ABCFT - YOUnionews - January 8, 2021
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - Negotiations Update By Ruben Mancillas
There has been a great deal of news since we left for winter break. Governor Newsom released a Safe Schools for All plan that details new guidelines for eventual reopening. There are a number of elements to this plan but the most significant point at this time is that the new standard for reopening is that a given county would need to reduce their daily new cases below 28 per 100,000 residents. My understanding is that this crucial metric was above 100 as of yesterday. So we will continue to plan to have a plan and keep you informed as more information becomes available.
We have a new MOU regarding grading for the first semester at the secondary level. The MOU is non precedent setting and for the first semester only. The potential implications for the second semester are clear, however, so defining exactly what constitutes attendance and participation or the relevance of codes such as Q or L will be something that will be discussed as we move forward. If these codes are only used for CDE purposes but arriving late or leaving early doesn’t impact our attendance then perhaps we need to revisit the necessity of CDE documentation altogether.
The district came to us literally just as we left for winter break with the current number of identified F’s as a problem and we worked with them to come up with a solution. And yes, grades remain our prerogative but in the bigger picture we wanted the district to “own” their position as well as push back against options that were more intrusive of our daily practice. Attendance will likely become a contested definition over the next two weeks but our pacing, assignments, and assessments do not need to be adjusted or questioned.
We are to be provided a list per period on the morning of Friday, January 22 which notes which students met the 85% attendance standard and which did not. If a student was determined to have attended at least 85% of the time the lowest grade he or she can receive is a D with five credits.
Regarding students with an IEP or a 504 plan; maintaining accommodations and modifications is challenging in an in-person setting but even more difficult in a virtual environment. As a resource specialist, I would encourage teachers to be extremely careful before giving these identified students a grade of F. A special education advocate could likely find fault with how an IEP has been implemented virtually and I don’t want to see our members become the focus of unwanted attention when we already have so much on our plate.
Regarding late work; other than for students who have accommodations for late work specified in their IEP or 504 plan a teacher has the discretion to accept or not accept late work up until January 21. Again, if a student doesn’t have an IEP or 504 plan that specifically lists the conditions by which they can submit late work a teacher has the discretion to not accept such work.
A colleague of mine spoke eloquently to me about his concerns this morning and I will paraphrase some of his thoughts here: “So is the district telling me that my hard work doesn’t matter? I am asked to go to meetings to be a more effective teacher but now I feel that my professional judgment is being undermined. I have students who are there everyday but leave early and don’t turn in any work who are going to get 5 credits. I’m not trying to punish the kids but that just seems crazy. Are they telling me everyone should get an A?!? Why should I have to go to further training if it doesn’t matter after all? This sends a message to the students to stop caring but I’m not going to stop caring. My wife and I are staying up late grading on our laptops every night. I have students enrolled in college right now, they aren’t relaxing the standards in college courses. What is going to happen to our students when they go to college? I hope we have more of a voice in how this will look during the second semester.”
These are all excellent points. And this will be shared with the district when we return to the bargaining table. Thank you for helping us as we work together to make this new year a successful one.
In Unity,
TOSA TIDBITS
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 healthy habits by using repeated patterns to create habits that are empowering and diminish ones that are hurtful. Healthy habits meditation was also practiced the session ended with hip and full body fold over stretches.
JANUARY ACADEMIC SERVICES UPDATE
This month’s academic service update is vital for all teachers. We hope that you will take a moment to look at this monthly report which discusses changes in academic services. This document provides the union with a means of giving the District feedback on the many programs or changes they are proposing at any one time. Without your feedback or questions on these changes, it is harder for ABCFT to slow down and modify the district’s neverending roll out of new projects. Please submit your comments and questions to the appropriate ABCFT liaison.
For Elementary curricular issues please email Kelley at Kelley.Forsythe@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
For Secondary curricular issues please email Rich at Richard.Saldana@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
For Special Education issues please email Stefani at Stefani.Palutzke@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
For Nurse issues please contact Theresa at Theresa.Petersen@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.
Welcome back and happy New Year to all of you. I hope that all of you were able to recharge and relax during the winter break. Talking to many of you over this past week I consistently heard that most people were at their breaking point those final weeks in December and that the holiday season allowed everyone the opportunity to step back and focus on their own mental health. If we learned anything from 2020, we all learned about our threshold for stress and the impact our profession can have on our wellbeing. Regardless, its been great to see a number of you this week at the YOUnion Chat, the Executive Board meeting, or the Rep Council meeting. It is as close to visiting schools as I can get right now and as a people person, I relish any opportunity to meet face to face with coworkers and friends.
