Catawba County Assistant Planning Director, Mary George, has been named 2012 Outstanding Contributor to Agriculture by the Hickory Kiwanis Club

Catawba County Assistant County Manager Dewey Harris has earned the International City/County Management Association's (ICMA) Credentialed Manager designation. Established in 2002, the ICMA Credentialed Manager program recognizes professional government managers whom the ICMA certifies as having a "commitment to continuous learning and professional development".

Catawba County Director of Utilities and Engineering Barry Edwards has been named one of the winners of the 2013 Energy Leadership Awards by the Business Journal of Charlotte.

Lori A. Mathes was appointed by the Catawba County Board of Commissioners as the County�s new Tax Collector, based upon staff�s recommendation, at the Board�s meeting on February 18, 2013. Mathes served as Chief Financial Officer for Mental Health Partners of Hickory for eight years, responsible for overseeing the agency�s expenditures and revenues, its accounting policies and procedures.

County employees in the first Leadership Academy recently helped families in transition through a Family Care Center project.

Catawba County requests State assistance for those with damage from July 27 flooding.

Many Catawba County residents will be able to recycle more items beginning November 4.

Annual Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2012-2013 shows Catawba County improved its financial position with conservative approach.

Synopsis of Catawba County Board of Commissioners meeting of December 16, 2013.

Catawba County Board of Commissioners adopts resolution supporting citizen participation in government through elections in Catawba County.

Lisa Przekop, director of admissions at University of California, Santa Barbara, says that many high schoolers this year wrote their application essays about depression and anxiety during the pandemic.; Credit: Patricia Marroquin/Moment Editorial/Getty Images

College-bound high schoolers are making their final deliberations ahead of May 1, the national deadline to pick a school. That day will mark the end of a hectic admissions season drastically shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many colleges dropped standardized testing requirements, and because some high schools gave pass/fail grades and canceled extracurriculars and sports, admissions counselors had to change how they read and evaluate applications.

"[It was] definitely the craziest of all my 36 years, without a doubt," says Lisa Przekop, director of admissions at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The UC school system received the most applications in the United States.

Like many others, Przekop says all of her staff has been working remotely throughout the pandemic. But if pivoting to working from home wasn't a challenge enough, Przekop says the school saw an increase in applications of 16%.

"On top of all that, we had to devise a way of doing our admissions selection process without the use of SAT or ACT scores," she says. "So any one of those things would have been a major change, but to have all of them at the same time was beyond anything really that I could've imagined."

Przekop spoke with All Things Considered about how what counselors looked for in applications this year changed, what topics they saw in admissions essays and how the process might have actually improved in spite of the pandemic.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

Has it all added up to more time spent on every individual application?

Quick answer, yes. Things are much more nuanced now. And although a student may have, for instance, planned to do certain activities, well many of those activities were canceled. The other big difference was students were a lot more depressed this year, obviously. Everybody's more anxious, including students. They're applying for college which is stressful in and of itself. And so what we found is a lot of students used their essays to talk about depression, anxiety, things like this. To read essay after essay after essay about depression, anxiety, stress — is taxing. And so we really had to encourage staff to take more breaks as they were reviewing. So it definitely slowed the whole process down at a time when we had more applications to review.

Can you give any insight into what you are basing your decisions on this year?

Absolutely. Maybe in the past I would've focused on that GPA right away. Now when I'm looking at that academic picture, I have to look at the fact that did the student challenge themselves as much as they could have? Were the courses even available? Do I see any trends in their academic performance? If their spring term of last year, their junior year, was all pass/no pass, can I safely assume that they did well in those courses? And that's where you really had to rely on what the students shared in their essays to try to piece that together.

Are you noticing greater diversity in the students applying to UC?

In terms of ethnic diversity, yes, we are seeing that. In terms of diversity of experience — for instance, first generation students and students with lots of different socioeconomic backgrounds — we're definitely seeing that. I'm seeing students who are very committed to the environment more so than i've seen before. I'm seeing students who are more politically aware and active than I've seen before. So I'm definitely seeing a pattern of behaviors that look a little bit different than students in the past.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Students wave goodbye during dismissal at Yung Wing School P.S. 124 on March 25, 2021 in New York City.; Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

New York City schools will reopen in full this fall with no options for virtual learning.

Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement during an appearance Monday on MSNBC, saying, "You can't have a full recovery without full-strength schools, everyone back sitting in those classrooms."

De Blasio said the nation's largest school district will meet in person five days a week, with no remote option available. New Jersey has similar plans, and other states want to limit remote lessons as well.

While the decision in New York is being celebrated as an important milestone on the path to returning to some level of normalcy from the pandemic, some parents remain fearful about sending their children back to in-person learning.

Meisha Porter, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, has heard those concerns firsthand, but says "our schools have been the safest place in the city."

In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, Porter said that with New York City in the process of a full reopening, "it's important that our schools be fully open, too."

Porter said the city would not make the vaccine a requirement for staff and teachers, but said more than 70,000 employees have already received at least one dose. The city will continue to monitor the health and safety of children, teachers and staff, she said, "but we know our schools have been safe and we need our children back."

Interview Highlights

What do you say to parents who are still really worried about the virus and may not want their kids to return, especially elementary aged kids who don't have access to a vaccine?

I say what we've said over and over again. You know, this past week, we've been at 0.3% — our seven-day positivity rate. Our schools are the safest place. And I've always said nothing, absolutely nothing, replaces the interaction and the learning that happens between a student and teacher in our classrooms. And so what I say to parents, as a parent, is we're going to continue to be in conversations. We're going to continue to make decisions around health and safety. We're going to continue to do those things that parents need us to do, that I need to ensure that we do, to make sure our buildings remain safe and we can get our babies back.

Is part of that effort a consideration about making the vaccine a requirement for staff and teachers?

At this moment, we're not making it a requirement, but we are encouraging [staff and teachers to get vaccinated], and we're going to really work with the city to provide access for students and families and teachers, as we've done over the last couple of months. And so right now, we're pushing and encouraging our staff to get vaccinated. ...

But I mean, wouldn't that help if you had 100%? I mean, children are required to show proof of of immunizations of vaccines to go to school. Why not maintain the same line for teachers and staff?

... I would say this, that we are not in a place where we want to, at this moment, mandate the vaccine. We want to continue to encourage. We all know that folks have had concerns about vaccines, and we want to continue to encourage that vaccines are safe and they are effective. I've been vaccinated along with the 70,000 DOE employees that have been vaccinated. And so we're not, at the moment where we are going to require it.

Have you heard from families who've come to rely on being able to have their kids, their teenagers, working while in school? There's evidence that those with that kind of economic need are those who want to continue with remote learning or some kind of hybrid.

I can tell you that I haven't heard that from families, that they want to they want remote learning so that their teenagers can continue to work. But I know, that that may be a reality for some families. And one of the things that we're doing this summer is increasing access to summer youth employment, increasing access to our learning-to-work programs for our young people, because we know how important it is for some young people to work. But it is equally, if not more important, that they maintain learning and have a connection to a strong and sound education, and we'll continue to do that through learning to work throughout the school year.

What about those students who have found that remote learning just works better for them? I mean, whether they are kids who have struggled socially in school environments, who have been bullied or kids with learning challenges who appreciate just being able to focus away from other students in the classroom. Are there any plans to come up with ways to better address their needs in the future?

So what we're looking forward to is leveraging what we've learned from remote learning as an innovation in our system as we move forward in return. And I think that's what's going to be important for us.

Do you know what that innovation is going to look like?

It's going to look like access to courses across schools and districts, breaking down district lines and walls, high-level courses, enrichment opportunities. You know, remote learning has expanded the universe of what schools should look like.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

; Credit: /Rob Dobi for NPR

When someone applies to college, there's often a box or a section on the application that asks if they have any relatives who attended the university —perhaps a parent or a cousin. This is called "legacy," and for decades it's given U.S. college applicants a leg up in admissions. But no longer in Colorado's public colleges.

On Tuesday, Colorado became the first state to do away with that admissions boost, when Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a ban on the practice into law. The governor also signed a bill that removes a requirement that public colleges consider SAT or ACT scores for freshmen, though the new law still allows students to submit test scores if they wish.

Both moves are aimed at making higher education access more equitable. According to the legislation, 67% of middle- to high-income students in Colorado enroll in bachelor's degree programs straight from high school, while only 47% of low-incomes students do. There are also major differences when it comes to race, with white students far more likely to enroll in college.

