Started in November 2010, daily postings from the Keystone State
Education Coalition now reach more than 4050 Pennsylvania education
policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and
congressional staffers, Governor's staff, current/former PA Secretaries of
Education, Wolf education transition team members, superintendents, school solicitors,
principals, charter school leaders, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher
leaders, business leaders, faith-based organizations, labor organizations,
education professors, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 regulatory
agencies, professional associations and education advocacy organizations via
emails, website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
If any of your colleagues would like to be added to the
email list please have them send their name, title and affiliation to KeystoneStateEdCoalition@gmail.com
PA Ed Policy Roundup Sept. 26, 2019
Know Your Facts on Funding and Charter Performance. Then
Call for Charter Change!
PSBA’s new resource
for data and ongoing information on charter schools.
Philadelphia may soon require all charter schools, youth
organizations to accommodate trans kids
Inquirer by Anna Orso, Updated: September 25, 2019- 1:48 PM
City Council is
considering a proposal that would require Philadelphia institutions that serve
children to accommodate transgender and gender-nonconforming youth, including
allowing those individuals to wear clothing and use bathrooms consistent with
their gender identity. It would also require regular antidiscrimination
training for staffers who work with young people and stipulates that, under
antidiscrimination guidelines, personnel shouldn’t disclose a child’s
transgender identity or gender-nonconformity, including to parents and other
staff, unless authorized by the child. While the School District of
Philadelphia already
has such a policy, this
bill would expand those rules to charter schools, rec centers, sports leagues,
and virtually every other “institution serving youth” in the city. Whether
religious institutions would be exempt remains a question.
Bills to require inclusive practices in all Philly schools
advances in Council
They would
require all youth-serving organizations, including charter schools, to have
welcoming policies for transgender and nonbinary youth.
The notebook by Bill Hangley Jr. September 25 — 9:22 pm, 2019
Following a brief
hearing featuring the passionate testimony of a self-described “non-binary
tween,” four bills intended to protect transgendered and non-binary gendered
youth were approved by a City Council committee Wednesday, paving their way for
a full Council vote as early as next week. “Sometimes, people tell me how hard
it is for them to use they/them pronouns. I don’t need to hear that it is
hard!” cried Itzela Wiley as Council members listened. “I don’t expect people
to be perfect, I only ask for people to try.” Later, Wiley, 10, a non-binary
gendered student at the Philadelphia School District who told Council that
being “mis-gendered” was “hurtful” and “painful,” said they were glad to have
spoken out on behalf of other students like themselves. “If you’re going to do
something that involves the youth, the youth should be heard,” Wiley said. Gym
celebrated the four bills’ unanimous passage out of the Law and Government
Committee. “Too often trans and gender nonconforming Philadelphians are forced
to navigate unsafe spaces where their dignity is not realized,” Gym said. If
the bills are approved by the full Council, city officials will then follow
with specific regulations that could be in place as early as this summer,
according to Gym’s staff.
PA doesn’t mandate driver’s ed, despite studies showing
it reduces injuries
School
districts are already overburdened — but there could be a workaround.
Billy Penn by Michaela Winberg September 25, 2019
What do you need to
do to prove you’re ready to get behind the wheel of a car? If you live in
Pennsylvania, nothing but a signature from a parent or spouse. One Philly auto
expert is trying to change that. Fred Simeone, who runs a classic car
museum in Southwest Philadelphia and was recently named the No. 1 most
significant collector in the world, has been lobbying for the state
to require driver’s education. Ideally, he said, instruction would be
incorporated into the public school curriculum. The retired neurosurgeon
spent 40 years in the medical field, regularly treating injuries sustained in
car accidents — oftentimes by teenagers. “These kids were in car
accidents with pretty much all the same problems: tailgating, failure to adjust
their mirrors, lane changing. That’s stuff they might have been able to avoid
if they had known better,” Simeone said. He’s hoping more formal training can
prevent some of the accidents that landed young folks on his operating table.
“I put kids’ heads back together!” A statewide requirement would add to the
plate of Philadelphia’s already overburdened school district. Still, Simeone
argues the potential lifesaving benefits are worth the effort.
