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, 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,
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These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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If any of your colleagues would
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Updated PA Dept. of Health & PDE guidelines include 6
foot distancing and masks for all
Taxpayers in House Majority
Caucus Administrator Kurt Masser’s school districts paid over $5.4 million in
2018-2019 cyber charter tuition. Statewide, PA
taxpayers paid over $600 million for cyber charter tuition in 2018-2019.
|
Danville Area SD
|
$347,918.45
|
|
Line Mountain SD
|
$763,720.83
|
|
Mount Carmel Area SD
|
$950,014.12
|
|
North Schuylkill SD
|
$755,140.34
|
|
Shamokin Area SD
|
$1,952,524.15
|
|
Southern Columbia Area SD
|
$243,391.24
|
|
Warrior Run SD
|
$392,730.17
|
|
|
$5,405,439.30
|
Data Source: PDE via PSBA
Why are PA taxpayers paying twice what it
costs to provide a cyber education?
Why are cyber charter tuition rates the same
as brick and mortar tuition?
Ciresi calls for investigation into PA charter schools
receiving PPP payments
Rep. Joseph Ciresi July 16,
2020 | 4:25 PM
HARRISBURG, July 16 – State
Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-Montgomery, is calling for an investigation into
Pennsylvania charter schools receiving payments under the Small Business
Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. Ciresi penned a letter this week
to Auditor General Eugene DePasquale asking his office to investigate the
charter schools that received loans and to ensure that public funds are being
spent properly, including both federal funding through the PPP, as well as
state and local funding provided to charter schools by school districts. The
Paycheck Protection Program offered loans designed to incentivize small
businesses to keep their employees on their payroll. “Pennsylvania taxpayers
deserve to know that their tax dollars are spent responsibly and that the
funding of a government program is used for its intended purpose,” Ciresi wrote
in the letter. “It is therefore important to determine how charter schools were
able to justify and obtain these forgivable loans, and whether taxpayer funds
from all sources are being used for their legally intended purposes by
recipient charter schools and management organizations.” Ciresi learned through
a July 7 article from the
Philadelphia Inquirer that over 20 Philadelphia-area
charter schools and charter management organizations received at least $30
million in low-interest loans through the PPP, he said. From first-hand
experience as a school board member, Ciresi said he knows school districts are
required by law to continue making payments to charter schools even during
crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, and that charter school applicants would
have to certify to the SBA that the funding they received would be “necessary
to support the ongoing operations of the applicant.” “Our school districts make
sacrifices – sometimes involving raising taxes, making budget cuts, or even
laying off staff themselves – to make sure charter school funding continues
uninterrupted and untouched,” Ciresi wrote to DePasquale, “making it a mystery
how additional public funds intended for small businesses would be in any way
appropriate or necessary to support charter school operations.”
The full text of Ciresi’s letter can be
found through this link.
For more information, contact Ciresi’s office
at 484-200-8265.
Pa.’s cyber-charter schools are flourishing, not failing
— before, during, and after COVID-19 | Opinion
Capital-Star Op-Ed Contributor By Jim
Hanak, John Chandler, and Richard Jensen July 17,
2020
Jim Hanak is the executive director of the
Public Cyber Charter School Association and CEO of the Pennsylvania Leadership
Charter School. John Chandler is a member of the Public Cyber
Charter School Association, and the CEO of the PA Virtual Charter School. Richard
Jensen is a member of the Public Cyber Charter School Association, and CEO of
the Agora Cyber Charter School.
Driven to educate, inform and empower cyber
charter schools to further evolve in our ability to serve communities and
better futures, the Public
Cyber Charter School Association takes
responsibility to continue the dialogue started by Lawrence Feinberg in his
June 16 Capital-Star op-Ed,“After 20 Years it’s past time for the
Legislature to act on cyber-charter school funding reform.” Although
Feinberg clearly set out to make his case against the value of public
cyber-charter schools, he only presents one side of the story. Feinberg
strategically structured his argument for cyber school funding reform on two
assertions he knew would grab attention: First, that Pennsylvania cyber-charter
schools cost taxpayers “twice what they reasonably should” pay, and second,
that they are failing children. We agree wholeheartedly taxpayers must be
concerned about the value of the education they fund, but students and parents
consistently share the depth of value they receive from their cyber-charter
school experience — from improvements in learning to emotional and social
growth of each student. Any discussion comparing the value of traditional and
cyber-charter schools can never be a straight apples-to-apples comparison, and
Feinberg’s piece, although quoting reports, provided data out of context. It
deliberately cast traditional school systems in a positive light, while
eclipsing unique challenges overcome by cyber charter schools. We offer a few
examples.
