Schools hamstrung over feeding students as coronavirus leads to closures - POLITICO

Schools hamstrung over feeding students as coronavirus leads to closures - POLITICO

Schools hamstrung over feeding students as coronavirus leads to closures
USDA can make some exceptions to its meals programs but most districts will have to fend for themselves on how to feed poor students.

There is no Meals on Wheels system for delivering food door-to-door to low-income students.

School officials are growing increasingly anxious over how to keep feeding the nearly 22 million students who depend on subsidized breakfasts and lunches served at schools in the event facilities shut down to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Schools in Washington state, California and New York have temporarily closed their doors amid local outbreaks, and officials warn that more are likely to follow as the governments grapple with how to contain the virus.

Districts where an especially huge swath of students live in poverty, including Los Angeles and New York City, are holding off on closing in part because of concern about how to keep kids fed. But in the interest of public safety, they may not have a choice but to shut down.

"Schools should be thinking about what they're going to do if they're going to close and how they're going to ensure that their students nutritional needs are going to be met," said Crystal FitzSimons, director of School and Out-of-School Time Programs at the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit organization tackling hunger issues.

States can tinker with how to keep delivering meals. Over the weekend, the Agriculture Department, which manages school nutrition programs, said CONTINUE READING: Schools hamstrung over feeding students as coronavirus leads to closures - POLITICO

Is it really a good idea to close schools to fight coronavirus? - The Washington Post

Is it really a good idea to close schools to fight coronavirus? - The Washington Post

Is it really a good idea to close schools to fight coronavirus?

Students in the Lake Washington School District in the Seattle suburbs were so nervous about the novel coronavirus they started a petition urging officials to close the schools. No one in a classroom had been diagnosed with the disease, but more than 15 people in the region had died of it, and students thought: Why take a chance?

District officials did move to minimize risk, according to the system’s website, by postponing or canceling fields trips and after-school and weekend events — but they decided not to close schools even though tens of thousands of people signed the Change.org petition.

Why not?

They were following the advice of public health officials in the region not to close schools unless someone on campus is diagnosed because, they said, there are negative consequences to closing school preemptively.

While the advice could change as more is learned about the virus, the public health department for Seattle and King County said its guidance was based on several factors. For one thing, it’s unclear how the virus affects children, who do not seem to bear the brunt of illness. Furthermore, the public health agency said, children will congregate outside school if they aren’t in class. Many parents can’t stay home with their children.

“If I had a perfect crystal ball that closing schools is the right thing to do, I would say so,” Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview.

“I have one foot deeper into ‘don’t close schools’ right now than ‘close them’” because there is no evidence closing schools will stop the spread of coronavirus or even suppress transmission of it, he said. “And I can’t even say closing down schools to clean them will make a difference. The data isn’t there.” CONTINUE READING: Is it really a good idea to close schools to fight coronavirus? - The Washington Post

Audrey Watters: Will the Ed-Tech Industry Take Advantage of the Coronavirus Crisis? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Audrey Watters: Will the Ed-Tech Industry Take Advantage of the Coronavirus Crisis? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Audrey Watters: Will the Ed-Tech Industry Take Advantage of the Coronavirus Crisis?

Audrey Watters reminds us of Rahm Emanuel’s immortal words, “Never allow a good crisis to go to waste.”

And she see the enthusiasts of the ed-tech industry ready to pounce and take advantage of the current crisis. She lives in Seattle, possibly the epicenter of the crisis.

She writes:

Some schools in the Seattle area — both K-12 and colleges — have closed, and there has been intense pressure on administrators to shut everything down and move instruction online. (Governor Inslee has just announced the state is considering “mandatory measures” to combat the spread of the illness, so we shall see what exactly that means.) I’ve heard lots of local tech workers complain angrily that, in a region that’s home to Microsoft and Amazon, there is really no excuse for schools staying open. Digital learning, they argue, is already preferable. And now, they say, it’s necessary.