Bullying, mental
health concerns top reports to Safe2Say Something, Pennsylvania’s student tip
line
Penn Live By PETER HALL THE MORNING CALL | SEP 25, 2019 | 6:51 PM
Pennsylvania
schools need more resources to address the bullying and mental health issues
that cause students to harm themselves and consider suicide, Attorney General
Josh Shapiro said Wednesday in a discussion with high school students on the
state’s new school safety app and tipline. Between mid-January, when the
program started, and the end of June, Safe2Say Something generated about 23,500
tips on safety concerns from vaping and drug use to threats against people,
according to a report by the attorney general’s office, which was compiled last
month. Since June, the line received an additional 5,000 tips, Shapiro said. Those
tips, in addition to feedback from students in listening sessions planned
around the state, are crucial to determining what resources educators need to
keep students safe, said state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who was with Shapiro
and Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Montgomery/Philadelphia, in Carlisle, Cumberland
County. “As a work in progress, the ability to get constant feedback from the
hundreds of thousands of students who have been trained and involved in this
has infinite value in regards to what we will do tomorrow with it," said
Browne, who sponsored the legislation that created Safe2Say. Most prevalent
among them were: concerns about bullying or cyberbullying, accounting for 15%
of the total; cutting or self-harm, accounting for 11%; and suicide or suicidal
thoughts, about 9%.
The big things we
learned from the Pa. Senate’s marathon gun safety hearings
PA Capital Star By Elizabeth Hardison September 26, 2019
Over two days’
worth of hearings this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard more than
nine hours of expert testimony on mental health and Second Amendment
rights. The committee, chaired by Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne, didn’t take
up any specific legislation during its marathon hearings in the state Capitol.
But close to 300 citizens from both sides of the gun control debate packed a
hearing room where doctors, researchers, and attorneys addressed Baker and her
Senate colleagues in their first session days after their three-month summer
recess. Here’s what we learned: Baker hasn’t closed the door on a red flag
law . A so-called red flag gun bill, which authorizes extreme risk
protection orders, is a current top priority for gun control advocates.
Separate bills are making their way through the House and Senate. It would
allow law enforcement to temporarily seize firearms from someone a judge deems
to be a threat to himself or others. Seventeen states and the District of
Columbia currently have such laws on the books. And a growing body of research
says they show promise in reducing suicide rates. Baker said Wednesday that she
still has some concerns about the Senate version of the bill, authored by Sen.
Tom Killion, R-Delaware. She wants to ensure it will preserve due process
rights, and that there are protections in place to ensure that sheriffs aren’t
walking into danger when they go to seize someone’s firearms.
Editorial: The
Legislature continues to shoot itself in the foot on gun control
Delco Times
Editorial By Phil Heron
pheron@delcotimes.com @philheron on Twitter September 25, 2019
So much for common
sense, something that no one has ever suggested is in abundant supply in
Harrisburg. Our esteemed representatives returned to work at the state Capitol
after their extended summer vacation and, after another summer of unending gun
violence, took up the notion of what its supports say is common-sense gun
control. Obviously, not everyone defines common sense in the say way. Actually,
there was some progress to report during two days of Senate committee hearings
and House committee votes. The House Judiciary Committee approved a move to
more swiftly take away guns from someone who was involuntarily committed for
mental health treatment. They changed that window from 60 days to 48 hours.
Sounds pretty common sense to us. Unfortunately, the day was dominated by what
the Judiciary Committee did not do. They did not take up a push for expanded
background checks, and they also turned their back on so-called red-flag laws.
ERPO measures, that stands for Extreme Risk Protection Order, would allow courts
to temporarily seize a person’s firearms after hearing testimony that the
person is a danger to themselves or others.
“But there are reasonable questions
regarding the merits of arming guards and stationing cops in schools,
especially as data continues to show that minority students are
disproportionately affected by increasingly severe punishments. And idealists
have even argued the very presence of firearms in institutions tasked with
elevating minds and civil debate actually undermine the very mission at
schools. Simply put, West York's decision was not — in a national context — an
uncontroversial one. And local school districts do not exist outside of
national debate.”
EDITORIAL: West York schools cuts public out
The York Dispatch Editorial Board Published
5:32 a.m. ET Sept. 26, 2019
West York Area
School District officials did all they could this past week to muzzle the
public and dodge a potentially contentious debate about an armed guard walking
the district's halls. Following a pretext-laden debate this past
week, Superintendent Todd Davies implored school board members to ditch
standard parliamentary procedure and fast-track a resolution that will arm the
district's security guard. Some board members lamented that they hadn't even
had time to read the draft policy prior to voting, and at least one member
rightly noted that actions such as this only erode public confidence. "My
other concern is the community," said board member Jeanne Herman.
"When we add things at the last minute, it does not allow the community to
come and voice during public comment, and so I think that's a disservice then
to the public that we represent." And yet, after some twitching and
squirming, Davies got his way by a 7-1 vote, with Herman dissenting. The
board could have opted to exist as something more than Davies' rubber stamp. It
could had demanded the resolution head to a second reading, as is normal
procedure. It could have publicized the matter and invited public input.
