The Bridgeport Public Schools issued the guidelines a day after the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, but had discussed the issue during the Jan. 13 Board of Education meeting, according to district officials.

During that meeting, Interim Superintendent Dr. Royce Avery “reported that the district’s immigration enforcement guidelines are in full effect and emphasized the importance of safeguarding students, regardless of their immigration status,” the district said in a statement.

Trump administration throws out policies limiting migrant arrests at sensitive spots like churches

Trump Monday signed an order under which he intends to end the constitutional provision giving “birthright citizenship” to anyone born in the U.S. regardless of the immigration status of their parents. He has previously also promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

CT law is a problem for Trump’s deportation plan. What to know about roles of local, state police

Connecticut’s attorney general, William Tong filed suit, with the attorneys general of 17 other states, the District of Columbia and the City of San Francisco against Trump in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, “challenging the lawless executive order ending birthright citizenship, eviscerating clear constitutional rights to which all children born in the U.S. are entitled.”

CT AG joins suit against Trump in ‘birthright citizenship’ lawsuit. ‘There is no legitimate legal debate’

The Bridgeport Public Schools district said it acted out of concerns about “potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement” actions and to reaffirm its “commitment to protecting the safety and privacy of all students and families.”

“Under these guidelines, no ICE agents or government officials are permitted to enter school buildings, buses, or attend school events without prior written authorization from the superintendent,” Bridgeport Public Schools district statement said.

The statement by the schools came as the Trump administration threw out policies limiting where ICE arrests could happen.

Trump’s first full day back in White House includes firings and an infrastructure announcement

Avery said that the district is “dedicated to protecting all students, regardless of their immigration status.

“We will not tolerate any threats to the safety or dignity of our students,” he said, in a statement. “Every student in Bridgeport, regardless of their immigration status, has the right to feel secure and supported in our schools. I became an educator to advocate for all students, and I will ensure their rights and privacy are upheld. Our schools will remain a safe space where all students can learn, grow, and succeed without fear or discrimination.”

Guidelines, per the district:

Visitor Protocol: All visitors must report to the main office, provide valid identification, and state a legitimate purpose for their visit. Unauthorized individuals will not be granted access.

Immigration Enforcement Restrictions: Federal immigration activities are strictly prohibited on Bridgeport Public Schools property, transportation routes, or during school activities without prior approval from the Superintendent. No ICE agents or government officials can enter school buildings, buses, or attend school events without prior authorization.

Student Privacy Protections: Bridgeport Public Schools does not collect or store information regarding immigration status to ensure student privacy and safety.

Trump-allied group’s warnings may signal legal blueprint to attack ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions

Steps to Follow if an ICE Officer Arrives, per the district:

Secure the Premises: Use the intercom to communicate with the official. If necessary, lock all exterior doors to prevent unauthorized entry and ensure the safety of students and staff.

Meet the Officer at the Entrance: Always meet the ICE officer at the school entrance, where all visitors are screened for entry.

Request Officer Information: Ask for the ICE officer’s name, badge/ID number, and the reason for the visit during school hours.

Contact the Superintendent’s Office: Immediately notify the Superintendent’s office to ensure they are informed and can take the necessary action.

Do Not Physically Interfere: If the ICE officer does not comply with district protocols, do not attempt to physically intervene. Instead, gather as much information as possible and notify district security supervisors and the Superintendent’s office.

The district said it is “actively working with key community partners, including the Connecticut Institute for Refugees & Immigrants, CT Students For A Dream, and others, to host a series of community forums and trainings in the coming weeks. The forums are designed to ensure the Bridgeport community receives the vital resources and information needed to navigate concerns related to student safety and immigration.”

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have little in common ideologically, but the two have both been vocal supporters of an idea that’s been rapidly gaining bipartisan ground in the states: Students’ cellphones need to be banned during the school day.

At least eight states have enacted such bans over the past two years, and proposals are being considered in several more states this year.

Why are states banning cellphones at schools?

The push for cellphone bans has been driven by concerns about the impact screen time has on children’s mental health and complaints from teachers that cellphones have become a constant distraction in the classroom.

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms about their effects on young people’s lives, has said schools need to provide phone-free times.

Nationally, 77% of U.S. schools say they prohibit cellphones at school for non-academic use, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But that number is misleading. It does not mean students are following those bans or all those schools are enforcing them.

Kim Whitman, co-founder of the Phone Free Schools Movement, said the issue is catching on because parents and teachers in both red and blue states are struggling with the consequences of kids on mobile devices.

“It doesn’t matter if you live in a big city or a rural town, urban or suburban, all children are struggling and need that seven-hour break from the pressures of phones and social media during the school day,” she said.

What states are enacting bans?

At least eight states — California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia — have enacted measures banning or restricting students’ use of cellphones in schools.

The policies range widely. Florida was the first state to crack down on phones in school, passing a 2023 law that requires all public schools to ban cellphone use during class time and block access to social media on district Wi-Fi.

