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.PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP
States can wield huge influence over principal quality. Are they using it?
Education Week
How are states using their influence to improve principal quality? A new report from the RAND Corporation gives some insights into what seven states are doing to better prepare principals for their jobs, using policy levers at their disposal. The states are California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia, where seven universities and several districts have partnered as part of a Wallace Foundation initiative to redesign principal preparation programs. Each university-district partnership is also collaborating with a state agency (for example, the state department of education or the standards board).
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MULTIBRIEFS EXCLUSIVE
Reflections from a school leader: What I'm thankful for in 2020
By Brian Stack
 I hope you all had the opportunity to celebrate, in some small way, the Thanksgiving holiday this past week. As we enter the season of giving this month, we will all need to make some adjustments and concessions to our “normal” celebration routines during the holiday season as a result of the challenges brought to us by the pandemic. This fall, as an educational leader, there is no shortage of things to be thankful about. Here are the top two things that made my list this year, thanks to the pandemic.
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Thanks to teachers, learning loss this year was not as bad as projected, NWEA finds
EdSurge
When it comes to learning loss during COVID-19, the question is not whether it has happened, but how much. A new report out from NWEA, a non-profit assessment organization, offers insight into just how steep the so-called COVID slide has been so far. The good news is that students learned a lot more doing remote learning than education groups projected they would. The bad news is students still learned notably less than they would have in a typical year.
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Promoted By
Erlab
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Promoted By
Apothepack
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Focus on teachers with a school holiday countdown
We Are Teachers (commentary)
"2020 is almost over and I'm sure we all are in need of a morale boost! If you're looking for ways to energize your staff, we have a great idea: a staff Countdown to Holiday Break! Tons of talented administrators and school leaders have been sharing the ways they use a countdown-type of activity each year during the busy days of December. We're all excited about the holidays and our looming vacation. But this time of the year can be especially challenging for students and teachers alike. Turn up the fun with easy, joyful gestures that make everyone excited to come to school."
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Schools have struggled to fulfill IEPs amid pandemic, government report finds
Disability Scoop
Government investigators are offering up some of the first details about how schools fared in addressing the needs of students with disabilities when they shuttered at the start of the pandemic. A report from the Government Accountability Office dives into how schools managed special education and services for English learners during the switch to distance learning in the spring of the 2019-2020 academic year, finding that by and large, they struggled.
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Report offers clearest picture yet of pandemic's impact on student learning
MindShift
A sweeping new review of national test data suggests the pandemic-driven jump to online learning has had little impact on children's reading growth and has only somewhat slowed gains in math. That positive news comes from the testing nonprofit NWEA and covers nearly 4.4 million U.S. students in grades three through eight. But the report also includes a worrying caveat: Many of the nation's most vulnerable students are missing from the data.
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Children account for more new COVID-19 cases as the pandemic rolls on
Education Week
Children are less likely to catch the coronavirus than adults and tend to have less severe symptoms if they do get infected. But as more people get tested and researchers learn more about COVID-19, children's vulnerability to the virus is becoming more apparent. A study published in the journal Pediatrics finds there have been more than a half million children diagnosed with COVID-19 as of Sept. 10, a rate of 729 cases per 100,000 children. Researchers from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association analyzed coronavirus case data from April to September from 49 state health departments as well as those of New York City, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam. (New York State does not report coronavirus cases by age.)
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To the next US secretary of education: It's time to focus on students
CNN (commentary)
Miguel Cervantes del Toro, a contributor for CNN, writes: "The outside of the northwest Baltimore elementary school where I have been principal for seven years is covered in a brightly colored, student-designed mural featuring portraits of our children and their families reading together. Our community can, quite literally, see themselves reflected in this artwork. The mural was part of a schoolwide project about brain science, literacy and art, all hallmarks of our school's curriculum."