“Considering these issues in conjunction with the research
evidence, we believe that virtual charter schools are ill-equipped to take on a
more prominent role in light of this global crisis, and recommend that both
parents and school administrators be extremely wary of virtual charters’
attempts to expand during this crisis. Based on their dismal track record,
policymakers should instead focus on greater oversight and accountability for
these schools. Perhaps the worst policy response during the COVID-19 crisis is
to promote these schools, though this is precisely what Education Secretary
Betsy DeVos is currently pursuing.”
Virtual charter schools and online learning during
COVID-19
An imperfect comparison
Brookings Institution Brown Center by Brian Fitzpatrick, Mark
Berends, Joseph J. Ferrare,
and R. Joseph WaddingtonTuesday,
June 2, 2020
With the onset of the global pandemic caused
by COVID-19, nearly all K-12
students in the United States have experienced an unprecedented interruption to
their formal schooling. Students and parents with lack of access to
technological devices, high-speed internet, and information to navigate online
learning are among the most likely to face growing inequalities. This includes
many low-income and rural families. As Susan Dynarski described in her
recent New York Times article,
“[COVID-19] has exposed and intensified enormous gaps in schools’ and families’
capacity to support children’s learning.”We agree that the circumstances are
dire. The current situation is without precedent, so researchers and parents
alike are scrambling to find out the effect of near-universal online
instruction. To this end, one case worth considering is a relatively new
learning environment with a set of schools that uniquely deliver instruction in
an online mode: virtual charter schools. While some insights can be gained, we
recommend caution when comparing the two cases.
“The Brookings Institute, considered one of the top think tanks
in America and quoted by both liberals and conservatives, ran a story in 2019
that broke down the numbers. According to the article, which was my sixth hit
on Google, cyber charter schools have “dismal learning outcomes and its growing
concentration of use among the most disadvantaged districts across the state.”
The “dismal outcomes” could be said for any school, depending on your metric.
On The Conversation, a study on cyber charters ended with, “In their report
they noted that improved academic outcomes for a student in a cyber charter
school was ‘the exception rather than the rule.’” This is an important point
because people think they can get their kid a better education if they put them
in cyber charter or charter schools. Statistically, you’re probably not going
to have an improvement. You need to find other reasons to choose cyber charter
over public schools than just learning outcomes. It needs to be a multi-faceted
decision.”
Cyber charters: Just do the research
Courier Express Opinion By Andrew Bundy July
17, 2020
Full disclosure: I work for a public school.
However, I used to work for a brick-and-mortar charter school. What I saw there
undoubtedly clouds my thinking on the subject. But with COVID-19 pushing a lot
of parents toward cyber charter schools, I felt like I should weigh in on the
subject. We’ve all seen the ads for cyber charter
schools, telling us that it’s 100% free. Well, that’s true from a certain point
of view, but you know that when people say “free” with schooling, college,
medicine, and so-on, they mean “tax-payer funded.” “Free” in this context means
“no additional fee from you.” But where does that money come from?
Your local school district has to pay money
per-student to the cyber charters, or charters in general. We have to be
careful, however, because that money coming from your school goes to an
institution that does not have all the overhead your public school does. It
takes resources away from your local school, which may result in program cuts
and larger class sizes. This will matter if you decide cyber school isn’t right
for your child and try to bring them back. The next thing that folks should keep in mind
is that all schools could be called “struggling” or “failing” from a certain
point of view. The test scores we use and school performance profiles are
imperfect. The reason is that the tests don’t actually test schools, they test
children. And everyone who has a child knows that kids have good days and bad
days, and since public schools can’t force out kids who are bad test-takers or
are three-grades behind on reading, the tests can look pretty bad. That’s true
for cyber charters as well. That being said, many cybers say that you’ll get a
better education than traditional schools. I Googled the accuracy on that. When
you get past the ads, you get some interesting research.