A 2024 California law requires the state’s nearly 1,000 school districts to create their own cellphone policies by July 2026.

Several other states haven’t banned phones, but have encouraged school districts to enact such restrictions or have provided funding to store phones during the day.

Sanders announced a pilot program last year providing grants to schools that adopt phone-free policies, and more than 100 school districts signed on. Sanders said she now wants to require all districts to ban cell phones during the school day, but the proposal will leave it to the districts on how to craft the policy.

“Teachers know (cellphones are) a huge distraction, but much bigger than that is that it is impacting the mental health of so many of our students,” Sanders told reporters on Thursday.

Other governors recently calling for bans include Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who was sworn in this month, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has suggested she’ll seek a statewide policy, but has not offered specifics.

What is the opposition to the bans?

The cellphone bans have faced opposition from some parents who say they need to be able to contact their children directly in case of emergency.

Some parents have pointed to recent school shootings where having access to cellphones was the only way some students were able to communicate with loved ones for what they thought might be the last time.

But supporters of the bans have noted that students’ phones could pose additional dangers during an emergency by distracting students or by revealing their location during an active shooter situation.

Parents opposed to the ban have also said they want their children to have access to their phones for other needs, such as coordinating transportation.

Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, said she agrees about the dangers of social media on children but that the bans sought by states are taking too broad of an approach. Banning the devices during the school day is not going to solve underlying issues like bullying or the dangers of social media, she said.

“We have not done our job as grown-ups to try to teach our kids the skills they need to actually navigate this technology,” she said. “We’ve just kicked the can down the road and thrown them into the deep end of the pool when they’re by themselves after school.”

Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut, Margery Beck, Holly Ramer and Anthony Izaguire contributed to this report.

Wildfires have burned at least 12,000 homes, buildings and other structures in Los Angeles, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s latest estimates. If the L.A. wildfires have displaced or otherwise impacted you, you may qualify for natural disaster financial relief — including relief from student loan bills.

Borrowers with federal student loans who live in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)-designated disaster ZIP codes can pause their student loan payments for up to 90 days with a natural disaster forbearance. There are additional relief options for private student loan borrowers, current college students and federal borrowers who live outside of a FEMA-designated area.

Here’s how to get student loan help if the L.A. wildfires or other natural disasters have impacted you.

If you have federal student loans

Monitor your email and student loan accounts

Make sure you have email communications enabled in your federal student loan servicer account and studentaid.gov account, in case you can’t access regular mail.

Frequently monitor your inbox for any communications from the Education Department and your student loan servicer, who often contact affected borrowers shortly after a natural disaster, says Celina Damian, student loan servicing ombudsperson at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.

If the wildfires displaced you from your home, don’t change your permanent address in your student loan accounts, says Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. Your address must be in a FEMA disaster zone to qualify for a natural disaster forbearance, he says.

Opt for a natural disaster forbearance — if you need it

Your servicer will automatically put your loans in a natural disaster forbearance if you live in a FEMA disaster ZIP code and miss a student loan payment, Buchanan says. This will pause your bills for up to 90 days and prevent student loan default. Or, you can call your servicer to proactively request a natural disaster forbearance. No documentation is needed, he says.

But if you can afford to continue making student loan payments, consider skipping the natural disaster forbearance. Interest will build on your student debt during this period, increasing the amount you owe.

“It’s one of those things you should definitely take advantage of if you’re financially impacted, but if you’re not financially impacted, it’s probably something you may not want to do, because it’ll mean that you’ll actually pay more over a longer period of time,” Buchanan says.

Months spent in a natural disaster forbearance count toward the 10-year Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) finish line, so long as you’re also working for a qualifying employer during this time, according to the Federal Student Aid office’s website.

Understand other federal student loan relief options

You don’t need to live in a FEMA disaster ZIP code to get relief. Any borrower can call their servicer and request a general student loan forbearance for up to 12 months at a time. If you’ve lost your job, you can also request an unemployment deferment for up to three years. Interest will likely accrue during these periods, and you won’t make progress toward loan forgiveness.

Income-driven repayment (IDR) plans can also shrink your monthly bills to as low as $0 if you’ve lost some or all of your income. By choosing an IDR plan over a general forbearance or deferment, you’ll make progress toward loan forgiveness — even if you have $0 payments. If you’re already enrolled in an IDR plan and your income has decreased, call your servicer to get your payments adjusted.

If you have private student loans

Call your lender and avoid interest capitalization

Call your private student loan lender. Explain your situation, and ask about natural disaster relief options, such as a temporary forbearance.

For example, the lender Ascent offers a three-month Natural Disaster/Declared Emergency Forbearance. Earnest has a general financial hardship forbearance, good for up to 12 months. With both of these forbearance options, interest not only builds, but it may also capitalize — which means it is added to your original principal balance. You’ll pay interest on top of a larger balance after forbearance ends, increasing the amount you’ll pay monthly and over time.

If you opt for a private student loan forbearance, try to make interest-only payments before capitalization occurs.

