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PA Ed Policy Roundup for May 18, 2020
Delaware County Teen Town Hall Virtual
Meeting Friday May 22nd at 11 am
Join Congresswoman Mary Gay
Scanlon along with State Lawmakers and Students from Delaware County. Watch
this space for a link to register for Friday’s event
Watch Montgomery County’s
Teen Town Hall that took place on Friday, May
15 with U.S. Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, 14 state senators and
representatives, 15 superintendents and Technical School administrators and
students from across the county.
Virtual graduations are the new normal in the age of
coronavirus
Delco Times Pete Bannan Pbannan@21st-Centurymedia.com May 17,
2020
The ultimate June rite of passage is high
school graduation. But for the Class of 2020, the end of this school year has
been upended by COVID-19. However, area high school administrators are doing
their utmost to make sure this rite of passage occurs in a meaningful and safe
manner. Many have plans in the works for both virtual ceremonies in June and
possible in-person ceremonies later in the summer. Here is a run-down of what
Delaware County districts and private schools are planning for their seniors: Haverford
High School will hold a virtual graduation by live-stream beginning at 5:59
p.m. on June 11. It will feature the high school orchestra playing Pomp and
Circumstance, the choir will sing the National Anthem, and speeches from the
Class of 2020. During the event, each student’s name and photo will be
displayed. Students should turn their tassels after Superintendent Dr. Maureen
Reusche declares them graduates. Fifteen school buses will drive across the
district at that time with teachers and administrators who will deliver their diplomas
and a Haverford High School mask. Upper Darby will hold a virtual graduation
ceremony on June 9. The school has secured a date of July 21 at the Tower
Theater for an in-person graduation if social distancing requirements are
lifted. A second date of Aug. 5 will be considered if social distancing hasn’t
been relaxed in time for the July date. Springfield High School will hold a
virtual celebration of 2020 graduation on June 5 with a ceremony and speeches
that morning. Following the virtual ceremony, teachers and administrators will
travel throughout the district to hand deliver diplomas to the students, On
July 4, all seniors are invited to wear cap and gown and parade through
Springfield to the high school where there will be a graduation ceremony. If
the July 4 event is cancelled or not able to be held, a graduation ceremony
will be held Aug. 1.
‘A tremendous inequality.’ How rural schools, students
adapt to remote learning amid pandemic
Centre Daily Times BY SARAH PAEZ FOR THE
CDT MAY 17, 2020 07:30 AM , UPDATED 19 MINUTES AGO
Madelyn Bailey starts her week at 6 a.m. with
an eight-hour shift at the Dunkin’ in Bellefonte, taking people’s coffee and
doughnut orders. On top of finishing her classwork online during a pandemic,
the Bald Eagle Area High School senior has been working 40 hours most weeks
since school closed to save money for her freshman year at Penn State’s
University Park campus. But unlike many of her peers at the flagship state
university, Bailey lives in Moshannon, an area of Centre County where internet
options are limited and connectivity is both spotty and slow. “I work a lot.
So, if I want to skip a day (of schoolwork) and then do it at the end of the
week instead, it’s kind of hard sometimes,” she said. “If it’s windy, sometimes
the power will go out. If it’s snowing, raining, literally anything ... but
sunshine, the power could have a chance of going out. That would delay my
schoolwork ... because I can’t use cellular service, because we live in a
complete dead zone.” While rural areas of Pennsylvania are less likely to have
access to broadband internet, no area of the state is immune. A 2018 Penn State study sponsored
by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania found that over 50% of the population in
every single county in the state does not have access to broadband — defined as
25 megabits per second download speed. For Bailey, whose internet speed is
about 1 Mbps, that looks like waiting until nighttime to do schoolwork because
fewer people in her nine-person household are using the internet, making it
faster. When she calls her friends over FaceTime to do homework, the call
usually drops or the connection lags, leaving her to constantly catch up with
the conversation.
School Superintendents Dismiss White House, Will Follow
Leaked CDC Guidance on Reopening
Superintendents call recent guidance
insufficient and instead will follow recommendations from a leaked report that
was reportedly shelved by the White House.
US News By Lauren Camera, Senior
Education Writer May 15, 2020, at 10:43 a.m.