Pa. recommends 6-foot distancing all day in schools;
teachers union calls for districts to plan for online-only learning
Inquirer by Justine McDaniel, Maddie
Hanna & Kristen A. Graham, Posted: July
16, 2020- 8:30 PM
Pennsylvania education and health officials
on Thursday updated their safety guidelines for schools that hope to reopen in
the fall, including directing them to ensure students remain at least six feet
apart all day long — a provision that threatens to upend plans in some
districts. That guideline, instructing schools to implement social distancing
“to the maximum extent feasible,” was on a list that also included having
students eat in their classrooms and be screened by their parents for
coronavirus symptoms each morning. The six-foot standard had previously been
recommended, but some districts had moved ahead with plans for less. Thursday’s
announcement from Harrisburg had administrators instantly questioning if they
would have to consider a model more dependent on remote learning.
Public Health Guidance Regarding COVID-19 for Phased
Reopening of Pre-K to 12 Schools
PDE Guidance: This
page was created on July 16, 2020 Approximately 3:00 p.m.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH)
and the Department of Education (PDE) are issuing the following public health
guidance to assist Pre-K to 12 schools in developing and implementing Health
and Safety Plans for safely returning to in-person instruction for the 2020-21
school year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following guidance provides public health
standards to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 for social distancing, face
coverings, hand hygiene, and cleaning and disinfecting in Pre-K to 12 school
settings. This guidance reflects currently endorsed public health best
practices from DOH and is in response to requests from school leaders for
state-level health guidance. This guidance serves as minimum standards for
practices across all Pre-K to 12 schools with the understanding that more
rigorous measures may be required in certain areas depending on community
transmission of COVID-19. The science and public health conditions surrounding
COVID-19 are continually evolving. This guidance will be updated as necessary
when new information becomes available. DOH will continue to monitor community
transmission rates and other surveillance metrics and may, in close
coordination with the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), issue
guidance related to targeted school closure as part of a wider public health
mitigation strategy.
Pa. offers guidance for schools to open: Wearing masks,
staggered class times and virtual events
By Ron
Southwick | rsouthwick@pennlive.com Updated
Jul 16, 2020; Posted Jul 16, 2020
Students will need to wear masks, schools
should stagger class times as much as possible, and parents will be asked to
screen their kids for coronavirus symptoms before sending them to school. These
are some of the recommendations for schools issued by the Wolf administration
Thursday. Schools are facing the challenge of planning for the new school year
amidst the coronavirus pandemic. With the arrival of COVID-19, Gov. Tom Wolf
closed schools in mid-March, forcing the state’s 1.8 million students to learn
remotely for the remainder of the year. Many schools plan to re-open in August
and are planning for in-person classes, or a mix of face-to-face instruction
and remote learning. State Education Secretary Pedro Rivera and State Health
Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine hosted a joint media call Thursday to outline
guidance to schools for the coming school year. They stressed the goal and
importance of opening schools for face-to-face instruction, although they also
encouraged schools to plan options for remote learning and a hybrid of
in-person classes and online courses.
Pa. teachers union urges Gov. Wolf to require schools
have an online option in re-opening plans
Penn Live By Jan
Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated
Jul 16, 2020; Posted Jul 16, 2020
The president of Pennsylvania’s largest
teachers union is urging Gov. Tom Wolf to require public schools to prepare for
the possibility of delivering online instruction as they develop their
reopening plans in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pennsylvania State
Education Association Rich Askey sent a letter to Wolf and state Education
Secretary Pedro Rivera on Thursday saying along with mitigation efforts to
reduce health risks inside schools, they should consider ordering schools to
take this additional step “to ensure the health and safety of our public
schools and everyone in them.” He wrote that it is “extremely important for
Pennsylvania’s public schools to plan for the distinct possibility that further
increases in COVID-19 cases will make it impossible to safely reopen
Pennsylvania’s schools for in-person instruction.”
Wolf willing to ‘pull the plug’ on school reopening if
new COVID surge can’t be stopped
Penn Live By David
Wenner | dwenner@pennlive.com Updated
Jul 15, 7:47 PM; Posted Jul 15, 7:26 PM
Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday he’s willing to
“pull the plug” on school reopening if a new surge of COVID-19 infections
continues to grow. Yet it might be irrelevant, he said, because fear of
catching the disease would likely keep teachers and students away anyway. Wolf
and others cited that potential as a major factor in the decision to impose the new
restrictions on restaurants, bars and indoor gatherings announced Wednesday. With only
about six weeks remaining before the start of school, it’s critical to bring
the surge under control now, they stressed. “If we do not get community disease
transmission rates down, we’re really threatening the most important
re-openings that you have coming around Labor Day,” said Dr. David Rubin, a
pediatrician, referring to schools.
