Changes to policy, scientific discovery, and expert recommendations and opinions all have the power to rapidly influence the landscape of a sector. Whether you’re a leader at a non-profit, a member of a university’s marketing department, or a stakeholder for a public health agency, being informed about the latest industry happenings can be the difference between exceeding and falling short of organizational goals. At Hager Sharp, our experts vigorously scan media coverage to identify areas of opportunity. And now, with the introduction of the Sharp Round-Up, you too can review what we consider some of the top news of the week.

Below you will find a compilation of news spanning the health, education, labor, and economy sectors. This list includes mainstream, DC-focused, and trade publication coverage from Saturday, November 5 to Friday, November 11. Let these clips serve as a resource when developing thoughtful strategies and use them to further foster organizational innovation and adaptability.

Here’s what you need to know.

Mainstream News:

• Student groups rallied together this week to encourage their peers to vote in midterm elections.
• Daylight-Saving Time ended on Sunday, bringing legislation on enforcing year-long DST to the surface yet again. Here’s why implementing it could be harmful.
• A Boston study found that masking in schools significantly cut COVID-19 infections. The study compared infection rates from school districts in the greater Boston area, only two of which maintained mask mandates for students. The results: no matter what kind of mask students wore; masking was linked with “significantly reduced” cases of COVID-19.
• The CDC reported a deadly listeria outbreak linked to deli meat and cheese that currently spans six states. As of November 11, 16 people have been infected, and 13 have been hospitalized.
• A recent study found that hospitalizations due to eating disorders in young adults nearly doubled during the pandemic. The numbers have decreased since their 2021 peak, but have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Education Policy:

• School districts across the country bear the responsibility of implementing evidence-based strategies to counter the challenge of recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results.  

Advancements in Health:

The days of counting your COVID-19 vaccines may be over. Keeping with the idea of a yearly COVID-19 shot, many people can keep track of their vaccination status by making sure they get their shot yearly – much like a flu shot. 

Changes to policy, scientific discovery, and expert recommendations and opinions all have the power to rapidly influence the landscape of a sector. Whether you’re a leader at a non-profit, a member of a university’s marketing department, or a stakeholder for a public health agency, being informed about the latest industry happenings can be the difference between exceeding and falling short of organizational goals. At Hager Sharp, our experts vigorously scan media coverage to identify areas of opportunity. And now, with the introduction of the Sharp Round-Up, you too can review what we consider some of the top news of the week.

Below you will find a compilation of news spanning the health, education, labor, and economy sectors. This list includes mainstream, DC-focused, and trade publication coverage from Saturday, October 29 to Friday, November 4. Let these clips serve as a resource when developing thoughtful strategies and use them to further foster organizational innovation and adaptability.

Here’s what you need to know.

Mainstream News:

• On Monday, conservative justices “seemed open to ending decades of Supreme Court precedent allowing race-conscious admission decisions at colleges and universities.” The judges doubted “the institutions would ever concede an ‘endpoint’ in their use of race to build diverse student bodies.”
• Flu season is arriving early, with the highest severity in over a decade. According to the CDC, it is estimated that there have been at least 880,000 flu illnesses, 6,900 hospitalizations, and 360 deaths from flu so far this season.
• The University of Virginia, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Norfolk State University, and dozens of other schools in the commonwealth have changed their policies, relaxing admissions exam requirements.
• On Tuesday, the University of Florida’s board of trustees unanimously voted for Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, as the university’s next president.

Education Policy:

• Alberto Carvalho, Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, said that the district is working to further implement the science of reading into its curriculum. He emphasized the need to train early elementary teachers in evidence-based practices and ensure struggling students have access to extra support.

Advancements in Health:

• On Tuesday, Pfizer announced that its experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine effectively prevented severe infections in infants after being given to expectant mothers in the second half of pregnancy.
• Researchers from Spain and Australia studying the venom of the Australian southern sand octopus have identified a compound that may significantly slow cancer growth and help fight drug resistance in patients with one of the most serious forms of skin cancer, BRAF-mutated melanoma.

Changes to policy, scientific discovery, and expert recommendations and opinions all have the power to rapidly influence the landscape of a sector. Whether you’re a leader at a non-profit, a member of a university’s marketing department, or a stakeholder for a public health agency, being informed about the latest industry happenings can be the difference between exceeding and falling short of organizational goals. At Hager Sharp, our experts vigorously scan media coverage to identify areas of opportunity. And now, with the introduction of the Sharp Round-Up, you too can review what we consider some of the top news of the week.

Below you will find a compilation of news spanning the health and education, labor, and economy sectors. This list includes mainstream, DC-focused, and trade publication coverage from Saturday, October 22, to Friday, October 28. Let these clips serve as a resource when developing thoughtful strategies and use them to further foster organizational innovation and adaptability.

Here’s what you need to know.

Mainstream News:

• According to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about three in four high school students reported experiencing at least one potentially traumatic event during the pandemic.
• The results from a national exam, known as the Nation’s Report Card, showed the pandemic’s devastating impact on students, with math scores dropping in every state and English scores dipping as well.

Education Policy:

• Despite a temporary stay issued by a federal appeals court, the Biden administration encourages borrowers to keep applying for student loan forgiveness.
• A new law enacted last week in Michigan requires the state’s school districts to post parents’ rights in school offices and rooms where boards of education meet.

