ABCFT - YOUnionews - May 28, 2021
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - Negotiations Update By Ruben Mancillas
The negotiating team is still at the table regarding the potential of voluntary professional learning days this August. We are aware that our members need to be able to plan so we hope to have new information soon.
Education is a profession filled with acronyms. Last week, we discussed COLA or Cost of Living Adjustment (and thank you to our distinguished retiree and former ABCFT president, Richard Hathaway, for keeping up with our negotiations update!). This week our latest term is ELOG or Expanded Learning Opportunities Grants. The state website mentions ELO grants but our district has been using ELOG so I will stick with that formulation to be consistent. The added benefit of not referring to ELO is that it saves all of us from a series of well-intentioned but awkward Mr. Blue Sky jokes.
The significant takeaway regarding ELOG funds is that they are one-time dollars to be used during the 2021-2022 school year and that the total amount available to ABCUSD is a substantial 13.4 million dollars. Some of the priorities in our current ELOG plan include 3 million towards combination class reduction, or class size reduction, or paraeducator support. 2.55 million is set aside for what is described as elementary learning intervention reading specialist; tutoring school and homework support. 2.5 million is allocated to extend learning time by providing access to additional support blocks and/or course offerings during, before and/or after school, and summer school. And 1.9 million is available for board-certified behavior analysts (BCBA); nurse support; gang intervention training; support for students without permanent housing, community liaisons, and student relations coordinators.
In addition to these ELOG funds, our LCAP funding is still in place as well. The line item I want to focus on in terms of LCAP is 4.025 million that is going directly to the sites. The specific wording is “site administrators utilize funds to meet the state’s eight priorities for students who are ELL’s, economically disadvantaged students, and foster youth through supplemental instructional programs and materials. So the positive news is that between the ELOG and the LCAP funds we should be able to fund a number of programs that will support student achievement. My other interpretation is that with so much money available I would be skeptical if there is a narrative at your site that “teachers need to vote a particular way or make a particular decision for the sake of protecting site budgets.” As I noted in a previous week, your site should be able to take full advantage of these funds no matter how you vote for a schedule or anything else. The implied threat of having to make choices to ward off a depleted site budget rings hollow when you look at the numbers above. The equity of services for our students should never be conditional. Our mindset should be that there is money available and now it is just a matter of matching these dollars to our respective site’s identified priorities. It is up to all of us to work with our administrators and colleagues to ensure that these funds are spent meaningfully.
As we begin our three-day weekend and last school holiday of the year let me acknowledge and thank all of those who have sacrificed in military service on this Memorial Day.
In Unity,
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.
For our last session, Donna focuses on stress breathing memory. With the practice of stress breathing, participants can positively affect their vagus nerve. Participants practice an extended Loving Kindness meditation. Participants practice movements to improve their core strength.
The session closes with a quote from the artist, Martha Graham,
“There is a vitality, a life force, energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of the time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”
MEMBER ONLY RESOURCES
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.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2…...1! Who’s counting the days?!
Thankfully, ABCFT’s Chief Negotiator, Ruben went all out on his column this week, I appreciate all the additional information and explanations he’s been providing throughout the past year and I hope that he continues to provide us with these valuable updates in the years to come. Thank you, Ruben!
ABCFT is currently negotiating and working with the district to provide a job description for the planned elementary and special education TOSA expansion for next year. We appreciate the district’s transparency in this process as it has provided multiple opportunities for ABCFT to ask guiding questions and points of clarification. The concept of having site-level TOSAs is a delicate topic and we want to ensure that everyone is trained, knowledgeable about their job duties, has the tools to provide support, knows how to deliver support with dignity, and a clear understanding of how the classroom teachers will work in collaboration with the additional TOSA support staff. There is an opportunity here to do some groundbreaking work as long as we are all on the same page, we are all looking at the data, and we are focused on the intended student outcomes. I like to say that if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail so I’m hopeful that ABC will provide a setup for success with these supports.
