusive dance community. Another 10th grader, Lily Paraponiaris, is researching film restoration and preservation. 

SWoW uses a case study framework to model for students what good research looks like. For example, in January they explored a unit on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the country鈥檚 history of cobalt mining. In addition to earning their humanities credits, students also figure out the ingredients of high-quality research to apply to their own passion projects. 

Some students will devote much of their time at SWoW to their passion projects, diving deeply into a topic while exploring it from different angles and applying that knowledge through real-world learning in an internship. But some teens may take longer to land on a subject that is truly meaningful for them, and Coleman said SWoW makes sure that flexibility is built into the curriculum. 

 鈥淭he idea is that you go through that cycle of making and doing and reflecting, and that reflection can lead you to say, 鈥業鈥檓 done with this topic,鈥� which is totally normal for a teenager,鈥� she explained. 鈥淥r you can continue, but you continue in a way that requires a new avenue of research.鈥� 

Throughout their projects, students get regular opportunities to present their work to an audience, including an end-of-year presentation of learning, a resource fair where students have the chance to network with potential internship mentors and summer employers, and a mid-year presentation called roundtables where students share their passion projects with outside guests, sharpening not only their research questions but also their public speaking skills. At a roundtable in early 2024, one student gave a presentation exploring the rising cost of public transit fares while another investigated the fashion industry’s environmental impact. 

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Hybrid Learning Post-Pandemic

SWoW鈥檚 launch hasn鈥檛 been without bumps along the way 鈥� in part because another completely virtual program opened at the same time, causing confusion for students and parents. That program has since been renamed, but figuring out whether hybrid or fully virtual is best for individual students is still a question for families.   

Ava Smith, who is in her first year at SWoW, said she likes learning online, but ultimately, the school is not for her. 

鈥淚 just think I like traditional school more,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 like the schedule. I feel like here it鈥檚 very mishmashed, and here every day is different.鈥� 

The school has its own saying: SWoW is for anyone but not for everyone. 

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 been a struggle for us to find the right matches,鈥� Coleman said. 鈥淎nd I think it鈥檚 going to take a few more years for that to really settle, for people to really know what they are getting when they come to A School Without Walls and a sense that this is right for me and for my child.鈥� 

While some students like Smith might end up missing the traditional school environment, overall, SW0W students seem happy with the experience. Out of the 60 original 9th graders who started in 2022, 50 returned for year two, with 35 new students joining in 10th grade. 

Coleman said those numbers, and what she hears from the students, prove this new kind of high school is needed 鈥� not only because of its small community, flexibility and the safe space it offers. 

“Their families are saying their student was at a big high school and experiencing anxiety,鈥� she noted. 鈥淎nd they like this model because of the individualization.鈥� 

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During that same period, about 11% of 12-grade students reported using a lesser-known product, delta-8-THC, a psychoactive substance typically derived from hemp. It can produce a fuzzy, euphoric high similar to 鈥斅燽ut typically milder than 鈥斅爐he THC effects delivered in cannabis.聽

Delta-8-THC is of particular interest because despite health risks, it鈥檚 still widely considered to be legal at the federal level after the 2018 farm bill from the list of controlled substances. It鈥檚 legal in 22 states and Washington, D.C. with limited regulation, and in a number of states 鈥� including Illinois and New Jersey 鈥� there are no age restrictions at all on purchasing it. Concerns are compounded by the fact that it can be found in kid-friendly products, like gummies and chocolates, and can be bought online or from easily accessible vendors, like gas stations.

The results on pot and delta-8-THC use came from the newly released , which annually surveys teens across the U.S. and is conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan. The study, which was the first to report the extent of delta-8-THC use, included 22,318 surveys given to students enrolled in 235 public and private schools across the country between February and June 2023. Questions about delta-8-THC were administered to a randomly selected one-third of 12th-grade students, or 2,186 seniors in 27 states.

鈥�(Eleven percent) is a lot of people 鈥� that鈥檚 at least one or two students in every average-sized high school class who may be using delta-8. We don鈥檛 know enough about these drugs, but we see that they are already extremely accessible to teens,鈥� National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Nora Volkow said in 鈥淐annabis use in general has been associated with negative impacts on the adolescent brain, so we must pay attention to the kinds of cannabis products teens are using, educate young people about potential risks, and ensure that treatment for cannabis use disorder and adequate mental health care is provided to those who need it.鈥� 

The latest study adds to the understanding of how young people are using cannabis and related products at a time when legalization is far reaching and overwhelmingly favored 鈥�  now live in a state where marijuana is legal for either recreational or medical use and for those two purposes, according to two Pew Research Center analyses released over the last month. 

Ryan Sultan, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and a cannabis-use expert, said the current climate calls for a more nuanced approach to marijuana鈥檚 effects.

鈥淭he narrative of cannabis as a 鈥榬eefer madness鈥� and ruining everyone’s life 鈥� that one was a lie,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd the narrative that cannabis is a magical, natural, benign panacea for everything 鈥� that one is also not true.鈥�

At the same time, Sultan warns that young users remain particularly vulnerable. 

鈥淭he biggest consequence that we think about in the field of child development 鈥� is that using substances that are potentially psychoactive and addictive and have effects on development 鈥� the younger you are, the more problematic they might be,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd cannabis is included in that.鈥�

A number of teenagers believe that marijuana is helpful for anxiety and depression, which doesn鈥檛 appear to be true in the long term, Sultan said. 鈥淭he problem is that chronic use seems to not do that. Chronic use seems to actually result in a worsening of that symptomatology.鈥� 

Cannabis today is far more potent than it was decades ago, allowing it to bind to receptors in the brain more effectively. So when you stop using it, you end up with even worse symptoms, according to Sultan. 

Sultan published a last year showing that adolescents who recently used cannabis but did not meet the criteria for a marijuana use disorder had two to four times greater odds of major depression, suicidal ideation, difficulty concentrating, lower GPA and a number of other negative outcomes. These results reinforce those of earlier as well. 

Sultan analyzed responses from 68,263 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 2015 and 2019.

He noted, though, that the study did not demonstrate causation: it鈥檚 not clear that the marijuana use directly led to these mental health issues and other outcomes.

鈥淚t鈥檚 more like a cycle,鈥� he said, in which people who are depressed and anxious are more likely to use cannabis in the first place to self-medicate their symptoms but this can end up 鈥渟pinning out of control.鈥�

鈥淪o rather than which came first, the chicken or the egg? They both came and they鈥檙e both happening and they鈥檙e both interacting with each other.鈥� 

Yet, most adolescents don鈥檛 think of weed as harmful: Over the past decade, the perceived risk of harm decreased by nearly half, while use for people 12 and over increased from about demonstrate that they think of edibles, in particular, as less harmful, failing to account for concerns around potency, regulation and delayed effects. 

A at UC Davis Health and the University of Washington, which surveyed teens over a six-month period, found that they get high for enjoyment and to cope. Those who used it to forget their problems typically experienced more negative consequences like difficulty concentrating. Lead author Nicole Schultz noted that understanding teens鈥� motivation for getting high is an important first step in developing strategies to intervene early. 

Post-pandemic, marijuana remains one of the three substances used by adolescents, along with alcohol and nicotine vaping. 

