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Articles by Bekah McNeel

Bekah McNeel is a correspondent at The 74, covering the impact of the pandemic on America's education system.

Video: How Rapper Darryl “DMC” McDaniels Is Helping Kids Grow By Embracing Their Emotions

Bekah McNeel

Uvalde Hero: Amid the Chaos at Robb Elementary, the Bus Driver Who Saved Lives

Bekah McNeel

For A Small Rural Texas Town, the Solution to a Teacher Shortage Is a Motel

Bekah McNeel

Trauma Counselors Across Texas Travel to Uvalde

Bekah McNeel

Amid Spike in Teen Drinking During Pandemic, Schools Turn to Alateen For Help

Bekah McNeel

Remembering How to Be Friends: Amid COVID Isolation, One School Is Using Talking Circles to Help Kids Reconnect

Bekah McNeel

Uvalde’s Robb Elementary: Before Tragedy, a Legacy in Advancing Equal Education

Bekah McNeel

A Reporter’s Burden and a Parent’s Anxiety: The Grief of Uvalde

Bekah McNeel

A Cry for Help from Teen Boys in Austin is Answered

Bekah McNeel

The Band Teacher Who Kept His School Community Connected Through COVID’s Chaos

Bekah McNeel

San Antonio’s New Superintendent Leads With Empathy

Bekah McNeel

Texas Doubles Down on School Reform: Key District Taps NYC, LA Vet as New Chief

Bekah McNeel

Multiple Skills Needed to Close Pandemic Gaps

Bekah McNeel

Texas Teens Say Book Bans Are Pointless

Bekah McNeel

What’s Next for San Antonio ISD?

Bekah McNeel

Texas Science Museums Create COVID-safe STEM Experiences

Bekah McNeel

Houston Space Programs Keeping STEM Dreams Alive

Bekah McNeel

Second Graders’ Art Work Illuminates Their Biggest Pandemic Challenges

Bekah McNeel

Mental Health Hubs Take on Second Pandemic

Bekah McNeel

Educators Prepare for “Second Pandemic” with Mental Health First Aid

Bekah McNeel

For Maryland’s New Schools Chief Choudhury, State Anti-Poverty ‘Blueprint’ Draws on Deep Expertise Identifying, Aiding Low-Income Students in Texas

Bekah McNeel

Latest Front in the Reading Wars Plays Out During Pandemic in Texas

Bekah McNeel

San Antonio Ed. Innovator Mohammed Choudhury Named Maryland Schools Supe

Bekah McNeel

Texas to Pay Teachers $100,000 to Fight COVID Learning Loss in Hard Hit Schools

Bekah McNeel

Reinventing School Discipline in Texas: Dallas to End Most Student Suspensions

Bekah McNeel

Texas Mom Mobilizes on Masks

Bekah McNeel

One Texas Town, Two School Districts, Clashing Mask Policies: How Science and Politics Collided in New Braunfels’ Classrooms

Bekah McNeel

Texas Teachers Go Door to Door as Kids Disappear From Remote Classes

Bekah McNeel

200 Schools, Universal Weekly COVID Screening: How ‘Assurance Testing’ Has Kept Thousands of Texas Students in Classrooms

Bekah McNeel

How Texas Teachers Are Prioritizing Basic Skills as Instruction Time Gets Crunched During the Pandemic

Bekah McNeel

One Year Ago, 90% of San Antonio’s 4-Year-Olds Were Enrolled in School: Now, an Ambitious Texas Early Ed Program is Crumbling Under the Weight of the Pandemic

Bekah McNeel

Teaching the ‘Roomers’ and the ‘Zoomers:’ No Small Task for Elementary School Teachers

Bekah McNeel

Hunger Pains: Keeping Kids Fed During the Pandemic Stretches the Limits of Bureaucracy

Bekah McNeel

To Bring Back Struggling Students, Districts Campaign to Convince Parents Schools are Safe

Bekah McNeel

PreK 4 SA, San Antonio’s Popular City-Run Pre-K Program, Wins Another 8 Years

Bekah McNeel

Any Which Way You Fund It, Pre-K Scores Four Big Wins For 4-Year-Olds Across U.S.

