Last week my StuyCS family community had a discussion about Zohran Mamdani's plans for gifted education. For people outside of New York, Mamdani is the Democratic candidate for mayor and there was a recent article outlining his plans or rather, his positions on gifted ed - always a hot button topic for Stuy alums. It also turns out to be a hot button topic in education in general in New York.

I saw this release from NYSED the other day. New York State wants to create a standard set of policies and procedures for schools implementing Dual Credit programs. A Dual Credit class is a college class taken by high school students. The high school offering the class does so in partnership with some college or university. A student who passes the class receives both high school and college credit. They in fact, get a transcript from the partner college with the course or courses they've taken.

I listened to the latest episode of Kristen Stephen-Martinez's CS Ed Podcast. The episode focused on Professor Emeritus, William G. Griswold, of UCSD's practice of requiring students meet with him outside of class early during the semester. These meetings weren't about class material but rather to foster a better connection and to increase student engagement. Good episode. Take a listen. The class in question was an upper division software engineering class - mostly majors but a significant percent of non-majors.