ABCFT - YOUnionews - November 20, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving from ABCFT!!!
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - Safety Update
Over the last couple of months, many of you have expressed your concern about the HVAC units and filtering systems in your classrooms. During the ABCFT/ABCUSD negotiation meeting this Wednesday, we were able to get some clarity about the state of HVAC systems throughout the district. Here is an excerpt from a clarifying email.
“All of the HVAC units, even those in the bungalows, will have the MERV 13 filters in place to provide the filtration for every learning and workspace.
MERV is the industry-standard rating system for air filters, the normal business air filters are MERV-8.
Because of COVID-19 CDC has recommended the upgrade of normal business filters and we have chosen to upgrade to MERV-13 which filters down to .3 to 1 micron of particles as compared to 3 to 10 microns.
With this upgrade, there is no need to purchase additional portable filters.”
As of today, ABC is on target to have all of the MERV 13 filters in all units by the start of the second semester.
MEMBER BENEFITS - WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS
Maintaining our mental health and well-being is important for all of us. ABCFT will be offering Wellness Wednesdays 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 making connections. Participants used 4 element meditation which focuses on earth, air, fire, and water. The session ended with a quote from Renee Brown about connection.
SPOTLIGHT - Artesia Children’s Center by Ray Gaer
Over the past couple of weeks, members of the ABCFT leadership team have been out visiting school sites and programs around the school district. I was able to meet with the teaching staff at the Artesia Children’s Center this week as they were preparing for their monthly parent supply pick up. The Artesia Children’s Center is the hub for Child Development teachers and EIP (early intervention specialists).
Here are the student supply bags that are put together each month so that students have hands-on supplies. This is critical for the development of our youngest ABC students.
We safely met for about thirty minutes and discussed the changes they have experienced, how they have adapted to the use of technology and how ABCFT can help to advocate for their needs and the needs of their students. I’ll be meeting with Colin Sprigg on December 2 to push for more document cameras and other additional instructional necessities. From the pictures here you can see how important manipulatives are for our youngest students. Furthermore, each student has a three-ring binder that is full of activities and routine reinforcement. Teachers stated that their students have exhibited increased independence with the use of their three-ring binders. The biggest challenges these teachers have is the limited supplies and cost to put all of these resources together each month. ABCFT will make an effort to advocate for these programs so that they have the required supplies and resources to continue their efforts.
Teaching with manipulatives is a great way to reach our youngest students.
Thank you Artesia Children’s Center Teachers, State PreSchool Teachers, and EIP Teachers for giving me the opportunity to learn from you so that I can continue to advocate for the things you need for your students.
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - What to Expect from Your Principal
The Key to Developing Trust Between Educator and Administrator
In the midst of the pandemic, the blame is easy. Parents can be mad at teachers, teachers can be mad at elected leaders, politicians can be mad at teacher unions, principals can be mad at superintendents…
The truth is, some of this blame is deserved!
But as adults in schools — as teachers and principals — we’ll do better if we stop blaming first and, instead, figure out what we should expect from each other.
Good principals make clear, at the beginning of the year, what they want teachers to do.
Click here for the rest of this article
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 think my brain has already left for a long-awaited nine-day break because I woke up this morning because I still don’t know what to write this week. So much is happening but so much of it can just wait until December. Why bother on the last day before a vacation, right? Regardless, I’ll give the highlights.
The biggest story, I hope you are all watching is that the virus spread is expanding rapidly, so much so that the State of California has joined other states in imposing a 10 p.m. curfew starting in the next couple of days. I know the curfew hasn’t started yet but I felt like a teenager last night sneaking into the grocery store trying to beat the deadline and get home so I wouldn’t get grounded. What is important about this spread is that it makes the idea of opening ABC schools in January more of an impossibility. To even begin to think about opening Los Angeles County, we would have to be in the red tier for four weeks (2 weeks requirement and another 2 to prepare). We will all know the official decision whether we will open in January at the December 15 school board meeting but if you’re looking at your tea leaves you know the answer already. We can all take a collective deep breath and start thinking about the next and most likely last window we could return. That last window to open would be during the month of March. However, if you are listening to your neighborhood-friendly scientists they will tell you that March won’t look much better than January. For those of you who know basketball, the strategy ABCFT is using is “running out the clock” on coming back.