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The 5 actions every leader needs to take right now
Forbes
Now that we are almost a year into the COVID-19 crisis and are likely facing another wave, it's imperative for business leaders to take the time to stand back and assess their leadership since the beginning of the crisis. There are five actions leaders can take today to make sure they are optimizing their leadership in these unprecedented and uncertain times.
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• Empower and engage students with instant feedback
• Solve for digital access issues
• Use for in-person, virtual, and seamless hybrid learning
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5 reasons highly sensitive people are an asset to your team
Fast Company
Psychologist Elaine Aron, who has been studying the innate temperament trait of high sensitivity since 1991, coined the phrase "Highly Sensitive Person." For those individuals who have these traits—about 20% of the general population—it can be a gift and a curse. HSPs feel both positive and negative emotions more intensely than non-HSPs. This sensitivity is thought to be linked to higher levels of creativity, richer personal relationships and a greater appreciation for beauty.
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Managing an underperformer who thinks they're doing great
Harvard Business Review (commentary)
Liz Kislik, a contributor for Harvard Business Review, writes: "Almost every leader has been in the uncomfortable position of managing someone who thinks their performance is terrific when it's actually just adequate, or worse. In fact, in my 30 years of consulting, it's been one of the more frequent — and draining — performance problems I've observed."
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How to remain calm in the midst of workplace chaos
The Lead Change Group
Most of us have hectic, stressful, high-pressure jobs. How do we keep from letting it get to us or burn us out? Why is it that some people seem to be able to handle challenges with confidence, poise, and grace? The secret is a quality that psychologists call resilience. In brief, it is the ability to overcome obstacles and quickly adapt to change. Psychologists have studied resilient people and discovered that it is learned, not genetic.
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Critical leadership skills in times of crisis
Training Industry Magazine
What does it take to pivot a business quickly in times of crisis while keeping the employee in mind? Leading with humanity, focusing on inclusive leadership and adopting agile methodologies are critical skills to instill in leadership and across the organization to drive positive change with employees, customers and communities in difficult times.
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Don't be the leader who works hard on the wrong things
Forbes
The CIO of a large manufacturing company was frustrated, exhausted, and feeling rather unappreciated. He and his 1500-person organization had overseen a complicated, multi-year technology transfer and integration resulting from the company's largest acquisition in its history. Add to the mix an ongoing digital transformation and the day-to-day responsibilities that come with keeping the lights on, and it's all the more impressive that this IT organization was able to deliver as many projects as successfully as it had.
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.EDUCATION POLICY
Could Biden find a middle path on student testing during the pandemic?
Education Week
The appetite for data on how the pandemic has affected student learning will confront the Biden administration with a tough decision: whether to waive the main federal K-12 law's requirement for annual assessments. While tension is only likely to grow about that choice, it's worth exploring how the new president could provide states flexibility on this front while still keeping political sensitivities in mind.
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.SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY
COVID-19 and cybersecurity: 'Catastrophic attack on our technology systems'
Education Week
Two large school districts have been rattled in the last week by incidents related to internet security and privacy, as vulnerability to cyberattacks remains high during the current pandemic-era period of increased technology use. In Baltimore County, Md., classes shut down the day before Thanksgiving due to what school officials have called a "catastrophic attack on our technology systems." Schools remained closed Monday and Tuesday and are expected to reopen Wednesday. The district had been in fully remote learning mode that will last at least into January.
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As COVID creeps into schools, surveillance tech follows
The 74
When a seventh-grader in suburban Cleveland tested positive for the coronavirus in late October, it caused a domino effect across the school community. Twelve children who came in close contact with the student were instructed to quarantine, and the entire seventh-grade class was pushed back into remote learning.
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Ed tech reports recap: Video is eating the world, broadband fails to keep up
EdSurge
So maybe you thought internet connectivity to schools was a done deal. After all, in October 2019 the nonprofit EducationSuperHighway declared that nearly 99% of U.S. schools had high-speed broadband connections. Well, that was at the Federal Communications Commission's 2014-2015 short-term target of 100 Kbps per student for using tech in the classroom. But there's still a ways to go to hit the FCC's "longer-term" target of 1 Mbps, which was to kick in by now, for taking advantage of bandwidth-hungry edtech apps.
