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, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for Dec. 1, 2020
PDE denies first of
two new cyber charter applications that were submitted for 2020
“After reviewing the
Virtual Preparatory Academy of Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School’s revised
application, it is the decision of the Pennsylvania Department of Education to
deny the application. Please review the pages that follow for more information.”
PA Dept. of
Education Website November 30, 2020
Wolf vetoes
GOP-backed bill on limiting COVID-19 liability
WITF by The
Associated Press NOVEMBER 30, 2020 | 5:11 PM
(Harrisburg)
— Pennsylvania’s governor on Monday rejected a bill that would have made it
harder to sue schools, health care providers and other businesses for
coronavirus-related claims. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said the measure’s liability protections were so broad the
legislation would have invited “the potential for carelessness and a disregard
for public safety.” The bill passed both chambers with mostly Republican
support and Democratic opposition. It would have applied to cases of exposure
to the coronavirus during a governor-declared disaster emergency. Supporters
argued the pandemic should not impose on businesses and others expensive or
even ruinous litigation. The bill had been supported by the Pennsylvania
Chamber of Business and Industry.
https://www.witf.org/2020/11/30/wolf-vetoes-gop-backed-bill-on-limiting-covid-19-liability/
Penn’s $100 million
to Philly schools is no permanent substitute for PILOTs | Opinion
Ann
Farnsworth-Alvear, For the Inquirer Posted: November 30, 2020 - 2:23 PM
Ann
Farnsworth-Alvear is an associate professor of history at the University of
Pennsylvania. She is affiliated with Penn for Pilots.
For decades,
high school students, parents, teachers, community organizers, and members of
Philadelphia’s City Council have called on the University of Pennsylvania to
make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) to Philadelphia’s public schools. With
them, and with everyone in the Penn community who has pressed the issue, I
celebrate the university’s announcement last month that it will
contribute $100 million, split into $10 million annual payments to be made over
10 years. This news allows us to continue and deepen our conversations about
PILOTs, not end them. People across the city are newly conscious of the way
racism and inequality are built into what it means to live in Philadelphia.
With our elected officials and our teachers, we should redouble efforts to
ensure that well before 10 more years have passed, Philadelphia’s children have
access to fully funded public education. More than half of the local revenues
for Philadelphia’s public schools come from property taxes. When big nonprofits
do not pay a fair share, other property owners pay the difference, including
small businesses and homeowners who are not wealthy.
Philadelphia native Khalid
Mumin named Pennsylvania Superintendent of the Year in Reading
Philly Trib
by Chanel Hill Tribune Staff Writer Nov 28, 2020
Philadelphia
native Khalid Mumin, superintendent of the Reading
School District, has been selected as the 2021 Pennsylvania Superintendent of
the Year by the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators. “I was
elated when I got the news,” Mumin said. “This recognition is a testament to
our district, staff, and kids. This is a great opportunity for us to be able to
step out on that platform and talk about issues that plague a lot of public
schools in the inner cities.” In 2014, Mumin inherited a district with 19
buildings of failing infrastructure, eight bargaining units that had gone five
years without contracts, and little to no transparency among its staff and
constituents. Currently ranked as the third largest district in Pennsylvania
with about 18,500 students, Reading at the time had one of the poorest
districts with a highly transient student population and extremely low test
scores. The district was also facing a financial crisis along with a looming
state takeover. Within six years of Mumin being the superintendent, attendance
has trended upward, test scores are increasing, the achievement gap is closing,
and the high school has won the Distinguished Title I School Achievement award
two consecutive years. It has also received the Silver award for Best High
School Schools from U.S. News.
State: Decision to
close schools to remain with local districts as coronavirus cases surge
Allegheny
County reports over 900 cases in 48 hours
MICK
STINELLI Pittsburgh Post-Gazette NOV 30, 2020 1:02 PM
As COVID-19
spreads, and some schools struggle with the decision to keep teaching in-person
or switch to remote learning into the winter months, state health
and education officials say those decisions will continue to be in the hands of
local authorities. Meanwhile, Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine announced Monday
that the state is now encouraging students as young as 13 to download
Pennsylvania's COVID-19 contact app on their cellphones to help with tracking
the spread of the disease. And she said there are no plans to require students
to get a COVID-19 vaccine, when it becomes available, before starting the
2021-2022 school year because its effects on children are still not
well-known. “We’ll wait and see what the science tells us in terms of the
vaccine in young people. We expect it to be safe and effective, but we’re going
to have to prove that.” There are also no plans now for a statewide school
shutdown, but that might not be needed anyway as several more schools in
Western Pennsylvania announced after Thanksgiving they are going fully remote
well into December and even into January.
