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Half of the locally elected school boards in the state
have now passed resolutions in support of charter school funding reform. Is
your district one of them?
Half of the locally elected school boards in the state
have now passed resolutions in support of charter school funding reform. Is
your district one of them?
With new order, 34 Pa. counties will go green on Friday,
Wolf, Levine say
PA Capital Star By John L. Micek June 4,
2020
Thirty-four of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties
will move into the Wolf administration’s green phase of reopening on Friday,
with 10 additional counties going into the yellow phase, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office
said Thursday. Wolf and state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine signed an
“amended” yellow phase order allowing Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware,
Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lehigh, Northampton, Montgomery and Philadelphia
counties to move into the yellow phase. All told, 33 counties will be in the
yellow phase by Friday, Wolf’s office said. A further 16 counties: Allegheny,
Armstrong, Bedford, Blair, Butler, Cambria, Clinton, Fayette, Fulton, Greene,
Indiana, Lycoming, Mercer, Somerset, Washington and Westmoreland will move into
the “green” reopening phase, effective 12:01 a.m. Friday, Wolf’s office said. Wolf’s
office announced that its stay-at-home order was lifted Thursday, moving all 67
counties out of the red phase, the most restrictive in the administration’s
color-coded regime.
School reopening plans should focus on disease control |
Expert Opinion
Alison M. Buttenheim and Michael Z. Levy, For
The Inquirer Updated: June 4, 2020 - 6:31 AM
Alison M. Buttenheim, PhD MBA, is associate
professor of nursing and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania School
of Nursing. She studies the behavioral aspects of infectious disease
prevention. Michael Z. Levy, PhD, is associate professor of epidemiology at the
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies
disease ecology and the control of infectious diseases.
On Wednesday, Governor Wolf and the state
Department of Education announced “Preliminary Guidance for Phased Reopening of
Pre-K to 12 Schools,” which requires all public and
charter schools (and encourages private and parochial schools) to develop a
Health and Safety Plan for reopening during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Each
school or district Health and Safety plan must address 16 requirements for a
return to in-person instruction. The preliminary guidance document also offers
81 possible considerations for addressing plan requirements, noting that these
“should not be considered exhaustive.”Not exhaustive, but probably exhausting.
While we applaud the emphasis on flexibility in tailoring plans to each
school’s unique needs and context, we worry that schools may struggle to
prioritize what matters most. Based on our experience in infectious disease
control, here is where we would focus when formulating a school Health and
Safety Plan for COVID-19:
Hite opens up on racial injustice
He speaks at protest organized by educators
against the killing of George Floyd. His longtime focus on literacy, numeracy
must expand to embrace complex social issues, superintendent says
The notebook by Bill
Hangley Jr. June 4 — 11:05 pm, 2020
If you ever wanted to see Bill Hite get fired
up, the place to be on Thursday afternoon was outside 440 North Broad Street. “This
is the year 2020!” Philadelphia school superintendent roared to the
crowd, in the final minutes of a rally held in memory of George Floyd,
organized by CASA, the District’s principal’s union. “I was born in the 1960s,
in the segregated south. In a segregated city. Attended segregated schools. And
now to think that once again, we’re having this conversation, because we all
got to witness, in person, a black man like myself be stomped out because of
the color of his skin?” As he spoke, hundreds of educators and public school
supporters listened and cheered. An hour before, the group had marched silently
down North Broad Street from the offices of the principals’ union to School
District headquarters. There, they kneeled in silence for 8 minutes and 46
seconds in George Floyd’s memory – the amount of time a Minneapolis police
officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, killing him. Then they stood for a
string of speakers urging them to renew the fight against racial injustice, in
and out of the classroom.
Hite: ‘No justice, no peace,’ as Philly educators march
against racism
Inquirer by Kristen A. Graham and Maddie
Hanna, Updated: June 4, 2020- 6:26 PM
After hundreds of educators marched down
Broad Street demanding racial justice and calling for bias screening for newly
hired educators, Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. joined them on the steps of
Philadelphia School District headquarters. As a black man born in the South in
the 1960s, Hite said, he was incredulous and angry that such an assemblage was
called for “because we got to witness a black man be stomped out,” referring to
George Floyd, killed at the hands of Minneapolis police. Demonstrators march to
the Philadelphia School District Headquarters in support of George Floyd on
Thursday. “No justice, no peace," said Hite, who urged educators to stand
up against institutional racism and racist acts in schools. Before the
superintendent joined them, Philadelphia principals, teachers and supporters
knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds, marking the length of time an officer
knelt on Floyd. Ayris Colvin, principal of Building 21, a district school in
West Oak Lane, said she was heartened to see thousands of people taking to the
street to oppose racial injustice. Many students, Colvin said, are “hurt, they’re
angry, they’re frustrated. They feel a sense of hopelessness.” She hoped young
people seeing their school leaders and teachers marching would comfort them.
