Teacher Tom: Where Community Begins

Teacher Tom: Where Community Begins

Where Community Begins

Several years ago, I was passing a table at which four boys were eating snack. They were discussing a classmate, a boy with sensory challenges that often manifested in ways that disturbed and even hurt his classmates. One of them said as I passed, "He's a bad guy." That stopped me in my tracks.

"Yeah," a friend replied, "He's a real bad guy."

And another, "He hurts me all the time."

The poor boy had one defender in the group who added, "He never hurts me," but his opinion was overwhelmed by the prevailing sentiment. As I stood there, they came to an agreement that they weren't going to play with him any longer.

As a teacher, it was upsetting to hear. Yes, he had hurt these boys and others. They had every right to be wary of him, even to shun him. That said, this was a preschooler with a diagnosed condition, one that caused him to behave impulsively. He wasn't a "bad guy," of course, but there was no doubt that he frequently did bad things: things that hurt and frightened other people.

I went home that day knowing that we adults needed to do something. There is always going to be a little hitting and CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Where Community Begins

Nationwide Waiver for CEP Deadlines - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

Nationwide Waiver for CEP Deadlines - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

Nationwide Waiver for CEP Deadlines

Based on the public health emergency due to COVID-19, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) established a nationwide waiver to support the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) while schools are responding to COVID-19.

This waiver makes the following adjustments to annual CEP deadlines:

• CEP Requirement: Data Used to Calculate Identified Student Percentage (ISP)
  • Annual Data Deadline: April 1
  • New Extended Data Deadline: Anytime between July 1, 2020. and June 30, 2021
    
    
• CEP Requirement: Elect CEP for Following School Year (SY)
  • Annual Application Deadline: June 30
  • New Extended Application Deadline: September 30, 2021

To review the complete language of the FNS CEP Waiver, please visit the USDA web page.

COVID-19 Resources

For updated information, sponsors are directed to visit the California Department of Education (CDE) COVID-19 Guidance for Child Nutrition Programs web page and the COVID-19 Frequently Asked Questions web page.

For information on waivers and communication sent out to program operators, please refer to the CDE Nutrition What’s New web page under the Disaster tab.

Background

The CEP is a four-year alternative meal counting and collection procedure included as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The intent of the CEP is to improve student access to free meals in eligible local educational agencies and high poverty schools, while eliminating the meal application process. For more information on the CEP, please visit the CDE CEP web page at CDE CEP web page.

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding this subject, please contact your county’s School Nutrition Programs (SNP) Specialist. A list of SNP Specialists is available in the Download Forms section of the Child Nutrition Information and Payment System, Form ID Caseload.

Questions:   Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

Nationwide Waiver for CEP Deadlines - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

There Can Be No Equity without Community and Empathy – radical eyes for equity

There Can Be No Equity without Community and Empathy – radical eyes for equity

There Can Be No Equity without Community and Empathy

[D]espite overwhelmingly good intentions, most of what passes for intercultural education practice, particularly in the US,
accentuates rather than undermines existing social and political hierarchies.

PAUL GORSKI, GOOD INTENTIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH: A DECOLONIZING INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION

A split second of awareness kept me from stepping into my apartment’s elevator, the floor covered in vomit, recently.

I thought about this moment yesterday while standing in that same elevator filled with an unpleasant smell as I also noticed a new orange-brown stain on the floor.

A week or so ago, I was unloading two bicycles from my car rack, going up and down the elevator and walking through the enclosed garage of the complex a couple of times. I encountered twice a women with her small dog on a lease, and in both cases, she paused while the dog urinated on a steel beam in the garage.

It isn’t uncommon to see dog dropping scattered down the hallway carpet in this complex either.

Having lived almost four decades in my own homes before becoming an CONTINUE READING: There Can Be No Equity without Community and Empathy – radical eyes for equity

Guidance on Implementation of CNP Waivers + CEP Application Information - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

Guidance on Implementation of CNP Waivers - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

Guidance on Implementation of CNP Waivers

On February 19, 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service released memo SP 07-2021 to provide U.S. Department of Education Guidance on Implementation of Child Nutrition Program (CNP) Waivers.

