This message was sent to ##Email##
|
|
|
|
eSchool News
In addition to physical health concerns related to the COVID-19 outbreak, the global pandemic is causing most people — especially children — mental health stress and concerns, too. With schools across the country closed indefinitely and with states in various stages of social distancing or more severe lockdowns, students have lost their daily connections to friends and teachers. These abrupt changes in schedule can amplify anxiety and worry about what may happen to family members and friends.
READ MORE
EdTech Magazine
As schools stay closed across the country, many students and educators are adapting to a new reality of remote learning. School districts that moved the majority of instruction online had to address existing challenges — from the lack of device and internet access to looming cyberthreats on sensitive data. They also had to acknowledge and bridge the gap between teachers and technology to ensure its success.
READ MORE
By: Patrick Gleeson (commentary)
 By now, most Americans know that pension plans in this country have a problem — put simply, many and perhaps most pension funds don't have enough money to pay the pensions they've promised their retirees. The coronavirus has already deeply affected education in K-12 classrooms. Soon, it will also affect the pensions of K-12 teachers across the country. Here's why.
READ MORE
The Hechinger Report
At the start of World War II, millions of children were evacuated from London and other cities and sent to live with foster parents in the English countryside. What happened to these children became a subject of study for psychoanalyst Anna Freud, who wrote in a 1943 book that young people who remained with their families through the bombing "were much less upset" than those who were sent away.
READ MORE
We Are Teachers
Trauma exists in many forms, and many of our students live it daily. They are, in act experiencing a traumatic event right now and they need our help to manage their response. By building your own knowledge base around trauma, you can better support your students — both virtually (for now) and later, in your classroom. These articles and videos on trauma from WE Teachers will help you develop a trauma-informed practice.
READ MORE
District Administration Magazine
Districts must keep IDEA obligations in mind when planning for and conducting virtual IEP team meetings, which come with challenges but also benefits. Crane Independent School District teams have engaged in virtual IEP team meetings using the Zoom app since March 19. "It's almost more deliberate and more focused being online," says Shelley Garcia, the district's special education director. "A lot of times, in person, there is sidebar talking. It's not disorganized, but it has a tendency to go on longer than it has to go on. The Zoom meeting is more deliberate. Everybody takes their turns."
READ MORE
Education Week
The coronavirus pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to educators throughout the world. Schools have had to change entire instructional programs in widely varied contexts with inequitable access to technology and other vital resources. School closures and requirements for social isolation have created untold hardships for students and their families, especially those with multiple children at different grade levels, whose parents cannot stay at home, whose English may not be the primary language and where the parents are also teachers.
READ MORE
 |
|
Champions is an opportunity to exceed every parent’s expectations of what before and after school can be. Our programs immerse K–6 students in an inquiry-based, whole-child learning environment that supports academic and social-emotional learning. Support your teachers’ goals outside the school day without costing your district’s budget. Learn more
|
|
Leadership Freak
COVID-19 changes the way you think about the future. On-going disruption changes the way you think about yourself, others and the present. The imagined future transforms the present.
READ MORE
Inc. (commentary)
Jeff Steen, a contributor for Inc., writes: "Do me a favor: Google 'top factors for startup success' and skim the top five articles. I'll wait. Did you see a pattern emerge? You probably noticed what I did: Leadership, talent, capital, strategy, timing and ingenuity are frequently in attendance, often repeated several times over. It would seem that the business set has homed in on these as the cornerstones of entrepreneurial success — and with good reason. Studies show these to be key."
READ MORE
Harvard Business Review (commentary)
Nathan Furr, a contributor for Harvard Business Review, writes: "When confronting a situation freighted with anxiety and ambiguity — a pandemic, a recession, a job loss, an unwanted family change — most of us can imagine no upside. We become paralyzed, caught in a state I call unproductive uncertainty. But some can see their way through such moments and find a positive path forward. How?"
READ MORE
|
Promoted By
Move This World
|
|
|
|
|
|
Education Week
Governors can now officially apply for billions in aid intended to help public schools address the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced. The $3 billion in aid for the Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund was included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law. In a statement, DeVos stressed that this application is "streamlined" to make it easier for governors; she also said that governors have a chance to "truly rethink and transform the approach to education during this national emergency."
READ MORE
Tech & Learning
In a time when unity is particularly important, Congress reached a bipartisan agreement to pass a $2.2 trillion dollar stimulus package. The aim is to pump funds to citizens as well as agencies that are providing essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this historic funding package (known as the CARES Act), $16.5 billion is set to go directly to state and local education agencies.
READ MORE
Education Week
The coronavirus pandemic has already pounded states' budgets and will leave no school district unharmed next fiscal year. School finance experts and district administrators are just now starting to get their arms around how the widespread shutdown of the economy will impact the K-12 sector. It's not pretty. The spending disparities between rich and poor districts will only get worse, and there will likely be layoffs. Here are some key questions and answers about what to expect in the turbulent months and years ahead.
