Livingston Schools to offer virtual program for elementary school students
4 hours 37 minutes 56 seconds ago
Thursday, June 10 2021
Jun 10, 2021
June 10, 2021 11:37 AM
June 10, 2021
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Source: WBRZ
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LIVINGSTON - According to a Thursday morning news release, Livingston Parish Public Schools is offering a hybrid virtual learning option for third graders, fourth graders, and fifth graders who might benefit from partial online instruction for the 2021-2022 school year.
School officials say applications are now being accepted.
The program will be an expansion of the district’s current 100 percent virtual program that opened to qualified students in grades 6-12 last school year. The district’s virtual programs are not social distance learning options in response to the COVID pandemic.
A civics and citizenship curriculum should be cemented in New Zealand schools because knowledge students are entitled to is being left to chance, says a leading academic.
According to the guide, civics education develops students knowledge of their rights and duties as New Zealand citizens, and of civic processes, such as how laws are made, how voting works and how to deal with government agencies. Citizenship education develops “active citizens”, including how to listen respectfully to the views of others and how to effect change. The guide says Aotearoa has a robust democracy, but its resilience should not be taken for granted. In 2019, a digital survey by Seed Waikato, a charity for young Waikato people, found two in five respondents aged between 15 and 34 didn’t know how to cast a vote in the 2019 local body elections, and eight out of 10 felt disconnected from their council.
Make It 16 co-leader Gina Dao-McLay wants the voting age lowered to 16.
Photo: Supplied via LDR
The Make It 16 campaign failed in the High Court in Wellington last year to convince a judge to declare the current minimum voting age of 18 discriminatory on the basis of age.
Only Parliament can change the law but a ruling it was discriminatory could have helped the cause.
Make It 16 co-leader Gina Dao-McLay said the group would now take their fight to the Court of Appeal in August, with the help of lawyers who took on the case pro-bono.
They want 16- and 17-year-olds to be able to vote at the next local body elections on 8 October 2022. Voter turnout across New Zealand in 2019 was 42 percent.