If you are a current student

Contact your school’s financial aid office

Contact your school’s financial aid office and ask them to reassess your aid eligibility if the wildfires have affected your family’s finances. Notify them about any change in residence if you’ve been displaced. They may increase your aid package or direct you to your school’s emergency financial aid fund.

If the wildfires leave you unable to complete the school year, your financial aid office can also extend your “in-school” status, Damian says. This will prevent you from entering federal student loan repayment. (Generally, borrowers must start paying student loan bills six months after graduating, leaving school or dropping below half-time enrollment.)

You won’t have to report any disaster-related support your family receives from the federal or state government on future Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms — so you don’t have to worry about your financial aid shrinking as a result of receiving these funds.

Get additional student loan help after the wildfires

Start with your servicer or lender if you have questions about your student loan relief options. If you still need help with a complex situation, consider reaching out to these resources:

• California’s Student Loan Empowerment Network. If you’re a borrower living in California, you can get one-on-one support from this organization, which is operated by the state’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Call 888-774-2227 or fill out a form on its website.
• California’s student loan ombudsperson office. This office can help you navigate complex student loan issues if you live in California. Reach out through its online contact form. If you live elsewhere and face a natural disaster, a handful of other states also offer this service to residents.
• Borrower assistance organizations. Nonprofits like TISLA can help you understand your relief options.
• Your college’s financial aid office. Even if you left college years ago, your former financial aid office will likely be happy to offer resources and talk through questions about relief.

These resources are always free. Watch out for student loan scammers, who may try to charge you a fee to access student loan relief.

Eliza Haverstock writes for NerdWallet. Email: ehaverstock@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @elizahaverstock.

The article How to Get Student Loan Relief After the L.A. Wildfires originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Among the schools that the board approved was Proudly Respecting Our Unique Differences (PROUD) Academy in Ansonia, which was initially founded in 2023 as a private middle school geared toward LGBTQ+ students and their allies, but shifted to a tuition-free model to better support students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, founder Patty Nicolari said.

“Our board felt funding LGBTQ+ students’ education should be a responsibility of the state,” Nicolari said.

Two charter schools in Stamford — OLAM Public Charter School and Stamford Big Picture Learning Academy — and Taino CoLAB, which applied for campuses in Waterbury and New Haven, also received initial approval after dozens of advocates voiced support for the five schools at the school board’s meeting Wednesday.

“As a child, I experienced how the traditional school system often fails to address the individual needs of students,” said Faith Keegan, a Waterbury parent, in support of Taino CoLAB in Waterbury. “I needed a more tailored approach to manage my anxiety and navigate my education, but like so many others, I missed out on opportunities that could have changed my life.”

Taino CoLAB is proposed as a high school that would prepare students for “college and careers and empowers them to become impactful community leaders,” according to its application, which also says the school “is designed to prepare students for the future workforce through the integration of courses in media and communication arts; business and entrepreneurship; AI, machine learning, and robotics; biotech and health sciences; and social impact and global changes.”

“In our community, children deserve smaller class sizes, individualized programs and extracurricular activities that help them thrive. These critical elements are often missing in conventional public schools, leaving many, especially Black and Latino children, feeling unsupported and unable to succeed,” Keegan said. “Schools like [Taino], have the power to transform lives, providing a supportive and inclusive environment where children can grow academically, socially and emotionally.”

Stamford Superintendent Tamu Lucero, one of the charter school supporters at the meeting, said her district provides “many opportunities for our students, but we know it’s still not enough.”

“We partnered with Stamford’s Charter School for Excellence, and we decided to submit an application so that we would have permanent funding for a program that we think will add value to our school system and our city as a whole,” Lucero said in support of Stamford Big Picture Learning Academy, which if approved by the state legislature will educate students in grades 9-12 “in personalized, interest-based learning.”

OLAM Public Charter School, also in Stamford, is proposed to serve pre-K through eighth grade students. The school would also teach Modern Hebrew to “bridge cultural divides and offer students a unique perspective on history, language and the interconnectedness of global communities,” according to its application.

Representatives from the Connecticut Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state, were the only opposition to the approval of new charter schools at the meeting.

CEA Member Elizabeth Sked said the applications were “poorly announced” with “insufficient community engagement and input,” that charter schools have selective enrollment that “results in inequity, diminished diversity and concentrations of students with the greatest resource needs,” and that the state should instead focus on “sufficiently funding its existing public schools before expanding a parallel system of charter schools.”

For a charter school to open in Connecticut, applicants must undergo an extensive process that includes an analysis of the school’s curriculum, model and community need. There also must be public hearings to determine if there’s a demand and local support from constituents. Applications often take more than a year to be considered.

Prior to 2015, a charter school could begin recruiting students and building its campus as soon as it received approval from the state Board of Education. That year, however, a bill changed the process into a two-tier approval system, where the state Board of Education grants “initial” approval and then funding is approved by lawmakers. The state Department of Education said the change helped make the charter process more transparent.

