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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

 

Gov. Greg Abbott continued his campaign push for school choice yesterday, arguing that a one-size-fits-all approach to education doesn't work when you have kids that aren't the same size, and that "different kids need different programs." At The King's Academy, a private school in South Dallas, he added: "There are some parents in this state that want a choice that is different, than the government assigned school for their child. Those parents know better which school is best for their child, than does the government." His opponent in the race for governor, Beto O'Rourke, has been arguing against the broad concept of school choice, believing it would negatively impact public school systems especially in rural communities. In a written statement the president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, Zeph Capo, was critical of Gov. Abbott floating the idea of moving tax dollars at the same time school districts are starting another year with hundreds of staffing vacancies. “While he spoke of “parental empowerment” and “different options” for education, Abbott may have avoided the word “voucher,” but that’s exactly his goal,” he added.

 

CBS DFW

Dallas Morning News

Houston ISD trustees Thursday evening approved a measure to buy 200 rifles, ammunition and 200 ballistic shields for the district’s police department, which Superintendent Millard House II said last week was not prepared with its current equipment to stop an active shooter. Trustees voted 6-3 on the purchase after spending roughly an hour in closed executive session discussing the item and about 20 minutes of discussion from the dais. HISD Police Chief Pete Lopez told the board last week he was confident in the training the police department had received but he did “not have a lot of confidence in preparing our officers to encounter a suspect without the proper equipment.” The equipment to be purchased would be used to help with scenario-based training to learn how to respond to such a threat.

 

Houston Chronicle

Montgomery ISD has installed vape-detecting technology in bathrooms at Montgomery and Lake Creek high schools. The units are Halo Smart Sensors, which the company site describes as a "vape detector, an air quality monitor and a complete security device for privacy areas where you do not want to use a camera or microphone." The devices provide automated air quality reports that "allow building owners and administrators to demonstrate they are providing a healthy indoor environment," according to the site. Montgomery ISD board of trustees members approved roughly $49,000 in funding for the acquisition of Halo sensors, which can also detect THC and chemicals, lighting levels, room occupancy, as well as gunshots, "aggression" and spoken keywords via two mics built for audio analysis, not live recording. Signs will be posted at bathrooms informing students of the presence of sensors, according to Amanda Davis, Montgomery ISD Executive Director of Technology, who said that administrators will receive a text and email when the devices detect an incident has occurred. Tyler ISD has also installed vape detectors at its high school campuses and the Career & Technology Center. Tyler ISD will also tighten the policy regarding vaping. If a student is caught vaping or with a vape product, they will be sent to the district’s Discipline Alternative Education Program. Students will also receive a Class C misdemeanor citation and a fine of up to $100.

 

ABC 13

The Chron

Longview News-Journal

Beaumont ISD has appointed Richelle Brooks to the role of interim Senior Director of Special Services, after Tyrell White stepped down earlier this summer. Ms. Brooks most recently served as Beaumont ISD's Director of High School Feeder Patterns.   

 

Beaumont Enterprise

In a new nationally representative survey, one in four teachers said they were told by school or district leaders to limit their classroom conversations about political and social issues. The survey, released on Wednesday by the RAND Corporation, found that nearly one in three said they’d gotten those orders while working in a state with an official restriction on teaching about racism, sexism, or other contentious topics. However, even teachers in states without official policies also felt the pressure, with one in five told to limit their classrooms discussions. The survey is based on responses from nearly 2,400 K-12 teachers earlier this year, when 14 states had laws or official policies limiting how schools can teach about race, racism, or other forms of bias. Since then, three more states have added similar restrictions, and others are still considering them. The survey found that teachers of color who worked mostly with other teachers of color or with students of color were less likely to say they’d been told to limit their classroom conversations, suggesting their schools and the families they serve are more supportive of classroom conversations about race, racism, and bias, the researchers wrote.

 

Chalkbeat

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

Members of Texas A&M’s faculty this week furthered claims that the university president has failed to properly consult direct stakeholders as she makes sweeping changes to the university. The A&M Faculty Senate on Monday passed a resolution that calls on President M. Katherine Banks to engage with faculty earlier in her decision-making process. They said her actions have worked against the widely accepted concept of shared governance, which holds that the best and most lasting transformations in higher education come with collective buy-in from faculty. “We felt that now was the time to make a serious statement in the hopes that we could hit a reset button and begin working more closely with President Banks in meaningful shared governance,” Faculty Senate Speaker Dale Rice said. “It’s disappointing that this resolution doesn’t recognize the extensive faculty input that has been listened to on every major issue and change that has occurred in the last year,” N.K. Anand, vice president of faculty affairs, said in a statement. “There have been multiple opportunities for faculty opinion to influence decisions. There simply is not a single example given of when both the spirit and the letter of the policy was not followed.”

 

Houston Chronicle