The memo provides guidance developed by the U.S. Department of Education that explains data collection options for programs that would otherwise rely on National School Lunch Program (NSLP) applications, which were not collected this year as a result of the Nationwide Waivers and broad-scale use of the summer meal programs.

The U.S. Department of Education has issued a fact sheet that outlines Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) program requirements and provides alternate options for gathering the data for these programs.The fact sheet can be found on the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education web page (PDF) and addresses the following ESEA programs:

• Title I, Part A – Improving Basic Programs Operated by [LEA] (Title I)
• Title II, Part A – Supporting Effective Instruction (Title II)
• Title V, Part B – Rural and Low-income School Program (RLIS)

In many instances, local education agencies can choose to use the best available NSLP data, which may be from School Year (SY) 2019-2020, or NSLP data from SY 2020-2021 that may be accessible. Please consult the policy memo and fact sheet for guidance for each program.

Contact Information

For questions related to Title 1, please contact the California Department of Education Title 1 office by email at Title1@cde.ca.gov.

For questions related to the local control funding formula (LCFF) please contact the LCFF team at LCFF@cde.ca.gov.

Questions:   Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

Guidance on Implementation of CNP Waivers - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

CEP Application Information

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a four-year alternative meal counting and collection procedure included as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The intent of the CEP is to improve student access to free meals in eligible local educational agencies (LEA) and high poverty schools, while eliminating the meal application process. For more information on the CEP, please visit the California Department of Education (CDE) CEP web page.

LEAs may apply for the CEP by individual site(s), by school groups, or by district. To apply for the CEP, the site, group of sites, or district must have an Identified Student Percentage (ISP) of 40 percent or greater. The ISP is determined based on the number of directly certified students in the site, group of sites, or district. For more information on the application process and to calculate your LEA’s ISP, please refer to Management Bulletin SNP-03-2019, which is posted on the CDE CEP Application and Increasing ISP web page. Also included on the CDE CEP web page is a reimbursement estimator created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The CDE recommends that LEAs interested in applying for the CEP predetermine if the CEP is a good financial decision for their agency by completing the USDA reimbursement estimator.

While the USDA has provided nationwide waivers that allow LEAs to provide meals in a more universal setting during COVID-19, these waivers are currently scheduled to expire on September 30, 2021. Participation in the CEP provides LEAs with an opportunity to provide universal meals to students after the USDA COVID-19 waivers expire.

If you are interested in applying for the CEP, please note the following dates:

• April 1, 2021—extract direct certification and enrollment lists
  (California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) direct certification data extract for July 1 through March 31 is typically available to LEAs April 7 through 10. Students identified as directly certified on this data extract may be included in the ISP if they were enrolled as of April 1).

• June 30, 2021—the deadline to apply for the CEP for School Year 2021–22

The following forms are required when applying for the CEP:

• Form SNP-71, CEP–Application Checklist
• Form SNP-19, CEP–Implementation Request
• Form SNP-55, CEP–Identified Students Preapproval Review
• All source documents used to calculate the ISP

All forms are located in the Download Forms section of the Child Nutrition Information and Payment System (CNIPS). Instructions on how to submit each form and the source documents are included on the SNP-71. Please note that the application process has changed. Instead of mailing documents, LEAs are required to upload all documents into CNIPS.

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding this subject, please contact your county’s School Nutrition Programs (SNP) Specialist. A list of SNP Specialists is available in the Download Forms section of the CNIPS, Form ID Caseload. You can also contact Jeremy Partsch, SNP Unit Office Technician, by phone at 916-322-3005 or 800-952-5609, Option 2, or by email at jpartsch@cde.ca.gov to be directed to your SNP Specialist.

Questions:   Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

CEP Application Information

We Need a Democratic Approach to Reimagining Schools—Asking People, Not Billionaires and Ideologues, What They Want | Ed Politics

We Need a Democratic Approach to Reimagining Schools—Asking People, Not Billionaires and Ideologues, What They Want | Ed Politics

WE NEED A DEMOCRATIC APPROACH TO REIMAGINING SCHOOLS—ASKING PEOPLE, NOT BILLIONAIRES AND IDEOLOGUES, WHAT THEY WANT

As soon as Anna Grant’s busy workday at Forest View Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina, ended, she would head toward the next school where she was needed. “I would get off work and immediately drive to meetings, press events, whatever we had organized [for the school],” she recalls. Her second school of concern was Lakewood Elementary, where Grant now works. In 2017, Lakewood was a flashpoint of grassroots protest due to a threat by the state to take over the school.