In 2022, the percentage of young adults 19 to 30 years old who reported marijuana use reached record highs, according to a National Institute of Health-funded : About 44% of those surveyed reported use in the past year 鈥� a significant increase from the 25% who reported the same in 2012. Young adults also reported a record-high use of marijuana vaping in 2022: 21% up from 12% in 2017, when the measure was first added to the study.

A published in 2020 found that adolescents and adults who vape nicotine were also more likely to also use alcohol and marijuana. In adolescents, the relationship was much stronger: those who vaped were 4.5 to six times as likely to report alcohol and marijuana use and were particularly likely to report binge drinking.

According to a , vaping has emerged as one of the two most popular methods for teens to get high, despite its unclear long-term health implications. In fact, it may actually be associated with greater risk than smoking for lung injuries, seizures and acute psychiatric symptoms. 

Vaping is also a more accessible and discreet way to consume marijuana, allowing teens to use it in more settings, including schools, without getting caught. New York City teachers and students have more and younger students are coming to school high and are smoking throughout the day, with hypothesizing that kids are using weed to blunt residual pain and anxiety from the pandemic. 

This harder-to-detect delivery method puts a lot of pressure on individuals to manage how often they鈥檙e using it, according to Sultan, which is particularly challenging for adolescents who may struggle with impulse control.聽

Ultimately, though, much of the research that exists on cannabis generally is outdated because it鈥檚 based on weaker strains of the substance from years ago, Sultan said: 鈥淲e are behind the eight ball on cannabis.鈥�

But they can鈥檛 succeed if they aren鈥檛 treated like part of a greater community. This is why believes high schools deserve more attention and support to fully prepare every student for college, career or whatever comes next. Since 2017, we鈥檝e been working with dozens of schools and systems around the country to help high schools and their communities design learning experiences more suited to the 21st century 鈥� for example, by encouraging partnerships with local organizations so young people can see how their academics show up in real life. 

That鈥檚 how classes work at , the subject of a new documentary. 鈥�,鈥� directed by Lee Hirsch (of 鈥淏ully鈥�), follows students from ninth grade to graduation at this innovative Memphis public high school as they figure out how to sustain life on Mars and interview refugees for an interdisciplinary project combining history and English. 

Community partnerships are among six research-backed XQ developed for high schools to create engaging and rigorous learning opportunities. Like the , which we also introduced, these design principles were originally created for educators and communities involved in building or redesigning a school. But they are also very useful for parents and students who want to better understand whether their local high school is serving students as well as it can. Below are some questions to ask when visiting a school.

Educators interested in a detailed approach to the Design Principles can download c, a tool designed to gather and assess evidence about where they are on their journey to becoming the best high school they can be.

1. Are there high expectations and equal opportunities for all students, regardless of income level, race, ethnic group and special needs? Do the AP and honors classes resemble a cross-section of the community? 

These are signs of a , a set of unifying values and principles that give a school a sense of common purpose and a fundamental belief in the potential of every student to achieve great things. in Tennessee, for example, is committed to making students feel invested in their community. That investment shone through when one sociology class solved a murder, now the subject of a podcast series. When visiting a high school, it鈥檚 also worth checking whether there are opportunities for dual enrollment in postsecondary courses, which can benefit all students.

2. Does the school use an interdisciplinary curriculum 鈥� do teachers combine subjects like math, science, English and electives? Can students and teachers dive deep into topics with project-based learning?

These are examples of Research tells us that young people learn through the combination of what they encounter as learners, through curriculum, relationships, challenges and supports; what they do as learners, through their active commitment in producing and persevering; and how they make meaning of those experiences. Our schools can offer much more powerful ways of learning. For example, students built a hydroponic system through a science project at Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indiana. They conducted extensive research as they designed and constructed a method for growing produce sustainably and cost-effectively.聽

3. Does the school ensure all students have at least one adult who knows them well enough to provide academic and social support? Is there a system in place that helps students connect and check in with the adults so they feel safe, valued and seen?

Those are hallmarks of . The science of adolescent learning shows that learning is a social process, particularly during the high school years, and this aspect 鈥� when intentionally addressed 鈥� can result in a transformative high school experience. Schools that emphasize getting to know students, inside and beyond the school walls, set a foundation for trust that carries over into academic work. At in Oakland, California, co-founder Christian Martinez takes pride in building a place where the goal is to never let a teen slip through the cracks like he did at their age. During the college process, for example, staff guide and support students at every step, from having highly personal conversations about their choices to ensuring that they submit their applications on time.聽

Want to learn how to create innovative high school experiences like those at Crosstown High? Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month.聽.

4. Does the high school support students to build their sense of agency and autonomy, and explore postsecondary goals?

Schools need to provide A student-centered school gives students a say in their learning. They can choose projects and topics and decide whether to present their knowledge as a research paper, slide show or even a documentary or podcast. Staff members should foster this environment, not feel threatened. The D.C. Public Schools recently published a booklet . It argues that student engagement is crucial when communities come together to redesign local high schools, as in thepartnership, because students have higher attendance and learning outcomes when they鈥檙e treated as partners in their own education.

5. Is the school partnering with local entities such as cultural institutions, businesses, nonprofit organizations, colleges and universities and health and service providers? 

These can take many forms. But at their heart, these powerful relationships create opportunities for learners to explore and envision their future and set goals toward making it real. At Florida鈥檚 in Seminole County Public Schools, students have numerous opportunities to work with outside organizations and leave the campus. Some of that activity slowed down during the pandemic 鈥� especially for those who are now seniors. 

Members of the class of 2024 wanted more outside experiences before graduating. They devised a plan: a trip later this spring to New Smyrna Beach, more than an hour away. But it鈥檚 not just a day at the beach, said one of the organizers, Daniella Mu帽oz. The students researched local nonprofits and got excited about . They鈥檙e planning a visit that includes a talk with an expert because it鈥檚 important 鈥渢o hear from someone who isn鈥檛 a teacher鈥� about 鈥渁 real-world problem,鈥� Mu帽oz said. They also plan to clean the beach, using gloves and other supplies provided by the environmental group.

6. Does the school review, reflect on and make decisions based on data that ensure inclusion and access to advanced courses? Does it use data to eliminate disproportionate remediation, disciplinary practices and other inequities?

Data is just one aspect of a high school that makes . Another example is breaking away from the traditional schedule of six or seven single-subject periods, each about 50 minutes long. 

The has an agreement with its district so students and teachers can easily visit local nonprofit groups and businesses and take classes at other schools and colleges. Junior Kate Ruel says she鈥檚 getting science credit this year for taking culinary courses at Kent Career and Tech Center. She also enjoyed visiting Dwelling Place, which provides support services and affordable housing, during a ninth-grade project on English, history, social studies, and science. 

鈥淚 found it really interesting and cool,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 was able to go out and talk to people.鈥� 

Surveys show students at GRPMS feel connected to their learning, and they’re doing better than their counterparts in the state and city on many measures.

This flexibility is why we argue high schools need a new 鈥渁rchitecture鈥� for learning without the Carnegie Unit, a century-old system that equates time with learning. When students and teachers are freed from earning credits based on seat time in single-subject classes, they can see how academic content is connected to the world around them and gain a fuller appreciation of what they鈥檙e learning. These experiences are important for teens in so many ways beyond school. Today鈥檚 high school students are the leaders, workers, doctors, inventors and teachers of tomorrow.

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Rachel isn鈥檛 the only one challenged by this and other projects at Crosstown High. In the film, we see a teacher stumped by a student鈥檚 idea for making a hologram as well as candid conversations about the relevance of an interdisciplinary math and science project exploring how to sustain life on Mars.