Legacy admissions have long been a target for reform. In a 2018 survey of admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed, 42% of private institutions and 6% of public institutions said they consider legacy status as a factor in admissions. Some of the nation's largest public universities do not consider legacy, including both the University of California and the California State University systems. However, private colleges in California have reported using legacy as a way to encourage philanthropic giving and donations.

During the pandemic, many colleges backed off on using SAT and ACT scores in admissions. Research has shown — and lawsuits have argued -- that the tests, long used to measure aptitude for college, are far more connected to family income and don't provide meaningful information about a student's ability to succeed in college. Wealthier families are also more likely to pay for test prep courses, or attend schools with curriculums that focus on the exams.

As pandemic restrictions loosen up, and in-person testing resumes, some universities have begun to re-incorporate the SAT and ACT into their admissions. But others have made the temporary changes permanent. This spring, the University of California system agreed to continue a test-free admissions policy through 2025. California sends the largest number of high school students to U.S. colleges, and if the UC system no longer uses the tests, its unclear whether those students will be interested in applying to other schools that do require them.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Students work on a classroom exercise at a school in Kibera, a poor neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya.; Credit: Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images

You'd think the best way to get girls to succeed in school would to be design programs specifically for them — offer them mental health support or free menstrual pads.

But a new study, published in May in the journal World Bank Economic Review, begs to differ. Researchers David Evans and Fei Yuan reviewed 267 studies of education programs from 54 low- and middle-income countries to find the most effective ways to get more girls in school and improve their learning. Globally, more than 130 million girls remain out of school, according to the World Bank, due to poverty, child marriage and violence.

Instead of only examining girls' education programs, they looked at all kinds of programs. To measure access, they analyzed enrollment rates, attendance, drop-out, graduation and completion rates, and to measure performance, they looked at test scores.

Their biggest finding is that gender-neutral programs — such as handing out cash aid to families of school-aged children — can be just as effective at improving girls' education as programs designed just for girls.

The study is among the first to look both at ways to boost girls' access to school as well as their classroom performance, says Markus Goldstein, lead economist at the World Bank's Africa Gender Innovation Lab, who did not work on the report.

We spoke with Evans, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, and Yuan, a doctoral candidate in education policy and program evaluation at Harvard University, to discuss the best ways to boost education for girls in low- and middle-income countries. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What inspired you to conduct this study?

Evans: A lot of the previous work that examined this issue have focused on programs targeted to needs that are unique to girls, such as menstrual health. Those are worthy interventions, but if we only focus on programs that target girls, we might miss programs that benefit girls a lot but happen to help boys as well.

That's why we decided to look at all of the interventions we know of to identify the ones that are most effective at improving outcomes for girls, regardless of whether they're specifically for girls or not.

You found that the most effective programs for getting more girls into school cut the cost of education for students, regardless of gender, and their families. What are some examples of programs that worked well?

Evans: A lot of the most effective programs are ones that either eliminate school fees, provide scholarships or provide families a cash transfer to cover the other costs of having their daughter in school.

For example, in Ghana, lots of girls and boys pass their secondary school entrance exam, but they don't have the money to pay school fees. So, a program there provided scholarships to students who had already passed the entrance exam. It dramatically increased the high-school graduation rate of girls by 66%.

But the most effective interventions are those that address costs related to specific obstacles that girls face in a particular setting. In Afghanistan, for example, a [non-gendered] program built schools in rural communities. It decreased [the cost of] travel to school for both girls and boys and led to a more than 50% increase in girls' participation in primary school. That's dramatic.

Which programs were the most helpful for improving a girl's school performance, as opposed to just getting them into the classroom?

Evans: The most effective interventions to increase learning were programs that improved the quality of teaching. But it's not just throwing teachers into a conference room and giving them some lecture. It's also not about throwing fancy technology, like laptops or tablets, at classrooms. Hardware doesn't work. It's distracting for teachers and students.

Instead, a literacy program – which included coaching teachers, providing them with detailed teachers' guides and providing students with books – had a big impact on girls' education [in terms of test scores] in Kenya. So did another program in Kenya that helped teachers to teach children in a language they spoke at home (rather than English).

Were there any other types of programs that helped girls learn better in the classroom?

Yuan: Another intervention worth mentioning is called Teaching at the Right Level, based in India. The idea is that students in the same classroom may have many different reading levels. But because of constraints like large class sizes, teachers may not be able to tailor their teaching to the right level for every student. This leaves some students behind.