Connecticut is the only state in the country that requires legislative approval in the creation of charter schools, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. It’s currently home to 21 charter schools, and approved funding for two more charter schools, the Edmonds Cofield Preparatory Academy for Young Men in New Haven and Norwalk Charter School of Excellencein 2023.

That same year, charter schools in Danbury and Middletown were left out of the state budget and it’s likely that advocates for both schools will try to get them into the biannual budget that’s being crafted this legislative session.

It’s also likely Connecticut will see a larger push in upcoming years towards the development of more charter schools in the state following the launch of the North Star Fellowship.

The fellowship was created out of a partnership between education organization Latinos for Educational Advocacy and Diversity, or LEAD, which has been a strong proponent in an ongoing struggle to open the charter school in Danbury, and The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that has opened over 50 charter schools in Indiana in the last 18 years.

Under the fellowship, four people — with a preference for Connecticut residents — will receive a full salary with benefits for up to two years as they undergo “personalized coaching and support from a network of educational and executive leaders,” collaborate with a cohort, travel and engage with other charter schools across the country with the end goal of creating and eventually launching their own charter schools.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism on their campuses have been settling with federal civil rights investigators in the weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who urged a tougher response to campus protests against the war in Gaza.

But many colleges at the center of the highest-profile cases — including Columbia and Cornell — face investigations that remain unresolved and could run the risk of harsher penalties after Trump takes office. Trump has not said what he would like to see come of the investigations, but he has threatened to revoke federal money for schools that fall short of his demands.

“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said in a virtual address to Jewish donors in September. “No money will go to them if they don’t.”

Settlements with the Education Department’s civil rights branch have piled up in recent weeks with the University of Washington, the University of California, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers and the University of Cincinnati. Those follow other voluntary agreements signed by Brown and Temple universities, along with the University of Michigan.

University presidents are “desperate” to enter agreements now “because Donald Trump is coming and there’ll be hell to pay if they don’t,” said Kenneth Marcus, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights during Trump’s first term and now leads the Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights nonprofit.

“They don’t want their cases to still be pending on the docket when the new administration takes office,” he said. “They understand that the price of settlement is about to increase.”

The flurry of recent deals has drawn outrage from Republicans in Congress who say the Biden administration is letting colleges off the hook.

Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said the settlements are “toothless” and fail to hold colleges accountable for permitting antisemitism. In a statement, he said the Trump administration should “examine these agreements and explore options to impose real consequences on schools.”

One of the committee’s priorities will be “calling out woke higher education institutions — especially those that allow antisemitism to run rampant,” Walberg said at a Wednesday meeting.

More than 100 U.S. colleges and school districts remain under investigation over alleged antisemitism or Islamophobia following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. That includes Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Princeton and other prestigious schools targeted by a Republican campaign against antisemitism.

The Department of Education investigations stem from complaints that schools violated Title VI, which bars discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color and national origin at colleges and universities that receive federal funding.

Several colleges facing investigations declined to comment on their status.

Presidents of several universities were called before Congress last year over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests, contributing to the resignations of Claudine Gay at Harvard, Liz Magill at Penn and Minouche Shafik at Columbia.

The vast majority of Education Department civil rights investigations end with voluntary deals negotiated with schools. If they can’t reach a settlement, the agency can refer the case to the Justice Department or move to cut off the school’s federal money — an extreme sanction that has almost never been used.

Whether Trump pushes the Education Department to use the so-called “nuclear option” is still in question. But without a deal before Jan. 20, colleges raise the risk that they could become test cases for Trump, who has been openly hostile to universities that he sees as hotbeds of liberalism.

Marcus said the incoming Trump administration has sent clear signals that it’s serious about invoking the “ultimate remedy” against offenders.

“I expect that there will be serious movement towards this from the Office for Civil Rights,” he said. “The question is whether university administrators will respond quickly and effectively enough to avoid that fate.”

Losing access to federal money is usually seen as a death sentence for colleges. A total cutoff would also mean their students could not use federal financial aid.

It couldn’t happen instantly, however. The Education Department can terminate federal money only if it fails to gain voluntary compliance from the school and only if it’s approved by an administrative law judge. There would have to be a hearing, and there would be opportunities for the school to appeal the decision.

As Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress, there’s also a renewed push for legislation on the subject. A December report coordinated by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., found that colleges across the U.S. failed to stop antisemitism amid last year’s demonstrations, highlighting cases at Harvard, Columbia and UCLA.

The report called for new legislation “to support students and ensure accountability,” and it endorsed legislation to cut off federal money at schools that support divestment from Israel. It called on the executive branch to “aggressively enforce” civil rights laws, saying universities that fail to curb antisemitism “are unfit stewards of taxpayer dollars should be treated accordingly.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Karen Grant and fellow school librarians throughout New Jersey have heard an increasingly loud chorus of parents and conservative activists demanding that certain books — often about race, gender and sexuality — be removed from the shelves.

In the past year, Grant and her colleagues in the Ewing Public Schools just north of Trenton updated a 3-decade-old policy on reviewing parents’ challenges to books they see as pornographic or inappropriate. Grant’s team feared that without a new policy, the district would immediately bend to someone who wanted certain books banned.