If you are wondering about next year and what our classrooms will look like and if we will be wearing masks, join the crowd. In an AFT meeting I attended this week, they stated that this month the CDC is focused on changes in the business world and that they will make their recommendations for schools sometime in the middle of the summer. AFT and NEA (the two national teacher unions) have stressed to the CDC to not completely lift the current guidelines until there is more data gathered and there is a better idea of the current COVID conditions. Teachers unions fought hard for extra safety precautions and materials to be put in place and we don’t want a premature ruling to throw all those hard-fought precautions thrown out the window. Once they are gone it will be hard to get them back so it’s good to be cautious as we move forward.
There are other things going on in the district but I’m going to keep my writing to a minimum. Most importantly, I hope this three-day weekend provides you with an opportunity to spend time with friends and family. Take a moment to honor our veterans in your heart for their sacrifices on behalf of our nation and our freedom.
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
CFT launches new identity to reflect diverse membership
Classified employees gain more recognition
This spring, CFT launched a new identity in recognition of its diverse membership. A primary goal of the rebrand was to integrate the tagline A Union of Educators and Classified Professionals to acknowledge that CFT represents more than teachers and faculty members.
Our diverse union also represents dozens of job classifications for classified employees and support staff, paraprofessionals, as well as certificated librarians, psychologists, speech pathologists, and many others, all of whom contribute to the success of our students’ education.
This rebrand came after a working committee examined numerous possibilities and presented alternatives. The organization’s final recommendation was crafted into a resolution and passed by delegates to the CFT Convention in 2019.
As part of the rebrand, CFT developed its first unique-to-CFT logo. The logo retains the iconic blue shield of the AFT logo to build upon the collective strength and unity of our national union and all its affiliates across the nation. CFT, however, presents the shield in a stylized treatment with clean contemporary lines, well suited to our digital world.
Find answers to more questions about the rebranding below.
Why did CFT (formerly California Federation of Teachers) rebrand itself?
CFT has always been proud to stand for our schools, our students, and our communities, but our previous name didn’t reflect the sum of our parts. CFT is an inclusive union that represents teachers, bus drivers, faculty members, cafeteria workers, counselors, custodians, librarians, paraeducators, school nurses, and more. Every CFT member, regardless of their sector or workplace, works hard to ensure students receive the quality education they deserve. CFT recognizes and celebrates every role played by its members in educational settings and in our union; our name should reflect who we are.
What does the rebrand represent?
CFT is a union of educators and classified professionals — we are all CFT. Our rebranding reflects our commitment to inclusivity and demarginalization. It reaffirms diversity as our biggest strength.
What does the new logo represent?
CFT’s new logo emphasizes unity. It recognizes the unique roles our members play in welcoming California students to and through their educational journeys. The shield symbolizes our national AFT connection, strength, and dedication to our schools, students, and professions.
What does the rebrand mean for me day-to-day?
CFT will continue to face challenges in protecting and strengthening our educational systems and communities we serve. The rebrand embraces our diversity and highlights our commitment to valuing each other and standing together to successfully meet these challenges. Our shield binds us together stronger through our collective efforts.
Who should join CFT?
Every educational worker who wants to be a part of a progressive union committed to full access to quality education, workplace rights, and academic freedom should join. We represent, value and honor all members, and fight to achieve dignity and respect in the workplace, decent lives for workers and their families, economic and social justice, and security in retirement
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
Click this link to see Randi Weingartens speech
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
You can get more education news through a free subscription here
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Appears Safe, Highly Effective In Teens
The AP (5/25, Neergaard) reports, “Moderna said Tuesday its COVID-19 vaccine strongly protects kids as young as 12, a step that could put the shot on track to become the second option for that age group in the U.S.,” along with the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech. Moderna “said the vaccine appeared 93% effective two weeks after the first dose,” with zero cases after two doses in a trial of 3,700 teens aged 12 to 17. Moderna and Pfizer both “have begun testing in even younger children, from age 11 down to 6-month-old babies,” with results expect in the fall.
The New York Times (5/25, Anthes) reports the “efficacy of 100 percent” after two doses is “the same figure that Pfizer and BioNTech reported” in a similar age cohort. And while “the Moderna results are not a surprise and match what Pfizer reported in its trial of young adolescents,” the findings “add to a growing body of evidence that the vaccines are safe and effective in children.”
