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USA
27th September 2021
 
THE HOT STORY
Florida school board salaries paid by federal government
The U.S. Department of Education has provided almost $150,000 to the Alachua County School Board in Florida to cover a state penalty targeting board members’ salaries in punishment for mandating masks in schools, which is against state policy. "We should be thanking districts for using proven strategies that will keep schools open and safe, not punishing them," asserts Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. Florida has withheld two months’ worth of pay for four dissenting board members "so far." The federal education department said the $147,719 provided to Alachua is the first grant under what it is calling Project SAFE, or Project to Support America’s Families and Educators. Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, comments: “We applaud Project SAFE in its work to support school districts where leaders are making the best decisions for their students, staff, and community despite objectionable state obstacles.”
WORKFORCE
Increase in teacher vacancies reported
A Chalkbeat survey of 20 large U.S. school districts has found that in 18 of them, the number of teacher vacancies is up this year. The share of empty teaching positions is often only 2 or 3%, but the numbers mean thousands of students started the school year without full-time teachers or extra help schools had hoped to provide, a worrying sign for schools trying to help students recover from the pandemic. Hiring has been particularly tough, school officials say, in areas like special education, math, and science that were challenging before the pandemic. Shortages are “limiting the ways in which districts are seeking to invest in recovery and redesign,” said Jonathan Travers, who works with school officials through the consulting firm Education Resource Strategies. “It is just taking a number of things off the table.”
HEALTH & SAFETY
Child obesity soared during pandemic, CDC warns
A new study underlines the pandemic's impact on child obesity rates, with body mass index among a sample of 432,302 individuals between the ages of 2 and 19 expanding at twice the rate between March and November 2020 as compared to January 2018 to February 2020. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that ages six to 11 saw the largest rate of BMI increase, at 2.5 times the pre-pandemic rate, while the estimated proportion of those ages two to 19 with obesity increased from 19.3% in August 2019 to 22.4% a year later. The report suggests school closures, disrupted routines, increased stress, and less opportunity for physical activity and proper nutrition as key contributing factors.
School mask requirements temper pediatric COVID-19 cases, CDC says
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study has found that schools in two Arizona counties that didn’t require universal masking were 3.5 times more likely to endure COVID-19 outbreaks than schools with mask mandates. Out of the 191 schools in Maricopa and Pima counties that experienced outbreaks by the end of August, 59.2% did not have a mask requirement, compared to 8.4% that required masks from the start of the school year. The analysis involved 999 schools in the counties, with 21% having a mask requirement since the beginning of the school year, more than 30% adding one later and 48% not mandating masks at all. Almost a third of outbreaks occurred in schools that implemented mask mandates after the school year began. The CDC also released an additional study on masking in schools, finding that counties with school mask mandates experienced lower increases in pediatric COVID-19 case rates than counties without school mask requirements.
LEGAL
Teachers' vaccine mandate blocked by NYC court
A federal appeals court has issued a temporary injunction against a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for New York City educators while the case is sent to a three-judge circuit court panel for review. The rule was set to go into effect early next week. The New York City Department of Education is confident the mandate will be upheld "once all the facts have been presented, because that is the level of protection our students and staff deserve," meaning thousands of teachers may be forced out of schools next week as a direct result of the mandate.
TRANSPORTATION
Propane powered buses adopted by districts across nation
As people and companies across the country are looking at ways to lower their carbon footprint, coupled with the federal government pushing for lower emissions, the school bus industry is quickly adopting alternative fuels including propane in this new environment. The move to alternative fuels like propane—which has a carbon intensity of 19%, five times better than diesel and gasoline—brings many benefits for fleets, including reduced maintenance, increased cost savings, and renewability. In Indiana, Carmel Clay Schools (CCS) started running propane buses in 2014, with 30 Blue Bird buses running currently. “We have been purchasing new propane buses when older diesel buses were due for trade,” explains Ron Farrand Jr., recently retired director of facilities and transportation at CCS. “These buses have been focused on our special-needs student transportation in response to a student group that may have compromised health issues. The use of propane-powered buses reduces emissions in proximity to student loading areas.” Jarrod Adams, chief operations officer for Washington County Schools in Tennessee, said the district is seeing fuel costs about equal to diesel, although factoring in maintenance brings diesel to around 70 cents per mile, and propane to around 47 cents per mile.