Around the same time, state lawmakers in Trenton were readying legislation to set a book challenge policy for the entire state, preventing book bans based solely on the subject of a book or the author’s background or views, while also protecting public and school librarians from legal or civil liabilities from people upset by the reading materials they offer.

When Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed that measure into law last month, Grant breathed a little easier.

“We just hear so many stories of our librarians feeling threatened and targeted,” said Grant, who works at Parkway Elementary School and serves as president of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians. “This has been a wrong, an injustice that needs to be made right.”

Amid a national rise in book bans in school libraries and new laws in some red states that threaten criminal penalties against librarians, a growing number of blue states are taking the opposite approach.

New Jersey joined at least five other states — California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington — that have passed legislation within the past two years that aims to preserve access to reading materials that deal with racial and sexual themes, including those about the LGBTQ+ community.

Conservative groups have led the effort to ban materials to shield children from what they deem as harmful content. In the 2023-24 school year, there were 10,000 instances of book bans across the U.S. — nearly three times as many as the year before, according to a recent report by PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for literary freedom.

“Certain books are harmful to children — just like drugs, alcohol, Rated R movies and tattoos are harmful to them,” Kit Hart, chair of the Carroll County, Maryland, chapter of Moms for Liberty, a national organization leading the book banning effort, wrote in an email.

But some states are now safeguarding librarians and the books they offer.

“State leaders are demonstrating that censorship has no place in their state and that the freedom to read is a principle that is supported and protected,” said Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at PEN America, which has been tracking book bans since 2021.

The drive to ban certain books is not waning, however. While a handful of states fight censorship in school libraries, some communities within those states are attempting to retake local control and continuing to remove materials that conservative local officials regard as lurid and harmful to children.

‘Lives are in the balance’

The New Jersey measure not only sets minimum standards for localities when they adopt a policy on how books are curated or can be challenged but also prevents school districts from removing material based on “the origin, background, or views of the library material or those contributing to its creation.”

The law also gives librarians immunity from civil and criminal liability for “good faith actions.”

New Jersey state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, a Democrat who introduced the legislation, said until recently he thought that book bans were a disturbing trend, but one limited to other states. But early last year, he went to a brunch event and met a school librarian who told him she faced a torrent of verbal and online abuse for refusing to remove a handful of books with LGBTQ+ themes from her library’s shelves.

“That’s when I realized that I was so horribly mistaken, that these attacks on librarians and on the freedom to read were happening everywhere,” Zwicker told Stateline. “I went up to her and asked, ‘What can I do?’”

He said he’s already heard from lawmakers in Rhode Island who are considering introducing a similar measure this year.

A child who identifies with the LGBTQ+ community can read a memoir like “ Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and feel seen for the first time in their lives, he said.

“I do not think it’s an overstatement to say that lives are in the balance here, that these books are that important to people, and that librarians are trusted gatekeepers to ensure that what’s on the shelf of a library has been curated and is appropriate,” Zwicker said.

These new state laws, several of which are titled the “Freedom to Read Act,” passed almost entirely along party lines, with unanimous Democratic support.

In New Jersey, Republican state Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, who has worked in schools for the past 18 years, including as an English teacher, vehemently opposed the measure. She did not respond to an interview request.

“This isn’t puritanical parents saying, ‘Oh, I don’t want my child to learn how babies are made,’” she said during a September committee hearing. “That’s ridiculous, and we all know it.”

She added, “What I do want is for us to be able to have an honest conversation about some of what is in these texts that is extraordinarily inappropriate for that grade level.”

Enforcement and penalties

Legislation differs by state, including in enforcement and how to penalize noncompliant localities.

In Illinois, for example, school districts risk losing thousands of dollars in state grant funding if they violate the state’s new law discouraging book bans. But as the Chicago Tribune reported last month, that financial penalty was not enough to persuade many school districts throughout the state to comply, with administrators saying they are concerned about giving up local control on school decisions.

Several school districts in other states have similarly rebelled.

Under its rating system, books that have long had a place in school libraries — such as the Holocaust memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel or “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou — would require parental consent to read.

Asked about the school district potentially violating state law, school board member Amy Kelly, who led the drive to use BookLooks, declined to be interviewed. Karsten Anderson, superintendent of St. Francis Area Schools, also declined an interview request.

In Maryland, Carroll County schools led the state in banning books in recent years, removing in the 2023-2024 school year at least 59 titles that were “sexually explicit,” according to a tally by PEN America.

Schools should not allow children to see “kink and porn,” wrote Hart, of Moms for Liberty. She got involved in the effort more than three years ago, saying she wanted to protect her five children and parents’ rights to make educational decisions.

She pointed to one book to make her point: “ Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human,” a nonfiction book in graphic novel form by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan that seeks to educate teenagers about anatomy and consensual and safe sex. The book explores other issues of gender and sexuality, as well. Hart likened the book’s illustrations showing different ways of having sex to “erotica.”

