School counselors and teachers have long emphasized the importance of involvement in school activities. From entering high school to senior year, the extracurricular activities students join play a pivotal role in the college application process, now more than ever. Extracurricular activities provide high school students the opportunity to develop skills beyond or outside those […]

What is “blended learning” and why is it important? The phrase “blended learning” was coined in the 1960s but gained popularity in the early 2000s when progressive schools began to lean into technology as a keystone learning tool. Today, “blended learning” is primarily used to describe educational programs that use more than one method for […]

Five Undeniable Benefits of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Until fairly recently, academic and social-emotional development were considered separate in most institutional circles: schools are generally perceived to be responsible for the former, and parents and social services the latter. A significant amount of research has shown, however, that working through social-emotional issues within an academic framework […]

Charter School Pros & Myths Though charter schools have been common in California for decades, there are still some misunderstandings about what exactly they are and how they benefit families and communities. For more information on how charter schools began and how they’re governed, take a look at this important article called What is a […]

Today, 45 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, have adopted legislation that allows charter schools to operate under state-specific guidelines. The first of such laws was passed in Minnesota in 1991. Since then, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the number of charter schools in operation has grown to […]