Education

The Metropolitan Housing Coalition will release its annual housing report Thursday, the same day Network Center for Community Change—or NC3—will hold a public meeting in Smoketown, addressing a key criticism of vacant property highlighted in the report.

For the past few months, residents and NC3 volunteers have been walking the Smoketown neighborhood and taking notes on vacant properties. The group similarly mapped the Shawnee neighborhood earlier this year.

A Finnish author and education reformer has won the University of Louisville's 2013 Grawemeyer Award for education.

Pasi Sahlberg directs Finland’s Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation and is also author of "Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?"

The book explains how reforms that began in the 1970s led to the current success the public school system is experiencing. Finland was once poorly ranked educationally and had large inequalities among its students.

The Kentucky Board of Education will soon reconsider its policies governing middle school athletics following final recommendations crafted this week by a legislative task force.

The 17-member team was formed this year to recommend ways KDE can provide better oversight regarding the health and safety of Kentucky’s middle school athletes.

The Jefferson County Board of Education has unanimously voted to implement a district-wide smoking ban for all employees on campus or at school events beginning July 2013.

The board considered the policy change at Monday night’s meeting, hearing from JCPS staff, students and a health policy professor from Bellarmine University.

The board originally considered a proposal to implement the ban in the 2014-2015 school year, but in Monday’s meeting it was changed to begin next year.

“We don’t need to delay this another year,” said board member Linda Duncan