State pushes hybrid school week as COVID-19 cases surge
PA Capital Star By Elizabeth Hardison July 16,
2020
As hundreds of Pennsylvania school districts
hammer out plans to reopen their doors this fall, Pennsylvania’s top education
official has endorsed a hybrid learning model that allows children to attend
school in-person only part of the week. The Thursday announcement by Education
Secretary Pedro Rivera came one day after the Wolf administration cracked down
on nightclubs, bars and restaurants to curb a weeks-long surge in new COVID-19
cases. Speaking to reporters during a conference call, Rivera said that a
hybrid learning model would offer most districts a balance between “the best
practices from both a public health perspective and a public education
perspective.” The Philadelphia school district became the latest school system in
Pennsylvania to announce a hybrid instruction
model when it unveiled its reopening plan on Wednesday. The plan calls for
children to attend classes in school two days a week and to spend the rest of
their time in online classes.
Exclusive: CDC won’t release school guidance this week as
anticipated
WHYY By Franco Ordoñez July 16,
2020
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention will not release a set of documents this week aimed at giving
schools advice on how to reopen to students after coronavirus shutdowns, NPR
has learned. Instead, the full set will be published before the end of the
month, a CDC spokesperson says. “These science and evidence-based resources and
tools will provide additional information for administrators, teachers and
staff, parents, caregivers and guardians, as together we work towards the public
health-oriented goal of safely opening schools this fall,” the spokesperson
said. President Trump has emphasized that he wants to see schools reopen their
classrooms in the fall, but many teachers and parents have balked, concerned
that children would spread the virus and get sick themselves. Trump complained
on Twitter that the CDC’s existing guidance was “too tough.”
https://whyy.org/npr_story_post/exclusive-cdc-wont-release-school-guidance-this-week-as-anticipated/
Reopening plan for Philly schools exposes bigger
weaknesses in system | Editorial
The
Inquirer Editorial Board | opinion@inquirer.com Posted: July
17, 2020 - 5:20 AM
To answer the question “could things get any
worse?” the School District of
Philadelphia released its plan Wednesday
for reopening schools in September. This is not a swipe at the District, which
takes its fair share of criticism, but rather the supremely impossible
situation the pandemic — and our government’s response to it — has created for
families and children. Once again, the burden and pain will fall on the least
privileged people. Once again, it’s a reckoning for a system whose structural
weaknesses we have chosen to paper over rather than fully resolve. How to
deliver education effectively — which experts agree requires onsite learning —
and do it safely is a dilemma faced by all districts across the state and the
country. Its falls particularly hard on some, like Philadelphia. The District’s
plan calls for two days a week of in-person instruction for most students, with
the rest of the time in virtual instruction at home. It also offers an option
for parents to enroll children in a ”digital academy,” for full-time virtual
learning. The plan also calls for sanitizing and deep cleaning of schools,
students staying in cohorts without changing classrooms, and smaller class
sizes. It’s not the best option — the best option is one in which there is no
pandemic — but it’s the option that the district can afford. The plan will cost between
$60 million and $80 million.
From masks to buses to recess, Pa. unveils guidance for
schools finalizing reopening plans
Trib Live by MEGAN
GUZA | Thursday,
July 16, 2020 3:28 p.m.
State officials released a slew of
recommendations Thursday regarding how Pennsylvania schools can safely reopen
in the fall, addressing everything from lunch and recess to busing and
extracurricular activities. Whether in-person classes resume will be left to
each individual school district, all of which have been charged with creating a
health-and-safety plan that will address those types of
issues. Among the state’s recommendations:
• Masks must be worn on buses and in school
by students and staff with some limited exceptions, including while eating or drinking;
• Parents should do daily symptom screenings
before their children go to school;
• Students and staff should try to keep
socially distanced during classes and in hallways, and desks and other seating
should be 6 feet apart;
• Classes should be held in larger areas such
as gymnasiums and auditoriums and even outside, if possible;
• Students’ desks should face the same
direction;
• When possible, stagger class times, create
one-way hallways and rotate teachers among classrooms instead of rotating students;
• Consider serving individually packaged
meals for breakfast and lunch, and avoid seating students directly across from
one another during meals;
• Limit the number of students on the
playground at any one time;
• Encourage virtual events and extracurricular
activities.
