ABCFT - YOUnionews - September 11, 2020
KEEPING YOU INFORMED- Engagement & Participation Forms
ABCFT is receiving many emails concerning the latest State accountability documents that most principals discussed with their staffs this week. We are working with the district office to get answers for your many qu:estions. Here’s what know so far:
On August 24th the CDE informed districts across the State of new accountability documents which track student weekly engagement and participation. These documents were to be implemented beginning September 1st and districts throughout the State had no ability to provide feedback on the development of these forms. Teachers across the state of California are expressing their anger about this additional responsibility thrust onto teachers who are already doing their best to adjust to online learning platforms and delivery.
The ABCFT bargaining team was able to negotiate 45 minutes each Wednesday for teachers to work on these forms. ABCFT fought to ensure that this additional paperwork was given time for completion during your duty day.
Members of the ABCFT leadership team will be joining a California Federation of Teachers webinar this Friday at 3:30 that will discuss the latest State mandatory changes for attendance and engagement. Furthermore, the State also has given new guidelines on how districts can address the needs of special education students by having small cohorts of special education students do in person instruction. CFT will provide guidance that will help define who this new guideline impacts and how it will impact teachers across the state.
(ABCFT will have a full report of this week’s School Board meeting in next weeks YOUnionews)
MEMBER BENEFITS - WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS
Maintaining our mental health and well-being is important for all of us. ABCFT will be offering Wellness Wednesdays. Each Wednesday from 3:00 to 3:30 pm members will have an opportunity to virtually participate in Guided Meditation and Chair Yoga. These weekly sessions will give members a chance to practice self-care.
In partnership with Kaiser Permanente, you can also access mindfulness resources for all ABCFT members. For Kaiser members, you have free access to the app Calm and myStrengh which offers personalized self-care programs based on the cognitive behavioral therapy model.
Please be kind to yourself and find time in your busy schedule to take care of yourself.
Click here to view recording of the Guided Meditation and Chair Yoga for Sept. 9th.
TEACHER LEADERS PROGRAM by Tanya Golden
In collaboration with our national affiliate, AFT we are honored to offer the ABCFT Teacher Leaders Program for the 2020-21 school year. More now than ever, educators are needed to advocate for policy that affects the entire education family. Teacher Leaders will complete action research and along the process learn how to identify and self-select education policy to change or influence. The Teacher Leader program help educators find their inner voice and learn how to advocate for their students and colleagues. Now is the time to use your voice and become a part of the ABCFT Teacher Leaders community.
Below are the details regarding this national program as well as the online application process.
These attachments offer highlights of the program:
Teacher Leaders Program Participant Guidelines
Teacher Leaders Program Application
Final, Final Application due date Friday, September 11,18, 2020
TOSA TIDBITS
A new column, (Teacher on Special Assignment) TOSA Tips will showcase the hard work TOSA’s do to support teachers in the classroom. The topics highlighted this week are math and science resources for teachers and ABC’s Parent Academy. Thank you to the TOSA’s for contributing and expect to see more updates as they become available.
NewsELA: by David Franklin
Teachers in grades 2-6 are being asked to sign into NewsELA with their myabcusd.org email accounts. When you log using myabcusd.org accounts it will help the merging of the basic accounts with the premium features available that the district is licensed to use this school year. Simply follow the steps below to activate this merge.
Go to: https://newsela.com/signin
Sign in with Google:
Use the .org Google Account
Begin using NewsELA
The old account and new account will be merged after Sept 21. You may sign in to either until then.
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. This weekly report aims to keep the membership informed about issues that impact their working/learning conditions and their mental well-being. Together we make the YOUnion.
