Coming out of an abusive relationship, Jill realized that many domestic violence victims have been in worse situations than she's had to deal with.

But she's grateful for every bit of help provided by the Women's Center of Montgomery County.

"I was in an abusive relationship about six years ago and they kind of saved me from that," she recalled. "So I've been with them for a long time."

The mother of a 14-year-old and a 9-year-old, Jill has never been homeless, but is expecting some guidance from the organization in the coming months in finding affordable housing.

"I've never had to stay at a shelter. I'm staying with my sister right now but plan to move in the next four or five months," she said.

With her background in the medical field, Jill said she's been working steadily, except for a brief period when she had knee surgery.

"I try to get to as many of the weekly meetings as I can, but during that time when I wasn't working I was able to get to more meetings than I usually do," said Jill, who plans to pursue a grant to finance a degree that will allow her to pursue a different field.

"They can provide the resources for that but they don't do it for you. You have to do the work yourself," she said.

Jill wasn't sure how much assistance from Operation Holiday would be coming her way, but anything would be helpful, she said.

" My kids will be getting some gifts for Christmas, but not that much. I did get a call from Pauline about the program, so that's nice to know I'm on the list."

Jill noted that she had nothing but praise for Pauline McGibbon, who provided tremendous guidance over the years.

"She has always been there for me and it's meant so much," Jill said.

Now in its 29th year, Operation Holiday has provided a brighter holiday season to thousands of families with children throughout the region. Donations from readers last year allowed the program to provide food and gifts for 144 families with 442 children in need.

This year, 15 agencies in Montgomery County and northern Chester County have referred 107 families with 325 children. Stories of families interviewed by our reporters will appear in the newspaper and online between now and December 24.

There is no overhead with Operation Holiday and all funds stay local. Funds are collected and audited in a non-profit foundation account managed by staff of MediaNews Group.

Food, which includes the fixings for a holiday dinner as well as staples for the pantry, is ordered, bought, packed and distributed by employees and their family members as well as local high school and community volunteers..

Gift cards for every child in the program 16 years of age or younger are purchased through Boscovs and distributed in partnership with the referring agencies.

Operation Holiday does not accept families who have not been referred by an agency in order to protect the integrity of the program.

Operation Holiday is funded solely by readers contributions. All contributions are tax deductible.

Contributions can be mailed to The Mercury, Attn: Operation Holiday, PO Box 1181, Pottstown, PA 19464, or The Reporter, 307 Derstine Ave., Lansdale PA 19446. Make checks payable to "Operation Holiday."

Online donations are being accepted in a secure portal in partnership with TriCounty Community Network. Visit https://tcnetwork.org/ and click on the link for Operation Holiday.

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OPERATION HOLIDAY: Woman hoping for an educational grant with the help of Women's Center - The Times Herald

Engineers are taking free online courses to gain new knowledge to address challenges in their work and to improve their employment prospects, writes Brian Mulligan

Technology is now enabling many alternative models of engineering education.

Brian Mulligan

Engineers are taking free online courses to gain new knowledge to address challenges in their work and to improve their employment prospects, writes Brian Mulligan.

You can learn almost anything on the internet. Kids are learning to play the piano without a teacher by watching YouTube videos. Technicians are using videos viewed through augmented reality glasses to maintain equipment.

So will this change the nature of engineering education? It has already started in CPD, where busy engineers take online courses in topics that are not available close by, saving them time and minimising disruption of their lives.

Even practical work is being facilitated online with simulators, remote access to rigs and virtual reality based learning experiences.

For undergraduates lecturers are starting to use the web to improve their teaching. They are posting links to resources, accepting assignment and giving feedback online and using quizzes to encourage and monitor progress.

However, these changes are only augmenting the basic model of education that has been with us for hundreds of years. Are there more radical approaches that might change the underlying teaching or business models of engineering education?

Flipped Learning, where the student engages with the content before class, and takes part in activities during class, is gaining traction. Why give the same lecture every year when it can be recorded? Why not use the valuable time in class to apply knowledge and to get support from the lecturer (and peers in large classes)?

Why not create a full Project Based Learning (PBL) degree. Why have any lectures at all? A programme based around the execution of projects will better prepare the students for the workplace.

