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School meal programs have faced a host of challenges this year, from the limited availability of items such as chicken, pizza and muffins and late food deliveries, to high inflation and a shortage of cooks and drivers. A new test emerged this week, with the omission of the waivers that keep school meal costs down from the latest federal budget deal. Early in the pandemic, federal officials issued several waivers that allowed schools to serve meals in ways they typically wouldn’t be able to under federal rules. Those allowances, extended through this school year, permitted schools to continue to do things like hand out grab-and-go meals when students had to quarantine or temporarily return to virtual learning, and serve meals in classrooms to allow for more social distancing. Those provisions also meant schools got back more money per meal than they typically would during the school year. When the waivers expire, schools will take in $1.65 less per meal on average, a 36% drop, according to a federal estimate. “School nutrition directors are really worried about what happens next, summer food sponsors are really worried about how they’re going to operate their programs,” said Crystal FitzSimons, the director of school programs for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center. “We think it’s going to be a crisis.” When the waivers expire, schools will also again face financial penalties if they can’t meet the usual national nutrition standards, which can happen when schools have to substitute food items if an order gets canceled or arrives without certain ingredients. Advocates are also concerned the end of the waivers will make it harder to serve food to children over the summer, which is usually a difficult time to reach families. 

 

Chalkbeat

School was canceled for a third day in Minneapolis on Thursday, as teachers continue to strike. The union and school district have repeatedly failed to negotiate a deal that would return nearly 30,000 students to class. It's the city's first educators' strike in 50 years. The union is pushing for a 12% pay raise for teachers, a higher starting salary for education support professionals, and smaller class sizes. Ma-Riah Roberson-Moody, who works at a Minneapolis high school, says her $24,000 salary leaves her struggling to make ends meet. "I’m fighting to stay at this job because I really, really love what I’m doing. But I just do not make enough money. I can make more money right now going to work at Target than I do working for Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), and that is difficult." MPS superintendent Ed Graff says that while he shares the same goals as the union, the district simply cannot afford what it is demanding. “We have all these priorities that we want to have happen, and we don’t have the resources for it,” he laments.

 

NBC News

A southwestern Missouri school district that struggles to fill teacher vacancies plans to go to a four-day week starting next fall. The Marshfield district is among at least nine in Missouri now planning to switch to the shorter week in the fall, pushing the total number of districts in Missouri using the truncated schedule to 128, which equates to around 25% of the state's school systems. Marshfield Superintendent Mike Henry, who stressed that the change will mean hourly pay rates will rise "substantially," reveals that the district recently received just 27 applications for five openings. In 2016, he says, the district received 313 applications for four elementary openings. Missouri lawmakers granted districts the flexibility to adopt four-day weeks in the middle of an economic downturn. The Kansas City-area district Lathrop was the first to switch, way back in 2010.

 

US News and World Report

To learn how employers can help meet the needs of staff affected by the invasion of Ukraine — as well as other global conflicts, HR Dive spoke with Tiamo Katsonga-Phiri, director of the University of Denver's Trauma Disaster Recovery Clinic, and Thomas Barrett, clinical professor emeritus at the University of Denver's Graduate School of Professional Psychology. Employers can help themselves respond to employees' stress by understanding the mental health symptoms that tend to appear in response to global conflict. Common responses to past trauma include post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and generalized anxiety, Katsonga-Phiri said. Common symptoms outside of work may include nightmares, difficulty sleeping, difficulty eating and flashbacks. In the workplace, symptoms might look like difficulty concentrating, an unexpectedly slow pace, excessive worry, sudden panic and difficulty building relationships with co-workers. Employees may benefit from more flexibility in breaks and hours worked, even if just in the form of providing the time and private space during work hours to call family who live in another time zone may be a major benefit for some workers. Barrett also said that organizing an action in response to a conflict, such as fundraising drives and volunteer activities to support refugees, can help address feelings of powerlessness.

