Radio 101

For many teachers and students, the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year was a surreal moment.

For M, and every other trans student, the daily roll call at the beginning of the class can feel like a punch in the gut.

With music venues closed due to COVID-19, teenage bands everywhere found themselves trying to figure out what this new normal would look like for them.

As a parent, this would be a nightmare scenario. Your child starts to get sick.

You wake up, grab some breakfast, get to that first-period class, onto the second period, then third, fourth, some after-school activities, homework, and then you rinse and repeat.

“March 13th for me started as just another normal day of school...”

The concept of mortality can be hard to grasp for children, especially young ones. On this Radio 101 story, student Samuel Woo explores how to move on with his life after a major loss rocks his world.

Our special Radio 101 series, "School, Interrupted," brings you stories about what gets in the way of a good learning environment. We finish the series addressing one of the biggest issues schools face everywhere: racial inequality.

Talking about sexual assault at schools is uncomfortable. It can be much more so for teenagers. However, not talking about it, doesn’t make it go away. Just in 2018, there were 70 incidents reported in North Carolina alone.

On the third episode of our Radio 101 series, School, Interrupted, youth reporters Leah Fisher, Ian Doss and Trey Shore look into the culture that allows acts of sexual misconduct to go unchecked in our schools.

Every year when school starts, students are given a copy of the parent and student handbook. This is a set of rules and guidelines aimed at creating a positive learning environment. It includes things like: what happens if you are caught smoking on school property, or if you violate the dress code, or if you are disrespectful to a teacher. But school administrators have a lot of leeway interpreting those rules and deciding on the appropriate punishment for any given violation. 

On this second installment of our Radio 101 series, School, Interrupted, we delve into one of the most common, and yet very obscure disciplinary actions used: in-school suspension. It started as a promising alternative to students missing class time. But as youth reporters Alana Eddleman and James Barnwell find out, it has quickly become an ineffective way to deal with behavioral issues.

Schools are safer now than they’ve been at any point in the past decade. That’s according to the latest data from U.S. Department of Education. 

Schools across the nation have tighter reins on who has access to the classroom. More security cameras, school resource officers, and active shooter drills are also ways to keep students safe. However, the question remains: Is it enough? To answer this we went to the source. During the next couple of weeks, we’ll bring you stories produced by our Radio 101 students about what gets in the way of a good learning environment.

Students and parents came together last week to talk about whether young people feel safe at school during a WFDD town hall focused on teen voices.