Students can access low-cost courses on the web to underpin their learning. Many of these will be compulsory and considered to be a fundamental part of an engineering education, but many will be chosen by the students on the basis of their own interests or the requirements of the projects.

However, college projects are artificial and a limited attempt to emulate the real world. What if undergraduates spent the full length of their degree in the workplace? Work-Based Learning (WBL) degrees already exist, often as apprenticeships in a block-release format.

Online learning allows such work-based programmes to be more convenient as the student can attend work continuously and study online. This model has already been successfully deployed by Institute of Technology Sligo in the apprenticeship degree in insurance practice.

Manufacturing employers around Ireland have indicated great interest in employing young trainees to get their engineering degree in this mode.

Both PBL and WBL are examples of how technology can enable radical changes in teaching models, but it might be suggested that changes in business models could be even more radical. Although the hype of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has passed, they continue to be popular.

IT Sligo enrolls 2,000 learners every year on a free Introduction to Lean Sigma course, an important marketing tool for our large range of CPD courses. Many universities are monetising this development by amalgamating MOOCs into micromasters and charging for assessment.

The most notorious example of this style of low-touch, low-cost education is the masters in computer science from Georgia Tech. At $6,500 (about 5,900), the programme has 5,000 students enrolled and is partially to blame for the reduction in enrollment in computer science masters degrees around the US.

AI systems are now being deployed to reduce the workload in both supporting students and creating assessments.

Cutting cost through scale and the use of technology, strategies familiar to engineers, are now being applied in education. The value proposition for learners seems very compelling and may well be a threat to existing programmes.

To finish, consider a more radical concept called free range learning where the learner chooses what, how and where they learn.

This may be difficult to develop in a traditional and highly regulated profession like engineering. However, given the need for more engineers, the increasing specialisation of work and the constant emergence of new technologies, perhaps this should be considered.

As accreditation is important, the key to the development of such a model is Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). Many shorter courses on the Internet are issuing micro-credentials, often electronic (and more recently based on blockchain).

Electronic certificates, which can hold much richer data about a learners achievement will ease verification and make RPL more feasible. However, institutions will need to also change their regulations to be more accepting of learning gained elsewhere.

Technology is now enabling many alternative models of engineering education. Many will resist change for both valid and invalid reasons. However, learners, who will now have many more choices than they have ever had before, may force the pace of change, preferring those providers that innovate.

Author: Brian Mulligan is a civil engineer, and is responsible for online learning innovation at the Institute of Technology Sligo where he has worked as a lecturer, online learning developer and online innovation manager since 1984. bit.ly/brianmulligan

Engineers are taking free online courses to gain new knowledge to address challenges in their work and to improve their employment prospects, writes Brian Mulligan. You can learn almost anything on the internet. Kids are learning to play the piano without a teacher by watching YouTube videos. Technicians are using...

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Engineering education online the future is now - Engineers Journal

The stock of China Online Education Group (COE) formed H&SI with $7.16 price target or 3.00 % above the current $6.95 share price. The 9 months Head & Shoulders Inverse reveals low risk for the $141.74M company. This trade was featured by Faxor.com on Dec, 4. If the $7.16 target price is reached, the companys valuation will be $4.25 million more. Inverse Head-and-shoulders are some of the best chart patterns to trade. These formations work as in bear as in bull markets and many researchers states that they have very low failure rates. Despite the high pullback rate, these trading patterns are usually good places to trade based on their risk-reward profile. Industry expertss backtests show that 55% of these patterns reach their targets.

The stock decreased 0.71% or $0.05 during the last trading session, reaching $6.95. About 1,000 shares traded. China Online Education Group (NYSE:COE) has declined 44.19% since December 4, 2018 and is downtrending. It has underperformed by 44.19% the S&P500.

More notable recent China Online Education Group (NYSE:COE) news were published by: Benzinga.com which released: Earnings Scheduled For September 11, 2019 Benzinga on September 11, 2019, also Seekingalpha.com with their article: Johnson Controls International plc (JCI) CEO George Oliver on Q4 2019 Results Earnings Call Transcript Seeking Alpha published on November 07, 2019, Seekingalpha.com published: China Online Education: Sitting On The Sidelines Seeking Alpha on November 07, 2019. More interesting news about China Online Education Group (NYSE:COE) were released by: Prnewswire.com and their article: China Online Education Group Announces First Quarter 2019 Results PRNewswire published on June 14, 2019 as well as Businesswire.coms news article titled: Mary Ellen Coe Elected to Merck Board of Directors Business Wire with publication date: January 29, 2019.