The Wall Street Journal (5/25, Loftus, Subscription Publication) reports Moderna has indicated it will apply for FDA authorization of its vaccine in the younger age group sometime early next month, with an FDA decision expected within weeks; “the agency took about a month to clear Pfizer’s request for use of its Covid-19 vaccine in adolescents.”
Also reporting are the Washington Post (5/25, Johnson), Reuters (5/25, Steenhuysen), Bloomberg (5/25, Langreth), CNBC (5/25, Lovelace), CNN (5/25, Bonifield, Mascarenhas), ABC News (5/25, Kindelan), NBC News (5/25, Miller, Edwards), Fox News (5/25, Rivas), Politico (5/25, Foley), The Hill (5/25, Choi), USA Today (5/25, Weise, Weintraub), NPR (5/25, Chappell), TIME (5/25, Park), US News & World Report (5/25, Lardieri), Forbes (5/25, Hart), Insider (5/25, Dunn), Intelligencer (5/25, Rosa-Aquino) and HealthDay (5/25).
----- RETENTION DEBATE -----
Teachers face tough choices on student grade progression
After more than a year waging uphill battles to connect with their schooling, tens of thousands of students now face having to repeat a grade in 2021-22. It’s a choice an unusually high number of principals, district leaders, and parents anticipate making, despite warnings in stacks of research that it often doesn’t help, and can actually harm, children. In an April survey of teachers and administrators by the EdWeek Research Center, 42% said they expected that more students would repeat a grade than would have done so before the pandemic. The prospect of a spike in retentions flies in the face of a broad-based consensus among educators that wherever possible, it’s best to move students forward into next year’s content, with carefully calibrated supports. It also raises the specter that the children hurt most by the pandemic will fall farther behind, since Black, Latino, and low-income students are typically retained disproportionately. “I do think we should be concerned,” said Allison Socol, the assistant director of P12 policy for the Education Trust, a research-and-advocacy group. “States and districts should use serious caution with retention policies.” Despite the early signs, a big wave of retentions and course-repeats might not materialize. Good summer school programs or tutoring could help students catch up before fall. Districts or states might again relax policies; several states are already weighing legislation that would suspend or soften retention requirements tied to 3rd grade reading performance.
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
States delay federal aid distribution
As pressure mounts for schools to reopen full time for in-person learning, delays in or changes to federal funding distribution are making it difficult for districts to plan for both short and long-term expenses. In states like Texas, New York, Kansas, Florida and Nevada, debates by local legislators to use federal funds to supplant budgets instead of supplementing them are frustrating administrators, school finance experts and district leaders familiar with the issue said. While states are usually not allowed to use federal funds to supplant their education spending, Congress did not include language restricting it in the COVID-19 relief aid packages, said Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for advocacy and governance at AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “That tactic betrays the intent of these funds being supplemental and aiding in the recovery of our students as quickly as possible,” said Kevin Brown, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators, where he has worked closely with state legislators to unlock ESSER funding for districts.
Democratic AGs Call On Education Department To Restore Equitable Discipline Measures In Schools
WTEN-TV Albany, NY (5/25) reports a coalition of 23 Democratic state attorneys general are calling on Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to “reinstate a 2014 guidance package designed to help public schools to administer student discipline equitably.” The coalition contends in the letter “that exclusionary discipline remains prevalent across the country and continues to disproportionately impact students of color and students with disabilities. The letter also mentions the lifelong impact these discriminatory practices can have on students, including contributing to an increased rate of incarceration often referred to as the school-to-prison pipeline.” Massachusetts AG Maura Healey said, “Discipline measures can have lifelong consequences for young people, so it is particularly important that, when used, they do not fall disproportionately on some students, including students of color and students with disabilities.”
WWLP-TV Springfield, MA (5/25) reports the National Bureau of Economic Research has “found that attending a school with an above-average use of suspension increases a student’s future chances of being incarcerated by 17 percent, for students of color, the chance of incarceration increases by an additional 3.1 percent.”
