The schools in Northwest Arkansas were snowed out since Tuesday. As of Friday morning and afternoon, it looked like the majority of the state  joined us. From the McGhee area on the eastern end of the state, and the Mena area on the western side, schools shut down Friday morning due to already accrued snow and ice. Little Rock and other schools in Central Arkansas preemptively shut down out of concerns that proved to be valid. As I traveled from Little Rock back to northwest Arkansas today, I heard rumors of other schools closing in anticipation of  a major snow that will hit tonight.

We hope you all stay warm in this weather and thought we would pass along some reading material for the storm:

• The Thomas B. Fordham Institute released a a brief for State Policymakers citing 15 ways states can “stretch the school dollar”. We would love to hear some feedback from the practitioners out there if these ideas would work in Arkansas.
• The Department has updated the Common Core Standards webpage with FAQ’s about the Common Core State Standards Initiative
• And the New York Times is linking Childhood Obesity to school lunches. We think there may be some causation/correlation errors in the NYT take on this. What do you think?

We’ll post a legislative update in the morning…and who knows, we may just throw in a weather update as well. 🙂