No-show high school students reject COVID reopening rules - Los Angeles Times

No-show high school students reject COVID reopening rules - Los Angeles Times

California high schoolers are saying no thanks to reopened campuses and are staying home

During the first week of in-person learning at Panorama High School, drama teacher Patricia Francisco stood in the mini-theater talking on Zoom to her acting class. Two stage lights brightened her face as she spoke to her camera. Students were logging in from home, or from classrooms scattered around campus. Most appeared as black boxes on her screen.

“You guys who are on campus — I’m so proud of you for being here,” she said. “Those of you who are at home — we can succeed in any environment that we are ending up in.”

Except for her voice, the room was silent. Only three students were physically in the class — and they weren’t paying attention to her as they attended other online classes while wearing noise-canceling headphones. Returning to school in Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, means sitting in one classroom all day, two or three days a week, with little intermingling or movement.

This “Zoom in a room” option for in-person schooling — the format for high school in Los Angeles and San Francisco — has failed to draw back the vast majority of students. Although official attendance data have not yet been released, a survey of L.A. Unified parents indicated that about 17% of high school students would come back to campus.

L.A. Unified is hardly alone in struggling to persuade high school students to return — or in offering a lean reopening experience.

A few large districts, including Santa Ana Unified and San Bernardino Unified, have not broadly reopened campuses, including for high school students. But most of California’s largest districts are providing a patchwork of reopening approaches based on how local school boards weighed risks and benefits and how they met demands from teacher unions over back-to-campus working conditions. One big district, Corona-Norco Unified, has more than 75% of its students back. In others, it’s closer to 20% with more limited schedules.

Despite detailed planning, the majority of secondary school students in California’s largest districts will end their year much like it began — fully online, according to state data. For many, it will mean 17 or 18 months away from classrooms.

Statewide, about 84% of secondary school students have the option to return to their CONTINUE READING: No-show high school students reject COVID reopening rules - Los Angeles Times

CURMUDGUCATION: Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

CURMUDGUCATION: Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

Well, here we go.

Here's Morgan Polikoff in the Los Angles Times, explaining that we are in a terrible mess, that educational attainment, or at least test scores (as measured by another testing manufacturer) are dropping, that the mental health of children in the nation is a mess. And hurray for the Biden relief plan, which throws a pile of money at all these education. But. But but but. Our educational structures can't handle this, Polikoff argues. Too many districts with boards and parent groups and teacher unions and families and students and they just aren't up to "identifying what works and then providing it equitably to students and families." 

What does he think has to happen?

This is where state and national leaders simply must step in. They need to provide clear and specific guidance on the best ways to spend American Rescue Plan dollars to address the negative impacts of the pandemic on children and families. They must not leave decisions to local actors — burdening them with the task of figuring out what works and implementing it.

Local control is a bad thing, and it needs to be swept aside, as witnessed by the data we have so far.

Polikoff asserts that three things are needed going forward in this state-controlled education universe. And number one is measurement--academic tests, social and emotional well-being tests. And they should go on for years "so we can follow our progress well beyond the end of the pandemic." Oh, and the "measurement plans should be carefully constructed to ensure the results are directly CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Covid, Learning Loss, and Katrina 2.0

8 to 3 parent newsletter about kids, school and education - Los Angeles Times

8 to 3 parent newsletter about kids, school and education - Los Angeles Times

Introducing 8 to 3, a newsletter for parents about kids, school and education

A new chapter is opening for families of school-age children and teenagers. Campuses throughout California are finally opening after a year of coronavirus-forced closures — and for parents who have navigated distance learning alongside their children, their connection to education has been rewired.

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The perils of parenting through a pandemic

What’s going on with school? What do kids need? Get 8 to 3, a newsletter dedicated to the questions that keep California families up at night.

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The shared frustrations, struggles, empathy and resilience between parent and child has reshaped engagement in schooling. With a new newsletter called 8 to 3, The Times aims to be a part of the back-in-school life of parents and guardians as we recover from a year like no other and move forward.

We begin this endeavor painfully aware of how the pandemic has upended education and exposed the depth of inequities families face. Our foremost mission is to help navigate new challenges with powerful storytelling, useful guides, vital data and personal stories — whether on campus in a classroom or in front of a laptop in the living room. The Times’ coverage of COVID-19-era schooling places considerable attention on systemic inequities, which we will continue to explore in depth.

The newsletter, sent every Monday evening, is written by Sonja Sharp and edited by Mitchell Landsberg, with support from Education Editor Stephanie Chavez and education reporters Nina Agrawal, Howard Blume, Paloma Esquivel, Melissa Gomez, Laura Newberry and Teresa Watanabe.

A veteran journalist, Sharp joined the education team during the pandemic to cover the crisis in early childhood education and day care. She will draw on her experience as a reporter, the mother of a 5-year-old and a kindergarten-through-UC-Berkeley graduate of California public schools to help readers navigate everything from daily struggles of parenting school-age children to coping with thorny policy issues.

The name of the newsletter refers to the traditional school day — but we know that education never really stops, and that parents, above all, are their children’s primary teachers. We are ready to answer your questions, aiming to give you insight into both emerging and ongoing issues while offering a forum for dialogue. And we will also point readers to the best stories in California education, both our own and those from other publications.

Schooling these days is already overwhelming, but we are here to help. We hope you will add 8 to 3 to your reading list. Sign up here or on our newsletters page.

