ABCFT YOUnionews for March 4, 2022
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - Negotiations Update By Ruben Mancillas
We have a tentative agreement for our 2021-2022 salary compensation package. The ABCFT executive board voted to send it to our rep council and our rep council voted to send it to the full membership for formal ratification. ABCFT membership passed the tentative agreement with an 84.2% vote and it now goes to the ABCUSD school board for final approval during the March 15 meeting.
The details of the agreement have been discussed elsewhere but the main feature is a 5% on schedule raise retroactive for the 2021-2022 school year. This ongoing raise will positively impact the STRS calculation for pension benefits and the retroactive component ensures that any members choosing to retire this year will receive the increase as part of their final year compensation. Pending board approval, our April paycheck should reflect this new 5% raise with the date of the accompanying retro check still to be determined.
The ABCFT negotiating team was able to access off schedule or one time dollars in a number of ways. Members will receive a one time 1% off schedule check based on the new updated salary schedule. Short Term Independent Study or STIS contracts will be compensated retroactively to the beginning of the year. The timelines for both of these checks are yet to be determined but we will work with the district payroll department to communicate with you as soon as we get solid dates. In addition, all members will be able to participate in two voluntary professional learning days at the beginning of the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years at a flat rate of $474 per day. Again, all members have the opportunity to earn an additional $948 for each of the next two years if they choose. Hourly rates for working additional period options and teaching summer school also increased. The move to a per diem rate of hourly compensation for our Child Development Program teachers is a significant gain as well.
The negotiating team also bargained for the restoration of sick days missed due to COVID as well as a clear pathway to permanency for our CTE teachers. Eliminating the dreaded termination letter our veteran CTE teachers received every spring was a goal we were happy to achieve.
Our next step is to negotiate our master contract. We bargain for salary and benefits every year and our typical schedule is to review and negotiate our existing master contract every three years. We have extended our current contract due to these past few COVID years but will negotiate an updated contract at this time. A survey has been sent out to gather input from our members and we will combine this information with the many notes we have from meetings we have held with respective groups to help guide us at the table.
In Unity,
MEMBER VOICES - Master Contract Survey Is Open
The ABCFT negotiating team returns to the table on March 10th to begin master contract negotiations. The ABCFT negotiating team is requesting ABCFT members to respond to the 2021-2022 Master Contract survey. You will find the survey link in your work email. By completing the survey, ABCFT members help provide guidance for the negotiating team on issues important to the membership. Thank you for your time and consideration regarding concerns you would like to see addressed in our new contract. We recognize and value the importance of your ideas.
The master contract survey remains open until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8th.
MEMBER BENEFITS - Mental Health and Wellness
In partnership with Kaiser Permanente
Mental Health and Wellness—Self-Care at your Fingertips: Webinars, Videos and Much More
Live Mindfulness Webinars – Manage Stress and Build Resilience
At Kaiser Permanente we strive to provide support for your mind, body, and spirit. Mindfulness is an evidence-based practice shown to decrease stress and increase emotional well-being.
Kaiser Permanente invites the entire community to our live mindfulness webinars. Join us as we practice!
SCHOOL BOARD REPORT
Here is a summary of the school board meeting this week.
School board president Report Soo Yoo (This speech provides a good look into the platform of the ABC school board president)
Superintendent’s Report, A-G Improvement Grant Plan (Outlines additional supports we do as a district for unduplicated high school students).
School board vice president Brad Beach (His proposed informational item entitled “Request to Governor Gavin Newsom to Rescind the Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate for Public and Private K-12 Students as a Requirement for In-person Instruction)
MEMBER-ONLY RESOURCES
Women's History Month Lesson Plans & Resources
A Legacy of Empowerment: Women's History Month Lesson Plans
Use these timely preK-12 lesson plans and class activities to incorporate key figures and historical events in your Women’s History Month lesson planning. This Share My Lesson collection spans topics like women’s suffrage and women’s rights and features influential women in science, social justice and sports. Read this blog for more ideas on how to make Women's History Month relevant for all students. You may also find of interest the #MeToo resource collection on combating harassment and creating inclusive classrooms.