Teaching at the Right Level facilitated summer camps in which children were grouped by reading level, instead of age or grade. This allowed teachers to target their teaching to the specific levels of these students. In one region, after 50 days of focused teaching in these camps, children at the lowest achievement levels in India were able to catch up to the learning level of the third-highest achieving state in the country.

Many of the high-impact interventions you're referencing don't target girls specifically. Are you saying that girls' programs aren't necessary?

Evans: Not at all! We particularly focused on how to increase access to education and improve quality of learning. Some [girl-focused] programs have other goals – such as reducing violence against girls, improving girls' psychological and emotional wellbeing, reducing adolescent pregnancy or helping girls to transition from school to the workforce.

But when teaching is of bad quality, we just need to help schools improve the teaching. That's not necessarily a gender-specific problem.

Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to just offer scholarships or cash transfers to girls only instead of both genders, especially if far fewer girls are attending school than boys?

Evans: Sure, if you don't have the budget to waive school fees for everyone, eliminating school fees for girls is an effective way to do a girl-targeted program. That's what The Gambia did. But sometimes general, non-targeted interventions are more politically palatable for governments, since constituents have both daughters and sons.

Were you concerned that some of the gender-neutral programs might benefit boys more than girls?

Evans: That was something we were worried about – increasing inequality. But we found that overall, the impact of gender-neutral programs tends to be slightly larger on girls than boys both in terms of access and learning. These differences, for the most part, were not statistically significant. They were small. But it does mean that these general, non-targeted interventions are not increasing inequality between boys and girls. If anything, they're likely to decrease it.

What changes do you hope to see in how we work on girls' education around the world?

Evans: We want to make sure that people who care about girls' education draw on the full toolbox of programs that can improve girls' education. That includes girl-targeted programs. It also includes general programs.

We don't anyone to walk away from this and say, 'Oh, we don't need to worry about girls.' Instead, it means that if we are worried about girls, we have a broader array of tools to help them.

Joanne Lu is a freelance journalist who covers global poverty and inequity. Her work has appeared in Humanosphere, The Guardian, Global Washington and War is Boring. Follow her on Twitter: @joannelu

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd.; Credit: /Court TV via AP

A Minnesota judge sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to 22 1/2 years in prison Friday for the murder of George Floyd.

Judge Peter Cahill wrote that part of the mission of the Minneapolis Police Department is to give citizens "voice and respect."

"Mr. Chauvin, rather than pursuing the MPD mission, treated Mr. Floyd without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings and which he certainly would have extended to a friend or neighbor. In the Court's view, 270 months, which amounts to an additional ten years over the presumptive 150-month sentence, is the appropriate sentence."

Read Cahill's entire sentencing order and memoradum for Chauvin below.

Chauvin, 45, was convicted in April of all three charges he faced — second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

He was sentenced only on the first of the charges, the most serious, as is typical in Minnesota.

Cahill said Chauvin's crime included four aggravating factors: that Derek Chauvin abused a position of trust and authority as a police officer, that he treated Floyd with "particular cruelty," that he committed the crime as part of a group with at least three other people, and that children were present during the commission of the offense.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A scientifically accurate and valid epidemiologic study of reproductive problems among the families of veterans exposed to radiation from atomic bombings and nuclear weapons tests is not feasible, concluded an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee in a new report.

While confirming that the science behind DNA forensics is valid, a new report from a committee of the National Research Council recommends new ways of interpreting DNA evidence to help answer a key question for jurors -- how likely it is that two matching samples came from different people.

Bacteria that resist antibiotics can be passed from food animals to humans, but not enough is known to determine the public health risks posed by such transmission, says a new report by a committee of the National Research Council.

Good morning and welcome. There has been unprecedented interest in recent years about whether marijuana or its constituent compounds should be used as medicine. Since 1996, voters in seven states have approved the medical use of marijuana.

Incineration is widely used in the United States to reduce the volume of waste. Hundreds of incinerators -- including industrial kilns, boilers, and furnaces -- combust municipal and hazardous waste, while many more are used to burn medical waste.