Bekah McNeel

Educators Wanted Vulnerable Students To Return First for In-Person Learning, But a Racial Divide Spoiled Their Plans

Bekah McNeel

To Fight COVID-19, Some San Antonio Schools Are Relying On Private Funds to Step Up Contact Tracing and Assurance Testing

Bekah McNeel

San Antonio Teen Leads Campaign for More Time Off to Vote Safely During Pandemic

Bekah McNeel

The Kids Are All Right at Home: Texas, North Carolina, Nebraska Seeing Signs of a Pandemic Homeschooling Boom

Bekah McNeel

Helping Students With Remote Learning — By Also Aiding Their Parents With Wraparound Services: How One Texas Community Center Is Helping Families Facing Impossible Choices

Bekah McNeel

A Tiny School in Texas With a Cautionary COVID-19 Tale: Teachers, Epidemiologists Say San Antonio Campuses Need More Aggressive Plan to Prevent Virus Outbreaks

Bekah McNeel

From I.T. Guy to MVP: The Pandemic Thrusts San Antonio ISD’s Ken Thompson Into the Center of the Action

Bekah McNeel

Without a Green Light From Texas State Officials, Superintendents Move Ahead to Safely Open Schools for Kids Who Need Them Most

Bekah McNeel

Drive-Thru Meet-the-Teacher, Netflix Intermissions and Lots of Troubleshooting Emails: What the First Day of (Remote) School Looked Like in One Texas District

Bekah McNeel

Texas School Advocates Launch Campaign Urging Parents to Keep Kids in Public School, Legislators to Protect Funding During the Pandemic

Bekah McNeel

These Three Principals Are Opening New Schools This Fall. If That Sounds Challenging, You’re Right

Bekah McNeel

The Pandemic Is Breaking the Bonds Between Texas Families and Their Beloved Public Schools: Why Some Are Stepping Off the Reopening Roller Coaster and Unenrolling

Bekah McNeel

Tiny Cities Run by Children Inside Texas Schools Are Teaching Social-Emotional and Project-Based Learning — Along With How to Pay Your Taxes

Bekah McNeel

Immigrant Educators Helping Immigrant Students Through Coronavirus: Maria Rocha, One of 2,000 Texas Teachers Covered by DACA, Is Turning Her Anxiety Into Advocacy

Bekah McNeel

San Antonio Superintendents Had a Plan to Safely Open Schools to Kids Who Needed Them Most. The Governor Had Other Ideas

Bekah McNeel

Lessons From a Global Reckoning: With Coronavirus and a Racial Justice Movement Raging in Texas, Educators Say State’s Curriculum Needs Overhaul

Bekah McNeel

Closing San Antonio’s Digital Divide: In the City’s Poorest and Most Segregated Neighborhoods, Public School Students to Get In-Home Internet

Bekah McNeel

For the Corona Family, Normal Life Faded Away as COVID-19 Wiped Out Jobs, School and Other Daily Routines They Relied On

Bekah McNeel

Texas Districts Were Rolling Out Big Pre-K Expansion Plans When COVID-19 Hit. Will That Momentum Be Enough to Save Them?

Bekah McNeel

To Reconnect Black Kids and Teens to the Great Outdoors, San Antonio’s Alex Bailey Is Teaching Skills — and Confronting Structural Racism

Bekah McNeel

Texas’s Missing Students: Weeks After Closures, Schools in San Antonio Still Couldn’t Locate Thousands of Kids. How One Band Director Finally Tracked Down His Musicians

Bekah McNeel

College Counseling in the Time of Coronavirus: With Less Pomp and Uncertain Circumstances, San Antonio Seniors Cling to Elusive College Dreams

Bekah McNeel

‘This Is a Revolution’: Student Activists Across the Country Take Their Place — on the Front Lines and Behind the Scenes — in Historic Protests

Taylor Swaak & Bekah McNeel

Texas Teacher Grapples With Family’s COVID-19 Illness and Continuing Students’ Education; ‘Just Trying to Do the Most We Can’

Bekah McNeel

In Texas, School Bus Driver and ‘Daddy’s Girl’ Grieves Father’s Death, Finds Solace Serving Her Students Through Crisis

Bekah McNeel

When COVID-19 and Economic Fallout Put Millions of Kids in Unsafe Places, Communities in Schools Went In After Them

Bekah McNeel

Superintendent of San Antonio’s Largest, Most Diverse District Weighs Reopening Schools First for Students Who Need Them Most