The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom released his new plan for opening up California schools for in person learning on December 30 right in the middle of our relaxing vacation. I was not thrilled to be on emergency calls all that day and I’m sure many of you watched your relaxation vaporize as your anxiety increased. The bottom line is that a lot of things have to happen before we are ever to open in the Spring. The most important component of having teachers return is the availability for teachers to be vaccinated.The prospect of early vaccinations for educators was hotly debated and is a virtual line in the sand if politicians want to open up schools for in-person instruction. In my conversation with Dr. Sieu today I relayed to her that this was a necessary and critical ingredient for us to return. For those of you interested, here are some resources that CFT shared concerning the details of the Governors plan. ABCFT will have more information about how this impacts ABC in the coming weeks.
Later this month, ABCFT will be attending a budget conference to hear about the Governor’s proposed budget for 2021-2022. The K-14 budget is at its highest rate yet of 85 billion for California schools and a COLA over 3% which is good. I don’t foresee there being any layoffs in ABC this year and I’m hoping the economy will pick back up so we can avoid any cuts to education in 2022. For those who would like to read the governor’s budget here is the direct link (page 64 is critical moving forward). Remember as you read that anything in the this budget proposal is a proposal and not the final document which will be heavily negotiated during this legislative cycle. A final revise of the budget will be presented in May and the legislature has until the end of June to approve it.
Ruben was able to write about the grading MOU that went into effect for the secondary first semester grading. The negotiating team tried to make that best of a crappy situation. The timing, the implications, , and the message it sends to students is not great. ABCFT did push back during negotiations to minimize the amount of work that teachers would have to do to adjust grades. ABCFT was put into the difficult position of being asked to negotiate grading for first semester at late in the semester which is not ideal. Therefore, ABCFT will be negotiating MOU language for second semester grading in the coming weeks so that teachers know the policy as they plan their semester.
This week has been a whirlwind of crazy events in our county but I think most of us are keeping our eye toward the future. There are more things to be thankful for so far in 2021 but I this meme made me laugh and laughing is the key. I hope you continue to stay healthy and safe. If you do get sick make sure you get help because we all need to watch out for each other in this difficult time. My thoughts are will all of you. Have a good weekend, stay safe, and I hope to see you soon at the YOUnion Chat.
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
This morning we witnessed the historic victories in Georgia of Senator-elect Raphael Warnock and Senator-elect Jon Ossoff. Much of the credit for these two victories goes to the heroic work of organizers in Georgia, including the amazing Stacey Abrams. Many thanks are also due to those who volunteered from across the country during the campaigns, including many CFT members. This is how democracy works, through organizing, hard work, and voters making their voices heard.
Then the day turned dark as we watched with great concern the events that transpired in Washington, D.C. A small but dangerous group, incited by Donald Trump, attempted an insurrection by violently entering the U.S. Capitol building to disrupt the Congress, which was engaged in their Constitutional duty to certify the Electoral College results.
As President-elected Joe Biden stated today, “Let me be very clear: the scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not represent who we are. What we are seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent, it's disorder. It borders on sedition, and it must end. Now.”
We condemn the violent attacks in our nation’s capital today, and join the California Labor Federation in calling for all California Republican members in Congress, especially GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, to immediately and forcefully condemn those responsible for the events of today.
The violent actions of today are just the latest in a string of attempts by Donald Trump to subvert our democracy. But our democracy is holding firm.
And we continue to move forward. Two weeks from today, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. And those two new senators from Georgia will ensure that Vice President Harris will be the deciding vote on who the next Senate Majority Leader will be.
Our democracy will stand firm as long as we and our fellow Americans continue to stand up for it. And we as a union will be right there to defend it.
In Unity,
Jeff Freitas
CFT President
Luukia Smith
CFT Secretary Treasurer
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
12/20/2020
New hope for a new year
by Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers
As this year filled with so much loss, hardship and trauma draws to a close, I am grateful for signs of hope for the New Year. Americans, including many heroic frontline healthcare workers, are starting to receive vaccinations for COVID-19. The Biden-Harris transition team is already working on a comprehensive, science-based plan to combat the coronavirus. And new therapeutics appear to reduce the severity and lethality of this disease.