But that just strikes me as wildly uninformed — although that’s never stopped the tech industry from intervening in education before. It’s an assertion that rests on the assumption that ed-tech is good, that it can replicate at CONTINUE READING: Audrey Watters: Will the Ed-Tech Industry Take Advantage of the Coronavirus Crisis? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Coronavirus Front And Center – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Coronavirus Front And Center – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Coronavirus Front And Center

It’s hard to concentrate on mundane daily life when a novel virus is spreading inexorably through interconnected human communities across the globe. Best to muster authoritative information close:

• The CDC on handwashing, why and how.
• 
  
• Superintendent Beutner’s version of same.
• 
  
• On “preparations”, why slowing disease matters.
• 
  
• CV daily reports from California’s Public health department.
• 
  
• Latest news from LAUSD.
• 
  
• Agenda for Tuesday afternoon’s Special LAUSD Board Meeting “Declaring Emergency Conditions Exist at Los Angeles Unified School District Schools and Offices and Authorization to Take Any and All Necessary Actions to Prepare and Respond Effectively to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).”
• 
  
• California Department of Public Health guidance for schools and other guidance bulletins.
• 
  
• California Department of Public Health news releases.
• 
  
• Approval of CA State request to allow meal service during school closures.

Coronavirus Front And Center – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Betsy DeVos Says She Was Planning to Close All Schools Anyway | The New Yorker

Betsy DeVos Says She Was Planning to Close All Schools Anyway | The New Yorker

Betsy DeVos Says She Was Planning to Close All Schools Anyway

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—As an increasing number of schools and universities closed down because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, revealed on Monday that she had been planning for years to close every school in the country anyway.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, DeVos said, “When I took over as Education Secretary, I came with a simple mission: to shut down all of the nation’s schools. It turns out that I was just ahead of my time.”

Noting that schools are where students learn math, science, and history, DeVos said, “I have long believed that schools are where all the bad things happen.”

Deciding to “wipe out the scourge of education once and for all,” DeVos said that, within days of taking office, she drew up an ambitious plan called No School Left Open.

In a reassuring message to the nation’s parents and students, DeVos said, “Amid the current crisis, many of you are wondering how we will close every American school overnight. Let me just say that this is the job Betsy DeVos was born to do.” 

Betsy DeVos Says She Was Planning to Close All Schools Anyway | The New Yorker

Why as a Black high School teacher I’m endorsing Bernie Sanders: The campaign to “fix the hole in the soul of America.” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Why as a Black high School teacher I’m endorsing Bernie Sanders: The campaign to “fix the hole in the soul of America.” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Why as a Black high School teacher I’m endorsing Bernie Sanders: The campaign to “fix the hole in the soul of America.”

I have spent my entire adult life as a teacher and organizer in support of educational justice, racial justice, and other movements for social justice—from building teacher’s union struggles to better fund our schools, to the antiwar movement, to Occupy Wall Street, to the struggle for marriage equality, to immigrant rights, the Black Lives Matter at School movement, and beyond.  Through participating in these struggles I have seen firsthand how the political and economic system of capitalism, which allows billionaires to horde the wealth that the rest of us create, is at the root of so many problems we face. 

Today, Bernie Sanders and his grassroots campaign calling for a “political revolution against the billionaire class” represents the next phase of a breathtaking resistance to corporate power that is at the root of the social inequities I have spent my life organizing against.  But it isn’t just Bernie’s naming unfettered capitalism as the source of our problems that excites me about his campaign.  It has also been his specific commitments to educational and racial justice—as well as his call for system change and democratic socialism—that has inspired me to embrace his candidacy for president. 

I began my teaching career in the Washington, D.C., public schools in 2001.  Everyday, I would drive past the halls of government and the White House, cross the Anacostia River, and enter into South East D.C., one of the most impoverished and segregated neighborhoods in America.

Only days after I began teaching, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 struck the CONTINUE READING: Why as a Black high School teacher I’m endorsing Bernie Sanders: The campaign to “fix the hole in the soul of America.” – I AM AN EDUCATOR

TFA Celebrates Five Baltimore ‘Turnaround’ Schools. One Is Still Ranked In The Bottom 1%. | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA Celebrates Five Baltimore ‘Turnaround’ Schools. One Is Still Ranked In The Bottom 1%. | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA Celebrates Five Baltimore ‘Turnaround’ Schools. One Is Still Ranked In The Bottom 1%.

As an ashamed TFA alum, I receive their quarterly alumni magazine, ‘One Day.’  In the most recent issue, which I also saw on their Twitter feed, was an article called ‘Undefeated: Inside Five Baltimore Turnaround Schools that Refuse to Fail.’

The article is about five Baltimore schools that are run by TFA alumni and were recipients of some of the Obama/Duncan $3 billion school turnaround grant.  The most aggressive turnaround strategy is to replace the majority of the staff, which is what these five schools did.  The school turnaround grants have generally been considered a failure across the country, even by staunch reformers.

