Thursday, June 4, 2020

PA Ed Policy Roundup for June 4, 2020: Coverage of PDE’s School Reopening Guidance


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PA Ed Policy Roundup for June 4, 2020
Coverage of PDE’s School Reopening Guidance

PDE: Preliminary Guidance for Phased Reopening of Pre-K to 12 Schools
PA Department of Education June 3, 2020; Version 1

PA Department of State June 2nd Unofficial Election Returns

Four Pa. lawmakers have lost seats in primary, some races remain too close to call: AP
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Election officials worked through a mountain of still-uncounted ballots Wednesday after a Pennsylvania primary that was held amid civil unrest, a pandemic, the introduction of some new voting machines and the debut of mail-in balloting that pushed county bureaus to their limits. The result of the highest-profile contests on the ballot were a foregone conclusion: President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, uncontested for their parties' nominations, won their Tuesday primaries. With the flood of mail-in votes still being counted, The Associated Press called four races in which incumbents lost, all of them in Democratic legislative primaries. Beaten were Sen. Larry Farnese and Reps. Maria Donatucci and Roni Green of Philadelphia, and Rep. Adam Ravenstahl of Pittsburgh, brother of the former mayor.

Pa. clears schools to reopen for 2020-21, hints at how classrooms may look
WHYY By Avi Wolfman-Arent June 3, 2020
Pennsylvania took its first, formal step toward reopening schools by announcing Wednesday that districts can choose to hold in-person classes as soon as July 1 — if they’re located in a county that’s ended stay-at-home restrictions. That does not mean schools will begin again on July 1, a date that coincides with the official start of the next academic year and is, in this instance, likely symbolic. But the announcement does signal that the work of reopening schools has officially begun — along with the process of determining how in-person school can be conducted safely. The details will largely be left to local school leaders. The Pennsylvania Department of Education released a list of “possible considerations” Wednesday that hinted at how schools may look upon its return. Among the considerations are:
— Flexible attendance policies for students and staff
— Routine, daily health checks
— Isolation rooms for anyone with COVID-19 symptoms
— Masks or face shields for adults
— Open windows to increase ventilation
— Frequent cleaning and disinfection of surfaces
— Classes in gyms or auditoriums
— Limits to student movement in hallways, with “one-way traffic patterns” established
— Staggered student arrival and dropoff
— Meals served in classrooms
Districts and charter schools will be asked to submit a formal reopening plan that has to meet relatively broad requirements. Schools will have to appoint a pandemic coordinator, establish guidelines for quarantine and isolation, create a policy around mask usage, post signs about hygiene, and create a process for changing their transportation schedules.

Department of Education offers guidelines for 2020-2021 school year, which could start as soon as July 1
PA Capital Star By  Elizabeth Hardison  June 3, 2020
Pennsylvania’s K-12 schools will be permitted to resume in-person classes as early as July 1, state officials announced Wednesday, though classrooms, cafeterias and playing fields could look much different than they did before they closed in March.  Guidelines published by the Pennsylvania Department of Education suggest that schools consider serving meals to students at their desks; limiting travel for intramural sporting events; conducting routine temperature checks and relaxing attendance policies for faculty and staff to limit the transmission of COVID-19 as they reopen. Right now, however, the guidelines are simply that — suggestions, not enforceable regulations. But Education Secretary Pedro Rivera says that they represent the best practices that the state can offer to protect students and staff from a surge of COVID-19 cases.  “We are planning for the best in terms of school opening, but we are preparing for the worst,” Rivera told reporters on a conference call Wednesday. He added, “It’s important that we provide guidance, but also flexibility for school leaders to customize their plans around their specific learners and their needs.”

