YOUTH TOPICS NEWSLETTER Department of Community in the JUNE 16 EDITION: and Human Services

YOUTH TOPICS NEWSLETTER Department of Community IN THE JUNE 16 EDITION: and Human Services

(CLICK ON TOPIC TO GO TO SECTION) EVENTS CAREERS/VOLUNTEERISM RESEARCH & RESOURCES EDUCATION YOUTH WELL-BEING WORKSHOPS & WEBINARS

EVENTS How to Develop an Online Audience (June 20) The Torpedo Art Factory in partnership with the Virginia Small Business Center is presenting a workshop on the secrets of building a social media audience from 6 – 8 p.m. The event is free, but RSVP is highly recommended.

8th Annual Youth Arts Festival (June 24) The festival sponsored by the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (ARHA) is an all-day event at the Mount Vernon Recreation Center (2701 Commonwealth Avenue).

Aligning Systems and Policies to Support Multiple Postsecondary Pathways (June 26) Presenters will share evidence-based strategies for aligning systems and policies around student and workforce needs as well as opportunities to promote structured and supportive pathways to postsecondary and workforce credential attainment. Boxed lunches will be provided from 11:30am - 12:00 p.m. on a first-come, first-served basis to registered attendees. The event is scheduled for 12 – 1:30 p.m.

The Late Shift: Freestyle (June 30, 7 p.m. to Midnight) Part skatepark and part street market, Freestyle will feature late-night festivities in the Torpedo Factory and along the riverfront with music, digital video projections, artists from all over the DMV, a photo booth, and a poetry slam.

Military Children: A Constellation of Strengths and Challenges (July 31 – August 2) The conference sponsored by the Military Child Education Coalition at the Renaissance Washington in downtown D.C. will feature panelists and presenters discussing ways in which they share resources to support the psychological well-being of military children and families.

Global Youth Justice Training Institute (September 26 – 28) Those attending the event in Cape Cod, MA will learn strategies to enhance and establish volunteer-driven youth diversion programs—teen, peer, youth, and student courts and peer juries. A half-day grant writing session will also be offered.

CAREERS/VOLUNTEERISM Adaptive Sports Grants The Kelly Brush Foundation awards grants to individuals with paralysis due to a spinal cord injury for the purchase of adaptive sports equipment for either recreation or competition. Preference will be given to those applicants with financial limitations and demonstrate a desire to achieve an active lifestyle. The funds must support the purchase of

1 sport and recreation equipment, from the ordinary (handcycles, monoskis, sport chairs, etc.) to the less typical (scuba equipment, bowling ramps, equestrian saddles, etc.). Applications are due September 30. College Media Project The Poynter Institute, in partnership with Associated Collegiate Press, is accepting applications from college student media organizations for a new leadership program designed to encourage campus journalists to embrace their role as community facilitators in the marketplace of ideas. Three organizations will be chosen to receive grants of up to $3,000 in support of a reporting project or event that advances civil discourse on campus; a one-day in-person reporting, editing, and storytelling workshop for the entire staff; exclusive admission to six online training events during the academic year where participants will hear from professional trainers (as well as other campus organizations) about their projects; training on the best techniques for watchdog reporting that holds the powerful accountable and establishes campus media as a fair and trusted advocate for students; and insights into the tools of dialogue that model the search for mutual understanding and tolerance through reporting projects and real-life events The program is designed for student media organizations that are independent (i.e., student editors make the content decisions); staff must be willing to cover the stories that matter most to their campus audiences. Applications are due July 19.

Innovative Anxiety Disorders Research The American Psychological Foundation is awarding a single grant of up to $8,000 to support novel basic and clinical research on anxiety and anxiety related disorders. Applicants must be a graduate student or early-career researcher (no more than ten years postdoctoral), and be affiliated with a nonprofit charitable, educational, or scientific institution, or a governmental entity operating exclusively for charitable and educational purposes. The deadline to apply is September 15.

