ABCFT - YOUnionews - October 2, 2020
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - ELECTION 2020
Ballots will be arriving in your mailboxes starting October 5th for registered voters. Ballots returned by mail must be postmarked by November 3rd; ballots returned at a secure ballot drop box must be deposited by 8:00 p.m. on November 3rd.
Encourage all of your friends and family members age 18 and over to use their voice to vote this November. To participate in this election, you must be registered by October 19th.
One or more early voting locations will be available in all counties for at least four days beginning the Saturday before the November 3rd election. In-person voting locations will be offer voter registration, replacement ballots, accessible coting machines, and language assistance for those in need.
With online access, registered voters are a click away from important voter information including the ability to check the status of your ballot once you have voted.
Click below to learn more about
California’s Election and Voters Guide
Register to vote
Learn how to vote
Check your voter status
Official Voter Information Guide
The CFT Educators Choice Voters Guide
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - School Board Report By Ray Gaer
This meeting took place on September 24 and lasted four and a half years hours. Below are some of the highlights of that meeting. Over the past three months, there has been a large number of community members concerned about the school district’s sexual harassment policies due to some incidences that came to light at a few ABC schools. Therefore, school board trustees devoted a large portion of this school board meeting was devoted to the discussion of possible sexual harassment policy changes for students.
The ABCFT leadership and its members believe that sexual harassment between students is a serious issue that is plaguing our schools as a nation. With the onset of new technologies over the past two decades, there are more reported incidences of student-to-student sexual harassment cases than at any time in our history as an institution. The comments at the school board meeting from ABCFT reflect the belief that the issues of sexual harassment and critical equity issues need to be addressed. These cultural changes cannot come only from the teachers and nurses of ABC schools. Any lasting cultural change needs to include all stakeholders in the community. This means that all stakeholders including students, parents, administers, teachers and community organizations must participate in the acknowledgment, education, and systematic policy changes that will ensure cultural change.
The next board meeting is on October 6, 2020. You can watch it live on the district website.
Update on EDP -Extended Day Program
Informational Item on Sexual Harassment
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 myStrength 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.
This week, Donna focuses on how to feel joy from the inside and the positive effects on you and others around you. Participants also improved their breathing and released tension by using Lion’s breath - take a deep breath, open mouth, stick out your tongue, and roar like a lion. Try it, come on you can do it. No one is watching. You’ll feel better!
OCTOBER 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.
Resources on ShareMyLesson.com for ALL CURRICULUM AREAS
https://sharemylesson.com/
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.
Click Here For This Month’s Full Report
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.
I hope you had a good week with your kids, which was a productive week for you. This week’s big news is that every school is preparing for walk-throughs with Keenan officials(the district attorneys) at every school over the next month as your school sites and classrooms. These preparations are needed, but they are also symbolic. As teachers and nurses, you and I know that traditional face-to-face in-person instruction in our classrooms is the most effective means of delivering curriculum in most cases. I’m sure many of you would love to get back to that traditional delivery model, but as you’ve seen it playing out across the country, this is not a conventional year in any sense of the word. In-person instruction during this school year is not a situation we should get into right away; it will take preparation and careful examination of the side effects.
School districts and schools are political entities. We see on our televisions, not in the political sense, but more so districts are part of a community political landscape. Because of community politics, school districts must reflect the community’s policies and desires and at the same time, balance that with the wishes of their labor groups. For example, Long Beach Unified has decided to continue to do distance learning until January because most of the population and their labor unions desire that extension. Whereas, Los Alamitos has a community population that has been far more aggressive about returning to in-person instruction. Both school districts are a reflection of their community and employees.
The ABC School District has its own community politics that are far more diverse than a Los Alamitos because ABC comprises multiple city municipalities and a far more diverse community in ethnic makeup and social-economic status. Nothing we do in ABC is a cookie-cutter solution that will work at every school because of the diverse populations we serve. Some community members may want to see the schools open especially when they perceive other school districts attempting to start in-person instruction. Some of our community members have the economic means to keep their kids at home; others need child care and see schools as a vital part of how they get back to work. But the biggest group in the ABC community has major concerns about the safety of students regardless of what safety precautions are taken to protect the students from COVID.