READ MORE
|
Promoted by
|
|
|
|
 |
District Administration Magazine
The shift to mandatory online learning as a result of the coronavirus has put a spotlight on persisting gender identity issues in schools that affect the privacy and safety of transgender students. From chat rooms to virtual test sites and discussion forums, schools are now relying more on online learning platforms, which generate student usernames based on their legal name in student information systems.
READ MORE
The Atlantic
San Francisco's Mission High School is one of the most diverse in the nation. Its roughly 1,100 students hold at least 47 different passports; more than 60% of students are considered low income. Even before the coronavirus threw the nation into an economic crisis, most of Mission High's students already struggled with access to basic needs — health care, housing, food or access to the internet or computers — in a city among the nation's wealthiest.
READ MORE
eSchool News
COVID-19, or the coronavirus, is causing a global crisis of historic proportions — it's not only changing the way we work, learn, travel, and interact with each other, but also increasing online security risks for both individuals and organizations. With the coronavirus forcing millions to work and study from home and interact more online than in person, cybercrime and cyber-attacks are on the rise.
READ MORE
|
|
Tech & Learning
In these unprecedented times, it is important for staff to be intentional about staying connected and supporting the social-emotional needs of their staff.
READ MORE
We Are Teachers (commentary)
Kimberley Moran, a contributor for We Are Teachers, writes: "For nearly every teacher I've ever met, morning meeting is the teeth brushing of the classroom — it feels good, it's good for you, and it has lasting effects. The human connection made during morning meeting might feel different online, but it's no less valuable."
READ MORE
PBS Newshour
With the outbreak causing indefinite school closures across the country, children are having to figure out new ways of learning and playing together while living in isolation. Special correspondent Karla Murthy checked in on one second-grade class in New York City to get a glimpse of how their worlds have changed.
READ MORE
 |
|
School shut down? Looking to expand your teachers' professional learning? IRIS can help. Supported by the U.S. Department of Education, we offer free online PD, covering behavior management, differentiated instruction, accommodations for students with disabilities and more, to increase your teachers' knowledge of evidence-based
practices:
https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/pd-hours/
|
|
MiddleWeb (commentary)
Rita Platt, a contributor for MiddleWeb, writes: "The 2019-2020 school year sure is turning out to be a doozy, huh? So many educators, including me, are learning how to provide meaningful instruction from a distance while maintaining a learning climate where students and families feel supported and cared about."
READ MORE
NPR
Despite cranky computers, conflicting schedules, shaky Internet connections and stubborn software glitches, Danielle Kovach got her whole class together a few Fridays ago for a video chat. Kovach teaches special education in Hopatcong, N.J., and this Friday class session was a celebration: They'd made it through the first few weeks of distance learning. Throughout those weeks, she'd maintained her 8:30 a.m. morning meeting over the computer, she was adhering to each student's IEP, or Individualized Education Plan, and juggling new lessons with old routines, as she adapted to the coronavirus crisis. She was exhausted.
READ MORE
MindShift
When Jennifer Szot sat down with her son to play a game involving mixed fractions, she found herself falling behind the fifth-grade math. "It took me five steps, and he did it in three," she said. The assignment was one of many that her son is expected to complete at home, when he's not working online, taking part in "live" classes, or participating in Google meetings with teachers. For Szot, who in regular life is a stay-at-home mother and volunteer, taking on the role of teacher, too, has been daunting.
READ MORE
Edutopia
The coronavirus pandemic has upended all students' day-to-day routines, but has created particular disruption for students with special needs, sensory processing disorders, and kids who have experienced trauma who rely on the structure of school to stay grounded. Creating an at-home sensory space and sensory tools that resemble the supports students received in school can help kids during this transition, easing them out of a meltdown or giving them a much-needed break before one starts.
READ MORE
MiddleWeb (commentary)
Curtis Chandler, a contributor for MiddleWeb, writes: "Imagine crash-landing in a remote part of the jungle. Out of pure survival, you set off through tangled forests and dense vegetation ... not knowing exactly which direction you are headed and having absolutely no idea where you will end up. For many of us, particularly those new(er) to the teaching profession, the recent weeks of 'distance learning-on-the-fly' has resulted in a similar feeling as we fumble through unfamiliar and uncharted territory."
READ MORE
We Are Teachers (commentary)
Captain Awesome, a contributor for We Are Teachers, writes: "I've been teaching for fifteen years. That's halfway to retirement, but any time someone mentions the possibility, I tell them there's no way I'll be ready. I love teaching. Thirty years won't be enough. I love basically every part of this job except faculty meetings. I rewrite my entire curriculum every year for fun. I make lesson plans while I walk my dog, just because I get excited about my ideas."