Teacher Professional Development Grant The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is accepting applications for a program that supports professional development opportunities for middle school mathematics teachers. Grants of up to $3,000 will be awarded to persons currently teaching mathematics in grades 6-8. Applicants must be a current NCTM member and teach mathematics in grades 6-8 at least 50% of the school day. The deadline is November 3.

Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writing The $75,000 award by the Society of Professional Journalists allows fellows to take courses, pursue independent study or travel, and pursue other endeavors that enrich their knowledge of a public interest issue and results in editorials and other publishing writings, including books. Applicants must hold a position as a part-time or full-time editorial writer or columnist at a news publication located in the United States with at least three years' experience. Applications also are welcome from freelance opinion writers who devote a majority of their time, or derive a majority of their income, from that pursuit. Applications are due June 22.

Physician-Scientist Training Award The annual program of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation provides physicians who wish to pursue a career in cancer research with the opportunity for a protected research training experience under the mentorship of a highly qualified and gifted mentor after they have completed their clinical training. The award will provide up to $460,000 over four years in financial support. In addition, the foundation will retire up to $100,000 of outstanding medical school debt owed by the grant recipient. Physician-scientist applicants (MDs only) must have completed their residencies and clinical training, be U.S. Specialty Board eligible prior to the award start date, and be able to devote at least 80% of their time and effort to Damon Runyon-supported research. Applications are due December 1.

Young Investigator Program The annual program of the Arnold and Mable Beckman Foundation provides research support to young faculty members in the early stages of an academic career in the chemical or life sciences, and to foster the invention of methods, instruments, and materials with the potential to open up new avenues of research in science. Projects are normally funded for a period of four years. Grants typically range around $600,000 over the term of the project, contingent on demonstrated progress after the second year of the award. The program is open to individual researchers within the first three years of a tenure-track position, or an equivalent independent research appointment, in an academic or nonprofit institution that conducts research in the chemical and life sciences. Letters of Intent are due August 14.

RESEARCH & RESOURCES Sign Up for K-12 Summer Learning Programs Today ACPS offers a variety of learning opportunities over the summer for elementary to high school students, some of which are free.

ACPS Launches Elementary School Swim Skills Pilot Program ACPS, in cooperation with the City of Alexandria Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities, is launching a swim safety pilot program as part of the physical education curriculum at James K. Polk Elementary School. The pilot program will culminate in a series of one-hour swim sessions over four days at Chinquapin Aquatics Facility for 37 fourth-grade students of varying backgrounds and abilities.

Free Meals Available This Summer for All Children Free breakfast, lunch and snacks are available to Alexandria City residents 18 years old and younger at fourteen ACPS sites, fourteen city recreation centers and other sites over the summer.

Yes, You Can Text This Number to Find Free Summer Meals for Hungry Kids A quick text message can help families locate nearby federally supported summer meals sites. Text "food" or "comida" to 877-877, and reply with the address or zip code. The service pulls active summer-meal sites from a U.S. Department of Agriculture database and forwards a list of nearby locations.

Meet the New Student Reps for the School Board The Alexandria City School Board has selected two new student representatives for the coming school year: Betelhem Demissie and Jay Falk. Betelhem, who is originally from Ethiopia and has been a student with ACPS for the past seven years, said she intends to be a voice for immigrant students. Jay is part of the T.C. Williams Debate Team and has participated in speech competitions as well as Inspire Virginia’s peer-to-peer voter registration.

School Board Announces Timeline for Superintendent Search The School Board has established a timeline for the Superintendent search that includes appointing an Interim Superintendent prior to Superintendent Crawley’s departure in late July. The School Board will hire a search firm to conduct the search for the new Superintendent, who is expected to be in place by the end of 2017.

ACPS Begins Discussion Around Academic Programs for the New West End School ACPS has completed the purchase of an office building that will be converted into a new elementary school for the West End, and has begun the process of considering academic programs for the new school. Programs under consideration include university partnerships, a world language program, an international academy program, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), Positive Behavior Intervention Systems (PBIS) and GLAD – a program that assists with language acquisition.

