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High poverty schools, schools with 75% or more minority students, and city schools all anticipate a higher number of teaching vacancies than other schools for the 2022-23 school year, according to a survey of 859 public schools released Thursday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The teaching positions most schools expect to be very difficult to fill include foreign languages, computer science, and special education. Of the schools surveyed, 88% reported teacher and staff burnout, and 82% said mental health became a more pressing staffing concern in the 2021-22 school year. Some 62% said inability to fill vacant positions also became a greater concern last school year. At the same time, 50% of students began the 2021-22 school year behind grade level in at least one academic subject, compared to 36% at the start of a typical pre-pandemic school year. By the end of the 2021-22 school year, however, the percentage of students behind in at least one academic subject returned to 36%—marking a 14 percentage-point reduction, said NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr. U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement the data points to ”significant progress” made by students during the 2021-22 school year. 

 

K12 Dive

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!

Register for the webinar here

 

The teacher shortage in America has hit crisis levels and school officials nationwide are scrambling to fill vacant roles ahead of the new school year. The Nevada State Education Association estimated that roughly 3,000 teaching jobs remained unfilled across the state’s 17 school districts as of early August. In a January report, the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents found that 88% of school districts statewide were having “problems with teacher shortages,” while 2,040 teacher openings were either empty or filled with a “less than qualified” hire. In the Houston area, the largest five school districts are all reporting that between 200 and 1,000 teaching positions remain open. A new state law in Arizona allows college students to take teaching jobs. A similar law, which took effect in Florida on July 1, offers K-12 teaching jobs to military veterans who served for at least four years. Some rural school districts in Texas meanwhile are switching to four-day weeks this fall due to lack of staff. Carlton Jenkins, superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin, says teachers are so scarce that superintendents across the country have even developed a "whisper network" to alert each other when educators move between states.

 

Washington Post

States are investing federal COVID-19 relief funds to build up the early childhood education workforce through increased compensation, mental health supports, professional development and more, according to an analysis of spending from the National Association of State Boards of Education. As of May, 12% of early childhood education positions — or 117,400 — remained unfilled or were eliminated, according to NASBE. Many early education programs closed temporarily during the pandemic, wreaking havoc on the ability to maintain a stable workforce. Money from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, however, has provided states an opportunity for a strong recovery, NASBE said. “With substantial federal COVID relief funding, state boards of education have new opportunities to advocate for investment in efforts to address ECE teacher shortages and retention in particular,” said Winona Hao, NASBE’s director of early learning, in a statement.

 

K-12 Dive

City officials have announced that schools in New York City can now use $100m of federal stimulus money they’ve already received for “academic recovery” to instead pay for school staff. It was previously earmarked for various costs, such as overtime pay for tutoring or other extra support, but could not be used for teacher salaries since it’s temporary funding, set to run out in the 2024-2025 school year. Officials changed tack after hearing from principals, teachers and families, schools Chancellor David Banks acknowledged. Separately, the city planned to distribute nearly 70% of $50m in funding this week to schools that have appealed their budgets because they couldn’t meet students' needs. Officials had previously paused on distributing this funding because of a lawsuit filed seeking to invalidate the school budget cuts.

 

New York Post

Educators in the Cedar Rapids School District in Iowa are seeing fewer disruptive behaviors in the classroom and improved academic outcomes with the implementation of a new training focused on strengthening teacher-child relationships. The Teacher-Child Interaction Training-Universal model is a professional development program designed to increase teachers’ confidence in their ability to manage challenging behaviors. During the 2021-22 school year, teachers being trained in this model praised students more and had fewer behavior disruptions in their classrooms, according to data from the Grant Wood Area Education Agency, which provides the training. Students also achieve higher academically, according to the data, and behavior improves. The program is being piloted in three district elementary schools, Cleveland, Wright and Nixon, and three school districts, College Community, Mid-Prairie and Williamsburg.

 

The Gazette Cedar Rapids Iowa

City officials have announced that schools in New York City can now use $100m of federal stimulus money they’ve already received for “academic recovery” to instead pay for school staff. It was previously earmarked for various costs, such as overtime pay for tutoring or other extra support, but could not be used for teacher salaries since it’s temporary funding, set to run out in the 2024-2025 school year. Officials changed tack after hearing from principals, teachers and families, schools Chancellor David Banks acknowledged. Separately, the city planned to distribute nearly 70% of $50m in funding this week to schools that have appealed their budgets because they couldn’t meet students' needs. Officials had previously paused on distributing this funding because of a lawsuit filed seeking to invalidate the school budget cuts.

 

New York Post

Software that tracks students’ online activity is more often flagging incidents that lead to disciplinary action and law enforcement interactions rather than resulting in efforts to make students safer, according to a survey of students, parents and teachers by the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). Seventy-eight percent of teachers whose schools use monitoring software from firms such as GoGuardian, Gaggle, Securly and Bark said students have been flagged for violating disciplinary policy while 54% of teachers polled said monitoring software was used to refer students to a counselor, therapist, or social worker for behavior-related interventions. This imbalance should lead school officials to consider ways to minimize harmful risks monitoring software can cause to students’ civil rights, as well as to limit the unnecessary involvement of law enforcement, said Elizabeth Laird, director of the Equity in Civic Technology Project at CDT. Her sentiments are echoed by Joel Schwarz, a consultant and attorney specializing in privacy, cybersecurity, cyberintelligence and electronic surveillance, and Emily Cherkin, co-founder of the Student Data Privacy Project. In an opinion piece for The Hill they urge the Federal Trade Commission to enforce Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act obligations on EdTech providers, and call on Congress to update 1974's Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects students' personally identifiable information in most circumstances, but which, they say, needs a revamp for the internet age.

 

The Hill

K-12 Dive

The 74

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is offering matching funds for some school districts that apply for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program. “Our match program was established because the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency wanted to encourage as many Minnesota schools to apply for the federal funds as possible,” says Lauren Lewandowski, spokesperson for the MPCA. “The federal funds are distributed through a ‘lottery’ process, so the more Minnesota schools that apply, the better chance we have of getting more electric buses in the state.”

 

School Bus Fleet

Up to 18 school districts or bus contractors around the state will soon start using electric school buses and charging stations, thanks to a bill Gov. Phil Murphy signed Thursday that sets aside $15 million annually for three years for the efforts. The Assembly passed the bill in May, 47-31, and the Senate passed it in June, 23-15, with two not voting. Some Republican lawmakers called the bill too expensive and a distraction from students’ pandemic-related educational and mental health needs.

 

NJ.com

Ohio is awarding $47m for security upgrades at over 1,100 schools in 81 counties, and will accept applications for another $53m in that grant program. Gov. Mike DeWine said schools could get up to $50,000 each for physical safety upgrades, such as security cameras, automatic door locks, visitor badging systems and exterior lighting. "While there's nothing magical about the total $100m, it's a good place to start with basic safety needs," he says. The school districts receiving the most money include $1.6m for Cleveland, over $900,000 for Cincinnati and Columbus, $800,000 for Springfield, and over $600,000 for Akron, Dublin and Lakota, north of Cincinnati.

 

U.S. News