Christine Caulfield, now 65, came out as transgender in 2007. As a Marine Corps veteran, a teacher, and a married parent of two, she worried about how it might affect her life and family.
Her wife was supportive, and they began telling close friends and family. Eventually Caulfield came out to others in her community and at work. But she said when she was ready to formally change her name in 2018, the public notice requirement meant she had to publish her name change in the local paper, and that created problems, particularly in her wife’s professional life.
Educators across the state expected an adjustment when students returned to school full time this year, with unfamiliar routines and the enduring pandemic. But now, they’re grappling with a rise in behavior challenges, which come as studies show depression and anxiety have doubled for children and teens since before the pandemic.
This week, three leading pediatric health organizations warned that the mental health crisis for kids has become a “national emergency.” And the U.S. Department of Education released a new report, declaring that it “has reached a critical point. The DOE called on schools to use extra pandemic funding to hire more support staff such as social workers and counselors and do away with punitive punishments like suspensions.
“We are seeing a lot more overall disruptive behavior, oppositional behavior in regard to listening and following rules,” said Brooke Proulx, a school social worker at Gorham Middle School, or GMS. “It feels like a free for all, like, here it is all at once. And kids don't have the skills to navigate it.”
Sean O’Donnell started growing grains about 10 years ago at Rusted Rooster Farm, 45 minutes north of Skowhegan on the border of Somerset and Piscataquis counties. He began on a small scale, using grains as a cover crop planted in rotation with other crops to improve the health of the soil.
He and his wife now grow about 150 acres of organic grains including Red Fife Wheat, Winter Rye, oats, and barley. That’s up from around 40 acres just five years ago. O’Donnell credits this growth, in part, to Maine’s burgeoning grain economy.
“It's growing more and more. I don't think I could do what I was doing 10 years ago, and that credit goes to the grain economy,” O’Donnell said.
But that regional grain economy is also providing a buffer to extreme fluctuations in prices, crop failures and supply chain issues linked to climate change.
When artist Titi de Baccarat first saw someone kneeling as a cultural gesture in the United States, he was both confused and captivated. He watched a man get down on one knee, open a small box, and ask a woman to marry him - a tradition that people in his home country of Gabon did not practice.
Several years later he watched a police officer kneel on the neck of George Floyd, killing him, and sparking protests nationwide.
Before one early morning swim practice leading up to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games, sport psychologist Sara Mitchell coached several Paralympic athletes in a warm-up exercise. But it wasn’t the kind of exercise you might think.
Students across the country are graduating high school and getting ready for the transition to college. Most have already selected the college they’ll be attending in the fall, and submitted an enrollment deposit. But this deposit—typically around $300 – is only the first expense of many that students and families will have to factor in to paying for college.
Most people know college is expensive. But the real cost of college goes beyond the “sticker price” tuition advertised by colleges and universities. And the real cost of college hits some students harder than others.
The LGBTQ community is appearing in the national news a lot recently, and the topics range from terrifying to sad to downright confusing.
Last week, an assailant killed 49 people in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, injuring at least 53 more.
In recent months, a bill was passed in North Carolina, blocking local governments from passing anti-discrimination laws to grant protections to gay and transgender people. In addition, the bill requires all people using public restrooms to use the restroom of their biological sex.
As a parent, it can be hard to shield children from these pervasive messages. In a 2012 Human Rights Campaign (HRC) report, Growing Up LGBT in America, a survey of 10,000 LGBT-identified youth ages 13-17 found that 92% of LGBT youth said they hear negative messages about being LGBT. And 68% of LGBT youth said they hear negative messages about being LGBT from elected leaders.
By Esta Pratt-Kielley, originally published by NBC News' ParentToolkit.com
LGBTQ youth gathered in Washington DC at the first White House Summit for African American LGBTQ Youth on Friday, June 10. Tragically less than 48 hours later, an assailant killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando, injuring at least 53 more.
“It shouldn’t be at the point of tragedy that we acknowledge that people are people,” said David Johns, Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans (WHIEEAA). “We do [the work we do] because it’s really important to provide individuals a space to talk and be at the center of the solutions but also because sometimes it’s not until something tragic happens that we have these conversations.”
This holiday season, many children opened gifts they loved. But for Katie Nachman’s daughters, the dolls they opened were more than toys to play with, they were dolls to teach life lessons. The dolls they opened were not a new toy fad. In fact, they’re simply American Girl dolls. But instead of getting ones that looked just like her daughters, Nachman gave the girls black dolls.