EDUCATION Five Things to Remember When Planning for College, by People Who Study It Every year, Gallup surveys various facets of education, then slices up the research by topic and issues reports. The reports explore a range of issues, such as parents' satisfaction with their children's schools, and students' satisfaction with their college choices and experiences. Earlier this month, Gallup and Strada Education Network reported on an aspect of the college conversation that typically does not get much notice: what people regret about their college choices.

DeVos to Review Rejected College Prep Grant Applications The U.S. Department of Education will reconsider awarding grants to dozens of programs that help low-income students prepare for college after their initial applications were rejected due to formatting errors such as not being

3 double-spaced. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told a House subcommittee that her agency will reconsider the 77 rejected applications from universities and other organizations that administer Upward Bound programs.

College Board Reports Score Gains From Free SAT Practice The College Board released new data showing that students who used its free online practice course through Khan Academy for as little as six to eight hours gained 90 points on average between their PSAT and SAT scores. Students who used the College Board's "Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy" for 20 to 22 hours averaged improvements of 115 points over their PSAT scores – nearly double the 60-point average gain of students who did not use the free test preparation.

Harvard Withdraws Acceptance of Students for 'Offensive' Facebook Group Posts Harvard has withdrawn offers of admission to at least ten students who traded sexually and racially charged memes in a private Facebook group. The name of the group, at one point, was "Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens". The memes and messages traded by students in the group included ones that made fun of sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children. One post joked that abusing children was sexually arousing; another referred to the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child as "piñata time."

The $833 Billion Albatross Around the Necks of Women with College Degrees The burden of student debt is having an outsize impact on women who now hold nearly two-thirds of the $1.3 trillion in outstanding education loans, according to a report released by the American Association of University Women. It is estimated women enrolled in college borrow about 14% more on average than men in a given year. Women typically owe $1,500 more than their male counterparts upon completion of a bachelor’s degree, and African American women take on more student debt on average than any other group of women. While a third of all women who were repaying student loans reported having trouble covering living expenses within the past year, the same was true for 57% of African American women.

P-TECH: Can a High School-College-Industry Partnership Provide a Model Path to Achievement? P-TECH at Dunbar is one of two new schools in Baltimore that offer students the opportunity to graduate within six years or less with an associate degree — at no cost — in addition to their high school diplomas.

Apprenticeships Key to Solving Workforce Skills Gap, CEOs Say Top leaders in business and government called for an intense focus on developing apprenticeship programs and other pathways that can connect young people to good jobs and help meet the labor market's need for skilled workers.

Trump Executive Order Ramps Up Apprenticeship Programs President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order that aims to create a new channel of approval for apprenticeships. He is calling on Congress to commit $100 million in new money to the initiative, and expand the allowable uses of student financial aid so students can use the support for "earn while you learn" programs.

Community Organizations Play a Big Role in Raising Graduation Rates, Advocates Say Nonprofit leaders working to raise the nation’s high school graduation rate say it is an economic imperative, and they say out-of-school-time (OST) partners play an important role.

What Happens When Students Design Their Own Assessments? Nestled in the heart of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, the Roanoke County district has joined 10 other districts in the state that make up a Networked Improvement Community focused on implementing student-led assessment to bring about a deeper level of learning. The community is underwritten by the Assessment for Learning Project, a multi-year $15 million grant-making and field-building initiative led by the Center for Innovation in Education at the University of Kentucky.

Virginia Lags Behind in National Push for Pre-K Preschool enrollment in Virginia hovers well below the national rate and even further behind neighboring Washington, D.C., and Maryland, according to a new report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Across the country, nearly 1.5 million children participated in state-funded pre-kindergarten in 2016 — an all-time high — including 32% of all 4-year-olds nationwide. Participation rates were higher in Maryland, where 36% of 4-year-olds were enrolled. And they were more than double the national rate in the District, where 81% of 4-year-olds — as well as 70% of 3-year-olds — took part in public preschool programs.