Several Lancaster
County school districts discovered toxic lead in their drinking water in
2018-19, test results show
Lancaster Online by
ALEX GELI | Staff
Writer September
25, 2019
Many Lancaster
County schools discovered troubling amounts of toxic lead flowing through their
pipes this past school year after a new state law pushed them to test their
water. Among several hundred water sources tested at the county’s public
schools, 42 had lead levels beyond the action limit of 15 parts per billion set
by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, LNP found after requesting each school’s water testing results through
the Right to Know Law. The tests were conducted in the 2018-19 school year in
accordance with a new Pennsylvania law that encourages schools to test their
water for lead. The law allows schools to opt out of testing if they discuss
the lead issue at a public meeting, though none of the 17 public school
districts, nor the county’s lone charter school, did so. School districts that
discovered elevated lead levels were Cocalico, Conestoga Valley, Ephrata Area,
Octorara Area, School District of Lancaster and Warwick. Tests showed levels as
high as 469 parts per billion, or 39 times the federal action limit. In each of
those districts, fixes and retests have taken place to ensure students have
safe drinking water, officials said.
‘Why Are You Doing This to Me?’ Outraged Kids Start
School Early While Teens Sleep
Districts
cause upheaval at home by flipping start times; big brother is fast asleep
Wall Street
Jopurnal By Tawnell D. Hobbs Sept. 25, 2019 1:30 pm ET
Middle-school
student Maria Pekarsky wakes up by 5:30 a.m. for school, knowing her older teen
brother and sister are still sound asleep with about another hour of shut-eye
to go. “When I’m about to leave home, they’re like finally
starting to wake up,” said the 12-year-old in Fairfax County, Va., who gets
dropped off at her bus stop because it’s too dark outside to walk. “I catch a
bus at 6:30 a.m. The sun is rising!” School districts across the country are
flipping school start times, making younger students start earlier so teenagers
can sleep longer. They cite research, including by the American
Academy of Pediatrics in 2014, saying teenagers should start school no earlier
than 8:30 a.m. The moves
are creating huge logistical challenges for school districts—and upheaval at
home. In some households, the change pits outraged younger kids against
well-rested older ones. Parents remain sleep-deprived. Fairfax County high
school students have been getting up to an extra 50 minutes of sleep since
2015, when the district moved back the opening bell. For that, they have groggy
youngsters to thank. Middle school, which includes grades seven and eight,
starts up to 35 minutes earlier than before.
Blogger note: Matt Brouillette has been
a long time proponent of vouchers, charters and tax credits.
“From 2002 to 2016, Brouillette was president and CEO of the
Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank that supports charter
schools, opposes raising the minimum wage, and lobbies lawmakers to tie state
spending to revenue growth.”
Veteran conservative activist Matt Brouillette says he’s
running for Folmer’s state Senate seat
PA Capital Star By Sarah Anne Hughes
-September 25, 2019
Matthew J. Brouillette, the former head of
Harrisburg’s preeminent right-wing think tank, announced Wednesday that he is
seeking the nomination for the state Senate seat last held by Mike Folmer. Folmer
resigned last week after being charged with possession of child pornography. He
was first elected to represent the 48th state senatorial district — which
includes Lebanon and parts of Dauphin and York counties — in 2006. In a
statement, Brouillette said he’s running “because the people of the 48th
District deserve a strong conservative voice who is ready to take on the tough
policy battles that lie ahead, to go on offense against those who destroy our
American way of life, and to fight relentlessly to advance educational and
economic opportunity for all Pennsylvanians.” “This is a fight I’ve long been
engaged in, and I’m ready to take to the Capitol,” he continued.
“It came as the number of House members
supporting an impeachment inquiry reached 218, a critical milestone that indicates there is a majority in the
House willing to at least consider drafting and voting on articles of
impeachment.”
Trump Officials Turn Over Whistle-Blower Complaint as
Impeachment Inquiry Begins
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi said the House should work “expeditiously” to build its case. It
is not yet clear what that means.
New York Times By Nicholas Fandos Published Sept. 25, 2019 Updated Sept.
26, 2019, 5:47 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — House
Democrats rushed on Wednesday to plot the course of their formal impeachment
inquiry into President Trump, getting their first glimpses of the secret
intelligence whistle-blower complaint that touched off the investigation that
could lead to his removal. But even as they obtained crucial details about
allegations that Mr. Trump pressured a foreign leader to help him tarnish a
political rival, Democrats did not plan any immediate action to formalize their
impeachment inquiry. They do not intend to hold a vote on the House floor to
authorize the proceedings, as has been done in the past, lawmakers and senior
party officials said, because they do not believe it is necessary. Instead,
they were planning to use the coming weeks to build as strong a case as they
could against Mr. Trump, with an eye toward drafting articles of impeachment
against him. That would mean the House would not vote on the matter unless the
articles of impeachment were brought to the floor. The disclosure to Congress
of the whistle-blower’s complaint, coming less than 24 hours after Speaker
Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would pursue an official impeachment
inquiry, underscored how rapidly things were changing now that lawmakers had
pivoted to using their powers under the Constitution to weigh charges against
the president.