China Online Education Group, through its subsidiaries, provides online English language education services to students in the People's Republic of China and the Philippines. The company has market cap of $141.74 million. It operates online and mobile education platforms that enable students to take one-on-one live interactive English lessons with international foreign teachers. It currently has negative earnings. The company's flagship courses include Classic English and Classic English Junior for the development of English communication skills.

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Time to Buy China Online Education Group (COE) After The Completion of This Inverse H&S Pattern? - FinanceRecorder

EASEL Lab, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is on the map. There is solid evidence that SEL matters a great deal for important life outcomes including success in school, college entry and completion, and later earnings. We also know that SEL can be taught and nurtured in schools, resulting in significant impacts such as improvements in classroom functioning and organization, students ability to learn and get along with others, and increases in academic achievement.

Although the term social and emotional learning is not new, and has, in fact, been around for years, a growing evidence base has recently driven a tremendous surge in interest in this area particularly among parents, educators and policymakers. Yet, amid a wide array of effective programs and approaches to draw upon, challenges still remain. One major area of ongoing concern is that SEL goes by many names, and the terminology can be confusing and misleading, ultimately impeding efforts to achieve meaningful results.

Common ways of describing the field include character education, personality, 21st century skills, soft skills, and noncognitive skills. Each label draws from a slightly different theoretical perspective and employs different pieces of research, and each has its own related fields and disciplines. Moreover, major players in the field have put forward competing organizational schemes or frameworks that often use different or even conflicting terminology to describe similar sets of skills. The result is what has been described as the jingle and jangle problem, which refers to the use of a single term to mean many different things (jingle) or multiple terms to mean the same thing (jangle).

This wide array of terms, concepts and ideas is not a bad thing in itself. Indeed, it makes for a broad, rich and vibrant field overall. The challenge is that inconsistent terminology makes it difficult to communicate clearly about whats important and to make decisions about the right strategies and approaches to use in practice. In short, without a way to make sense of the words, its easy to misinterpret, overgeneralize or overlook the hard science that links evidence to strategies, and strategies to measurement and evaluation. The result could be cherry-picking teaching practices, interventions and assessments that may or may not be related to each other or to the desired outcomes.

To address this challenge, the EASEL Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education created Explore SEL. Thiswebsiteand set of tools is designed to show relationships among different skills, terminology and frameworks(organizing systems that communicate which skills and competencies are important, and that serve as a roadmap or guide for policy and practice),organizing, describing and connecting them across disciplines in a way that is agnostic to brand and sensitive to development and context.

Explore SEL includes the following interactive tools, with more to be added in the future:

Compare Domains: See which domains, or broad skill areas common to the field of SEL, are emphasized in different frameworks; see all frameworks at the same time and identify broad trends in the field;

Compare Frameworks: See where skills, competencies, behaviors in one framework relate to those in other frameworks; select any two frameworks from the database and compare them side by side;

Compare Terms: See where specific skills like conflict resolution, attention, empathy, self-efficacy and critical thinking are included across all the frameworks in the database; select any skill(s) and identify its prevalence; and

Thesaurus: See related terms, regardless of terminology and research tradition or discipline (whether the term is common to the study of early childhood vs. adolescent and youth development, or SEL vs. character education, etc.); select any skill or term in the database and see a list of related terms in order of similarity.

Ultimately, Explore SEL will provide education decisionmakers with a way to sort through frameworks and terminology to make sense of existing information, allowing them to better align strategies and goals to achieve real impact. As efforts to build social, emotional and related skills are integrated into schools, practitioners, policymakers and funders need to know which skills are important, what they are called and how they relate to one another, in order to focus on the skills and approaches to SEL that best meet their students needs. The tools are designed to help stakeholders in the field select, adapt or develop organizing frameworks that will guide their SEL efforts in ways that make clear the skills they intend to address, ultimately enabling greater alignment among those target skills, the strategies used to build them and the measures used to assess them.

