This message was sent to ##Email## To advertise in this publication please click here July 16, 2021 ##\member## .PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP How kids benefit when principals get a say in spending federal COVID-19 aid Education Week In the Shamong Township school district in southern New Jersey, about 30 miles from Philadelphia, a select group of elementary school students will spend part of the summer honing their reading and social-emotional skills under a white, 10 x 20 outdoor tent, not far from their homes. READ MORE MULTIBRIEFS EXCLUSIVE Strategies to attract new teachers to schools that need them most By Brian Stack School principals from coast to coast are reporting that this year may have been one of the most tumultuous for hiring and staffing. The pandemic disrupted normal staffing patterns for a variety of reasons, including filling the voids left by teachers who needed to take leaves of absences and those who needed to work remotely (which meant someone needed to be in the classroom, in person with students). Principals had to get creative on how they would find new teachers. READ MORE 3 changes that will outlast the pandemic eSchool News Many have labeled the pandemic's run as our "lost year" – lost activities, lost vacations, lost connections. More commonly, however, it is a reference to the loss of an academic year for America's children. Since March 2020, not a single day has been void of news stories, social media memes, or (socially-distanced) checkout aisle conversations about kids, school, dining room tables, and wondering when it will all end. And so "back to normal" has been our collective mantra. READ MORE 'Trauma is a lens, not a label': How schools can support all students MindShift The pandemic has raised concerns about the way stress is affecting kids. Even though the word "trauma" is on a lot of worried adults' minds these days, information about it is wide-ranging and can leave people feeling unsure about what to do next. READ MORE VIDEO SHOWCASE Principals say this is the go-to fundraiser for the upcoming school year. Promoted By Boosterthon Positive Environment for All Students Promoted By HONORABLE CHARACTER Should schools continue offering virtual learning post-pandemic? We Are Teachers Transitioning to a virtual learning platform during the COVID-19 pandemic was a seismic shift for schools and teachers. Most students are looking forward to returning to school in person, while others say remote learning worked best for them. They say they felt more at ease asking questions in virtual classrooms, and some revealed that virtual learning helped them feel free from what they call the "stressful environment of school." READ MORE 6 ways to beat COVID's academic and emotional 'Thriving Gap' District Administration Magazine A social, emotional, and academic "thriving gap" opened up between in-person and remote high school students during the pandemic, new research has found. The American Educational Research Association study provides some of the first empirical evidence of how online learning harmed adolescent well-being, said researcher Angela L. Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder and CEO of Character Lab. READ MORE 64% of top districts to hold virtual academies this fall, option may entice families as Delta variant concerns mount The 74 Nearly two-thirds of top districts will offer students the option to learn in stand-alone, remote academies next school year, according to a recent tally from Burbio, a website that tracks school calendars and reopenings. Of the 200 largest U.S. school systems, 128 will hold virtual programs this fall, while 60 — such as those in New York City, Newark and Chicago — will offer no fully remote options, save for medical exceptions for immunocompromised students. Another 12 have yet to announce their plans. READ MORE  SPONSORED CONTENT Promoted by Peaceful Playgrounds Enter the U.S. Map Contest. It’s free to enter Playground Stencils A Recess Program that Works Ten Reasons Why Recess is So Important Social Distancing Playground Program 3 superintendents share their COVID 'a-ha!' moments eSchool News When the COVID-19 pandemic closed physical classrooms, schools had mere days to get up and running online. And not only did they have to meet students' academic needs, they had to meet their social and emotional needs, too. With a light at the end of the tunnel and plans to open in-person this fall, three superintendents are sharing lightbulb moments, what technology they're using this fall, and what practices they would leave behind if able. READ MORE 4-day school weeks: Educational innovation or detriment? The Brookings Institution Four-day school week schedules are becoming an increasingly common experience for America's rural youth. These schedules typically involve increasing the length of the school day four days per week and "dropping" the fifth day. In the spring before the COVID-19 pandemic, 662 districts were using the schedule across 24 states, an increase of over 600% since 1999. READ MORE Regular rapid testing detects COVID-19 soon enough to stop transmission in schools Simon Fraser University via Science Daily Proactive, frequent rapid testing of all students for COVID-19 is more effective at preventing large transmission clusters in schools than measures that are only initiated when someone develops symptoms and then tests positive, researchers have found. READ MORE  PRODUCT SHOWCASE Support College and Career Readiness On-demand professional learning: In this social-emotional behavior (SEB) Academy Master Class, Dr. Sherril English discusses how to prepare middle and high school students in the successful transition to life after high school by integrating SEL into the classroom environment and instruction Watch the video. Move from a good leader to a great leader The Lead Change Group What does it take to find the sweet spot in leadership? Some leaders operate at the extremes — doing too much, then too little. They centralize, then they decentralize, only to centralize again. Some leaders delegate, but then swoop back in and grab control. READ MORE 4 lessons 2020 taught us about adaptability in the workplace Entrepreneur For years, professionals have asserted that the ability to adapt and be flexible would determine whether businesses sank or swam. