Anna Merod

Baltimore

Reporter @K12DiveNews • Proud @DailyOrange/@SyracuseU alum • Email music recommendations and news tips to [email protected]

Articles

Over 1,200 California K-12 staff laid off so far before the new school year

2 weeks ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. School districts in California have laid off over 1,200 teachers ahead of the 2025-26 school year, according to the California Teachers Association. The sweeping layoffs come as districts across the state see declining enrollment and no longer have access to federal emergency pandemic funds. Some 1,246 certificated staff were laid off across 92 districts in the state, CTA confirmed in a Wednesday email.
House lawmakers find consensus on benefits of school cellphone bans

2 weeks ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. House lawmakers found bipartisan agreement on screentime in schools — namely that unregulated classroom cellphone use can harm students' achievement and mental health — during a Tuesday House subcommittee hearing.
Virginia enacts ban on school cellphone use, limits on social media

3 weeks ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently signed legislation banning cellphone use during school hours for all students. The law makes Virginia the 21st state to ban or limitcellphones in schools, according to a legislation tracker by Ballotpedia. Starting January 2026, children in Virginia under the age of 16 will also only be allowed to use social media for an hour per day under another law signed by Youngkin in early May.
Trump pause on visa appointments worries districts relying on foreign teachers

3 weeks ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. As school districts process teacher contracts for the 2025-26 school year, uncertainty is stirring among some district leaders who hire teachers from outside the country. Last week, a Politico report surfaced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts to stop scheduling new appointments for student visa or exchange visitors through the F, M and J visa programs.
Maryland turns to fired federal workers to solve teacher shortage

3 weeks ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Maryland is providing $1 million in grants to 11 colleges and universities within the state to create or expand online programs that will allow federal employees laid off by the Trump administration to earn a teaching license. The move is part of the state’s efforts to address teacher shortages.
Cuts to Medicaid, SNAP could hinder student access to free school meals

1 month ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid during the budget reconciliation could have severe ripple effects for school nutrition operations in districts and states nationwide — particularly when it comes to expanding universal school meal policies, advocates warn.
Is federal support waning for registered teacher apprenticeships?

1 month ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Staffed Up is a monthly series examining school staffing best practices and solutions for teacher recruitment and retention. Catch up on previous installments here. As momentum grows for registered teacher apprenticeships nationwide, advocates fear federal support for the workforce model is starting to wane.
Oklahoma religious charter remains blocked in SCOTUS split

1 month ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The nation's first religious public charter school will not be able to open its doors in Oklahoma after a 4-4 split in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday morning upheld the state supreme court’s ruling that blocked the school. The high court did not issue written opinions in the case. In its June 2024 ruling in St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v.
College student charged in connection with PowerSchool data breach

1 month ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. A Massachusetts college student agreed to plead guilty on Tuesday for allegedly hacking and extorting an unnamed ed tech company for $2.85 million in Bitcoin in December 2024, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts. A person with direct knowledge confirmed to K-12 Dive that student information system software provider PowerSchool is the company in question.
Data breach reporting lags in education sector, study finds

1 month ago | k12dive.com | Anna Merod

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. It took the education sector 4.8 months on average to following ransomware attacks between 2018 and 2025, according to a report released Thursday by Comparitech. Schools and colleges had the highest average reporting time for ransomware data breaches when compared to the business, government and healthcare sectors, Comparitech found in its analysis of over 2,600 U.S. ransomware attacks.