NJ charter schools: Tax money is disappearing into a flawed experiment

NJ charter schools: Tax money is disappearing into a flawed experiment

Millions of your tax dollars have disappeared into NJ's flawed charter school experiment

CASHING IN ON CHARTER SCHOOLS: PART ONE

NJ taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to construct and renovate charter school buildings, but the public doesn't own them.

School buildings that are paid for with millions of dollars in public money but owned by private groups.

Inflated rents, high interest rates and unexplained costs borne by taxpayers.

And tax dollars used to pay rents that far exceed the debt on some school buildings.

This is the world of charter school real estate in New Jersey.

Where public money can disappear in a maze of intertwined companies.

Where businesses and investors can turn a profit at taxpayer expense.

And where decisions about millions in tax dollars are made privately, with little public input and little to no oversight by multiple state agencies.

More than two decades into the state’s experiment to create charter schools, which were conceived to provide residents with choices and to spur innovation, serious flaws in the design of the system have led to the diversion of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to private companies that control real estate.  

Two of the state's largest charter school operators, KIPP New Jersey and Uncommon Schools, have been permitted by the state to monopolize hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid for public school construction, helping them to create networks of privately owned buildings. 

And investors positioned themselves to make millions from taxpayers, including real estate entrepreneurs, developers and a range of lenders.

The current situation was born, in some ways, out of necessity.

No system was put in place to help charter operators find and finance school buildings to house and educate tens of thousands of students. In fact, an author of the state's charter school law, which Gov. Christine Todd Whitman signed in 1996, says facilities weren’t addressed to avoid controversy with the state teachers' union and others over the creation of the independent public schools.

A lack of clarity and vagaries in the charter school law ― and what some education experts say is bad policy or no policy at all ― has created a confusing and tangled landscape where transactions are often secret, or buried so deeply in documents that the public has virtually no way of scrutinizing how their tax dollars are being spent.

Private groups that are created to support charter schools ― and own and finance their real estate ― sometimes share board members or officers and lend money to one another. These groups end up owning and controlling facilities leased by the schools, setting rents as they see fit.

“We’re putting a lot of public dollars into the acquisition of assets for private hands,” said Bruce Baker, a Rutgers University professor and a nationally recognized expert on education financing. "All of these crazy, funky, convoluted relationships and kind of specially crafted, third-party organizations are really all a function of just bad policy.”  

“We left these organizations to come up with a way to gain access to properties and to retrofit and renovate urban facilities in expensive areas," he added. "And it costs a lot of money, so they had to get creative.”  

What that means is that millions of your tax dollars are being siphoned off by private interests to pay for buildings ― often without your knowledge ― that you don't own.

NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documents, including lease, property and financing records, state-issued bond sales and audits involving a cross section of charter schools around the state. The findings raise troubling questions about waste, the use of public money, and accountability in a system that receives some $760 million annually from traditional public school districts and educates more than 50,000 students. Another 35,000 are on waiting lists. CONTINUE READING: NJ charter schools: Tax money is disappearing into a flawed experiment

A series in five parts

1. Part One
2. Part Two
3. Part Three
4. Part Four
5. Part Five

The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought: The first report in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series | Economic Policy Institute

The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought: The first report in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series | Economic Policy Institute

The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought
The first report in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series

Download PDF

This report is the first in a series examining the magnitude of the teacher shortage and the working conditions and other factors that contribute to the shortage.

What this report finds: The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account, the shortage is even more acute than currently estimated, with high-poverty schools suffering the most from the shortage of credentialed teachers.

Why it matters: A shortage of teachers harms students, teachers, and the public education system as a whole. Lack of sufficient, qualified teachers and staff instability threaten students’ ability to learn and reduce teachers’ effectiveness, and high teacher turnover consumes economic resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. The teacher shortage makes it more difficult to build a solid reputation for teaching and to professionalize it, which further contribute to perpetuating the shortage. In addition, the fact that the shortage is distributed so unevenly among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds challenges the U.S. education system’s goal of providing a sound education equitably to all children.

