KDE Employee Spotlight: Damien Sweeney
In the inaugural KDE Employee Spotlight,and in honor of National School Counseling Week 2020, we feature Program Coordinator for Comprehensive School Counseling Damien Sweeney.
A vocabulary based solution for all learners
Former Boone and Oldham County teacher Molly Greer shares how she used functional vocabulary boards to help her students become more verbal.
Student work: How to get the results you want and know it
Since 2009, the Literacy Design Collaborative has been partnering with Kentucky teachers to create rigorous, authentic to the discipline, writing-in-response to reading assignments.
Using social media to lift other teachers up
Teachers should be supporting other teachers; not competing against one another or trying to outdo the person in the classroom down the hall. We should be sharing our ideas, celebrating one another’s successes and trying to lift one another up when we are down.
Early Literacy: Beyond bells and whistles
Melanie Callahan Early literacy is a crucial step in overcoming learning gaps and propelling students toward proficiency. From pre-K to kindergarten, families and schools are on this mission together. The young children who grow into good readers require guidance, training and encouragement from their teachers and leaders. Research abounds on the topic of early literacy and reading readiness. [...]
Declaring war on Novice performance
More than 60,000 of Kentucky’s elementary and middle school students and nearly 1-in-4 of Kentucky’s high school students are in that state of academic emergency. It is an incredibly dangerous place for our children to be.
In education, preparing students for the current and future workforce is key
In the nearly two years that I have had the honor of serving as Kentucky’s commissioner of education, I have made students’ preparation for success in the workforce a top priority.
An open letter about vaping
We are writing to share important educational information and links to resources for school administrators, teachers, parents and students about the dangers of youth e-cigarette use and vaping.
Ashland offers variety of resources for new social studies standards
Young Kentuckians of today are about to become very familiar with Kentuckians of the past. The new Kentucky Academic Standards for Social Studies incorporates Kentucky studies throughout a student's primary and secondary education.
School resource officers are vital assets to all Kentucky communities
While there is no single school safety measure that will ever completely eliminate the threat of harm in our schools, as a dad and the husband of a high school educator, I am comforted in knowing there is a well-trained, experienced SRO who is ready and willing to meet danger at the school door if need be.