The ABC Federation of Teachers just as diverse as the community we serve, and the opinions of teachers and nurses about the opening of schools for in-person instruction are just as diverse. At this time, the majority of ABCFT members are not prepared to go back to in-person instruction. Still, I want to acknowledge and thank those who have written or spoken to Tanya and me about your desire to look for ways to get back to in-person instruction sooner rather than later. We hear you.
This gets back to my original point about being a political entity. The ABC School District and the ABC school board members will show the community that they are both preparing for in-person instruction but at the same time, the District is also conducting an abundance of caution about the decision to go back to in-person instruction in our schools. They are simultaneously satisfying and not satisfying their constitutes. It just happens that most of the community favors maintaining a distance learning format for the time being. The leadership of ABCFT is behaving similarly. ABCFT is in discussions with the District about in-person instruction, helping in preparing, working on protocols and MOU language but at the same time, myself and the rest of the ABCFT leadership are making sure that we are reflecting the opinions of the majority of the membership who are at this moment satisfied with staying in a distance learning format.
Therefore, when you see your school preparing your classrooms’ physical space and hearing about your own site-based planning committee to discuss in-person instruction, just remember that sometimes what you are seeing is politics. As a District, we are not opening in October, and ABCFT hopes that ABCUSD will announce a January start date, not unlike Long Beach Unified. We are encouraging the District administration to make their decision to begin to process and prepare both physically and mentally for this structural change. The sooner we all know, the better. The decision to open schools to in-person instruction comes down to community politics and how we, as a community, allow people the time to process changes.
Next Monday, October 5, ABCFT will send you an essential survey about both you and your students’ working conditions. We have not surveyed in four months, and we must have your input so that we can represent you at the negotiation table with the data to back up our proposals. I look forward to reading your responses.
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
Governor Newsom signs CFT-sponsored Student Borrower Bill of Rights
We are happy to report that last Friday Governor Newsom signed CFT co-sponsored AB 376, the Student Borrower Bill of Rights. This critical piece of legislation will bring much-needed reforms to the student loan market and regulate the private sector companies that service both federal and private student loans for California borrowers.
This bill will make California the first state in the nation to create a comprehensive set of rights for people holding student debt, by requiring student loan companies to treat borrowers fairly and giving borrowers the right to hold these companies accountable when they fail to meet basic servicing standards.
Currently, there are nearly 4 million Californians with a total of $147 billion in student loan debt. There are simply too many student loan servicing companies that mismanage student loans and conduct business in harmful and deceptive ways. The Student Borrower Bill of Rights will help hold these companies accountable.
Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on getting this legislation passed, including the hundreds of CFT members who wrote letters to the Legislature and the Governor, urging their support for this important bill. We are proud to have partnered with Consumer Reports, NextGen California, the Student Borrower Protection Center, Student Debt Crisis, and the Young Invincibles in sponsoring the legislation.
For more information about AB 376, and how student debt disproportionately impacts women and people of color, check out this article on the CFT website.
Are you interested in attending a CFT student debt clinic?
CFT student debt clinics cover the landscape of free and underused federal programs that help many student loan borrowers lower their monthly payments and, in some cases, even have their debt forgiven.
Already hundreds of CFT members have attended one of the CFT student debt clinics.
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
We care. Are you looking for ideas to make phenomena come alive virtually? Do you need ideas for using tech tools and apps to engage students in learning? The AFT would like to support you in providing meaningful, relevant science instruction during these difficult times. Please complete the survey, and let us know how we can support your professional needs. Deadline for submission: Oct. 9.