State says schools in yellow and green areas can reopen July 1
The key will be flexibility, said Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera.
The notebook by Dale Mezzacappa June 3 — 1:56 pm, 2020
Gov. Wolf and Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera said Wednesday that schools in designated green- and yellow-phase counties could reopen for in-person instruction as early as July 1 as long as they follow guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and the state Department of Health. Schools will be required to develop a health and safety plan based on these guidelines, which Wolf said would be released later this month. He called the state’s guidance “a starting point” that will “continue to evolve as further research, data and resources become available.” He indicated that the state guidance would include some “non-negotiables” related to social distancing, cleaning requirements, and health monitoring. “There are required elements under this plan,” he said in a call with reporters from around the state. Preliminary guidance on the PDE website indicates that K-12 school districts in the yellow phase of the state’s COVID-19 recovery plan will need to identify pandemic coordinators and teams to focus on health and safety preparedness and response. Schools will be required to have protocols regarding identifying and quarantining people who are symptomatic with COVID-19 and will restrict the use of cafeterias and other large meeting spaces. And there must be guidelines for overall hygiene and handwashing, among other requirements.

Pennsylvania to allow schools to reopen, in-person teaching to resume July 1
Inquirer by Kristen A. GrahamMaddie Hanna and Rob Tornoe, Updated: June 3, 2020- 11:36 AM
Pennsylvania teachers and students will be permitted to return to schools as soon as July 1, the state Education Department announced Wednesday. According to preliminary guidance issued by Education Secretary Pedro Rivera, schools in counties that have reached either the “green” or “yellow” phase of the state’s coronavirus reopening plan may resume in-person instruction on July 1. Schools will be required to adopt their own health and safety procedures that meet both federal and state guidelines. The guidance does not prescribe class size, but calls for six feet of separation between students. “Schools can then personalize those expectations based on the needs of their classrooms,” Rivera said during a news conference. While the state is permitting in-person instruction, it is not requiring it. Officials said both K-12 schools and colleges would be allowed to decide whether they resume in-person instruction, and at what levels. Though they will be required to submit their plans to the education department, the state won’t be formally approving them, leaving that authority to local districts. “Schools are going to have to engage their communities and their specific needs through this plan," Rivera said. He noted that “not every parent will want to or be able to send their children back to school,” and remote learning may well be part of districts’ plans for the coming school year.

Officials: Schools can reopen in-person teaching on July 1
AP News By MARK SCOLFORO June 3, 2020
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Elementary and secondary schools inside Pennsylvania’s less restrictive reopening zones can resume teaching in person and other activities at the end of June, the Education Department announced Wednesday. The guidance issued by the department says school boards in the green and yellow zones under the stoplight-colored reopening system must first adopt health and safety procedures that meet federal and state guidelines. The more than 300 colleges and other post-secondary institutions can restart on Friday if they have a plan to keep students and teachers safe, the agency announced. The reopening details follow a spring in which buildings were closed to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, sending students home for distance learning to complete the school year, and more recently virtual graduation ceremonies. Signs the pandemic is easing have prompted officials to implement gradual reopening of many functions. “We fully expect students to return to classrooms in some capacity,” said Education Secretary Pedro Rivera in a news release, describing the guidance as helping schools establish “a framework that best meets the unique needs of their students and communities.” Rivera stressed during a virtual press conference that districts would have a lot of flexibility about the details of their own reopening plans, and that they are not required to have all students learning in person on the first day they reopen. “One of the considerations in the plan is understanding not every family may want, or be able, to send their kids physically back to school,” Rivera said.

Preparing for best and worst: Before reopening, Pa. schools must develop safety plans to deal with COVID-19
Penn Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated Jun 03, 2020; Posted Jun 03, 2020
Public schools can return this fall to in-person classes but as state education officials have been saying, it won’t mean a return to the way it was in early March. Wearing masks is suggested by state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. Temperature checks could be taken at the door. Social distancing will be emphasized in every setting as much as possible. And depending on how COVID-19 pandemic behaves in the state, the possibility exists for another shortened school year. Schools can still choose to deliver education through remote means either fully or partially and school activities can resume with limitations. But the overarching principle guiding all these decisions is protecting students and staff alike from exposure to COVID-19.