“Roughly 200 protesters, parents and neighborhood residents” rallied at Lakewood Elementary to keep the school out of the state’s new Innovative School District (ISD), reported NC Policy Watch, a media project of the North Carolina Justice Center. The ISD was created by the state legislature to take over low-performing schools and transfer governance from the local school board to charter school management companies. Lakewood, along with Glenn Elementary in Durham and three other schools in the state, was on the shortlist of schools at risk of being transferred into the ISD.

“It’s a takeover,” NC Policy Watch quoted Bryan Proffitt, then-president of the Durham Association of Educators. “I don’t intend to allow a terrible legislative idea to ruin our neighborhood school,” Durham school board member Matt Sears told a reporter for the Herald-Sun.

Grant now calls the protests “a community effort” that united teachers with parents, community activists, and the Durham school board in an effort to stave off a transfer of school governance from the community to a private organization. The activists formed the group Defend Durham Schools to share research and talking points on state takeovers and started a Facebook page to recruit more community support.

“Our zoned school was Lakewood,” recalls Durham parent and current school board member Jovonia Lewis, “and when the CONTINUE READING: We Need a Democratic Approach to Reimagining Schools—Asking People, Not Billionaires and Ideologues, What They Want | Ed Politics

Teacher Tom: Chaos or Community?

Teacher Tom: Chaos or Community?

Chaos or Community?

And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. ~MLK

What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. ~MLK

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick to love. For I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today. I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love, I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. ~MLK

On this Martin Luther King Day many of us will listen to snippets, perhaps all, of his great "I Have A Dream" speech, and we should, but civil rights was not the only cause this CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Chaos or Community?

Community schools are the schools we need now

Community schools are the schools we need now

To the rescue — The schools we need now are community schools

When the coronavirus struck, the community-school model showed how quickly families and schools needing extra resources could be helped

When America’s schools shut down in mid-March as a result of Covid-19 and transitioned to some form of remote learning, the nation’s community schools responded rapidly.  That’s because these schools already had strong existing relationships with providers of community resources, both public and private.

At least 8,000 American public schools identify as community schools, meaning that they work in well-planned partnerships with local organizations that offer resources like medical, dental and mental health services; before- and after-school programs; and housing and employment assistance to parents. These partners are integrated into the life of the school, both through formal mechanisms and through informal day-to-day contact, which means they can get the right services to the right students at the right time.

City Connects, an organization that integrates student support services in more than 150 urban schools, saw the coronavirus pandemic highlight its value.  

“Having a systemic and systematic strategy for supporting every student made a huge difference when Covid closed the curtain,” said Mary Walsh, executive director of City Connects, an organization based at Boston College. “We were able to avoid ‘random acts of student support’ and to ensure that every student had their needs met and their strengths supported.” CONTINUE READING: Community schools are the schools we need now

THIS WEEK WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

THIS WEEK WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

Compton Native Serves Up Healthy Options in a City Filled with Fast Food

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Compton is a community whose portrayal in music and movies eclipses the lives of real people who live there. It's also a city where healthy food can be hard to come by and life expectancy is five years below the Los Angeles County average. Jamie Yuccas talks with Lemel Durrah , chef and owner of Compton Vegan for the CBS This Morning series A More Perfect Union .' -- CBS This Morning

SANKOFA TALKS: Boricua Identity in Black Movements

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'Former Young Lord and poet, Felipe Luciano joins social justice activist, Iman Abdul , as they discuss the Boricua community and its involvement in Black liberation movements.' -- Caribbean Cultural Center [CCCADI]

