WASHINGTON — At first, the bar association for immigration attorneys began receiving inquiries from a couple students a day. These were foreigners studying in the U.S., and they’d discovered in early April their legal status had been terminated with little notice. To their knowledge, none of the students had committed a deportable offense.

In recent days, the calls have begun flooding in. Hundreds of students have been calling to say they have lost legal status, seeking advice on what to do next.

“We thought it was going to be something that was unusual,” said Matthew Maiona, a Boston-based immigration attorney who is getting about six calls a day from panicked international students. “But it seems now like it’s coming pretty fast and furious.”

The speed and scope of the federal government’s efforts to terminate the legal status of international students have stunned colleges across the country. Few corners of higher education have been untouched, as schools ranging from prestigious private universities, large public research institutions and tiny liberal arts colleges discover status terminations one after another among their students.

At least 600 students at more than 90 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press review of university statements and correspondence with school officials. Advocacy groups collecting reports from colleges say hundreds more students could be caught up in the crackdown.

Around 1.1 million international students were in the United States last year — a source of essential revenue for tuition-driven colleges. International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, and their ability to pay tuition often factors into whether they will be admitted to American schools. Often, they pay full price.

Many of the students losing their legal status are from India and China, which together account for more than half the international students at American colleges. But the terminations have not been limited to those from any one part of the world, lawyers said.

Four students from two Michigan universities are suing Trump administration officials after their F-1 student status was terminated last week. Their attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, Ramis Wadood, said the students never received a clear reason why.

“We don’t know, and that’s the scary part,” he said.

The students were informed of the terminations by their universities via email, which came as a shock, Wadood said. The reason given was that there was a “criminal records check and/or that their visa was revoked,” Wadood said, but none of them were charged or convicted of crimes. Some had either speeding or parking tickets, but one didn’t have any, he said. Only one of the students had known their entry visa was revoked, Wadood said.

Students have filed similar lawsuits in several other states, arguing they were denied due process.

In New Hampshire, a federal judge last week granted a temporary restraining order to restore the status of a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth College, Xiaotian Liu, while he challenges the revocation of his visa.

At many colleges, officials learned the legal immigration status of some international students had been terminated when staff checked a database managed by the Department of Homeland Security. In the past, college officials say, legal statuses typically were updated after colleges told the government the students were no longer studying at the school.

The system to track enrollment and movements of international students came under the control of Immigration and Customs Enforcement after 9/11, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators. She said recent developments have left students fearful of how quickly they can be on the wrong side of enforcement.

“You don’t need more than a small number to create fear,” Aw said. “There’s no clarity of what are the reasons and how far the reach of this is.”

Her group says as many as 1,300 students have lost visas or had their status terminated, based on reports from colleges.

The Department of Homeland Security and State Department did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Foreigners who are subject to removal proceedings are usually sent a notice to appear in immigration court on a certain date, but lawyers say affected students have not received any notices, leaving them unsure of next steps to take.

Some schools have told students to leave the country to avoid the risk of being detained or deported. But some students have appealed the terminations and stayed in the United States while those are processed.

Still others caught in legal limbo aren’t students at all. They had remained in the U.S. post-graduation on “optional practical training,” a one-year period — or up to three for science and technology graduates — that allows employment in the U.S. after completing an academic degree. During that time, a graduate works in their field and waits to receive their H-1B or other employment visas if they wish to keep working in the U.S.

Around 242,000 foreigners in the U.S. are employed through this “optional practical training.” About 500,000 are pursuing graduate degrees, and another 342,000 are undergraduate students.

Among the students who have filed lawsuits is a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student who is supposed to graduate on May 5, with a job offer to join the faculty. His attorney Charles Kuck said the student was likely targeted for termination because of an unpaid traffic fine from when the student lent his car to a friend. Ultimately, the violation was dismissed.

“We have case after case after case exactly like that, where there is no underlying crime,” said Kuck, who is representing 17 students in the federal lawsuit. He said his law firm has heard from hundreds of students.

“These are kids who now, under the Trump administration, realize their position is fragile,” he said. “They’ve preyed on a very vulnerable population. These kids aren’t hiding. They’re in school.”