I am relieved that Congress is negotiating an urgently needed COVID-19 relief package with funding for vaccines, education, small businesses, unemployment benefits, direct relief checks, food programs, student debt relief and rental assistance, including for rural and other hard-hit communities. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is obstructing the resources states and localities need to respond to the pandemic, and I worry that the package will be grossly insufficient to alleviate the hardships so many Americans are suffering. Forty-five of America’s 50 largest publicly traded companies have turned profits since March, even as nearly 8 million Americans fell into poverty. An additional 85.4 million adults (36 percent) are on the knife-edge of poverty, struggling to pay for food, rent and bills.
And COVID-19 is surging. Vaccines will not eliminate the need to take precautions—face coverings indisputably reduce the spread of the virus and, rather than being political statements, show our mutual obligation. Tackling the virus takes all of us. We all yearn to be with family and friends, but our holidays must look very different than in the past. Our actions over these weeks will affect the course of 2021, including when, how and whether we can safely reopen schools.
AFT on Nomination of Dr. Miguel Cardona as Education Secretary
WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and AFT Connecticut President Jan Hochadel issued the following statement after President-elect Joe Biden nominated Miguel A. Cardona to be the next U.S. secretary of education:
The AFT’s Weingarten said: “Miguel Cardona is not just a proud product of public schools—he’s made strengthening public education and fighting for equity his life’s work. With his experience as a student, fourth-grade teacher, principal, assistant superintendent and commissioner in Connecticut, Dr. Cardona—a former AFT member—will transform the Education Department to help students thrive, a reversal of the DeVos disaster of the last four years.
“But Dr. Cardona, whose family moved from Puerto Rico, won’t just repair the damage done—he’ll act to fulfill the promise and potential of public education and higher education as an opportunity agent for all students, regardless of demography or geography, knowing full well that doesn’t happen without resources and a deep respect for educators.
“His commitment to public education, to our students and to listening to and respecting the wisdom of educators will be crucial as the Biden administration helps school districts across America meet the social, emotional and instructional needs of students and moves to safely, responsibly and equitably reopen school buildings.
“I worked closely with Dr. Cardona during his time in the Meriden, Conn., school district. If you want an example of how labor and management can come together to improve learning and student achievement, you need only look at Meriden. His deep respect for educators and their unions will travel with him to Washington—and that commitment to collaboration is crucial to providing the resources and social and emotional supports to safely reopen schools.
“There is great potential for a renaissance in public education after years and years of the school wars. That is the hope that Dr. Cardona, with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Dr. Jill Biden at his side, represents. The Department of Education is the primary vehicle by which the Biden-Harris administration can engage educators, parents, and legislators and administrators at every level. It can lift up great practices and strategies. Instead of promoting competition, it can foster cooperation; instead of destabilizing, it can help American schools recover and grow. Instead of dividing, it can help students of all diverse backgrounds grow and thrive.
“And, in higher education, it can address the student loan crisis and strengthen colleges and universities—especially HBCUs and minority-serving institutions.
“From day one, educators will have a trusted partner in Dr. Cardona, and I couldn’t be more excited to get started.”
AFT Connecticut’s Hochadel said: “When he was first appointed as Connecticut’s education commissioner, Dr. Cardona outlined an overall vision of ‘reimagining’ education here in Connecticut. Before the pandemic hit, he engaged educators on issues ranging from reducing standardized testing to ensuring equity for all students to closing the diversity gap in our schools.
“The COVID-19 crisis has forced new and unique challenges on administrators, classroom teachers and school support staff alike. As Dr. Cardona himself has said, in 2020 ‘everyone’s a first-year teacher again; everyone’s a first-year principal.’ Our union members understand that even the commissioner is in his first-year, along with the rest of us.
“The opportunity for a true educator with classroom experience and a leader who understands that challenge is exciting for anyone who cares about the future of America’s public schools.”
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
Superintendents criticize Newsom’s push to reopen schools
Several superintendents representing some of the state’s largest urban school districts, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, Long Beach, San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento, have criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Safe Schools For All reopening plan, saying it likely would benefit students from more affluent districts while low-income children in communities hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic remain in distance learning. They also faulted Newsom’s plan for seeming to rely on funds that would otherwise go toward important existing education programs. “Our schools stand ready to resume in-person instruction as soon as health conditions are safe and appropriate. But we cannot do it alone,” they wrote. “Despite heroic efforts by students, teachers and families, it will take a coordinated effort by all in state and local government to reopen classrooms.” The superintendents also claimed Newsom’s plan leaves too much discretion to individual districts to determine what constitutes a “safe school environment” and what standards must be met for classrooms to reopen. As part of the statewide standards, the educational leaders are asking the state to require schools to open for in-person instruction once safety standards are met.