The guidance includes recommendations for
even the most benign interactions and activities.
More questions than answers as suburban districts decide
how to reopen schools safely
KYW Newsradio JIM MELWERT JULY 15,
2020 - 5:46 PM
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Public
school districts across the Philadelphia area have been wrestling with how they
can reopen safely while still offering the educational services students need.
Montgomery County Commissioner Dr. Val
Arkoosh said she and the county’s Office of Public Health have been working
with the 21 school districts in the county for weeks. With so many
questions and changing situations, patience is needed, she said. “We have
to be patient with one another, we need to show a little bit of kindness and
understanding that we remain in uncertain waters here,” Arkoosh said. Arkoosh
points to models that say the positivity rate — the percentage of all
tests that come back positive — should be less than 5% for children
to safely return to schools. She said the county’s rate is currently around 4%,
but, she added, “No building will be 100% free of the coronavirus. That should
not be the expectation.”That means each family will have to decide what is best
for their situation. Perkiomen Valley School District Superintendent Barbara
Russell said they hope to have a plan for parents by the end of the
month. She said among the challenges are how to fit students in
classrooms while keeping them 6 feet apart, how to keep staff safe and address
their health concerns, and whether or not it's realistic to think younger
students will wear masks and stay away from each other.
What will school look like this fall? Teachers, top
educators grapple with safety, financial concerns
Bucks County Courier Times By Marion
Callahan
@marioncallahan Posted
at 6:39 AM
Teachers grapple with safety concerns, and
district leaders grapple with changing guidelines as reopening plans for Bucks
County schools move forward.
Meg Griffin is trying to imagine her
4th-grade class at Cold Spring Elementary School without small group readings
on the carpet, hands-on math and science lessons, and knowing just what she
will be up against once doors open to students in the fall. “We think we are
sending them back to normal, but I know it will be anything but normal,” said
Griffin, an educator of more than 20 years and a nurse who is planning for
multiple scenarios as she prepares for the fall reopening. Students, educators
and staff heading back to schools this fall will see some big changes as they
navigate an academic landscape designed for safety and stripped of
close-contact exchanges. As area districts get closer to finalizing required
health and safety plans for reopening schools, many questions linger. The
flexible use of sick days, the enforcement of masks and social distancing
requirements, and how to shoulder both online and in-person instruction are
just a few topics area educators hope to get clarified before they head back.
As parents get ready to make decisions about returning to
school, questions abound
Given the option to choose all-online
learning, parents are seeking more information. Answers will come later.
The notebook by Dale
Mezzacappa July 16
— 6:27 pm, 2020
Philadelphia school officials on Wednesday
announced a plan for reopening schools that gives families a choice whether to send
children to school part-time in the fall – two days a week for most students –
or choose full-time virtual learning in what the District is calling a Digital
Academy. Superintendent William Hite said that parents can register for the
virtual-only option between July 22 and Aug. 4. District spokesperson Monica
Lewis said the virtual town halls and parent and teacher surveys that offered
people a way to provide feedback were incorporated into the planning. She said
Wednesday that no further details would be available until July 22 about how
the Digital Academy will work. Information released at that time “will include
the registration process, descriptions and expectations of students and staff,”
Lewis wrote in an email response to a list of a dozen questions. But since the
school-opening announcement, questions have poured in. A crowd-sourced page organized
by teachers Zoe Rooney and Emily Simpson accumulated nearly 200 questions in 24
hours, many of then concerning the virtual academy. They include who will teach
in the academy, how they will be supported, how classes will be reflected on
transcripts, whether students from the same school who choose all-virtual will
be grouped together, how virtual students will stay together with their school
community, how “specials” classes like art and music will be delivered, and
whether internet access and tech support will be guaranteed.
Students need the skills to find their voices in online
classrooms
“BIPOC children have been told for years that
their opinions are not valid, their thoughts are not original, and their minds
are not intelligent, so it is no surprise that they are often reluctant to
speak freely in class discussions.”
The notebook Commentary Adina
Goldstein July 16 — 1:54 pm, 2020
With the District opting for a hybrid
learning model for the start of the 2020-21 school year, the anxieties of
teachers, students, and families about online learning continue unabated.
