Miami Herald

For the second year in a row, the Miami-Dade school district will need to raid its rainy-day fund to close the year in the black, Superintendent Rudy Crew said Wednesday.

After hearing from dozens of school-district employees, parents, and members of the community, the Miami-Dade School Board prepared to take up Superintendent Rudy Crew's proposal to eliminate hundreds of positions late Wednesday.

The Florida Center for the Literary Arts, a Miami Dade College-based program to promote literacy, has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to help launch a national reading program and cultural diplomacy effort called, ``The Big Read Egypt/U.S.''

Weeks after the Miami-Dade School Board defeated a proposal to eliminate hundreds of jobs, Superintendent Rudy Crew on Thursday proposed even more dramatic job cuts to save $62 million.

The Miami-Dade school district has eliminated 800 teaching positions over the past two weeks, district officials said Monday. The teachers who held those jobs will likely be rehired to fill positions opened by attrition at other schools. But the reassignments could sharply reduce the number of new hires.

A top Miami-Dade schools administrator has been named superintendent of Memphis City Schools. Kriner Cash, the Miami-Dade district's chief of accountability and systemwide performance, accepted the Tennessee post late Tuesday.

Most students in Miami-Dade, Broward and statewide improved in reading and math on the state's benchmark test this year, according to scores released Tuesday by the state Department of Education.

The Miami-Dade school district has eliminated 800 teaching positions over the past two weeks, district officials said Monday. The teachers who held those jobs will likely be rehired to fill positions opened by attrition at other schools. But the reassignments could sharply reduce the number of new hires.

Change lunch menus. Trim spending on technology. Consolidate principals at underenrolled schools. Those ideas were among scores of money-saving measures suggested Monday at a Miami-Dade County School Board workshop.

Hundreds of thousands of South Florida school children ended another year of school Thursday, and except for those with special academic challenges, school doors won't reopen again until late August.

If there is a bright side to South Florida's gloomy housing market, this might be it: Nora Janvier, a schoolteacher with two kids, can finally afford a decent place of her own to live. That's in no small part because of help -- and a $25,000 loan on very attractive no-interest, no-pay terms

The young men and women clutched their golden keys, a gift for a future spouse. 'By God's grace I hereby lock my heart, my body, my desires, my love for you with this Treasure Key, and I promise to remain sexually pure and to abstain from all forms of sexually immoral behaviors . . . until the day we say `I do,' '' the 60 young women and 24 young men recited.

Students in Miami-Dade, Broward and statewide outperformed the national median on reading and math tests administered nationwide, according to data released Tuesday by the state Department of Education.

Elana Militzok started the school year at Oakland Park Elementary with a bare kindergarten classroom -- and a secret weapon to fill it.

In an early-morning vote Thursday, Miami-Dade School Board members narrowly rejected a proposal to cut the salaries of the district's top administrators.