 

K-12 Dive

In one of his first big plays in the role, Chicago Public Schools superintendent Pedro Martinez is proposing that the district drop part of the current system that awards 30% of seats at selective enrollment schools strictly based on a student's seventh grade marks and test scores. Such a move would almost certainly open up more seats to a more diverse student population and make it more difficult for students from the city's upper-income neighborhoods to get in. Most of the seats at these selective schools (70%) are divided among four groups of students based on the socioeconomic characteristics of where they live. Students earn a score out of 900 based on their grades and test scores, and then compete for seats against students in their same socioeconomic group. Another 30% of the seats are awarded exclusively to students who earn the most points in the admissions system, and those seats mostly go to higher-income students. Officials are proposing either getting rid of the rank order set aside, or reserving more spots for students for lower-income communities.

 

Chicago Sun Times

The Jersey City School District will lose $68.5m in state aid for the 2022-2023 school year, according to the latest figures. Jersey City Interim Superintendent Norma Fernandez did not expect a 27% reduction in state funding. “We are going to have to make some difficult decisions,” she says, noting that 70% of the district's budget is staffing. Of the five schools with cuts, Jersey City will see the largest reduction, from $253.2m to $184.7m. Weehawken saw a reduction of 13%, or $284,166, and Hoboken will receive $701,657, or 8.54%, less. The North Bergen school district had the second-biggest cut in state aid with $2.6m slashed from this year's $65.7m. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy introduced a 2023 budget proposal this week that includes $11.6bn in direct aid for New Jersey's K-12 schools, which is about $662m more than last year. While around 385 districts will see an increase in formula aid, about 180 districts would lose some aid as part of a multi-year reallocation of state funding away from school systems considered "overfunded" via the school formula. Just eight districts would receive flat aid from the 2022 budget. The governor continues working toward his goal of fully funding the state's school aid formula, but remains about $683m short of that goal, according to analysis by the Education Law Center advocacy group.

 

NJ.com

NJ.com

The Alabama House has approved an $8.125bn Education Trust Fund that provides increases in teacher salaries and increased funding for reading and science programs. House Ways and Means Education Committee chair Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, said the budget would try to focus on improving low-performing schools: "These schools need our immediate attention and help. Our overall rankings will not improve unless we identify, target and focus on improving these underperforming school systems in our state," he said. The package now moves up to the Senate.

 

Tuscaloosa News

Al.com

K-12 Dive speaks to five school principals, from Vermont, Colorado, Illinois, and Alabama, about the benefits and burdens of having received three rounds of ESSER funding, including having more money to hire staff, but no candidates to fill the positions, and the difficulties of determining exactly what expenses are allowable. 

 

K-12 Dive

Closing arguments in Pennsylvania’s school funding trial are scheduled for today, marking the beginning of the end for a case that began in 2014. While it'll likely take time before a final resolution is reached, the plaintiffs, who are six school districts, three families, and two civil rights organizations, have worked for years to overturn a longstanding system of paying for education that has resulted in some of the largest gaps in revenue between rich and poor districts in the nation. They want the state to spend more money on education and distribute the aid more equitably to reduce the gaps, and bring all districts up to what they are calling “adequacy.” Marking one of the lowest percentages in the nation, Pennsylvania pays just 38% towards the cost of its public schools, with local communities picking up most of the rest, along with help from the federal government.

 

Pennsylvania Capital-Star

The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced recipients of $17m in school bus rebate opportunities under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA). Under ARP, $7m in funding goes to school districts in underserved communities to replace old diesel buses with new, zero-emission electric models. The $10m in DERA rebates will aid in replacing 444 school buses across the country. “The historic investments in clean transportation resulting from President (Joe) Biden’s leadership will have lasting impacts on protecting clean air for children for generations,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “This round of school bus grants from the American Rescue Plan is just the beginning. The unprecedented $5bn investment that’s on the way for clean and zero-emission school buses from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will transform how millions of children get to school and help build a better America for a new generation.”

 

School Bus Fleet