Ohio Republicans Introduce Bills To Restrict Teaching Of Critical Race Theory In K-12 Schools
The AP (5/25, Welsh-Huggins) reports Ohio House Republicans introduced a pair of bills Tuesday that would prohibit teaching critical race theory in K-12 classrooms. One bill bans “instructing students that one race or gender is inherently superior to another or that individuals could be considered racists by virtue of their skin color;” the other “contains similar provisions and also prohibits teaching that the advent of slavery constituted the true founding of the United States.” Neither bill contains the phrase “critical race theory,” but state Rep. Don Jones (R), who introduced the second bill, criticized the concept as Anti-American in a news release.
The Columbus (OH) Dispatch (5/25) reports that “whether Critical Race Theory is being taught to Ohio kids is a hard question to answer.” For example, the Ohio State Board of Education “sets standards like you must teach about the Civil War, but it doesn’t dictate what books or materials teachers use.” Still, Ohio Superintendent Paolo DeMaria told a House committee back in February, “We do not promote any curriculum. We respect that, ultimately, it is the professional judgment of educators that matters the most.”
Michigan Senate Advances Bill Banning Vaccine Mandates For Minors
The AP (5/25, Eggert) reports, “Michigan Republicans on Tuesday advanced a bill that would prohibit state and local health officials from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for children under age 18.” Republican state senators “said they want to be proactive.” However, Democrats called the bill “needless and noted that if the COVID-19 vaccine were added to the list of immunizations children need to attend school, the state allows for exemptions.” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has said state officials are no looking to mandate COVID vaccinations or institute vaccination passports.
----- DISTRICTS -----
LA to start new school year in-person, but will keep online option
Los Angeles USD is planning to start school year in the fall with in-person learning, while also offering the option of online learning. Superintendent Austin Beutner said that elementary, middle and high school students will have in-person classes for the full week, with middle and high school students changing classes each period. After school programs will be available for students until 6 p.m. The online option would be available for students who are unable to come to school or choose to continue to learn online from home. “We expect the vast majority of students, teachers and staff to be at school every day but recognize that we must provide the online opportunity for those who need it,” he said.
CBS Los Angeles The Hill Los Angeles Times
Parents demand that LAUSD schools fully reopen in fall
Parents seeking a firm commitment from the Los Angeles USD that schools will fully reopen in the fall - meaning full time, five days a week for all grade levels - rallied on Sunday calling for a say in what the following school year will look like. More than 100 parents and students gathered outside LAUSD’s headquarters before marching to the teachers union’s office about 2.5 miles away to make their demands known. Dubbed the “Total Recall Rally,” the event was a warning shot to all seven school board members that they could face a recall effort if schools do not fully reopen, one parent organizer said. Organizers issued three key demands and said they will be asking each board member to sign a pledge to do the following: to no longer accept campaign support from district bargaining groups or special interest groups such as UTLA or the California Teachers Association; to announce a full reopening of schools for the fall and commit to following only the latest COVID-19 guidance issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevent and the county health department rather than what UTLA asks for; and to give parents a seat at the bargaining table.
San Francisco confirms schools will return five full days in the fall
San Francisco USD has shared new details about what a return to full instruction five days a week in the fall, including drop in health screenings and surveillance testing, but the retention of face coverings. Class groups will remain the same for elementary schools, but not for middle or high schools, and classroom configurations will be similar to what they were prior to the pandemic. In addition to pandemic-related adjustments, San Francisco schools will be modifying start times. Schools will begin at one of three times: 7:50 a.m., 8:40 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. The district will standardize the length of the school day to be the same for each grade at every school. The district’s reopening plan is still subject to state and federal guidelines and union negotiations, which begin next week. The current deal between teachers and the district expires at the end of June.