What we can do about it: Tackle the working conditions and other factors that are prompting teachers to quit and dissuading people from entering the profession, thus making it harder for school districts to retain and attract highly qualified teachers: low pay, a challenging school environment, and weak professional development support and recognition. In addition to tackling these factors for all schools, we must provide extra supports and funding to high-poverty schools, where teacher shortages are even more of a problem.

The teacher shortage is real and has serious consequences

In recent years, education researchers and journalists who cover education have called attention to the growing teacher shortage in the nation’s K–12 schools. They cite a variety of indicators of the shortage, including state-by-state subject area vacancies, personal testimonials and data from state and school district officials, and declining enrollment in teacher preparation programs.1 These indicators are critical signals. They help analysts detect when there are not enough qualified teachers to fill staffing needs in a labor market that does not operate like other labor markets. School teachers’ wages are not subject to market pressures—they are set by school districts through contracts that take time to negotiate. Therefore, economists can’t use trends in wages—sudden or sustained wage increases—to establish that there is a labor market shortage (as the textbook explanation would indicate). It is also hard to produce direct measurements of the number of teachers needed and available (i.e., “missing”).

To date, the only direct estimate of the size of the teacher shortage nationally comes from the Learning Policy Institute’s seminal 2016 report, A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S. (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas 2016). The report noted that many school districts—finally hiring again after years of teacher layoffs during the Great Recession and in its wake—“had serious difficulty finding qualified teachers for their positions.” As the authors noted, school districts were challenged with not only restoring student-to-teacher ratios to pre-crisis levels but also with broadening curriculum offerings and meeting projected increases in student populations. Defining shortages as “the inability to staff vacancies at current wages with individuals qualified to teach in the fields needed,” the authors estimated that, barring any major changes, the annual teacher shortage would reach about 110,000 by the 2017–2018 school year.

Figure A replicates Figure 1 in their report and shows the gap between the supply of teachers available to enter the classroom in a given year and the demand for new hires. As recently as the 2011–2012 school year, the estimated supply of teachers available to be hired exceeded the demand for them—i.e., there was a surplus of teachers in that year’s labor market. But estimated projected demand soon exceeded the estimated supply and the projected gap grew sharply in just a handful of years—from around 20,000 in 2012–2013, to 64,000 teachers in the 2015–16 school year, to over 110,000 in 2017–2018. In other words, the shortage of teachers was projected to more than quadruple in just five years and the gap to remain at those 2017–2018 levels thereafter.

The teacher shortage has serious consequences. A lack of sufficient, qualified CONTINUE READING: The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought: The first report in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series | Economic Policy Institute

Compass Community Schools agree to morality clause with Catholic Church

Compass Community Schools agree to morality clause with Catholic Church

Six Memphis charter schools agree to morality clause with the Catholic Church in lease

Six Memphis public schools set to open in the fall could face legal trouble after agreeing to a morality clause in a two-year lease for classroom space from the Catholic Diocese of Memphis. 

The Compass Community Schools network signed a lease agreement that contains a clause agreeing not to teach anything that goes against the teachings of the Catholic Church. 

The chairman of the board for the group, John Smarrelli, who is also the president of Christian Brothers University, confirmed the charter group that oversees all six schools signed the lease and agreed to the terms, but declined to provide a copy of the lease.

A public records request is pending for the full agreement.

Smarrelli said the group sees no conflict and plans to teach to the standards set in place by the state Board of Education.  

But one First Amendment expert said there are several potential conflicts, including standards that address contraception, and that a public school's mere act of entering into a legal agreement with a religious entity promising to limit its educational offerings for students is unconstitutional. 

The clause could also cause a chilling effect on both students and staff and create complications of oversight of a public school by a religious organization, said Charles Haynes, founding director of the Religious Freedom Center.. 

"A public school is a public school," he said. "It may not in any way be entangled with a religious group that in any way limits what it can and cannot teach. That’s clearly unconstitutional."

The issue also raises questions about the promised separation between the Catholic Church and the Compass schools, a network created by Catholic leaders to replace a group of closing parochial schools. CONTINUE READING: Compass Community Schools agree to morality clause with Catholic Church

“Educational Freedom” is False Advertising!

“Educational Freedom” is False Advertising!

“Educational Freedom” is False Advertising!