Los Angeles Times San Diego Union-Tribune The Press-Telegram
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
States move to suspend school report cards
A number of U.S. states, including Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin, are taking advantage of flexibilities granted by the Department of Education this year to suspend, or reduce the weight of, school accountability report cards for the 2020-21 school year. States waiving report cards, or adjusting accountability benchmarks, during the pandemic cited the need to have supports for struggling schools and students with the aid of assessment results, while detangling those results from penalties. At the start of the 2020-21 school year, some states hoped the U.S. Department of Education would grant another round of national assessment and accountability waivers due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. State leaders have expressed concerns that moving forward with standardized testing would be "counterproductive" or take away from much-needed instruction time and positive school culture. However, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos later said that while schools would still be expected to administer summative assessments this school year, the department would be open to consider flexibilities for accountability metrics.
DeVos pitches for school choice in letter to Congress
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who is set to depart from her role in coming weeks, has written to Congress arguing in favor of expanding federal funding to students attending private schools, while also urging lawmakers to resist calls to cancel student debt. "Given this precedent of choice and empowerment, it is impossible to understand how it is acceptable for federal taxpayer dollars to support a student attending the University of Notre Dame, but not for a student who wants to attend Notre Dame Prep High School," Mrs DeVos wrote in her final letter to Congress. "Let me encourage you to fund education - that is, learning - not a Department of Education. Let me urge you to fund students, not school buildings," she continued. The outgoing secretary also urged lawmakers to reject “misguided” calls to cancel student loan debt, which now totals more than $1.6tn nationwide.
Plans floated to introduce weekly COVID testing at all schools
Politico reports that President-elect Joe Biden is weighing a multibillion-dollar plan for fully reopening schools that would hinge on testing all students, teachers and staff for COVID-19 at least once a week, with the cost covered by the federal government. Transition officials are still trying to determine the exact price for regular testing in the nation's schools, with one person close to the deliberations putting the cost at between $8bn and $10bn over an initial three-month period. Mr Biden has pledged to reopen the majority of schools within his first 100 days in office, amid growing concerns about the educational and mental health toll that months of remote learning has taken on a generation of students. Miguel Cardona, nominee for Secretary of Education, will be at the forefront of these efforts; at the same time, he aims to address persistent achievement gaps, fill neglected construction and trade jobs, expa nd access to college and universal early childhood education, and boost the status of the nation’s teachers. “For too many students, public education in America has been a ‘flor pálida’, a wilted rose neglected and in need of care,” Mr Cardona said in his first public remarks since his nomination. “So it's our responsibility, it's our privilege, to take this moment and to do the most American thing imaginable: To forge opportunity out of crisis, to draw on our resolve, our ingenuity and our tireless optimism as a people, and build something better than we've ever had before.”
Politico Politico Education Week
President Trump signs relief, spending package
President Donald Trump signed the $2.3tn government funding and coronavirus relief package on December 27, averting a government shutdown and delivering economic aid as the pandemic worsens. The relief legislation includes direct payments of $600 per adult and per child. It provides around $57bn in direct aid for K-12 schools, with $54.3bn earmarked for public schools in an education stabilization fund.
The Hill Washington Post Education Week
Virus dents U.S. public school enrollment
Public K-12 enrollment this fall has dropped by more than 500,000 students, or 2%, since the same time last year, according to analysis of data from 33 states obtained by Chalkbeat and The Associated Press. Massachusetts, for example, saw its K-12 enrollment fall by 3%, or nearly 28,000. A drop in kindergarten enrollment accounts for 30% of the total reduction across the 33 states, making it one of the biggest drivers of the nationwide decline. Seventeen states are yet to release comparable enrollment numbers. The data, which in many states is preliminary, offers the clearest picture yet of the pandemic’s devastating toll on public school enrollment — a decline that could eventually have dire consequences for school budgets that are based on headcounts. Kirsten Baesler, North Dakota’s schools superintendent, comments: “We’ve been trying to scream from the hilltops for quite some time that this is happening. And it could be a national crisis if we don’t put some elbow grease into it.”
----- STATE NEWS -----
California teachers first in line for Phase 1b in COVID vaccinations
Dr. Matt Willis, Marin County’s public health officer, said yesterday that California school teachers have been moved up in priority to receive coronavirus vaccines. Teachers will be the first group to be offered vaccines in phase 1b, which is the next tier of priority after the current 1a phase, for frontline health care workers and elderly people in residential care centers, wraps up in late January or early February. Although the specifics are still being worked out, Willis said the vaccines for teachers and staff will likely be available from three sources: health care providers, public health centers and pharmacies. He said Marin is rolling out about 2,500 doses per week in the first phase. No one is required to take the vaccine if he or she prefers not to, he added. Teachers and staff who live outside of Marin but who work at Marin schools will still be eligible to be vaccinated in Marin, he said. “If your eligibility is based on your occupation, then you may receive vaccines where you work,” he said.