Women’s history was first celebrated in the United States in March 1981 when Congress authorized the celebration on Women’s History Week. In 1987, upon the request of the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed a resolution to declare March Women’s History Month. Since that time, each president has continued to sign the resolution on an annual basis to continue the tradition of Women’s History Month celebrations.
Last year, August 18th marked the centennial celebration of the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote in the Untied States. Celebrate the achievements, brilliance, and legacies of the women that transformed society and paved the road for the struggle for equality that continues today. Explore preK-12 lesson plans, resources and more including activities like:
Find more free prek-12 Women's History Month lesson plans and resources in our curated collection on women's suffrage and the 19th amendment.
ABCFT PRESIDENT’S REPORT - Ray Gaer
Communication is a union’s most important tool for advocating for its members at the bargaining table. Every conversation with the membership is focused on the end result of negotiating for the future prosperity and wellbeing of ABCFT members. This weekly report aims to keep the membership informed about issues that impact their working/learning conditions and their mental well-being. Together we make the YOUnion.
I hope you had a good week and things are settling back down to a new kind of normality in your classrooms. This by no means that this week wasn't full of stressful situations such as the student-related violence at Heritage Park, the major announcements from the state about the changing guidelines for masks in school settings, and the conflict in Ukraine. All of these outside events impact you and your students in the classrooms but I hope that you are able to keep your students focused on their immediate surroundings and tasks in front of them. Now continues to be a time of grace and understanding for all stakeholders.
I’m a big hockey fan and as I prepare for tonight's Ducks game I cannot help but compare this school year to a typical hockey game. We are in the second period, the game is tied up because we just scored a goal. For those of you who don’t know about the intricacies of hockey but in defense of hockey, I will state that it is not boxing on ice but I do understand that reference. I will try not to be too boring with my analogy.
I feel like ABCFT’s negotiations with the District are still orderly and there is a renewed healthy respect among stakeholders. However, as professionals, everyone is still focused on keeping our student's success our collaborative goal regardless of the “noise”. A good hockey game takes two well-designed teams that are prepared to play against each other to win but really the athletes are all playing for a salary and recognition. There is also a healthy sense of respect among the players of both teams as to their mutual understanding that the GAME is for the fans and that their playing pays the bills. Our parents and our students are our fans in this analogy and we continue to respect the role of the administration and school board. If the fans are happy and receive what they are seeking, everyone not only gets compensated but the players and coaches see value in their hard work. Keeping a good hockey team together is similar to retaining ABC teachers and nurses so that they feel valued enough to not think about leaving the district.
Okay, I’ll get to my point. I think we just went through a couple of months of high energy, uncertainty, and increased demands. However, the hard work paid off and the final result was that we passed a tentative agreement with the goal of putting more money in your checks for the rest of your career. ABCFT is working toward protecting working conditions and recognizing that you as players in a game are valued for what you do. Like a hockey game, sometimes it's okay for there to be a fight on the ice so that both teams understand the boundaries and respect each other. Enforcing rules and boundaries is a healthy result of a good conflict. In a hockey game, the fight doesn’t end the hockey game just like a job action like Work to Rule didn’t end our school year. The hockey game is just like the school year for teachers and it will continue to go forward.
Where is Ray going with this analogy?
Let’s celebrate our successes, not be defeated by our setbacks, but continue to work as a team to show our YOUnity as a force of change that will continue to shape the ABC School District. As the ABCFT Negotiating team prepares for the next round of negotiations they know that membership has overwhelmingly supported their efforts to continue to advocate for better working conditions and pay adjustments that recognize the value of members' work.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot a last-minute negotiation update….Ruben and I both cut our hair this week. I’m very thankful for your positive vote on the Tentative Agreement which gave me the green light to go get a haircut. Both of our hairstyles were getting a little too long and wild. As you can see I only cut off 5%. I hope that after master contract negotiations I can cut off another chunk.
In YOUnity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
CFT – A Union of Educators and Classified Professionals
Media Advisory
Contact: Matthew Hardy - 510-703-5291
CFT President Jeff Freitas responds to CDPH update on masking in schools
Sacramento, CA – Earlier today Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Public Health announced updated guidance on masking in schools, lifting mandatory masking and transitioning to strongly recommending masking starting on March 11, 2022.
