CONNECTICUT — Social media, school buses, the Freedom of Information Act, and hair strand thickness have all been under the microscope in Hartford recently. These are a few of the laws that resulted, new to the books as of July 1.

The complete list covering 95 pieces of new legislation is on the state’s website.

State law now requires children to be 5 years old by Sept. 1 of the year they start kindergarten in Connecticut. The previous date was Jan. 1. Parents may obtain an exception for their child following a written request and an assessment completed by the school that determines admitting the child to kindergarten would be developmentally appropriate.

When parents pick their children up from kindergarten after their first day of school, they will find a new emphasis has been placed on “play-based learning.” This is an approach to teaching that includes developmentally appropriate strategies that can be integrated with existing learning standards. It does not mean time spent in recess or as part of a physical education course or instruction, according to the definitions in the legislation.

Legislators hope that a new law cracking down on motorists illegally passing school buses will make the roads safer before and after school. The new legislation allows municipalities or districts to install “school bus violation detection monitoring systems,” surveillance technology designed to make collection of newly ramped-up penalties from scofflaw motorists a bit easier. Roadway work zones will also be under enhanced video surveillance, as the results of last year’s Transportation Department trial program convinced lawmakers to make the monitoring permanent.

When school’s not in session, state inspectors will be doubling down on summer camps, according to new legislation in effect July 1. “An Act Concerning Youth Camps” details the infractions and penalties, which can include license revocation, included in the new scrutiny.

It’s now easier to erase your child’s online life, for whatever reason. New regulations require social media platforms to unpublish a minor’s social media account within 15 business days, and generally delete the account within 45 business days, after receiving an authenticated request. The new law also sets tighter standards for the sharing of personal health and medical data, and requires online dating services to adopt a policy for handling harassment.

Connecticut residents can only hope that a reduction in social media usage will result in head-healthier kids. In the high likelihood that it does not, the state is prepared with an expansion of preschool and mental and behavioral services for children, as detailed in the new legislation here.

Three years after Connecticut made recreational cannabis use legal, new legislation drills a little deeper and tidies up a number of the provisions. Among these, the sale of THC-laced beverages will be limited to licensed package stores and hybrid distributors, federally-recognized Indian tribes can expand their growing operations, and other growers approved for large-scale operations will have the option to scale down and cut costs.

A new law places certain restrictions on exactly what kind of law enforcement records can be released through a Freedom of Information Act request. For example, the identity of certain informants, the identity of witnesses whose safety would be endangered, and the arrest records of juveniles will no longer be disclosed.

It will be a little easier to pay for and get into state universities as of July 1. Under a new law, a minimum unweighted grade point average, and not a student’s class rank, will determine acceptance under the Connecticut Automatic Admissions Program. More new legislation permits minors to directly sign for a loan with the Connecticut Higher Education Supplemental Loan Authority.

Public Act No. 24-27 establishes a fund providing health insurance to survivors of a police officer killed in the line of duty. Another new law plugs a loophole in existing firearms background check regulations which limited the access to the juvenile records of people involved in the proposed transfer of a gun.

Finally, and in the category of “you-know-there’s-a-good-story-behind-this-one,” Public Act No. 24-53 caught our eye. Drafted in consultation with the Connecticut Examining Board for Barbers, Hairdressers and Cosmeticians, the new legislation expands the curriculum requirements for barber schools and hairdressing and cosmetology schools to include education and training in providing services to “individuals with textured hair, including, but not limited to, working with various curl and wave patterns, hair strand thicknesses and volumes of hair.”

ORONO, Maine (WABI) – In the early hours of Monday Morning Firefly Aerospace is set to launch a rocket into orbit.

And it’s bringing a satellite, known as a CubeSat, that was built by students at the University of Maine.

“I think it’s exciting that the first time at the university level that we have folks like Ali and his students that developed CubeSats and they’re gonna launch them. We have had other examples at the K-12 level that have worked with organizations that we supported outside of the state to help students prepare CubeSats but this is the first case where we had actually developed a CubeSat from scratch,” said Terry Shehata the Executive Director of the Maine Space Grant Consortium.

The satellite called MESAT1 is carrying three payloads that were designed by middle and high school students to record data for studying climate change.

“The cool thing about this project is that the scientists are actually high school students and teachers. In 2019 we ran a competition statewide and 11 schools submitted proposals. We selected three and those are the science missions that were defined by the students. These missions include monitoring water bodies for harmful algal blooms, trying to find urban energy islands by monitoring albedo, and also they are looking into turbidity of water concentration of phytoplankton,” said Doctor Ali Abedi, a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maine.

Dr. Abedi says that he hopes this kind of work can help inspire students.

“I think if you ask someone to learn something without telling them why they’re not motivated. You can ask somebody to just learn math in abstract way without telling them why that’s useful. I think this project helps the students understand what they want to do and what the impact is. And then they came back and said oh, if I want to do this, I now need to learn physics. I need to learn this course of math, I need to learn like aerospace. I think the motivation and enthusiasm that was instigated by this project to this level definitely priceless,” said Dr. Abedi.

A livestream of the launch can be found here.

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