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This year, Boston Public Schools students will be returning to free lunches when they return to school. The large district recently joined a national program that serves free meals to all students, regardless of income level. This program eliminates the need for families to complete paperwork involving sensitive information like income amounts and ensures every student has access to a hot, nutritious lunch as part of their daily learning experience.

No Paperwork Required

The reports that the district has signed on to a federal initiative designed to simplify the process of offering free or reduced-price lunches to low-income students in a district. In some cases, the process of qualifying for affordable meals in school meant filling out complex paperwork that families might not always understand. For example, families in Boston Public Schools speak as many as 100 different languages, which meant that even forms completed in English might be difficult for some parents to comprehend completely.

This video explains how the Community Eligibility Option works in detail.

In addition, the process of receiving free lunches can create a socio-economic divide in some schools, as some students get free food and others had to pay for it. While many students used identification cards which made the process more discreet, some students still pay for their meals with cash. By allowing every student access to a free meal, needy students

As more parents voice concerns about the dangers of cyberbullying, one California school district has taken matters into its own hands. The Glendale Unified School District has hired an outside company to track students on social media and send reports of the results to school officials daily. The purpose of the new program is to protect students from potential trouble, including cyberbullying, suicidal thoughts, and even truancy. However, some are questioning whether the school district is blatantly infringing on students’ privacy rights in their quest to keep students a little safer.

Company to Analyze Social Media Posts

The reports that the Glendale district has hired Geo Listening, a social media monitoring service that specializes in tracking social media for school campuses. Glendale piloted the program on a smaller scale last year, hiring the company to monitor the social websites of students at Hoover, Glendale, and Crescenta Valley high schools. This year, the district will pay Geo Listening more than $40,000 to expand their services to eight high and middle schools.

According to the , their monitoring service reports daily to school officials about social website activity. Those daily reports break down social media messages into the following categories:

• Cyber-bullying and bullying
• Hate, harm, and despair
• Crimes and vandalism
• Truancy
• Substance abuse

The report also shares the frequency and severity of student posts within these categories. All of the information is taken off of public social media pages; texts, emails,

A new PDK/Gallup Poll offers some interesting statistics on how parents view the current state of public schools. While standardized testing did make its way into the poll, more parents were worried about school funding than how to assess school and student performance. Most parents also thought their neighborhood school was doing a pretty good job, although they didn't rank public schools as well nationally. Read on to learn more about how parents see the condition of public education today.

About the Poll

The poll is a collaborative effort between Phi Delta Kappa and Gallup. It is conducted annually and is considered one of the best-known research instruments today. This year, researchers surveyed more than 1,000 Americans over the age of 18, asking questions from previous years and questions new to this year's survey. Because it is performed annually, researchers are able to track changing views of the education system and evaluate new ideas and processes in public education.

The Standardized Test Question

With No Child Left Behind and Common Core Standards still floating around Washington, the big question remains whether standardized testing is proving its worth in the education realm. According to this recent poll, parents don't find standardized testing very valuable for their children. Less than one-quarter of those polled thought tests had improved the quality of education in public schools. Three-quarters believed testing had made no difference or even hurt the education environment for students.

Standardized testing came in fifth this year on parents'

Students heading back to school in Fairfax County may be doing so without access to some of the sugary drinks they love most. This large school district is experimenting with a pilot program that bans sugar-filled soft drinks on school property during and after school hours. If the pilot program succeeds, sodas may be removed from schools on a larger, county-wide scale.

Banning “Public Enemy Number One”

The new soda ban follows recent media reports likening soda to “public enemy number one.” Studies continue to support the fact that soda consumption is linked to the obesity crisis in the United States and a host of other potential health problems. A recent report at cited a study from Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City that showed precisely how the body responds to soda consumption.

“The main thing is excess calories,” Dr. Christopher Ochner, assistant professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, explained to Fox. “If everything else in their diet is equal, a person who has a can of coke a day adds an extra 14.5 pounds per year, just from the calories alone.”

Ochner adds that some studies have suggested that all calories are not created equal in terms of how the body processes them. Those that come directly from sugar may be more easily turned into fat by the body than calories from other food sources. The fact that soda is