Some international students have been adapting their daily routines.

A Ph.D. student from China at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said she has begun carrying around her passport and immigration paperwork at the advice of the university’s international student office. The student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by authorities, said she has been distressed to see the terminations even for students like her without criminal records.

“That is the most scary part because you don’t know whether you’re going to be the next person,” she said. ___

Seminera reported from Raleigh, N.C., and Keller reported from Albuquerque, N.M.

___

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers are giving up on creating a statewide database to collect information on students who might commit violence, even as they push forward other parts of a school safety bill aimed at preventing a school shooting like the one in September at Apalachee High School.

House and Senate lawmakers unveiled a compromise version of House Bill 268 on Thursday, which then passed the Senate Judiciary committee unanimously. That sets it up for final passage in the closing days of Georgia’s 2025 legislative session.

The push to share information was driven by the belief among many that the Barrow County school system didn’t have a full picture of the warning signs displayed by the 14-year-old accused in the fatal shootings of two students and two teachers. But there was loud opposition from both Democratic and Republican constituencies that the database would create a permanent blacklist with no due process that could treat racial and religious minorities unfairly.

“The reason it wasn’t going to fly was pushback from all points of the political spectrum that worried about their child being stigmatized just for an accusation or an uncorroborated complaint,” said Sen. Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican representing parts of Barrow County.

The compromise version also removed a requirement that all school systems set up formal threat management teams to evaluate whether students may commit violence. That approach is strongly recommended by many national experts, and the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency already offers training. House Education Committee Chairman Chris Erwin, a Republican from Homer, said he was hopeful schools would voluntarily adopt the model.

“I think there is a knowledge out there of the importance of planning and preparing already in schools,” Erwin said. “So having a full model structure for the state isn’t as important as maybe we once thought it was.”

The measure would still require police agencies to report to schools when officers learn that a child has threatened death or injury to someone at a school. But those reports aren’t mandated to become part of a student’s educational record and wouldn’t travel with a student if they transfer to another district.

That raises questions about whether the bill addresses one of the key criticisms that followed the Apalachee shooting. School officials never became aware that a sheriff’s deputy in Jackson County had interviewed Colt Gray in May 2023 after the FBI passed along a tip that Gray might have posted a shooting threat online. That report would have been forwarded to middle school officials in Jackson County under the bill, but wouldn’t have followed Gray when he enrolled as a freshman in nearby Barrow County after skipping eighth grade entirely.

The bill also mandates quicker transfers of records when a student enters a new school, creates at least one new position to help coordinate mental health treatment for students in each of Georgia’s 180 school districts and sets up an anonymous reporting system statewide.

Lawmakers on Thursday added in features of separate Senate bills that had passed. They would mandate that all Georgia public schools provide wearable panic buttons to employees. Public schools would also be required to submit electronic maps of their campuses to local, state and federal agencies once a year.

The amended bill would also make adult prosecution the default when children aged 13 to 16 are charged with terroristic acts at school, any aggravated assault with a gun, or attempted murder. The Senate had originally proposed a broader range of crimes when adult prosecution would be the default. House leaders had said they didn’t want to submit any more juveniles to adult prosecution.

LOS ANGELES — Actor Steve Carell is sending Southern California high school students affected by the devasting wildfires in Los Angeles to the prom for free.

The “Office” actor and comedian said Tuesday in an Instagram video that he was working with the Alice’s Kids charity to pay for prom for seniors at six high schools in Pasadena.

“If you have already paid for your prom tickets, they will reimburse you for your prom tickets. It’s a pretty good deal,” Carell said.

The Los Angeles area fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures and killed at least 29 people in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and Altadena area north of Pasadena. It also scorched school campuses, upending the lives of thousands of students and parents who were left scrambling looking for classrooms for their kids to go to.

Alice’s Kids will donate about $175,000 for more than 800 students to attend the annual right-of-passage dance for graduating students. Tickets typically range from $100 to $150 each.

“Going to prom should be a celebration, and we wanted to help make the big night just a little easier for seniors whose lives have been turned upside down by the wildfires,” Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of Alice’s Kids, said in a statement. “Hopefully this allows the students to unwind and have some fun after a devasting year.”