SCHOOL DISTRICT superintendents
– those responsible for making decisions about how and when to reopen schools –
are planning to follow detailed guidance from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention that was shelved by the White House last month instead of the
official guidance published Thursday. Education officials have been clamoring
for more thorough direction from the Trump administration as to how and when
they can safely reopen schools, but the long-awaited CDC guidance published to
its web site last night – a one-page decision tree –
left them underwhelmed. "Our recommendation to our members will be to
follow that first report, official or not, because at least it gives pretty
specific guidelines," says Daniel Domenech, executive director of AASA,
the School Superintendents Association, which represents school district
leaders across the country. "The bottom line is that this new guidance is
underwhelming," he says. "The proposal that was leaked we found very
comprehensive, providing the specificity we had been looking for. Apparently
that was too specific for the administration and was squelched." Earlier
this week, reporting by the Associated Press uncovered a 63-page document the CDC prepared for the
White House that provides step-by-step
instructions to help education officials, business owners and others begin
reopening their communities. Among other things, it recommends that schools
currently closed remain closed – a recommendation at odds with President Donald Trump, who's been
saying daily for the last week that schools "absolutely" should open. But the
CDC documents were buried, according to AP reporting, by White House officials
who preferred less restrictive guidance that left discretion up to state and
local leaders rather than a national response.
CDC's latest reopening guidance to schools: Screen
students and employees, wear masks and practice social distancing
Lancaster Online by ALEX GELI | Staff Writer May 16,
2020
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention on Thursday released a one-page checklist regarding reopening
schools.
With Pennsylvania schools expected to reopen in the
fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released
a one-page checklist offering
guidance to schools during the coronavirus pandemic’s next phase. The guidance,
posted to the CDC’s website as schools continue to wait for detailed
recommendations from both the state and the Trump administration, says schools
shouldn’t reopen if they cannot screen students and employees upon arrival and
urges schools to adopt social distancing practices and mask-wearing once
they’re deemed fit to reopen. In order to open, schools must follow applicable
state and local orders and protect those who are at higher risk of severe
illness, the CDC says. Once schools reopen, they should follow health and
safety guidelines and continuously monitor students and employees.
Erie schools aim for hybrid plan for reopening
Go Erie By Ed
Palattella @etnpalattella Posted
at 12:02 AM
Erie School District Superintendent Polito
says he’s focusing on online and in-person classes, waiting on state guidance.
Pennsylvania Education Secretary Pedro Rivera
told the state Senate Education Committee last week that “we fully expect to come back to school in
the fall” with more guidance to come. What
the return will look like is starting to take shape at the Erie School
District. Erie schools Superintendent
Brian Polito said he and his staff are developing a hybrid plan that will allow
students to attend classes in person at school or get instruction online at
home until the pandemic subsides. He said he wants the instruction to be
seamless, no matter what the mode of delivery, while the district follows
health and safety guidelines. “Everything would be very similar whether online
or in-person,” Polito said in an interview. He said the school district must
develop such a plan to take into account that social distancing and other
measures likely still will be in place on Aug. 31, when the first day of the
2020-21 academic year arrives for the Erie School District’s 11,000 students. “We
have kind of settled on the fact that we are not going to be able to bring
everybody back to school at the same time,” Polito said. “There’s probably
going to be restrictions on the number of students and class sizes.” Like
school districts throughout the state, the Erie School District has used distance learning to
teach students at home since Gov. Tom Wolf ordered schools closed on March 13,
a directive he extended on April 6 for the rest of the academic year. Using its
experience over the past several weeks, the Erie School District in 2020-21
aims to have a setup that allows students to switch back and forth from online
instruction to in-person learning, Polito said, depending on the social
distancing requirements and other issues.
Philadelphia Orchestra gives gift of ‘Pomp’ to graduates
everywhere
Inquirer by Peter Dobrin, Updated: May 15, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic may have robbed
graduation time of its full pageantry, but the Philadelphia Orchestra stands
ready to restore some sense of occasion. The orchestra is making available to
anyone who wants it a recording of about a minute’s worth of Elgar’s 1901 Pomp
and Circumstance March No. 1 in D Major, the traditional cap-and-gown tune.
The orchestra has provided the recording directly to the School District of
Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s secretary of education, and
local universities for use in official graduation ceremonies across the city
and state. It’s also available to the public. If the Philadelphia Orchestra’s
take on the piece with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin sounds extra grand, it
might be because, well, it’s the Philadelphia Orchestra. Another reason is that
rather than lifting the serene and dignified first appearance of the famous
melody from Elgar’s six-minute piece, the
orchestra excerpted its final statement. That ecstatic last stretch is pretty
much the soundtrack anyone and everyone would want launching them into the next
phase of life. The recording may bring an extra twinge of nostalgia for some.
