ABCFT - YOUnionews - June 5, 2020
Member Voices - We Want to Hear from YOU
YOU are a vital part and voice of the YOUnion. ABCFT leadership wants to know what is on your mind. Do you still have unanswered questions? Still unsure about remote learning, contact language, salary, negotiations, evaluations or anything else related to our current working conditions, click this link here. All questions will be anonymous. For universal issues, we will address the answers each week in our Tuesday Talk.
NEGOTIATION UPDATE - KEEPING YOU INFORMED-Ruben Mancillas
Last week in this space we presented the district’s proposal to fund an approximately 9 million dollar deficit for next year. As we noted at that time, this was the district’s plan, not ours. It was filled with poor to unworkable choices and they own all of them. Since that time, ABCFT has put out a survey asking our members to propose some of their own solutions to balance the 2020-2021 district budget. Thank you to those of you who have participated. We are still receiving the results and the negotiating team will use these ideas when we bargain at the table. If you haven’t yet filled out your survey, please see the link at the end of this report and provide us with your much needed feedback.
On Tuesday, June 3, this initial budget proposal was presented to the school board and a large number of our teachers and health professionals along with many community members participated via phone. We heard a lot of statements we didn’t like but we also saw the power of collective voice as board members clearly responded positively to the outpouring of support for the elementary school band program. I also want to acknowledge that ABCUSD Chief Financial Officer, Toan Nguyen, did in fact push back on non-starters like salary rollbacks and reiterated to board members that any changes to working conditions and compensation would need to be negotiated.
Where we stand now is with many questions remaining to be answered and much work left to do. What next school year will look like is unclear but different ideas are being put forth and planning has to be in place for these different options. ABCFT has begun a Safely Opening Schools (SOS) task force with over fifty of our members to address concerns and present constructive solutions to just how schools can realistically reopen next year. We are committed to ensuring that these different models, whether online or hybrid, be feasible options that can safely protect both our members and our students.
We await guidance from the state, both in terms of what the final budget numbers will look like and what flexibility we may receive related to the total number of instructional days for the next school year. We are also cautiously optimistic that there may be additional stabilization funds coming from the federal government to help mitigate our current budget crisis. While we welcome much needed assistance from both the state and federal level we are committed to focusing on the needs of our local and our members. By staying informed and in solidarity throughout the coming weeks and months we will continue to stand strong and fight together to protect jobs and maintain benefits.
In Unity,
ABCFT wants to hear from you. If you haven’t already taken the budget survey you
click here→ABCFT Budget Priority Survey
TEACHER LEADERS PROGRAM by Tanya Golden
Last week we shared the ABCFT Teacher Leaders action research papers so this week we are sharing their slide show presentations given at Teacher Leaders Showcase.
Teacher Leaders slide show from the Showcase:
What is the effect of full-day vs. part-day preschool on children’s school readiness? By Reema Suleiman
What research-based strategies benefit the social and emotional growth of children? By Jacqueline Okimoto
How does a natural play support the social-emotional and academic learning of transitional kindergarten students? By Audrey Smith
Creating a Safe and Effective Learning Environment for All Students: Teacher Resources Needed to Support Students with Adverse Childhood Experiences By Rachael Smith
By Brittney Parker-Goodin
Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, & Secondary Traumatic Stress: Are These Impacting the Working Life of ABC Teachers? By Gabriela Monterosa-Ibarra
How Does the Well-Being of Early Childhood Education Teachers Impact School Readiness for Preschool-Aged Students? By Laura Hernandez
and Goldie Zaldivar
By Desiree Molinar
What Impact Would a Systematic Approach to Training New Supervisors Have on Implementation of “ “Playworks” Recess Practices? By Michelle Joyce
Teacher Leaders Application for 2020-21 Program
In collaboration with our national affiliate, AFT we are honored to offer the ABCFT Teacher Leaders Program for the 2020-21 school year. Below are the details regarding this national program as well as the online application process. Below are the details regarding this national program as well as the online application process.
These attachments offer highlights of the program:
Applications are due by Tuesday, June 30, 2020
JUNE ACADEMIC SERVICES UPDATE
This month’s academic service update is vital for all teachers. We hope that you will take a moment to look at this monthly report which discusses changes in academic services. This document provides the union with a means of giving the District feedback on the many programs or changes they are proposing at any one time. Without your feedback or questions on these changes, it is harder for ABCFT to slow down and modify the district’s neverending roll out of new projects. Please submit your comments and questions to the appropriate ABCFT liaison.