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, put that ability to the absolute test in 2020. We've learned some major lessons through the crisis that, fortunately, hold the potential to help company leaders and teams build back stronger than ever before. READ MORE Noticing: The gift that keeps on giving Leadership Freak (commentary) "We recently ate at a busy restaurant in Chicago. Staff bustled but didn't hurry. I asked if we could sit outside for dinner. The hostess spotted a table, hustled over to clean it, and seated us in two shakes of a lamb's tail. During dinner, my wife and I noticed the hostess seating people, cleaning tables, and serving food. She hustled around like she owned the place." READ MORE  SPONSORED CONTENT Promoted by Tangible Play (Osmo) Osmo for Schools is a 2021 EdTech Digest Curriculum & Instruction Solution Award WINNER! Osmo for Schools is offering a FREE webinar June 16, 2021 on Osmo best practices. Apply for a $2000 Osmo for Schools grant for Osmo products for your classrooms. To be a more effective communicator, follow these simple writing tips Forbes (commentary) Ashley Stahl, a contributor for Forbes, writes: "I was talking to my friend Sarah the other day, and she pointed something out that has been on my mind for a while. She launched her start-up a few years ago, and while it was a tight team for the first year, they've seen growth and are ready to take on some new team members." READ MORE Want to be a better leader? The trick is to embrace empathy (Here's how to do it) Inc. The past year and a half has demonstrated the power of empathy in the workplace. Now with vaccination rates rising, leaders are reconsidering how to inspire employees in a hybrid environment. At the same time, workers are increasingly looking for employers whose values are closely aligned with their own. Empathetic leadership may be the key to both. READ MORE Who do you want to be when you grow old Leadership Freak Living without purpose is easy; just run around doing stuff as fast as you can. Turbulence, opportunity, and too much to do are the perfect environment for doing machines. But human beings require purpose to thrive in today’s world. READ MORE  PRODUCT SHOWCASE Create a Culture of Literacy Dr. Don Vu examines six conditions for building a school’s culture of literacy to create an environment where immigrant and refugee children can thrive. Vu’s work is a testament to the transformative power of reading—a key to opening the door for all to realize the American Dream. LEARN MORE .EDUCATION POLICY The CDC issues new school guidance, with emphasis on full reopening The New York Times The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged schools to fully reopen in the fall, even if they cannot take all of the steps the agency recommends to curb the spread of the coronavirus — a major turn in a public health crisis in which childhood education has long been a political flash point. The agency also said school districts should use local health data to guide decisions about when to tighten or relax prevention measures like masking and physical distancing. READ MORE Special education programs have funding but lack the educators K-12 DIVE All but four states — Alaska, Mississippi, Tennessee and Vermont — reported teacher shortages in special education during the 2019-20 school year, according to U.S. Department of Education data. Additionally, recently published survey results from Frontline Education revealed 71% of districts with shortages find it challenging to recruit special education teachers. READ MORE House Democrats pitch 'massive funding increase' in latest education spending bill Education Week The main federal program supporting students from low-income backgrounds would increase by more than 100%, and overall funding for K-12 schools would increase by more than 60%, under an spending bill for the upcoming fiscal year proposed by House lawmakers. READ MORE .SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY Advocacy groups urge school administrators to ban eproctoring The Hill A coalition of 19 advocacy groups are urging school administrators to ban the use of "eproctoring" apps over concerns that the systems are invasive and can be harmful for students. Software that uses AI-powered systems to monitor students as they take tests, often through required webcam recordings and facial recognition technology, is known as eproctoring. READ MORE Wireless roaming network expands with support for K-12 schools at state and regional levels THE Journal Nonprofit Internet2 has been working with state and regional agencies to help accelerate the spread of eduroam into K–12 schools, libraries and museums, resulting in the launch of eduroam Support Organizations. eduroam is a worldwide WiFi roaming network developed for academic and research institutions. READ MORE The COVID-19 pandemic is a lousy natural experiment for studying the effects of online learning Education Next The COVID-19 pandemic that prompted a nationwide shutdown of schools and a shift to online instruction in spring 2020 also prompted a wave of articles calling this instructional change a "natural experiment" that could be used to study the effects of online education. Yet the pandemic disrupted so many aspects of children's academic, social, emotional and economic lives that its broad scope poses serious challenges to isolating the