But, at least at a first glance, these turnaround schools were exceptions that prove that firing all the teachers at a school and replacing them, presumably with a lot of TFA teachers, is something that can work as long as TFA leaders are involved.

The five schools are Commodore John Rogers Elementary/Middle, Academy for College and Career Exploration (ACCE), Harford Heights Elementary, James McHenry CONTINUE READING: TFA Celebrates Five Baltimore ‘Turnaround’ Schools. One Is Still Ranked In The Bottom 1%. | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

OUSD Student Portal & Parent Portal : Where To Find?

OUSD Student Portal & Parent Portal : Where To Find?

OUSD Student Portal & Parent Portal : Where To Find?

We will be discussing on how to access OUSD Student portal as well as parent portal in the easiest way.

All the portal accesses are mentioned below so don’t forget to miss it anyway. Keep reading….

OUSD ( Oakland Unified School District ) Intro

Situated in the Oakland city of the California State of the United States, Oakland Unified School District is a public education school district that runs a group of more than 100 schools.

These schools include elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and district authorized charter schools.

READ: Does Oakland Have Too Many School?

OUSD is currently serving about 49,000 students by building a strong academic foundation for them.

With a mission of building a Full Service Community District that focuses on developing high academic development of children, the first priority of OUSD is to provide Quality Community Schools for every child by eliminating any kind of injustice.

Providing each of these students with an enthusiastic environment round the year that can help them stay positive is the next important thing for them. The overall organizational wellness is the third priority for everyone at OUSD.

READ: A (Brief) History Of State Takeover Of OUSD

Why To Choose OUSD ?

Some of the facts about why they are best:

• OUSD aims to eradicate injustice and provide every child with exceptional teachers who can help them in the overall development.
• They believe to function in a way so that the students not only excel in their CONTINUE READING: OUSD Student Portal & Parent Portal : Where To Find?

Is Online Learning The Answer For The Coronavirus Closed Schools? | My Island View

Is Online Learning The Answer For The Coronavirus Closed Schools? | My Island View

Is Online Learning The Answer For The Coronavirus Closed Schools?

With the rapid spread of the Corona Virus, there has been a clarion call for schools to close and immediately shift to online learning in the interest of health and safety. With all that has been written and talked about in regard to “online learning” over the last decade, the perception is that now is a great time to put tech to work and implement this modern methodology to address our current situation and limit face-to-face exposure in order to self-quarantine a huge portion of our population. Online learning will do all of this, and kids won’t miss a beat in their education. That is a great picture of progressive ideas in education coupling with the advancing strides of evolving technologies to carry us to the next level in the evolution of education. That may get us a short way away from the flying cars that we have always been promised for generations. Of course before any of this can happen we need to address several questions to determine the viability of this wondrous solution.

Is the infrastructure in place for online learning? In order for this to work, we need the teacher to be able to connect with the student. That takes computer equipment for both, as well as some capacity for connecting them. Of course that connection would need to be made for each and every student for which each CONTINUE READING: Is Online Learning The Answer For The Coronavirus Closed Schools? | My Island View

Council Member Robert White on DC Education Matters: March 12 – Education Town Hall Forum

Council Member Robert White on DC Education Matters: March 12 – Education Town Hall Forum

COUNCIL MEMBER ROBERT WHITE ON DC EDUCATION MATTERS: MARCH 12

On Thursday March 12 on Education Town Hall, we will be joined in studio by At-Large DC Council Member Robert White, who has been on the Committee on Education since he was elected to the Council in 2016.

Listen LIVE Thursday, March 12, 11 AM EASTERN, via TuneIn or by visiting We Act Radio and clicking on arrow at upper left. Shows are archived for convenient listening shortly after broadcast.

Council Member White has pursued a number of legislative efforts regarding DC public education, including

• introducing legislation to allow students to graduate when rules for graduating were changed mid-year;
• pursuing questions of renovation and modernization funding ;
• attempting to ensure different oversight of OSSE, DC’s Office of State Superintendent of Education;
• calling for an independent investigation of all publicly funded schools in the wake of a graduation scandal.

More recently, White has introduced legislation to stop the closure of alternative high school Washington Met and to more fulsomely address the presence of lead on school playgrounds.

Now that the Committee on Education’s chair, David Grosso, is leaving the Council, the question in everyone’s mind is: Will Robert White be the next chair of that important committee, which has oversight of the nearly $2 billion spent annually on DC’s public schools?

Join us to find out more!