8 to 3 parent newsletter about kids, school and education - Los Angeles Times

Group accuses Times of bias in LAUSD coverage - Los Angeles Times

Group accuses Times of bias in LAUSD coverage - Los Angeles Times

Group affiliated with teachers union accuses Times of bias in L.A. Unified reopening coverage

A coalition of teachers, parents and community activists on Wednesday accused The Times of giving disproportionate coverage to those who want to quickly reopen Los Angeles Unified School District campuses, and short shrift to those in minority communities who urge a more deliberate approach during the coronavirus pandemic.

Reclaim Our Schools L.A., a group aligned with the United Teachers Los Angeles union, released a report analyzing seven months of columns, editorials and news articles, saying the newspaper demonstrated bias in its coverage of school reopening issues.

The group claims that the paper has relied too heavily on voices from wealthier communities where support for reopening quickly is stronger.

Teachers, parents, business people and others have been discussing for months when to bring back 465,000 K-12 students since the district moved to online learning about a year ago.

Alicia Baltazar, a Reclaim Our Schools member and parent of a fifth-grader in Wilmington, said during a news conference that she was disturbed seeing “stories about it’s parents against teachers.”

She added: “That simply is not true. Parents like myself and other members of Reclaim Our Schools Los Angeles have been working hand in hand with our teachers to keep our schools closed and to open only when it’s safe to do so.”

Reclaim Our Schools said that after receiving complaints from parents about The Times’ coverage, it examined 105 articles published between June and January and logged the identities of individuals who provided a total of 304 quotes to the newspaper.

The review concluded that 58% of the voices “elevated” by The Times came from three categories: professional/higher income individuals, small-business owners or millionaires, even though more than 80% of families in the L.A. district have low enough incomes to qualify for free and reduced-price meals.

The report said that fewer than 9% of those quoted were people it identified as working-class or low-income.

The report did not list the specific stories or provide the names of people whose quotes were analyzed. The Times has published more than 300 stories about L.A. schools since the pandemic began, far more than the number of stories the group said it analyzed.

Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning defended the newspaper’s coverage of schools in the pandemic. She said that hundreds of stories had included an array of voices, including students, parents, teachers, administrators, along with union leadership and education organizations.

“We have been guided by a mission of helping parents and students navigate these unprecedented times,” Manning said. “The Times’ education coverage has focused on the wrenching inequities brought on by closures and remote schooling, showing how CONTINUE READING: Group accuses Times of bias in LAUSD coverage - Los Angeles Times

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Facing a spike in Fs, winter break isn’t a vacation for many teachers and students

During her winter break, English teacher Keara Williams has hit the phone, making call after call determinedly trying to make contact with her students and their parents.

She needs to reach 28 students, including 11 seniors, who received an “incomplete” grade at the end of the fall semester. She tells them they will fail her class if they don’t complete make-up work to raise their grade to at least a D by the end of January. There is still time to get the work done, do not give up, Williams says. And she lets them know that she is here for them — all winter vacation if that’s what it takes to avoid an F.

She has reached 13 students and left messages and emails with the others. But when she last checked her computer, only one had signed in online to look at the make-up work.

Williams, like so many teachers in the Los Angeles school district, is grappling with wrenching grading decisions amid the hardships of the raging pandemic that has shuttered campuses for nine months. An F grade in a required class would delay or deny a high school diploma, require a make-up class and could ruin a GPA during the college admissions cycle. How do they balance compassion and empathy with the low grade points in their record books? How do they find and engage their lost students before it’s too late? The magnitude of work ahead for both teachers and students feels CONTINUE READING: Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Dangerous COVID-19 surge leads to hard shutdown of L.A. public schools

Dangerous COVID-19 surge leads to hard shutdown of L.A. public schools

Dangerous COVID-19 surge leads to hard shutdown of L.A. public schools

Los Angeles campuses will shut down completely beginning Thursday for all in-person tutoring and special services, as prospects for fully reopening the nation's second-largest school district recede further into 2021 amid a dangerous coronavirus surge, Supt. Austin Beutner announced Monday.

The move immediately affects some 4,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and outdoor conditioning for athletes. Beutner's emergency order comes on the first day of a sweeping stay-at-home order across much of California and as Los Angeles County's coronavirus rates reach unprecedented numbers.

"My commitment has been throughout to protect the health and safety of all in the school community," Beutner said in an interview with The Times. "We have an imperative to get kids back to school as soon as possible the safest way possible. But all that comes through the front door, and the front door is what is COVID in the overall Los Angeles community. Right now it's at extraordinary and quite dangerous levels."

The superintendent's remarks follow those from teachers union president Cecily Myart-Cruz, who said Friday on social media that it has become a question of "if" rather than "when" campuses would reopen for the spring semester.

Beutner is not alone in pulling back from campus-based services, but there's been a range of responses across California.

The school board in San Bernardino City Unified, which serves about 47,000 students, voted Nov. 17 to keep campuses closed in that district, the state's eighth-largest, for the remainder of the school year.

In northwest L.A. County, Las Virgenes Unified, with about 11,000 students, has expanded in-person instruction — bringing back third-graders to campus on Monday. About three-quarters of students in transitional kindergarten through second grade had already returned under a county-approved waiver that is available to any school.

Dangerous COVID-19 surge leads to hard shutdown of L.A. public schools