causal impact of any specific change, such as the switch to remote instruction. READ MORE  SPONSORED CONTENT Promoted by McGraw-Hill Identify and Address Individual Learning Gaps Many students will experience learning losses and have gaps in their knowledge and skills. With Rise, long-term learning loss doesn’t have to be one of the consequences. An adaptive math and ELA supplemental solution for grades 3-8 with over 1,100 learning objectives Rise can be used as independent practice work for progress monitoring, request a sample Discovery Ed adds new tools and content to learning platform THE Journal Discovery Education has released an update to its K–12 learning platform, offering a range of new features, tools and integration with other technologies. Among the updates is an improved Studio Tool, which allows teacher and students to create their own content. The update includes research-based activity templates, real-time collaboration, student presentation boards and slideshows and an embedded Microsoft Immersive Reader. Studio also includes some 1,500 ready-made activities that can be customized or used as-is. READ MORE Educators use ed tech to create virtual escape rooms for K-12 students EdTech Magazine Escape rooms require players to use critical thinking skills and teamwork to accomplish tasks and achieve their end goals. They can also teach core skills such as math, history and science using thematic components related to myriad relevant subjects. Because of this, they're an incredibly valuable tool for teaching students, but they aren't always easy to bring into the classroom. READ MORE FETC keynote: 5 insights into blockchain's K-12 impact District Administration Magazine Blockchain, a highly secure and decentralized type of online database, could soon impact everything from classroom instruction to college transcripts to business operations. Attendees of the Future of Education Technology® Conference 2022 will learn how blockchain can drive transparency, accountability and interoperability, during the keynote speech by world-renowned expert Primavera De Filippi, an international researcher and faculty associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. READ MORE PRODUCT SHOWCASE Promoting Sanitary Schools With Quad-Sinks Keeping students' hands clean can increase school attendance rates by 29%-57%. The Personal Protected® Quad-Sink™, a high volume mobile hand wash station comes equipped with social distancing barriers, touchless dispensers, and can service 120 students in just 10 minutes. Prevent illness by providing safe convenient hand washing.   LEARN MORE   Connect From Anywhere Stepping Stones Museum for Children brings its reputable, multidimensional learning approach to the Stepping Stones Studio. The Studio gives students access to a virtual world of brain-building, STEAM and fun-infused learning experiences, whether they are learning in the classroom or at home.   LEARN MORE   .PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Taking control of your professional growth Edutopia We made it through this school year, and educators are taking a collective deep and well-deserved breath. Our recovery will take time, but it will allow us to build bridges between past practices and new educational visions. The first step: let go of what didn't work and proactively pivot toward learning that ignites curiosity. If we want our students to be active learners, critical consumers, real-world connectors, and innovative creators, we should seek out learning opportunities that are tailored to meet our needs. READ MORE 3 steps educators can take to build social and emotional competence this summer eSchool News Summer is here, and if you haven't taken the opportunity yet, it's time to relax. Teacher stress amidst the pandemic has understandably received a lot of attention, but even before COVID-19 turned our world, including our schools, upside down in an unprecedented way, 61% of teachers reported that work was "always" or "often" stressful, which is twice the rate of the general population and akin to the stress levels reported by doctors and lawyers (Greenberg, Brown, & Abenavoli, 2016). READ MORE Knowing your students and yourself Teaching Channel (commentary) Ovid Wong Ph.D., a contributor for Teaching Channel, writes: "I used to believe that I was the most important element in the classroom. As an ambitious and naive new teacher, I assumed that students came into each lesson ready to learn from me. The students' glasses of learning were empty and they were thirsty — or so I thought!" READ MORE  FEATURED ARTICLE   Expert Strategies to Help Children Become Confident, Joyful Readers Promoted by Scholastic Eric Litwin, the original author of the best-selling Pete the Cat series, and Dr. Gina Pepin, an award-winning teacher, share practical tools and strategies to transform your classroom into a “reading playground”—a space where children read, sing, dance, and celebrate words and texts. The Power of Joyful Reading provides research-based solutions to implement successful shared reading experiences in daycare, preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary classrooms. These tools build students’ foundational literacy skills and help them learn to love books and see themselves as successful readers. LEARN MORE   MULTIBRIEFS EXCLUSIVE Struggling readers: Questions needing answers By Howard Margolis Given COVID-19's domination of the 2020-2021 academic year and the severe damage it did to the education of countless struggling readers, parents and teachers need to ask critical questions; questions that will help to accelerate the reading and writing achievements of struggling readers. For special education students, it's best to address these questions to the child's Individualized Education Program Team. READ MORE 50 tips, tricks and ideas for substitute teachers We Are