In The News: College of Education
It’s been a year of missteps, miscalculations, confusion, delays, glitches, and frustration after the botched launch of the simplified FAFSA, which has prevented financial aid packages from being awarded to students with ample time to make plans for their future.
Five defeats and no wins - that's how the first professional season for basketball star Caitlin Clark started. She didn't score as she usually does and rarely found a rhythm with her teammates. And the criticism of the 22-year-old player is already piling up - with no grace period: Is she too small for the professional league? Too delicate? Too weak? Can she not handle the pressure of expectations? Is there racism behind all the hype about the white player, which deliberately overlooks black players with greater talent?
For the longest time, we’ve thought about the marriage between sports and educational institutions on a competitive level. From Friday Night Lights with high school football, to Saturday afternoons in college, to the madness in March with NCAA basketball. The representation of schools in the form of athletic competition has always united student bodies, but even more so, has been an added source of entertainment.
On Friday, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced an unprecedented new sponsorship program: $100k to each of the Las Vegas Aces players, from superstars to rookies. On the heels of that announcement, however, the WNBA confirmed that it would be investigating this sponsorship deal for possible violation of league rules. But why? Today, executive producer Sonja Cho Swanson talks with professor Nancy Lough, co-director of the UNLV Sports Innovation Institute, about the complicated rules of endorsements, sponsorships, and pay-to-play in pro sports — and how we can get to pay parity for female athletes.
Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson says members of her team had no idea about the surprise they were set to receive on Friday. "I don't think people really understand, but we didn't know what was going on," Wilson said after practice at the team's facility in Henderson on Monday. "Our city is behind us 100% and they're giving us what we deserve."
Where’s the best place to look for an aspiring teacher? These days, school leaders are launching talent searches inside their own buildings. In Nevada, districts are increasingly turning to their support staff members – such as bus drivers, substitute teachers, cafeteria workers – as possible recruits.
Las Vegas loves its sports teams. The WNBA’s Aces arrived from San Antonio, Texas. We welcomed the Raiders, and soon-to-be Las Vegas A’s from Oakland. But the Vegas Golden Knights are Vegas-born, and their birth certificate was forged in our community’s darkest hours.
The Clark County School District is hoping retired teachers can help fill some of their 1,000-plus teaching vacancies. According to data from the district, there are 1,316 teacher vacancies as of February of this year. That includes 389 openings for elementary teachers and 303 for special education professionals.
Combining the education of children with that of future professionals is the perfect combination for the practice of UNLV philosophy students who have a joint preschool program on campus where they encourage children under 5 years old to do or think about big questions and interact with the world around them daily.
A fast-track program through UNLV is working to fill teacher vacancies in Nevada ahead of the next school year. It’s called the Paraprofessionals Pathways Project, and its open to school aids, bus drivers, and other teacher support staff. Since the program started around four years ago, it’s seen 160 graduates. All but six of those graduates have stayed in Nevada, which UNLV’s Communications, Outreach and Engagement Coordinator Kelsey Claus says isn’t required after graduation.
Long-term substitute turned fourth grade teacher Jeanette Sanjurjo said going back to school later in life as an adult with a full-time job and bills to pay isn’t usually easy. But she said UNLV’s Paraprofessional Pathways Project, which is tailored to paraprofessionals or school support professionals working in the Clark County School District (CCSD) or a Nevada charter school, helped her reach her goal of becoming a licensed teacher.