AFT’s Weingarten Reacts to First Presidential Debate
For Release:
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement responding to tonight’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and President Donald Trump:
“It was agonizing to watch this debate—Joe Biden clearly came prepared to show how he and Kamala Harris will create a better life for all Americans. Donald Trump’s response—his refusal to condemn white supremacy and his other bullying and abusive behavior—demonstrated once again how unfit he is for the presidency. Biden was also the only candidate on stage tonight to stand up for our democratic ideals and affirm the right of the American people to make the decision about who governs them.”
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
L.A. County to allow elementary schools to apply for reopening waivers
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to allow schools to apply for reopening waivers for transitional kindergarten to second-grade students. The motion allows the county’s Department of Public Health to implement the school waiver program for grades transitional kindergarten through two, starting at 30 schools per week, while prioritizing schools with a high number of low-income students. The county supervisors’ decision was greeted with mixed emotions. Los Angeles USD spokeswoman Shannon Harber did not say whether the district would pursue waivers, commenting only that it “continues to work on plans for students to return to schools as soon as it’s safe and appropriate to do so.” Meanwhile, Palos Verdes Peninsula USD Superintendent Alex Cherniss said he was disappointed that waivers would be limited to 30 a week and give priority to schools with more low-income families. Finally, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a statement: “It is not easy for educators to see any student struggling. But we must let science and these realities guide our actions.”
Los Angeles Times Santa Clarita Valley Signal
Nearly 300,000 Children Return To Elementary Schools In New York City
The New York Times (9/29, A1, Shapiro, Zaveri) reports New York City on Tuesday “marked a major milestone in its halting effort to reopen public schools for in-person learning, with elementary schools welcoming roughly 300,000 students to classrooms.” The majority of New York’s 1.1 million students “began the school year remotely last week, while about 90,000 pre-K students and children with advanced disabilities reported to classrooms. Hundreds of thousands of more children, including middle and high school students, are expected to report to schools by the end of this week.”
NBC News (9/29, Siemaszko) reports, “Thousands of New York City elementary public school students returned to classes Tuesday amid worrisome reports of new coronavirus outbreaks in Brooklyn and Queens and a sudden spike in the testing positivity rate.” On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) “said...that the positive test rate had climbed over 3 percent for the first time in weeks.” In order “to combat the rise,” he “announced that people who refuse to wear masks in the hardest-hit neighborhoods will be fined and private schools in those areas that refuse to adhere to social distancing requirements could be closed.”
CNN (9/29, Sgueglia, Levenson, Clarke) reports, “After two earlier delays, Tuesday’s opening for elementary schools is the second wave of a three-part reopening plan for the city’s 1.1 million students and 75,000 teachers.” CNN adds, “Last week, preschoolers and some children with special needs were allowed back into buildings, and middle and high schools are scheduled to be back for in-person learning on Thursday.”
The AP (9/29) reports the reopening of classes is “a high-stakes test for the nation’s biggest public school system even as the mayor warned that a recent rise in coronavirus cases was ‘cause for real concern.’ With children wearing masks and undergoing temperature checks at schoolhouse doors, students and parents who opted for brick-and-mortar school greeted the twice-delayed date with enthusiasm, relief and some trepidation.”
Also reporting are the Washington Post (9/29, Balingit), the Chalkbeat New York (9/29), WCBS-TV (9/29, story 6, 2:15, O'Donnell), Reuters (9/29, Caspani), and the Wall Street Journal (9/29, Brody, Honan, Subscription Publication).
De Blasio Warns Of Spice In COVID-19 Cases As Schools Reopen. The New York Times (9/29, Wu) reports New York Mayor Bill de Blasio “said that for the first time in several months, the city had seen the daily rate of positive test results for the coronavirus surpass 3 percent, even as the seven-day average was about 1.38 percent.” The spike comes at “a critical time for the city” as “about 300,000 children returned to public school classrooms for the first time since they were shuttered in March.”
