Pre-K to 12 schools, colleges and universities have until September to submit lessons from the field and best practices for safe operations during the pandemic to the U.S. Department of Education for its Safer Schools and Campuses Best Practices Clearinghouse website.
Submissions can be substantive materials, sample agreements among partners, ready-to-implement resources and videos.
Rhea Kelly of The Journal has more.…
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A bill set to be introduced April 21 would invest $25 billion in electric school buses, covering the purchase of the vehicles as well as the cost for charging stations and training workers, reports Associated Press writer Hope Yen.
“Transitioning our school bus fleet to zero-emission vehicles is an essential aspect of building equitable, sustainable infrastructure and is a wise investment in our children, our environment and our future,” said California Sen.…
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Perth Amboy Federation (Local 857) President Pat Paradiso and district representative Lynn Audet spoke about scheduling and other concerns during the public portion of April 15’s board of education meeting, 11 days before students are due to return to classrooms for in-person learning.
As reported by Katherine Massopust in the April 21 print edition of The Amboy Guardian, Paradiso repeatedly referred to Perth Amboy teachers being treated as “second-class citizens” saddled with such burdens as teaching for five consecutive hours without a bathroom break and covering additional classes without extra compensation.…
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Colleges and universities now have more authority when they use Zoom for their virtual events.
“For Zoom meetings and webinars hosted by a higher education institution, the Trust and Safety team will only act on reports alleging content-related violations of our Community Standards or Terms of Service that come from the meeting’s host or the account’s owners or administrators,” says an April 13 post on Zoom’s website.…
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In a guest column for The Star-Ledger, State Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney writes about a plan that would guarantee the last two years of college at any of New Jersey’s public higher education institutions are tuition-free for students from qualifying N.J. households based on adjusted gross income.
His plan, which he says “uses a similar model that is now in place” with the Community College Opportunity Grant, “will help make a college education affordable and help retain more of those students who now are going elsewhere to college out of state because it is less expensive,” Sweeney writes.…
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Join Leven “Chuck” Wilson, whose credits include being a partner of the AFT’s teacher diversity program, for the webinar “Courageous Conversation: The Art of Listening, Mercy and Change” on April 22 at 4 p.m. ET.
According to the description by co-presenter NYSUT, participants of this Many Threads, One Fabric session will “learn more about the essential art of change as we fight to address the attitudinal and structural barriers behind the persistent racial disparities witnessed in our communities and workplaces.”…
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Calling it “the first of many meetings,” New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education Dr. Brian Bridges on April 16 hosted a virtual session with AFTNJ’s higher education leaders.
“Our organization has been looking forward to the opportunity to meet with you and share our concerns regarding higher education,” said Dr. Susanna Tardi, AFTNJ’s executive vice president/higher education, in her opening comments.…
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As part of new gun reforms unveiled April 15, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has proposed a measure authorizing the Department of Education to establish trauma-informed and age-appropriate standards for lockdown drills.
“I think of the tens of thousands of Newark schoolchildren who returned to their classrooms this week for the first time in a year … and as I do, I know that we must do everything in our power to ensure that they are safe not just in those classrooms but as they make their way to and from home every single day,” Murphy said at an appearance in Newark.…
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Cognitive routines, visual routines and discussion protocols are instructional strategies “that can have a big impact on student learning,” writes educational consultant Angela Di Michele Lalor in an April 14 post for Edutopia.
“When teachers select instructional strategies that actively engage students and develop those methods as routines for student learning, they’re equipping students with strategies for approaching the new and unknown,” she writes.…
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School districts can expect greater age differences in kindergarten classrooms this fall and should prepare for wider skill disparities among those children, according to a report by the nonprofit organization NWEA.
“Among the many ways in which schools are being transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the change in public school kindergarten enrollment is one likely to have important consequences in classrooms across the nation,” write Beth Tarasawa, Angela Johnson and Christine Yankel.…
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AFT President Randi Weingarten recently received a letter signed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel A. Cardona that Weingarten says “has eased my concerns” regarding the CDC’s revised guidance reducing physical distancing in K-12 schools from six feet to three feet.
“They responded forthrightly to every question we posed, making clear that reduced distancing in classrooms for kids must be accompanied by the layered mitigation strategies,” Weingarten wrote in a letter to AFT colleagues that was obtained by U.S.…
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After more than a year of remote learning, roughly 40 percent of Newark’s PreK-12 students were expected to start part-time in-person instruction on April 12.
For Newark Teachers Union (Local 481) member Catia Nascimento, classroom mitigation strategies go hand in hand with behavior conducted outside of school buildings.
“We’re trying to provide a very safe environment to learn,” said Nascimento, who teaches at East Side High School, in a recent NJ Advance Media story by Rebecca Panico.…
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In advance of Earth Day, the AFT will present the virtual town hall “Climate Justice, Jobs & Freedom to Thrive” on April 13 at 6:45 p.m. ET.
Among the scheduled speakers are actress and Fire Drill Fridays founder Jane Fonda and AFT President Randi Weingarten.
For more information and to register, click here.
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