Virginia Shrugs Its Shoulders at Needy Children By many measures, Virginia is among or nearly among the 10 wealthiest states, yet its stinginess when it comes to giving the commonwealth’s least advantaged young children a leg up in early education is a long-standing disgrace. It appears not to trouble most lawmakers in the General Assembly that the state, ranked 14th in median household income, spends less to promote access to prekindergarten for children from needy families than 28 other states. The disgrace is compounded by the fact that state funding per child enrolled in pre-K has plunged by more than 20% since 2010, suggesting that Republicans who control the purse strings in Richmond are callous to the issue.

Children Must Be Taught to Collaborate, Studies Say The nonprofit Partnership for 21st Century Learning, along with the educational publishing company Pearson, released a report breaking down three main aspects of collaboration that need to be taught: communicating with others, resolving conflicts, and managing tasks.

Teaching Students to De-Stress Over Testing An increasing number of districts nationwide are looking for ways to help change not so much the tests but the way students respond to them, and to do so in a way that helps improve students' achievement and well-being.

How Much Math Anxiety Is Too Much? A growing body of research shows that many adults and older students have anxiety about math. But only in recent years have researchers been looking to early childhood to understand the roots of the problem and how it is entangled with math performance and other psychological challenges.

A&E Cable Channel Plans High School Documentary Series The as-yet unnamed show will appear on the A&E cable channel after filming took place at Highland Park High School in Topeka, Kan., during the spring semester this year. The unconventional factor is that the show will follow seven young adults—reportedly ages 21 to 26—who have "personal motivations" for embedding in the school and acting like students.

Should School Buses Have Seat Belts? (Video) Most school buses do not have seat belts — a safety concern for children nationwide. However, a number of states are considering legislation to change that, sparking debate.

Puerto Rico Shutters Scores of Schools Amid Financial Crisis Puerto Rico will close 179 public schools this summer as the U.S. territory grapples with an economic crisis. Critics warn that the cost-cutting plan could hasten the departure of families and veteran teachers, bringing an already weakened public education system to its knees. The mass school closure (which could displace close to 30,000 students) is the largest in Puerto Rico's history and comes as the island deals with an estimated $120 billion in debt and pension liabilities. Since the budget plan does not call for immediate teacher and staff layoffs, the school closures are expected to save the government only between $7 million and $10 million—essentially utility costs.

Mississippi’s School System Violates Post-Civil War Promises, Suit Claims Citing a narrow post-Civil War-era provision, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that Mississippi's substandard and effectively segregated school system is a violation of a promise the state made 150 years ago in order to rejoin the Union. In 1870, the federal government readmitted Mississippi into the Union on the condition that the state hold true to its constitution and not deprive "any class of children" of their right to a uniform system of free public schools.

Federal Judge Delays Mostly White Alabama Town's School Secession Plan Less than two months after U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala laid out the steps the city of Gardendale must take to split from the more diverse Jefferson County schools, she has decided to delay the order. City leaders in

Gardendale, where nearly 90% of residents are white, want to take control of their schools and tax dollars to establish their own K-12 system. Nearly half of the students in the Jefferson County schools are black.

Will New York City's Plan to Make Its Schools Less Segregated Work? New York City has released its long-awaited plan to address school segregation—a 13-page document that education officials say lays out their commitment to increasing diversity in schools and classrooms in the nation's largest public school system. The plan aims to increase the number of students who attend more racially balanced schools by 50,000 over the next five years; reduce the number of students attending schools that are economically stratified (this can be a concentration of students in poverty on one end of the spectrum or a concentration of high-income students on the other end) by 10% (150 schools) in the next five years; and increase the number of inclusive schools serving English-language learners and students with disabilities.

New York Board Member Who Wished Obama Dead Sues District, Colleagues Nearly one week before the New York education commissioner is to begin a hearing to decide whether Buffalo school board member Carl Paladino should be removed from the board, Paladino has filed a federal lawsuit against the district and six of his board colleagues. Paladino has been embroiled in a standoff with a majority of the school board since last December after he made derogatory comments about former President Obama, his wife Michelle Obama, and top aide Valerie Jarrett that were published in a local weekly. Paladino said in his published comments that he wished that President Obama catches mad cow disease in 2017 and dies as a result.