This student-led, creative approach to teaching and learning is the goal at Crosstown High 鈥� a public high school built by parents, educators, teens and community members in Memphis as part of the Super School Challenge in 2015. This challenge spurred communities to create innovative high schools, by building new ones and redesigning existing models, that depart from the rigid, century-old model that鈥檚 no longer suited to today鈥檚 learners. 

As part of the challenge, dozens of community members came together and gathered input from more than 200 students to design and open Crosstown High. They wanted to create a school that would engage students in real-world, motivating projects that would make a difference and reflect the diversity of their historically-segregated city with equitable learning opportunities for all.

Years in the making, 鈥淭he First Class鈥� follows the founding cohort of students and educators from ninth grade to the triumph of their graduation 鈥� and all the challenges in between. Directed by award-winning documentary maker Lee Hirsch (of 鈥淏ully鈥�), we see learning in a way that鈥檚 rarely captured on film. No single principal or teacher is the sole superhero who 鈥渟aves鈥� the students. Instead, we see learning as it really happens: through ideas, collaboration, committed educators who genuinely care about students and 鈥渁ha鈥� moments.

As we watch the students and teachers at Crosstown High work through the school鈥檚 growing pains in the film, we see them taking obvious delight in their progress and personal growth.  鈥淭he First Class鈥� shows what鈥檚 possible when we put our heads together to create a new type of high school. Crosstown High鈥檚 journey will inspire educators and communities everywhere to look at the challenges facing students in their own high schools and start the conversation about how they, too, can rethink learning for teachers and students. 

XQ Institute is proud of Crosstown High鈥檚 story, and the incredible progress this community made since responding to our challenge almost a decade ago. We鈥檙e thrilled to provide this exciting documentary and related materials free of charge for educators, families, students, policymakers and other community members. Find everything you need to be among the first to , , and get inspired to rethink high school at .  

Want to learn how to create innovative high school experiences like those at Crosstown High? Check out The XQ Xtra, a newsletter for educators that comes out twice a month. .

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of 社区黑料.

High schools are essential to preparing young people for these challenges, regardless of whether their future includes college, career or a combination of postsecondary plans. But how can families and students understand how any individual high school approaches learning?

While districts and states provide a variety of data points, many agree these metrics don鈥檛 paint a complete picture and don鈥檛 necessarily mean students are well-prepared for postsecondary life. Helping all students reach their full potential requires passionate and inspired teaching and meaningful learning experiences that encourage them to think critically. Schools should also empower teachers as professionals. 

When those ingredients are combined, the sky鈥檚 the limit. As just one example, Alex Campbell鈥�s sociology students at in Tennessee solved a cold case with (and became the subject of the true-crime podcast series 鈥溾��). All high school teachers can tap into students鈥� natural curiosities in exciting ways that connect with the world around them 鈥� and prepare them for their lives beyond graduation. 

identified research-backed or goals, that recognize the full range of knowledge, skills, habits and mindsets students need to be successful in life. The framework guides educators to transform teaching and learning. They鈥檙e also helpful for families looking for ways to determine if a particular high school fully prepares all students for the future. 

Here are five things parents should look for in their kids鈥� classrooms to ensure they鈥檙e ready for the world.

1. Are students learning to be literate in the fullest sense? Do they know how to read information, understand it and apply meaning to it 鈥� with language, numbers, digital content and other subjects?

This is where the XQ goal, 鈥溾�� comes in. In addition to required subjects, such as English and math, students should learn how to interpret and use data, which is increasingly essential in many fields beyond the sciences. For example, at , one student 鈥嬧�媘ade a documentary about 鈥渇ood deserts鈥� 鈥� neighborhoods where residents have limited access to nutritious foods.

2. Can students think in ways that apply art, literacy, science, history, economics, math and STEM 鈥� and connect these disciplines?

This relates to 鈥�.鈥� The goal is to foster curious young people who are knowledgeable about the world: its history, culture, sciences and underlying mathematics, biology and cultural currency. They鈥檙e engaged participants vital to creating a more just and functional democracy.

3. Are students given opportunities to think creatively about subjects they’re passionate about? Can they also explore their interests in the 鈥渞eal world鈥� through internships or partnerships with local businesses and community organizations, so they can think about future professions? 

Students must be taught to be 鈥溾�� In our information age, students must learn to become sense-makers who can deal with conflicting knowledge and abundant data points. How do they know if something was generated by artificial intelligence? They also need to adapt to changing situations. For example, with XQ鈥檚 help, are redesigning existing schools with new approaches, like having students build their own businesses and applying the U.N.鈥檚 Sustainable Development Goals. 

4. Does the school foster collaborators who value the expertise of others? Are there group projects where students learn to be co-creators in what they bring and how they show up?

Successful high schools cultivate 鈥�,鈥� self-aware team members who bring their strengths to support others. At , students responded to a devastating storm that hit the Cedar Rapids region and destroyed up to 70% of the local tree canopy. Students contracted with local chainsaw artists to turn fallen wood into sculptures and used the funds to 鈥渞e-leaf鈥� the damaged tree canopy. 

5. Do students understand their own strengths and areas for growth? Is there an opportunity for them to reflect on their learning?

We want to ensure that schools are nurturing 鈥�.鈥� Any high school鈥檚 role is to foster a love for learning and the ability to keep learning. Students must become self-driven, self-directed, curious learners 鈥� about themselves and the world. Many great high schools have capstone projects where students present what they鈥檝e learned and then celebrate their growth and achievements. At student presentations showcase the projects and issues they鈥檙e passionate about, including climate change, immigration and gun violence.

Preparing students for the future is no easy feat when so many industries, from STEM to manufacturing and media, are in a constant state of flux. But with a nimble approach to learning and foundational knowledge, high schools can help their students feel equipped to succeed on whatever paths they choose. Next month, we鈥檒l give more tips for looking at what a high school鈥檚 design says about how students learn.

Want to learn more about innovative ways of reaching high school students? Subscribe to the a newsletter that comes out twice a month for high school teachers.

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of 社区黑料.

Kids and teens across El Paso have found that small cylindrical and flash drive-looking devices containing THC 鈥� the psychoactive component in marijuana that produces a high 鈥� are easily tucked away in pockets and under sleeves, allowing them to inconspicuously take a drag wherever they go.

As a result, the number of juveniles facing criminal charges for possession of THC concentrates 鈥� a felony in Texas 鈥� has skyrocketed in recent months.

With arrests continuing to mount, there have been some efforts in turning the tide.

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In the last of a four-part series about the rise of vaping THC among minors, El Paso Matters examined some of the emerging research on youth cannabis use prevention; how health organizations have tried to stop kids from using the drug before they can get in trouble; and the recent attempts to change the laws and penalties that come with possession of THC concentrates 鈥� which some experts say may be doing more harm than good.

鈥淥nce you have a kid involved in the criminal legal system, it stays with them forever,鈥� Andreea Matei, a policy associate with the Urban Institute鈥檚 Justice Policy Center told El Paso Matters. 鈥淚t impacts employment, it can impact access to funding and support during education and secondary education. It impacts their ability to find housing sometimes. So it really sets them up in a way for failure.鈥�

The is a Washington, D.C.鈥揵ased policy research think-tank that has conducted several studies on juvenile justice reform.