Here is a quick list of topics that ABCFT will go into more depth on when we return in December. When we come back in December, Chief Negotiator Ruben Mancillas will describe the latest round of negotiations and the budget outlook for California for next year. I’ll give you a hint though, the budget does not at this point look as apocalyptic as we all were being told. Things will be tight for a couple of years but it looks like the deep cuts to education might not be necessary. In other news, a recent survey sent out by the district last month shows that 84% of all parents felt that our online format either met or exceeded their expectations, therefore, at this point, there is not a major push by the community to enter hybrid. These are great factors and will keep ABC teachers from going back to any full-scale hybrid in the near future especially when coupled with COVID’s rapid expansion. The district is also looking to revamp our current Wednesday tutoring program so that it aligns more with what is being presented in the classroom. We heard from ABCFT members that parents were complaining about the disconnect between what the tutors were teaching and what you are doing in your classroom. That is not a good situation and counter-productive so look for changes in the next month. Lastly, the district will send out a student survey on December 2 to gather information about their experiences with online learning. I anticipate a rollercoaster of emotions as we hear those survey results but I know that these responses will be the catalyst for critical conversations about how we can meet the needs of our students.
Finally, I hope that you and your families have a safe and relaxing Thanksgiving break. Did I say safe? Yeah, please wear your masks and avoid groups indoors whenever possible. This COVID nonsense is no joke and I’m sure almost everyone by now knows of someone who has been affected by this very dangerous virus. It’s a bummer we all don’t get a chance to fight the crowds for those awesome black Friday sales and for most of us it will be difficult to have to tell our extended family that we won’t be able to see them for Thanksgiving. We can have make-up Thanksgiving next Summer. At least that’s what I told my mom to take the sting out of not being with her this Thanksgiving. Take a moment to think about those things that you are thankful for during this break. I am thankful for my ABC family and the support that we all provide each other. I think that this past year has actually brought many of us closer together in some ways and I know that I will never take for granted those precious moments I am able to spend with all of you when we are in-person. Time is precious and I am thankful for this time with all of you.
Let the tension and fatigue drift away. Do joy over this break and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
Political Action Opportunity
Dear CFT local Presidents and CFT members,
Now that November 3rd has passed, we have one more big push ahead of us to change the course of our country at the national level. You have done incredible work so far, and we have just a little further to go.
I’ve received many inquiries about how CFT locals and members can support the runoff elections for U.S. Senate in Georgia on January 5, 2021. Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are challenging incumbent Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively. Voters have until December 7, 2020, to register to vote for this election, so efforts will focus on registration through that date and then shift to voter turnout once the registration deadline has passed.
These runoff elections are critical because they would give Democrats and Republicans 50 votes each in the U.S. Senate. In the case of a tie, the tie breaking vote is cast by the Vice President, in this case our new VP Kamala Harris. With Joe Biden claiming a historic victory in Georgia during this year’s Presidential election (he’s the first Democrat to win the state in 28 years), there is a real chance to flip these seats.
Contributions to Candidates and Organizations
As this is a federal election, CFT locals should NOT make contributions to the candidates directly, as neither CFT nor its affiliate locals operate federal PACs. AFT will make the maximum allowable contribution to each candidate, and under federal law, their contribution will be aggregate contributions from AFT and all its state and local affiliates.
Individuals, of course, are welcome to contribute, and if you or your members are interested in making a personal contribution, I recommend you do that through Act Blue. Any individual can contribute to both Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock through that platform. (Note: personal/individual contributions cannot be reimbursed by the local as an expense and are not tax deductible.)
In Solidarity,
Jessica Ulstad
Political Director
California Federation of Teachers, AFT, AFL-CIO
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
Nov 21: How to Keep Students Safe, Well and Engaged
This has been the most challenging school year most of us have ever experienced—from the lack of consistent safety guardrails and guidance, to the dearth of resources, to the pitfalls of hybrid and remote learning.
As part of the AFT’s ongoing commitment to provide information and resources to help educators meet the needs of students during the pandemic, we are inviting you to a follow-up to our Sept. 12 online symposium. On Saturday, Nov. 21, at noon, join us for Teaching in the Time of COVID-19: Reassessing How to Keep Students Safe, Well and Engaged. We will focus on the latest information about COVID-19 and its transmission in schools, as well as tips from practitioners and other experts on how to ensure students are engaged in deep and meaningful learning—whether it’s in-person, hybrid or distance learning.
I hope you can join us Nov. 21. (registration is here)
In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT president
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
Gov. Newsom imposes new restrictions in pandemic
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was pulling the “emergency brake” Monday on reopening the state's economy as coronavirus cases surge at the fastest rate since the start of the outbreak. “California is experiencing the fastest increase in cases we have seen yet — faster than what we experienced at the outset of the pandemic or even this summer,” he said. “The spread of COVID-19, if left unchecked, could quickly overwhelm our health care system and lead to catastrophic outcomes." The new action puts 41 of the state’s 58 counties in the strictest of the four-tier system for reopening that is based on virus cases and infection rates. Malls and stores can stay open at 25% of capacity. Schools that haven't already reopened cannot do so. But some counties are choosing to close schools. In Yuba and Sutter counties, officials told districts to stop in-person instruction for middle and high schools by November 23. Los Angeles USD Superintendent Austin Beutner criticized allowing shopping over schooling. “Our priorities are misplaced when malls receive more focus than the public schools that provide children with the foundation of literacy, math and critical thinking skills they need to succeed in school and in life," Beutner said. “Without significant changes in priorities and a greater focus on public education it’s unlikely that schools in Los Angeles will reopen for in-person instruction anytime soon.”
