Education

A ransomware incident from November 2020 canceled two days of online classes, delayed a major payroll project, took down an employee timekeeping program, and may wind up costing the district over $8 million in the end.

Recent legislation in New Jersey will direct colleges and universities to address barriers of entry to STEM programs for women and people of color, with the goal of connecting underrepresented groups with in-demand jobs.

Teachers and administrators in the Philadelphia-area district mostly succeeded with an all-hands-on-deck approach to keeping students tuned in, including knocking on doors, wake-up calls and dressing up as a mascot.

Union Community School District is investigating a cyber incident from April in which an intruder accessed private data. The district notified law enforcement and is reviewing which documents may have been exposed.

Having recently opened an office in Morgantown, West Virginia, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company will recruit new employees from the university and focus on education, health care and prosperity.

A $200 million partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and IBM will create the Discovery Accelerator Institute, a collaborative space for studying uses for emerging technologies.

Economists at the University of California in Santa Cruz found that enrollment in the state's community colleges decreased by 12 to 15 percent last year. They believe that struggles with online learning played a role.

Long interested in bridging educational gaps for women and people of color, a teacher at Bret Harte Middle School in California has inspired students and recruited them to computer studies with all-girls classes.

A career readiness center in Illinois is moving forward without a $7.5 million state grant. The center represents a collaboration between 14 school districts, business groups and Lake Land College.

Marquette University is now the third private institution in Wisconsin to announce it will require students to be vaccinated, while the University of Wisconsin in Madison is considering a requirement for dorm residents.

To address inequities in learning loss during the pandemic, which largely stemmed from poor access to broadband and technology, the state has set guidelines for districts and accelerated learning programs this summer.

The Public Infrastructure Security Cyber Education System (PISCES) works with colleges and universities to allow cybersecurity students to monitor real web traffic from government organizations and report threats.

With many third graders failing standardized tests after months of learning from home, several states are weighing whether to hold students back or let them pass and focus on intervention next year.

Trinity Christian School won a grant from the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers to build a hydrogen line radio telescope. The school is also launching a summer coding workshop for the public.

Funded by an $8 million, four-year federal grant, the inaugural WorkForces program through the Georgia Cyber Center aims to give marketable job skills in high-demand careers to those who lost jobs during the pandemic.

After surveying close to 400 K-12 districts across the U.S., the Consortium for School Networking found widespread concerns about IT staffing and cybersecurity given the rapid adoption of technology in schools.

Although it announced in December that in-person classes would resume in fall 2021, the nation's largest four-year university system is considering permanent online options for students who found them helpful.

The university will launch the new two-year degree program this fall, hoping to produce graduates who can not only build upon the science of artificial intelligence but also communicate its potential and limits.