You are receiving this email newsletter because you are a subscriber of Education Slice (formerly Principal News) or you signed up for our email newsletter on our site.

A major upgrade last month in the state’s primary student data collection system, CALPADS, has caused disruptions and data errors for many districts at one of their busiest times of the year. Statewide leaders representing districts told the state that some of the districts considered the system “unusable.” The California Department of Education has acknowledged the frustration the rollout has created and says it is working to resolve the problems. But, voicing a common complaint, an administrator at one Southern California district said the severity of the glitches goes beyond time-consuming fixes and inconvenience. Rick Roberts, executive director of educational technology services at Grossmont Union High School District, said the problems are affecting the ability to administer the Smarter Balanced testing to some students and are undermining confidence that CALPADS will process information accurately in coming months. “The end of the year (schedule) is at risk,” he said. “This sure looks like a year where data is suspect, at best.”

 

EdSource

 

The Biden administration said Wednesday the Education Department will continue to temporarily relax its audit of students who apply for federal grants and loans, with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic still rippling throughout higher education. The decision means fewer students from low-income households will be asked this year to submit documents to prove the accuracy of information on their 2022-2023 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Instead the department will continue to focus its audit process, known as verification, on rooting out identity theft and fraud. It’s been nearly a year since the Education Department first relaxed its audit of students seeking federal financial aid during the pandemic. Higher-education advocates grew concerned that the department would reverse course as months went by without word of an extension. They said ending the temporary waiver would exacerbate already low FAFSA completion rates and depressed enrollment at colleges that serve high proportions of low-income students. “We laud the Department of Education for providing this sweeping relief to students and schools when they need it most,” said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “Verification disproportionately impacts low-income students, the very same population that is most impacted by today’s economic turbulence.”

 

Washington Post

Sacramento City USD will not extend its academic year to make up for class time lost during an eight-day teacher strike, district officials announcing on Thursday, dropping a proposal that could have kept classrooms open until late June. The last day of school will be June 16th for all 40,000 students in the district. The announcement raises the likelihood that the school district will have to pay penalty to the state for failing to provide the minimum amount of required instruction time. It also means teachers won't be paid for the days they would have worked. “We had hoped to be able to provide additional instructional time for students this school year to recover the learning time lost due to the recent strike,” the district said. “Unfortunately, we were not able to reach a student-centered agreement with the Sacramento City Teachers' Association (SCTA) to extend this school year without the necessary assurances to appropriately staff our schools, especially given the varying needs of our diverse student population.” The district said its now building a plan to add 16 days of instruction over a two-year period of time. By adding 16 days over the next two years, the district said it will seek a waiver from the state to reduce its financial penalty, which could amount to as much as $47m.

 

ABC 10

KCRA

Sacramento Bee

Olympic High School Principal Anthony Fuller announced his resignation, in a letter describing what he felt was “hypocrisy” amid school district leadership, alleging they deprived Olympic students from advantages afforded to other Santa Monica students. Olympic is a continuation high school of about 37 students, according to California Department of Education (CDE) data. The student population has plummeted since Mr. Fuller came into the role of principal in 2015, when total school enrollment was 91, according to CDE numbers. Mr. Fuller will be succeeded by current Franklin Elementary Principal Cynthia McGregory; on her appointment, he called her "one of the most talented and authentic leaders in our District."

 

Santa Monica Daily Press

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education illustrates the state of school finances back in 2020, during the first three months of the pandemic. It offers a snapshot of the situation many states and districts found themselves in, having to make difficult and costly decisions in the months before federal aid was made available. K-12 Dive presents a set of charts based on the data in the report, covering increases in staff compensation, changes in per-pupil spending, how expenditures outpaced revenues in a majority of states, and the extent to which federal revenues had dipped by March 2020. 

 

K-12 Dive

Among the COVID-19 pandemic’s most pernicious aftershocks is its impact on student mental health. About 44% of adolescents experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the pandemic, compared with 37% in 2019, according to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recognizing this, districts across the country are using federal COVID relief aid to bring mental health professionals into schools and to expand social-emotional learning. This also creates the challenge of how to sustain new school staff positions when the funding expires at the end of 2024. Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that provides health care for millions of public school students, could be part of the solution, as long as states take the necessary steps to use it and federal agencies back them up. In 2014, the federal government opened up a new avenue for support when it reversed what’s known as the free care rule and allowed schools to seek Medicaid reimbursement for certain health services provided by school employees, including mental health counselors, for all students enrolled in Medicaid. Previous guidance limited reimbursement to services included in a student’s Individualized Education Plan or Individualized Family Service Plan under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Currently, 16 states — Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — have expanded their programs to allow qualified school providers to bill for covered behavioral health services for Medicaid-enrolled students beyond those with IEPs, according to the Healthy Schools Campaign.

 

The 74