CFT President Jeff Freitas released the following statement following the announcement:
“We have consistently maintained that COVID school policies must be based on science and not politics, and so we appreciate the science-based approach of Dr. Ghaly and the California Department of Public Health in announcing updated guidance on statewide masking in schools.
“The two week time period for transitioning to the new policy will give local school districts and local public health agencies time to review local conditions and, in consultation with parents and educators, make the decision about when and where masking is appropriate in their schools.
“Any decision on masking at the local level should be made with an equity lens so that the health and safety of our hardest hit communities, and especially our most vulnerable students, are prioritized. Districts must continue to provide high quality masks and ensure a safe environment for all staff and students who want or need to continue to wear them. Schools must also continue to have robust testing and proper ventilation in place before making masks optional.
“COVID vaccinations have proven to work, and will be critical to ensure the long term safety of our schools and communities. We urge the state of California and local school districts to double down on their vaccination campaigns for students and their families. This is especially critical for our low-income communities of color, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
“We will continue to work with local education agencies to strengthen proven mitigation efforts, including vaccination access, making high quality masks available to staff and students, sufficient testing, and ventilation upgrades.
“Finally, school communities must work to ensure that students and school workers who choose to continue to wear masks are not stigmatized. No student or school worker should be pressured into unmasking. Our responsibility in our public schools is to provide a safe learning and working environment for all students and staff.”
CFT — A Union of Educators and Classified Professionals represents 120,000 teachers, faculty, and school employees in public and private schools and colleges, from early childhood through higher education. It is the statewide affiliate of the 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
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
CalPERS ceases new investment flows into Russia
The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) says it has ceased all transactions in Russian publicly traded equity and has stopped the flow of any new investments into Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. The largest U.S. pension fund says it is also assessing its real estate investments in Russia. As of March 2nd, CalPERS owned around $420m of Russian public stocks and $345m in illiquid real estate assets, according to a letter sent by the fund to California Governor Gavin Newsom. CalPERS' total investments in Russia are equivalent to about 0.17% of its total investment portfolio and the fund operator holds no Russian debt, the letter said.
----- A CONCERNING TREND RESTRICTING EDUCATION -----
Classroom transparency bills promoted across nation
Classroom transparency bills are proliferating across the U.S., with lawmakers in at least 17 state capitols and Congress putting forward legislation that would require schools to post all instructional materials online. Proponents argue that more disclosures would help parents to better support their children’s learning, because they would know more about what is happening in school. Teachers would not simply disclose, for instance, that their class will learn about the civil rights movement; they would be required to list the specific texts, articles, videos and other materials used with students. “The problem is lack of transparency in schools, increasing infusion of politics into the classroom and the mentality of trying to shut parents out,” said Matt Beienburg, director of education policy at the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank that is promoting these bills throughout the country. Teachers and school advocates say multiple ways of accessing this information already exist, including talking with teachers, attending back-to-school nights or accessing online portals such as Canvas or Google Classroom. Formal curriculums are online for the public or available by request, they say. People on both sides of this debate anticipate that various pieces of legislation, if passed into law, will lead to challenges and debate over the propriety of various lessons, particularly on race, that some see as overdue and others see as liberal indoctrination.
Challenges to education restriction laws grow
At least nine states have now passed legislation preventing teachers from teaching what some parents and legislators say are divisive concepts in the classroom, but which advocates say intend to prevent discussions of racism and historically marginalized groups. In total, 36 states have efforts to restrict education on bias, racism, or contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups to U.S. history, according to analysis. The American Civil Liberties Union last week sued the Wentzville school district in Missouri to stop the district's bans on certain books, following on the heels of two suits ACLU filed against Oklahoma and New Hampshire school districts in late 2021. Other challenges to book bans and laws that advocates say target people of color and the LGBTQ community are also growing on a local level. The ACLU filed two public records requests in Tennessee and Montana, and the Mississippi ACLU issued a letter to a Ridgeland, Mississippi, mayor who withheld funds from a local library until it got rid of LGBTQ+ related materials.
