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​​Using technology can give students a better experience and prepare them for the tech-based worlds of college and career. However, as a paraeducator, I see how the most basic uses of classroom technology can create barriers for my students–especially those who struggle with executive functions. I work with my students to overcome these challenges. As I find strategies that are successful, I share them with teachers so they can use the approaches, too. As we all learn how technology impacts neurodivergent students, we can continue to provide students with better help.​

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of a close ally and the co-chair of his transition team indicates that education could be a major priority of his administration, even though it did not feature prominently in the 2024 presidential campaign.

Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, is a leading financial backer Trump has been close to for decades. She is also chair of the board of the little known America First Policy Institute, which has issued a detailed education policy agenda that is likely to serve as a guide for McMahon, and the Trump administration in general, should she be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

On the explosive issue of “school choice,” publicly, at least, she has mostly called for expanding charter schools, rather than taxpayer-funded vouchers. “I am an advocate for choice through charter schools,” she declared in her 2010 campaign for Senate.

Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for education secretary, has been accused in a recent lawsuit of failing to stop a ringside announcer for World Wrestling Entertainment from grooming and sexually abusing children in the 1980s and 1990s. The suit says the Ms. McMahon and her husband Vince McMahon were aware of credible abuse accusations and tolerated them anyway.

​California’s K-12 schools made progress in several areas last school year, including increasing graduation rates slightly, and reducing suspensions and the number of students who were chronically absent from school, according to the School Dashboard released Thursday.

​Modesto City Schools’ Board of Education voted 5 to 2 to approve a plan to lay off 75 district employees as part of an estimated $10.6 million budget reduction. Around 36 classified employees are expected to be laid off at the end of the current school year, down from the 54 that was originally proposed. In addition, layoffs are to include 22 certificated staff and 17 management positions.

Affected employees will include teachers, paraprofessionals, MTSS (Multi-tiered System of Support) site coaches, campus supervisors, student support administrators, school support managers and school secretaries.

​​The fear rippling through undocumented communities has only intensified since Trump’s victory. The former president campaigned on the promise of mass deportations, and on Monday confirmed he plans to use the U.S. military to assist in immigration enforcement.​

Higher revenues than Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators predicted will likely produce a modest increase in funding in 2025-26 for TK-12 schools and community colleges, the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected on Wednesday.

The growth in revenues will also pay down a big portion of the state’s debt to education, with enough to sock away money into a rainy day fund for education that was depleted by the Legislature last year. But at the same time, a rarely invoked constitutional provision would deny schools and community colleges billions in funding that they would otherwise get, the LAO said.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is nominating Linda McMahon, a billionaire professional wrestling mogul and small-business champion with minimal schools experience, as secretary of Education.

Trump, in his announcement, touted McMahon’s “decades of leadership experience” and said she would work for what he called parents’ rights, including the ability to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to allow children to attend any school, public or private.