For Many Black Women, Hair Is Identity |

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'In more than 40 states, it is legal for Black individuals to be sent home from school or fired from their jobs for wearing their natural hair. While legislation is currently working to make hair discrimination illegal in the United States, the Black female experience is greatly impacted by the Eurocentric standards of beauty that are introduced to girls at a young age. Just Hair explores Makeba

The Tight Rope: Mahershala Ali on Becoming #Blade and Finding his Faith

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' Mahershala Ali , star of the upcoming Blade reboot, goes inside his unique upbringing, conversion to Islam, the controversy behind his Green Book Oscar win, and hopes for his exciting new role as an iconic Black superhero.' -- The Tight Rope

The Forgotten “Wade-Ins” That Transformed the US

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

' When we think of the iconic moments of the Civil Rights Movement in the US, we might imagine bus boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins or the March on Washington. Most of us won’t think of protests at beaches and pools. Yet these battles in the country’s waters played a crucial role in transforming America. The campaign in the waters of St. Augustine, Florida, became one of the most critical in the m

SEP 30

Candice Hoyes: "Zora's Moon"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

“I feel like Zora Neale Hurston has had a connection to me since the first day I turned the page of Their Eyes Were Watching God when I was in high school...And I was immediately connecting with so much of the issues she was referencing — colorism and sexism, the negotiation of what's respectable behavior — all those things that a Black teenage girl is defining for herself.” -- Candice Hoyes

The Tight Rope: Rakim – The Humility of Hip Hop's Greatest M.C.

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Legendary M.C. Rakim goes deep with The Tight Rope hosts Tricia Rose and Cornel West about the state of hip hop, the origins of his rhymes, and the roots of his pure imagination. Plus, the professors weigh a whistleblower's allegations about nonconsenting hysterectomies in a private ICE detention facility.'

The New Yorker Radio Hour: Keith Knight of 'Woke'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

. Woke , a new comedy on Hulu, is inspired by the life of its creator, Keith Knight . The show, which blends reality and animated fantasy, follows Keef, a Black cartoonist who is on the cusp of mainstream success when an ugly incident with the police changes his life. Suddenly, Keef is learning about racism from a chatty trash can and other talking cartoon objects, and he experiences a belated po

SEP 29

A Black Nationalist Upbringing Fueled A Criminal Justice Reformer: Meet Dawn Blagrove

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

' Dawn Blagrove identified her life's work at an early age. As a young girl growing up in 1970s segregated Milwaukee, she read Sam Greenlee's novel The Spook Who Sat By The Door . It tells the story of a Black CIA operative who goes undercover within the system and takes what he learned back to his Chicago neighborhood to help young people start a revolution. The book was one of many Black nation

Coffee & Books with Marc Lamont Hill: Mychal Denzel Smith Breaks Down His Book; 'Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Coffee & Books host Marc Lamont Hill is in conversation with New York Times best selling author, Mychal Denzel Smith , dissecting his recent book; Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream .'

Fragile Democracy: Race and Voting Rights in North Carolina

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

' James Leloudis , professor of history at UNC Chapel Hill, and Robert Korstad , professor of public policy at the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy, join Dean Judith Kelley to discuss the implications of voter suppression on the upcoming election and the complicated legacy of voting rights in the state. Jim and Bob are co-authors of the recently released book Fragile Democracy: The Struggle O

Arundhati Roy on Freedom, Fascism & Fiction

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Author, activist, and novelist Arundhati Roy joins us from Delhi to discuss her new collection of essays, Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction . Roy is well known for her impassioned political writing, as well as her two novels, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , and The God of Small Things , which won the Man Booker in 1997. She talks with us about the rise of Indian nationalism, Modi’s descent int

QZ Africa Editor Yinka Adegoke on the Current State of China-Africa Relations

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

' Yinka Adegoke , Africa editor of the online financial news site Quartz , is closely following the unfolding debt crisis in Africa and China's role in the situation. He joins Eric & Cobus from the Quartz newsroom in New York to discuss the financial crisis and how it's impacting the broader China-Africa relationship.' -- The China Africa Project The China Africa Project ·