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
White House publishes latest COVID-19 Preparedness Plan
The White House has unveiled its latest plan to move the nation to a new stage of the pandemic where COVID-19 does not disrupt daily life, while also preparing the nation for any new variants that may emerge. The National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan, which will require additional funding from Congress, is focused on spending on treatments for COVID-19, preparing for new variants, keeping schools and businesses open, and continuing efforts to vaccinate the nation. The U.S. government will provide a Clean Air in Buildings Checklist that all buildings can use to improve indoor ventilation and air filtration, and will encourage uptake of ventilation improvements. The administration will also provide technical assistance that encourages schools to make ventilation improvements and upgrades using American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds. Building on ARP funding for early care and education providers, including child care centers, family child care providers, pre-K and others, the Administration will also continue to engage this community to ensure they have tools and support to stay safely open and to continue supporting families.
Biden Focuses on Student Mental Health
The nation must make new commitments to respond to an unprecedented mental health crisis that has had particularly harsh effects on children and teens, President Joe Biden said Tuesday. In response to rising rates of youth depression and anxiety amid the pandemic, President Biden’s first State of the Union Address came alongside a pledge to push for $1bn in new federal funding to help schools hire mental health and student support professionals. The Department of Education will continue to support states and school districts in using relief funds, including the more than $160bn invested by the American Rescue Plan in the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), to address the mental health needs of students, including by training, recruiting, and retaining more school-based mental health professionals. With the help of ESSER funds, schools have already seen a 65% increase in social workers, and a 17% increase in counselors. To help schools sustain these roles, the Department of Health and Human Services will make it easier for school-based mental health professionals to seek reimbursement from Medicaid. The President's speech and accompanying White House proposals also outlined plans to “work with Congress” to ensure health insurance plans cover the cost of virtual access to mental health services, an approach which is increasingly used in schools, and efforts to "rein in" social media platforms' use of children's data. President Biden’s next budget will also propose dramatically expanding funding for full-service community schools, about $400m above its current $30m funding level. Notably, he also urged Americans to consider becoming a tutor or serving as a mentor in schools. “The American Rescue Plan gave schools money to hire teachers and help students make up for lost learning. I urge every parent to make sure your school does just that. They have the money. We can all play a part: sign up to be a tutor or a mentor,” he said.
Chalkbeat Education Week The White House
----- STATE NEWS -----
California makes historic investment in school counselors
For the first time in more than a decade, California invested significantly in school counselors last year as the pandemic spurred a mental health crisis among young people. Nevertheless, even with more funds and a soaring need, California’s school student-to-counselor ratio still ranks near the bottom nationally. According to the national rankings released last month by the American School Counselor Association, California schools have an average of 527 students for each counselor, more than double the recommended ratio of 250-to-1. Only five states had fewer counselors per student. Too many students aren’t receiving the help they need, especially during the pandemic, said Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors. California has shortchanged counseling and mental health services for so long that substantial shifts in district counseling staffs could take years. Part of the problem, she said, is low expectations. Decades of underfunding have left students, families, administrators and school boards unaware of all the services that counselors can provide: college and career advising, mental health support for students and teachers, academic counseling, work on equity and school climate issues, among other tasks. Another obstacle, Whitson said, is that almost no counselors serve on school boards or as administrators. Most high-level district leaders come from the ranks of teachers or have never been in a school with adequate counseling staff. So they might not prioritize counseling or even have a full grasp of counselors’ job duties.
California announces end date for school mask mandates
California, Washington and Oregon will end their school mask mandates after March 11th, the states’ three governors jointly announced on Monday. The announcement from three Democratic governors, which comes just days after the CDC relaxed its mask guidance, adds to a flurry of moves to lift mask mandates in schools and other mandates that remained for the broader public. School mask requirements in Connecticut and Massachusetts were lifted on Monday, as scheduled, while the governors of Delaware, Illinois, and New York announced their mask mandates will end this week, although Illinois' requirement had already been put on hold by a judge. Before Monday’s announcement, California and Hawaii were alone in maintaining indoor mask mandates at schools. It is unclear what will happen in Los Angeles USD, the state's largest school system, which appears bound by an agreement with its teachers union to require masking at least through the end of the current school year. However, district officials could, if they wish, bring the matter back to the bargaining table.