“Parents who provide their children with alcohol or drugs, or to give them a tattoo would rightly be charged with crimes,” she wrote Stateline in an email. “Schools that provide children with sexually explicit content are negligent at best.”

The future of book bans

Around 8,000 of the more than 10,000 instances of banned books during the 2023-24 school year were in Florida and Iowa schools, according to PEN America. Lawmakers in those states enacted legislation in 2023 that created processes for school districts to remove books that have sexual content.

Iowa now requires that reading materials offered in schools be “age-appropriate,” while the Florida law ensures that books challenged for depicting or describing “sexual conduct” be removed from shelves while the challenge is processed by the district.

Some of those banned books included classics, such as “Roots” by Alex Haley and “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith.

Over the past year, lawmakers in Idaho, Tennessee and Utah passed measures that ban certain reading materials that deal with sex or are otherwise deemed inappropriate, according to a December report from EveryLibrary, an Illinois-based organization that advocates against book bans. Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed similar legislation in June.

Laws that allow for book bans have been the subject of several lawsuits in recent years, as plaintiffs argue those measures violate constitutional protections of free expression.

Late last month, a federal judge struck down parts of a 2023 Arkansas law that threatened prison time for librarians who distribute “harmful” material to minors. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, a Republican, announced the state would appeal the decision.

EveryLibrary is tracking 26 bills in five states that lawmakers will consider this year that would target books with sexual and racial themes.

The organized effort to remove books because of LGBTQ+ or racial themes will continue, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

The association, which tracks book bans as part of its mission to support libraries and information science, found that most of the top banned books around the country had LGBTQ+ protagonists.

“Librarians have always been all about providing individuals with access to the information they need, whether it’s for education, for enrichment, for understanding,” she said in an interview. “Censorship is diametrically opposed to that mission.”

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The $28 million project will convert office space at 64 Pratt St. to create to create 50 suites for up to 200 students, partly funded by $5 million in grants — including $2 million from the city of Hartford and $3 million from state funds designed to improve Connecticut’s urban centers.

Those funds are expected to be signed off by the Capital Region Development Authority’s board of directors as soon as Thursday. CRDA is managing the funding for the city.

Last June, the State Bond Commission approved funding for a $10 million, low-cost CRDA loan for the construction.

The project involves a tax deal and the conversion of an annex in the office building at 242 Trumbull St., a 4-story structure, which has its entrance off Pratt Street. A spacious atrium that allows space for amenities and student gathering was a key selling point for UConn.

The hub of the regional campus is in downtown’s Front Street neighborhood in the refurbished Hartford Times building. But the campus has now expanded to space above the atrium at the XL Center, just across Trumbull Street from Pratt Street.

City officials see the residence hall as a major step forward in its city’s long-held aspirations to become more of a college town. College students, apartment dwellers are seen as increasing vibrancy in downtown Hartford in the face of offices seeing fewer employees for the full workweek.

In addition to the city grant, the Hartford City Council last month approved a 15-year,tax deal that would be structured as a “payment in lieu of taxes” calculated as a percentage of “effective gross income.” Effective gross income is the potential gross rental income plus other income minus vacancy and credit costs of an investment property, according to documents outlining the terms of the deal.

The PILOT would remain flat for the first two rising to 15% in last two years of the agreement. After that, the taxes would be calculated based on the residential tax rate rather than the higher commercial rate because the project involves CRDA funding.

In 2013, the state legislature approved a change that would assess CRDA-funded apartment projects at the city’s lower tax rate for residential properties, rather than commercial real estate, which is the category where they typically fall.

The lower rate was more in line with surrounding municipalities and made it possible for bigger private mortgages and smaller CRDA loans.

If, at any point, the converted 87,000 square feet of office space is no longer used for student housing, the tax deal is no longer valid.

The project is being developed by a partnership that includes the complex’s Brooklyn, N.Y.-based owner, Shelbourne Global Solutions LLC, downtown Hartford’s largest commercial landlord; LAZ Investments, an arm of parking giant LAZ Parking; and Lexington Partners, a major developer in greater Hartford.

Both Lexington and LAZ are longtime development partners and have worked closely with Shelbourne in downtown, including apartment conversions elsewhere on Pratt.

If all suites were occupied, the university, which would lease the space, would expect the housing to run at $1.5 million annual loss, which the university would be responsible for funding. Philanthropy, naming rights or both could offset some or all of the operating deficit, the university has said.

Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.

Four Brooklyn yeshivas filed a federal civil rights complaint on Monday against New York saying tougher review practices that found major deficiencies in the education provided at some ultra-religious schools discriminate against Jews.

In a 20-page filing, Bobover Yeshiva Bnei Zion, Oholei Torah, United Talmudical Academy, and Yeshiva Mesivta Arugas Habosem said reviewers refused to credit instruction from Jewish Studies and interfered in their hiring, among other objections to the process.