鈥淧unitive measures are not effective,鈥� added Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics. 鈥淭he best method is to support them into not using again. Support them in not becoming addicted and getting off of that cannabis. 鈥� So don’t bust them. Don’t put them in jail.鈥�

Studies on adolescent development have found that some of the strict methods used in the juvenile justice field for decades, such as probation or juvenile detention, have failed to stop minors from reoffending.

In response, Matei said there has been a call to change these methods to focus on treatment, education and behavior change 鈥渞ather than punitive measures for the sake of accountability鈥� through community resources and services.

In El Paso, local lawmakers have already made some efforts to reduce the punishments that come with marijuana and THC possession charges.

In May 2020, the El Paso City Council approved a cite-and-release program, which allows police officers to give a ticket instead of arresting someone who is caught with marijuana. The program does not apply to THC concentrates like those commonly found in vaping devices.

Then in late 2022, the El Paso County Commissioners Court also created a specialized diversion program for minors charged with possessing THC for the first time. The program connects juveniles with resources from local organizations, including , a local mental health and addiction treatment organization, and, a children鈥檚 health center.

It also allows them to get their records sealed after completing counseling sessions and passing a drug test.

Research shows that these types of programs may be successful in lowering recidivism rates among youth.

looking at the outcomes of 73 diversion programs in the U.S., Australia and Canada found that minors who took part in a diversion program were 24% less likely to get in trouble with the law again in the future.

In Florida, a statewide data analysis found that youth who were issued civil citations as part of a diversion program instead of being arrested had a 4% recidivism rate, while their peers who were arrested had a 9% recidivism rate.

Still, diversion programs can have varied methods and outcomes, and local drug-use prevention advocates say it is too early to tell if the program in El Paso will be successful in lowering THC-related arrests among minors.

Though these efforts have lessened some of the punishments that come with marijuana charges or THC possession in El Paso, some of the long-term consequences that come with a criminal record may remain. If left unsealed, a felony can affect a person鈥檚 ability to get certain jobs, qualify for financial aid and apply for housing. Sealed records can also be accessed in some rare cases if the person is charged with a serious crime again in the future.

It would be up to the state to change the law and lower the severity of the charges 鈥搒omething one state lawmaker attempted to do during the 2023 legislative session.

Texas state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, introduced , which would have reduced the penalties for possession of small amounts of THC concentrate from a felony to a Class C misdemeanor, among other changes. The bill would have also required law enforcement to issue citations instead of making arrests for marijuana possession, and allowed first offenders to have their charges expunged, essentially destroying any record it ever happened.

The bill passed through the House but was never scheduled for a hearing once it reached the Senate State Affairs Committee. Lawmakers will likely have to wait until the next legislative session in 2025 before another similar law can be introduced.

Legislators in New Mexico, where marijuana is legal for adults 21 and over, have already gone even further to limit penalties for minors caught with the drug.

In 2021, the governor of New Mexico signed a that eliminated fines for juvenile offenders convicted of marijuana possession, which lawmakers say hurt economically disadvantaged families. Now in New Mexico, if a minor is caught with a THC vape pen, they would only be required to complete community service.

鈥淭hese fees are disproportionately painful for lower-income families,鈥� said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in a at the time of signing the bill. 鈥淣ickel-and-diming New Mexico families doesn鈥檛 solve anything. On the contrary, it can create a vicious cycle of fee collection and license revocation, all of which serves only to entrap too many New Mexicans in the criminal justice system. Instead, we need to be looking at ways to reduce the administrative burden on families and reduce the potential for recidivism.鈥�

Preventing THC Use: No Silver Bullet

As vaping has become one of the most popular ways for young people to consume marijuana, some local drug prevention organizations have been trying to stop them from using THC before they get a chance to get into legal trouble.

This includes groups like the Paso del Norte Health Foundation and the El Paso Advocates for Prevention Coalition, which consists of parents and representatives from various sectors like law enforcement and schools.

These groups have put on presentations and attended community events to reach out to parents, teachers and youth, with the primary focus on educating them about the harms of marijuana use and vaping.

While studies show that using factual information about cannabis use can help prevent cannabis use among minors, some experts have suggested that just focusing on just the negative side of marijuana use can be ineffective.

鈥淎dults are using cannabis to fall asleep, to be happy 鈥� they’re using it for some perceived benefit,鈥� Halpern-Felsher said. 鈥淚f you only talk to teens about the bad, teens don’t listen. 鈥� And the problem is you lose your audience, you lose your voice if you don’t give a balanced perspective.鈥�

Halpern-Felsher founded the in 2019 to provide resources for educators, parents and community organizations meant to prevent middle and high school students from using marijuana. The program was modeled on the nationally recognized and uses similar strategies while addressing some of the complexities around marijuana use as laws and research around the drug are constantly evolving.

In some cases, these types of prevention programs are being directed to minors who have already tried marijuana at least once and may not be as receptive as their peers.

鈥淲hen you’re teaching cannabis or tobacco or drug prevention in the classroom, you’re going to have anywhere from 10% to 40% of the class who have already used some form of drug,鈥� Halpern-Felsher said. 鈥淚f you tell teens, 鈥楴ever use it, it’s bad and if you do, this is what’s going to happen,鈥� students in the class who have used also shut down.鈥�

One Florida-based program, , has opted to focus on promoting a healthy lifestyle and educating young people on how marijuana and drug use can affect that.

鈥淭he program focuses on positive images,鈥� said the organization鈥檚 founder Dr. Chudley Werch. 鈥淲e set aspirational goals to get a little bit more physical activity or eat a piece of fruit or get another 30 minutes of sleep while also pledging to avoid substance use, which is counterproductive to a healthy lifestyle.鈥�

With all the complexities that come with marijuana, some said it may take a multifaceted approach to stopping kids from using it.

鈥淭here’s no silver bullet,鈥� Werch said. 鈥淥ur program will work for many youth but not all, and that goes with any kind of a prevention strategy.鈥�

Other organizations have begun trying to understand why young people use marijuana to develop new approaches on how to stop them from using it.

In one on adolescent cannabis use, researchers observed that some of the main reasons young people use marijuana are to bond with peers, deal with social isolation and cope with mental health issues 鈥� factors that were exacerbated by the pandemic.

鈥淪ome of our participants really did talk a lot about how the COVID-19 pandemic had just exacerbated challenges to their daily routines. It has increased feelings of isolation, and really they’ve seen a negative impact on themselves,鈥� said Shiloh Beckerley, vice president of research and evaluation for Rescue Agency, during a presentation on the study in 2022. 鈥淥ne tween stated to me, 鈥楨very day was literally the same. I couldn’t do anything. We were doing school on Zoom. I just stayed in my bed all day.鈥� So you can imagine that there could really increase that sense of social isolation.鈥�

The study, which involved interviews and focus groups with youth and parents, was conducted by a marketing company that creates public health campaigns, on behalf of the California Department of Public Health.

These researchers found that many teens who already used marijuana said they began using more during the pandemic and believed it helped them deal with anxiety and depression, though research suggests it may actually exacerbate it.

The study also examined young people’s receptiveness toward different types of cannabis prevention messages.

Youth told researchers they wanted to hear in-depth and scientific information about why cannabis impacts the brain from a credible and trustworthy source. Teens often identified peers with personal experience with cannabis as trustworthy sources, according to the study. Older teens also said they wanted to hear non颅judgmental information and were turned off by ads they felt were talking down on those who use marijuana.