----- TEACHER RESISTANCES -----
New York City School Principals Union Votes “No Confidence” In Mayor’s Reopening Plan
The Washington Post (9/27, Balingit) reports, “Just two days before New York City schools are set to reopen for tens of thousands of elementary school students, the union representing school principals called for state education officials to step in and take the reins from Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose ambitious plan to reopen school buildings has faced fierce opposition.” The Executive Board of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, “which represents more than 6,000 school principals and other school leaders, voted unanimously Sunday to declare a vote of ‘no confidence’ in de Blasio, hoping to draw attention to the acute teacher shortages faced by schools across the city.” Union president Mark Cannizzaro said: “We’ve been calling out the staffing shortage all summer long.”
Chalkbeat New York (9/27) reports union leaders “leveled sharp accusations against city leaders – including that principals were pressured to underreport how many additional teachers they needed as the city faces a massive staffing crunch.” The union called the staffing agreements negotiated with teachers “grossly irresponsible” and contends that its leaders were not informed of a “last-minute deal” made late Friday over how schools could staff classes that “potentially sends principals back to the drawing board to recreate schedules, even as the school year is already underway.” That agreement “appeared to be the last straw for the administrators union,” which led to Sunday’s vote of no confidence.
The New York Times (9/27, Shapiro) reports Cannizzaro “said the city still does not have enough teachers to staff its schools, and that last-minute deals hammered out between the teachers’ union and the city had further undermined principals’ trust in the mayor and their confidence in the reopening plan.” The principals’ union “has been warning for weeks” that the staffing crisis was created by a deal between the de Blasio administration and the city teachers’ union that “would have required schools to double their teaching staffs – during a hiring freeze, and with mass layoffs looming.” Nevertheless, Cannizzaro said principals would still report to buildings as scheduled this week and are not considering a strike. He said, “I think parents should be confident that any child that arrives at a building will be given the utmost care.”
Also reporting are the AP (9/27), Wall Street Journal (9/27, Honan, Subscription Publication), Bloomberg (9/27, Goldman), New York Post (9/25, Algar), NPR (9/27, Treisman), AM New York (9/27) and Forbes (9/27, Beer).
NYC Teachers Reach Deal To Let More Educators Work From Home. Chalkbeat New York (9/25) reported the New York City Department of Education reversed its policy and “educators will now be allowed to work remotely if they are teaching students who are learning from home, according to a new agreement reached Friday between the city and the teachers union.” The deal “gives priority for remote positions to educators living with family members who are at higher risk for coronavirus complications,” assuaging a “major concern among some teachers who worried about transmitting the coronavirus to vulnerable relatives.” In a statement, a spokeswoman said the education department will extend the work-from-home preference, which kicks in Oct. 5, “first to those who reside with someone on the CDC medical accommodation list.” The deal grants principals some leeway to require up to 20% of teachers with remote assignments to come into school buildings “with reasonable advance notice,” but it also “bars principals from requiring teachers to broadcast their classes to a mix of students who are in-person and remote.”
De Blasio Ignored Advisory Council’s Warning Of Teacher Shortage Months Ago. The Wall Street Journal (9/27, Brody, Honan, Subscription Publication) reports NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio ignored a warning of a looming teacher shortage by an advisory council of experienced education and social services leaders he assembled earlier this year. David Banks, an appointee, and president of the Eagle Academy Foundation, expressed frustration with de Blasio’s claim last week he only recently became aware of the city’s staffing problem. According to the Journal, some Education Sector Advisory Council members said de Blasio did not grasp the difficulty of executing a reopening plan by early September.
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
AAP: COVID-19 cases rising among U.S. children
After preying heavily on the elderly in the spring, the coronavirus is increasingly infecting American children and teens in a trend authorities say appears fueled by school reopenings and the resumption of sports, playdates and other activities. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that children of all ages now make up 10% of all U.S cases, up from 2% in April. Dr. Sally Goza, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the rising numbers are a big concern and underscore the importance of masks, hand-washing, social distancing and other precautions. “While children generally don’t get as sick with the coronavirus as adults, they are not immune and there is much to learn about how easily they can transmit it to others,’’ she said in a statement. The AAP research is based on reports from public health departments in 49 states, New York City, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam. New York state doesn’t provide data by age. Most states count children's cases up to age 19, though a few use different age ranges. As of September 24, the AAP counted nearly 625,000 youth cases, up to age 20, a 14% increase over the previous two weeks. Deaths totaled 109, well under 1% of all COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S.