For Elementary curricular issues please email Kelley at Kelley.Forsythe@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
For Secondary curricular issues please email Rich at Richard.Saldana@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
For Special Education issues please email Stefani at stefani.palutzke@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
ABCFT PRESIDENT’S REPORT - Ray Gaer
Communication is a union’s most important tool for advocating for its members at the bargaining table. Every conversation with the membership is focused on the end result of negotiating for the future prosperity and wellbeing of ABCFT members. The purpose of this weekly report is to keep the membership informed about issues that impact their working/learning conditions and their mental wellbeing. Together we make the YOUnion.
The last full week was a monster and like many of you I’m in back to back meetings most of the day. So many critical questions need to be answered.
On Tuesday, there was a school board meeting where the main event was the budget deficit and the proposed district budget to address the 10% reduction in funding. The over all tone of the meeting was in support of saving jobs and keeping cuts away from the classroom. Trustees Chris Apodaca, Letty Mendoza, Olga Rios, Maynard law expressed concerns over the number of employee positions being threatened and urged the District Cabinet Administrators to look for solutions that would save employee’s jobs. Trustee Sophia Tse was not on the same page with the rest of the board and horribly blundered into proposing solutions like imposing a roll back teacher’s 3% raise or freezing step and column on the teacher salary. These are all bad ideas and all non-starters for negotiations and ABCFT is concerned that an ABC Trustee would even thing to say out loud. Credit should be given to ABC Chief Financial officer Toan Nguyen who informed Trustee Tse that her ideas were not enforceable and that they would all have to be negotiated with the union.
This past Wednesday, ABCFT put out a budget survey for the membership so that the ABCFT Negotiating Team can hear your ideas about budget priority and your thoughts about how you think we should address the budget cut that has been imposed by the State. Our apologies for those first few minutes of our survey release. We thought the survey made sense but we quickly found out that the wording and process was very confusing. Thankfully, we were able to fix it quickly and we expect that our results will not be impacted.
Nine years ago we began planning on having a regular weekly newsletter that would inform the membership about all the changes and events that happen over the week. ABCFT had a history of sending out weekly or monthly flyers that communicated contact highlights or major union events. I’m happy to say that this year over 400+ members are regularly reading the YOUnionews and the Tuesday Talk each week. We hope that our current newsletter format meets our readership’s needs. In addition, over the past two months we have been able to have live two hour weekly YOUnion Chats with members. This week we had 160+ members on at any one time over the course of the two hours. These meetings have given both ABCFT members and the ABCFT leadership a way to connect directly each week to share insights, concerns, clarifications, and best practices. If you have not attended any of the Thursday Chats I would encourage you to join our last regular chat next Thursday from noon to 2:00 p.m. as we drink a toast to the close of this school year.
Lastly, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the horrific injustice and murder of George Floyd and my support for Black Lives Matter. We have all felt the emotions of rage and grief since having to see this unspeakable act against a fellow human being. The fact that this is not an isolated situation in American society stands against the values that founded this country, that people are created equal and the law of the land should also be implemented equally. Al Sharpton yesterday cut to the chase in his eulogy for George Floyd by stating that we as a society see these injustices “in education, in our healthcare system, and in every area of American life.” As a society we need to work toward a vision of a just and equitable society.
To do our part in ABC, the leadership of ABCFT will take this movement to create a more equitable society to our SOS Task Force (Safely Open Schools) so that the important work of addressing institutional racism continues to be a focus for our school district and our community. Now is the time for systematic changes to stamp out the tyranny of racism. I want to close this letter in the memory of George Floyd and the hope for a better tomorrow.
Say his name….
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
- An educator in a system of oppression is either a revolutionary or an oppressor. Lerone Bennett, Jr.
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
Here is the CFT statement on the killing of George Floyd.
The murder of George Floyd by a police officer was an unspeakable act of violence, and our communities across the country are responding to his murder with understandable grief and rage.
But we know this is not an isolated incident. Black communities, especially men, are exhausted and terrified because of the omnipresent structural and institutional racism they experience every day that often leads to violence against them.
As a union of educators and classified professionals, our work includes taking action to dismantle the systems and structures that uphold anti-Black racism in our schools and our communities.