New absenteeism data shows wide gap between California’s white and black students
Black students in California have much higher rates of unexcused absences from school than their white peers, which sometimes lead to disciplinary consequences that can further disrupt their education, according to newly released data from the state Department of Education. The figures cover two school years, 2017-18 and 2018-19, before schools shifted to distance learning in March 2020 due to the pandemic; they show that black students missed an average of 13.2 days of school in 2018-19, compared to 9.1 days among white students. Of those absences, schools recorded 52.7% of Black students’ absences as unexcused, meaning they did not have an authorized reason to be out of school and could potentially face disciplinary measures. By comparison, 29.4% of white students’ absences were unexcused. “That discrepancy is problematic,” said Clea McNeely, a research professor at the Universit y of Tennessee at Knoxville who has studied trends in student attendance. “If you browse the data, in school after school, you’ll see that students of color, especially Black and Native American students, who miss school are put on a punitive path that can push them further out of school, rather than a supportive path aimed at keeping them in school.”
California to spend $2bn on reopening elementary schools
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed spending $2bn to incentivize local school districts to reopen elementary schools in February. Schools that would be eligible to reopen, according to Newsom’s plan, must be in counties with a seven-day average coronavirus positivity rate of fewer than 28 cases per 100,000 people. The $2bn, if approved by the legislature, will be used for safety measures, including coronavirus testing for all students and staffers, personal protective equipment and updated ventilation systems. The plan also provides for improved coordination between school and health officials for contact tracing. Newsom named Naomi Bardach, a pediatrician and school-safety specialist, to lead what he is calling the Safe Schools for All Team, a cross-agency group to help schools with reopening plans. The state will also create a dashboard to allow the public to see schools’ reopening sta tus, how much funding they will have and data on school outbreaks.
Washington Post The Hill Fox News
State faces shortage of substitute teachers
A shortage of substitute teachers in California may make it harder for some districts to reopen campuses or to keep open schools already offering in-person instruction. California has had a substitute shortage for years, but the pandemic is making it worse, especially for smaller, rural districts. It has had a steady decline in the number of applicants for substitute credentials over the last two years, with a substantial drop since January, according to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. “I’m very worried about it, particularly as schools move toward in-person instruction,” said Mari Baptista, chairwoman of the Personnel Administrative Services Steering Committee for the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association. “We need to move to a more proactive stance on this. We aren’t getting a bunch of substitute applications.”
----- DISTRICTS -----
Corona-Norco delays campus reopenings
The reopening of Corona-Norco USD’s elementary schools, originally scheduled for Tuesday 5 January, has been delayed, with the school board electing to align with new guidance from the state and the “Safe Schools For All” plan. “Although the timing of the Governor’s announcement was unfortunate, being just two days after our last board meeting, we are grateful to finally have further guidance and support from the state to ensure a safer reopening of our schools,” school board President Bill Pollock said in a statement. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the new school reopening plan last Wednesday, outlining requirements for personal protective equipment, testing and additional funding with a goal of reopening schools in February.
Pleasanton proposes temporary grading policy for secondary students
A temporary grading policy for Pleasanton USD’s secondary students will be considered at a special Board of Trustees online meeting on Thursday. If agreed upon, middle and high school students with lower grades would receive "credit" (CR) or "no credit" (NC) marks instead of letter grades on their first-semester report card. Those who earn a first-semester grade of F would instead receive an NC, while students with a grade of D would receive a CR. The CR or NC marks would not impact a GPA as negatively as a failing grade. Students who earn a credit or no credit mark may still need to retake a course in order to graduate or meet college admission requirements. The policy allows students with D or F grades to "avoid the immediate impact on the transcript until the course is remediated."
----- CLASSROOM -----
How teachers might address Wednesday’s events at the U.S. Capitol
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., was stormed Wednesday afternoon by a band looking to disrupt the certification process of President-elect Joe Biden's win in the 2020 presidential election. K-12 Dive looks at how teachers might navigate an event likely to create loaded debates in the classroom, while also preparing them to provide supports for students whose anxiety and uncertainty is spiked by footage and photos of the events in the news and on social media. It notes that, while tricky, protests offer a window through which to engage students in lessons on civics, the limits of the First Amendment's protection of speech, and consequences that may exist under the law. Following a year where Black Lives Matter protests led to a consideration of implicit biases within society, comparing and contrasting the events can also add layers to those discussions, it says.