An Instagram video posted by John Muir High School, one of the recipient schools, show students clapping and cheering as they were surprised with Carell’s announcement during a school assembly.

Another recipient includes Aveson Charter School, whose campus for kindergarten through 5th grade students burned down in the fires and building for sixth through 12th graders is damaged and unusable.

Carell also participated in the star-studded “Skate for LA Strong” hockey tournament last week to raise money for fire relief.

In closing, the actor said: “Have fun, enjoy the prom. And remember, this is Steve Carell.”

WASHINGTON — Schools and colleges across the U.S. face a Friday deadline to end diversity programs or risk having their federal money pulled by the Trump administration, yet few are openly rushing to make changes. Many believe they’re on solid legal ground, and they know it would be all but unprecedented — and extremely time-consuming — for the government to cut off funding.

State officials in Washington and California urged schools not to make changes, saying it doesn’t change federal law and doesn’t require any action. New York City schools have taken the same approach and said district policies and curriculum have not changed.

Leaders of some colleges shrugged the memo off entirely. Antioch University ’s chief said “most of higher education” won’t comply with the memo unless federal law is changed. Western Michigan University’s president told his campus to “please proceed as usual.”

A memo issued Feb. 14 by President Donald Trump’s administration, formally known as a Dear Colleague Letter, gave schools two weeks to halt any practice that treats people differently because of their race.

Opponents say it’s an overreach meant to have a chilling effect. The guidance appears to forbid everything from classroom lessons on racism to colleges’ efforts to recruit in diverse areas, and even voluntary student groups like Black student unions.

Education organizations have been urging a measured approach, warning institutions not to make any hasty cuts that would be difficult to undo. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, is telling colleges that if they were in compliance with federal law before the memo, they still are.

“There’s nothing to act on until we see the administration or its agencies try to stop something,” Mitchell said. “And then we’ll have the argument.”

A loss of federal money would be devastating for schools and colleges, but imposing that penalty would not be quick or simple.

The Education Department office that conducts civil rights investigations had fewer than 600 employees last year — before the Trump administration began cutting staff — while the U.S. has more than 18,000 school districts and 6,000 colleges.

Even when a school or state faces an investigation, it can take years to terminate funding. Under former President Joe Biden, the Education Department tried to pull federal money from Michigan’s education agency after finding it violated the rights of students with disabilities. The investigation began in 2022 and is still tied up in federal court.

“I hope very much that schools charged with providing inclusive, equal education to every student in their school community will stand for that principle,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led the department’s Office for Civil Rights under Biden.

Still, some education leaders say resistance is too risky. At the University of Cincinnati, President Neville G. Pinto said officials are evaluating jobs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and removing DEI references from school websites.

“Given this new landscape, Ohio public and federally supported institutions like ours have little choice but to follow the laws that govern us,” Pinto wrote.

Tony Frank, chancellor of the Colorado State University system, wrote in a campus letter that he weighed taking a stand against the department. But he advised the system’s campuses to comply, saying there’s too much at stake for students and staff. “If we gamble here and are wrong, someone else will pay the price,” he wrote.

In many Republican-led states, education chiefs applauded the memo.

“We never felt it was appropriate to use race in making these types of decisions in the first case, so I do not foresee any interruptions in our day-to-day business,” Alabama’s state superintendent, Eric G. Mackey, said in a statement released by the Trump administration.

The memo said schools have promoted DEI efforts often at the expense of white and Asian American students.

It doesn’t carry the weight of law but explains how the new administration will interpret nondiscrimination laws. It dramatically expands a 2023 Supreme Court decision barring the use of race in college admissions to all aspects of education — including, hiring, promotion, scholarships, housing, graduation ceremonies and campus life.

The guidance is being challenged in court by the American Federation of Teachers, which said the memo violates free speech laws.

While some schools are keeping quiet out of fear of being targeted, many leaders also are still struggling to grasp the implications.

“We are looking to our attorney general for guidance because it’s very confusing,” said Christine Tucci Osorio, superintendent of the North St. Paul School District in Minnesota. When a teacher asked if their school could still mark African American History Month, she assured them they could.