We must continue to show up and speak up in solidarity for Black lives and refuse to be distracted from the urgent need for us all to work for racial justice every day. This work of anti-racism is for all of us – as individuals, as a union, in our schools, and across society – and we must remain fully committed to it until our vision of a just society is realized.
This is a time to be angry and demand justice. This is a time to demand change. This is not a time to look away. We honor these lives lost by pledging to do our part to dismantle systemic racism. We say their names: #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd #JusticeforAhmaudArbery #JusticeforBreonnaTaylor #BlackLivesMatter.
The California Federation of Teachers represents 120,000 teachers, faculty, and school employees in public and private schools and colleges, from early childhood through higher education. It is the statewide affiliate of the AFT. More information at www.cft.org.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeffery M Freitas | President
CFT: A Union of Educators and Classified Professionals
1107 Ninth St, Suite 460
Sacramento, Ca 95814
Phone: 916-446-2788
twitter: @jeff_freitas
Pronouns: he/him/his
The latest CFT articles and news stories can be found here on the PreK12 news feed on the CFT.org website.
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
California lawmakers would spare K-12 schools from any budget cuts
California Assembly and Senate leaders announced Wednesday they have agreed on a state budget that would rescind all cuts to K-12 and higher education that Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed, on the assumption that Congress would soon pass, and President Donald Trump would sign, aid for states that would include $14bn for California. Newsom would move ahead with an $8bn cut to K-12 schools without more federal aid. It would include an 8%, $6.4bn reduction to the Local Control Funding Formula, which makes up 80% of districts’ state funding, as well as cuts to early education, after-school programs and career and technical education. The Legislature would spare K-12 schools any cuts, primarily by issuing more IOUs, known as “deferrals.” Districts would have to borrow an additional $5.3bn to cover their expenses, which the state would repay in subsequent years. “We recognize the efforts of the Senate and Assembly in agreeing to a budget proposal that prevents immediate educator layoffs as well as their commitment to prioritizing our schools, colleges and preserving programs for the most vulnerable,” said E. Toby Boyd, president of the California Teachers Association, in a statement on behalf of a coalition of education groups.
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
Fauci weighs reopening schools this fall
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appears to fear that keeping schools closed in the fall over safety concerns for children might be out of reach. In an interview with CNN Wednesday, Fauci asserted that the decision to reopen schools needs to be predicated on the level of infection in each community: "What happens all too often, understandably, but sometimes misleadingly, is that we talk about the country as a whole in a unidimensional way," he cautioned. Fauci urged creativity in managing how students get to and from school, while also in managing kids once they're in the building, and suggested desk spacing in classrooms would be essential. Fauci also championed a study launched last month by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to examine further how Covid-19 affects children, but stressed that the results would not be known until December.
CNN
U.S. public schools in need of major building repairs
The majority of U.S. public school districts need to make major building repairs in at least half of their schools, yet many districts are unable to pay for updates or have postponed them to improve security in case of a shooting, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. Based on a survey of hundreds of districts, the report found that many are left on their own to pay for building repairs but often lack the necessary dollars. More than 40% of districts need to update or replace heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in at least half of their schools that, if left unaddressed, could lead to indoor air quality problems and mold. In some cases these problems have already caused schools to adjust their calendar year or shutter entirely. The report found stark disparities based on wealth. Districts in poorer areas spend $300 less per student on capital costs than do weal thier districts. Schools in more affluent areas can often call on local taxpayers to add money for building updates, the study found, while schools in poorer areas are more likely to rely on limited state funding. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said the report provides “clear, irrefutable evidence” that Congress needs to act quickly. Last year, Scott, along with Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), introduced the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, which would put $100 billion into schools through a federal-state match to address physical and digital infrastructure needs.
Washington Post US News and World Report
School Leaders Face Pressure To Restart Sports
Education Week (5/29, Mitchell) reported on the “increasing pressure” for high schools to find ways to have student-athletes return to competition. Now, “state athletic associations and school athletic directors must weigh the risks of resuming sports during a global pandemic against the potential fallout of keeping an estimated 8 million students on the sidelines, detached from the sports that, in many cases, keep them connected to school and pave a path to college.” The prospect of another lost season “would be unacceptable” to many students and parents, particularly “for rising juniors and seniors whose dreams of playing sports in college could be derailed.” But school leaders need to address a myriad of challenges to restart sports, such as how to “pack teams on buses” while adhering to social distancing, and “how to meet stepped-up demands for sanitizing facilities.” These concerns come as K-12 schools “are staring down budget cuts that could affect their ability to re-open schools.”