Los Angeles Times San Francisco Chronicle Orange County Register ABC News
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
Virus surge upsets school reopening plans
Rising COVID cases are derailing plans by school districts across the country to reopen their buildings and pushing some schools that had opened to close once again. The inflection point follows a period when more and more schools opened with apparent success. Detroit Public Schools has suspended all in-person learning until January, while Philadelphia has put its plans to bring young students back at the end of this month on hold indefinitely. Health officials in Indianapolis have ordered campuses to close, while some of Colorado’s largest districts are reverting to remote learning after quarantine requirements made staffing buildings too challenging. “The bottom line is if community rates get to a certain level and higher, schools are going to have to close,” explained Rebecca Haffajee, a health policy researcher at RAND. “Now where exactly that threshold is, is the million dolla r question.” She said the coming months would be critical for containing the virus enough to allow more schools to open, and urged governments to prioritize schools over other public places like bars, restaurants, and gyms: “If we want to keep schools open, we have to make some other sacrifices.”
----- STATE NEWS -----
LAO: California schools can expect huge one-time windfall next year
The Legislative Analyst’s Office has projected an unexpected $13.1bn in one-time revenue for California’s K-12 schools and community colleges in the fiscal year beginning July 1 2021. The report predicts that the state will go through a recession that will hurt low-income Californians while advantaging the wealthiest. While unemployment is still 16%, the highest since the Great Depression, the budget assumed 25%. And while workers earning less than $20 per hour have borne the brunt of layoffs, high-wage Californians, particularly in the technology sector, have been relatively unaffected. With the stock market soaring, state revenue, primarily from personal income taxes and capital gains, is up 22%, or $11bn, after a little more than a third of the way through the current fiscal year. “This is obviously good news in a year when we haven’t gotten much of it,” since the school community had been anticipating more pain next year, said Edgar Zazueta, senior director of policy and governmental relations for the Association of California School Administrators. But he said restoring lost funding doesn’t solve the additional resources schools will need to reopen schools and keep them open. “There still could be difficult times ahead.”
----- DISTRICTS -----
LAUSD reaches agreement with administrators group on hybrid learning
Los Angeles USD has come to a “tentative” agreement on school reopening protocols with the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, the union representing principals and administrators. The hybrid model the district plans to adopt would combine online and in-person instruction and calls for students to remain in small, consistent cohorts when on campus to keep the coronavirus from spreading. “We are preparing to serve students at schools as soon as it’s possible, in the safest way possible,” Superintendent Austin Beutner and AALA President Juan Flecha said in a joint statement. As part of the agreement, which the school board still needs to sign off on, administrators would receive a $1,000 stipend for the work involved in planning the reopenings. This includes, among other tasks, making sure all staff and students are tested for COVID-19 before they return to school and preparing the campus so that social distancing standards can be maintained.
Los Angeles Daily News My News LA CBS Los Angeles
Santa Maria Joint-Union students hold protest at district office
A small group of Santa Maria Joint-Union High School District students gathered outside the district office Monday afternoon to protest new daily attendance requirements for distance learning, asking for more communication and transparency from leaders. The district's original fall schedule divided students into two alphabetical groups, with all students required to attend classes via Zoom three out of five days of the week. Several students have pushed back against the new attendance system, which gets rid of the alphabetical split and, instead, requires all students to log in on Zoom five days a week. A group of students have formed a student group called No Education Without Representation, creating a petition signed by 1,700 students calling for more transparency from the district and organizing Monday's protests.
Fremont board votes to remove police from schools
Police will no longer be allowed to patrol Fremont USD schools, the board has decided, adopting a recommendation from a 25-member task force created to evaluate the issue earlier this year. Trustees voted 3-2 to end the School Resource Officer (SRO) program, in place for 22 years, which stationed one Fremont Police Department officer at each of the district’s six high schools, all overseen by a sergeant. The task force recommends the district end the SRO program, expand mental health supports and restorative practices, and restructure the way all student interactions with police are handled going forward.
New York City Public Schools Abruptly Shut Down Again
The AP (11/18, Peltz) reports New York City Public Schools “will halt in-person learning Thursday, sending more than 1 million children into all-online classes at least through Thanksgiving,” in a “painful about-face for one of the first big U.S. school systems to bring students back to classrooms this fall.” NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “This is a setback, but it’s a setback we will overcome.”
