“Sponsoring Give Day is a perfect fit with our focus on helping the community effect change,” said Jose Colindres, chief operating officer, The Brink Foundation, this year’s premier sponsor for Give Day. “Nonprofits can leverage the marketing power behind Give Day to gain more exposure and to make an even greater positive impact.”

TAMPA — Elementary school students programmed an electronic mouse to make its way through a maze.

When the demonstration was done and the applause died down, a Hillsborough County School District official posed a question.

"Adults in this room, how many of you had the opportunity to do things like this during your kindergarten through 12th grade education?’’ said Larry Plank, director of STEM Education for the district. "None, right? So the world is an ever-changing place.

TAMPA — Students from Puerto Rico and other islands ravaged by recent hurricanes are welcome in Hillsborough County. It says so at the top of the district website, in Spanish.

And now it's a message that has been passed to the principals of the district's more than 240 schools, in writing last week and verbally at Tuesday's School Board meeting.

"They should be welcome in our schools and every effort should be made to enroll the students on the same day," superintendent Jeff Eakins said.

School districts must give students with disabilities the chance to make meaningful, "appropriately ambitious" progress, the Supreme Court said Wednesday in an 8-0 ruling.

TAMPA — After an hour-long debate, the Hillsborough County School Board voted 6-1 Tuesday to end bus transportation for nearly 7,500 middle and high school students who live within 2 miles of their schools.

PayScale introduced its first college salary report in 2008, and the College Scorecard from the federal government followed last year, ushering an elephant into the hallowed halls of college admissions: What do the schools’ graduates actually earn?

TAMPA — The Hillsborough County School District can save $404 million over five years, a consultant says. But to do so, it will need to phase out 1,761 front-line jobs, more than half held by teachers.

Mort Elementary School is one of Tampa’s lowest-performing elementary schools situated in one the most troubled neighborhoods in Hillsborough County.

In 25 years though, officials are hoping it will be a model of success.