Teachers If you're looking for inspiration for substitute teachers, look no further! Whether you're a seasoned sub or a total newbie, we've got you covered with these 50 tips, tricks and ideas from our very own WeAreTeachers HELPLINE! and around the Internet. READ MORE .EDUCATION RESEARCH Recess quality influences student behavior, social-emotional development Oregon State University via Science Daily Recess quality, not just the amount of time spent away from the classroom, plays a major role in whether children experience the full physical, mental and social-emotional benefits of recess, a new study has found. READ MORE Air pollution exposure linked to poor academics in childhood Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health via Science Daily Children exposed to elevated levels of air pollution may be more likely to have poor inhibitory control during late childhood and poor academic skills in early adolescence, including spelling, reading comprehension, and math skills. Difficulty with inhibition in late childhood was found to be a precursor to later air pollution-related academic problems. Interventions that target inhibitory control might improve outcomes. READ MORE Rural American students shift away from math and science during high school, study finds The Hechinger Report More and more jobs require training in science, technology, engineering and math. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, occupations in these fields are projected to grow 8 percent by 2029, more than double the growth rate of non-scientific professions. There's a pressing need to attract young students from all backgrounds to study these fields in college. READ MORE .IN THE STATES De Blasio keeps mask rules for New York City schools despite CDC changes Chalkbeat New York City schools will stick with universal masking for now, despite new federal guidance that OKs ditching face coverings for vaccinated students and teachers, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. Under new guidance released, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer recommends that staff and students who are vaccinated wear masks inside of schools. READ MORE PRODUCT SHOWCASE Become a Leader in a Field You Love Join an online, cohort-based program in educational leadership. Excel in critical areas such as school improvement and leadership, data analysis, human resource and fiscal management, professional collaboration, and more. Take the next steps in your career with a Master's degree in Education Leadership from ODUOnline.   LEARN MORE   Career Exploration in Middle School FableVision’s Creativity to Careers programs are designed to engage students in creative career explorations at the middle and high school level to increase graduation rates and most importantly, jobs. Both 18 Week courses Exploration in Animation and Engineering & Production are approved Florida’s Department of Education Digital Tools. CTE certification available.   LEARN MORE   California changes course on schools enforcing mask mandate The Associated Press When California told school districts they must still require masks for students and teachers indoors, the state left no room for doubt about its enforcement: If students refused, schools were to send them home. But hours after that announcement on Monday, public health officials in Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration abruptly changed course and said school districts would decide for themselves how to enforce the mask mandate. READ MORE Alabama schools are using summer reading camps to improve literacy. Will it work? The Birmingham News Early on a weekday in the middle of June, students gathered in the gym at Birmingham's Brown Elementary school, dancing the Cupid Shuffle and warming up for a day of learning. After a year of pandemic learning, with many students learning remotely the full school year, more than 60 students, from kindergarten through third grade, arrived at school to work on reading. READ MORE .ASSOCIATION NEWS Calling all aspiring principals NAESP Are you a teacher leader, an assistant principal, or an early career principal searching for quality professional learning to take your leadership to the next level? Are you a district leader committed to building a strong, diverse principal pipeline? The National Aspiring Principals Academy is accepting applications for its next cohort. READ MORE The NAESP Conference Blog NAESP Didn't make it to NAESP's annual conference this year? Or maybe you missed a session? Check out NAESP's Conference Blog for highlights from the NAESP Pre-K–8 Principals Conference in Chicago, and learn more about what you might have missed. READ MORE SUGGESTED COMPANIES Landscape Structures @Landscape Structures © Introduce a revolutionary swing forward in inclusive play experience with We-Go-Swing™. Read more   First No–Transfer Inclusive Swing   Promoted by Landscape Structures Stepping Stones Museum For Children © Explore space, travel to prehistoric times or enjoy our other STEAM-focused virtual workshops and camps. Read more   EXTRAORDINARY Virtual Learning Opportunities   Promoted by Stepping Stones Museum For Children GE Healthcare @GEHealthcare © We provide medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Read more   Healthcare Collaboration   Promoted by GE Healthcare   Principal Insights Connect with NAESP Jason Zimmerman, Director of Publishing, Multiview, 469-420-2686 | Download media kit Hailey Golden, Assistant Executive Editor, MultiView, 469-420-2630 | Contribute News National Association of Elementary School Principals 1615 Duke Street  |  Alexandria, VA 22314  800-386-2377  |  Contact Us  |  www.naesp.org Click here to unsubscribe.  Learn how to add us to your safe sender list so our emails get to your inbox. ADVERTISE SUBSCRIBE PAST ISSUES   7701 Las Colinas Ridge, Ste. 800, Irving, TX 75063