It was captured at this year’s Academy of Music Anniversary Concert, which, the
orchestra has announced, may be the last in its
traditional form. This January, the orchestra plans to take a pause from the
venerable event while it mulls other ways of celebrating the 163-year-old opera
house. Even those not celebrating graduation can listen in on Elgar’s stirring
piece — at philorch.org/graduation.
Seniors, ‘you’ve lost a lot.’ Coronavirus pandemic steals
graduations, proms and memories
By JACQUELINE PALOCHKO and MICHELLE MERLIN THE MORNING
CALL | MAY 16, 2020 | 7:41 AM
No Prom
For the last four years, Allen High School
senior Kerine Palacios has been looking forward to the day when her parents,
who immigrated to the United States before she was born, would watch her
receive her diploma and become the first in the family to graduate from high
school. It was going to be a special moment that not only celebrated Kerine’s
accomplishments but also paid tribute to the sacrifices her parents made when
they left Mexico and Columbia for a better life. Neither of Kerine’s parents
made it past sixth grade, but they saw to it that her education came first,
driving her to school every morning and making sure she did her homework every
night. In the fall, Kerine will attend Kutztown University, where she received
a scholarship that will cover nearly all of her tuition so she can study
biology. She plans to have a career in the medical field. Much of the credit
goes to her parents, she said. “That diploma is my thank you to them.” But like
seniors across the country, Kerine, 18, is unsure if she will have a moment
where she is in cap and gown with her classmates as her proud parents take
photos of the ceremony. The coronavirus pandemic forced Pennsylvania schools to
shut down in mid-March and remain closed for the rest
of the school year.
Pandemic causes county students to adapt to remote
learning, despite the internet connection
Centre Daily Times BY ABBY DREY MAY
16, 2020 07:24 PM
Internet access around Centre County has been
a topic for several years, but with the students having to remote learn during
the coronavirus pandemic it has been brought to the forefront.
Will Centre County residents see an increase in taxes as
school districts plan for the start of the fiscal year?
Centre Daily Times BY
MARLEY PARISH MAY 16, 2020 08:00
AM , UPDATED MAY 16, 2020 09:44 AM
As students wrap up online learning, school
administrators are scrambling to plan for the start of the fiscal year. With COVID-19 wreaking
havoc on finances across the country, Centre County residents could see an
increase in taxes as area school districts anticipate millions in revenue loss.
Before educators add more financial stress to district residents and families,
financial officers are working to cut costs and secure alternative sources of
funding. On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced that the state Department
of Education was approved to receive $523.8 million in one-time federal
emergency funds. The money is supported by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security
Act — an initiative that provided $13.2 billion to
support the continued learning of K-12 students. “Our schools and educators
have been working tirelessly to help students and their families during this
crisis,” Wolf said in a statement. “These efforts must be paired with
investments that reflect the unprecedented scale of this challenge. USDE’s
approval of Pennsylvania’s application is an important, first step in securing
those investments.” Local education agencies can apply to PDE to receive
their allocation of the funding. Once
approved, they should receive funds within several weeks. While districts wait
for funds to be released, school financial officers are doing their best to
budget for the unknown with estimated projects and data.
I-LEAD Charter School in Reading preparing to close by
end of June
Reading Eagle By Jeremy Long jlong@readingeagle.com
@jeremymlong on Twitter May 15, 2020
The final round appears to be coming for the
I-LEAD Charter School in the former CNA building at Fourth and Penn streets. It
would close at the end of June under an agreement City Council is expected to
consider Monday night. It's part of a broader agreement involving taxes and the
sale of the building to Alvernia University for it's CollegeTowne
initiative.
I-LEAD Inc. is in final negotiations to close
I-LEAD Charter School, and if the terms are approved, Berks County’s only
brick-and-mortar charter school will close by the end of June. City Council is
scheduled to vote Monday night on an agreement among the city, Reading School
District, Berks County and Downtown Improvement District that will resolve the
unpaid taxes and any ongoing litigation with I-LEAD. If the entities approve
the agreement the school will close its doors June 30 and agree not to operate
at another location or under another name. However, individuals associated with
the charter school could file a new charter with the school district for a
different school. A source with knowledge of the negotiations who spoke on
condition of anonymity said legal counsel representing the other parties have
agreed to the proposal. DID plans to vote on the agreement at its meeting
Monday, Executive Director Charles E. Broad said. The Reading School Board will
vote on the agreement at its next meeting. Berks County commissioners approved
the agreement at its May 7 meeting. I-LEAD consisted of 391 students from 10
school districts, 24 teachers, 22 support staff and five administrators,
according to the 2018-19 audit of the school. The Reading School District paid
more than $4 million a year for 389 city students to attend the charter
school in 2019-20, according to district officials.