Despite concerns that schools would rush to comply, it appears “cooler heads are largely prevailing,” said Liz King, senior director for the education equity program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“Once a school sends the message that they are not going to stand up for a member, a community within their school, that is broken trust, that is a lost relationship,” King said.

Trump has vowed to use education funding as political leverage on several fronts, threatening cuts for schools that do not get in line with his agenda on topics including transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports and instruction related to race.

Usually, civil rights investigations by the Education Department take at least six months and often much longer. If a school is found in violation of federal law, department policy offers a chance to come into compliance and sign a resolution — typically a 90-day process.

Only if a school refuses to comply can the department move to revoke federal money. That can be done in the Education Department through a court-like process decided by an administrative law judge. If the judge decides the penalty is justified, the school can appeal it to the education secretary and, after that, challenge it in court.

Instead of handling it internally, the department can also refer cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. That route is no faster.

The last time the Education Department was granted approval to cut federal funding was in 1992, against the Capistrano Unified School District in California, which was found to have retaliated against a teacher for filing sex discrimination complaints.

Before the penalty was carried out, the district reinstated the teacher and effectively ended the case. It never lost any money.

___

Gecker reported from San Francisco, and Mumphrey from Phoenix.

___

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WARTBURG, Tenn. — Two people were killed in eastern Tennessee when severe storms with a possible tornado moved through the region.

Local officials announced Friday morning that a mother and daughter from the same household were killed when the storm passed through the Deer Lodge and Sunbright areas of Morgan County on Thursday night.

That is according to a social media post by the county emergency management agency. Three other injuries were also reported, officials said.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol said on social media that troopers were in Morgan County ensuring resident safety and assessing and helping with structure damage.

The Morgan County School District said on its website that schools would be closed Friday because of “significant damage from tornadoes in parts of our county.”

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have little in common ideologically, but the two have both been vocal supporters of an idea that’s been rapidly gaining bipartisan ground in the states: Students’ cellphones need to be banned during the school day.

At least eight states have enacted such bans over the past two years, and proposals are being considered in several more states this year.

Here is a look at the push by states for such bans.

The push for cellphone bans has been driven by concerns about the impact screen time has on children’s mental health and complaints from teachers that cellphones have become a constant distraction in the classroom.

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms about their effects on young people’s lives, has said schools need to provide phone-free times.

Nationally, 77% of U.S. schools say they prohibit cellphones at school for non-academic use, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But that number is misleading. It does not mean students are following those bans or all those schools are enforcing them.

Kim Whitman, co-founder of the Phone Free Schools Movement, said the issue is catching on because parents and teachers in both red and blue states are struggling with the consequences of kids on mobile devices.

“It doesn’t matter if you live in a big city or a rural town, urban or suburban, all children are struggling and need that seven-hour break from the pressures of phones and social media during the school day,” she said.

At least eight states — California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia — have enacted measures banning or restricting students’ use of cellphones in schools.

The policies range widely. Florida was the first state to crack down on phones in school, passing a 2023 law that requires all public schools to ban cellphone use during class time and block access to social media on district Wi-Fi.

A 2024 California law requires the state’s nearly 1,000 school districts to create their own cellphone policies by July 2026.

Several other states haven’t banned phones, but have encouraged school districts to enact such restrictions or have provided funding to store phones during the day.

Sanders announced a pilot program last year providing grants to schools that adopt phone-free policies, and more than 100 schools signed on. In her state of the state address this week, Sanders proposed an outright ban.

“We will ban cellphones in our schools, bell to bell, so that our kids are not distracted, in class or out of it,” Sanders said.

Other governors recently calling for bans include Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who was sworn in this month, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has suggested she’ll seek a statewide policy, but has not offered specifics.

The cellphone bans have faced opposition from some parents who say they need to be able to contact their children directly in case of emergency.

Some parents have pointed to recent school shootings where having access to cellphones was the only way some students were able to communicate with loved ones for what they thought might be the last time.

But supporters of the bans have noted that students’ phones could pose additional dangers during an emergency by distracting students or by revealing their location during an active shooter situation.

Parents opposed to the ban have also said they want their children to have access to their phones for other needs, such as coordinating transportation.

Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, said she agrees about the dangers of social media on children but that the bans sought by states are taking too broad of an approach. Banning the devices during the school day is not going to solve underlying issues like bullying or the dangers of social media, she said.

“We have not done our job as grown-ups to try to teach our kids the skills they need to actually navigate this technology,” she said. “We’ve just kicked the can down the road and thrown them into the deep end of the pool when they’re by themselves after school.”

___

Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut, Margery Beck, Holly Ramer and Anthony Izaguire contributed to this report.

A student injured his teacher and several other students in a knife attack at his school in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, police said Friday

ZAGREB, Croatia — A student injured his teacher and several other students in a knife attack at his school in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, police said Friday.

They said the attack happened at 9:50 a.m. at a school in the Precko neighborhood. They described the attacker as a “young male” and said he had been detained. They did not confirm media reports that one student had died.

Video footage published by Croatian media showed children running away from the school building.

SAN CARLOS, Ariz. — After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home.

When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class.

He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him.

“I didn’t have everything,” said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Tommy attends school on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Arizona. “You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car.”

A teacher and a truancy officer also reached out to Tommy’s family to address his attendance. He was one of many. Across the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.

___

This story is part of a collaboration on chronic absenteeism among Native American students between The Associated Press and ICT, a news outlet that covers Indigenous issues.

____

Years after COVID-19 disrupted American schools, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance. But attendance has been worse for Native American students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press.

Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native American and Alaska Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.

Many schools serving Native students have been working to strengthen connections with families, who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools.

History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is guided by cultural success coaches — school employees who help families address challenges that keep students from coming to school.

Nearly 100% of students in the district are Native and more than half of families have incomes below the federal poverty level. Many students come from homes that deal with alcoholism and drug abuse, Superintendent Deborah Dennison said.

Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, a cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said.

“You feel better, you do better,” Jones said. “That’s our job here in the care center is to help the students feel better.”

In the 2023-2024 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate in the district fell from 76% to 59% — an improvement Dennison attributes partly to efforts to address their communities’ needs.

“All these connections with the community and the tribe are what’s making a difference for us and making the school a system that fits them rather than something that has been forced upon them, like it has been for over a century of education in Indian Country,” said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation.

In three states — Alaska, Nebraska, and South Dakota — the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, it has continued to worsen, even while improving slightly for other students, as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism for Native students rose from 22% in 2018-2019 to 45% in 2022-2023.

AP’s analysis does not include data on schools managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools.

At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent.

The communities were hit hard by COVID-19, with devastating impacts on elders. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Excused absences for sick days are still piling up — in some cases, Principal Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed about falling behind academically.

Staff and tribal liaisons have been analyzing every absence and emphasizing connections with parents. By 10 a.m., telephone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with those students’ parents.

“There’s illness. There’s trauma,” Montoya said. “A lot of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so that the parents can be working.”

About 95% of Algodones’ students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It doesn’t open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos.

For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family’s native language of Keres. She speaks Keres at home, but says that’s not always enough to instill fluency.

Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when enrolled in the federal Head Start educational program — a system that now promotes native language preservation — and they struggled academically.

“It was sad to see with my own eyes,” said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school’s food bank. “In Algodones, I saw a big difference to where the teachers were really there for the students, and for all the kids, to help them learn.”

Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son Cameron Tenorio said he likes math and wants to be a policeman.

“He’s inspired,” Tenorio said. “He tells me every day what he learns.”

In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom’s, has helped improve attendance. Since many parents are without working phones, he said, that often means home visits.

Lillian Curtis said she has been impressed by Rice Intermediate’s student activities on family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school by mid-October last year but had missed just two days by the same time this year.

“The kids always want to go — they are anxious to go to school now. And Brylee is much more excited,” said Curtis, who takes care of her grandchildren.

Curtis said she tells Brylee that skipping school is not an option.

“I just told her that you need to be in school, because who is going to be supporting you?” Curtis said. “You’ve got to do it on your own. You got to make something of yourself.”

The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of school and what it can offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. Its efforts have helped not just with attendance but also morale, especially at the high school, she said.