Bekah McNeel

Oral History — 5 School Leaders, 4 Weeks & the Biggest Education Crisis of Their Careers

Bekah McNeel

From Communities in Schools Alumnus to Its New CEO, Rey Saldaña Has a Great Backstory — but That Shouldn’t Mean Other Struggling Students Have To

Bekah McNeel

Latino Superintendents: ‘Going Back to Normal’ Not Their Goal After Coronavirus Crisis

Bekah McNeel

Being Kind Online Takes On New Urgency as Socially Isolated Kids and Teens Find It’s Their Only Destination

Bekah McNeel

74 Interview: NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray on Spreading Social-Emotional Learning to the Nation’s Mayors and What Being Bullied in School Made Her Realize

Bekah McNeel

Educators Using 2019 Diversity Report to Show Districts How They Can Better Support Teachers of Color

Bekah McNeel

The Special Relationship: Parents and Teachers Are Critical Partners in the Work of Social-Emotional Learning

Bekah McNeel

How to Avoid the Ghost of the Common Core in Social-Emotional Learning’s Rollout? Emphasize Local Control and Community Connection, Experts Say

Bekah McNeel

74 Interview: CASEL President on the Importance of Maintaining Quality in Social-Emotional Learning, Paying Attention to the Adults and Work as the Next SEL Frontier

Bekah McNeel

All In on School Climate: New Searchable Database Lets Nevada Parents and Teachers Compare School Culture & Students’ SEL Skills

Bekah McNeel

John King Talks Teacher Diversity, Student Engagement, Budgeting, School Autonomy — and ‘Fauxtonomy’ — at Texas Education Reform Summit

Bekah McNeel

The Mandatory-Expulsion Maze: Giving a Friend an Adderall Derailed an Honor Student’s Academic Career. He’s Not the Only One

Bekah McNeel

More Student Funding, Full-Day Pre-K, Teacher Raises & a Longer School Year — Inside Texas’s $11.6 Billion School Finance Reform Law

Bekah McNeel

4.5 Million Young People Nationwide Are Not Working or in School. How Cities Are Working to Get Them Back on Track — & Avoid the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Bekah McNeel

‘Kids Are Being Arrested, but They Don’t Ask, “Are You OK?”’: San Antonio Students Advocate for Their Own Mental Health, but the Odds Are Against Them

Bekah McNeel

Expanding School Quality & Equity in Milwaukee: Aiming to Address City’s Waitlists, New Education Group Looks to Boost Number of Seats — With a Focus on Who Will Be Sitting in Them

Bekah McNeel

As It Closes In on 20 Years, IDEA Public Schools, Texas’s Homegrown Charter Network, Is Big, Bold and Sticking to the Basics

Bekah McNeel

Texas’s ‘Whole Student Agenda’: How a Former Teacher Is Using His Legislative Seat to Push 24 New Bills Supporting Sex Ed, Mental Health, Restorative Justice & More

Bekah McNeel

With the Governor Issuing Orders and State Lawmakers Filing Bills, Ed Reform Is Firmly on the Florida Legislature’s 2019 Agenda

Bekah McNeel

Schools in Impoverished, Isolated Brownsville, Texas, Are Thriving: Here’s Why

Bekah McNeel

Atlanta Poised to Move Beyond Turnaround Effort, Adopt Improvement Model for All District Schools

Bekah McNeel

Dallas Hits on Successful School Turnaround Model With ACE, but It Comes at a Steep Price. Could a Wider Expansion Across Texas Now Be Its Best Bet to Survive?

Bekah McNeel

How Texas Is ‘Shifting the Power’ to Give Some Schools Greater Autonomy, Leadership & Innovation

Bekah McNeel

The First Word My 4-Year-Old Learned This Summer Was ‘Lynching’: Why I Thought It Was Important to Take My Preschooler to Montgomery

Bekah McNeel

4 KIPP Texas Regional Networks Announce Merger Into Single Statewide Nonprofit to Leverage Growth, Share Expertise

Bekah McNeel

Walton Family Foundation Unveils New $100M Effort to Support School Diversity, Inclusion, and Innovation

Bekah McNeel

As Restorative Justice Debate Rolls On, One Texas School District Sees Value in Building Relationships, Rewarding Positive Behavior

Bekah McNeel