Experiences with interrupted access to special education services, inaccessible
internet service, and frustratingly one-sided Google Meet classes affected many
teachers and families in Philadelphia in the spring, and numerous questions
remain unanswered about schooling in the fall. As teachers all over the city
are thinking through what instruction could look like, stability and
routine-building will be more important than ever. Any teacher will tell you
that consistency in routines is paramount in the classroom with students of any
age – from routines as simple as how to sharpen a pencil to returning graded
work. To that point, the Philadelphia Inquirer and
several experts they spoke with hypothesized that the lack of consistency in
instruction caused by the “loss of routine” and “lag in time off” during the
transition to online learning ultimately made it much more difficult to engage
students online. That, they said, contributed to an overall daily online
attendance rate of just over half of the district’s students.
“A Zoom meeting hit its maximum level of public participation
when 500 participants logged on. For those who couldn’t log on to Zoom, the
meeting was live-streamed on YouTube, where as many as 849 people watched.”
Easton Area hopes to start school year with half-full
high school, rotating kids in
By Rudy
Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com Updated
Jul 17, 2020; Posted Jul 16, 2020
Easton Area School
District administrators hope to
host short-day, in-person instruction for its elementary school students this
fall and hope to bring back middle and high school students half the week and
provide online instruction for the other half. The plans are
subject to change based on community feedback and based on the spread of
COVID-19, according to Easton Area School District Superintendent David
Piperato. “To say that we are navigating uncharted waters is a dramatic
understatement,” he said Thursday during an online information session on plans to
open school this fall.
Beaver County schools start to plan for fall
Beaver County Times By Daveen
Rae Kurutz @DK_NewsData and @DKreports July 17,
2020
With six weeks left until school starts,
there are more questions than answers for educators and parents about how
education in Pennsylvania schools will look this fall. How students will return
to school this fall will look different in every school environment, educators
say, and plans could change on a dime if Pennsylvania doesn’t get its COVID-19
outbreaks under control. State officials released a series of recommendations
to help school leaders prepare for children to return to school this fall, but
reiterated that back-to-school will likely look different in all 500 school
districts. “As we know, Pennsylvania is a diverse state, and that’s why a
single cookie-cutter approach to safely reopen schools would not and could not
be affected,” state Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera said Thursday. “We’ve
offered schools best practice and guidance to support them as they develop
health and safety plans to respond to their local community’s needs.”
Franklin County school districts share reopening plans
for start of 2020-21 school year
Chambersburg Public Opinion Online by Amber
South, Carley Bonk, John Irwin and Shawn Hardy July 16, 2020
Students and families
throughout Franklin County will regain some sense of normalcy when school
starts next month, but the ongoing effects of COVID-19 will have a major
impact. School districts are starting to publicize plans for the
2020-21 school year that accommodate guidelines to support the health and
safety of students, teachers and staff. Each district's plan must be approved
by its school board and the Pennsylvania Department of Education. All
students, faculty, staff and others will be required to wear a face covering.
Per the order from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, face coverings
must be worn in schools unless 6 feet of distance can be maintained. Here
are the guidelines that have been released so far by each school district. This
file will be updated.
Lewisburg school officials roll out early reopening plan
Sunbury Daily Item By Rick Dandes rdandes@dailyitem.com July 16,
2020
LEWISBURG — Early plans for how schools in
the Lewisburg School District will reopen include having students attend five
days a week, with one day set each week for early dismissal, to allow more
extensive sanitizing and cleaning. "We're thinking the break might be
mid-week, and have the custodial staff cleaning as much as possible. Even
throughout the day," said school board President Jordan Fetzer. "By
sending students home earlier in the day, it gives the custodial staff more time
to clean the buildings." The situation is still fluid, said new
Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Polinchock, at Thursday night's school board
meeting held in the high school auditorium, and attended by 15 in-person people
in the audience (a total of 25 people were allowed in the space), and 100
people on Zoom — the allowable limit on the online platform. "We have
decided not to do a hybrid, half the sudents here, half the students
there," added Fetzer. "The reason for that is to help parents. If
someone needs daycare and we have students here one day and not another it can
complicate things more than they already are." Fetzer stressed that
the reopening plans are still fluid. "Things are changing every day,"
Fetzer said. "We are constantly getting messages from the Pennsylvania
Department of Education.