US News and World Report AAP News and Journals
States to get millions of rapid coronavirus tests
President Donald Trump announced Monday that the federal government is to begin distributing rapid coronavirus tests to states this week. He also urged governors to use them to reopen schools for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. At a Rose Garden event, White House officials said that 6.5m Abbott Laboratories tests will go out this week and that a total of 100m tests will be distributed to governors over the next several weeks. Adm. Brett Giroir, the government’s top testing official, told Congress last week that the nation will soon have the capacity to run 3m tests a day on average. He also demonstrated how the test is given, self-administering the nasal swab then placing it on a piece of paper that contained six drops of liquid. “This is a very sophisticated little piece of cardboard with lots of antibodies and incredible technology,” he said. While Sen. Lamar Alexander, chair of the Senate education committee, asserts that "all roads back to work and school lead through testing," writing in Education Week, Evie Blad cautions that with about 50.8m students enrolled in U.S. public schools and about 3.2m full-time teachers, according to the most recent federal data, the reach of the tests may be limited.
Los Angeles Times CNN Education Week
White House pressured CDC over reopening schools
Mark Mazzetti, Noah Weiland and Sharon LaFraniere examine documents and interviews suggesting that senior White House officials have pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help "play down" the risks of kids children back to school. As part of the push to get children back in class for in-person learning, the authors suggest that federal officials, including Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, and officials working for Vice President Mike Pence, who led the task force, also tried to circumvent the CDC in a search for alternate data showing that the pandemic was weakening and posed little danger to younger people. White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern insists that the coronavirus task force successfully brought together public health officials “who offer different expertise and views on a variety of issues” in setting policy.
----- STATE NEWS -----
Gov. Newsom vetoes high school ethnic studies bill
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have required all high school students in California to take an ethnic studies course to graduate. He cited an ongoing controversy over the appropriate curriculum in his message on the legislation. AB 331 would have added a one-semester ethnic studies course to the state’s high school graduation requirement. Although he signed a separate bill last month making ethnic studies a graduation requirement for all 430,000 undergraduates in the California State University system, he said that the high school bill, authored by Assemblyman Jose Medina (D-Riverside), would come “at a time when there is much uncertainty” about what content should be included in a K-12 ethnic studies course. In a statement, Medina called the veto “a missed opportunity” and “a disservice” to students. “I am committed to making ethnic studies a reality for all of California’s students and will be re-introducing this legislation next year,” he said.
----- DISTRICTS -----
LA Schools Superintendent outlines plans to test all students and staff for COVID
Public schools in Los Angeles are not ready to reopen for in-person learning because COVID-19 cases remain elevated, school officials said Monday. Los Angeles USD Superintendent Austin Beutner said that, despite nearly half a year of students being out of the classroom, even challenges posed by virtual learning will not accelerate their return. “Schools cannot open until the overall level of the virus is much lower,” Beutner added. “We’re dependent upon state and local health authorities to put in place and maintain the appropriate guidelines to manage this.” He outlined a new $150m program to test all teachers and students in the district, including information on a new app being built by Microsoft that students will need to use to get on their campuses every day. The app will include a daily symptom self-check form. If there are any caution signs or indications of the virus, the individual can be immediately connected to health professionals. “An individual who tests negative for COVID-19 can use the app to complete a daily survey and be provided with a daily pass which allows them to return to schools,” Beutner said. Testing for the whole year will cost the district about $300 per student, with each individual test coming in at a cost of $31.
Laguna Beach to reopen elementary schools Monday
Laguna Beach USD is planning to reopen El Morro and Top of the World, its two elementary schools, for in-person learning on Monday. With the district’s planned staggered starts, transitional kindergarten through second-grade students would begin hybrid learning on Monday or Tuesday, and third- to fifth-grade students would come back to campus on Wednesday or Thursday. Elementary students would remain with their cohorts, and all elementary students would participate in distance learning on Fridays.