It sounds so patriotic…Educational Freedom. But public education in traditional public schools is what is truly educational freedom.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other conservatives like former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and current Tennessee Governor Bill Lee are touting their idea of Educational Freedom and they repeatedly make comments implying that poor children will get their choice of any school they want with an Educational Savings Account.

For example, recently Gov. Lee tweeted:

Expanded options create greater opportunity. That’s why we need ESAs this year to empower low-income students from our most under-performing school districts to attend a school of their choice at no cost to their family.

If you are a struggling parent and you hear or read this, you might think you have a chance of placing your child in a wealthy private school, or a parochial school, for free. This is essentially what Lee is stating.

Former Governor Jeb Bush has said the same thing:

All families should have the power to determine the best educational path for their children. The Education Freedom Scholarship Program will expand successful choice efforts in states across the country, empowering more families to explore educational CONTINUE READING: “Educational Freedom” is False Advertising!

Scathing New Report Demands Moratorium on New Grants from Federal Charter Schools Program | janresseger

Scathing New Report Demands Moratorium on New Grants from Federal Charter Schools Program | janresseger

Scathing New Report Demands Moratorium on New Grants from Federal Charter Schools Program

The Network for Public Education has released Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for A Ride, a scathing condemnation of the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP), which is part of the Office for Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education: “For over a decade, Congress has poured money into CSP at rates much higher than overall Education Department spending has increased.  We estimate that approximately $4 billion federal tax dollars have been spent or allocated to start, replicate and expand charter schools.”

The report recounts mounting abuses over the quarter century since the federal Charter Schools Program was established: “The CSP… was established in 1994 as a way to kick-start the creation of new charter schools…. Over its 25-year existence, the U.S. Department of Education estimates that the program has offered federal dollars to as many as 40 percent of charter schools.”  In this report, the Network for Public education evaluates three of the program’s seven funding streams: that award charter school start-up or expansion funds (1) to the 50 state departments of education, (2) to individual charter schools, or (3) to the Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) that operate chains of charter schools.

The Network for Public Education’s new report is explosive. The researchers conclude that if you want to start a charter school, you ought to hire a grant writer skilled at creating a compelling fictional narrative, because the department makes its grants without investigation—almost exclusively based on the story spun in the grant application: “While congressional appropriations to the CSP continue to climb, our investigation… found that not only does grant money awarded to charters by the CSP continue to go to schools that never open or quickly close, but hundreds of millions of dollars have been provided to schools that don’t resemble ‘high quality’ schools, including many that engage in exclusionary practices that keep some economically disadvantaged students, students of color, students with disabilities CONTINUE READING: Scathing New Report Demands Moratorium on New Grants from Federal Charter Schools Program | janresseger

CURMUDGUCATION: The Red Flags In Kamala Harris's Pay Raise Proposal

CURMUDGUCATION: The Red Flags In Kamala Harris's Pay Raise Proposal

The Red Flags In Kamala Harris's Pay Raise Proposal

I was so determined not to get into the 2020 election this early, dammit. But the Kamala Harris teacher pay raise proposal hit my screen this morning, and there I was on twitter. I've addressed the larger concerns with the proposal here, but there are other concerns that are less interesting to the Forbes audience.

When I read the Harris op-ed in the Washington Post, I thought, "Hmmm. Well...."

When one of her campaign people directed me to the write-up on her website, I thought, "Uh-oh."

Some of the language she uses is unfortunately familiar. Here's just the first two sentences:

Every child deserves a world-class education, regardless of their ZIP code. Of all in-school factors that impact their success, there’s nothing more important than our teachers.

This is straight out of the corporate reform playbook. It's the rhetoric that's been used to sell charters and bad teacher evaluation programs.

Things are quiet for a while, and then we get this:

Our plan will include a multi-billion dollar investment in programs that help elevate the teaching profession and support principals and other school leaders. This includes high-quality teacher and principal residencies, early-career induction programs that pair new teachers with mentors and master teachers, career ladder models that allow for advancement opportunities for teacher leaders, and “Grow Your Own” programs that help increase teacher diversity.

Career ladders are another red flag, mostly because under ed reform, instead of building more rungs on the top of the ladder, they dig a hole and put the bottom of the ladder below ground level. 

