A daily round-up of education news and views for the Keystone State.

A bipartisan bill has been reintroduced in the U.S. House, proposing funding to study the impact of active shooter drills on students. Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) are backing the School Safety Drill Research Act, which would give the National Academy of Sciences $1m to research how to prepare for active shooters in ways that are effective and do not cause undue anxiety. “For a practice that is so widespread, we really should not be operating in the dark,” says Rob Wilcox, federal legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety.

 

Education Week

The Penn Hills School District's summer program, designed to help students recover from learning loss during the pandemic and also mix with successful alumni, has now begun. About 500 students in K-12 registered for the opportunity to improve their skills both in-person and online through the district's cyber academy. “It was like the first day of school,” Superintendent Nancy Hines says. “Everybody trying to get organized and get a routine established.” Grades six through 12 are at the high school while the other grades are at the elementary school.

 

Pittsburgh Tribune Review

Officials at the Erie School District have agreed to spend a total of $1m on art, music and physical education improvements, with the support of $14m in additional annual state aid. The district has adopted new curriculums and purchased new instruments and equipment for music, the arts and physical education for the first time in decades. The new language arts program for elementary schools students, introduced in 2019-20, was the first for the district in 16 years. The new math program for elementary school students, also introduced in 2019-20, was the first in eight years. Superintendent Brian Polito laments that "it's long overdue."

 

GoErie

The Bristol Borough School Board has voted to approve a $24.8m budget that doesn’t include a tax increase for the fiscal year running to June 30 2022. The new budget, which is only around a 1% increase over last year’s spending, is backed by revenue increases from the real estate transfer tax and savings from bond refinancing. The 2021-2022 budget factors in increasing staff costs, rising cyber school tuition, along with a growing special education price tag. The district has kept the tax rate flat since 2011.

 

Levittown Now

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and other federal officials are expected to announce steps that the federal government plans to take to reconcile the legacy of boarding school policies on Indigenous families and communities. Starting with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the U.S. enacted laws and policies to establish and support Indian boarding schools across the nation. For over 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into boarding schools that focused on assimilation. Ms Haaland cited statistics from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, which reported that by 1926, more than 80% of Indigenous school-age children were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations. Besides providing resources and raising awareness, the coalition has been working to compile additional research on U.S. boarding schools and deaths that many say is sorely lacking. Ms Haaland has suggested that investments planned by the Biden administration and efforts to strengthen tribal sovereignty can help to heal the wrongs.

 

US News and World Report

As schools return to full-time, in-person learning, school librarians are in a unique position to lead efforts to incorporate social-emotional learning into back-to-school plans and help students reacclimate. “Some of the key facets of social-emotional learning — communication and social skills, inclusivity and community, growth mindset and problem-solving, character and kindness, and reflection — are all areas in which librarians can offer support schoolwide,” argues Liz Bowie, marketing content manager for library supplier Demco. To further support the development of SEL skills, school librarians can create displays of books and reading lists that highlight a wide range of perspectives, sharing literature that communicates the experiences of diverse populations, Ms. Bowie said. Librarians can also help teachers address social-emotional learning topics with the stories they select and read aloud to classes. These selections can help students cope with issues confronting them and their families, provide academic enrichment, inspire students to read on their own, and make children laugh to help them relax.

 

K-12 Dive

In a piece for Education Week Seth Feldman, superintendent of the Bay Area Technology School in Oakland, California discusses how his school supported its students through the pandemic by gathering and acting on "forward-looking data." The district uses two tools, Lexplore and i-Ready, to gather data three times a year.  i-Ready is an adaptive assessment that takes 30-90 minutes each for math and reading to administer. Lexplore uses eye-tracking and artificial intelligence to assess reading skills in less than five minutes. It also provides information that a more traditional assessment simply can’t, such as fluency during silent reading and audio and video recordings of eye-tracking sessions. The tools create a data set to help understand where a student is, what they might be struggling with, and how they can be supported moving forward. 

 

Education Week

The Washington Post takes a look at Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement, a new book from education writer Karin Chenoweth. The book uses six case studies to explain in detail how some educators have managed to defy low expectations, despite an undertow of routine in their schools. Ms Chenoweth offers five reasons for big jumps in achievement in unexpected places: Those districts had effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environments and ambitious instruction.

 

Washington Post