Teaching and Welcoming English-Learners: New Guide Offers Advice Teaching Tolerance, an education project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, has published an online guide designed to help educators ensure that English-language learners and their families have equitable experiences at school. The primer offers advice on topics ranging from family engagement and anti-bias strategies to classroom culture and instruction. The recommendations were adapted from Critical Practices for Anti-Bias Education, the organization's professional-development guide, and advice from the Southern Poverty Law Center's legal team.

Rally Held to Support Jessica Colotl’s Immigration Fight to Keep Dreamer Status (Slideshow) Advocacy groups and protesters rallied in support of Jessica Colotl, whose Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status was recently revoked. Her story made headlines in 2010 when she faced deportation as a 21-year-old undocumented student after being arrested for driving without a license. Since then Colotl received DACA status, graduated and went to work as a paralegal for Kuck Immigration Partners.

For a Special Visa, Young Immigrants Need a Judge to Rule They’ve Been Abandoned. Some Judges Refuse to Decide The Virginia Court of Appeals is considering two cases that could determine whether young undocumented immigrants can seek special visas intended for those who cannot return to their homelands because their parents have neglected, abused or abandoned them. In order to apply, immigrants need an order from a family judge in the state court system, affirming that they are in need of protection and cannot be safely reunited with a parent in their native country. But different judges have interpreted the program differently, with some — including those in the cases under appeal from Loudoun and Arlington counties — saying they lack the authority to make rulings in what will ultimately become a federal immigration case.

Trump Administration Keeps DACA, But Rescinds Another Obama Immigration Plan The Trump administration has ended an Obama-era policy that protected undocumented immigrants with children who are United States citizens or permanent residents, but will, at least for now, keep the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (which offers protection for children brought to the country illegally). In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security indicated Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly decided to end the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans policy, because there was "no credible path forward to litigate the currently enjoined policy." The Homeland Security news release also indicated that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—which offers 750,000 immigrants brought to the country illegally as children the chance to attend school and to work—will remain in place for now.

‘Why Do I Need a Note for My Religion?’ Students Are Told to Get Permission Slips to Wear Hijabs Officials at a Northern Virginia high school threatened two observant Muslims with discipline, demanding that they remove the scarves and pressing them to get permission slips from their parents to prove they were Muslim. The young women, both 18, said the principal suggested the scarves might simply be a cover for an unfinished hairdo.

One said an assistant principal threatened to write her up for being disrespectful when she explained they were wearing hijab for a religious observance.

How Differences in Parents’ Income Play Out in Schools (Video) An Education Week's video describes how differences in parent involvement can contribute to hidden disparities that are easy for schools to overlook but hard for poor families to overcome.

How Do Parents Choose a 'High Quality' School? New research suggests parents pick schools for widely diverse reasons, and low-income parents in particular may need support to understand what different schools have to offer. For example, low- and high-income parents both select schools based on school quality—but they use different measures of quality, according to a new study of school choice in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Researchers analyzed how more than 22,000 applicants to the District of Columbia's citywide lottery ranked their preferences among more than 200 regular and charter public schools in the district. They found that in middle schools, for example, low-income parents ranked schools higher if they had higher academic proficiency rates (information that was easily available on the MySchoolDC website), but high-income parents tended to rank schools based on their accountability ratings, information that tended to be harder to find. Similarly, parents of incoming kindergartners were also more likely to rank schools based on academic proficiency rates, while parents of high school students—who likely were more familiar with the school system—more often ranked their school choices based on the accountability ratings.

As Trump Pushes School Choice, Heritage Wants to Let 800K Military Kids Use Public Dollars for Private Education The conservative Heritage Foundation is pushing to allow 800,000 military children to use federal tax dollars for private education, a proposal that comes as President Trump seeks to make good on his promise to dramatically expand school choice nationwide. Under the Heritage proposal, military children would be able to elect to leave their public schools and instead receive a lump sum — an “education savings account” — that they could put toward private school tuition, tutoring or online school. The proposal would require redirecting money from $1.3 billion in “impact aid” funds that currently go to support public school districts near military bases and tribal lands, spending that has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress.