Many also said they were concerned about potential changes to their brain and personality, and cited this as the main reason they have either never tried or want to stop using marijuana.

This is the last in a four-part series on THC vaping among minors. Find the first story , the second and the third .

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Now, new national data unveil one factor that could be exacerbating the crisis: a record increase in sexual violence.

Nearly 1 in 5 teen girls experienced sexual violence in 2021, forced to kiss or touch someone in their life, according to the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 released Monday.

A startling 14%, more than 1 in 10, were forced to have sex against their will, according to the report which compiled responses from 17,000 young people surveyed in the fall of 2021. The violence is up 20% since 2017.聽

The CDC conducts the survey every other year, though Monday鈥檚 report is the first to capture pandemic-era trends. And while there are bright spots 鈥� bullying and use of illicit drugs are down overall 鈥� the recent findings are grim.

In 2021, at least 18% of girls experienced some form of sexual violence 鈥� forced to touch or kiss someone in their life. And while the rate of girls forced to have sex in particular had remained pretty constant for the last 10 years, in the two year period from 2019 to 2021, it jumped from 11% to 14%.聽

鈥淭his is truly alarming,鈥� said Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC鈥檚 division of adolescent and school health. 鈥淔or every 10 teenage girls you know, at least one of them, and probably more, has been raped. This tragedy cannot continue.鈥�

Nearly 1 in 3 girls also seriously considered suicide. One quarter of girls and 37% of lesbian, gay or queer youth made suicide plans. Thirteen percent of girls attempted it, the highest numbers in a decade, roughly double the rate for boys.聽

While increases in suicidal ideation can be seen across many demographics, Black and Native or Indigenous students remain significantly more likely to attempt and are the students most impacted by housing insecurity.

鈥淎merica’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence and trauma,鈥� said Debra Houry, chief medical officer for the CDC, during a press briefing Monday.聽

鈥淭hese data are hard to hear and should result in action,鈥� Houry said. 鈥淎s a parent to a teenage girl, I am heartbroken.鈥�

Research confirms adolescents who are forced to kiss, touch or have sex with people against their will are symptoms of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. In children, this can manifest in a number of ways, including withdrawal from friends or social activities, difficulty sleeping, poor , self-harm, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

Houry said while this report did not look at the connections between sexual violence and the increase in depression and suicidality, prior research has shown 鈥渟exual violence is associated with mental health issues, substance use and also long-term health consequences.鈥� 

Girls are also 5% more likely than boys to misuse prescription opioids and more likely to have tried illicit drugs like cocaine, inhalants, heroin, methamphetamines, hallucinogens, or ecstasy, according to the report 

Nearly half of all high schoolers are 鈥減ersistently sad or hopeless,鈥� the report found, symptoms used as a proxy to measure depression. Numbers are notably higher for girls, queer youth and students of color.聽

The feelings, particularly when they are the result of sexual violence, hold the power to have lifelong impacts: 鈥測oung people who feel hopeless about their future are more likely to engage in behaviors that put them at risk for HIV, STDs, and unintended pregnancy,鈥� the report states. 

Only about half of teens, according to the 2021 findings, used a condom the last time they had sex. And only 5% were screened for STIs within the last year.

Yet many of the challenges facing young people today, Houry added, are in fact 鈥減reventable.鈥�

can revamp health curricula to educate young people about sexual consent and managing emotions; encourage school-based clubs like Gay Straight Alliances; and increase mental health training for teachers, peers and staff. 

Healthy relationship and bystander training programs like Green Dot can reduce harm and stigma in talking about sexual or romantic violence, CDC officials said. 

The CDC and advocates also encouraged families to look for warning associated with suicide and regularly ask young people about their feelings or concerns. 

鈥淚 wish my family knew these resources and what to look for earlier,鈥� national PTA President Anna King tearfully said during the media briefing. King lost a niece to suicide nearly five years ago.聽

鈥淭hese conversations will help parents learn how to help their child and figure out what’s going on emotionally, building their ability to cope with life’s stressors and show them their feelings matter,鈥� King said. 鈥淚t also helps them to understand that they’re not alone.鈥�

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Additional resources are available at . For LGBTQ mental health support, you can contact The Trevor Project鈥檚 toll-free support line at 866-488-7386.

It was the year that Dr. Anthony Fauci, America鈥檚 most prominent public health authority, declared that the country was 鈥�,鈥� as COVID case rates plummeted from their Omicron highs. By the fall, President Biden was with that sentiment, noting that most people had laid down their masks and returned to something like normal. 

And around the possibility of winter surges in American schools, the most visible hallmarks of the COVID era have at last receded. The lurching progression from in-person to virtual classes is over, following an explosion of school exposures last winter. Mask mandates, social distancing, and endless disinfectant wipes are also predominantly a thing of the past, with virtually all children approved to receive vaccines. 

But in terms of the pandemic鈥檚 impact on education, it鈥檚 still only the end of the beginning. With each month, new findings emerge revealing more about what remote instruction did to learning and how families reacted. The potentially lifelong shadow the virus has cast over K-12 students 鈥� from how babies develop speech to what today鈥檚 adolescents will earn decades from now 鈥� is largely mysterious. 

Previous editions of this list have covered the wider world of education policy and research: issues like school financing, choice, accountability, and testing. This year, 社区黑料 is focusing exclusively on the lessons of the COVID era 鈥� one that is now passing from the scene 鈥� and the questions that remain in its wake.

Here, laid out in charts, maps, and tables, are 14 discoveries that changed how we think about schools in 2022.

The scope of learning loss

By the end of last year, a steady trickle of research had already begun to reveal the harm wrought by prolonged school closures and the transition to virtual instruction. But this fall brought the most definitive evidence yet of the scale of learning lost over more than two years of COVID-disrupted schooling: fresh testing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the Nation鈥檚 Report Card, pointing to severe declines in core subjects. 

The unprecedented drop in math scores, which fell by an average of eight points for eighth graders and five points for fourth graders, was especially disturbing. But reversals in literacy were also notable, with sizable increases in the number of students testing below even the 鈥渂asic鈥� level of reading proficiency. What鈥檚 more, the results affirmed dismal findings from NAEP鈥檚 鈥淟ong-Term Trends鈥� test 鈥� an earlier version of the exam that has been administered since the early 1970s 鈥� showing that the pandemic set back nine-year-olds鈥� performance in math and reading to levels last seen two decades ago. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing a lot of that very long-term progress completely erased over the course of a couple of years,鈥� said Dan Goldhaber, a University of Washington professor, of the long-term results.

As many experts warned, additional research has also made clear that the academic damage of COVID was not shared equally. NWEA, the nonprofit testing group whose MAP exam has proven an invaluable assessment tool throughout the pandemic, released a study in November indicating that already-wide achievement gaps in elementary classrooms have grown between 5 and 10 percent in the last few years. Those disparities grew, NWEA analysts specified, because of slumping achievement among struggling students. 

College entrance exams contributed yet another dispiriting perspective, with average scores on the ACT slipping below 20 for the first time since the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Only about one in twelve test-takers from low-income families met standards of college readiness across all of the test鈥檚 four subjects.

In 2022, researchers, educators, and the public discovered the full extent of what COVID did to K-12 learning. 2023 will provide a test of how quickly that learning can be restored 鈥� and how seriously we are approaching the problem.

