Kansas’ broadband czar says a new grant initiative will infuse tens of millions of dollars over the next decade into projects working to close the digital divide in underserved areas across Kansas. Stanley Adams, director of the office of broadband development at the Kansas Department of Commerce, said the Broadband Acceleration Grant Program will provide $85 million over the next decade to qualifying areas with low connectivity. “What we know for sure is increasingly, not decreasingly, we all need to have access to these services,” Adams said. “We knew that before the pandemic. Now, a lot more people know, and there is a glaring bright light on it, so it’s an opportunity for us to seize.”
Source: Kansas Reflector

The Kansas Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday to offer up to 20 hours of additional professional development time for public school educators working through the COVID-19 pandemic and voted to reject a proposal allowing local school boards to align K-12 spring break with university and colleges calendars. Randy Watson, state commissioner of education, said superintendents, teachers, paraprofessionals and instructional aides would welcome more time for instructional collaboration from Dec. 1 to April 30. He said the state Board of Education pressed districts to burn through allotted professional development hours last summer to prepare for the 2020-21 academic year. Most districts in Kansas complied with the suggestion, he said. Without a change in state policy, he said, the teachers wouldn’t have benefit of opportunities to work together this winter on refining instructional approaches.
Source: Kansas Reflector