Full Funding for Special Education? Lawmakers Try for Fifth Straight Congress The IDEA Full Funding Act would ramp up Washington's budget for students with special needs. The legislation calls for the feds to pick up 40% of the extra cost of educating a student in special education. That is the share Congress is authorized to spend under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which passed in 1975. Congress has not come close to that level in years. Currently the federal government pays for just 15.3% of those expenses, leaving the rest to states and school districts. Current federal spending under the IDEA stands at $12.8 billion.

Parents Awarded $900K After Hidden Cameras Capture Student Restraint Arbitrators have awarded $900,000 to a family that sued the Clark County, Nevada district after their son was restrained repeatedly during the 2011-12 school year – some of which was caught on videocameras that had been hidden in the classroom by school district police officers.

Maryland School System Posts 80 Percent Increase in Reports of Sexual Harassment More than 200 incidents of sexual harassment of students were reported in Montgomery County’s public schools in the last academic year, a one-year jump of more than 80%, according to new data from the Maryland school system. The numbers show that reports of such misconduct — including inappropriate physical contact, written messages and verbal remarks — rose for a third straight year, to 214 in 2015-16, which was 96 more than the previous year’s total.

Virginia Schoolteacher Pleads Guilty to Sexual Battery of 2 Students A Virginia math teacher pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated sexual battery in a case involving two female students at a middle school in Falls Church and could face up to 10 years in prison. Jose Daniel Estrada, 36, of Clifton taught at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School and was accused of inappropriately touching two girls who were students at the school in incidents that go as far back as fall of last year, officials said.

Students Sexually Abused by Peers Face Struggles in Court When children sexually assault other children at school, sometimes the only measure of justice comes through the courts. A Miami mother sued in 2012 after she said her second-grader was repeatedly abused by an older boy at his charter school. Eventually, the 7-year-old tried to kill himself by walking into traffic with his eyes closed, according to the family's lawsuit. Two years later, the little boy testified, he still had nightmares his tormenter would crawl in through his bedroom window and kill his mother. His mother came to believe the school put its reputation above her son's well-being.

How LA County Began to Face Its Big Problem With Youth Being Sex-Trafficked The Child Trafficking Unit for the Los Angeles County Probation Department is part of a group that aims to make LA’s efforts to combat child sex trafficking a model for the nation.

It's Been 90 Years Since the Deadliest School Attack in U.S. History On May 18, 1927, Andrew Kehoe blew up the Bath Consolidated School in Bath Township, Mich., with hundreds of pounds of dynamite. Forty-five people died, including 38 children and Kehoe himself. The disaster is a reminder that concerns about school violence existed long before the calls to action on school shootings in recent decades.

MS-13 Gains Recruits and Power in U.S. as Teens Surge Across Border MS-13’s new push has been fueled by the recent influx of teenage immigrants who traveled to the United States without guardians to escape poverty and gang violence only to fall back into it here. MS-13 is the only street gang that federal authorities have labeled a transnational criminal organization. Its motto: kill, rape, control. The gang was founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants but spread back to El Salvador, where its leadership is incarcerated, and to the East Coast beginning in the mid-1990s. Today, the gang has 900 to 1,100 members in the D.C. region and roughly 10,000 across 40 states, according to law enforcement estimates. In El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, there are 85,000 MS-13 and 18th Street gang members, according to a 2012 State Department estimate.

Troubled Cops Land Jobs in Georgia Schools Statewide, school system police departments in Georgia employ officers who have been terminated or resigned under the cloud of an investigation at twice the rate of local police departments, according to an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News. Roughly 12% of the 656 officers working in the state’s 31 school police departments have been forced out of a previous job, versus about 6% of the officers who work in local police agencies.

