High Schools

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Why this teacher and mom is considering quitting

3 weeks ago Jennifer

Ducey, however, has said that districts in Arizona should start the new school as soon as Aug. 17 with students and teachers in the classroom, as President Trump has demanded. Some teachers have started protesting, saying it is too dangerous to reopen schools while covid-19 rates and hospitalizations are spiking.

Mace is a teacher mentor in Tucson and the mother of three children aged 10 and under. (Teacher mentors are educators who not only teacher children but also serve as mentor for beginning teachers.)

In this post she explains why she may quit or take leave if she is required

High Schools

Kids back in class for summer school — and there are some problems

3 weeks ago Jennifer

In Westwood, Mass., a summer school employee who didn’t feel well tested negative for the novel coronavirus and returned to her job working with students with disabilities — only to learn she really had it, WCBV reported. The Westwood Schools superintendent said in a statement that “her exposure to students was limited to a three-hour blocks” and noted that she was wearing personal protective equipment.

There is risk even in providing virtual instruction. In Arizona, a 63-year-old teacher with asthma and lupus working from school to provide virtual lessons to students at home contracted the coronavirus and died. Two other

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Mom: Virtual education was ‘a disaster’ for my son with Down syndrome

3 weeks ago Jennifer

Special education students were stuck at home, most of them without the full array, or any, of the special services they receive in school as required in their federally mandated Individualized Education Programs. And in many districts, remote learning will be the order of the day again when the 2020-21 academic year begins this fall, as covid-19 rates are spiking in many states. Several districts have announced that they are going to all-remote learning for the start of the school year, including Los Angeles, the second-largest in the country.

Allison Wohl’s son, Julian, is a rising fifth-grader in Montgomery County

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School Reopening Plans Could Worsen Inequities. That’s Why This Panel Prioritizes Some In-Person Classes – Inside School Research

3 weeks ago Jennifer

School leaders who gloss over equity issues when planning to reopen schools this fall will not only exacerbate learning losses caused by this spring’s coronavirus closures, but could worsen the effects of the pandemic in some of the communities already hardest hit.

That is the bottom line for new guidance on school reopening out today from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, the collective formal scientific body of the United States. While the guidance shares recent reopening recomendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics on the importance of social distancing

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In Pandemic, Digital Access and Parents’ Education Made the Biggest Difference in Schools’ Response – Inside School Research

4 weeks ago Jennifer

Across all sectors, from traditional public to charter and private campuses, schools moved quickly to restart academics in the aftermath of the pandemic school closures this spring. But the most comprehensive look to date at U.S. schools’ response finds that online access and parents’ education made the biggest difference in how fully schools responded.

In a study of more than 3,500 schools released this week by the National Center on Education Access and Choice and the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, researchers found no significant difference in response based on whether schools had poverty rates more or less than

High Schools

Why this international medical student at Harvard is losing faith in the ‘American dream’

4 weeks ago Jennifer

This month, the administration announced international students — who pump more than $40 billion into the U.S. economy every year — must take in-person classes this fall or they will be forced to either leave the United States or transfer to another college.

The policy — strongly criticized by schools, legislators, education groups and others — appears to be part of President Trump’s effort to force schools at all levels to fully reopen this fall even while the coronavirus pandemic is raging in many states. He has attacked colleges planning to offer only virtual classes, and said he would put

High Schools

What pediatricians’ group really said about opening schools

4 weeks ago Jennifer

Educators and pediatricians share the goal of children returning safely to school this fall. Our organizations are committed to doing everything we can so that all students have the opportunity to safely resume in-person learning.

We recognize that children learn best when physically present in the classroom. But children get much more than academics at school. They also learn social and emotional skills at school, get healthy meals and exercise, mental health support and other services that cannot be easily replicated online. Schools also play a critical role in addressing racial and social inequity. Our nation’s response to COVID-19 has

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Lost Learning Time Compounds Over Summers. Students Are Taking an Extra Hit Right Now – Inside School Research

4 weeks ago Jennifer

More than half of students consistently experience summer learning loss throughout their primary grades, finds a large new national longitudinal study, with compounding summer deficits leaching away on average nearly 40 percent of students’ yearly progress.

Allison Atteberry of the University of Colorado-Boulder and Andrew McEachain of the RAND Corp., co-authors of the new study in the American Educational Research Journal, analyzed the progress of nearly 18 million students in 7,500 districts who participated in the math or English/language arts tests from NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress from 2008 to 2016.

As the charts below show, the researchers found students’

High Schools

The case against reopening schools — by a teacher

4 weeks ago Jennifer

In the earlier piece, the author, a former award-winning principal, Carol Burris, cited recent guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics that said districts should do everything they can to bring students back into classrooms. She wrote:

Students at risk can easily slip through cracks. Due to the isolation of remote learning, those cracks have become crevices. Anecdotally, pediatricians are reporting rises in depression, obesity, and stress disorders as well as young children having heart palpitations absent a physical cause.
Research tells us that socially isolated children and adolescents are at risk of depression and anxiety. We know that too