The geography of remote learning

Multiple studies have identified a strong association between academic backsliding and time spent in remote learning. And while different states and districts switched back to in-person instruction at different speeds, a disturbing commonality emerged: The least-advantaged kids were usually the slowest to return to the classroom.

co-authored by experts at NWEA, the CALDER Center at the American Institutes for Research, and Harvard鈥檚 Center for Education Policy Research used data from over 2 million students to show that 鈥� whether in states that reopened schools relatively quickly, like Florida, or those that stayed remote much longer, like Virginia 鈥� schools serving the highest proportions of low-income students spent the most weeks remote during the 2020鈥�21 academic year. Notably, however, the socioeconomic gaps in exposure to virtual teaching were much larger among the group of predominantly blue states that tended to reopen more hesitantly. In those states, high-poverty schools spent more than two additional months in Zoom classrooms than low-poverty schools. 

Harvard economist and study co-author Thomas Kane observed that the greater prevalence of remote learning among poor students, who are already less likely to succeed academically than their better-off peers, could be an additional driver of achievement gaps for years to come. In an interview with 社区黑料, Kane said that the academic recovery interventions planned by school districts were 鈥渘owhere near enough鈥� to compensate for COVID鈥檚 toll.

鈥淏ased on what I鈥檓 seeing, most districts are going to find that students are still lagging far behind when they take their state tests in May 2023,鈥� Kane said.

But was the public convinced by the reams of detailed and well-intentioned research on the results of online learning? Public polling suggests that the answer is ambiguous. At least 鈥� albeit one conducted before much of the research on learning loss was released 鈥� indicated that Americans prioritized curbing the pandemic鈥檚 spread over keeping schools open.

Poorer districts lost the most

Few doubt that some amount of learning loss is linked to the hasty and unplanned adoption of remote instruction. How much is still ambiguous, however. released in October 鈥� devised by Harvard鈥檚 Kane and the eminent Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon, among others 鈥� leveraged a combination of state test scores and federal NAEP results to deliver a granular, district-by-district overview of the pandemic鈥檚 academic impact.

While the researchers found that academic performance in predominantly in-person districts held up much better than mostly remote districts within the same state, they also stipulated that school closures were not 鈥渢he primary factor driving achievement losses鈥�; some states that spent much of the pandemic open as usual, such as Maine, sustained far greater score declines than those that saw widespread closures, such as California. And beyond the question of remote-versus-in-person, it is clear that districts with greater concentrations of poor students experienced the worst academic effects over the last few years.

In districts where 70 percent or more of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, average math performance fell by 0.66 grade levels. By contrast, in districts where fewer than 39 percent of students qualified for free lunch, only 0.45 grade levels of math achievement were lost. Above all, the ultra-local look at test scores showed a startling amount of variation in how different school districts experienced the same event; in reading, almost 15 percent of all students were enrolled in districts where achievement actually grew during the pandemic.

Enrollment fell as families fled 

The pandemic left an impact on schools far beyond its blow to student achievement. Due to a combination of public dissatisfaction, increased mobility, and economic upheaval, families withdrew from their public schools in unprecedented numbers 鈥� as many as 1.5 million during the 2020鈥�21 school year, or about 3 percent of all public K-12 enrollment, according to a 2021 report from NCES.

Further scholarly investigation has unearthed the important role that learning modality played in that flight. According to a comprehensive report from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the districts that spent the most time remote throughout the first pandemic school year lost at least 500,000 more students than they would have if they had stayed open during that time. And in the period that followed, fewer students returned than did to districts where campuses mostly operated in-person. 

The findings suggested that widespread loss of students was not just 鈥減andemic-related; it was pandemic-response related,鈥� Nat Malkus, AEI鈥檚 deputy director of education policy, told 社区黑料鈥檚 Linda Jacobson. 

Meanwhile, enrollment trends detected this spring by the data company Burbio showed that major urban districts continued losing students through the 2021鈥�22 school year. Only a handful of states examined by the organization during that time saw an enrollment increase of more than 1 percent compared with the previous year.

The youngest weren鈥檛 spared

While we鈥檝e gained a better empirical understanding of how K-12 students鈥� lives and learning trajectories were altered by COVID, it will be years before we fully grasp the ways in which the youngest Americans were affected. But a provocative study of child development and language acquisition has already given cause for alarm.

Using LENA 鈥渢alk pedometers鈥� 鈥� a that measures the number of spoken interactions occurring in the vicinity of young children, as well as their own vocalizations 鈥� researchers at Brown discovered that babies born after July 2020 produced fewer vocalizations and demonstrated slower verbal growth than comparable children born before 2019. The younger group of babies also experienced slower growth of white matter 鈥� subcortical nerve fibers that facilitate communication between different regions of the brain 鈥� perhaps the result of hearing fewer words spoken and engaging less often with their caregivers. 

If the cognitive development of young learners was slowed by the extraordinary social isolation imposed by daycare closures and lockdowns of public spaces, it will produce unavoidable consequences for schools in the next decade.

Old before their time

Even as social and intellectual growth was apparently slowed for some infants and babies, psychologists warn that the compounded stress of the last few years may have harmfully accelerated the maturation process for older kids.

A slew of surveys highlight newly elevated levels of student stress, the product of public health worries, economic anxiety, and even domestic abuse. But a recently published offers proof that those factors actually changed the neurobiology of some adolescents. Examining MRIs of 128 matched subjects 鈥� half measured before and half after the pandemic began 鈥� a team of psychologists found that the group assessed after COVID demonstrated higher 鈥渂rain age鈥� than their chronological age and experienced faster growth in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas of the brain that regulate fear, stress, and memory.

Such sped-up aging has historically been seen in cases of household trauma and neglect, and its consequences can include decreased capacity across a range of intellectual functions. Follow-up scans are already planned to assess whether the process has been remediated.

Teachers under strain

Adults in schools have shown their own signs of exhaustion. In a survey of nearly 4,000 K-12 teachers and principals conducted by the RAND Corporation, about one-third said they intended to quit their jobs, a significantly higher proportion than it found during the chaotic pandemic months of early 2021. 

That figure almost certainly doesn鈥檛 betoken a future exodus from the profession; educators have historically been much more likely to say they intend to leave than to ultimately act on those plans. But it could mean that large numbers will stay in their jobs past the point of burnout, their effectiveness permanently dimmed. On average, the poll found that the teachers and principals were more than twice as likely to report experiencing frequent, job-related stress than other workers.

Teachers were also twice as likely as comparable adults to say they were not 鈥渃oping well鈥� with their stress. While the most commonly cited contributing factor was the task of addressing learning loss, some school employees also complained of staff shortages and the difficulty of managing their own childcare responsibilities. 

Social shuffle

It shouldn鈥檛 come as any surprise that young adults鈥� personal relationships, no less than their academic prospects, were fundamentally changed by months spent away from their peers. 

In some ways, those changes were positive: According to a June poll released by Pew, 45 percent of American kids between the ages of 13 and 17 said they felt closer to their parents after two years of disrupted schooling. But sizable minorities also reported feeling less close to friends, classmates, teachers, and extended family, a web of social connections that might have proven vital during a lengthy period of difficulty. 

Somewhat surprisingly for a survey administered over two years after the emergence of COVID, nearly 20 percent of the teen respondents said they had not attended classes exclusively in-person during the spring of 2022 (a time of somewhat elevated virus case rates). About two-thirds said they would prefer a return to entirely in-person schooling in the future.