Poway pushes ahead with elementary openings
The Poway USD Board of Education voted Thursday to allow 10 elementary schools to hold classes on campus starting October 1. The remaining elementary schools will reopen October 12. Abraxas High School returns on October 8. The initial elementary schools are Canyon View, Highland Ranch, Morning Creek, Painted Rock, Pomerado, Shoal Creek, Sundance, Sunset Hills, Turtleback and Westwood. Staff continue to work on how to reopen middle and high schools, which require a more complex schedule due to having multiple teachers, officials said. The district is continuing to explore what staff are calling a “flexible model,” which will need to be tweaked for each campus, due to teacher availability and infrastructure.
----- CLASSROOM -----
Education Experts Fear Increase In Dropouts As Remote Learning Continues Amid Pandemic
HuffPost (9/18, Klein) reports that since 2011, “the four-year high school graduation rate has been inching steadily upward, growing from 79% to 85% in 2018.” However, experts fear “that 2020 could sharply reverse this trendline.” Education leaders “are predicting a sizable increase in the number of high school dropouts during the 2020-2021 school year.” With more than half of school districts “using hybrid or remote models, they fear struggling students will disengage from their school systems without a fully in-person option.” Amid an economic crisis “with high unemployment rates, more teachers report that their students are opting to work hourly jobs to help support their families.” Others are “taking care of siblings in lieu of stable childcare.” Compounding these issues “is the fact that many students still lack access to the appropriate technology to complete online schooling.”
Education Dive (9/21, De La Rosa) reports that teachers “say their students are less engaged during remote learning because some are helping their families pay bills or care for their siblings, while others lack access to technology or internet connections.” Many students “also face higher barriers to success when learning from home, where they are without the schools’ support systems.”
Experts fear student engagement challenges will hit graduation rates
Education leaders fear that the trend of rising graduation rates, which have steadily increased over the last few years, will be reversed by remote learning in the 2020-21 school year. An America's Promise Alliance survey found nearly 30% of students did not feel connected to adults in the school at the end of the last academic year. Slightly fewer did not feel connected to their school communities and classmates, at 22% and 23% respectively. The Orange Grove alternative school in Corona, California, has lost touch with about 20-25% of its students, while in San Antonio, Texas, 54% of high school students reported feeling less engaged during distance learning and 64% of parents of younger students reported their children felt the same way.
----- LEGAL -----
Lower courts weigh access to private and religious schools
South Carolina is just one of several states whose policies that limit parents’ ability to use public funds at private and religious schools are being challenged. The South Carolina Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether Gov. Henry McMaster can use $32m in federal pandemic relief funds for a voucher program to finance private school tuition for roughly 5,000 students. Recent other lawsuits too seek to follow a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue earlier this year that weakened states’ ability to hinder the flow of public dollars to religious schools. The cases also come as the Senate prepares to consider whether to add Amy Coney Barrett to a high court supermajority expected to further ease restrictions on private and religious schools.
----- WORKFORCE ----
Pandemic to foster new teacher recruitment strategies
A new report by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) warns that the teacher staffing shortage will worsen due to the COVID-19 outbreak and should prompt school leaders to rethink how they manage recruitment. Teacher shortages already exist for subjects such as STEM, special education and other specialties, and the pandemic is likely to exacerbate these vacancies, AIR says. Lynn Holdheide, senior advisor of the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, a recent report by whom suggests state education systems should consider funding options that allow highly effective teachers to teach multiple classrooms through virtual learning formats with support from paraprofessionals or other staff, asserts: “This is a great chance to rethink how technology is used by high-quality teachers and to address shortage areas.”