Read Trump's phone
conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky
CNN Updated 4:41 AM
ET, Thu September 26, 2019
President Donald
Trump repeatedly pushed for Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to
investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, during a July
25 phone call, according to a transcript of the conversation released by the White House.
Read the transcript
here:
According to state
law, all school directors must complete training. How many hours are required
if you are a new school director? What about if you’re re-elected? Get the
answers to these and other related questions in this episode of PSBA’s #VideoEDition.
Information about the
education sessions for the 2019 @PasaSupts @PSBA School Leadership Conference are now live on our
website! We hope to see you there! #PASLC2019
What: Informal
discussion on cyber charter schools
When: 9 a.m.
refreshments, 9:30 a.m. panel, Oct. 7
Where: Central
Pennsylvania Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, 800 E. Park Ave., State College
AAUW State College
Branch invites you to attend an informational panel discussion to learn more
about background and issues connected with cyber charter schools. Join us on Oct.
7, at the Central Pennsylvania Convention and Visitors Bureau, 800 E. Park
Ave., State College (visitor center off Porter Road). Refreshments, 9 a.m.;
panel discussion, 9:30 a.m.
The American
Association of University Women State College Branch is part of a nationwide
network of about 1,000 branches that are dedicated to advancing equity for
women and girls.
Adolescent Health and
School Start Times: Science, Strategies, Tactics, & Logistics
Workshop Nov 13, Exton
Join school administrators and staff, including superintendents, transportation directors, principals, athletic directors, teachers, counselors, nurses, and school board members, parents, guardians, health professionals and other concerned community members for an interactive and solutions-oriented workshop on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 9:30 am to 3:00 pm
Join school administrators and staff, including superintendents, transportation directors, principals, athletic directors, teachers, counselors, nurses, and school board members, parents, guardians, health professionals and other concerned community members for an interactive and solutions-oriented workshop on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 9:30 am to 3:00 pm
Clarion Hotel in
Exton, PA
The science is clear. Many middle and high school days in Pennsylvania, and across the nation, start too early in the morning. The American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control, American Academy of Pediatrics, and many other major health and education leaders agree and have issued policy statements recommending that secondary schools start no earlier than 8:30 am to allow for sleep, health, and learning. Implementing these recommendations, however, can seem daunting. Discussions will include the science of sleep and its connection to school start times, as well as proven strategies for successfully making change--how to generate optimum community support and work through implementation challenges such as bus routes, athletics, and more. Register for the workshop here: https://ssl-workshop-pa.eventbrite.com Thanks to our generous sponsors, we are able to offer early bird registration for $25, which includes a box-lunch and coffee service. Seating is limited and early bird registration ends on Friday, September 13.
For more information visit the workshop website www.startschoollater.net/workshop---pa or email contact@startschoollater.net
The science is clear. Many middle and high school days in Pennsylvania, and across the nation, start too early in the morning. The American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control, American Academy of Pediatrics, and many other major health and education leaders agree and have issued policy statements recommending that secondary schools start no earlier than 8:30 am to allow for sleep, health, and learning. Implementing these recommendations, however, can seem daunting. Discussions will include the science of sleep and its connection to school start times, as well as proven strategies for successfully making change--how to generate optimum community support and work through implementation challenges such as bus routes, athletics, and more. Register for the workshop here: https://ssl-workshop-pa.eventbrite.com Thanks to our generous sponsors, we are able to offer early bird registration for $25, which includes a box-lunch and coffee service. Seating is limited and early bird registration ends on Friday, September 13.
For more information visit the workshop website www.startschoollater.net/workshop---pa or email contact@startschoollater.net
WHERE: Hershey Lodge and
Convention Center 325 University Drive, Hershey, PA
WHEN: Wednesday, October
16 to Friday, October 18, 201
Registration is now open!
Growth from knowledge acquired. Vision inspired by innovation. Impact
created by a synergized leadership community. You are called upon to be the
drivers of a thriving public education system. It’s a complex and challenging
role. Expand your skillset and give yourself the tools needed for the
challenge. Packed into two and a half daysꟷꟷgain access to top-notch education
and insights, dynamic speakers, peer learning opportunities and the latest
product and service innovations. Come to the PASA-PSBA School Leadership
Conference to grow!
Any comments contained herein are my comments, alone, and
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other person or organization
that I may be affiliated with.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.