There is also a neo-liberal style flourish at the end that feels like the same old "education is the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Red Flags In Kamala Harris's Pay Raise Proposal

Children should not be a number.: NYSED Debunked 2019

Children should not be a number.: NYSED Debunked 2019

NYSED Debunked 2019

As the NYS Education Department and Commissioner Elia continue to pressure local districts and schools to increase their state assessment participation, we have seen basically the same letter used as communication with families across the Empire State.

Here is the basic version of what we are seeing as schools mirror the NYSED pro-test talking points:

Let's look at each of these bullet points:

• Involvement of educators in the test development process:
• This process is very secretive, but we know through conversations with teachers who have served on past test development teams that the testing companies, formerly Pearson, and now Questar have a vested interest in limiting as many changes as possible when teachers are asked to review the questions developed by these corporations.  Remember, these for-profit corporations have invested time and money in creating the assessments.  Teachers who have served on these review groups have told us that they are discouraged from making significant changes or critiques, and ultimately may not know if their suggestions were followed since the assessment review is secretive and the educators sign documents that they cannot reveal test content.  Do we know if the educators actually had an influence on the assessments?
• Continued untimed testing.
• On the surface, this sounds like a good idea.  Some students need more time to process and the perfectionists want to triple check their work, so let's give those students more time if they need it.  (IEP/504 students have always received their proper accommodations)
• Unfortunately, some students, especially in the elementary grades, cannot self-regulate and realize that they need to stop, this resulted in students working an entire school day.  See this post from the 999ers blog about untimed testing experiences.  
• A move from a three-day to two-day assessment:
• Will only a small reduction in actual test questions occur as in 2018, meaning NYSED jamming too much into one session occur again in 2019?
• Are these age-appropriate times for students, especially 8 year-olds in third grade?  If a third grade teacher had their students sitting in rows for over an hour, would that be educational malpractice.  Also, understand that teachers must read the entire NYSED provided instructions, usually around 20-30 minutes with set up.  In addition, if the school is using computer-based testing, it could add another 30-60 minutes of students sitting quietly.  (Some teachers commented last year that their students were already burned out by the time the instructions were read and computers were set up.

CONTINUE READING: Children should not be a number.: NYSED Debunked 2019

Join the Network for Public Education: It Is Free and Gives You Power | Diane Ravitch's blog

Join the Network for Public Education: It Is Free and Gives You Power | Diane Ravitch's blog

Join the Network for Public Education: It Is Free and Gives You Power

If you liked the NPE report ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL, released today by the Network for Public Education, please consider joining. It is free. We rely on donations. We believe in the power of numbers, combined with a small but amazing staff. If you sign up, you will get alerts about what is happening in DC and in your own state, where your participation can make a difference. You will be asked to send emails to your representatives when important matters are being decided.

If you want to become more active in the fight for better public schools and against privatization and high-stakes testing, we can direct you to local groups in your state. We have toolkits for civic action.

Our affiliate (Network for Public Education Action) endorses candidates for local and state elections.

We believe that people power can beat money power, when we are informed and organize. We are many, they are few.

Go to this link to learn more about what you can do and how you can get involved. 

Our next national conference will be held in the spring of 2020 in Philadelphia. Stay tuned for details.

You can find “Asleep At the Wheel” here. 

Join the Network for Public Education: It Is Free and Gives You Power | Diane Ravitch's blog

CHECKLIST of Parental Involvement Under ESSA

Overview of Parental InvolvementUnder ESSA
Overview of Parental Involvement Under ESSA

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) serves as the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) which was last reauthorized in 2002 as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Since its inception, the intent of the law has been to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education, and to close educational achievement gaps. Parent and family engagement and consultation have always been a key piece of the law, focused on the low-income parents of “Title I-participating” children. We know that gaps in educational opportunity and achievement will only be remedied when those closest to the affected students – parents, families, and communities – are driving decision-making.

QUICK REVIEW OF THE EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT (ESSA): WHAT’S IN IT FOR PARENTS?
The most important thing to know is that the major requirements of districts and schools to engage parents and families are the same in the new law, including:

1. The School District must offer programs and activities to involve parents and family members, and seek meaningful consultation with parents.