Future earnings endangered

The downstream consequences of thwarted or deferred academic success are destined to include financial disadvantages; after all, today鈥檚 underserved pupils are tomorrow鈥檚 underprepared workers. But until the fall release of NAEP, it was difficult to produce a broadly shared measure of American students鈥� stifled progress. 

With the arrival of those scores, Harvard economist Kane 鈥� him again 鈥� and Dartmouth professor Douglas O. Staiger immediately calculated a projection of how much potential income could be lost due to diminished math learning among eighth-graders since 2020. Based on the historical correlation between math gains on NAEP and professional earnings growth, the figure they reached was astounding: $900 billion of future earnings, if the declines in learning were to remain permanent for all students in the United States.

鈥淲hen there are improvements in scores, those kids coming out of school are going to have better outcomes later in life,鈥� Staiger told 社区黑料. 鈥淎nd we can infer from this recent decline that all the cohorts in school now are going to do a bit worse than we expected.鈥� 

The paper was one of a series of analyses focusing specifically on the drop in math knowledge, which appears to have been particularly significant. But the extended disruption to literacy instruction left a substantial mark as well, particularly among students at the beginning of their reading careers. Amplify, a curriculum provider, released data this fall showing that 4 percent fewer second graders and 8 percent fewer first graders are reaching grade-level reading goals than in 2019; meanwhile, almost one-third of third graders were assessed as needing 鈥渋ntensive intervention.鈥�

Those bleak findings echo the results of Curriculum Associates鈥� i-Ready assessment, which revealed that the percentage of elementary students reading below grade level grew between 2021 and 2022. That subgroup of students, sometimes called the 鈥�COVID cohort,鈥� is running out of time to get back on track.

Costs of recovery

The havoc inflicted by the pandemic is now an inescapable fact for schools, families, and public authorities to deal with. But what鈥檚 it going to take to surmount the considerable educational challenges and get kids back on track?

The federal government has allocated roughly $190 billion in relief funding to states for that purpose. But , that amount won鈥檛 be sufficient to get the job done. The true cost, they say, will fall somewhere between $325 billion and $930 billion, huge sums that include not only the pedagogical resources to restore lost learning opportunities from the last several years, but also the out-of-school interventions that power so much of the academic growth that goes on inside classrooms. 

There is no indication that anywhere near that level of funding 鈥� or even any further money at all 鈥� is coming. In the meantime, school districts are only required to spend 20 percent of their federal aid on learning recovery. 

Latino students take a hit

Children of all backgrounds were bruised by the effects of shuttered schools, but among them, Latino students are notable for having recently enjoyed sustained academic momentum. As their share of the national student body has increased to nearly 30 percent, they have also seen rising achievement scores and post-secondary outcomes compared with their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

COVID put that progress on pause, according to from the advocacy organization UnidosUS. After leaping from 71 percent to 82 percent over the last decade, the on-time high school graduation rate for Latino students fell slightly in 2021. Worse still, the rate of college enrollment for Latino freshmen shrunk by 7.8 percent between the spring of 2020 and 2021. That figure bounced back somewhat over the next academic year 鈥� along with rates of college-going for most Americans 鈥� but still fell below the pre-pandemic norm.

The particular stumbles experienced by Latino kids have explanations that both precede the pandemic and are directly linked to it, the report found. Long before 2020, Latino households were less likely to report having a computer or high-speed broadband in the home. Meanwhile, Latino students were disproportionately likely to be enrolled in low-income schools, which were themselves more likely to stay remote longer during the pandemic.

Explosion of absenteeism

Along with the surge of full-on disenrollment from schools, a shocking number of K-12 students spent the last few years missing day after day of instruction. Just how many days of absence is difficult to know precisely, however, because of ambiguities in the way attendance figures were collected during the COVID era.

An released this fall indicated that over 10 million students were chronically absent (i.e., missing over 10 percent of the school year) in 2020鈥�21. That would be an increase of more than 25 percent relative to the pre-pandemic norm, but from Johns Hopkins University and the nonprofit group Attendance Works, it is also very likely a serious underestimate. Because of challenges in knowing which students 鈥渁ttended鈥� all of their virtual lessons (versus simply logging into Zoom and then logging off, for instance), statewide absence counts in the NCES figures sometimes vary widely from district-level reporting.

Based on the early release of more detailed 2021鈥�22 figures from California, Connecticut, Ohio, and Virginia, the authors wrote, it is reasonable to predict that as many as 16 million kids were chronically absent last school year, a doubling of the pre-pandemic number. 

The teacher exodus that wasn鈥檛

Were American schools plagued with teacher absences this year, or not? It was a question that captivated news sources, but also divided education experts, because it contained an even thornier question within it: If the supply of teachers remains mostly steady, but demand for them spikes, are they truly at a deficit?

In spite of widespread fears that veteran teachers were quitting in huge numbers as a reaction to the pandemic, no mass departure ever took place, according to a paper by Brown economist Matt Kraft. Turnover actually fell slightly in the summer of 2020 and stayed within the typical annual range the next year. But weak hiring during the first few months of the pandemic may have contributed to higher-than-usual vacancy rates, perhaps triggered by fears of Great Recession-style budget cuts that never materialized.

In fact, a windfall of federal cash followed instead, leading districts to add new jobs in late 2020 and 2021, and the resultant hiring spree has indeed made candidates for teaching positions hard to find. But even that phenomenon isn鈥檛 true everywhere, since numbers differ widely across state lines. According to a paper released this summer, Mississippi鈥檚 rate of vacancies per 10,000 students is more than 68 times higher than that of Utah. 

Hopeful signs

As the long legacy of COVID grew clearer, research in 2022 gave the education world plenty of reasons to worry. But it has also contributed some hopeful signs of renewed progress in schools. 

The good omens aren鈥檛 popping up everywhere, but some are to be found in state-level testing, which has resumed around the country after being suspended for at least the first pandemic year. According to Tennessee鈥檚 state exams, the number of students meeting or beating grade-level reading standards rose from 29 percent in 2020鈥�21 to over 36 percent in 2021鈥�22. In all, more than three-quarters of the state鈥檚 school districts reported reading scores higher than were seen in the pre-pandemic period. 

鈥淲e are seeing this broadly across the state, and across district types 鈥� urban, rural and suburban,鈥� Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn told 社区黑料鈥檚 Beth Hawkins. 鈥淲e are really, really proud of what our districts have done.鈥�

Several other Southern states have begun to make their turnaround, with Mississippi a particular standout. This of 2021鈥�22 testing data showed average scores in math, English, and science nearing or exceeding 2019 levels, while performance on the U.S. history exam skyrocketed compared with 2020鈥�21 (the first in which it had been given). Just as notably, 鈥� a state-mandated test that students must pass to progress to the fourth grade 鈥� fell by only .6 percentage points between 2019 and 2022. 

For politicians like Fort Worth Republican Rep. Matt Krause 鈥� who for more than 850 titles related to sex and race 鈥� books are the encroachment of liberal values into classrooms. 

School boards do see challenges about particular books from time to time, but speaks to the contentiousness of the last two years as mask mandates and critical race theory have packed boardrooms and ballot boxes. 