Disadvantaged students more likely to be learning remotely
Research from Columbia University shows that disadvantaged students are much more likely than others to be engaged in remote schooling during the coronavirus pandemic, increasing the risk that less effective instruction will widen the achievement gap. Using cellphone data to track movement to more than 100,000 schools, researchers found that closed classrooms were disproportionately composed of nonwhite students, as well as students with low math scores or limited English proficiency or who are poor enough to qualify for free meals. About 58% of nonwhite students attend schools that rely heavily on remote learning, compared to 36 percent of white students. “Given the sheer magnitude of the students affected, this does not bode well,” said Zachary Parolin, the study’s lead author. “Inequality in learning outcomes is only more likely to grow.” Others expert s have warned that disadvantaged students often lack the support that remote learning requires, such as computer access, quiet study space and help from parents or tutors. For students from immigrant homes, in-person instruction is essential, say teachers, parents and experts. Not only are they surrounded by spoken English in their classrooms; they also learn in more subtle ways, by observing teachers’ facial expressions and other students’ responses to directions. “For English-language learners, if you’re not having those casual, informal, low-stakes opportunities to practice English, you’re really at a disadvantage,” said Sita Patel, a clinical psychology professor at Palo Alto University.
Study claims school choice lowers suicide risk
A new study claims to show that school choice can reduce suicide rates among teenagers. Authored by the Reason Foundation’s Corey DeAngelis and economist Angela Dills, the study concludes that “the estimated effect of a charter school law translates to about a 10% decrease in the suicide rate among 15 to 19-year-olds.” Thirty-year-olds who had attended private school were, the study added, 2% less likely to report having a mental health condition. “It’s likely that private schools face stronger competitive pressures to provide a safer school environment and improve mental health if they want to remain open,” Dills explained. “Public schools, on the other hand, are more likely to be burdened with government regulations that make it difficult for them to control discipline policy and create strong school cultures.”
----- FINANCE -----
Teachers can apply PPE costs to their educator tax deduction
Teachers who have spent their own money on personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep themselves and their students safe from the coronavirus will now be able to apply the cost of the supplies toward the existing educator expense deduction of $250 on their federal taxes, thanks to the newly signed coronavirus economic relief package. The deduction is retroactive to March 12 2020. The educator expense deduction traditionally covers books, supplies, computer hardware and software, professional development costs, and other supplementary materials that teachers purchased for their classrooms and were not reimbursed for by their district.
----- WORKFORCE ----
How teacher and student morale is holding up
Teachers and students are struggling to maintain morale and motivation as the pandemic school year reaches the halfway point, according to the EdWeek Research Center. Its nationally-representative surveys of school administrators, K-12 teachers, and middle and high school students, found that morale is massively lower than before the pandemic. Additionally, 76% of teachers said that students put less effort into their work when schools stopped grading or counting grades during the pandemic. Looking forward, however, 12% of teachers and 21% of students said they feel “very hopeful” about the future, with 48% of both groups saying they are “somewhat hopeful.”
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
Most parents support vaccines for kids
Over half (60%) of parents would let their child receive a vaccine for COVID-19, according to a new survey by the National Parents Union, while 25% said they would not and 15% reported they are unsure. When asked what it would take for parents to send their children back to in-person learning, 50% said they won’t sent them back until a COVID-19 vaccine is available to the public. In addition, 46% said schools must require anyone exposed to someone who tested positive to stay home for 14 days and 44% said schools need to limit the number of students in common areas and maintain social distancing. Parents with higher household incomes would be slightly more likely to allow their K-12 student to receive a coronavirus vaccine, researchers noted.
----- TECHNOLOGY -----
Students not necessarily engaged by digital games in education
A survey of middle and high school students conducted by the EdWeek Research Center found that 60% are playing digital games for instructional purposes more than they did before the pandemic – but that only a quarter of those say they make learning more interesting. Richard Van Eck, a researcher who has studied educational games and currently serves as associate dean for teaching and learning at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, has suggested this may be because educators are integrating games into learning without strategizing first. Incorporating digital games as a tool for engaging students is okay, he explained, but “if you do so on a superficial level, you’re not tapping into the benefits, like promoting problem solving and critical thinking.”
----- 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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