To this end, Explore SEL encourages and supports users to (a) reflect on the goals, priorities and needs of their target population and setting; (b) identify, compare and align relevant skills and frameworks; and (c) think about which types of strategies and measures will best fit the skills they have identified as important. For example, school and district leaders can use the site to better understand the subtle nuances and differences between various frameworks in the field in order to select one that guides their approach to SEL in ways best aligned with their specific goals and needs.

Similarly, policymakers can use the site to explore which skills appear across multiple frameworks and how they are related to ensure that SEL standards dont focus too narrowly on a particular skill area while missing others that matter for childrens success. At the same time, the site can help researchers, funders and program evaluators be more clear and precise in how they understand and define the skills being targeted by a particular program or intervention, thus increasing the likelihood that their evaluation, measurement and assessment strategies are closely aligned with the target skills and outcomes on which they should reasonably expect to see impact.

This is an important moment for SEL interest is high, and promising approaches abound. But poor communication and coordination threaten to undermine efforts. Now is the time to take advantage of the current energy to drive forward more precise, careful and transparent work that will maximize impact. Explore SEL is designed to make it easier for educators, policymakers and researchers to be intentional about the skills and outcomes that are best aligned with their mission and goals, and to identify frameworks, programs and strategies that effectively meet their needs and enable them to achieve results.

Stephanie M. Jones is the Gerald S. Lesser professor of early childhood development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, director of HGSEs EASEL Lab and co-director of the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative.

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Analysis: Social-emotional learning is important. But what do all those SEL terms, concepts & ideas actually mean for the classroom? New online...

ENGLISH IS THE most widely spoken language in the world. And of the roughly 1.5bn speakers globally, the vast majority speak it as a second language. So where are the worlds best non-native English speakers? According to a new report by EF Education First, an international education company, Northern Europeans are the most fluent (the Netherlands tops the rankings, followed by Sweden, Norway and Denmark). Middle Easterners are the least proficient (Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia all rank near the bottom).

These results are not comprehensive, however. Nor are they representative. EFs index is based on the results of a free online test taken by 2.3m volunteers in 100 countries. Only people with an internet connection and time and willingness to take a test are included in the sample, which means the results are biased towards richer countries interested in English. As a result, many African countries do not have enough test-takersat least 400to be included in the index.

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Such biases aside, the EFs index produces results that are interesting, if not entirely scientific. Nearly six in ten of this years test-takers were female. Women have always fared better than men, but this year men closed the gap somewhat. Some countries saw their proficiency scores decline. This is probably not because their English got worse; more likely, a big increase in the number of test-takers brought in more people with weak English.

In Europe, the powerhouse economies fare surprisingly badly: only Germany makes the top tier of very high proficiency countries. France is next, while Spain and Italy are persistent laggards. A study by a Spanish research institute confirmed the bad news: 60% of adults say they speak no English at all. The fact that Spanish is a global language in its own right (the language boasts 400m native speakers) is probably the culprit. If you speak Danish, you need another language to take part in global culture; speaking French or Spanish (or Arabic) means hundreds of millions of people to talk to without English.

Asia is the region of greatest diversity. Only Singapore makes the top tier, but the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong and India are not far behind. China is further back but still in the second tier, a few slots ahead of Japan. Languishing in the bottom slots are a clutch of South-East and Central Asian countries like Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan. This correlates with another factor: EF repeatedly finds that English skills are highly correlated with connections and openness to the rest of the world.

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Where are the world's best English-speakers? - The Economist

A number of local resources exist for individuals and families attempting to cope with mental illness in all its forms.

Local chapters of the National Alliance of Mental Illness serving Logan and Champaign counties are committed to providing caring, comforting support for patients and loved ones alike who are navigating mental illness, and all the related challenges that come with a largely misunderstood, often invisible condition.

NAMI is a place where where families can go and feel empathy and understanding about stigmatized disorders of the brain, emphasizes Pete Floyd, president of the local NAMI/LC chapter.

Several local classes and support groups are ongoing in Bellefontaine and Urbana, including a family-to-family education program a free, 12-week course for family members of persons with mental illness.