Education Week’s (6/1, Mitchell) “Rules For Engagement” blog reports the National Federation of State High School Associations’ Sports Medicine Advisory Committee recently “released guidelines that identify the potential infection risk by sport, labeling the most common high school sports as lower-, intermediate or higher-risk.” Lower-risk sports, such as golf and individual swimming events, “can be done with social distancing or individually with no sharing of equipment.” Moderate-risk sports, such as basketball, baseball, volleyball, and soccer, “involve close, sustained contact, but with protective equipment in place that may reduce” the spread of Covid-19. Higher-risk sports, such as football, wrestling, and competitive cheer, “involve close, sustained contact between participants, lack of significant protective barriers, and high probability” of respiratory particle transmission.
How the education world is responding to George Floyd killing
As the country convulses after the killing of George Floyd by a policeman in Minneapolis, and the protests and unrest that have followed, schools and education organizations are responding. Though teachers are taking a variety of approaches to discussing George Floyd’s death, protest movements, and racism with their students, many agree that silence is not an acceptable option, although this has been made more difficult by the necessity of remote instruction. “Usually, I’m there to process with students,” Evan Shinn, a Seattle high school teacher, said. “There’s something about showing up and being in that space together and trying to figure out what it’s going to look like together, and we don’t have that space.” In Chicago, the school district assembled an 11-page toolkit, titled “Say Their Names,” with guidance for talking with students about racism, police violence, and the Black Lives Matter movement. It also includes specific help for tackling these issues virtually, and reminds teachers that students should be able to opt out of conversations. Meanwhile, the chief education officers in all of California’s 58 counties have issued a joint statement committing their schools “to continuing the important conversation illuminated by recent events, and to promoting equity and justice as fundamental principles in all our activities.”
----- STATE NEWS -----
California sues Betsy DeVos over student loan forgiveness program
California is suing Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education for what the state alleges is a failure to implement its forgiveness program for student loans. Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to encourage students to take public service jobs by promising forgiveness of the remaining balance of their federal student loans after a decade of on-time payments. However, 99% of loan forgiveness applications under that program were rejected between May 2018 and May 2019. “Today’s lawsuit reminds Secretary DeVos that she is not above the law,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “She is accountable to these college graduates who followed the rules and deserve better, especially amidst an economic crisis of historic proportions.”
California Schools Chief To Initiate Greater Focus On Teaching About Implicit Bias In Classrooms
The Los Angeles Times (6/1, Kohli) reports California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said Monday that “he is ‘haunted by the sound’ of George Floyd’s voice ‘begging to breathe, begging for life’ and vowed to initiate a greater focus on teaching about implicit bias” in California classrooms. “Racism is taught,” Thurmond said. “And so I say that to say that we cannot just stop with our students, but that we have to work with adults and we have to deal with racism and bias in every sector in education.” With those things in mind, Thurmond explained that the state Department of Education will “begin conversations about implicit bias education with superintendents and education leaders as well as elected officials and police chiefs, and will assemble online resources and training.”
EdSource (6/1, Lambert) reports Thurmond “said the conversation about race will begin with his staff at the California Department of Education, including discussions about the emotional trauma the killing has caused.” The department will also “offer online resources on racism and implicit bias on its website in the future.” Since Thurmond was elected to his position in 2018, “he has been in office he has made it a priority to get more black and brown teachers into the classroom and to close the achievement gap.”
EdSource (6/1) carries comments from California education leaders about overcoming systemic racism. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Monday statement, “The black community is not responsible for what is happening in this country right now. We are. Our institutions are accountable. We have a unique responsibility to the black community in this country, and we’ve been paying lip service about that for generations. … We better start listening.”
California schools should encourage, not require face covering, draft guidance says
Students should be encouraged but not required to use face coverings when California schools reopen for classroom instruction, according to a draft of “interim guidance” from the state. However, all staff should use face coverings, according to the document, which sources familiar with it say was drawn up by the California Dept. of Public Health (DPH) in collaboration with the governor’s office. The guidance does not stipulate six-feet distancing for students, except for six feet between the teacher’s desk and their students. Rather, it calls “for maximizing space between seating, desks and bedding” and for schools to consider various ways “to establish separation of students through other means if practicable.” Those could include “six feet between desks, partitions between desks, markings on classroom floors to promote distancing or arranging desks in a way that minimizes face-to-face contact.” The guidelines, DPH says, are based on “the best available public health data at this time, international best practices and the practical realities of managing school operations.”