COVID vaccine won't
be mandatory for Pa. schoolchildren, says secretary of health
Sam Ruland York Daily Record November 30, 2020
With many
public school districts in Pennsylvania facing closures due to COVID-19
restrictions, parents are wondering whether state and health officials will
mandate a potential vaccine for students in order to continue in-person
learning. As Pennsylvania faces its most dangerous coronavirus
surge, Health Secretary Rachel Levine said the commonwealth could have the
vaccine "within the next month" if federal approval remains on
track. However, state health officials said Monday that once a
coronavirus vaccine becomes available, it will be optional for the state’s K–12
public school students. "We have no plans to make the COVID-19 vaccine
required for anyone, including for school children," Health Secretary
Rachel Levine said.
Opinion: Bucks health
department mismanaged COVID
Bucks County
Courier Times Opinion By Kierstyn P. Zolfo November 24, 2020
Each day,
news of the pandemic grows more dire and an increasing number of people in my
circle are falling ill or being hospitalized. I’m spending more and more time
reading the local news and asking myself this question: “Is this the
unavoidable consequence of a national pandemic or the results of local
mismanagement?” Here in Bucks County as I write this letter, over 650 people
have died and over 15,000 people are infected with COVID. Were these
deaths and infections unavoidable or due to local mismanagement? Here in Bucks
County, Dr. David Damsker, the Director of the Bucks County Board of Health,
made the decision early in the trajectory of this pandemic and contrary to the
recommended precautions from the Centers for Disease Control, to use “modified
quarantine” for people who have been exposed to the coronavirus. That means
they do not need to stay home for 14 days, but instead can go out and about in
the public as long as they use a mask (something we all must do). Was
putting the community at risk unavoidable, or local mismanagement? Here in
Bucks County, our schools were provided guidance in June from
our health director that states “wearing masks will not be required of students
while in school, but will be optional” and “six foot distancing is not required
for classroom seating — a lesser distance is acceptable.” This advice was
issued despite the state and CDC recommendations that people wear masks in any
congregant setting and maintain social distancing of at least six feet.
Carlisle school
district moves to fully remote instruction due to rising COVID cases
The Sentinel
by Joseph
Cress November 30, 2020
Carlisle
Area School District will move to Tier One fully remote instruction starting
this Tuesday until Monday, Jan. 18, Superintendent Christina Spielbauer told
families Monday afternoon. District administrators made the decision in
collaboration with the Pennsylvania Department of Health based on the results
of case investigations, information from contact tracing, the level of
community spread, the positivity rate and the number of students and staff
members in quarantine, according to a letter posted on the district website. “Although
we had hoped that our short-term closure would slow the number of positive
cases, unfortunately our district cases and cases in Cumberland County continue
to rise,” Spielbauer said. Previously, she announced on Nov. 15 that all
schools in the district will be closed through this Monday due to increasing
cases of COVID-19 in the district and the county.
More than 580
COVID-19 cases have been reported at Lancaster County schools. Here's where
they are [update]
Lancaster
Online by ALEX GELI | Staff Writer November 30, 2020
More than
580 cases of COVID-19 have been reported at Lancaster County schools so far
into the 2020-21 school year. The cases come from 16 school districts, plus a
brick-and-mortar charter school in Lancaster city and the county's career and
technology center. And that might not be all.
Easton Area schools
return to hybrid mode Tuesday
By Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com Updated Nov 30, 2020; Posted Nov 30,
2020
Easton Area
School District will resume its hybrid program starting Tuesday, Dec. 1,
according to the superintendent. Superintendent David Piperato posted this
message on the school website: “All
Easton Area School District schools will return to hybrid learning tomorrow,
Tuesday, December 1, 2020. Students and staff should resume their normal hybrid
schedule until further notice.” The district went all-online last week due to high COVID-19 numbers, but hoped
to resume the hybrid program on Tuesday. The COVID-19 dashboard listed
56 cases in November, including four new ones on Nov. 22. There aren’t any news
cases listed for Nov. 29 or Nov. 30.
https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/2020/11/easton-area-schools-return-to-hybrid-mode-tuesday.html
Following 5 new
COVID-19 cases, Bellefonte high school building to remain closed
Centre Daily
Times BY
MARLEY PARISH NOVEMBER 30, 2020 07:49 AM
School
reopening plans vary across Centre County and Pennsylvania but each district
must submit and have an approved plan from the Department of Education. BY ABBY
DREY
With six new
COVID-19 cases reported in the district, Bellefonte high schoolers are learning
remotely this week. Over Thanksgiving break, the district confirmed five
additional coronavirus cases at the high school — four students and one staff
member. As a result, the building will remain closed to in-person instruction
through Friday, Interim Superintendent Tammie Burnaford told families in
a letter Sunday night. All other buildings will remain
open, and high school staff and students are scheduled to return Dec. 7.