The Hill Education Week San Francisco Chronicle
Confidence in California's public schools declines sharply
Confidence in California public schools has declined as voters and parents overwhelmingly have concluded that the quality of education worsened during the pandemic, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll. Voters were asked to give schools a letter-grade rating from A to F; statewide, about 21% of voters give the state’s public schools an A or B; in 2011 it was 27%. Meanwhile, D or F grades statewide rose 15 percentage points in the last decade, from 13% to 28%. In the city of Los Angeles, 18% of voters give schools an A or B; about 1 in 3 voters give D or F marks to public schools. Comparable figures are not available for 2011. “The decline is significant,” Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll, who has surveyed voters in California for more than four decades. “It could be a long-term trend, but I would certainly think that the impact of COVID has probably contributed to it.” Because the pandemic “took a huge toll” on everyone, the public’s worse perception of schools could simply be temporary and not indicative of a meaningful trend, said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, which conducts research on public education. Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies, agreed that “some of this is likely to be temporary — to do with the pandemic disruptions.”
----- DISTRICTS -----
SFUSD board approves layoff plan and bonuses for teachers
Facing a massive shortfall and state oversight, the San Francisco USD school board on Tuesday approved nearly 300 staff cuts, or around 3% of full-time positions. The approved list includes 151 teachers, counselor and social workers, as well as 51 top-level managers and 62 other staff. The cuts are part of a plan to make $50m in cuts to schools sites, in part to address a loss of 9,000 students since 2014. The board also approved an agreement with the teachers union, which will give teachers up to $10,000 in bonuses, including a guaranteed $2,000 stipend for every teacher. The $32.9m package will be paid for using money raised under the Proposition G parcel tax as well as a pause on teacher sabbaticals and a year suspension of an extra preparation period for Advanced Placement teachers.
NBC Bay Area San Francisco Chronicle
----- CLASSROOM -----
Study into suspensions of Black and Hispanic students
Black and Hispanic students are suspended at disproportionately high rates compared to their peers, a phenomenon that starts as early as preschool. But assigning them to a teacher of the same race can lessen the likelihood of suspension. A working paper from scholars at George Washington University and the University of California, Berkeley suggests that teachers of color may have classroom management techniques or pedagogical practices that help them build more-productive relationships with students of color without resorting to suspensions. White teachers may also have unconscious biases that lead them to judge the behavior of students of color more harshly than they do white students. The authors of the study analyzed 10 years of data on teachers and students in New York City; they found that when Black and Latinx students in grades 4-8 are assigned greater proportions of teachers of the same race, they are significantly less likely to be suspended from school. Asian American students are also less likely to be suspended when they have a same-race teacher, but to a less statistically significant degree. The study projected that raising the representation of teachers of color who teach same-race students in New York City would result in about 230 fewer suspensions for Asian American students, 1,500 fewer suspensions for Latinx students, and 1,800 fewer suspensions for Black students over a 10-year period.
Teachers experiment with more tolerant grading systems
The Washington Post looks at efforts by teachers across the U.S. to alter grading systems to make them more equitable. Districts ranging from California to Virginia are experimenting to level the competition and focus on what experts think matters most, such as what should a grade represent, and how can they be used to motivate students to learn and retain information. Instructors typically penalize children for late, incomplete or sloppy work. These strictures, studies have shown, unfairly privilege one type of student, the kind with means, a supportive family, good nutrition, mental well-being and a peaceable home life, over others who may work after school, have a defective laptop or lack a desk and a quiet space to spit-shine their schoolwork every night. “A grade should represent learning, not behavior,” said Nick Hoover, principal of Cantwell’s Bridge Middle School in the Appoquinimink District in Delaware, which is just starting an overhaul of its own policies. “Look at someone who gets a B. It could be an A student who turned in work late, or a student who averages out at 88 percent in academic work but turns in work on time. That grade doesn’t really represent how much that student has learned.” He added, “We still want to report behavior” — meaning punctuality and other parts of performance — but said it shouldn’t shape how a student is judged on a transcript.
----- LEGAL -----
Texas AG appeals injunction on probes of parents obtaining gender-affirming care
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed for an appeal Thursday after a state judge blocked the state's child protection agency from investigating the parents of a transgender teenager who received gender-affirming medical care. District Judge Amy Clark Meachum had granted a temporary restraining order on Wednesday, stating she believed the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm unless the state were forbidden from investigating them while the litigation proceeds. The parents and their child “face the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation,” she wrote. Meachum was scheduled to consider issuing a statewide injunction blocking such investigations into all parents of trans children on March 11th, but that hearing has been put on hold until an appeals court rules on Paxton's request.