'I am outraged': Lancaster city school leaders react to
George Floyd's death, protests
Lancaster Online by ALEX GELI | Staff Writer June 5,
2020
Leaders of the two largest educational
institutions in Lancaster city have spoken out about the death of George Floyd,
a black man who died last week in police custody in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death has sparked international
social unrest, including in Lancaster city, where
since Saturday daily protests against racial inequality and police brutality
have persisted well into the night. “Like so many of you, I am outraged at the
sight, on national television, of the senseless killing of George Floyd,”
School District of Lancaster Superintendent Damaris Rau said in a blog post Monday.
“Losing his breath under the knee of a police officer, his death is searingly
symbolic of how members of our black community are held down by the very
institutions meant to raise us up.” Those institutions include schools, where
black students historically find themselves disciplined more often than their
white peers. Rau said her 11,000-student district is working on that and more. The
Lancaster school district has embarked on an ambitious equity plan to reduce
black male student suspensions, provide training to teachers as well as recruit
and retain teachers of color. “Closing learning gaps, eliminating
disproportionate suspensions and raising our cultural competence can be the
foundations of a stronger, more equitable community,” Rau said. “We embrace the
central role our schools play in lifting the historical and institutional
weights from students of color.”
Teaching race: How George Floyd's death could spark
change in the classroom
Lancaster Online by ALEX GELI | Staff Writer June 5,
2020
Anger built up inside Brandon Allen as he
watched a video of George Floyd plead for his life while a Minneapolis police
officer knelt on his neck until he stopped breathing. “It literally broke my
heart,” said Allen, a 2015 McCaskey Campus graduate who recently completed his
history-secondary education degree at Towson University and hopes to soon
manage a classroom of his own. It made him think of how he could prevent
incidents like this from happening. And for many teachers, the work to defeat
racism starts in the classroom. Educators with ties to Lancaster County said
Floyd’s death, and the international protests that followed, were a stark
reminder that education — intentional or not — is too often focused on white
students and the generations before them that recorded history from their own,
singular perspective. Teachers, they said, must step up and make sure students
of color can relate to what they’re learning and feel their voice is heard and
appreciated in the classroom. And that means all teachers — not just those of
color. “As white educators, we have to do the work,” said Elizabeth Raff, a
sixth grade teacher at Pequea Elementary School and one of 12 finalists — who
are all white — for 2021 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year. Raff said teachers
have a moral responsibility to have tough conversations with students. That’s
something she incorporates in her classroom — whether it’s discussing
professional football player and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick or the
merits of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
How the ‘green phase’ changed graduation plans for this
Centre County school district
Centre Daily Times BY
MARLEY PARISH JUNE 03, 2020 03:04
PM , UPDATED JUNE 03, 2020 05:49 PM
Following a surprise announcement last
week, Bald Eagle Area School District seniors
will graduate during an in-person ceremony. With initial plans for a parade-style procession, the
district changed its commencement arrangements, following Centre County’s “green phase” reopening
status. During the seniors’ all-night
celebration last week, BEA announced that an in-person ceremony is scheduled
for 7 p.m. Saturday at Alumni Stadium. BEA Superintendent Scott Graham said the
district will enforce social distancing guidelines, and masks will be required
to enter the stadium. Each graduating senior — 126 total — will receive four
guest passes. All graduates and guest seating will be spaced out in accordance
with rules outlined by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, Graham
said. While attendance will likely be in excess of the green phase’s cap of 250
people at social gatherings, the state Department of Education gives power to
local schools to decide how to handle graduation activities. “Schools may hold
virtual high school graduation and other end of school year ceremonies during
the COVID-19 closure,” the guidelines say.
“The safety and security of all students and school communities are a priority
for the commonwealth and all chief school administrators.”
RE-OPENING SCHOOLS EXPERTS (ROSE) TASK FORCE
Lucid Witness Blog MAY 16, 2020 DAUN KAUFFMAN
Both the argument and the process for
re-opening schools are multi-faceted and they cross a range of development
stages. Childhood trauma damage looms in all directions. The
historic decisions should be based on science and data, addressing the
many complex and competing risks.