Here are which Lancaster County schools have announced
fall reopening plans
LANCASTERONLINE | Staff July 17,
2020
As the school year approaches, schools across
Lancaster County have began releasing their reopening plans amid the COVID-19
pandemic. Some of the general guidelines each school will be following
include wearing masks, frequently sanitizing surfaces and social distancing
rules. Here's what local school districts have released in regards to
their reopening plans
What's the plan? Attendance at York County school board
meetings surges as back-to-school looms
By Lindsay C VanAsdalan York
Dispatch July 16, 2020
A special virtual meeting held
by Northeastern School District Monday to discuss its reopening plan
was capped at 250 people, and many residents could not log on to comment. The
district even provided a dial-in phone number, but that connection also reached
capacity. “We were anticipating a large turnout, as we have a supportive and
involved community, but the numbers on Monday night exceeded our expectations,”
said Superintendent Stacey Sidle, when reached via email Wednesday. Board
meetings across the county have seen an unprecedented spike in attendance as
more people are able to log on virtually and interest in district reopening
plans has caused surges in viewership. The Monday meeting at Northeastern,
held on GoogleMeet, is one of many school board meetings across the county
recently that has exceeded typical attendance. Typical in-person meetings of
the county's 16 public school boards might see a high of 30 — or 100 for a
special town hall — but lately districts have been seeing numbers upwards
of 200, 300 or more. York City saw close to 400 viewers on its Youtube
livestream June 24 over discussion on the status of football coach Russ
Stoner. And Spring Grove Area on Monday saw more than 100 people attend in
person to discuss its reopening plan — with 100 also in attendance over
Zoom and overflow on a YouTube livestream.
Child care dilemma: Philly parents scrambling to plan for
three days a week of virtual school
WHYY By Miles
Bryan July 17,
2020
When Melissa Roselli, 43, found out on
Wednesday that the Philadelphia School District’s reopening plan has most
children attending in-person classes only two
days a week, she felt her stomach sink. Her
daughter 7-year-old Francesca will be starting second grade at McCall
Elementary this year. “I need to go to work,” said Roselli, a primary care
doctor who lives in Center City. “In the middle of a pandemic, people need
their doctors to be present.” Roselli can work remotely, but usually only two
days a week, leaving one day of child care uncovered.The family can afford a
babysitter, but finding someone consistently available one day a week is a
challenge. Roselli’s husband, also a physician, spent much of this spring
treating COVID-19 patients and living away from the family — something he would
repeat if cases spike in the city again. And Roselli’s child care provider told
her it may not be open in the fall. The lack of options, Rosselli said, has her
considering what was previously unthinkable: closing her private practice. “In
one way, this is what we signed up for as physicians,” Roselli said. “But we
never really thought about it in a pandemic setting, having to choose between
job and children, kind of always assuming they would be in school.”
The Anniversary of Publication of “A Catcher in the Rye”
Diane Ravitch’s Blog By
dianeravitch July 16, 2020 //
This appeared today in Garrison Keillor’s
“The Writers’ Almanac”:
J.D. Salinger‘s
novel The Catcher in the Rye was published on this date in
1951 (books by this author). The novel
begins, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably
want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how
my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David
Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to
know the truth.” Salinger had thought about Holden Caulfield for years. He
carried six Caulfield stories with him when he went off to fight in World War
II. The stories were with Salinger on the beach at Normandy and in the hours he
spent with Ernest Hemingway in Paris. By the time Salinger began to assemble
the novel The Catcher in the Rye, he had nine stories about Holden
and his family. When he finished the manuscript, Salinger sent it to publisher
Robert Giroux at Harcourt, Brace. Giroux was impressed with the book, and was
pleased to be its editor, but he never thought it would be a best-seller.
Giroux sent the book to his boss, Eugene Reynal. Reynal didn’t really get it,
and sent it to a textbook editor for his opinion, since it was about a
prep-school boy. The textbook editor didn’t like it, so Harcourt, Brace would
not publish it. Rival house Little, Brown picked it up right away, and Robert
Giroux quit his job and went to work for Farrar, Strauss instead.
“How to see the comet: To catch NEOWISE yourself, look up at the
northwest skies about an hour and a half after sunset. Experts suggest going to
the darkest area you can for best viewing. Find the Big Dipper and follow its
ladle as it arcs in the direction of the horizon. NEOWISE will appear under the
Big Dipper about 10 degrees above the horizon and be about as bright as that
constellation’s stars. If you hold out your arm, 10 degrees is roughly the part
of the sky covered by your fist. Over the next few days, NEOWISE will move
higher in the sky and be easier to spot, reaching its apex on July 23, when it
makes its closest approach to Earth.”
