The "PCS Family Engagement Mobile App" is a new tool for parents and families of Pinellas County Schools students that includes a link for every school, parent information on academic standards, student scholarships and ways to get involved in your child's education. 

    Parents can also send messages to teachers and school officials, add events to your phones calender, link to videos on how to help students be successful in school and learn of upcoming events.

    It is a free download for Apple and Android devices and can be found in your device's application library.

     Republican State Senator Jeff Brandes (St. Petersburg) has filed SB528, the Florida Medical Marijuana Act. This bill includes some important revisions which are designed to close the loopholes that many feel are responsible for last years bill being voted down in the mid term election. Some of these revisions are:

    Research going back to the 1990's has determined that adolescents later sleep and wake habits is biologically determined. A recent poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that 60% of adolescents are sleep deprived. Typical high school start times conflicts with the natural cycles of adolescent sleep. Studies show that adjusting high school start times to 8:30 or later has positive changes such as...

The College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is about to undergo a significant revision which will be introduced in 2016.The most significant of these changes are:
 - a perfect score moved from 2400 back to 1600 (as it was before 2005 when it was changed to 2400).
 - test takers will no longer be penalized for incorrect answers.
 - the test will include three sections: evidenced based reading, writing and math.
 - the essay is now optional.

Below is a short video on how social networking may be contributing to loneliness and deterioration of intimacy.

Some highlights of the report include:
 
 - Alcohol use among 8th, 10th and 12th graders is at an all time low.
 - Marijuana use has increased among 8th and 10th graders and held steady among 12th             graders at an all time high.
 - Cigarette use continues to decline in all age groups and more young people smoke pot               than tobacco.
 - Among 12th graders, 46% report lifetime use, 36% report past year use, 23% report past         month use and 7% report daily use.
 - There is a general decline in use across drug type categories and age groups save for                 marijuana.
 - The perceived risk of marijuana use among our youth continues to decline.

For all of the report data, please visit:
 - www.drugabuse.org -

Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., a neurologist at the University of Rochester, has just published a study on a new understanding of the importance of sleep for brain functioning. She has learned that during sleep, the amount of space in between brain cells increases by 60% allowing for spinal fluid to more easily pass between these cells and wash away toxins accumulated during awake time. One of the waste products of the brain is the protein amyloid-beta, which accumulates and forms plaques in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis had previously shown that levels of amyloid-beta in mice brains dropped during sleep because of a decrease in production of the protein.

Asperger Syndrome (AS) was first observed by Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger in 1944. He described several children who lacked nonverbal communication skills, failed to demonstrate empathy with their peers, and were physically awkward.  Their speech was either disjointed or overly formal, and their all-absorbing interest in a single topic dominated their conversations. He labelled these patterns as "autistic psychopathy" and his writings gathered little attention until 1981 when English doctor Lorna Wing published similar case studies and credited Dr. Asperger by using his name to describe the syndrome. AS became an official diagnosis in 1992 with the World Health Organization listing it in their official manual (ICD-10). The official diagnostic manual of the psychological field (DSM) first recognized AS in 1994.

University of Pittsburgh psychologist Ming-Ye Wang examined the effects of verbal abuse on adolescents. His results conclude that, rather than minimizing problematic behavior in adolescents, the use of harsh verbal discipline may in fact aggravate it. The researchers found that adolescents who had experienced harsh verbal discipline suffered from increased levels of depressive symptoms, and were more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems such as vandalism or antisocial and aggressive behavior. Perhaps most surprising, Wang and Kenny found that the negative effects of verbal discipline within the two-year period of their study were comparable to the effects shown over the same period of time in other studies that focused on physical discipline.