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The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voted on Saturday to lift a temporary injunction that it had placed on San Diego USD’s student COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The decision, reached by a 2-1 vote, lifts the injunction the court had placed on the mandate about a week ago. Judges had said the injunction would continue as long as the district continued to allow vaccine deferrals for pregnant students. But now that the district has removed that condition, the block has been removed too. The decision is the latest development in a legal battle surrounding a mandate that would restrict in-person learning and on-campus activities among SDUSD students 16 and older to those who are fully vaccinated. The policy would take effect January 24th, and students and staff must be fully vaccinated by December 20th. The district insists it’s a necessary step to ensure students and staff are protected against the coronavirus, but critics say it’s an infringement on personal liberty. A 16-year-old junior at Scripps Ranch High School sued the district in October, alleging that the mandate violated her religious beliefs. Namely, she stated that, as a Christian, she is unwilling to take vaccines developed using aborted fetal cells. The district announced the next day that it had removed the pregnancy deferral. That leaves only a limited number of exemptions, such as doctor-certified medical conditions that would make vaccination unsafe. There’s still no exemption for personal beliefs, but the court ruled that there wasn’t clear evidence the mandate had been created to target anyone’s beliefs.

 

Los Angeles Times

The Iowa Department of Education's "Annual Condition of Education" report confirms a drop in the number of certified enrolled pre-K-12 public school students for the first time in 10 years. Statewide enrollment shrank by almost 6,000 since the 2019-20 school year. Iowa had an increase in the number of teachers last year however, with 38,022 full-time public school teachers last school year, compared to 37,567 in 2019-20. Iowa's public schools also became more diverse, with the share of students from minority populations growing from 25.7% to 26.1%. Groups counted as minorities include African American, American Indian, Asian and Hispanic students. The percent of Iowa students whose native language is not English decreased from 6.5% to 6.3%. The percent of students who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches decreased from 42.4% to 41.8%. Fewer students took Advanced Placement courses, down from 54.3% to 51.7%. A few less students also took higher-level math classes such as calculus, statistics and trigonometry, down from 48.8% to 48.6%.

 

DesMoines Register.com

In March, Congress set aside $800m in COVID relief money to help homeless students and their families find housing. However, although the first $200m was issued within six weeks, in several states most schools are still waiting to see the first dollar of these funds due to red tape and a lack of urgency from state lawmakers or officials, according to a Chalkbeat report. Those states include New York, Florida, and Missouri, which serve some of the nation’s largest numbers of homeless students, as well as Kentucky, West Virginia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota. Together, they enroll one of every four homeless students in the country. In New York, education officials said they wouldn’t distribute funds until federal officials approved an overall spending plan, a step federal officials say was not necessary. State officials said they didn’t want to burden districts with changes if federal officials requested them. The state hasn’t awarded any money yet. Elsewhere, in Missouri, schools can’t access the money until state lawmakers accept the funds. The state legislature isn’t expected to meet until January. Barbara Duffield, who heads SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of homeless youth, said she understood that it can take time for education officials to thoughtfully plan to spend a new source of federal funds. But she worries some states haven’t prioritized getting this money into schools’ hands. “Like with all of the relief funds, both the homeless dollars and the others, there is the tension between: Use it strategically to transform systems, and ‘reimagine’ schools… and at the same time there is the now, now, now,” she said. “The thing that’s frustrating is when there’s pointless bureaucracy that gets in the way, or when it just doesn’t rise to the level of priority."

 

Chalkbeat

The U.S. Department of Education has introduced a new community of practice that aims to assist states and school districts plan and pay for evidence-based programs to help accelerate learning for students, particularly those most impacted by the ongoing pandemic. A second community of practice will investigate strategies to specifically help kindergartners prepare for early school success and learning recovery. This effort will address social-emotional development, family engagement, access disparities to in-person learning and dips in school enrollments. The communities of practice aim to help school systems build capacity to implement interventions so the efforts best address students’ needs. "Students across the country have felt the impact of school building closures as a result of the pandemic," U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. "While the good news is that nearly 100% of America’s schools have now returned to in-person instruction, we must provide the necessary supports to nurture all students’ social-emotional well-being, mental health, and positive academic outcomes by addressing the impact of lost instructional time."