• Develop with parents a written parent and family engagement policy • Build schools’ capacity to engage families 

• Evaluate its family engagement policy and practices, with meaningful input from families 

• Involve families in the activities of Title I schools 

• Reserve at least 1% of its Title I funds to support parent and family engagement activities; involve parents in deciding how to use these funds. 

2. Title I schools must:

• Develop with parents a written policy, agreed on by parents, that describes how the school will carry out its required family engagement activities 

• Hold an annual meeting for families to explain the program and the rights of parents to be involved and offer other meetings, at flexible times 

• Involve parents in the planning, review and improvement of the Title I program 

• Develop a school-parent compact that outlines how parents, students, and school staff will share the responsibility for improving student achievement, and that describes how parents and teachers will communicate. 

3. The school district and Title schools must build capacity for involvement:

• Offer assistance to parents in understanding the education system and the state standards, and how to support their children’s achievement

• Provide materials and training to help parents work with their children 

• Educate teachers and other school staff, including school leaders, in how to engage families effectively 

• Coordinate with other federal and state programs, including preschool programs 

• Give parents information in a format and language they can understand 

• Provide reasonable support that parents may request. What’s New? 

• Statewide Family Engagement Centers replace Parental Information Resource Centers (PIRCs) in the new legislation, with $10 million allocated; until PIRCs were defunded in 2011 they regularly received in the area of $40 million, but received no funds between 2012 and 2015. 

• Of the 1% of Title I funds mandated to fund family engagement, the school district now must send 90% of funds directly to the school; previously it was 95% 

• In many places the law uses the term “parent and family engagement” rather than parental involvement. • In the district policy, the district must establish its expectations and objectives for meaningful parent and family engagement. 

• Schools may establish a parent advisory board to represent families in developing and evaluating the school policy. 

• The district must carry out at least one of the following strategies to engage families effectively: professional development for school staff (and may include parents); home-based programs; information dissemination; collaboration with community organizations; and other related activities

RESOURCES:

What’s in it For Parents: http://nafsce.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/ESSA-Review.pdf 

Quick Brief on Family Engagement in Every Student Succeeds Act http://ra.nea.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/FCE-in-ESSA-in-Brief.pdf 

Parent and Family Engagement Provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act http://civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/education/ESSA-Parent-Family-Engagement.pdf

ESSA Parent and Family Engagement - https://www.readyrosie.com/essa-parent-and-family-engagement/


Big Education Ape: If the LAUSD’s Goal is “Parent Engagement”, What is the Plan of Action? - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/03/if-lausds-goal-is-parent-engagement.html

Big Education Ape: Stand Up For LAUSD Parent Voices - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/03/stand-up-for-lausd-parent-voices.html

DeVos, testifying before Congress, refuses to say whether schools should be allowed to discriminate on basis of sexual orientation or gender identity - The Washington Post

DeVos, testifying before Congress, refuses to say whether schools should be allowed to discriminate on basis of sexual orientation or gender identity - The Washington Post

DeVos, testifying before Congress, refuses to say whether schools should be allowed to discriminate on basis of sexual orientation or gender identity

In @BetsyDeVosED’s budget, there are major cuts to programs like the Special Olympics. Sec. DeVos didn’t know the number of kids who would be hurt by that cut, so I made sure she now knows that 272,000 kids are seeing their support taken away. pic.twitter.com/6ZiOfDU4Ou

— Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) March 26, 2019

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was asked repeatedly Tuesday by a member of Congress whether she believes schools should be allowed to discriminate against students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. She did not directly answer.

DeVos was appearing before a House education appropriations subcommittee to defend the Trump administration 2020 budget request for the Education Department. This exchange occurred between DeVos and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who had raised the issue of charter schools with the secretary.

Pocan was discussing a new report by a public education advocacy group about waste in the U.S. Charter Schools Program.

Here’s the back-and-forth:

POCAN: Do you think it’s all right for a school to discriminate based on someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity?

DeVOS: We have laws that cover discriminatory efforts and, um, our Office for Civil Rights has continued to be very diligent in investigating any allegation of discrimination and will continue to do so.

POCAN: So is that a yes or is that a no? I’m trying to get a yes or no, I guess, on that.