----- DISTRICTS -----
LA Super says returning kids to school will be complex and costly
Los Angeles USD Superintendent Austin Beutner says that when the district’s schools reopen in the fall, campuses might combine a mix of in-person and online instruction, depending on the availability of testing, and the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a live-streamed address, Superintendent Austin Beutner called on local and state government leaders to provide testing and contact tracing to students and staff, pointing to the key role schools play in reopening the economy. “We all want to be back in schools,” said Beutner. “I wish I could wave a wand and send all back to schools safely and quickly. But unfortunately, it’s not as simple as wearing masks, moving the desks or putting some painters tape on the floor to keep students further apart.” Schedules, Beutner added, could differ depending on age and instructional program, and so might the interaction with others. A group of ten second graders and one teacher may form a consistent cohort, but ten students in one high school class that share five classes can become a cohort of 60 or more.
----- CLASSROOM -----
Teacher survey underlines distance learning challenges
Reflecting the complexity of managing the shift to distance learning for both teachers and students, Educators for Excellence’s recently released Voices from the (Virtual) Classroom survey indicates that many students lack the equipment and quiet space to successfully learn at home, especially in low-income neighborhoods. More than a third of teachers said they have not received professional development since the beginning of the pandemic, while 81% of teachers say balancing child care at home while teaching "seriously impairs" their ability to do their jobs. Sixty-one per cent of teachers fear that homeless students’ needs are also not being met during the school closures, neither are the needs of students with learning and physical disabilities, English learners, students from low-income households or students of color. The survey also revealed that teachers support creative back-to-school solutions such as grouping students by competency level (57%), having teachers “loop” with classes an additional year (54%), prioritizing in-school remediation during the school day (60%) and tutoring/afterschool programs that help catch students up (56%).
----- SPORTS -----
How can school sports get back on the playing field ?
When in-person classes around the country began to close in March to curb the spread of coronavirus, high school sports also came to an abrupt halt, delivering a crushing defeat to millions of student-athletes. As the virus raged on, educators across the country cautioned that it would be difficult to justify playing sports if in-person classes do not resume in the fall. But as summer approaches and COVID-19 cases in some states begin to wane, there is increasing pressure to find ways to play. “We're all struggling right now to come up with the practices and approaches for returning to activity,” said Karissa Niehoff, the executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, the governing body that writes the rules of competition for most high school sports in the United States. “A lot of the factors that will really need to be guiding us through these phases, will be knowing who has the virus, who had the virus, onsite testing at all school sites, regular monitoring of all of our participants and communication with opposing schools about what to do, the availability of tests, the availability of information,” she said. In late May, the national federation’s sports medicine advisory committee, a 15-member panel of medical doctors, certified athletic trainers, high school coaches and officials, research specialists and state high school association leaders, published guidance intended to help schools safely resume activity. The guidelines recommended a measured approach to restarting sports and other activities with social distancing in the initial phase.
----- LEGAL -----
States sue DeVos over rule on sexual assault, harassment in schools
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia sued U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education Thursday, challenging new rules that govern how K-12 schools, colleges, and universities must respond to student complaints of sexual assault and harassment under Title IX. DeVos issued her rules last month, after rescinding earlier guidelines from the Obama administration in 2017; the new policy bolsters the rights of the accused, narrows the definition of sexual harassment and allows students to question one another at live hearings, among other changes. The lawsuit alleges that DeVos’ policy undercuts existing mandates in Title IX, the 1972 law barring discrimination based on sex in education. It also challenges DeVos’ order to implement the rules by August 14, saying the deadline is impracticable during a pandemic. The case is being led by attorneys general in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California, with backing from a total of 17 states and the District of Columbia. The suit asks a federal judge to declare the policy unlawful, postpone its effective date during a judicial review and block the department from enforcing the rules. In response, the Education Department said: “Civil rights are not on hold during this pandemic. To pretend otherwise is to let students down.”