Insufficient evidence exists to support claims that taking megadoses of dietary antioxidants, such as selenium and vitamins C and E, or carotenoids, including beta-carotene, can prevent chronic diseases, says the latest report on Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

By expending too many resources to inspect cleaner low-emitting vehicles, coupled with a lack of effective ways to deal with the dirtiest ones, states are missing opportunities to reduce air pollution.

No single approach -- technical, legal, economic, or educational -- will be sufficient to protect children from online pornography.

To meet the bodys daily energy and nutritional needs while minimizing risk for chronic disease, adults should get 45 percent to 65 percent of their calories from carbohydrates, 20 percent to 35 percent from fat, and 10 percent to 35 percent from protein.

The evidence does not support a causal link between sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and either the diphtheria, tetanus, and whole-cell pertussis (DTwP) vaccine or exposure to multiple childhood vaccines, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

Good morning. I am Richard Bonnie, chair of the Committee on Developing a Strategy to Reduce and Prevent Underage Drinking.

The vast majority of healthy people adequately meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide, says the newest report on nutrient recommendations from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

The role of guns in U.S. society is a subject of intense policy debate and disagreement.

Use of protective face coverings will be one of many strategies used to slow or prevent transmission of the flu virus in the event of a pandemic, even though scientific evidence about the effectiveness of inexpensive, disposable medical masks and respirators against influenza is limited.

Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

A limited body of evidence suggests an association between military service and later development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a rare but fatal neurodegenerative disorder, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.

A new report from the Institute of Medicine finds suggestive but limited evidence that exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War is associated with an increased chance of developing high blood pressure in some veterans.

While every mode of transportation in the U.S. will be affected as the climate changes, potentially the greatest impact on transportation systems will be flooding of roads, railways, transit systems, and airport runways in coastal areas because of rising sea levels and surges brought on by more intense storms, says a new report from the National Research Council.

A congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council finds serious deficiencies in the nations forensic science system and calls for major reforms and new research.

A new report from the Institute of Medicine finds suggestive but limited evidence that exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War is associated with an increased chance of developing ischemic heart disease and Parkinsons disease for Vietnam veterans.

Nurses roles, responsibilities, and education should change significantly to meet the increased demand for care that will be created by health care reform and to advance improvements in Americas increasingly complex health system, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.

The numerous technical and operational breakdowns that contributed to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and spill from the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico suggest the lack of a suitable approach for managing the inherent risks.

Despite being used for several decades, test-based incentives have not consistently generated positive effects on student achievement, says a new report from the National Research Council.

Insufficient data on service members exposures to emissions from open-air burn pits for trash on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan is one of the reasons why it is not possible to say whether these emissions could cause long-term health effects, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.

A new data network that integrates emerging research on the molecular makeup of diseases with clinical data on individual patients could drive the development of a more accurate classification of disease and ultimately enhance diagnosis and treatment, says a new report from the National Research Council.

Increasing the minimum age of legal access (MLA) to tobacco products will prevent or delay initiation of tobacco use by adolescents and young adults, particularly those ages 15 to 17, and improve the health of Americans across the lifespan, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.

Americas progress in arresting its obesity epidemic has been too slow, and the condition continues to erode productivity and cause millions to suffer from potentially debilitating and deadly chronic illnesses.

Hydraulic fracturing has a low risk for inducing earthquakes that can be felt by people, but underground injection of wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing and other energy technologies has a higher risk of causing such earthquakes, says a new report from the National Research Council.

The U.S. electric power delivery system is vulnerable to terrorist attacks that could cause much more damage to the system than natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, blacking out large regions of the country for weeks or months and costing many billions of dollars, says a newly released report by the National Research Council.

On average, Americans die sooner and experience higher rates of disease and injury than people in other high-income countries, says a new report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.

President Barack Obama reiterated his strong support for science and technology today in a speech to members of the National Academy of Sciences at its 150th annual meeting.

A new report from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council proposes priorities for a research agenda to improve understanding of the public health aspects of gun-related violence, including its causes, health burden, and possible interventions.

Current federal tax provisions have minimal net effect on greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report from the National Research Council.

Rates of physical and sexual abuse of children have declined over the last 20 years, but for reasons not fully understood, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. Yet, reports of psychological and emotional child abuse have risen in the same period, and data vary significantly as to whether child neglect is increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant.

Young athletes in the U.S. face a culture of resistance to reporting when they might have a concussion and to complying with treatment plans.