Cheltenham teachers got a new contract. But coronavirus
could change the terms.
Inquirer by Maddie Hanna, Updated: May 15, 2020
The Cheltenham school board has approved a
new three-year contract with its teachers union that grants raises each year —
but with a coronavirus-induced caveat that some say could become more common
for school districts in the wake of the pandemic. If the Montgomery County
district’s financial situation worsens, it will be able to reopen the contract
— which will cost $3.1 million over three years — under provisions agreed to by
the union and approved by the board this week. Among the circumstances that
would trigger a reopening of the contract: if the district’s projected tax
collection rate falls by more than 3% from the year before, or if its primary
source of state aid shrinks by $300,000. The district’s budget for next year is
about $122 million. “I don’t believe there is a more comprehensive reopener
provision in any Commonwealth of Pennsylvania collective bargaining agreement,”
said Jeff Sultanik, a lawyer who represents school districts, including
Cheltenham, in contract negotiations. As the pandemic upends the economy, jeopardizing school
budgets, Sultanik said he expected other
districts to pursue similar agreements. “Otherwise, negotiating more than a
one-year contract becomes very difficult," he said.
With $8 million budget hole, Allentown School District
mulls tax hike, staffing needs
By JACQUELINE PALOCHKO THE MORNING
CALL | MAY 15, 2020 | 7:40 AM
The Allentown School District is recommending
a 4% tax increase in the 2020-21 budget.
The Allentown School District is looking at
raising taxes by 4%, but it still won’t be enough to fill an $8 million hole in
the proposed 2020-21 budget. Thursday night, the district gave a first glance
of a proposed $361 million budget for next year. The deficit for next year is
$7.6 million, but because the district has a $718,507 gap in this year’s
budget, it’s $8.3 million in the red for next year. To work to eliminate the
deficit, the district will review cost reduction options, evaluate staffing
needs and analyze health care costs, Superintendent Thomas Parker said. In a
6-3 vote, the board approved moving the proposed budget to the full meeting
later this month for a vote. Directors Lisa Conover, Phoebe Harris and Linda
Vega voted against it. Director Cheryl Johnson Watts voted for it, but
repeatedly said that the proposed budget is a “conversation starter” and can
change. The 4% tax hike will bring in an additional $4 million. That’s an annual
increase of $90 for those with a house assessed at $108,000. Last year, the board raised taxes
by 1.75%.
If the board decides to do a tax increase
that’s lower than 4%, the district’s deficit will be higher than $8.3 million. Harris
asked how the district can justify raising taxes when people are out of work
because of the coronavirus pandemic. She suggested administrators look at
freezing the top salaries in the district before raising taxes.
CDC Issues Tools To Guide Reopening Of Schools,
Businesses, Transit
NPR by HANNAH HAGEMANN May 14,
20208:34 PM ET
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention released a set of documents on Thursday designed to provide guidance
on how child care centers, schools, restaurants and bars, and other
establishments could begin the process of reopening in the face of the
coronavirus. The direction comes after calls from lawmakers and state officials
mounted for the CDC to weigh in on how regions should reopen their economies. The
"decision tools" the agency released recommend that all workplaces hold
off on reopening unless they are ready to protect employees at higher risk for
severe illness, including those 65 and older and people of all ages with
underlying medical conditions. If an organization can protect workers and goes
forward with reopening, the CDC recommends intensifying cleaning and sanitation
and establishing health and safety actions "as feasible," such as
hand-washing, wearing a cloth face covering and social distancing. The
documents also advise employers to encourage workers to stay home if they feel
sick. Schools, child care centers and camps should
not reopen, the guidelines stipulate, unless they are able to implement
coronavirus screening protocols, evaluating employees and children daily for
symptoms and potential past exposures to COVID-19.
The Sheer Number of School Districts Is Tilting the
Playing Field
Changing their borders would go a long way
toward getting public school money where it most needs to go.
New York Times By Rebecca Sibilia May
14, 2020
Ms. Sibilia is the chief executive of a
school funding advocacy group.