Okay, so much for all my talk about staying calm and pushing through the week. Every couple of months or so I am mandated to show up to what is called a formula funded meeting for local presidents in CFT. These meeting are a way for presidents to hear from CFT leaders what is happening across the state and what things CFT is doing legislatively or politically to advocate for its members. Sometimes these meetings highlight new technology or new paperwork that is required to keep the local in good status…….This starting to sound familiar to all of you. Anyway, at some point in the meeting I couldn’t take it anymore and I had a melt down. Not my proudest moment but sometimes you just need to say what isn’t being said. The CFT meeting needed to be about what presidents were experiencing and not about the CFT’s latest push. I’ve said it before, sometimes CFT is like just another district office spitting out mandates in a tone deaf meeting. (more positive info on the outcome of this later)
How does a leadership avoid being “tone deaf”? The most important part of being a leader is that you need to have a firm understanding of the emotions, concerns, and thoughts of the people you represent especially when they are in CRISIS. I don’t know about you but I think we are all in a state of constant crisis and right now we all need someone we can talk to, someone to empathize with you, someone to cry with you and someone to scream with you. We need each other like no other time in our history as a union or profession.
Here in ABCFT, Tanya Golden, Ruben Manciallas, your ABCFT Executive Board, and your ABCFT Site Representatives work hard to understand exactly how you are feeling from day to day. Much of my day is spent listening to teachers and nurses about the current situations they find themselves in and the emotions that come with those challenges. It seems like each week we seem face new “unprecedented” (DRINK) challenges. This week we heard about changes at the state level about special education and by midweek all of you were informed about the states latest attendance and accountability paperwork that is being rolled out statewide….it is just downright ridiculous and teachers are losing their ****. I don’t blame them at all.
WE HEAR YOU. Many of you are at a breaking point and I totally get it. Just know that Tanya and I and all of the ABCFT leaders are there for you when you need us. There will be no changes in special education until sometime in October and even then it will not impact all Special Education teachers. Over the month of September we are working with the district to find solutions on how to best address the needs of students and the safety of our members. ABCFT will be reaching out to all Special Education teachers to get you guidance and concerns as we move forward in negotiations concerning how special education will look in ABC in the coming months. More information to come soon on this topic.
I’m happy to report that after a number of CFT local presidents voiced their concerns that the state organization is working hard to listen to what we are saying and experiencing. This Friday at 3:30 Tanya and I will be attending a CFT Division Council ECTK12 meeting concerning the changes in special education and the impact the attendance and accountability forms are having statewide. My take away is this - don’t wait till you have a freakout to be heard. Talk about your concerns with your principals, site rep, and colleagues so that they know what you are experiencing and how perhaps they can support you. Please attend our YOUnion Chats on Tuesday if you have questions, thoughts, concerns or you want to see what corny joke we might tell this week.
Its Friday and we end another unimaginable week in ABC and I can think of no other people I’d rather be experiencing this with during this time in history, thank you my YOUnion sisters and brothers.
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
Update ( excerpt from an email printed with permission from CFT President Jeff Freitas)
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
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-----
Teacher Deaths Spark COVID-19 Concerns As School Year Begins
The Washington Post (9/10, Shepherd) reports at least six teachers have died of COVID-19 in recent weeks. “It’s not clear whether any of the teachers were infected at school, and many quarantined to avoid exposing students and other staff members. But their deaths have renewed fears that school campuses will become a breeding ground for the virus, spreading the illness as communities grapple with how to balance the need to educate children with properly addressing the pandemic.” This news comes amid the backdrop of the struggle districts and state officials are facing in balancing safety with the need to education students.
CBS News (9/10) reports, “Teachers in at least three states have died after bouts with the coronavirus since the beginning of the new school year. The deaths have left a teachers’ union leader worrying that the return to in-person classes will have a deadly impact” without better safety precautions. “The news comes amid grim new data about COVID-19 cases in children.” Meanwhile, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten “said schools need guidelines such as mandatory face coverings and strict social distancing rules to reopen safely.” Also reporting are CNN (9/10, Karimi), Forbes (9/10, McEvoy), the New York Daily News (9/10, Schladebeck), Fox News (9/10, Aaro), and Yahoo! News (9/10, Bekiempis).
Meanwhile, the New York Daily News (9/10, Elsen-Rooney) reports the local teachers union says some 16 New York City teachers have tested positive for COVID-19.