A Georgia Sheriff Ordered Pat-Down Searches for Every Student at a Public High School. Now They’re Suing Students at Worth County High School in Sylvester, Ga. have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against their sheriff after he ordered what the complaint describes as a schoolwide drug sweep involving pat-down searches of hundreds of teenagers. Sheriff Jeff Hobby and dozens of deputies came to Worth County High School searching for students in possession of illicit substances. According to the students' legal complaint, they proceeded to go to every classroom and physically search nearly every student present for drugs. The deputies, the lawsuit alleges, used “pat down” searches, with some deputies touching female students’ breasts and male students’ genitalia.

Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2016 The annual report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in collaboration with the National Center for Education Statistics, provides the most recent data on school crime and student safety. The report contains 23 indicators of crime and safety at schools on topics including victimization at school, teacher injury, bullying and cyberbullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, student perceptions of personal safety at school, and crime at postsecondary institutions.

Enhancing Police Responses to Children Exposed to Violence: A Toolkit for Law Enforcement The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the Yale Child Study Center (Yale) have released a toolkit that provides practical interventions and resources to assist law enforcement agencies (with or without a mental health partner) in building or enhancing effective operational responses to children exposed to violence. The toolkit contains four areas of intervention targeted to police leaders and frontline officers: informational, operational protocols, assessment tools, and operational tools.

YOUTH WELL-BEING How Media Literacy Can Help Students Discern Fake News (Video) Recognizing bias in news stories is one form of media literacy. Spotting when the news is totally fabricated is something else entirely. How can teachers help students tell fact from media fiction? Educators and media literacy advocates in Washington State are working together with legislators to address the problem.

A Lazy Summer for Teenagers: Why Aren’t More of Them Working? The number of teenagers who have some sort of job while in school has dropped from nearly 40% in 1991 to less than 20% today, an all-time low since the United States started keeping track in 1948. Some of that can be blamed on a lackluster youth job market, but many teenagers are unemployed by choice. In upper-middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods, in particular, they are too busy doing other things, like playing sports, studying, and following a full schedule of activities booked by their parents.

7th-Grader Becomes Baltimore’s First-Ever National Chess Champion Since the Baltimore Kids Chess League started in 2003, the program — which is open only to public school students in the city school system — has produced a number of excellent chess players, including three national championship teams. But Cahree Myrick is the first player ever to win an individual title.

Baby Teeth Link Autism and Heavy Metals, NIH Study Suggests Baby teeth from children with autism contain more toxic lead and less of the essential nutrients zinc and manganese, compared to teeth from children without autism, according to an innovative study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of NIH. The researchers studied twins to control genetic influences and focus on possible environmental contributors to the disease. The findings suggest that differences in early-life exposure to metals, or more importantly how a child's body processes them, may affect the risk of autism.

Teenagers’ Tobacco Use Hits a Record Low, With a Sharp Drop in E-Cigarettes The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual report on youth and tobacco found that 11.3% of high school students used e-cigarettes in 2016, compared with 16% the year before. That is the first drop since the CDC started keeping track of e-cigarettes in 2011. In addition, just 8% of high-schoolers smoked cigarettes last year, while a little over 20% reported using “any tobacco product,” which includes cigars, hookahs, pipes, smokeless tobacco and small, leaf-wrapped cigarettes called bidis, as well as regular and e-cigarettes. Both those numbers are the lowest on record, the agency said.

Failure of Public, Political Will Threatens Progress on Child Welfare, Casey Warns The newest edition of the Kids Count Data Book features a stark warning. The gains in children’s health, education and overall well-being since the last recession may be in jeopardy as “a huge failure of public and political will” saps support for policies that have helped produce those results, the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation states in its annual compilation of child-welfare statistics. “Erasing racial inequities, creating pathways to opportunity and making sound investments in our youth will benefit all Americans,” the report states. And with about one in five children still living in poverty, improvement will take time, while policymakers “want expenditures to show immediate returns.”

More Than a Third of Teenage Girls Experience Depression, New Study Says A large new study contains some alarming data about the state of children's mental health in the United States, finding that depression in many children appears to start as early as age 11. By the time they hit age 17, the analysis found, 13.6% of boys and a staggering 36.1% of girls have been or are depressed.