“Education was a weapon for the U.S. government back in the past,” she said. “We work to decolonize our school system.”

___

Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lurye reported from New Orleans. Alia Wong of The Associated Press and Felix Clary of ICT contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

BETHPAGE, N.Y. — A 17-year-old hockey player collapsed during a charity game in New York and later died, authorities said.

Connor Kasin, a senior at Massapequa High School on Long Island, lost consciousness during a game Saturday night benefiting a foundation that was set up by the parents of another area teen, 19-year-old Sabrina Navaretta, who died in an April 2023 car crash.

The Nassau County Police Department said in a news release that people at the skating rink in Bethpage, New York, were performing CPR when officers and medics arrived.

Kasin was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A police spokesperson said Monday that no information on his cause of death was available.

Massapequa High School announced Kasin’s death in a letter to students and families, the New York Post reported.

“It is heartbreaking to report that Connor did not survive. His passing is devastating to the Massapequa community, and we offer our deepest condolences to Connor’s family and friends,” the letter says.

The New York Islanders High School Hockey League, which organizes high school hockey competitions for Long Island schools, canceled all games scheduled for Sunday out of respect for Kasin’s family.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas would allow Bible-infused lessons in elementary schools under changes that were set for a final vote Friday and could test boundaries between religion and public education in the U.S.

The proposed curriculum narrowly cleared a preliminary vote this week at the Texas State Board of Education, whose elected members heard hours of sometimes impassioned pleas from both supporters and critics over the material that schools could begin using next year.

If adopted, the new Texas curriculum would follow Republican-led efforts in neighboring states to give religion more of a presence in public schools. In Oklahoma, the state’s education chief has ordered a copy of the Bible in every classroom, while Louisiana wants to make all of the state’s public school classrooms post the Ten Commandments beginning next year.

In Texas, it would be optional for schools to adopt the materials, but they’d receive additional funding if they do so.

If the board advances the curriculum, Texas would be the first state to introduce Bible lessons in schools in this manner, according to Matthew Patrick Shaw, an assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University.

The Texas Education Agency, which oversees public education for more than 5 million students statewide, created its own instruction materials after a law passed in 2023 by the GOP-controlled Legislature required the agency to do so. The lesson plans were publicly released this spring.

The material draws on lessons from Christianity more than any other religion in the proposed reading and language arts modules for kindergarten through fifth grade, which critics say would alienate students from different faith backgrounds and potentially violate the First Amendment.

“This curriculum is not age-appropriate or subject matter appropriate in the way that it presents these Bible stories,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

Children who would read the material, she said, “are simply too young to tell the difference between what is a faith claim and what is a matter of fact.”

More than 100 people testified at a board meeting this week that rung with emotion from parents, teachers and advocates. Supporters of the curriculum argued that the Bible is a core feature of American history and teaching it will enrich students’ learning.

“It is said that there are close to 300 common-day phrases that actually come from the Bible,” said Mary Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, a right-leaning advocacy group. “So students will benefit from being able to understand a lot of these references that are in literature and have a way to be able to comprehend them.”

The 15-member board consists of 11 Republicans and four Democrats. It signaled support for the materials in a 8-7 preliminary vote on Wednesday.

One of the board members is a Republican who was appointed to the board just weeks ago by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to temporarily fill a vacant seat. Days after that appointment, a Democrat who ran unopposed was elected to fill that same board seat starting next year.

Abbott has publicly supported the instruction materials.

Whether the lesson plans will be considered constitutional is up in the air if the curriculum passes, Shaw said.

“The question is how is Texas going to frame what is done here to avoid the establishment question or tackle it head-on,” he said.

Texas’ plans to implement Biblical teachings in public school lesson plans is the latest effort by Republican-controlled states to bring religion into the classroom.

In Louisiana, a law to place the Ten Commandments in all public classrooms was blocked by a federal judge earlier this month. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the bill into law in June, prompting a group of Louisiana public school parents of different faiths to sue.

In Oklahoma, the state’s top education official has tried to incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for children in fifth through 12th grades. A group of teachers and parents recently filed a lawsuit to stop the Republican state superintendent’s plan and his efforts to spend $3 million to purchase Bibles for public schools.

___

Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.