The Washington Post (11/18, Strauss) reports de Blasio “had warned for months that schools in the country’s largest school district would close if the city’s coronavirus infection rates rose above 3 percent on a seven-day rolling average.” However, the New York Daily News (11/18, Gartland) reports that a “well-placed source said that behind the scenes, the mayor’s top health advisors have been advising him for weeks that the threshold the city is using is flawed and could unnecessarily sideline students.” The Wall Street Journal (11/18, Honan, Brody, Subscription Publication) reports public schools shut down abruptly in mid-March in response to the initial surge in virus cases.
The New York Times (11/18, A1, Shapiro) says the shutdown is significant setback for a city “still struggling to revive from its devastating spring, when it was a global epicenter of the pandemic” It is also a “major disappointment” for de Blasio, “who was the first big-city mayor in the country to reopen school buildings.” The move to remote learning will “disrupt the education of many of the roughly 300,000 children who have been attending in-person classes and create child care problems for parents who count on their children being at school for at least part of the week.”
----- CLASSROOM -----
How districts are faring with hybrid learning
Close to two-thirds of district leaders say their systems are using hybrid learning this school year, according to an Education Week Research Center survey in October. The research found that, at its best, the practice helps schools keep students and staff safe while providing them with valuable in-person instruction that gives them the tools to do meaningful schoolwork at home. On the flipside, however, it can force teachers to cut corners on instruction, while districts face the challenge of transitioning students seamlessly from in-person to remote and vice versa. Education Week reports on six case studies from districts across the country, to see how they have adapted to the new era; from Victoria ISD in Texas, where teachers teach lessons to both in-person and remote students simultaneously, to Marshall Public Schools in Michigan, where students are split into five groups, with each one having their remote learning on a different day of the week.
----- WORKFORCE ----
Oakland tests out program to pay for teachers’ housing
Oakland city leaders are hoping to expand a pilot program aimed at retaining early-career public school teachers by subsidizing their housing. Mayor Libby Schaaf and Oakland USD Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammel announced the pilot on Monday at a news conference in front of the Paloma Apartments in Oakland’s Laurel neighborhood, where the program currently houses six graduate school students who are working as student teachers. The pilot is funded by $150,000 worth of donations from the Community Development Finance nonprofit, and a handful of philanthropic entities. In addition to paying the bulk of six teachers’ rent at those apartment units, the pilot this year is paying for $1,500 a month toward one student teacher’s housing costs elsewhere, and monthly $500 stipends to five new teachers in the district. Officials said they hope to use the program to recruit and retain more than 100 teachers over the next nine years, particularly teachers of science, math and other subjects that the district has a difficult time recruiting and keeping.
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
How might the vaccine impact schools?
Early results from clinical trials last week showed that a new coronavirus vaccine is 90% effective, which would put it on par with the childhood vaccine for measles. Though supply will be limited at first, it’s possible that teachers and other school employees may get priority for vaccinations. Dr. Walter Orenstein, a professor of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine and a former director of the immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says that if there was enough to vaccinate everybody, including children, and we had a high uptake of it: "Then I think we could relax the social distancing, mask-wearing, those non-pharmaceutical interventions. But we certainly won’t be able to do that right away." Cherise Rohr-Allegrini, an epidemiologist serving on San Antonio’s COVID Response Coalition and the CEO of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation, comments: "Assuming this vaccine works in children, I suspect it will be ready in six months or so. Not this school year—I would be shocked just because it takes a while to ramp it up and you always roll out a vaccine slowly."
----- TECHNOLOGY -----
Many U.S. students remain without internet access
Dan Levin explores the challenges faced by the millions of American students who lack reliable internet access at home. About 15m K-12 students nationwide lived in households without adequate online connectivity in 2018, according to a study of federal data by Common Sense Media, an education nonprofit group that tracks children’s media use. Desperate for workarounds amid the swift pivot to remote learning, schools nationwide have scrambled to distribute mobile hot spots and internet-equipped iPads. In Baltimore, he notes, where a recent study found that nearly 20,000 households with school-age children lacked broadband internet or computers, the public school system is providing internet connectivity to an estimated 44,000 students, or 55% of the district’s total enrollment. In Robeson County, N.C., about 20,000 of the county’s homes (43% of all households) have no internet connection as service providers do not operate in the area and about 100,000 of the state’s 1.5m K-12 students were unable to connect to online services in August.
New York Times Chicago Tribune
----- INTERNATIONAL -----
Number of international students in U.S. shrinks
The number of international students in the U.S. dropped for the first time in more than a decade during the 2019-20 academic year, according to the annual Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education and the U.S. Department of State. The 1.8% decline, to around 1.08m students, is the first decline since the 2005-06 academic year, when there was roughly half the number of international students in the U.S. as there are now. The declines follow several Trump administration policies that experts say make it harder for international students to come to the U.S., including visa barriers and travel bans. In the past couple of months, the administration has also proposed new restrictions for student and worker visas.
----- 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
leann.blaisdell@ntarep.com