Family-to-family courses are once per week for a total of 12 sessions, and is a program designed to improve coping and problem-solving abilities for the people closest to a person grappling with mental illness, according to information circulated by NAMI.

Likewise, family-to-family support groups meet on fourth Thursday of each month.

Group participants are empowered and feel less isolated through NAMI educational programming and support, advocates say.

A NAMI Basics, family support group is a program for families with children grappling with mental illness.

Weekly support groups for individuals with depressed mood and anxiety are conducted each Wednesday from 10 to 11:30 a.m., and 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., respectively, at Recovery Zones in Logan and Champaign counties, 440 St. Paris St., Bellefontaine; and 827 Scioto St., Urbana.

Through active engagement in NAMI classes and support groups, participants quickly realize they are not dysfunctional, but rather families facing serious health issues that require patience, understanding and self-care, most importantly, Floyd said.

NAMI stresses the need for advocacy for individuals with mental health as a means for assuring appropriate services and treatments; expanded research that can ultimately lead to a cure for major brain disorders; and eliminating discrimination and negative stigmas often associated with illnesses of the brain.

Established in 1979, NAMI is organized as a self-help organization dedicated to providing support, education and advocacy to anyone affected by persistent biologically-based brain disorders, according to administrative materials.

With proper treatment, upwards of 90 percent of individuals experience a significant reduction in symptoms and improved quality of life, NAMI representatives report.

Mental health advocacy, education and support can be the difference between someone following through with thoughts of suicide, or deciding to seek help, statistics indicate.

About nine out of every 10 people that commit suicide have some underlying mental illness, NAMI advocates relate. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, but it is preventable.

One-in-five adults in the U.S. lives with some form of a mental health condition, and approximately one out of every 25 adults copes with a serious mental illness.

Mental health patients will typically begin to experience symptoms in their teens or early 20s. About half of all lifetime mental health conditions start by age 14, and some three-quarters of those diagnosed with a mental illness begin to experience symptoms by the time theyre 24.

NAMI programming is available to mental health patients and their families at any age.

The NAMI basics family support group is geared towards children and families with mental health concerns.

Similarly, weekly educational and programming and support groups offer regular reinforcement against debilitating symptoms of mental illness.

For more information on the NAMI basics family support group contact, Angela Schoepflin, childrens program administrator, (614) 224-2700.

To request materials and to join a family-to-family education program, contact Bill Heitman, (937) 631-9598.

For more information on family-to-family support groups, contact Floyd, (9337) 750-1702.

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Advocacy, education, support keys to effective treatment of mental illness - Bellefontaine Examiner

SPRING HILL Working as a computer programmer in July 1969 inside what is now the Johnson Space Center, Jerry Bultmans office was sandwiched between the astronauts building and the auditorium.

It was the perfect vantage point to catch a glimpse of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins exiting quarantine in preparation for a pre-flight press conference.

Bultman knew his job, along with that of those around him, was to give NASA the mechanical and technical expertise it needed to support the Apollo 11 crew members on their historic journey to the moon. And the magnitude of the situation was not lost on him.

We were trying to get ahead of the Russians, Bultman told a group of wide-eyed students during a presentation Nov. 1 at Spring Hill High School. We wanted to put the United States up front and in first, and thats what we did.

But even a computer programmer can get starry-eyed, so when he saw the astronauts, he grabbed a small notepad and scurried into the auditorium to listen to the press conference. Afterwards, as the astronauts were walking down the aisle toward him, Bultman asked them if they would sign the notepad.

That piece of Americana stayed in Bultmans possession for decades as a lasting reminder of the moon-landing achievement. He since has donated it to the INFINITY Science Center museum next to the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

Bultmans message to the students was to aggressively follow their dreams and to not be discouraged when the inevitable obstacles of life appear.

Shoot for the stars, he said. If it knocks you to your knees, pick yourself up and keep going. Hard work will pay off.

Its a powerful message the Spring Hill students never would have had the opportunity to hear if not for a chance encounter a few years ago on hunting grounds in Ottawa.

Bultman is a 76-year-old New Orleans native, but in his retirement he has enjoyed traveling to pursue his hobby of deer and turkey hunting. He jumped at the opportunity to hunt on land in Kansas.