Advancements in Health:

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is planning new regulations to inform women about their breast tissue type and screening options, as mammograms sometimes fail to detect tumors in women with higher breast density.
• Reproductive health advocates are pushing the FDA to make contraceptives available without a prescription before the advisory panel meeting next month.
• As an effort to stop a polio outbreak in the New York City metropolitan area, the CDC is considering using the novel oral polio vaccine for the first time in 20 years.
• First Lady Jill Biden and Mary J. Blige are teaming up with the American Cancer Society following the Biden administration’s resurrection of the “cancer moonshot” initiative.

Opinions:

• The global food production and distribution system is teetering, and one in ten people do not know where or when they will get their next meal. We must increase our efforts to solve the global nutrition problem.

WASHINGTON (August 8, 2022)—Today, Hager Sharp announced the addition of Erik Robelen as a vice president in its industry-leading education, labor, and economy (ELE) practice. Robelen brings more than two decades of experience at the intersection of education, journalism, and communications to Hager Sharp, including 15 years covering the nation’s schools for Education Week and eight years as deputy director of the Education Writers Association, the premier professional membership organization for working journalists covering education in America.

“Erik will bring a valuable perspective to our client service, having both worked in a newsroom on breaking news and enterprise reporting and also, while at EWA, working collaboratively with journalists as they reported on critical issues facing schools, parents, and the country,” said Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, executive vice president and head of the agency’s ELE practice. “We are excited that Erik is joining our extraordinary education, labor, and economy leadership team, and cannot wait to leverage his rich experience to achieve new levels of success in the years ahead.”

“I am delighted to join Hager Sharp and am eager to help expand on the important work in the firm’s education, labor, and economy portfolio,” said Robelen. “I have dedicated my career to telling the important stories of how education and opportunity can change the life trajectories of so many children, families, and communities. I know my colleagues at Hager Sharp share this commitment, which is reflected in the results their work has achieved for the clients the practice has had the privilege to serve.”

During Robelen’s time at Education Week, the country’s leading trade publication for pre-K-12 education news, he covered a wide range of education issues at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as two presidential campaigns. His areas of focus at the paper ranged from state and federal education policy, the U.S. Supreme Court, school choice and charter schools, to education philanthropy and private education. Robelen also wrote extensively on student assessment and instruction in math, science, literacy, and social studies. As the outlet’s senior Washington reporter, he covered the White House, the U.S. Department of Education, and Congress, including leading the newspaper’s early coverage of the No Child Left Behind Act, from the initial debate and passage in Congress to implementation by states and school districts.

As the deputy director of the Education Writers Association, he supported the nation’s reporters and editors on the education beat and played a key role in the organization’s strategic leadership and communications efforts, including conceptualizing and executing conferences and other events, leading programs and projects, and writing and editing on a vast array of issues in education. He has produced in-depth programming and editorial content on issues in education, including the pandemic disruption and education recovery, standards and assessments, school accountability, curriculum and instruction, charters and school choice, federal and state policy and politics, social and emotional learning, school funding, and educational equity.

Hager Sharp is a full-service integrated marketing and communications firm with in-house research and evaluation; strategic planning; creative; digital, paid, earned, and owned media; partner and stakeholder engagement; event management; and campaign development and implementation expertise. Over the past five decades, Hager Sharp has exclusively partnered with clients working in the public interest on critical issues like fighting for equity in education, improving public health, empowering vulnerable populations, and transforming communities. Founded by Susan Hager and Marcia Sharp with $600 in cash and a bank loan guaranteed by Hager’s husband, the firm will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2023. Some of the firm’s ongoing client engagements include ACT, Inc.; Arizona State University; Joyce Foundation; Lumina Foundation; Scholastic, Inc.; and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as The Nation’s Report Card. Visit us at www.hagersharp.com.

We are excited to share that Hager Sharp has been named a winner in PR Daily’s Social Media & Digital Awards in the Intranet category.

PR Daily’s Social Media & Digital Awards celebrate teams, organizations, and agencies who have redefined the industry with their innovative and captivating work.

Chosen from a wide pool of entries, we received recognition for developing an intranet that serves as an essential and engaging destination for our employees.

Our first-ever intranet, The Hager Sharp Portal, was designed with clear goals in mind. It needed to simplify business development and knowledge management tasks and facilitate information sharing and company culture.

So, while the portal contains features you may expect from an intranet—our social media feed and weekly newsletter, and frequently-used links—it also includes:

• Custom questionnaires that collect business development data that informs a KPI dashboard in real-time;
• Modules that virtually onboard new hires and facilitate secure, organized information sharing with HR;
• A digital Diversity & Inclusion Resource Center that houses staff-curated videos, books, articles, and podcasts; and
• A virtual kudos board that empowers employees to recognize their colleagues for their great work.

With a bit of encouragement and a change management plan in place, The Hager Sharp Portal quickly became a vital tool for staying connected.

“The portal has been a game-changer for Hager Sharp, keeping us better connected during a global pandemic and simplifying information collection and information sharing,” said Jennifer Wayman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “It’s especially rewarding to be recognized for this work with a Social Media & Digital Award from PR Daily.”

“For Hager Sharp, it was crucial that we developed a resource that was sustainable. We needed a tool that would collect and organize information and yield insights that could influence organizational strategies, but not at the expense of timely and complex backend updates. By integrating automation features, we were able to develop a site that offers new information upon each visit with little to no oversight. I believe the relevancy and timeliness of the information shared and the site’s ability to adapt based on employees’ needs have been crucial to its success,” said Samantha Stocksdale, Business Development and Marketing Manager.

We are honored to have received this recognition and look forward to continuing to adapt this resource to serve current and future Hager Sharpers.

To learn more about The Hager Sharp Portal and PR Daily’s Social Media and Digital Awards,
visit: https://www.prdaily.com/awards/events/social-media-digital-awards-2022/#winner-intranet-150.