“Taken together, these discriminatory practices would strip the Yeshivas of their essential Jewish character,” wrote Avi Schick, an attorney for the yeshivas at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. “If they can’t devote sufficient time to Jewish Studies with instruction in their original language … then they are no longer Jewish schools.”

“The Office of Civil Rights should exercise its oversight over these New York agencies that receive billions of dollars in federal funds annually by thoroughly investigating their discriminatory practices and remediating their discriminatory conduct.”

The civil rights complaint, filed a week before President-elect Trump is set to take office, takes aim at a process in state education regulations adopted in 2022, which may put religious and other private schools through a review of basic subjects, such as reading and math, to ensure they are at least “substantially equivalent” to those offered at public schools.

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights could not confirm receipt of the complaint late Monday.

A rep for the New York State Education Department said it could not comment in the suit itself but pushed back against its core claims.

“We disagree with the allegations, which constitute a challenge to State law,” said J.P. O’Hare, a spokesman. “We note that counsel for these complainants has previously unsuccessfully challenged the Board of Regents’ substantial equivalency regulations in court.”

Schick said the yeshivas are not challenging the state regulations themselves, but the alleged use of the reviews to “impose its secular views on these Jewish schools.” Private schools that are approved by an independent accreditor or have their students pass state-approved standardized tests are exempt from the review process.

Trump campaigned on “parental rights” to make decisions about their children’s education and a crackdown on allegations of antisemitism in schools.

In a statement released after the filing, Jewish advocates for yeshiva reform accused the four schools taking their action to a forum more likely to provide a favorable judgment, while a lawsuit is pending in New York’s highest court. The group, Young Advocates for Fair Education, has long accused some yeshivas of failing to prepare its graduates to fully participate in life outside of the Hasidic community if they so choose.

“Today’s federal civil rights complaint filed against the New York State and City Education Departments is nothing more than a desperate and cynical attempt at court shopping,” said Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education.

“The grievances outlined in this complaint have already been dismissed repeatedly in state court, and this latest maneuver reeks of bad faith.”

“Let’s be clear: this is not about protecting civil rights — it’s about shielding institutions from accountability while tens of thousands of children are denied a basic education,” she continued. “Teaching English, math, science, and social studies does not contradict Jewish values; it complements them.”

©2025 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Both mayors and legislators said that education will be a high priority during the 2025 legislative session that started last week, but the final totals will likely not be decided until the end of the session in early June.

Gov. Ned Lamont said all sides need to participate in improving the public education system.

“We’re going to do something additional on special ed. We should,” Lamont said Monday at the state Capitol when asked by The Courant. “And also ask the towns and municipalities to think about how they can handle special ed and make sure these kids are taken care of. Don’t always come running to the state.”

Lamont added there would not be any cuts in the all-important educational cost-sharing grants that are sent to schools in all 169 cities and towns. The towns collectively receive more than $2 billion annually in the cost-sharing grants, in addition to other categories of education aid.

“I said at the [opening day] speech we’re going to honor the ECS formula that the legislature put in place some years ago, and we’ll do some things over and above it as well,” Lamont said. “Like doing something for special ed, over and above.”

A fiscal moderate, Lamont said that he believes that the state cannot solve all the local needs.

Part of the battle over fiscal moderation this year extends to the so-called guardrails that have become a major issue at the legislature. Liberal Democrats and various interest groups have called upon Lamont to loosen the guardrails so that there can be more spending for special education and other needs. So far, Lamont and Republicans have successfully pushed back against any changes in the guardrails, but top Democrats who control the legislature say there is a need for compromise this year, suggesting they would keep the guardrails largely intact but also allow increased spending for important needs.

Top Senate and House Democrats Monday unveiled Senate Bill 1 that calls for “increasing resources for students, schools, and special education.” The Senate Democrats traditionally list their priorities in order, and the designation of Senate Bill 1 highlights the high priority that the bill takes this year.

“We all know that we need to do all that we can to increase resources for our entire education system,” Looney said. “We need to work on preparation for quality preschool and day care, for our K-12 system, for higher ed, and for special ed. So there will be a focus on education throughout the entire spectrum of age, from childhood into early adulthood and college graduation. We know that over the last several years, we have invested quite a bit more in public education in various ways, but we need to increase that both in ECS and the other grants that we provide to municipalities. But at the same time, we also need to enhance accountability.”

In order to obtain broad-based support for additional spending, Looney said the legislature also must make sure that the money is “well-spent, well-planned, well-accounted for.”

When asked how much additional money is needed for education, Looney said, “Lots and lots. Specifics to be determined.”

A problem, Looney said, is that the legislature does not know the size of any potential cuts by incoming President Donald J. Trump and the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress that would have an impact on the state.

Regarding the amount of money needed, Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff joked by saying, “Trillions.”

Concerning the request by the mayors, House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford said, “They tend to ask on the high end.”

State Rep. Lezlye Zupkus of Prospect, the ranking House Republican on the education committee, said that education funding needs to be properly balanced between the lower-performing and higher-performing schools. She added that Democrats were making the right move by placing emphasis on special education.