How Yoga is Helping Girls Heal from Trauma Childhood trauma has a devastating impact on both the mind and the body of children who experience it. But that mind-body connection also offers a path toward healing. A growing body of research demonstrates the effectiveness of addressing the mental and physical impact of trauma through yoga and other somatic, or body-based, programs.

The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality released a first-of-its-kind report in April that synthesizes existing research, interviews with experts across the country and two original pilot studies focused on at-risk girls. The conclusion: yoga and mindfulness programs can equip girls – especially those in the juvenile justice system – with tools that help them thrive.

Family Context Is an Important Element in the Development of Teen Dating Violence and Should Be Considered in Prevention and Intervention Findings from two National Institute of Justice-funded studies that focused on high-risk youth highlight the importance of family context in the development of aggression and teen dating violence. These studies summarize the implications of family context for intervention and prevention. Specifically, positive parenting and self- regulation were shown to be crucial protective influences that have effects extending to late adolescence. Furthermore, family-based interventions may be most effective for targeting aggression and teen dating violence in adolescents, particularly for those at higher risk due to parental psychopathology. In particular, programs that focus on improving parents' mental health, marital conflict, and parenting skills may prove to be particularly beneficial.

Growing Up LGBT in America Groundbreaking research that involved more than 10,000 LGBT-identified youth ages 13-17 provides a stark picture of the difficulties they face. Official government discrimination or indifference along with social ostracism leaves many teens disaffected and disconnected in their own homes and neighborhoods. With an increase in public awareness about anti-LGBT bullying and harassment and the strikingly high number of LGBT youth who are homeless, in foster care, or living in high-risk situations, a better understanding of the experiences, needs, and concerns of LGBT youth is critical.

Spotlight on Culture To promote awareness of the intersection of culture and trauma and the implementation of culturally competent care, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network publishes the Spotlight on Culture series. Five new Spotlights have been added: Data Collection Offers Opportunities for Unpacking the Refugee Experience; Trauma and Mental Health Needs of Immigrant Minors, Part One; Trauma and Mental Health Needs of Immigrant Minors, Part Two; Racial Disparities in Juvenile Justice Call for Holistic Approach; and At Intersection of Trauma and Disabilities: A New Toolkit for Providers.

JUVENILE JUSTICE ‘They Call Us Monsters’ Documentary Offers Another Story of Juvenile Justice The PBS show "Independent Lens" is airing a 90-minute documentary that made the film festival circuit last year. The film is an extended visit with three juveniles in the high security compound at Sylmar Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles.

Gault at 50: Conference to Offer Tips for ‘Front-line’ Juvenile Lawyers The May 1967 Supreme Court ruling that threw out Gerald Gault’s six-year commitment for lewd remarks over the telephone has led to half a century of juvenile justice reform. And how to keep that momentum going for another half-century will be the focus when lawyers and other advocates for children facing lockup convene in Atlanta in June.

LA County Puts Thousands of Kids on ‘Voluntary’ Probation for Merely Struggling With School A new report examines and analyzes a controversial youth crime prevention strategy run by the Los Angeles County Probation Department, the nation’s largest juvenile probation system. The program, known unofficially as “voluntary probation,” assigns children 10 to 17 considered by the county to be “at risk” to a professional probation officer, with their parent or guardian’s permission.

WEBINARS Celebrating World Refugee Day: Refugee Experiences and Improving Services (June 20, 12 – 1:30 p.m.)

Presenters will share current information about refugee arrivals in the US and refugee mental health needs and best practices as well as discuss how host communities/service providers need to take trauma and loss into consideration as they support refugees; refugee core stressors, and the importance of creating trauma-informed, culturally accessible services. Additionally, they will utilize Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees (TST-R) as an example of an intervention specifically tailored to address the needs of refugees.

Partnerships Drive Success: Using Cross-Sector Collaborations to Build Capacity in Youth Agencies (June 22, 1 – 2:15 p.m. The webinar will explore how mentoring programs can expand by partnering with local organizations, other mentoring and/or youth agencies, and businesses.