Comet NEOWISE: How to See It in Night Skies
Enjoy it while you can. The frozen ball of
ice won’t return to the inner solar system for 6,800 years.
New York Times By Adam Mann July 15,
2020
Eager sky watchers are turning to the heavens
as Comet NEOWISE, one of the brightest comets in a generation, starts climbing
ever higher among the evening stars. A
majority of comets fly through the solar system invisible to humans, usually
too small and dim to be seen with the naked eye. The last frozen ice ball that
gave us a big show was Hale-Bopp, a comet that was visible for nearly 18 months
around its closest approach to Earth in 1997. Officially designated C/2020 F3,
Comet NEOWISE was discovered on March 27 and had until this week been visible
only to committed comet viewers willing to wake up in the early pre-dawn hours.
But on Monday, NEOWISE tipped into the post-sunset sky and has even been
spotted by people living near city centers with all the light pollution. “It’s
the first time in 23 years that this is possible,” said Federica Spoto, an
astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “You can
watch it from your backyard and you don’t need a telescope.”
Cybers charters are paid at the same tuition rates as brick
& mortar charter schools, even though they have none of the expenses
associated with operating school buildings. It has been estimated that cyber
charters are paid approximately twice what it costs them to provide an online
education. Those excess funds are then not available to serve all of the
students who remain in the sending school districts.
Interested in becoming an Advocacy Ambassador? PSBA is seeking
ambassadors to fill anticipated vacancies for Sections 1, 2 and 6.
PSBA Advocacy Ambassador program brings legislators to
you
POSTED ON JULY 1, 2020 IN PSBA
NEWS
PSBA’s Advocacy Ambassador program is a
key resource helping public school leaders connect with their state legislators
on important education issues. Our six ambassadors build strong
relationships with the school leaders and legislators in their areas to support
advocacy efforts at the local level. They also encourage legislators to visit
school districts and create opportunities for you to have positive conversations
and tell your stories about your schools and students. PSBA thanks those school
districts that have worked with their advocacy ambassador and invites those who
have not to reach out to their ambassador to talk about the ways they can
support your advocacy efforts. Interested in becoming an Advocacy Ambassador?
PSBA is seeking ambassadors to fill anticipated vacancies for Sections 1, 2 and
6. For more information contact jamie.zuvich@psba.org.
PSBA Fall Virtual Advocacy Day: OCT 8, 2020 • 8:00
AM - 5:00 PM
Sign up now for PSBA’s Virtual Advocacy Day
this fall!
All public school leaders are invited to join
us for our fall Virtual Advocacy Day on Thursday, October 8, 2020, via Zoom. We
need all of you to help strengthen our advocacy impact. The day will center
around contacting legislators to discuss critical issues affecting public
education. Registrants will receive the meeting invitation with a link to our
fall Virtual Advocacy Day website that contains talking points, a link to
locate contact information for your legislator and additional information to
help you have a successful day.
Cost: As a membership benefit, there is no
cost to register.
Registration: School directors can register
online now by logging in to myPSBA. If you
have questions about Virtual Advocacy Day, or need additional information,
contact Jamie.Zuvich@psba.org.
Apply Now for EPLC's 2020-2021 PA Education Policy
Fellowship Program!
Applications are available now for the 2020-2021 Education
Policy Fellowship Program.
The Education Policy Fellowship Program is
sponsored in Pennsylvania by The Education Policy and Leadership Center
(EPLC). The 2020-2021 Program will be conducted in briefer, more
frequent, and mostly online sessions, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The content
will be substantially the same as the traditional Fellowship Program, with some
changes necessitated by the new format and a desire to reduce costs to sponsors
in these uncertain fiscal times.
The commitment of EPLC remains the same. The
Fellowship Program will continue to be Pennsylvania's premier education policy
leadership program for education, community, policy and advocacy leaders! The
Fellowship Program begins with two 3-hour virtual sessions on September 17-18,
and the Program ends with a graduation event in June 2021.
The application may be
copied from the EPLC web site, but it must be submitted by mail or scanned and
e-mailed, with the necessary signatures of applicant and sponsor.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of
the Fellowship Program and its requirements, please contact EPLC Executive
Director Ron Cowell at 412-298-4796 or COWELL@EPLC.ORG
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 275 PA school boards have adopted charter reform
resolutions
Charter school funding reform continues to be
a concern as over 275 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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