On August 18, 2026, The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Dear Colleague letter (DCL), providing school discipline guidance for district leaders, rebuffing previous attempts to reduce discipline disparities for Black and other historically marginalized students and calling for schools to “stop racial balancing.”…
CDC data released August 17, 2026 shows that in 2025-26, vaccination coverage among kindergartners decreased for all reported vaccines compared to the previous year. In fact, the rate of kindergartners entering school exempt from one or more vaccines continued its upward trend during the 2025-26 school year, with 4.2% of…
E-rate, which provides discounted internet services to build connectivity for schools, gave $10.5 billion to districts between 2021 and 2025. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has begun to accept public comment on a proposed rule weighing changes to, including the discontinuance, of the federal E-rate program. The E-rate program, which…
As schools face the challenges of cyber vulnerability and limited resources, on August 12, 2026 the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a free collection of K-12 cybersecurity resources to help school and district leaders mitigate and respond to their unique cyber risks. The CISA resources include two…
School districts and states under federal investigation from the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) may soon see their cases narrowed or dropped as a result of the USDE’s recent announcement that it was formally walking back some systemic race-based discrimination investigations. The types of cases most likely to be affected…
On August 11, 2026, a coalition of unions, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), sued the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) over its regulatory definition of a “professional degree,” which excludes education graduate programs. The suit alleges that the omission of education graduate programs will make it more difficult…
According to survey data collected by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDE), during the 2024-25 school year there were 7,907 written state complaints and that number rose to 11,523 in the 2025-26 school year. The 46% jump in the…
As cases climb higher than they’ve been in decades, health experts including several national, state, and local organizations and health departments are providing are providing guidance regarding best practices and recommendations for schools. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers a checklist for how K-12 schools…
On August 6, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a proposed rule that would effect a major change in federal standards for how Head Start programs should operate resulting in a huge reduction of regulations, oversight, funding, and involvement in a number of key areas.…
As reported by K-12 Dive, a federal grant program aimed at reducing teen pregnancy rates has faced sudden changes this summer under the Trump administration — including the abrupt cancellation of 53 of the 66 current grants in late June. Established by Congress in 2010, the bipartisan Teen Pregnancy Prevention…
