Author: Kelsey Myers

A teenage girl named Sirenie entered a football field in Burundi during a period when her community thought that girls should not participate in sports. She received criticism. She felt disheartened. Nevertheless, she continued to play. Other girls gradually followed. Burundi is not a country that is often featured in Western news cycles, so it’s a minor story in the geography of global crises, but it’s precisely the kind of story that Right To Play has been quietly producing for 25 years, in places that most aid organizations find difficult to reach and that most headlines choose to ignore. The…

Castle Rock is located on the southern edge of the Denver metro area, far enough from the city to have its own distinct identity. It is a small-town feel encircled by a developing suburban community, with the kind of neighborhoods where real estate listings reflect school district performance. The appeal has long included the Douglas County School District. Superintendent Erin Kane reported on Monday that the 93.6 percent graduation rate from 92 schools and 61,000 students in preschool through twelfth grade was the highest among Colorado’s large school districts. The district is acting in accordance with school district policies by…

When a lockdown is announced, a certain silence descends upon a school building. Usually agitated in between periods, the hallways become motionless. Classroom doors close with a click. Suddenly, students who were half-listening or texting start paying attention to something they weren’t prepared for. That silence began at 2:14 p.m. on May 1st at Avon High School in Hendricks County, Indiana. It was brought on by an anonymous phone call that mentioned threats outside the building. By most quantitative measures, Avon High School is among Indiana’s top public high schools. It was the only public high school among the eight…

School districts in bigger, noisier cities often envy the reputation that Cherry Creek School District has built over the years. Serving more than 53,000 students in 108 square miles of the Denver metro area, with 70 schools, eight municipalities, and a faculty with more than 79 percent advanced degrees, it has been the type of district that other districts covertly compare themselves to for the majority of its existence. It still has that reputation. However, it has suffered greatly, and the events of the last few months raise issues that are not adequately addressed by a press release regarding budget…

There is a rhythm to the parking lot at Round Lake Middle School on North Lotus Drive. Parents leave. Buses arrive. By the time the building opens at 7:15, children with backpacks have left through the front doors, and the roughly 788 students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades settle into the routine commotion of a school day. That’s how Wednesday, May 6 began. That was not how it remained. The Greater Round Lake Fire Protection District arrived at the school at 8:50 a.m. due to a reported overdose. An ambulance transported two students to nearby hospitals. The majority…

Something changes in a school building sometime in late May or early June. The noise level in the hallways increases. It becomes a little more difficult to retain the lessons. In the third week of May, teachers begin to notice a restlessness that permeates classrooms like humidity and doesn’t go away until the last bell rings and the doors open for the last time until August. The feeling is familiar to all students in North America. Simply put, the question is: when will that day come? It depends, which is a frustrating response. Depending on the city, state, or province…

A room with a narrow cot lined with paper, a cabinet of basic supplies, a sink, and a chair next to a desk piled high with paperwork and folders can be found in almost every American school. The fluorescent light is humming. No one has noticed the little handwashing poster that has been on the wall for so long. And a school nurse is sitting at that desk, or more likely standing in the doorway and observing a child enter with a stomachache that could be anxiety or something else entirely. National School Nurse Day is on Wednesday, May 6,…

Most mornings, a line of Denver Public Schools buses is parked along West 7th Avenue close to Federal Boulevard. The buses’ diesel engines are idling, their orange lights are flashing, and the drivers are memorizing their routes. Those buses were sitting motionless and covered in several inches of wet spring snow on Wednesday, May 6. For Denver Public Schools, it was the first snowy day of the academic year. Additionally, no one in the office was able to locate any documentation of a May closure occurring previously, according to district spokesperson Scott Pribble. “I can’t find anyone who remembers a…

On Monday morning, Foss High School’s hallways were unusually quiet. Four days after a knife fight left six people hurt, including one who was fighting for his life in the intensive care unit after having a portion of his lung surgically removed, students filed back through the doors, some with their heads down and others looking around. Outside was a Tacoma police cruiser. The building was filled with crisis counselors. In a technical sense, it was a return to school. The question of whether it felt like one is completely different. Named for Henry Foss, a tugboat tycoon and civic…

A May snowstorm in Colorado has an almost humorous quality until it becomes unfunny. Something changed on the evening of May 5, 2026, when temperatures throughout the Front Range had hovered around a pleasant and warm 75 degrees the day before. By the time the majority of households woke up, school districts along the corridor had already issued closure alerts due to the darkening skies and the moisture rolling in from the mountains. The phones began to buzz before the coffee had finished brewing. Local meteorologists dubbed the storm “Miracle May,” but depending on who you ask, it may have…