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 A child’s first few years of educational experiences set the stage for how they will learn for the rest of their lives. The Bank Street Early Childhood Leadership Advanced Certificate Program is designed for mission-driven educators seeking to advance their professional opportunities and fill the need for exceptional leadership in early childhood education. Areas of study within the program include curriculum and development, social justice, systems thinking, progressive education and law.
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.PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Teaching in the pandemic: 'This is not sustainable'
The New York Times
At Farmington Central Junior High in rural Illinois, classes still start at 8 a.m. But that’s about the only part of the school day that has not changed for Caitlyn Clayton, an eighth-grade English teacher tirelessly toggling between in-person and remote students. At the start of the school day, Clayton stands in front of the classroom, reminding her students to properly pull their masks over their noses.
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How to stay connected to students during COVID
Tech&Learning
Professors have long obsessed about how best to have their students connect with class material but that's just one of many ways they are worrying about making a connection this year. In pandemic-altered remote and hybrid classes, educators and others in higher ed are wondering how students connect with one another and their institution, and sometimes literally how they connect to the internet.
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No judgment. It's safe to be wrong.
Teaching Channel (commentary)
"Checking for understanding is one of the biggest challenges in teaching; online you can multiply that tenfold. It's like trying to assess how well your class is doing while looking in through the keyhole. That's why I found this video of Eric Snider's so profound. He's teaching Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer (adapting the book unit from our curriculum, actually, I'm happy to say) and does a great job of constantly assessing where his students are. This is a short example with lots to learn from."
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| Promoted by
McGraw-Hill |
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Identify and Address Individual Learning Gaps
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Many students will experience learning losses and have gaps in their knowledge and skills.
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With Rise, long-term learning loss doesn’t have to be one of the consequences.
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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
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Scale up tutoring to combat COVID learning loss for disadvantaged students
Scientific American
After heroic efforts to keep school doors open this Fall, schools are yet again shutting down and returning to distance learning as COVID-19 cases spike across the country. With no choice but to return to remote learning, schools have struggled to support their students and provide them with the resources and education they need to succeed. Already the disease has taken a toll.
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Supporting multilingual students in the early grades
Edutopia
Many children in the U.S. live their lives in two or more languages: A child of Guatemalan descent may read bedtime stories in Spanish with their parents and learn in English at school — and perhaps speak K'iche' with their grandparents. Research has shown that these multilingual children may have strong math skills, conflict resolution skills, and executive function skills.
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Schools get creative to enroll, retain youngest students during pandemic
Education DIVE
Kyle Dooley will do just about anything to engage his kindergarten students in the lessons he's teaching. He dressed as a snowman to teach about the color white, and he sings rhyming words to emphasize word associations and reading skills. He's also introducing "tall words" such as integrity, tenacity and empathy to encourage social and emotional well-being, especially during this challenging school year.
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6 ways to create a culturally responsive classroom
eSchool News
The U.S. reached an important milestone several years ago — minority students now comprise the largest demographic group in our nation's public schools. While there is great diversity within our student population, the majority of educators still do not share the same cultural experiences with the diverse students they serve.
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Did students fall behind this spring? Yes, but not as much as feared, new data shows
Chalkbeat
How much learning did students really lose this spring? This summer, education organizations offered fairly dire predictions: Thanks to widespread school closures, students would be starting the school year dramatically behind. But newer data indicates those projections were overstated. Most students did begin this school year behind where they would have been in math, test results show.
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Helping kids design personal reading goals
MiddleWeb (commentary)
Katie Durkin, a contributor for MiddleWeb, writes: "In becoming a middle level English teacher, I have often found myself reflecting upon my own experience as a middle school student and budding book lover. While I can vividly remember my myriad experiences with excellent teachers, I don't remember having much choice or freedom in the books I read for school. Whole class novels were assigned, we read them together, we discussed them together, and the teacher assigned a final test meant to have us demonstrate how well we understood the story."