To reopen our schools safely, Pennsylvania needs Congress’ help | Opinion
By Rich Askey  Capital-Star Op-Ed Contributor June 4, 2020
Rich Askey is a Harrisburg music teacher and president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. He writes from Harrisburg.
In the months since COVID-19 closed our schools, educators, parents, and students did a tremendous job transitioning from classrooms to kitchens and living rooms across Pennsylvania. Teachers continued teaching, and students continued learning — at a distance. This is far from the perfect way to educate our students. It’s not easy to teach in this environment, and the challenges so many parents have had juggling work, home, and kids during this crisis were truly without precedent. We need to get our kids back in school. Educators and administrators are already planning for what that will look like. We still have a lot of work to do, but one thing is clear: Our schools will need federal help to reopen safely. That is why the Pennsylvania State Education Association is joining educators, parents, and community leaders to urge Congress to invest $175 billion in our nation’s schools, colleges, and universities. This investment will provide Pennsylvania with enough funding to close the revenue shortfalls K-12 schools and higher education are facing and reopen safely.

Editorial: As school days beckon, clarity is the first lesson
TRIBUNE-REVIEW | Wednesday, June 3, 2020 7:01 p.m.
Schools can get back to teaching and providing activities for students starting July 1. The Pennsylvania Department of Education made that announcement Wednesday with the release of the Process to Reopen Pennsylvania — a procedure that requires schools to develop health and safety plans, implement guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Health Department and appoint pandemic coordinators. This is how schools that have not seen students walk through the doors since March 13 will get back to business as we emerge from one phase of the coronavirus pandemic and warily eye a future where another phase could bloom. The proposed steps are good ideas. Schools have health and safety plans for things like mass casualty events and fires and weather emergencies. A disease that can shut the doors for months seems like it is at least equivalent. But what we need to see gamed out are the decision-making processes ­— for the schools and for the state.

Teacher diaries: Tasaday Messina
Remote teaching is especially challenging with autistic children.
The notebook by Dale Mezzacappa June 3 — 9:46 am, 2020
Interviews with these teachers on their experiences teaching in a pandemic were conducted in mid-May, before the death of George Floyd and the subsequent unrest.
Tasaday Messina has one of the hardest jobs for any educator during the pandemic: teaching students with autism. Messina, a teacher at the Chester Arthur School in South Philadelphia, works with students at the middle school level and has a class of six. Her first major challenge was mastering the technology herself and then teaching her students and their families how to use it. “In special education, teachers or students are never exposed to Google Classroom,” she said. “The logistics are extremely hard. While we are teaching the students, we are also teaching ourselves.” For the first two weeks after schools closed on March 13, she worked frantically “by any means possible,” simply to keep in touch. She called, used FaceTime, and made attempts over Google Meet. It took another two weeks of hard work for her and her students to master Google Classroom. “We got them all in,” she said. “They get on, I am so impressed with my students and myself.” For most of her Google Classroom sessions, she has had 100% attendance. Her students do two assignments a day, through i-Ready, a research-based curriculum and intervention for reading and math that is approved by the District. “It adjusts to the student’s level,” she explained.

A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT
With schools shuttered, learning lags and students left behind, Reuters survey shows
A Reuters survey of nearly 60 school districts across the country provides hard evidence confirming parents’ fears: Distance learning is no substitute for in-class teaching, with students missing classes, meals and hands-on instruction.
By M.B. PELLKRISTINA COOKE and BENJAMIN LESSER Filed June 2, 2020, 12:30 p.m. GMT
Jennifer Panditaratne’s third-grade daughter had been seeing a reading specialist once a week before her Florida school closed abruptly in March due to the novel coronavirus. Since then, her child has had no contact with the specialist. Panditaratne is left to download her daughter’s special education material and sit with her as she does her school work—in between her own calls as a maritime lawyer in South Florida. “Is it the same material? Sure,” she said. “But is it being administered by a professional who knows what they are doing? No.” More than two months after schools across the United States began closing in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the shutdown is taking a profound toll on the nation’s system of education, Reuters found by surveying nearly 60 school districts serving some 2.8 million students. Almost overnight, public education in the United States has shrunk to a shell of its former self, the review found, with teacher instruction, grading, attendance, special education and meal services for hungry children slashed back or gutted altogether. The survey encompassed school districts from large urban communities, such as Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the Houston Independent School District, to the smallest rural settings, including San Jon Municipal Schools in eastern New Mexico and Park County School District 6 in Cody, Wyoming. The survey reflects what is happening only in those districts that responded.


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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