Brett Gearhart, a teacher who works with gifted students at Spring Hill High School, also happened to be hunting on that same property a few years ago, and the pair soon developed a friendship.

Gearhart asked if Bultman would come and speak to his gifted students, and he accepted. The high school students were joined in the auditorium by gifted students from Spring Hill and Woodland Spring middle schools.

Gearhart said Bultman has really become a great role model for him, and he wanted his students to also benefit from hearing Bultmans life experiences.

They learned that certain role models had a big impact on Bultmans life, including two great math teachers he had while he was growing up and a professor who recruited him to teach a computer programming lab at Mississippi State University.

I got to learn everything about computers, Bultman said. The light bulb went off, and I realized thats what I wanted to do.

His educational path wasnt perfect, though, as he also told the students how he struggled with advanced physics.

Bultman said the key for him was to stay focused and work hard. He also said it truly pays off to help others and be kind to those around you.

Through life, being a good person makes things easier, he said. All of us are who we are because of the decisions that we make. Always take the high road.

After the presentation, the students crowded around the stage and looked through a variety of pieces of memorabilia Bultman had on display, including awards from NASA.

They also flipped through a photo album and asked Bultman questions about some unique pictures, including one he snapped with his Brownie camera of his fuzzy television screen in July 1969 as Armstrong stepped onto the moons surface.

Bultman said he cherishes all of the memories, and hes enjoying retirement now after 41 years in the space industry, much of which he spent working for Lockheed Martin.

My high road has paid off, he said with a smile.

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'Shoot for the stars' | Education | republic-online.com - Miami County Republic

GEORGETOWN, Texas A former bus driver with Georgetown's school district has been arrested for allegedly soliciting a minor online, according to Georgetown Independent School District.

In a letter sent to parents on the night of Nov. 18, the school district said that the Georgetown Police Departmentnotified the district that the driver identified as Richard Wayne Malley of Georgetown in an affidavit obtained by KVUE was being investigated for online solicitation of a minor. The district said the driver was immediately placed on administrative leave and was arrested.

The school district said that Georgetown police believe the driver and the minor did not know each other before they began speaking online.

"Please know that the safety of your child is our top priority," the district said in the letter. "Georgetown ISD employees go through a thorough background check with DPSand the FBI. This individual had no reported history that would have prevented his employment with our district. We are deeply saddened by this news. The allegations against the individual are reprehensible."

The district said staffers are working to directly contact the parents of students who rode the driver's bus. Parents with questions may contact the district at 512-943-1890.

According to the probable cause affidavit for Malley, the victim's mother looked through her 14-year-old son's phone and found that he had received sexually explicit messages. Upon further investigation, she learned her son had an online account on a website designed for gay and bisexual men to find sexual partners. The son had received multiple messages from what the mother believed were adult men. One message from an unknown sender discussed the sender's desire to meet the boy in person, according to the document. When the mother questioned her son, she learned he had met the sender in person. She then filed a police report and turned the victim's cellphone over as evidence.

Police discovered by looking at the phone's messages and images that the victim and sender who used a Voice Over Internet Protocol number, allowing him to message the victim's phone from a computer had exchanged sexually explicit messages, including a photo of the victim's genitals. They also discussed meeting in person, police said. Police conducted a search for the sender's number and learned it returned to Malley. Police also learned that Malley was a Georgetown ISD bus driver who transported students with special needs.

During an interview with the victim, police said they learned that he had met with Malley on two occasions. During one of those occasions, the victim said Maley touched him over his clothes. Malley also allegedly asked him to send him a photo of his genitals.

Police searched the website where Malley allegedly made contact with the victim, looking up the screenname that the victim provided for him, and found that the profile picture associated with that screen name was of Malley.

VIDEO:Georgetown is having trouble keeping up with its growth

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Former Georgetown ISD bus driver arrested for online solicitation of minor, district says - KVUE.com

More than half of Burbank Unified high school students say theyre often or almost always stressed, while just over a third of district staff feel similarly, according to a health and wellness poll.

John Paramo, Burbank Unifieds assistant superintendent of educational services, presented a report during a recent board meeting detailing information regarding an online survey.