 

K-12 Dive

The nation's public education system could be transformed under President Joe Biden's plan to create free, universal pre-K, which would make preschool available and affordable for 6m more children. However, if passed by Congress as part of a sweeping social safety net bill, one major challenge to implementation is hiring tens of thousands of new teachers at a time when schools are already struggling to fill existing positions. Between 40,000 and 50,000 new teachers are needed to enroll just 70% of 3- and 4-year-olds, according to an estimate from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. That doesn't include any additional classroom assistants, paraprofessionals or other staff that might be needed. The proposal, which is included in a Democrat-backed $1.9 trillion spending bill moving through Congress, aims to enroll more children and increase the quality of pre-K programs. It would also limit overall child care costs for families with children younger than age 6 to no more than 7% of income for those earning up to 250% of state median income, expanding access to about 20 million children. Together, the bill would provide $381.5bn for those provisions over six years.

 

CNN

A bill signed into law by Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker would mandate that middle and high school students in the state would learn about the history of genocide and human rights issues. The bill would create a Genocide Education Trust Fund to support the development of teaching materials and to provide professional development training for educators, and also require school districts to annually file a description of their lesson plan and programs to educate students about genocides with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Massachusetts, which had not required education on the Holocaust or other genocides as part of its classroom curriculum thus far, joins as many as 17 states requiring such teaching as part of their secondary school curriculums.

 

AP News

More than half of U.S. state school boards have pushed back against the National School Boards Association (NSBA) after the organization sent a letter to the White House suggesting parents might be engaging in domestic terrorism. Ten state school boards have issued statements disagreeing with the letter, and 17 more state school boards have either voted to withdraw their memberships, participation and/or dues from the NSBA, with Georgia, Florida and Alabama being the most recent examples, according to a list from Parents Defending Education (PDE), a parent advocacy nonprofit. The NSBA's September 29th letter sparked backlash from lawmakers, parents and educational leaders as it appeared to prompt a Justice Department (DOJ) memo about a nationwide investigation into intimidation against school boards. "Labeling parents as domestic terrorists isn't a great strategy when it comes to your organization, whether you're a school board or any other type of organization," said Corey DeAngelis, national director of research at school choice organization School Choice Now. The NSBA issued an apology on October 22nd for the letter to President Joe Biden, saying "there was no justification for some of the language included."

 

Fox News

Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of the 15-year-old accused of murdering four students at a high school in Michigan, have been charged with four counts each of involuntary manslaughter; an exceptionally rare move the prosecutor said was warranted by laying out a timeline of "egregious" mistakes and missed opportunities to prevent the shooting. The parents of Ethan Crumbley purchased the handgun used in Tuesday's shooting at Oxford High School, apparently as a Christmas gift for their son on Black Friday, and stored it improperly, said Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald at a news conference midday Friday. Meanwhile, Oxford Community Schools Superintendent Tim Throne has announced that a third party will investigate events at the school prior to the shooting, which left four students dead and six others and a teacher wounded. “It’s critically important to the victims, our staff and our entire community that a full and transparent accounting be made,” he said. On Tuesday, a teacher found a note on Ethan’s desk and took a photo. It was a drawing of a gun pointing at the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me,” McDonald said. There also was a drawing of a bullet, she said, with words above it: “Blood everywhere.” Between the gun and the bullet was a person who appeared to have been shot twice and is bleeding, she said. “My life is useless” and “The world is dead” also were written. Ethan Crumbley and both his parents met with school officials at 10 a.m. Tuesday. His parents left, and Ethan went back to his classes with his backpack, where investigators believe he stashed the gun. Authorities were not notified, something that county Sheriff Michael Bouchard said he wishes would have been done.

 

The Hill

NPR

New York Times

Politico