----- CHILD DEVELOPMENT ----
Early reading instruction takes a hit during COVID-19
While remote learning has presented challenges in every subject and grade level, some teachers and researchers say that early reading instruction is especially problematic. Teaching young students how to read and write often requires hands-on activities, like manipulating letter tiles, or learning how to form their shapes. And before they can sound out words, children rely on read-alouds, interactive play, and conversations to learn vocabulary and build knowledge about the world. They can’t read a complex informational text on their own. Researchers for the Northwest Evaluation Association project that coronavirus closures could lead to much greater learning loss in reading than usually occurs during the traditional “summer slide.” To compound the problem, researchers say there is a lack of information about what kind of remote learning works best for early reading. Fumiko Hoeft, a psychology professor at the University of Connecticut, and UConn professor Kenneth Pugh are currently working on an evaluation of GraphoLearn, a foundational skills reading app, in a distance learning environment. “Educational technology is often looked at with skepticism, but for better or worse in this era when there aren’t a lot of other choices … adaptive ed tech might have a place,” she said.
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
Preschool Teachers Trying To Convince Young Children To Wear Masks
The Washington Post (5/30, Natanson) reports federal health officials since April “have recommended that all Americans over the age of 2 wear masks in public, although the government has provided little guidance on how to achieve this among the finicky under-10 crowd.” Teachers and parents are now “working to convince kids to keep cloth coverings behind their ears, over their mouths and across their tiny nostrils.” To do so, educators are “getting creative, pasting pictures of masked superheroes into PowerPoints, asking children to sketch fantasy face coverings at home, donning masks and dancing deliriously to prove that masks cannot stop fun.” Nevertheless, kids “call the masks uncomfortable and unnerving, whether planted on their own faces or someone else’s.”
----- SOCIAL & COMMUNITY -----
Calls for schools to cut police ties
The killing of George Floyd has prompted renewed debate about the role of police in schools. The Advancement Project, a national civil rights group, is urging all school districts to cut ties with the police. In New York City, advocacy groups and even some elected officials are calling for schools to urge a reduction in the funding of the NY Police Department, which has stationed safety officers in city schools since 1998. The Minneapolis school board voted Tuesday to cut ties with the local police department, a Denver school board member has advanced a similar proposal, as has the Chicago teachers union. Portland Public Schools will no longer have city police officers patrol the halls of its nine high schools, nor will the other two school districts inside Portland city limits. While NY schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has rejected the “counselors not cops” slogan favored among advocates, Matt Gonzales, director of the Integration and Innovation Initiative at NYU’s Metro Center, says: "The idea that black and brown kids are going to walk back into a school where the NYPD is standing there — that level of threat is unacceptable."
Considerations for school leaders making a statement about George Floyd
Dorinda J. Carter Andrews, a professor and the chairperson of the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, and Shaun R. Harper, a professor at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, look at some of the points for school leaders to consider when making statements about the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week. They suggest using words that explicitly name racial violence, that do not soften the intensity of systemic racism with broad language about diversity, equity, and inclusion. If the statement does not include words such as “racism,” “racist,” “white supremacy,” or “anti-Blackness,” they say, it is insufficient and therefore should be revised. School officials should also, they say articulate the actions they plan to take to confirm that Black lives do indeed matter, by specifying how they will eliminate racist discipline policies and practices, how they will address the misdiagnosis of Black children for special education, and what they will do to hire, support, and advance the careers of more Black employees.
NTA Life Insurance - An ABCFT Sponsor
About three years ago ABCFT started a working relationship with National Teachers Associates Life Insurance Company. Throughout our partnership, NTA has been supportive of ABCFT activities by sponsorship and prizes for our various events. This organization specializes in providing insurance for educators across the nation. We have been provided both data and member testimonials about how pleased they have been with the NTA products and the opportunity to look at alternatives to the district insurance choice.
To All Members of the ABC Federation of Teachers,
National Teacher Associates (NTA) is committed in our efforts to helping educators through tough times. It’s what we do. After all…in our eyes you are the heart and soul of our communities.
Protecting you and your families has been our goal for over 45 years. Despite the current global pandemic, we are not about to slow down now. We know that many of you have had our programs for years and sometimes forget the intricacies of how they work. NTA wants to help facilitate any possible claims for now and in the future. Fortunately, all claims and reviews can be done by phone and on-line. I personally want to offer my services to guide you in the right direction with your NTA benefits.
We also apologize for not being able to finish the open enrollment for those of you who wanted to get our protection. We are still able to help by extending our enrollment window for the near future. Again, this can be done over the phone, email, or on-line.
Please contact Leann Blaisdell at any time either by phone or email.
562-822-5004
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