SECURITY
Jersey City Schools address crossing guard shortage
The Jersey City school district is to provide police officers to replace crossing guards due to workforce shortages. Trustee Gerald Lyons reveals that parents and even teachers have been pushed to take on the role of crossing guards.
LEGISLATION
Vaccine mandate proposed by new Chicago Schools chief
Pedro Martinez, who is leaving San Antonio ISD in Texas to become Chicago's new schools chief, describes his tussles with Gov. Greg Abbott and why he believes a student vaccine mandate should now be on the table. Martinez, the only superintendent of a major Texas school district to require school employees to be vaccinated, was slapped with a lawsuit from the Texas attorney general for his efforts. Asked if he plans to mandate vaccines for students in Chicago, Martinez says: "I truly believe that should be done at the national level. If it is a world crisis I don't think it should be at the district level. We all know how important it is to have children in person in school. We all, for the most part, agree on that." Pressed on a potentially "contentious relationship" between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Teachers Union, he asserts: "I am not naïve. I know there are some political divides that run very deep. But when it comes to, for example, the safety of our children, our children being in school in person, our schools being safe, there has to be common ground there."
TECHNOLOGY
Student devices monitoring questioned
The monitoring of student electronic devices by schools appears now to be widespread, according to research by the Center for Democracy and Technology, with 81% of teachers surveyed saying their schools use student activity monitoring software. About 20% of teachers, parents, and students surveyed said it was installed on students’ personal devices, and 30% of teachers said monitoring software was active all of the time, not just during school hours. Supporters of such monitoring say it can protect against online predators and other cybercriminals, and can also identify cyberbullying campaigns and flag students who search for topics including suicide and eating disorders. The CDT, the ACLU and eight other organizations have however called on Congress to protect student privacy and expression by updating the Children’s Internet Protection Act to clarify that the law “does not require broad, invasive, and constant surveillance of students’ lives online.”
CHARTERS
Charter school operators scrutinized amid enrollment growth
In the 2019-20 school year, more than 330,000 students attended virtual schools, roughly 60% of them at for-profits. At Stride Inc., the nation’s biggest for-profit operator of charters, enrollment grew by 45%, to almost 157,000, and revenue in its general education division rose 37%. Equipped with big advertising budgets, the schools have stepped up their marketing during the pandemic, often advertising on social media or other children’s web channels. Overall however, about 63% of virtual for-profit schools — most of which are charter schools — were rated unacceptable by their states in the latest year for which data was available, according to a May report by the University of Colorado’s National Education Policy Center. Online charters also typically lag other schools on measures including student academic outcomes and graduation rates, and have historically experienced high student turnover. Some education advocates are now calling for states do more to hold for-profit charters accountable. A few states, including Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Texas and Utah, have even begun moving toward performance-based funding mechanisms for virtual schools.
INTERNATIONAL
Varying COVID-19 school responses across Canada
CBC News details school outbreak protocols from each of Canada's provinces and territories. While every province and territory defines the term "outbreak" differently, all have plans that outline how public health officials will help schools manage an outbreak on a case-by-case basis, and much variation remains. When a student or staff member in Manitoba tests positive for COVID-19, school officials are directed to collect relevant information from that individual and determine if contact tracing is necessary. If there is potential in-school exposure, Manitoba's Department of Education must be alerted and school officials reinforce and review existing safety protocols. In Newfoundland and Labrador meanwhile, in the event of an outbreak at a school, public health officials work with the school district to determine next steps, like potentially implementing additional health measures like increasing the frequency of cleaning, cohorting, recommending masks, and limiting extracurriculars.

 
CBC

 

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