READ MORE
|
|
USA Today
At 8:40 a.m., a mindfulness coach at a private preschool in Miami used Zoom to greet toddlers lounging on carpets, beds and couches at home. Their faces lit up when she sang and said she loved them. At 8 a.m. in Nashville, Tennessee, charter school teachers met via Zoom while their principal beamed them onto Facebook Live. He reminded students to fill out the daily online survey about their well-being. "Do you feel safe at home?" is a question teachers monitor closely.
READ MORE
Teaching Channel
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all facing challenges in our personal and professional lives, the likes of which have never been seen. For our English learners, the fastest growing subgroup of students in the U.S., we are seeing the special challenges these students and their families face every day now magnified with schools being closed. At Confianza, our focus is providing access and opportunity to multilingual learners with our client schools and districts to respond in real time to the challenges of keeping teaching and learning going in some way, shape or form.
READ MORE
Edutopia
It was a simple experiment, but it changed the way we understand learning. Two groups of 8-year-olds tossed beanbags at a target three feet away. For the next 12 weeks, half of the kids continued to practice with the same target, while the other half practiced with targets at two and four feet away. At the end of the experiment, both groups completed a final test with the original target, three feet away.
READ MORE
District Administration Magazine
Working full-time while trying to manage their child's remote learning at home may seem impossible for parents of children with executive functioning deficits. Share these strategies with parents to ensure students continue to access their education despite the pandemic.
READ MORE
Healthline
The idea of long-term social distancing is daunting for everyone, but perhaps especially so for parents who have now become their children's main outlet for social interaction. In fact, as we prepare for a longer period of social distancing, many parents may be wondering how all this time away from others could affect the social development of their kids. Amy Learmonth, PhD, is a developmental psychologist who has studied children as young as 8 weeks old, looking at how they think and how their abilities change over time.
READ MORE
Ohio State University via Science Daily
Despite the time spent with smartphones and social media, young people today are just as socially skilled as those from the previous generation, a new study suggests. Researchers compared teacher and parent evaluations of children who started kindergarten in 1998 — six years before Facebook launched — with those who began school in 2010, when the first iPad debuted.
READ MORE
The Brookings Institution
Today, the Brown Center on Education Policy is releasing a new report on one of the unexplored effects of the opioid crisis: the link between the opioid epidemic and the educational outcomes of children in hard-hit areas. Written by Rajeev Darolia and John Tyler, the report suggests a need to be aware of the potentially negative effects of the opioid crisis on student learning, particularly in certain "hot spots" and rural areas.
READ MORE
NPR
They thought they'd have more time, teachers say. Many couldn't even say goodbye. "Everything happened so quickly," remembers Hannah Klumpe, who teaches seventh grade social studies in Greenville, S.C. "Friday I was at school, talking to my students, and they're like, 'Do you think they're going to close school?' And I was like, 'Oh, not right now!'" That weekend, South Carolina's governor announced the state's schools would close immediately, including Klumpe's Berea Middle School, and she hasn't seen her students in-person since. Her story is not uncommon.
READ MORE
EdSource
Schools in Los Angeles Unified will stay closed for the rest of the school year for in-class instruction amid the coronavirus pandemic, district Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday. To help students make up for lost learning, the district plans to offer virtual summer school in "four-week blocks of study for students at all levels" that will focus on literacy, math and critical thinking, he said.
READ MORE
NPR
The New York City Department of Education has reported that at least 50 employees have died in recent weeks due to suspected or confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to the education blog Chalkbeat. Dez-Ann Romain, a 36-year-old principal in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Kimarlee Nguyen, a 33-year-old author and teacher in Williamsburg, and Rosario Gonzalez, a 91-year-old teachers' aide in East Harlem, are among the educators who were lost. According to Chalkbeat, 21 of the 50 were teachers, while 22 were paraprofessionals, classroom aides who are typically much lower-paid than teachers.
READ MORE
NAESP
As the economy tumbles, and shortfalls are projected for state budgets, the financial outlook for public education is changing rapidly. In response to numerous inquiries on how districts and schools will be affected, Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab is partnering with the National Association of Elementary School Principals and AASA, The School Superintendents Association to offer a one hour webinar on what the financial turmoil will mean for public education and what superintendents and principals should expect. The session will share what the Edunomics Lab is learning about the financial outlook, CARES Act, other stimulus efforts and what states and districts and schools might consider as they make financial plans for the coming weeks and year.
READ MORE
NAESP
Pre-K-12 school districts across the country are leaping into uncharted territory to support students and families as teaching and learning shifts to being at home. This webinar will provide guidance specifically focused on the early grades (Pre-K-3rd grade) since this is a unique developmental period that requires differentiated support from the upper grades, especially during this transition to at-home e-Learning. We will focus on two fundamentals that should guide this work: child development and equity.
READ MORE
|
|
|
|
7701 Las Colinas Ridge, Ste. 800, Irving, TX 75063
|
