Utah Code 53F-2-522 and Board Rule R277-625, "Mental Health Screeners," sets standards for Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to implement approved mental health screening programs for students. The legislature has appropriated a $1,000,000 for the program in 2024, however prior the allocation was $500,000. During the 2023-2024 school year,…

The CAEL (Council for Adult and Experiential Learning) and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) announce the inaugural winners of the Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) Equity Awards, recognizing strategies that have been proven to put CPL in reach of key adult learner populations and/or increase their CPL credit-earning.…

The article discusses a year-long outreach activity, "Sparking interest in German." Five University of Utah German students engaged in the AATG/Goethe-Institut-sponsored SPARK program and taught German to local middle schoolers. At the heart of this outreach project were questions such as whether student-run outreach programs could truly…

To introduce and provide equine-related activities to military personnel and their families, Utah State University Equine Extension created and implemented an effective program called Ride Utah! Equine-related activities have been shown to improve mental health and build strong family relationships in participating individuals. Ride Utah!…

As traditional face-to-face Extension office interactions are supplanted by online education options, the makerspace offers a venue for authentic engagement between Extension and the community. In makerspaces, learners make and learn from one another in a cooperative learning environment. Through involvement in the maker movement, Extension has an…

An Income-Share Agreement (ISA) is an education financing tool through which a student promises a certain percentage of future income (the "income share") for upfront funding for education. Recently, ISAs have been subject to significant national attention and scrutiny from policymakers, investors, consumer advocates, and postsecondary…

Students who arrive on campuses unprepared for college-level work find that it costs them potentially extra time and money to complete developmental courses they would not have needed had they arrived fully prepared in all subjects. Institutions of higher education face their own costs and capacity challenges when trying to teach students the…

This article describes a statewide online alternative teacher preparation program in early childhood special education. The history and evolution of the program is explained along with the programmatic changes that resulted from working with noncertified teachers with a wide variety of backgrounds in both rural and urban districts. Challenges and…

This profile describes how the Writing Program at Southern Utah University enacts a rhetorical humanist framework in its administrative and curricular structures. At the administrative level, rhetorical humanism offers a collaborative governance model that gives all faculty a voice in programmatic decisions, while managing the cacophony created by…

This chapter outlines the birth and growth of a veterans' program in Salt Lake City, Utah, and discusses next steps in spurring additional innovations and advancements to improve service for student veterans in community colleges.

Right now, many states and districts are struggling to fill teaching positions. Between 2009 and 2015, enrollment in teacher preparation programs fell by 35% and the number of program completers fell by 18%, meaning fewer teachers are entering the field. Teacher attrition, including all teachers who leave the profession for any reason, is just…

Teachers are increasingly recognized as the most important in-school factor in student achievement, yet the quality of the country's K-12 teaching force is not up to snuff. Much of the blame has been placed on education schools, which have come under fire for failing to produce enough high-performing teachers. Both initial certification programs,…

Although the authors admit that they do not have any fool-proof formulas to offer for using Web site, blog, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube in order to more successfully share one's career and technical education (CTE) story, they share a story of their own journey and hope that it may help people to run faster and more effectively in these new…

The Brigham Young University-Public School Partnership (BYU-PSP) has been serving K-12 public schools in Utah for 29 years. The Partnership includes five school districts, BYU's David O. McKay School of Education, and the seven arts and sciences colleges at BYU that participate in preparing teachers. This article describes the structure of the…

Virtually every school district in the country is dealing with the need to reduce their budget. The process used to make those decisions varies from state to state but almost always includes a combination of short and long-term approaches. In many school districts the emphasis is on reducing individual budget line items and not filling vacant…