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
More students back at school, despite rise in COVID cases among children
Tuesday was the first day of school for more than 1.8 million students, with most of the nation's biggest districts offering online only learning; but for those that opened their doors to students, the watch for coronavirus spread begins, with the number of COVID-19 cases among children are rising. About 513,000 children have been infected with coronavirus as of September 3, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association. In the last two weeks of the study, the number of child cases jumped by 16%, or 70,630 cases. "These numbers are a chilling reminder of why we need to take this virus seriously," said American Academy of Pediatrics President Dr. Sally Goza in the groups' weekly report on pediatric coronavirus cases. While COVID-19 deaths are rare among children and young adults, many young people are suffering long-term effects from the disease. And even those without symptoms can easily spread coronavirus to others.
Judge strikes down DeVos plan to boost pandemic relief for private schools
A federal judge on Friday ruled that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ effort to boost the amount of emergency pandemic relief that flows to private school students is illegal. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled that Mrs DeVos ran afoul of the CARES Act when she required public schools to send a greater share of pandemic assistance to private school students than is typically required under federal law. In July, the NAACP filed a lawsuit on behalf of some plaintiff families that have children enrolled in public schools in states including Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, Nevada, Mississippi, Washington, D.C. as well as Alabama; it argued that the interim final rule would drastically decrease the COVID-19 resources provided to support public school children and historically underserved populations during the pandemic, and that it coerced school districts to use an illegal process to inflate the amount of COVID-19 relief funding they must share with private schools. In her ruling, Judge Friedrich said it was “difficult to imagine how Congress could have been clearer” in explaining how it wanted the funding distributed under the CARES Act, rejecting DeVos’ argument that there was an ambiguity in the law that she should could clarify with her own policy.
School closures to cost U.S. economy trillions
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has warned that the interruption to children's schooling in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic could be equivalent to a total economic loss of $15.3tn in the U.S alone. The OECD said that while educators have made a concerted effort to maintain learning during this period of homeschooling, children have nonetheless had to rely more on their own resources to study remotely. As a result, beyond the pandemic, the OECD said that "there are evident benefits to students in expanding their learning time and opportunities beyond the school gate by being able to learn using a variety of distance learning approaches."
----- STATE NEWS -----
LA County: schools may not fully open until at least November
No campus in Los Angeles County will be allowed to reopen to all K-12 students until at least November, although schools can begin to offer small in-person classes for children with special needs at no more than 10% of capacity at one time, county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday. Top priority will be given to students with disabilities and students who are learning to speak English. Schools and school districts have flexibility to identify which students need in-person instruction. Students who need in-person assessments also will be prioritized. Students can meet one-on-one with a teacher or another staff member or in groups as large as 12 with as many as two adult supervisors or teachers. The county plans to study data from this smaller-scale start-up over the next six weeks before making any conclusions about a broader school reopening, Ms Ferrer said.
Long Beach USD campuses to stay closed through January
Long Beach USD has announced it will stay with online classes until at least January 28. Superintendent Jill Baker said that while the health data in Long Beach has stabilized, they “still present significant challenges to returning students to in-person learning, thus our decision to extend distance learning based on consultation with health officials…. we believe that not perpetuating a cycle of opening and closing classrooms and schools will best contribute to stabilizing the learning experience for our students, and will allow parents to plan for the coming weeks and months.” It’s not yet clear how the announcement will affect students with special needs, whom state and local health officials recently said could return to campuses in small groups as long as the district follows strict health rules.
Long Beach Post My News LA The Press-Telegram
----- DISTRICTS -----
Los Alamitos reopens six elementary school campuses
On Tuesday, Los Alamitos USD became the first public school district in Orange County to reopen some of its schools to in-person instruction. Lee Elementary, Los Alamitos Elementary, Mcgaugh Elementary, Rossmoor Elementary, Weaver Elementary and Hopkins Elementary were able to welcome back students after being granted a state waiver back in mid-August. The schools reopened on the same day that the county was upgraded from California’s purple to red tier, paving the way for schools to receive permission to reopen by September 22, including Los Alamitos Unified’s middle and high schools. Once the county moves into the red tier, there is a 14-day waiting period before it can reopen schools.
