Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Once jailed, these women now hold courts accountable — with help from students, retirees and Fiona Apple

    Court Watch PG acts as a traditional court watch program for Maryland's Prince George's County, but with a twist: the two formerly incarcerated women running it turned adversity, in the form of the pandemic's shutdown of trials, into opportunity in the form of a nationwide crew of volunteers watching over Zoom. The watchers attend bond hearings, where people jailed on pending charges try to gain pretrial release. After observing thousands of hearings, Court Watch PG has exposed flaws in the system, which it pushes to reform through the more than 100 "accountability letters" it has sent justice officials.

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  • Using drones to save lives

    A drone company and Kentucky Homeplace, a University of Kentucky initiative to address rural health, have used drones to deliver personal protective equipment packages to isolated, rural homes that can become inaccessible by road flooding or other bad weather. The flights, called the Jericho Project, so far have served as tests that the sponsors hope will lead to deliveries of medicine and other necessities during natural disasters or simply to speed delivery in remote areas.

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  • Hot Trash

    Prison visiting rooms provide an irreplaceable connection between incarcerated people and their family and friends from outside prison. The in-person visits, despite the many rules that complicate the simple act of conversation, offer a grounding in what's happening in the lives they left behind, along with opportunities to have an intense dialogue about past mistakes and regrets. Interviews produced inside San Quentin Prison reveal the mixed blessing of video visits, the only form of contact for a year during the pandemic.

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  • The tutoring revolution: How it could transform education

    Research shows tutoring can increase learning. Two years into the pandemic, the exact rates of learning loss due to pandemic learning are still unknown, but its effects have been documented. Researchers, teachers, and academics are advocating for “high dosage,” or “high impact," tutoring (a form of tutoring where one tutor is paired with one student, or a group of small students) at a national level. Students at Chicago public schools who got high impact tutoring “two to three times as much as their peers.”

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  • As teacher morale fell, two Alabama districts found a way to ease workload

    During the coronavirus pandemic, schools in Alabama were asked to provide both in-person and remote options for learning. Two districts segmented their teaching workforce so that teachers either taught remote students or in-person students, not both. Baldwin and Talladega counties report that teachers, while still worn out from the stress and demands of the pandemic, describe higher morale, being less burnt out, and feel more positive about the year’s learning model than other teachers. Teachers also report that their students learned better than if they were juggling both modes of instruction.

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  • Hunting for a Leftover Vaccine? This Site Will Match You With a Clinic.

    To help with the coronavirus vaccine distribution, a New York-based start-up has introduced a service that connects "vaccine providers who find themselves with extra vaccines to people who are willing to get one at a moment’s notice." Although the project is still being piloted, more than 500,000 vaccination-seekers and 200 vaccine providers have signed up for the initiative, and some health officials believe it could become a model for a more equitable distribution strategy.

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  • Legos, Meditation, Video Field Trips: How One D.C. School Is Using Virtual Clubs to Help Students Break Through the Isolation — and Reconnect With Friends — During the Pandemic

    Themed, online student clubs are a new, home-grown venture for Two Rivers Elementary School in Washington, D.C. Previously, afterschool programming was run in-person and primarily by the network’s after care provider and outside agencies. The school started running a handful of virtual clubs at their respective campuses serving a few dozen students around late September, with weekly attendance growing as the number of clubs expanded.

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  • ‘They track every move': how US parole apps created digital prisoners

    State and federal parole officials have rushed during the pandemic to embrace the use of smartphone apps that monitor the location and behavior of a person on parole. The apps and related data analytics save courts money and time by easing the need for face-to-face meetings. While there are potential benefits as well for the people being monitored, such as not wearing stigmatizing and uncomfortable ankle monitors, some complain the apps are even more intrusive than traditional monitoring – and perhaps more apt to lead to technical violations of parole that can land people back in prison.

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  • For those frustrated with vaccine system, a crew of volunteers is ready to help

    A community effort is underway in Massachusetts to help people secure Covid-19 vaccination appointments, despite a confusing government roll-out system. The Massachusetts COVID Vaccination Help volunteer group is composed of volunteers from across the state, who are using their free time to help individuals schedule appointments. Although there are concerns about privacy, users thus far have commended the group's persistence and success in booking appointments.

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  • ‘There's so much gratitude': engineer who created viral vaccine site for $50

    Frustrated with the Covid-19 vaccination system in New York, a local software engineer created a "much-needed vaccination appointment-finding bot" that shares available times and locations on a website and Twitter. Although the website was not built "in the way that modern websites are supposed to be built," it has still been extremely popular and users have reported successfully booking appointments because of it.

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