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PCS Edventures is awarding 8 winners, $12,000 in STEM curriculum & materials. Hurry, the entry period ends on December 7th, 2020. Enter sweepstakes at: https://contest.edventures.com
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5 ways to help students transfer their learning to new situations
Edutopia
As teachers, we all want our students to solve problems that incorporate content we just taught them. Or, we want them to illustrate how they can take knowledge from another discipline and apply it to our class. Often we are bogged down with suggestions from books or experts that are too time-consuming or take us away from the course content that we know is critical for students to learn. However, with a few simple adjustments, we can get students to engage in applying their learning in short order.
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.EDUCATION RESEARCH
MULTIBRIEFS EXCLUSIVE
Report: The impact of COVID-19 on student achievement
By Bambi Majumdar
 A recent report sheds light on the adverse effect of COVID-19 school disruptions on K-12 learning. Titled, "How Kids Are Performing: Tracking the Impact of COVID-19 on Reading and Mathematics Achievement," the report was released by a leading education technology leader, Renaissance. It considers student assessments from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The results total over 5 million student assessments. The report touches upon all the aspects of learning issues and gaps and seeks to guide educators as they address learning gaps.
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Study shows strong links between music and math, reading achievement
University of Kansas via Science Daily
A music educator thought that if he could just control his study for the myriad factors that might have influenced previous ones — race, income, education, etc. — he could disprove the notion of a link between students' musical and mathematical achievement. Nope. His new study showed statistically significant associations between the two at both the individual and the school-district levels.
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How understanding middle school friendships can help students
MindShift
When an accusation like "you don't care" hurtles an adult's way, the inner turmoil of adolescence can seem purely excruciating. But these reactions actually stem from a positive force, says Ronald Dahl, who founded the Center for the Developing Adolescent at the University of California, Berkeley: a unique drive to find meaning in life and relationships. And no relationship, parents and educators know well, is as central to the moment-to-moment wellbeing of most tweens and teens as friendship.
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.IN THE STATES
New York City public elementary schools to begin reopening on December 7
CBS News
Public elementary schools in New York City will begin reopening on Dec. 7, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. The largest public school system in the country closed on Nov. 19, 2020, when the city reached a seven-day COVID-19 testing positivity average of 3%, but de Blasio said that metric will no longer be used.
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Georgia district creating 'emergency action plan' for staffing
District Administration Magazine
In late September, the 52 schools in Henry County, Georgia, just south of Atlanta reopened for in-person instruction, a pivotal moment for this district whose students had gone six months without being in front of their teachers. Not all of them returned — only 41% are physically at schools — but being able to bring them back at all showed the power of clear decision-making, collaboration across departments and shrewd planning.
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Florida makes it official: Remote learning will continue next semester
Tampa Bay Times
Families fearing they might have to send their children back to in-person classes despite their coronavirus concerns can rest easier. The Department of Education released a new emergency order for second semester that keeps live remote classes available as an option, along with the funding that allows school districts to provide the model. Schools would be expected to continue face-to-face classes, as the state previously required.
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.ASSOCIATION NEWS
Next Zone 7 Director Announced
NAESP
Matthew Lewis, principal of Garfield Elementary School in Lewistown, Montana has been elected as the next Zone 7 Director to the NAESP Board of Directors. Lewis will join the board officially August 1, 2021 and complete the term of office ending July 31, 2024.
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5 strategies to create a safe space for staff
NAESP
Principals have always been responsible for ensuring student safety. Enter 2020, and principals have the new obligation of ensuring safety during a pandemic. After completing the longest summer break ever (March through September), our students returned to school a little before Labor Day. Both teachers and students were eager to get started. While cautious about safety measures put in place, parents were excited that their children would return to a life of learning in real life, real time.
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