The district hired Hanover Research, based on Arlington, Va., to contact students and staff from January to March with an expressed intent of finding out if and how they were using the districts health and wellness resources and how to improve upon what already exists.

A total of 2,023 students from Burbank, Burroughs and Monterey high schools responded, while 702 staff members, from those who work in preschools to high schools, also participated.

In terms of stress and anxiety, the online survey asked students, In general, how would you rate your typical level of stress or anxiety?

About 23% of Burbank Unified high school students responded they were almost always stressed or anxious, while 30% said they were often stressed, to total 53% of students. The next biggest group of students was those who identified as sometimes stressed at 28%.

What are we telling our students in our schools? asked board vice president Armond Aghakhianian. Are we telling them this is your key to a better career or are we giving them options?

Paramo, who took part in the districts senior day activities on Nov. 7, in which community members took part in a one-day experience of what its like to be a high school senior, said hes witnessed the amount of stress students endure to try and enroll in universities like UCLA and USC.

The pressure for kids to want to be in those schools means that theyre going to take a lot of [advanced placement] classes and theyre going to be involved in a million activities, Paramo said. Its no wonder that theyre anxious and stressed.

Roughly 10% of faculty and staff said they were almost always stressed, while 25% were often stressed. The largest group, 42%, said they were sometimes stressed.

While there are many factors, some triggers stood out as either large or moderate sources of anxiety for students.

Homework was No. 1, as 42% of students said it was a large source of anxiety and 27% thought it was moderate, to total 69%.

Preparing for college was second with percentages of 38% students saying it was a large source of anxiety and 29% saying it was moderate, for a total 67%, while preparing for a career was third with percentages of 35% indicating it was a large source of anxiety and 31% saying it was moderate, for a sum of 66%.

We have to really start addressing the sources and not just resources, board member Steve Ferguson said of the stress factors.

Homework and all those things are sources of anxiety, no doubt, but it also comes when students sign up for more classes than theyre ready for, he said.

There were also a few significant differences between the schools.

Burroughs students listed mental health as a moderate or a large source of stress at 48%, while Burbank students were at 39%.

Monterey High students said family relationships were a moderate or a large source of stress at 68%, which was at least 30 percentage points higher than students at Burroughs or Burbank.

Staff pointed to teaching responsibilities as a large source of stress at 31%, with 30% stating that teaching duties were a moderate source of stress to total 61%.

Staff feeling overworked was a large source of stress at 30% and moderate at 25% for a 55% sum, while budget concerns totaled 25% as a large source of stress and 27% a moderate source of anxiety for a sum of 52%.

Despite the stress, most students said they would likely not utilize district mental or socioemotional help, such as wellness centers or school psychologists.

About 31% of students said it was extremely unlikely and 33% said it was unlikely they would seek out district services, while only 14% said they were likely or extremely likely to use district help. A total of 67% of students said they have never used any school wellness services.

Hanover Research issued a few recommendations, leading with an increase in communication to staff and students about district services.

Company officials also thought the district should continue to provide ongoing education around mental health, wellness and socioemotional well-being to develop a common language and understanding in these areas, while finding ways to ease the stress created by homework.

According to the survey, 72% of students say they would personally benefit from anxiety or stressed-related counseling.

Paramo said he thought many students would seek help if it didnt interfere with school hours and that students may look outside the district for assistance.

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Majority of Burbank Unified high-schoolers, third of teachers feel stressed out - Los Angeles Times

November 14, 2019 | :

Mitch Stevens

Central State University (CSU) will now offer online bachelors degrees to members of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIOs) affiliated unions.

This is an expansion on a previous program which allowed union members and their families to pursue free online associate degrees through a partnership with Eastern Gateway Community College.

College graduates with a bachelors degree typically earn 66 percent more than those with only a high school diploma and are also far less likely to face unemployment, according to a statement by CSU provost and vice president for academic affairs Dr. Pedro L. Martinez.

We are excited to partner with an institution as storied as CSU to provide working families across America with an affordable and convenient solution to completing a bachelors degree program, said President of Union Privilege Mitch Stevens.

AFL-CIO isthe largest federation of unions in the United States.

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CSU to Offer Online Bachelor's Degrees to AFL-CIO Members - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education