KNAU update for Aug. 9 — Juanita Brooks, School Counselors, and More

It’s back to school week in northern Arizona, but not every student is in class yet. Plenty of kids miss the first day – or more – because they’re still on family vacations. Learn more at KNAU.org.

Peabody Energy filed a notice with the State of Arizona two months ago that its 265 mine employees could soon be let go. Nearly all are members of the Navajo Nation. Learn more at KNAU.org.

Western writer and historian Juanita Leavitt Brooks was forever and always a child of the frontier. She was born in 1898 in Bunkerville, just barely in Nevada, across the border from southwestern Arizona and Utah. Learn more at KNAU.org.

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to expand its list of projects that don’t require environmental review. The agency says the change is needed to make forest restoration among other things more efficient, but critics say it eliminates public involvement. Learn more at KNAU.org.

Arizona has the worst school counselor to student ratio in the US, at 903 kids per counselor. In Northern Arizona, that ratio is slightly higher, and the majority of districts don’t have a single counselor on staff. Learn more at KNAU.org.