At least 10 York
County districts plan to stay open with extra regulations
Erin
Bamer York Dispatch November 27, 2020 Updated
November 30, 2020
At least
10 York County school districts have signed forms agreeing to comply
with state safety regulations in order to keep their schools open, officials
said. School districts in counties with substantial COVID-19 spread face
a 5 p.m. Monday deadline to either sign an attestation form or agree to
transition to fully remote learning, in accordance with an order announced Nov.
23 by Gov. Tom Wolf. Failure to sign the form means the district must
go fully remote. The safety regulations in the form include
complying with a mask requirement for all students, staff and visitors, as well
as complying with recommendations to temporarily close schools for cleaning
based on the number of positive COVID-19 cases identified over a 14-day
period.
Senate Republicans
silent as another lawmaker tests positive for COVID-19
PA Capital
Star By John
L. Micek December 1, 2020
Republicans
who control the state Senate ignored requests for comment from the Capital-Star
and other news organizations on Monday, even as another lawmaker who attended a
hearing in Gettysburg last week tested positive for COVID-19. State Sen. Judy
Ward, R-Blair, announced
on Facebook Monday that she had tested positive for the
virus, PennLive reported. She is the second lawmaker to test positive, after
it was revealed that the Nov. 25 event’s organizer,
Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Adams, had to leave a West Wing meeting with President
Donald Trump after being told he had tested positive hours after that hearing
concluded. “I am grateful that my symptoms are minor,” Ward’s post stated,
according to PennLive. “I am adhering to the Senate’s COVID-19 Mitigation
Policy and my last interaction with the public was on Wednesday, November 25,
during which time I wore a mask. I felt it was appropriate to share this
information publicly.”
Ward was
seated two seats away from Mastriano, separated only by incoming Senate
Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, during a four hour-plus session on
alleged voting irregularities on Election Day.
Republicans silent on
report of Pa. senator’s positive COVID-19 test
Penn Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com and Charles Thompson |
cthompson@pennlive.com Updated Nov
30, 2020; Posted Nov 30, 2020
One day
after news broke that Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano tested positive for
COVID-19 while at the White House Wednesday, the Senate Republican Caucus had
nothing to say about it or about any efforts to trace the senator’s close
contacts. Numerous attempts on Monday to get comment about Sunday’s report
about the senator’s positive test results from caucus spokeswomen and Mastriano
himself, including a visit to his Franklin County home, were unsuccessful. Mastriano,
who has shunned masks and been an ardent opponent of Gov. Tom Wolf’s
administration’s COVID-19 mitigation efforts, abruptly exited a West Wing
meeting with President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening after being told he
had tested positive, according to the Associated Press, which said its source
was a person with direct knowledge of the meeting.
Second Pa. Republican
senator tests positive for the coronavirus
Penn Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated Nov 30, 2020; Posted Nov 30,
2020
Sen. Judy
Ward, a Blair County Republican, announced on Facebook on Monday evening that
she tested positive for the coronavirus. She is the second senator who was in
attendance at a Nov. 25 Senate GOP committee meeting with President Donald
Trump’s lawyers concerning issues related to the conduct of the state’s presidential
election that has been reported as receiving positive
test results. The other is Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin County, who was told he tested positive during a meeting at the White House
with President Donald Trump that followed the Senate committee meeting on
Thanksgiving Eve., according to a report by The Associated Press.
Advocates call on
NEPA school board member to resign over call to remove LGBTQ pride display
By Tim Cwiek
Special
to the Capital-Star December 1, 2020
Dismissing
what they’re calling a half-hearted apology, LGBTQ rights advocates
are are calling for the resignation of a Pennsylvania school board member
who requested the removal of an LGBT-pride exhibit, comparing it to a pride
exhibit for white supremacy or the Klu Klux Klan. On Nov. 10, Timothy S.
Nitcznski, a member of the Sullivan County School Board, blasted the
exhibit — which is displayed in the Sullivan County High School’s library.
Sullivan County is located in northeastern Pennsylvania ,about 165 miles north
of Philadelphia. Its public high school, located in Laporte, Pa., has about 300
students in grades 7-12.
Baltimore County
schools suffered a ransomware attack. Here’s what you need to know.
