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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) loosened its COVID guidelines for isolation and testing in schools on Thursday. The CDC lifted previous recommendations that students quarantine if exposed to someone positive for the virus. The new guidance also drops recommendations that schools limit students’ contacts by cohorting them in groups during the day. And it said that schools should no longer conduct routine COVID testing for asymptomatic or unexposed students, suggesting schools consider doing that only in response to an outbreak, high community risk or a high-risk event at the school, like a prom or a large sports event. The new guidance ends last year’s “test-to-stay” recommendation that schools could test exposed students for the virus as a way to avoid quarantine, as well as its guidance that unvaccinated people or those not up to date on their vaccines quarantine after exposure. The agency’s general masking guidance for schools remains unchanged, recommending a mask in medium-level community risk areas for only immunocompromised or high-risk individuals or those with high-risk close contacts.

 

CNN

U.S. Department of Education

Politico

Build Strong Decoders | The Science of Reading in Practice

Research tells us how children best learn to read, but what does this actually look like in classroom practice? In a new webinar Dr. Julia B. Lindsey, an expert in early literacy development, curriculum, and instruction, and author of Reading Above the Fray, will share teacher-approved “essential instructional swaps” backed by the science of reading that educators can implement right away to help students become proficient readers. Dr. Lindsey will demonstrate these efficient and effective decoding routines that can be implemented in 15 minutes or less!

Watch the Recording

 

The pandemic set back the momentum to implement the state’s Next Generation Science Standards, and only about 1 in 4 districts are making science a high recovery priority, the Public Policy Institute of California revealed in a new report.  In a survey of 213 school districts, 62% reported that science became a lower priority in 2020-21, citing staff shortages, teacher burnout, a lack of dedicated funding and an emphasis on math and English language arts; 43% provided summer science programs. Only a quarter of the districts surveyed made science a priority in their recovery plans, although nearly half included plans to adopt, develop or buy new science materials, and 38% included teacher training in science in their Local Control and Accountability Plans. Among its recommendations to promote equitable investments in science education, PPIC suggests adding data on student performance on science assessments and on science course taking and completion to the California School Dashboard.  It also recommends compiling evidence-based strategies for science recovery so that districts can include them when using federal Covid relief funding. 

 

EdSource

Covina-Valley USD and the Covina Unified Education Association are scheduled to meet today, in at attempt to come to an agreement for a new contract. The sides have been at an impasse because of two main issues. The union does not want a salary increase to be contingent upon agreeing to a hard cap on healthcare. There has also been pushback by the union over the potential return of a special education program (Specialized Academic Instruction) it says adds more work for those teachers who would also become case managers. The district disagrees. It says the goal of special education is getting students the tools to access general education curriculum and that is not happening under the current model. The district also believes that teachers know their students better than psychologists working the existing program. The district’s last offer to the union was a 5.2% raise retroactive to July 1st 2021, with a proposed hard cap on benefits at $27,800 per full-time teacher per year. Superintendent Elizabeth Eminhizer said the current health plan is worth about $27,000 per year with a soft cap on the most expensive HMO. The union countered with a 4.95% raise, while keeping the healthcare plan without the hard cap.

 

SGV Tribune

Atascadero USD has confirmed it will no longer be live streaming school board meetings via its YouTube channel. The AUSD started live streaming their meetings on YouTube in compliance with Governor Newsom’s executive orders, the San Luis Obispo County’s Shelter-in-Place orders, and the State Public Health Officer’s orders due to COVID in March 2020. The school board then started operating under AB 361 on October 5th 2021, which authorized remote teleconferencing.  According to San Luis Obispo County Superintendent James Brescia, AB 361, authorizing remote meetings, remains in effect until January 1st 2024. He added that it may only be utilized when a legislative body of a local agency holds a meeting during a declared state of emergency.

 

Atascadero News

School districts armed with hundreds of billions of dollars in federal recovery aid are considering whether challenging students with accelerated grade-level work is more effective at catching them up than remedial strategies. Research from nonprofit education group Zearn, which operates one of the most widely used math instruction programs for K-8 students in the country, suggests that challenging kids with accelerated grade-level work is more effective in catching them up than remedial strategies that focus on skills they should have mastered in previous grades. However, students in majority Black, Latino and low-income schools, the research also shows, are more likely to be remediated, even when they demonstrate the same level of success with grade-level work as students in majority white and high-income schools. Researchers found that when a student is consistently accelerated, they complete twice the amount of grade-level lessons and struggle less in their math learning. When a student was remediated, the data shows, he or she had a 44% likelihood of struggling on the next grade-level lessons, whereas when a student experienced learning acceleration, he or she only had a 36% likelihood of struggling on the next grade-level lesson. “It's really a striking finding because the intent of remediation is to reduce struggle, but we see the opposite happening,” says Billy McRae, director of research and strategy at Zearn. “Students’ rate of struggle increases significantly and students are more confused when remediated.” 

 

US News and World Report

As community college students return to their campuses, many will find one new resource to count on: a hub where they can seek support in meeting their basic needs. Known as basic needs centers, the resources offered differ from campus to campus, but most tend to help students who are experiencing housing and food insecurity. Others also offer other support like paying for auto insurance, finding low-cost medical care, paying for internet and applying for public benefits. The centers are the result of a new policy that went into effect on July 1st requiring every campus to hire a basic needs coordinator to begin establishing a physical center. Some campuses have long offered food and housing support and will now add to the resources offered to students. Administrative and technical support for coordinators is coming from a team at the California Community College Chancellor’s Office, which has released a toolkit for colleges to use as a reference guide as they establish and grow the centers on their campus. Additionally, the community college system of 115 on-campus colleges has received a one-time allocation of $100m and a yearly allocation of $40m to support coordinators and help them develop their teams.

 

EdSource

In a narrowing of the achievement gap over the past nearly five decades, Black, Hispanic and Asian students showed more improvement than their White classmates in math and reading test results of over 7m tests completed by U.S. students between 1971 and 2017, according to a study published Tuesday in research journal Education Next. The Black-White test gap narrowed to about half the size observed at the start of the 50-year period, as did the Hispanic-White gap, confirmed Paul Peterson, one of the researchers who conducted the study. Overall, Asian students made the most significant improvement, gaining nearly two more years of growth in math and three more years in reading than White students. The socioeconomic achievement gap, meanwhile, narrowed slightly by about a little over half a year’s worth of learning. The biggest gains for lower-income students came in elementary school, where they gained 1.5 years in math and three years in reading. The 50-year data follows a report released last week by the U.S. Department of Education showing a 14 percentage-point reduction in students that were behind grade level in at least one academic subject during the 2021-22 school year.

 

K12 Dive

Zum has published its first annual commissioned survey, the Student Transportation Report Card: A Parental Review, which found that parents in America are most concerned about their child's safety during a school bus ride. One-third of parents in the survey responded with concerns about child safety, followed by 18% who were concerned about COVID-19 infections, and 10% who were concerned about lack of tracking and visibility. The survey found that 58% of respondents think school bus commute times are unnecessarily long for school-aged children, while 55% believe inefficient routes and a lack of resources cause kids to sit on the bus for too much time each day, and 48% agree that long commute times on school buses are harmful to school-aged childrens' mental health and wellbeing.

 

School Bus Fleet