----- CLASSROOM -----
Plenty of schools opting out of standardized testing
Standardized tests are returning to the nation’s schools this spring, but millions of students will face shorter exams that carry lower stakes, and most families are being given the option to forgo testing entirely. With new flexibility from the Biden administration, states are adopting a patchwork of testing plans that aim to curb the stress of exams while still capturing some data on student learning. Some of the nation’s largest districts plan to test only a fraction of their students as many continue to learn remotely. In New York City, students must opt in to be tested this year. In Los Angeles, most students are not being asked to take state exams this year. Other districts are scaling back questions or testing in fewer subjects. “We will end up with a highly imperfect set of data,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. “This is something our country will have to commit to tracking and learning about for at least the next few years, and maybe the next decade.” The inconsistency between states now makes a broad analysis impossible, said Scott Marion, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Assessment, which helps states design and evaluate tests. However, he added that the results will still have value. “I do think the data can be a useful baseline going forward,” he said. “If this is the low point, or close to it, how are our kids going to come out of it going forward?”
Study suggests remediation limited in addressing unfinished learning
A new study, co-sponsored by a curriculum company, suggests a promising strategy for addressing unfinished learning in math after a pandemic year, but finds that Black and Latino students and those in high-poverty schools may have less access to the approach. A common approach to teaching content that students may have missed is remediation: Going back to cover skills and concepts that students haven’t mastered from the previous grade. But another option is what’s called acceleration—moving forward with grade-level content and only addressing prerequisite skills and concepts from the previous grade as necessary, when they’re needed to work with grade-level content. It’s been recommended by a host of instructional organizations and implemented with success in several school districts in during the pandemic. The idea is to get students back on track, but also avoid the current situation in which Black and Latino students are disproportionately put on remedial tracks, which can block their access to higher-level coursework. One of the organizations that has touted this strategy this past year is TNTP, a group focused on teacher quality. In this new study, TNTP partnered with digital math program Zearn to compare the two approaches, acceleration and remediation. They found that students whose teachers chose to accelerate got through more grade-level content this school year, and that students struggled less, as measured by repeated attempts on the same problem. In classes where teachers chose to accelerate, TNTP and Zearn found, students covered more grade-level content. They made it through 27% more on-grade-level lessons than their counterparts in classrooms where teachers remediated.
----- LEGAL -----
Judge upholds Connecticut school mask mandate
Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher of Hartford, Connecticut, has ruled to keep the state’s school mask requirement in place after it was challenged by a lawsuit filed in August. The ruling upholds Gov. Ned Lamont’s COVID-19 emergency order that gave the state Department of Education permission to require protective facial coverings in school settings, but does not affect rules regarding the upcoming school year. The state's Department of Education will determine its mask policy as the 2021-2022 year gets closer, in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. The judge's ruling comes after several states, including Iowa and Texas, have banned mask requirements in schools. The debate over masks in schools is yet another flashpoint for U.S. educators grappling with how to keep students and staff safe during the pandemic. Iowa and Texas have banned school districts from requiring kids to wear masks on campus. Similar moves are under consideration in other states and local jurisdictions, spurred in part by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying on May 13th that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks in most situations. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association, two unions that represent a total of about 5 million teachers and staff, have urged states to keep their mask requirements at least through the end of this school year.
----- WORKFORCE ----
Black Teachers Suffering From “Racial Battle Fatigue” After Trying Year
The Hechinger Report (5/24) reports on how Black teachers across the country are suffering from “racial battle fatigue,” a term used to “describe how the persistent and subtle verbal and nonverbal acts of aggression or discrimination against Black people and other marginalized groups cause them stress, anxiety, frustration, anger and even physical symptoms.” Since March 2020, Black Americans have “experienced a perfect storm of social and emotional stressors, including the unequal death toll from Covid-19 in the Black community, the ongoing resurgence of white supremacy and an onslaught of high-profile police killings of Black people.” The piece highlights a “growing number of anecdotal tales of stress and anxiety emerging from the ranks of Black teachers over the course of the last year.”