By MCKENNA
OXENDEN BALTIMORE SUN | NOV 30, 2020 AT 6:00
AM
The day
before Thanksgiving, the Baltimore County Public Schools system was shut down
by a ransomware attack that hit all its network systems. The cyberattack
brought classes to a halt for the 115,000 students attending classes entirely
online due to the coronavirus pandemic. School officials have described it as a
“catastrophic attack on our technology system.” Here’s what you need to know:
Covid-19 Live
Updates: School Policies Shift to Bring Back Younger Children
New York
Times December 1, 2020
In the U.S.,
more districts have begun to prioritize elementary students for in-person
learning, a policy already in place in much of Europe. And even with vaccines
on the horizon, the nation is bracing for a dark winter. After a summer of
uncertainty and fear about how schools across the globe would operate in a
pandemic, a consensus has emerged in recent months that is becoming policy in
more and more districts: In-person teaching with young children is safer than
with older ones, and particularly crucial for their development. On Sunday, New
York City, home to the country’s largest school system, became
the most high-profile example of that trend, when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that
only elementary schools and some schools for children with complex disabilities
would reopen after all city classrooms were briefly
shuttered in November. There is
no plan yet to bring middle and high school students back into city school
buildings. It was an abrupt about-face for the mayor, who had for months
promised to welcome all of the city’s 1.1 million children — from 3-year-olds
to high school seniors — back into classrooms this fall. But the decision put
New York in line with other cities around America and across the world, which
have reopened classrooms first, and often exclusively, for young children, and
in some cases kept them open even as they have confronted second waves of the
virus. In-person learning is particularly crucial for young children, who often
need intensive parental supervision to even log on for the day, education
experts say. And mounting
evidence has shown that elementary school students in particular can be safe as long as districts adopt strict
safety measures, though it’s an unsettled question for older students.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/01/world/covid-19-coronavirus
Getting New School
Board Members Up to Speed
One way to
train newly elected school board members for the job ahead is to start before
they even run for office.
Education
Week By Corey
Mitchell November 17, 2020
When Julie
Cole decided to run for school board, she did her homework.
For a year,
Cole attended every Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Tex., school board meeting—and
reviewed meeting agendas beforehand. During meetings, she sat near district
administrators so she could lean over and ask questions about discussions and
proposals she had trouble understanding. “I just made it my mission to learn
everything that I could learn,” said Cole, who is now the school board
president for the 24,000-student north Texas school district. Cole, a senior
manager with a financial investment firm, had spent the year prior to her
election enrolled in Hurst-Euless-Bedford’s Ambassador Academy, a program that
offers residents an in-depth look at district operations and what it takes to
serve as a school board member. The year of independent study was the
culmination of a years-long effort to better understand the school board and
district, one that left her prepared to win a school board seat in 2013 and hit
the ground running. Each year across the nation, thousands of people are
elected or appointed to serve on school boards for the first time. Few of them
benefit from the same kind of intense and intentional preparation that the
Hurst-Euless-Bedford school board provides.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/11/18/getting-new-school-board-members-up-to.html
Trump’s
Longest-Serving Cabinet Official May Start a Revolution
Betsy
DeVos’s assault on public education has provided a chance for major policy
renewal.
New York
Times Opinion By Jack Schneider and Jennifer C. Berkshire Dec.
1, 2020, 5:00 a.m.
Measured
solely by policy accomplishments, Donald Trump’s longest-serving cabinet
official, Betsy DeVos, was a flop in her four years as secretary of education. Early
on, her efforts to move a federal voucher program through a
Republican-controlled Congress more concerned with taxes and deregulation
repeatedly fell short. This year,
she was forced to abandon a directive ordering states to redirect coronavirus
funds to private schools after three federal judges ruled against her. And
significant pieces of Obama-era civil rights guidance that she rescinded —
moves meant to protect transgender students, for instance, or address racially
disproportionate school discipline — will be immediately
restored by the incoming Biden administration. Though
Ms. DeVos has been mostly stymied, both by Trumpism’s policy indifference and
progressive opposition, her legacy will still be far-reaching and long-lasting.
This is not a result of what she made, but of what she broke: a bipartisan
federal consensus around testing and charters that extended from the George
H.W. Bush administration through the end of the Obama era.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/opinion/betsy-devos-education.html
State of Education
report survey opens today
POSTED
ON NOVEMBER 30, 2020 IN PSBA NEWS
The annual
State of Education report (2020 report available here) is a comprehensive compilation and
evaluation of timely data related to public education in the commonwealth.
Superintendents, you should have received a link to the 2020 State of
Education survey in your email inbox today. Please complete the survey and
help us show legislators, education leaders and the communities at-large all
that public schools are doing to provide a quality education despite the
COVID-19 pandemic. Contact Andrew Christ at andrew.christ@psba.org or (800) 932-0588, ext. 3368 with
questions about the survey or the report.
https://www.psba.org/2020/11/state-of-education-report-survey-opens-today/
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.
Resolution for charter funding reform (pdf)
Link
to submit your adopted resolution to PSBA
332 PA school boards have
adopted charter reform resolutions
Charter school funding reform continues to be
a concern as over 330 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.
https://www.psba.org/2020/03/adopted-charter-reform-resolutions/
Know Your Facts on Funding and Charter Performance. Then
Call for Charter Change!
PSBA Charter Change Website:
https://www.pacharterchange.org/
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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