If we really want to balance school budgets
in the wake of the coronavirus — and create more long-term equity in our public
school system — we need to come to terms with the idea that we need far fewer
than the 13,000 school districts that are currently in operation in the United
States. Today, the lines that define school district borders are largely
arbitrary. They’re zigzagging areas of local control, a term that conflates two
separate concepts: the ability to oversee a group of neighborhood schools and
the right to keep the proceeds from property wealth in narrow jurisdictions.
The more exclusively these borders are drawn, the more advantage accrues to
wealthy districts, each of which has an independent financial structure, at the
expense of the students next door. This structure may explain the educational
geography of Camden County in southern New Jersey, which contains 35 school
districts, 23 of
which are within a five-mile radius of the city of Camden. Half of these
districts serve fewer than 1,000 students apiece, with wide wealth disparities.
The median property in Gloucester City School District is worth about $120,000,
but four miles away in Haddonfield Borough a median home sells for $500,000.
From this wealthy tax base, Haddonfield can raise $13,500 per student, four
times higher than what can be collected in Gloucester City.
No Pomp and Circumstance? No Problem
Students, parents and alumni are making
graduation a special occasion, even in quarantine.
New York Times By Ronda
Kaysen May 15, 2020
The day the governor of Rhode Island
announced that schools would remain closed for the rest of the school year, Dan
Freedman rallied his high school classmates to gather for an impromptu car
parade on campus. Their prom and graduation may not happen, but the Cumberland
High School class of 2020 would have its honk out anyway. And if it had to
happen on April 23, and not in June, so be it. “When school got canceled, we
were angry and confused and venting,” said Dan, 17, who lives in Cumberland,
R.I., with his parents and younger sister. “It just felt like we needed to do
something.” About 75 cars assembled on the sunny spring afternoon, carrying
roughly 100 seniors. When all the cars were in place, Dan gave the signal to
his classmates to start and took off in his green Toyota Highlander. Like
millions of other students around the country, the seniors of Cumberland High
School were mourning the loss of a season of celebration, and eager to eke out
a little togetherness, despite the mandatory separation.
Obama tells 2020 graduates: ‘If the world’s going to get
better, it’s going to be up to you.' Read the transcripts of two speeches.
Washington Post By Valerie Strauss May
16, 2020 at 9:59 p.m. EDT
Former president Barack Obama gave two
commencement addresses for 2020 graduates that were made public on Saturday,
telling them in one: “If the world’s going to get better, it going to be up to
you.” Obama first spoke at a virtual commencement ceremony for graduates of the
country’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). He talked about
the systemic racism in the United States that harms black Americans and about
how the covid-19 pandemic is laying bare long-standing inequities. He also
referred to the shooting death by two white men of a 25-year-old black man,
Ahmaud Arbery, while he was jogging in Georgia. “You’re being asked to find
your way in the world in the middle of a devastating pandemic and terrible
recession,” he said.” The timing is not ideal. And let’s be honest — a disease
like this just spotlights the underlying inequalities and extra burdens that
black communities have historically had to deal with in this country. We see it
in the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on our communities, just as we see
it when a black man goes for a jog, and some folks feel like they can stop and
question and shoot him if he doesn’t submit to their questioning.” Then a video
of Obama delivering a different commencement, this one to all of America’s 2020
high school graduates, was broadcast on a show called “Graduate Together:
America Honors the Class of 2020.”
The transcripts of both speeches are below.
Adopt the 2020 PSBA resolution for charter school funding
reform
In this legislative session, PSBA has been
leading the charge with the Senate, House of Representatives and the Governor’s
Administration to push for positive charter reform. We’re now asking you to
join the campaign: Adopt the resolution: We’re asking all school boards
to adopt the 2020 resolution for charter school funding reform at your next
board meeting and submit it to your legislators and to PSBA.
Over 230 PA school boards adopt charter reform
resolutions
Charter school funding reform continues to be
a concern as over 230 school boards across the state have adopted a resolution
calling for legislators to enact significant reforms to the Charter School Law
to provide funding relief and ensure all schools are held to the same quality
and ethics standards. Now more than ever, there is a growing momentum from
school officials across the state to call for charter school funding reform.
Legislators are hearing loud and clear that school districts need relief from
the unfair funding system that results in school districts overpaying millions
of dollars to charter schools.
The school boards from the following
districts have adopted resolutions calling for charter funding reform.
Know Your Facts on Funding and Charter Performance. Then
Call for Charter Change!
PSBA Charter Change Website:
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.
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