DeVOS: We follow the law as defined. . . .

POCAN (interrupts her): So personally you don’t have an opinion on it?. . . Because you are giving money to some charter schools that do discriminate. . . .

He went on to ask what the department was doing to recoup the estimated $1 billion the advocacy group Network for Public Education says in a report was wasted on charter schools that never opened, or were closed because of mismanagement, low enrollment, fraud and other reasons.

She did not directly answer, instead saying the nation needs more charter schools.

It is not the first time DeVos has appeared before Congress and refused to say whether schools should be allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation. At a May 2017 hearing before a House subcommittee about the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal, she was asked whether private schools that accept CONTINUE READING: DeVos, testifying before Congress, refuses to say whether schools should be allowed to discriminate on basis of sexual orientation or gender identity - The Washington Post

Women’s History Month should have a place women educators

Women’s History Month should have a place women educators

Women’s History Month should have a place for teachers
Teachers deserve more credit in the history and financial books

Given that teachers are charged with imparting the contributions of women to their students throughout Women’s History Month, a special place should be reserved during March for the women teachers who go unrecognized.

“You have teachers who give everything for children — sometimes spending more time than parents — but society doesn’t respect or pay teachers what they are worth,” Michelle Santos told the Hechinger Report. Santos is the director of journalism and media arts for the Richard Wright Public Charter School for Journalism and Media Arts in Washington, D.C. Santos began her teaching career in a facility for students found guilty of criminal offenses; in the nearly two decades since, she has been a teacher and administrator in various schools.

“It’s because we’re mostly women,” she explained. “Women’s work in general is undervalued.”

In our capitalist society, people’s worth is viewed as being linked to the salary they bring home. Women are overrepresented in the lowest paying jobs, and women in high-paying professions are paid less than their male counterparts, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Teachers who have gone on strike across the country over the last year and a half have made explicit demands for increased pay and better working conditions; their demands are inextricably linked to women’s frustrations with being undervalued.

Approximately 77 percent of the more than 3,827,000 teachers in public elementary and secondary schools in the U.S. during the 2015-16 school year were women, according the data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics. There’s an even higher concentration of women in the lower grades: 89 percent in primary school, 73 percent in middle school, but 59 percent in high school. Yet an overwhelming majority of women who have made significant contributions won’t make it into the history books used in classes women teach, because teaching is a “pink-collar” profession, meaning it’s comprised mostly of women. The lack of credit shows CONTINUE READING: Women’s History Month should have a place women educators

4 Important Ways to Help a Grieving Student - Teacher Habits

4 Important Ways to Help a Grieving Student - Teacher Habits

4 Important Ways to Help a Grieving Student

A guest post by Meghan Belnap

As a teacher, watching over the mental and emotional health of your students can be difficult. Students who face tragedy are often in need of comfort and extra support, but it can often feel as if your options are limited in regards to how to help. 20 percent of all kids will grow up experiencing the death of someone close to them by adulthood. Even though helping a student through grief is the primary responsibility of parents, rather than teachers, students will look to their teachers as authority figures for guidance and sympathy. Here are just four big ways that you, as a teacher, can help your students through a painful loss. 

Making sure basic needs are met

When children, teens, and young adults experience grief, they can often become withdrawn and lethargic, lacking the energy or even motivation to meet many of their basic needs. Eating, especially, can be hard for them to make a priority, as anxiety caused by grief can constrict the stomach and make food unappealing. One way you can check up on these students is to talk to the cafeteria staff to see if the student is getting lunch. Consider keeping some light, easily digestible snacks in your desk to offer them before or after class if you find they are neglecting to eat at lunchtime, and be aware of any extreme weight loss that may necessitate action from the parents. 

Consult with Parents and Guardians

Being able to openly discuss their feelings is a major part of the grieving process, but children and teens can feel worried about bringing up depressing or uncomfortable topics. Make sure that the student knows your office hours when they can come and talk to you if they need a compassionate ear, and make sure they are aware of the services offered by your school counselor. If you notice them feeling overwhelmed during class, discretely allow them to step outside or to the school counselor immediately. It can also be greatly beneficial to CONTINUE READING: 4 Important Ways to Help a Grieving Student - Teacher Habits