Stunningly, to-date, the lack of a
coordinated national response to Covid-19 in the U.S. has created broad
inefficiency, maybe most notably in the “absent” plan for population-testing
for the virus. That same laissez-faire approach to a national
attack now threatens to disregard the growing data about the nation-wide
dangers and trauma-inducing experiences of when and how to re-open schools. School
re-opening guidelines should be developed by experts, trauma-informed
experts, across an array of domains to avoid the risks of limited,
“functional silo” perspective, fueling “solutions” for one “silo” which create
more risk in other “silos”. The weighty, strategic decisions and
their implementation approaches would be tackled most effectively by a
multi-faceted team of national, or even international, authorities on the
competing dangers, in open discussions and planning, as a cohesive group. A
“Re- Opening Schools Experts” task force (ROSE task force) could
demonstrate how our nation values children. Conversely a more cavalier
approach could have states and districts competing again for scarce resources,
and worse, lacking knowledge, making a patchwork of decisions on whim and
hearsay and emotion.
Divided McKeesport school board decides to increase taxes
Post-Gazette by DEANA CARPENTER JUN 4, 2020 5:05
PM
The McKeesport Area School District’s board
of directors has passed a 2020-21 preliminary budget that includes a 0.80 mill
tax increase. The board adopted the $71,191,277 preliminary budget by a 7-2
vote at its May 27 meeting. Board members Joe Lopretto, Mindy Sturgess, Tom
Filotei, Ivan Hampton, Steven Kondrosky and Diane Elias voted in favor of the
preliminary budget. Dave Donoto and James Brown dissented. Jim Poston was
absent from the meeting, which was held online. The millage increase, which
amounts to about $80 per every $100,000 of assessed property value, would bring
taxes in the district up tp 20.96 mills. Superintendent Mark Holtzman said the
tax increase would be used “for issues beyond our control” such as increases in
charter school tuition, debt service increases and increases in retirement
contributions.
Mars School Board holds the line on taxes, makes cuts
Post Gazette by SANDY TROZZO JUN 4, 2020 4:30
PM
A divided Mars Area school board approved a
proposed budget May 26 that holds the line on taxes but eliminates the
curriculum department and furloughs several people. The $52.3 million spending
plan keeps the millage rate at 99 mills. It maintains all secondary-level
programs and reduces class size at the elementary levels. The budget also adds
an autistic support classroom at the elementary school, additional learning support
at the Centennial School and autistic support at the high school. It also adds
up to six paraprofessionals. The district has come under fire from parents and
the state in recent years for not doing enough for special education students. Business
Manager Jill Swaney said the COVID-19 crisis has led to “significant
challenges” for school district budgets. Since most businesses were shut down,
revenues from earned income, real estate and other taxes have also declined.
Local taxes bring in 70% of the district’s revenue, and state and federal subsidies
are “still evolving,” she said. She added that “the financial consequences are
likely to linger for years, challenging school districts to navigate the short-
and long-term impacts beyond this budget cycle.” The final budget is to be
approved June 23. “We have shown the community our goodwill by not raising
taxes,” said board member Anthony DePretis. “It’s a challenging time, and we
are all in this together.” The budget also extends an early retirement
incentive for teachers and eliminates one or two reading specialist positions
at the elementary level. But it was the elimination of the Curriculum,
Instruction and Innovation Practices department that attracted the ire of some
board members, parents and a representative of the Mars Area Education
Association.
Upper St. Clair School District’s budget includes tax
hike
Post Gazette by DEANA CARPENTER JUN 4, 2020 4:26
PM
Citing uncertainty regarding district revenue
in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Upper St. Clair School Board
approved a 0.5012 mill increase in its 2020-21 proposed final budget at a May
26 meeting. The $87.5 million budget, if approved in June, would put the school
district’s millage at 26.7887. The 0.5012 increase would mean an increase of
about $50 per every $100,000 of assessed property value. “A lot of very
challenging decisions have been made to get us to this point, and we still have
work in front of us,” said John T. Rozzo, superintendent of the Upper St. Clair
School District, who said this year’s budget process has been the most
challenging he’s experienced in his 21 years in public education. “The impact
of the pandemic has created great uncertainty around revenue streams as well as
substantial revenue losses totaling more than $1 million,” Mr. Rozzo said. Several
positions have been eliminated in the district, including two that were voted
on at the May 26 meeting — a custodial manager position and the administrative
position of director of advancement.
