This annual contest allows participants in three divisions: grades 3–5, middle school, and high school. Grades 3–5 may participate in a written essay contest using the provided prompt and rubric. Grades 6–12 may participate in a video essay contest using the provided prompt and rubric.

Grades 3–5 may participate in a written essay using the provided prompt and rubric. Middle school and high school students in grades 6–12 may participate in a video contest using the provided prompt and rubric. Any student who attends a rural school may participate. Please visit the links below for contest guidelines and rubrics.

BRISTOL, Va. — Groups of Southwest Virginia educators and broadband providers offered plenty of suggestions to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine Thursday about priorities for pending federal infrastructure legislation.

Kaine met with a group of broadband providers Thursday afternoon — discussing their concerns and seeking suggestions on how to best fund service gaps in hard-to-reach rural areas. He later spoke with school superintendents and school board members about how the infrastructure bill could aid in areas like school construction and renovation.

Gain insights about how principals in rural Queensland Australia, Kansas and Pennsylvania addressed challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in a new video produced by Kansas State University’s College of Education. In fall 2019 Dr. Hobart Harmon was invited to make presentations at the annual meeting of the Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia (SPERA) and, by invitation of Professor Simone White, for the Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Education. During the visit, SPERA President Brian O’Neill took Dr. Harmon on a week tour of rural schools in Queensland. Consequently, this provided the opportunity to launch the International Rural School Leadership Project with colleagues O’Neill, White and Dr. Jerry Johnson, chair of the Department of Educational Leadership at Kansas State. Two collaborative leadership forums were held in July 2020. One forum session provided opportunity for a panel of rural principals in Queensland to share COVID experiences with audiences in KS and PA. The second forum session included a panel of principals from rural schools districts in KS and PA (with 2 also serving as district superintendents) to share experiences with an audience in Queensland Australia. Highlights of these sessions and follow-up ZOOM interviews with the principals and NREA executive director Dr. Allen Pratt and others are presented in the video, available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/wpIMno6Ns10.

April 9, 2021

Press Office,(202) 401-1576 or press@ed.gov

U.S. Department of Education Releases COVID-19 Handbook, Volume 2: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students' Needs

Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released the COVID-19 Handbook, Volume 2: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students' Needsto provide additional strategies for safely reopening all of America's schools and to promote educational equity by addressing opportunity gaps that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Building off of Volume 1: Strategies for Safely Reopening Elementary and Secondary Schools, which focused on health and safety measures that schools can use to successfully implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) K-12 Operational Strategy, Volume 2 of the Handbook focuses on research-based strategies to address the social, emotional, mental-health, and academic impacts of the pandemic on students, educators, and staff, such as how to address any potential anxiety or depression some may face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and nearly a year of remote learning.

“There is simply no substitute for in-person learning,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “But as schools reopen their doors, we must also make sure that we are meeting students’ social, emotional, physical, mental-health, and academic needs, and addressing gaps that existed before—and were exacerbated by—the pandemic. This is an opportunity for us to not only reopen our schools safely, but to make sure our education systems are truly serving all our nation’s students.”

Today’s release is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader effort to provide states, districts, schools, and communities with the resources and support they need to return to in-person learning safely and quickly, and achieve the President’s goal of reopening a majority of K-8 schools within the first 100 days of the Administration. Volume 2 identifies strategies states, districts, schools, and communities can use when implementing funding they have received from the American Rescue Plan, which invests $130 billion in safely reopening schools, sustaining their safe in-person operation, and addressing the impact of COVID-19.

Volume 2 also aims to meet President Biden’s call for communities and the country to “build back better.” As states and districts continue to reopen schools safely, the Department is encouraging communities to implement strategies that address the social, emotional, and mental-health needs of students, including the disproportionate toll COVID-19 has had on underserved communities, and address inequities in our education system that predate and have been made worse by the pandemic.

In February, the Department released Volume 1 of the COVID-19 Handbook, which provides educators and staff with practical examples, roadmaps, and tools to implement the CDC's K-12 operational strategy for in-person learning, including the recommended five key mitigation measures (universal and correct use of masks; physical distancing; handwashing and respiratory etiquette; maintaining clean and healthy facilities, including through ventilation; and contact tracing in combination with isolation and quarantine).

BELLEVUE, Wash. — April 7, 2021 — 5G: It just might be history’s most hyped technology revolution. But despite years of bluster about how it’s going to transform our lives, most people haven’t experienced the lightning-fast speeds and incredible performance of 5G yet. That’s changing in a big way starting today. In an online webcast a group of T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) executives led by CEO Mike Sievert announced the company’s latest Un-carrier move, a sweeping set of initiatives that mark the beginning of the #5GforAll era, including:

Built for rural K-12 schools, ZippSlip simplifies parental communications, eliminates paper, and reduces costs. ZippSlip provides schools and districts with the ability to communicate with parents, students and staff, to ease the burden of student registration, obtaining consents and approvals, and easily track and create parental communications.

ZippSlip is both HIPAA and FERPA compliant and may be used in a range of applications including: