Teen boys rated their female classmates based on looks. The girls fought back

A policy adopted in Eugene’s 4J School District has been creating safe spaces for transgender students from kindergarten through high school. Gender-inclusive programs at the University of Oregon have marked the school as a national leader in LGBTQ acceptance.

A nonprofit organization, the Internationals Network for Public Schools, delivers a first-class education to the children of illegal immigrants, helping to break the cycle of poverty and provide them a path to advance in life.

In a post-war Iraq, a salon has become a gathering place for women to share their stories of trauma, and heal. “The salon is necessary. For women to continue, they need it. Women must have it.”

In a Ohio high school social studies class, U.S. Political Thought and Radicalism, the teacher invites representatives from the country's most extreme political groups, including the National Socialist Movement and the Weather Underground, to teach students how to hold a respectful discussion with others who hold differing perspectives. "Our teachers generally are like, 'You know what? Let's redirect to a different topic, because that one sounds like it's loaded with land mines. The idea of [the class] is let's explore all those land mines and talk about them."

In several small rural towns in Texas, mental health professionals from Texas Tech are offering telemedicine counseling to make up for a lack of counselors available in local middle and high schools. The Governor's office has now asked the successful school districts to develop a training program for teachers in other Texas districts in order to scale the model.

At one Boston public school, teachers are updating curricula to provide students with history lessons that contextualize current national debates about immigration policy.

At Capital City Public Charter School, students are graded based not only on academic skills but also social and emotional skills. The Washington D.C. school has a high graduation rate and college enrollment rate.

In the nearly two years since Sweden broadened the definition of rape offenses to include cases in which a victim fails to signal consent, both the reports of alleged rapes and convictions have risen. During that time, 76 convictions were in cases that previously would not have been classified as rape because they lacked evidence of force, threat, or sex with an incapacitated victim. Rapes still go largely unreported to police and there's still no evidence that the new law will achieve the ultimate goal of reducing the incidence of rape.

Qrate provides menstruation workshops at schools to teach young people about their bodies, good menstruation hygiene, and - importantly - to decrease the stigma, shame, and embarrassment associated with periods. The group presents to both girls and boys in order to address the health of non-binary, transgender, and intersex people who may menstruate, and to engage boys in fighting the stigma. In addition to providing the necessary products, the workshops use fun, child-friendly, lessons. The interactive activities and exercises have been more impactful than simply having someone lecture to students.

At one Texas high school, members of Students Organizing for Anti-Racism (SOAR) facilitate and participate in talking circles to address conflict, provide mental health support, rebuild relationships, and redevelop social skills they lost during the pandemic. The circles draw on Indigenous traditions to offer a safe, structured space for expression that focuses on addressing harm rather than administering punishment.