As Schools Prep for COVID-Era Return, Feds Estimate
36,000 Have Air-System Problems
Education Week By Andrew Ujifusa on June
4, 2020 11:09 AM
A federal watchdog estimates that 41 percent of school
districts need to update or replace
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems in at least half their
schools, underscoring a significant infrastructure need for schools even as
they prepare for the novel coronavirus when they reopen. In a report
published Thursday, the Government Accountability Office said that several
schools it visited had HVAC systems that leaked and caused damage, and that if
not addressed, "such problems can lead to indoor air quality
problems" and even force schools to temporarily close while the issues are
fixed. In all, the GAO estimated that 36,000 schools need HVAC updates. The
GAO report does not deal directly with the specific challenges posed by
COVID-19; the report says that the "hazardous conditions" it refers
to that can lead to school closures don't include the virus. However,
while school infrastructure is regularly a focus of education legislation and
lobbying on Capitol Hill, it could become more important during the pandemic.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released long-awaited
guidance to help schools reopen, and among
the recommendations is
that schools should "ensure that ventilation systems operate
properly" and should increase ventilation of outside air by opening
windows and doors, unless it creates concerns for students with asthma.
Fauci: A ‘whole bunch of things’ can be done to reopen
schools
Washington Post By Valerie Strauss June
4, 2020 at 12:53 p.m. EDT
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert
on infectious disease, says it is “a bit of a reach” to say schools should stay
closed this fall during the covid-19 pandemic and there are a “whole bunch of
things” that can be done to allow them to reopen. Fauci spoke to CNN in a phone interview
Wednesday, a day after Ohio Gov. Mike
DeWine (R) said he intends to see school buildings in his state open for the
2020-2021 school year barring a huge spike in infections. In mid-March, DeWine
was the first governor to shut down schools statewide in response to the
spreading coronavirus outbreak. “The goal is to have kids back in the
classroom,” DeWine said. School districts nationwide are making plans
for the fall, creating contingencies for in-person learning, virtual learning
at home and a hybrid of the two, with the last option the most likely for the
majority of districts. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) issued detailed guidelines on how
schools can safely reopen. In his interview, Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: “Children can get infected,
so, yes, so you’ve got to be careful. You got to be careful for them, and you
got to be careful that they may not spread it. Now, to make an extrapolation
that you shouldn’t open schools, I think, is a bit of a reach.”
Betsy DeVos Is Looting Public Schools | Opinion
Newsweek Opinion by ABE FEUERSTEIN AND SUE
ELLEN HENRY ON 6/3/20 AT 10:32 AM
Abe Feuerstein and Sue Ellen Henry are
professors of education at Bucknell University. Feuerstein also is the
education department chair at the university.
When it comes to teaching our kids, the
federal government holds a limited but critical role: to make sure low-income
and under-represented students see equal opportunities to learn and grow. This
work has become even more crucial as the coronavirus menaces our national
health and economy, imposing its sharpest toll on the communities least able to
bounce back. So it's especially galling that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is
seizing this global crisis to accelerate her privatization agenda for public
education. Her directives for
federal relief funding aren't just ideological—they abandon our national
commitment to provide for communities in dire need, right when they need that
support the most. DeVos made her intentions plain last month, when she directed
public schools to share with private and religious schools more of the funding
available to them through the CARES Act. The idea behind this money is to shore
up public school budgets during the pandemic. Typically, federal policy would
require that these funds go to public school districts based on the numbers of
low-income students in their respective enrollment areas. But DeVos' guidance indicates
the money should be shared based on the enrollment "of all students—public
and non-public—without regard to poverty, low achievement, or residence in a
participating Title I [federal aid for low-income students] public school
attendance area."
Testing Resistance & Reform News: May 27 - June 2,
2020
FairTest Submitted by fairtest on June 2,
2020 - 2:45pm
As policy-makers debate re-opening classrooms
later this year, momentum is growing to continue the suspension of K-12 testing
mandates at least into the next academic year. Already at the
undergraduate admissions level, about half of all bachelor-degree granting
institutions have announced ACT/SAT-optional for Fall 2021 admissions and, in
many case, future years. Parents, educators and community leaders need to
pressure public schools to follow suit.
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 245 PA school boards adopt charter reform
resolutions
Charter school funding reform continues to be
a concern as over 245 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.
Know Your Facts on Funding and Charter Performance. Then
Call for Charter Change!
PSBA Charter Change Website:
The Network for Public Education Action Conference has
been rescheduled to April 24-25, 2021 at the Philadelphia Doubletree Hotel
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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