Sac City district at loggerheads with teacher union
Sacramento City USD administrators have delivered a cease-and-desist letter to the Sacramento City Teachers Association, calling on the union to use a COVID-19 distance learning plan. While the district and the union entered state mediation last week, school administrators adopted a distance learning plan on Saturday; it wants to include recorded instruction, assessments and logging service plans for students on an Individualized Education Program. The union wants the district to provide additional administrative and clerical staff support to assist with logging students’ plans so that teachers can prioritize instruction. The teachers union spoke out against the district’s cease-and-desist order Monday, arguing that their professional teaching judgement is not being respected, and that they believe in “quality not quantity” when it comes to educating their students. “They essentially want us to be robots,” said Preston Jackson, a teacher at California Middle School for 16 years. He said the school district expects teachers to “plug [students] into a system that may or may not work for them.” Similarly, Luther Burbank High School teacher Shana Just said she didn’t agree with the district’s “one size fits all” approach.
----- CLASSROOM -----
Pandemic further widening achievement gaps
New research by Opportunity Insights, a group based at Harvard University’s economics department, indicates that the pandemic-prompted school closures are exacerbating achievement gaps not only by leaving some students behind but also by "propelling" more privileged children even farther ahead academically. Participation and mastery rates in Zearn Math, an online math program for students in kindergarten through fifth grade which more than 2.5m students in more than half the country’s school districts were using in class before school buildings closed in March, offer a glimpse into the crisis. Participation and progress "dropped off" for students from low- and middle-income communities but rose to levels "higher than before" the shutdown for those from high-income areas. Zearn co-founder and CEO Shalinee Sharma said she “flipped out” when she saw student use diverging by income: "We could see certainly by early April that there was a pattern where high-income students were holding their participation rates and increasing their math progress, and low-income students, many of them had disappeared, and if they were around, they were doing far less math,” she told The 74. The 74 Million
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
Big drop in teens vaping
Vaping by U.S. teenagers has fallen dramatically this year, according to a federal report released Wednesday. The survey, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggests that the number of school kids who vape fell by 1.8m in a year, from 5.4m to 3.6m. Kenneth Warner, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan’s school of public health, who has also tracked a recent decline in teen smoking to all-time lows of about 6%, comments: “This does look like a very substantial decrease in a single year and it’s very encouraging.” Among the likely factors, Warner underlines the general negative publicity surrounding vaping. Also, Juul preemptively pulled all its vaping flavors except menthol and tobacco last fall ahead of federal action.
----- SOCIAL & COMMUNITY -----
Teaching the 'new' COVID-19 social-emotional skills
Of the districts whose reopening plans Education Week has analyzed, less than a third plan to include at least some in-person classes. Helping students to develop critical social-emotional skills in a socially-distanced world will require administrators and teachers to not just rethink existing approaches to social learning but also teach children to navigate the new social skills that are needed for life during the pandemic. “I think it's going to require a lot of creativity on the part of our schools and educators to think about how they're communicating social-emotional learning (SEL) during this time,” said Justina Schlund, director of field learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. Recommendations for school and district leaders include finding ways to support students from a distance, such as using “color checks” for children to use to signal their emotional “temperature,” to compensate for the loss of physical cues when teaching online.
----- HIGHER EDUCATION -----
Rising education levels provide diminishing economic boost
The share of U.S. workers with college degrees has grown significantly over the past decade, reports the Wall Street Journal. However, the publication adds, those gains haven’t translated into a substantial productivity boost. College enrollment, which had already started rising when President Barack Obama took office, accelerated during his first term. By 2019, under the Trump administration, nearly half of all Americans between ages 25 and 29 had an associate degree or higher, up from 37% in 2005, census data show. The share with a bachelor’s rose to 39% from 29%. However, productivity has grown tepidly. From 2007 to 2019, the productivity of nonfarm businesses rose an average of 1.4% a year. Harvard economist Lawrence Katz says higher education, in the aggregate, doesn’t carry the same productivity punch it once did. In the 21st century, the contribution of higher-education gains to annual productivity growth has been cut in half, compared with the past century, he said. George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan adds that while many college graduates are more productive than nongraduates, it isn’t because college made them that way. Rather, many graduates already had valuable attributes—such as an ability to focus and learn quickly—before college. Their degree simply signals to employers that they have long had these attributes, making it easier for hiring managers to sort through job applicants.
----- OTHER -----
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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