----- CHILD DEVELOPMENT ----
Parents delaying preschool and kindergarten
Thousands of parents across the U.S. are having their children delay or skip kindergarten because of the coronavirus pandemic. The opt outs, combined with huge declines in preschool enrollment, are increasingly raising concerns about the long-term effects of so much lost early education. In Los Angeles’ public schools, kindergarten enrollment is down about 6,000 students, or 14%. In Nashville, Tennessee, public kindergarten enrollment is down about 1,800 students, or 37%, from last year. According to a University of Oregon survey conducted in early September with 1,000 parents from around the U.S., the most frequent reason cited was "safety concerns," followed by concerns about managing virtual schooling and other responsibilities. Nate Schwartz, a professor at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, comments: “If there is a group for which you would be particularly concerned, it is these very young students who are not having these foundational experiences.”
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
Teens Twice As Likely To Face Coronavirus Infection As Younger Children, CDC Analysis Says
The New York Times (9/28, Mandavilli) reports, “Teenagers are about twice as likely to become infected with the coronavirus as younger children, according to an analysis released Monday by the” CDC. The CDC’s “study adds to a body of evidence suggesting that older teenagers, in high school and college, are more likely to be infected and more likely to transmit the coronavirus than are children under age 10, said Dr. Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.” In the “study, 58 percent of school-aged children with confirmed infections reported at least one symptom; only 5 percent reported having no symptoms. Information on symptoms was missing for 37 percent of the children.”
CNBC (9/28, Higgins-Dunn) reports the study “analyzed 277,285 confirmed Covid-19 cases in school-aged children in the U.S. between March and mid-September. Researchers found the average weekly incidence of Covid-19 in adolescents to be roughly 37 cases per 100,000 children.” That is “‘approximately twice’ the rate in younger kids between the ages of 5 and 12, which reported an incidence of 19 cases per 100,000 children.”
Forbes (9/28, Gross) reports the study “also said young people might play a significant role in community transmission – a finding that comes as schools across the country grapple with how to safely reopen.” In the study, “there was some differentiation between the age groups for race: 46% of the younger children were Hispanic compared to 39% of the adolescents and 26% of the younger children were white compared to 36% of the adolescents.”
The Hill (9/28, Hellmann) reports, “Hispanic and Latino children in both age groups made up nearly 42 percent of positive cases, while Black children represented 17 percent of positive cases, despite making up about 26 percent and 14 percent of the population, respectively.” Roughly “3 percent of adolescents and 2 percent of younger children who tested positive had at least one underlying health condition, but those who experienced serious COVID-19 illness were more likely to have one.”
COVID’s emotional toll revealed
Only 68% of children globally have had access to textbooks during the pandemic, according to a challenging new report by Save the Children, which reveals that more than eight in 10 children felt they have learned "little or nothing at all" during the pivot to remote learning. The 37-country survey, taken from May through July 2020, of thousands of children aged between 11 and 17, revealed that 37% of kids had no one to help them with their schoolwork. Among the study’s particularly unsettling findings, 63% of children experienced an increase in “negative feelings” during the initial weeks of school closure, this rate rose steeply as the lockdown continued, while reports of household violence doubled to 17% during school closures.
----- TECHNOLOGY -----
COVID makes internet access a ‘civil rights issue’
In an opinion piece for Education Week, Mark Lieberman notes that the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the crisis of unequal broadband access, showing it to be “a civil rights emergency in need of a comprehensive solution.” As many as 15 million of this country's 50.7 million public school students lack adequate connectivity at home for virtual learning, a Common Sense Media survey found this spring, while 10% of the nation’s public school teachers also lacked adequate home internet access. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently offered $86 million in loans for rural internet service providers in several states to expand access. But a House bill that includes investments in broadband infrastructure has languished in the Senate, and the digital divide isn't a fixture of either ongoing presidential campaign. “To ignore the digital divide, and the generation of students suffering as a result, is to uphold the boundaries of race and class that keep American society hostile to tens of millions of its people,” Mr Lieberman concludes. “To tackle it head-on is to imagine how much better America could be if internet access were no longer a luxury afforded only to those who have inherited its privilege.”
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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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