The Education Town Hall with Thomas Byrd broadcasts from Historic Anacostia in Washington, DC, on We Act Radio. Valerie Jablow, local education advocate and DCPS parent, co-hosts.

September 2014, L-R: V. Spatz (then Ed Town Hall feature reporter), Robert White (then City Council candidate), T. Byrd

Council Member Robert White on DC Education Matters: March 12 – Education Town Hall Forum

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVosian Priorities and Public Service

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVosian Priorities and Public Service

DeVosian Priorities and Public Service

There's nothing new to see here, but it's still worth noting what DeVos tells us about her priorities.

From a recent interview with a conservative Christian podcast-- let me just set these side by side:

"I was fortunate enough to be born into a family that raised me to make my faith my own," she said. "I had exposure from my first memories to weekly church services."

"I'm grateful to have had that foundation."

"I'm for their parents to have the kind of opportunity to make the choices that I was able to make for my kids"

Note that DeVos is not waxing nostalgic for the days when her parents made her aware of the different faiths out there, leaving her to choose the one she liked best. No, she is grateful for a foundation built in what she believes is the only correct choice.

I've made this argument before; people don't really want choice. What they want is to have what they want. DeVos is not different. If her own church had been the only church in town when her kids were growing up, I don't believe for a second that she would have fought to get other houses of worship opened up so that she could have choices.

It's extremely human (maybe even necessarily so) to think some CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVosian Priorities and Public Service

Headlines: Elections, Charter Co-Locations and Coronavirus – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Headlines: Elections, Charter Co-Locations and Coronavirus – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Headlines: Elections, Charter Co-Locations and Coronavirus

And just like that, the focus switches from School Board elections and Prop. 13 [2020] (RIP!), to the Coronavirus and the District’s response. The District has been emailing and calling LAUSD parents daily and posting even more regular updates on Twitter.

While LAUSD’s response has been proactive and competent, LAUSD admits that the potential pandemic is “uncharted territory” and has plans for a potential shutdown.

Also uncharted is Superintendent Beutner’s foray into videography which is a little unfortunate for the paucity of soap, important for hygiene in breaking down cell walls. Some parents have been contacting teachers to ask whether soap or other supplies would be welcome donations to their classroom.

And perhaps not everyone in LAUSD is handling the situation flawlessly. A Chinese-American student is accusing his North Hollywood School of discrimination and retaliation after he objected to being sent to the nurse’s office for coughing.

But just because we’re all talking Coronavirus, doesn’t mean there aren’t CONTINUE READING: Headlines: Elections, Charter Co-Locations and Coronavirus – Los Angeles Education Examiner

California districts complain proposed state budget won’t cover expenses | EdSource

California districts complain proposed state budget won’t cover expenses | EdSource

California districts complain proposed state budget won’t cover expenses
Cost of living adjustment is smaller than they had assumed.

A fraction of 1 percent is creating stress for school superintendents.

California districts have been building their budgets for next year under the assumption they’ll get a 3 percent cost of living adjustment. Instead, Gov. Gavin Newsom has included an adjustment of only 2.29 percent for K-12 schools in 2020-21.

Districts are complaining that the difference — while less than three-quarters of 1 percent — is compounding an already financially fraught year, in which there’s not enough money to cover basic operating expenses. They argue they’re already facing steadily rising employee pension expenses, higher special education costs and the impact of an increase in the minimum wage. And half of the state’s districts have experienced a decline in enrollment over the past decade, compounding their dilemma, since revenue is tied to student attendance.

For a district like Elk Grove Unified, the state’s fifth-largest with about 60,000 students, the gap between the COLA that districts expected and what they’ll likely receive is $4.5 million. Statewide, it’s an average of $72 per student. To make up that $72 difference and a larger revenue shortfall, districts like Elk Grove that have squirreled away enough funding will likely deficit spend and draw down reserves. (For now, Elk Grove has a more immediate challenge. On Saturday, it became the first district to cancel school, for a week, after  family members but no students had tested positive to the virus and were placed in quarantine.)

Some of those without adequate reserves are giving preliminary layoff notices to CONTINUE READING: California districts complain proposed state budget won’t cover expenses | EdSource

30,000 Kids in Puerto Rico Are Going Back to School Monday — in Tents - VICE

30,000 Kids in Puerto Rico Are Going Back to School Monday — in Tents - VICE

30,000 Kids in Puerto Rico Are Going Back to School Monday — in Tents
“Even though the ground isn’t shaking, sometimes you feel like it is, and you get scared.”