What the Pandemic Has Meant for Division of Labor in the Home

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Despite men spending more time at home since March, domestic responsibilities are disproportionately falling on women, everything from doing the housework to teaching their children. In some cases, working women have had to reduce their working hours 4 to 5 times more than their male counterparts. For more on this unequal division of labor, The Takeaway spoke to Caitlyn Collins , assistant profe

Confronting Gentrification on 'Alice Street'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'A new documentary tells the story of how the creation and erasure of a local mural catalyzed an anti-gentrification coalition in Oakland, California. Director Spencer Wilkinson joins us to discuss the film, Alice Street, which is screened at the Urbanworld Film Festival .'-- All Of It

'Empathy Fatigue' Leads To More COVID Deaths

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Eight out of 10 American COVID-19 deaths have been among people older than 65; the rest of the dead are disproportionately Black. Olga Khazan , staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World , talks about how 'empathy fatigue,' the point in a mass tragedy where we no longer see victims as individuals but statistics, is heightened by racis

SEP 28

In Conversation: Race and Performance after Repetition

by Mark Anthony Neal / 5d

'The editors Soyica Diggs Colbert , Douglas A. Jones, Jr. , and Shane Vogel of Race and Performance after Repetition discuss the major themes of the collection with contributors Joshua Chambers-Letson , Tavia Nyong'o , and Elizabeth W. Son , exploring how theater and performance studies account for the complex relationship between race and time.'

Ledisi Sings Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, and "Anything for You" in a Game of Song Association

by Mark Anthony Neal / 5d

' Ledisi 's legacy is one to beat. Her vocals have been praised on stages around the world throughout her long-standing career and she's picked up not 1 but 12 Grammy nominations along the way. To celebrate the release of her latest album, #TheWildCard , she joins us for a #SongAssociation challenge. Tune in as she sings Tina Turner, Chaka Khan and more in a race against the clock.' -- ELLE

Carrie Mae Weems: "Hold On Tight"

by Mark Anthony Neal / 5d

"I'm tired of the Changing Same..." -- Carrie Mae Weems

SEP 25

The Quarantine Tapes: Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

by Mark Anthony Neal / 7d

' Paul Holdengräber is joined by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. , on episode 104 of The Quarantine Tapes . Eddie’s latest book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own , looks to Baldwin’s writing for guidance for our own moment. Paul and Eddie’s conversation opens up Eddie’s experience of writing this book, discussing how he grappled with the form of biography, literary cri

The Power of Protest Music

by Mark Anthony Neal / 7d

In this installment of Duke University's Black Alumni series Black in 2020 , Duke Professors Anthony Kelley (Music) and Mark Anthony Neal (African & African-American Studies) are joined by Professor Shana Redmond (UCLA), author of Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson , for a conversation about the historical and contemporary role that protest music has played in the fight for jus

A.yoni Jeffries Is An Afro-Indigenous Hemp Farmer Whose ‘Potential Gon’ Pay’

by Mark Anthony Neal / 7d

' Durham-based musician A.yoni Jeffries understands discouragement. Her latest album, Potential Gon’ Pay , was delayed three times this year. But the 25-year-old never stays discouraged for long. In the interim, while she awaited a new release date, she focused her attention on a new endeavor, Handèwa Farms , which she launched in December 2019 with eight partners. Many of them, including herself

The Quarantine Tapes: Lisa Lucas

by Mark Anthony Neal / 7d

'On episode 105 of The Quarantine Tapes , Paul Holdengräber is joined by Lisa Lucas . As the incoming senior vice president of Pantheon and Schocken Books, Lisa talks about her experiences in publishing and her excitement about the potential of her new position. Their conversation covers equity in publishing for people of color and other marginalized groups and how Lisa has found herself feeling

B.Slade - "Change." [Official Lyric Video]

by Mark Anthony Neal / 7d

"Change" – Produced, Written & Arranged by B.Slade; Lyric Video by @IAMLXGEND

The Legacy & Challenge of Hip-Hop Music & Politics Panel at the #HipHopPoliticalEducationSummit

by Mark Anthony Neal / 7d

'"When George Floyd got killed, look at how the young people stood up across the nation. Everybody felt a certain type of pain...they were tired and rebellious...if you think you are gonna handle us any kind of way we gonna go 

NewBlackMan (in Exile)