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
New legislation could cut share of out-of-state students at UC schools
State lawmakers are considering a plan to slash the share of out-of-state and international students at the University of California, to make room for more local residents. The state Senate has unveiled a proposal to reduce the proportion of nonresident incoming freshmen to 10% from the current system wide average of 19% over the next decade beginning in 2022 and compensate UC for the lost income from higher out-of-state tuition. This would ultimately allow nearly 4,600 more California students to secure freshmen seats each year, with the biggest gains expected at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. UC officials say they share the goal of enrolling and graduating more California students and have added 19,000 more of them since 2015. But they oppose the 10% plan, saying nonresidents enrich the college environment for all students and pay more than $1bn annually in supplemental tuition that helps fill budget holes.
Ventilation and surveillance testing could help keep schools open
Several COVID-19 mitigation measures, including improving ventilation, requiring adults to wear face masks and conducting frequent surveillance testing, can help schools stay open and students remain safe, two new studies suggest. In one of the new studies, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Georgia Department of Public Health surveyed 169 elementary schools in Georgia that offered in-person learning in the fall. They found that the incidence of the virus was 35% lower in schools that had improved their ventilation, by opening windows or doors, or using fans, than in schools that did not adopt these practices. In schools that combined better ventilation with air filtration, through the use of HEPA filters, for instance, case rates were 48% lower. A second study, led by researchers at the Utah Department of Health and the University of Utah, tracked the implementation of two coronavirus screening programs in the state’s schools. One program, which was established in January 2021, allowed schools with outbreaks to conduct schoolwide testing instead of shifting to remote learning. Between January 4th and March 20th, 28 high schools in the state reported sizable outbreaks. Fifteen schools moved to remote instruction for two weeks, while the other 13 conducted surveillance testing instead. Of the 13,809 students who were tested as part of this screening, just 0.7% tested positive, the scientists reported. All 13 schools remained open. “From a public health standpoint, it’s a huge success,” said Kendra Babitz, the coronavirus testing coordinator at the Utah Department of Health and one of the study’s authors. “Testing is and should be a mitigation strategy that schools are using to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the school setting,” she added.
----- SOCIAL & COMMUNITY -----
Homeless students slip through cracks during pandemic
Witnesses before a U.S. House panel last week advised lawmakers on how federal relief aid can help bridge educational gaps among children who are homeless and in foster care during the pandemic. “While housing is critical, housing alone does not close the educational gap faced by students who have experienced homelessness,” Jennifer Erb-Downward, a senior research associate at Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan, said Wednesday in her testimony before a subcommittee of the House Education & Labor Committee. She said in her research she found that the pandemic made it more difficult for schools to identify homeless students, making it harder for teachers and administrators to help those students. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, a Democrat from the Northern Mariana Islands, asked Erb-Downward, along with the other witnesses, how school districts were using funds provided by coronavirus relief packages to address those vulnerable students. The most recent measure, the $1.9tn American Rescue Plan, was passed earlier this year. James Lane, Virginia’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, said that because the American Rescue Plan provided $800m for homeless students, Virginia’s schools will see an increase in McKinney-Vento funds. That is a federal program that ensures educational rights and protections for children experiencing homelessness, and Virginia’s share will rise from $1.7m last year to $13m. “This additional federal funding provides an opportunity to scale new, creative support programs that had formerly relied on local grants,” he said.
----- HIGHER EDUCATION -----
Community colleges move to require ethnic studies
California community college students pursuing an associate degree will soon likely have a new course requirement: a three-unit ethnic studies class. This week, the statewide Board of Governors that oversees California’s 116 community colleges will hold a public hearing on a proposal to add the class to the community college system’s general education requirements. The board is then expected to vote on the change in July. If the board approves the new requirement as expected, it would mean that every student seeking an associate degree will need to take a class in Native American studies, African American studies, Asian American studies or Latina and Latino studies. Legislation is also currently making its way through the state Assembly that would create the same requirement. Assembly Bill 1040 doesn’t need to be signed into law for the requirement to take effect because the community college system is already moving forward with implementing it. “Whether we’re talking about the traumatic spike in anti-Asian hate and anti-Asian violence, whether we’re talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, or hate against so many other groups and communities, all of that highlights the critical importance for us to make sure that our students have an opportunity to learn how to view American society and American history from multicultural perspectives,” he said.
----- 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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