Some parents have said that the graphic or salacious nature of the sex and violence depicted in books is the problem, but Dallas ISD student Symerra Lincoln, 16, like other students her age, said it was nonsensical to try to 鈥渃ensor鈥� the information in the internet age. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to find the content they鈥檙e censoring from us either way, whether that will be from the school, or online on social media or Google,鈥� she said. 

But behind the iconography of a dangerous idea or a political fight, Texas students told 社区黑料 the books 鈥� more so the ability to choose for themselves which they read 鈥� are a critical part of their development. 

They contain stories and protagonists who help them see the world through another鈥檚 eyes, and ideas that challenge them. And whether or not they identify with the characters or accept the idea, students said, they feel more mature having formed their own opinion. 

鈥淚t is very important to read about social issues,鈥� said Lincoln, 鈥淲e need to read different views and information to form our own opinions on the issues.鈥� 

Mature content

Most of the students did recognize the need for guidance, especially for younger readers, and said librarians should be the one to decide what books are available to which students. 

鈥淟ibrarians should have the most power, because in their profession they have to have a degree (in library science),鈥� said KIPP Beacon (Austin) eighth grader Kai Cant煤, 13, 鈥淭heir job kind of rests on them being unbiased鈥�

Lucy Ibarra Podmore, chair elect of the Texas Association of School Libraries, and a high school librarian in San Antonio, said while parents and politicians are honing in on graphic passages, students rarely focus on those.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e really focusing on the overall arc of the story. That鈥檚 what people are missing,鈥� Podmore said. Students are drawn to stories in which teenagers like themselves have complex feelings about their identity, relationships, and the world around them. 

Some books do include violence, sexual relationships, and social issues like race and LGBTQ rights come into the story, Podmore explained, because teenagers encounter those things in their real lives. 鈥淭here are books that are talking about sexual relationships between teenagers because that鈥檚 happening.鈥�

Young adults聽

While Podmore sees the political posturing and power struggles for what they are鈥攕he notes how books about race and LGBTQ identity made up the overwhelming majority of Krause鈥檚 list鈥攕he also sees the alarmism over mature content as a result of the 鈥渞ose-colored glasses鈥� through which many adults see teenage lives.

While today鈥檚 parents grew up with a dearth of young adult fiction in the 1980鈥檚, going 鈥渟traight from Beverly Cleary鈥檚 Ramona to adult books,鈥� Podmore said, the last 20 years have seen a bloom of novels both resonant and appealing for teenage readers.

Along with the timeless coming of age challenges, today鈥檚 students live in a world shaped by social media and political unrest. Lockdown drills to remind them of the possibility of a school shooting, and the pressure to achieve starts as early as selective admission pre-schools. 

Books speak to the emotional and social world they are in, Podmore said, 鈥淪ome kids aren鈥檛 talking to anyone about it.鈥� When she recommended that her entire high school read Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green, which tackles the topic of anxiety, she said many students said they鈥檇 finally found a way to explain their own anxiety to their parents, friends, and teachers. 

She鈥檚 been heartbroken to see books about LGBTQ characters at the center of so much furor. It amplifies the message many LGBTQ kids already hear: they are not welcome in the community. 

Books help students make sense of things they鈥檝e experienced in other ways too, Podmore said. 鈥淔iction has always been a safe place to explore situations or conversations that you may not be familiar with.鈥� For some, that means putting words to feelings they have or even being able to name ways they have been hurt or abused.

That鈥檚 one reason Bellville ISD student Carlos Aponte, 13, said he didn鈥檛 want to see parent permission required for checking out books based on content. His teachers let their classes select their own reading, and his parents encourage him to read broadly, but he knows that鈥檚 not the case for all of his classmates. 

For students who come from abusive situations, or families who might respond negatively to a student coming out as queer or even expressing different political ideas, Aponte said, 鈥淏ooks are an escape.鈥�

At the same time, because his classmates are going through more than the adults in their lives might understand, Aponte does have concerns about content that might graphically depict or romanticize self-harm or death by suicide. 鈥淭hat could have a big impact,鈥� Aponte said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 tricky.鈥�

Reasonable boundaries

While older students felt they should have access to any content or topic, they recognized the need to be cognizant of people鈥檚 sensitivities. 

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that any high school would allow content that contains violence that does not pertain to history,鈥� said Dallas ISD student Kennedie Westbrook, 16, 鈥淗owever, I think that content which details heart-wrenching events like Antisemitism and slavery should advise the reader to be wary. Viewer discretion advised.鈥� 

Podmore said she did something similar when she was a middle school librarian, by putting 鈥淵A鈥� (young adult) stickers on books with more mature content. She told students just like they knew their family鈥檚 rules about what they could and could not watch l on television or the internet, they needed to respect their family鈥檚 boundaries around reading. If their parents wanted them to hold off on some of the more mature content, she said, she hoped they would. 

鈥淭hey鈥檙e kind of self-governing and very self-aware,鈥� Podmore said, 鈥淢ore self-aware than the adults are giving them credit for.鈥� 

At the same time, Cant煤 said, it could be a good idea for a librarian to monitor certain books, and require the student to debrief with the librarian, such as books with Nazi or neo-Nazi characters, or books like Mein Kampf. Having access to those ideas is important, Cant煤 said, even if just to see how 鈥渕essed up鈥� and dangerous those views are. but the school should make sure that is indeed the message the students are getting. 

What it鈥檚 really about

The American Library Association does offer for communities to reconsider books accused of being offensive or inappropriate, and it鈥檚 a process that isn鈥檛 unfamiliar to most librarians, Podmore said. What鈥檚 bothering her now is the political furor and fear have led many to shortcut the process鈥� which keeps books on the shelves as committees of parents, librarians, and teachers deliberate鈥� and give into the loudest voice in the room. 

In some ways, it does feel like the political fight over books and the reality of how students engage those books are happening on two different planes, she said. Students are not gobbling up graphic content, nor are the books transforming ambivalent teens into activists. 

On the other hand, whom teens empathize with, and what their minds are open to are not without political consequences. Empathizing with their LGBTQ neighbors or the concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement might change the way they vote one day. It might change the policies they support.

鈥淚 think that it鈥檚 important to read about social issues because it helps society to grow empathy towards oppressed groups,鈥� Westbrook said, 鈥淚t also exposes people to the harsh reality that their neighbor next door might face.鈥�

Podmore referenced Ashley Herring Blake鈥檚 middle grade novels that tenderly handle the issue of pronouns in ways sixth graders took in stride. 鈥淭he adults tend to make a much bigger deal about this than the kids,鈥� Podmore said. The kids took the issue of pronouns and gender identity in stride, while adults feel like much more explaining is necessary.

Books come to the aid of students whose parents aren鈥檛 ready to have a conversation a student is ready to have, Podmore said, but it would be a mistake for parents to think the book put the idea in the kid鈥檚 head. 

Students suggested adults 鈥� both parents and teachers 鈥� embrace the discomfort.

鈥淲hile it鈥檚 typically an uncomfortable topic to talk about, at our age we already know about sex and how babies are made,鈥� Westbrook said. 鈥淏ut we have to take health class. So why not talk about other uncomfortable topics like racism, stereotypes, homophobia, etc?鈥� 

But making pronouns not a big deal 鈥� even more putting queer characters in the central role with whom the reader is supposed to identify 鈥� is part of the social change parents and politicians are resisting, Podmore said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what scaring a lot of people. Their experience isn鈥檛 centered anymore.鈥