PENUELAS, Puerto Rico — About 30,000 students in Puerto Rico’s southern region are going back to school Monday after a two-month delay caused by January’s earthquake. But with a high chance of another quake and the schools a long way from being rebuilt, students will be starting their semester in tents.

In the wake of the Jan. 7 earthquake that devastated the island’s south and damaged 84 schools — roughly 10 percent of the island’s public schools — classes across the island were put on indefinite hold. Week by week, the Department of Education opened schools that hadn’t been damaged. But in Peñuelas, a city on the island’s southern coast where schools were severely damaged, teachers couldn’t wait for their schools to be repaired.

Odette Báez, a local school principal, and the teacher’s union set up La Escuela Pública Vive, a volunteer-led initiative run in a park that is meant to engage students while school is out of session.

“We wanted them to continue with their educational processes and at the CONTINUE READING: 30,000 Kids in Puerto Rico Are Going Back to School Monday — in Tents - VICE

LeBron James produces docuseries about Akron’s I Promise School set for release in April on Quibi - cleveland.com

LeBron James produces docuseries about Akron’s I Promise School set for release in April on Quibi - cleveland.com

LeBron James produces docuseries about Akron’s I Promise School set for release in April on Quibi

AKRON, Ohio -- LeBron James’ media company has produced a documentary series about the I Promise School in Akron that is set for release in April on the Quibi app.

“I Promise” details the first academic year inside the I Promise School, which was opened in 2018 by Akron Public Schools and the LeBron James Family Foundation as a public school for some of Akron’s most at-risk third- and fourth-graders.

“The series will explore the day-to-day trials, triumphs and life-changing impact of the school staff, students and families working together in a unique, family-first educational environment that embraces the trauma and challenges many face in Akron,” the LeBron James Family Foundation said in a news release.

The foundation funds year-round social services for the students and their families, including GED programs, legal aid, medical and mental-health resources, job and family services, financial literacy programs and unlimited access to a pantry stocked with food and other essentials.

“When you grow up in the inner-city, in the projects, no one cares about you,” James says in the series trailer. “I didn’t know how to create a school, but let’s figure it out. Let’s learn together.”

The series is produced by James’ SpringHill Entertainment - which is named after the public housing complex in Akron where James grew up - and he is one of the executive CONTINUE READING: LeBron James produces docuseries about Akron’s I Promise School set for release in April on Quibi - cleveland.com

John Ogozalek: What Teachers Can Do to Help During Epidemic Crisis | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Ogozalek: What Teachers Can Do to Help During Epidemic Crisis | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Ogozalek: What Teachers Can Do to Help During Epidemic Crisis

John Ogozalek teaches in rural upstate New York.

He writes:

Let’s hope we dodge this bullet as a nation.

But it sounds like the COVID-19 pandemic is starting to go sideways.

What if schools close for weeks -if not months?

What will teachers do during this time off? (Assuming we’re not taking care of family in our own homes.)

And, let’s face it, the idea of teaching online just isn’t going to last long if at all for many K-12 schools. Seriously.

Here’s the thing…

Teachers represent an already organized, very locally based force -across the entire nation.

Instead of waiting for the federal government’s response to get organized (which under Trump’s leadership seems like a disaster in the making as valuable time slips by) perhaps our unions and school districts can get moving on this challenge right now.

Hopefully, we won’t be needed. But why not get ready to help?

I do not want to sit around my house if school is closed.

Could I volunteer with a local doctor? Check on shut ins?

At the minimum, schools can have meetings right now to make sure teachers and staff have accurate contact information including alternate means to communicate in case the internet is stressed. What happens to families who are lacking child care? And, those kids who rely on school lunch?

We can start to organize and at least offer our volunteer assistance to the government. A sort of “Teacher Force” at the ready for those of us who can lend a hand.

By moving forward without fear and working together maybe we can create a model for other groups? And, most importantly, offer some help to the children in our communities.

You have contact with people in charge of things in this country, especially union leaders.

I think this idea might get off the ground pretty quickly if an organization like NYSUT, for example, gets local presidents on it. Of course, we’d include administrators and anyone else in the school who wants to pitch in. We’d need a thoughtful template to respond effectively…a plan informed by public health experts. A package of possible options that local schools can consider and perhaps choose from.

Just an idea, Diane. Maybe the higher ups somewhere are already thinking in this direction?

If not, maybe we should….

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John Ogozalek: What Teachers Can Do to Help During Epidemic Crisis | Diane Ravitch's blog