----- WORKFORCE ----
Grow-your-own teacher pipeline model gains traction
Grow-your-own approaches are an increasingly popular teacher pipeline strategy as education leaders work to solve the puzzle of how to address teacher shortages. While the programs vary in detail by district and state, they generally provide high school juniors and seniors with dual enrollment opportunities to start gaining college credit toward a teaching degree. The programs then may further financially support those students when they enter colleges of education. They often also financially support community members or school paraprofessionals to advance to a teaching certification, particularly in high-need areas like special education and English language learning. U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited Tennessee State University February 22nd to praise the historically Black institution’s grow-your-own teacher pipeline program TSU has created a pathway for high school seniors to earn a bachelor’s degree in teaching with initial licensure in biology, chemistry, special education or English as a second language. The state education department funded the TSU program through a grow-your-own competitive grant program. In October 2020, the department announced it would award $2m to seven education prep programs to form or expand teacher pipeline partnerships with districts. The federal Labor Department’s support for Tennessee teaching apprenticeships is significant, because “it opens up a pocket of money that wasn’t available to programs in the past,” said Jacqueline Rodriguez, vice president of research, policy and advocacy at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
K-12 Dive US News and World Report
Nearly half of public schools impacted by staffing shortages
According to a new nationally representative survey of 670 public schools, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 44% report having full- or part-time teacher vacancies. Schools with at least one vacancy also said special education had the highest teaching vacancies (45%), followed by general elementary teaching positions (31%) and substitute teachers (20%). More than half of schools (57%) with one or more vacancies said they increasingly needed to use teachers for work outside their job descriptions. The leading cause of vacancies for 51% of schools was resignation, rather than retirement. The survey is the first of its kind from the U.S. Education Department since the start of the pandemic and confirms predictions from researchers and anecdotal evidence from administrators of a "mass exodus" of teachers from their jobs as a result of the pandemic. Of further concern, the NCES survey also shows that 49% of public schools reported at least one nonteaching staff vacancy as of January 2022, including custodial, nutrition and transportation staff.
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
Does the science support the lifting of school mask mandates?
The CDC has given the OK to lift indoor mask mandates in much of the US, and a growing number of states no longer require face coverings in schools. But most experts agree that masks slow school spread of SARS-CoV-2, and whether now is the right time to allow teachers and students to unmask is a matter of debate. Last month, the Urgency of Normal advocacy group issued a call to keep schools open regardless of case numbers, with most precautions, including masking, removed. Its toolkit claims that studies don’t clearly show that masks on kids reduce COVID-19 transmission in schools. Many other experts strongly disagree, citing research showing that, while imperfect, masks—particularly surgical masks or higher-filtration options such as KN95s—work very well and that schools have been relatively safe, in large part, because kids have been masked. “They’re trying to tell people that masks don’t matter,” but that’s not true, says Julie Swann, an industrial and systems engineer at North Carolina State University who models the implications of various COVID-19 policies. One study aimed at assessing the effects of masking was published in JAMA Network Open last month; its authors surveyed 6,654 childcare professionals across the country over the course of a year, asking about policies in their programs to reduce COVID-19 transmission, including staggered arrivals and departures and taking temperatures. They found that masking kids was associated with a statistically significant 13% lower risk of the program closing due to a COVID-19 case, and child masking “was the [mitigation] that had the most impact” on this outcome.
----- TECHNOLOGY -----
Ukraine crisis could complicate K-12 cybersecurity risks
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is a chance that K-12 schools will face a higher risk of cyberattacks, according to Amy McLaughlin of the Consortium for School Networking. Schools have become more susceptible to cyberattacks since districts had to pivot and rely more on remote learning and technology at the start of the pandemic, according to a December 2020 joint report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. McLaughlin said that, though the education community will likely not be a direct target, the heightened cybersecurity concerns tied to Russia could potentially add momentum to ongoing policy efforts to enhance K-12 cybersecurity.
----- OTHER -----
NTA Life Insurance - An ABCFT Sponsor
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 online. 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 online.
Please contact Leann Blaisdell at any time either by phone or email.
562-822-5004
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