“I hope that as our conversations on the education committee progress this session, that those talks don’t lead to legislation that punishes high-performing districts by reducing their funding, or add layers of regulations that undermine the good work they are doing,” she said.

Zupkus added, “And we need transparency to ensure that tax dollars are being spent in an appropriate way that benefits those who matter most – the students. That’s why, last session,
Republicans fought to budget more money to ease the burden on local special education programs while our majority party colleagues chose to funnel millions of ARPA dollars into an already bloated higher education system. This issue deserves action, and we’re ready to contribute to the development of reforms that balance the needs of students and the concerns of our property taxpayers.”

Affordable housing

Besides education, Democrats also focused Monday on increasing affordable housing across the state at a time when rents and mortgages are too expensive for many workers. With housing prices at high levels, many young couples cannot afford to buy houses because they cannot provide enough money for the down payment or cannot afford the monthly mortgage payments.

“We need to build more affordable housing, not only in the urban areas that do have affordable housing now, but also of course in the suburban and rural towns that in many cases have been resistant to that,” Looney said at the state Capitol complex. “One of the great challenges is that our cities need to get larger and they need to add more people in order to be healthy and more thriving. … The city of New Haven needs to get bigger. Hartford needs to get bigger. Waterbury and Bridgeport need to get bigger, as well.”

Ritter, a Hartford Democrat, said he hopes that 2025 can be “a year we can make some substantial progress” on affordable housing after various attempts in recent years.

House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, an East Hartford Democrat, has spent extensive time in trying to solve the issues related to housing.

“There is no silver bullet solution to this,” Rojas said, adding that he hopes the legislature can achieve “more than painfully incremental progress.”

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite failing to deliver his promise for broad student loan forgiveness, President Joe Biden has now overseen the cancellation of student loans for more than 5 million Americans — more than any other president in U.S. history.

“My Administration has taken historic action to reduce the burden of student debt, hold bad actors accountable, and fight on behalf of students across the country,” Biden said in a written statement.

In total, the administration says it has waived $183.6 billion in student loans.

The wave of cancellation could dry up when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump hasn’t detailed his student loan policies but previously called cancellation “vile” and illegal. Republicans have fought relentlessly against Biden’s plans, saying cancellation is ultimately shouldered by taxpayers who never attended college or already repaid their loans.

Biden loosened rules for debt forgiveness

The latest round of relief mostly comes through a program known as borrower defense, which allows students to get their loans canceled if they’re cheated or misled by their colleges. It was created in 1994 but rarely used until a wave of high-profile for-profit college scandals during the Obama administration.

A smaller share of the relief came through a program for borrowers with disabilities and through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was created in 2007 and offers to erase all remaining debt for borrowers in a government or nonprofit job who make 10 years of monthly payments.

Most of Monday’s borrower defense cancellations were for students who attended several defunct colleges owned by Center for Excellence in Higher Education, including CollegeAmerica, Stevens-Henager College, and Independence University. They are based on past findings that the schools lied to prospective students about their employment prospects and the terms of private loans.

Before Biden took office, those programs were criticized by advocates who said complex rules made it difficult for borrowers to get relief. The Biden administration loosened some of the rules using its regulatory power, a maneuver that expanded eligibility without going through Congress.

As an example, just 7,000 borrowers had gotten their loans canceled through Public Service Loan Forgiveness before the Biden administration took office. Widespread confusion about eligibility, along with errors by loan servicers, resulted in a 99% rejection rate for applicants.

Huge numbers of borrowers made years of payments only to find out they were in an ineligible repayment plan. Some were improperly put into forbearance — a pause on payments — by their loan servicers. Those periods didn’t end up counting toward the 10 years of payments needed for cancellation.

The Biden administration temporarily relaxed the eligibility rules during the pandemic and then made it more permanent in 2023. As a result, more than 1 million public servants have now had their balances zeroed out through the program.

All those rule changes were meant to be a companion to Biden’s marquee policy for student debt, which proposed up to $20,000 in relief for more than 40 million Americans. But after the Supreme Court blocked the move, the Biden administration shifted its focus to maximizing relief through existing mechanisms.

Republicans have called for a different approach

Announcements of new cancellation became routine, even as conservatives in Congress accused Biden of overstepping his power. Republican states fought off Biden’s later attempts at mass forgiveness, but the smaller batches of relief continued without any major legal challenge.

As Republicans take hold of both chambers of Congress and the White House, Biden’s changes could be targeted for a rollback. But it’s unclear how far the next administration will go to tighten the cancellation spigot.

Trump proposed eliminating PSLF during his first term in office, but Congress rejected the idea. Project 2025, a blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation for a second Trump term, proposes ending PSLF, and narrowing borrower defense and making repayment plans less generous than existing ones.

Republicans have suggested that reversing Biden’s changes will be a priority. Earlier this month, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., issued a report blasting Biden’s expansion of borrower defense, saying he “tried to stretch every possible law” to fulfill his campaign promises.

When Trump takes office, Foxx wrote, “the jig will finally be up.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.