Washington, D.C.’s children should learn about Black history in the District.
As though they didn’t have enough pressing national issues on their plates, five Republican congressmen — Glenn Grothman (Wis.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Bob Gibbs (Ohio), Pat Fallon and Ronny Jackson (both of Texas) — have introduced legislation to ban the teaching of critical race theory in D.C. public and charter schools.
Grothman, the bill’s chief sponsor, said in a news release that, through critical race theory curriculum, “students are being taught that they are defined by the color of their skin, not the content of their character.” “This neo-racist ideology,” warned Grothman, “should have no place in our public education system, especially in our nation’s capital.”
Set aside for a minute the confusion over just what is critical race theory. Understand, also, that D.C. schools don’t teach critical race theory but do provide anti-racist training for educators and classroom discussions of systemic racism.
The legislation has gained momentum since the massive Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd last year and the Democrats’ takeover of the White House and Congress.
But Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson blocked the bill in 2020, saying that the day off for federal employees would cost US taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Johnson dropped his objection this week despite his concerns, paving the way for the bill’s passage in the Senate.
“Although I strongly support celebrating Emancipation, I objected to the cost and lack of debate,” said Johnson in a statement. “While it still seems strange that having taxpayers provide federal employees paid time off is now required to celebrate the end of slavery, it is clear that there is no appetite in Congress to further discuss the matter.”
The measure needs to pass the House and be signed by President Joe Biden to become law.
On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, the end of slavery in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1980, Juneteenth became a Texas state holiday. In the decades since, every state but South Dakota came to officially commemorate Juneteenth, but only a handful of states observe it as a paid holiday.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee are among the members of Congress who led the effort to to make Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday.
On this day in 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova became the first woman to travel in space, having been launched into orbit aboard the spacecraft Vostok 6, which completed 48 orbits in 71 hours.
Parents across the country are standing up and speaking out against critical race theory in schools. From Loudoun County, Virginia, to Carmel, New York, school board meetings have become must-see TV. But what happens when the cameras turn off? How can parents turn their outrage into meaningful change?
“We are asking people to go into the arena in a situation where they are going to be called a racist,” said Russ Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America and former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Trump. “They’re not, they’ve got the moral high ground, but no one wants to be called that.”
In documents obtained exclusively by Fox News, Citizens for Renewing America (the advocacy arm of Vought’s conservative think tank) has created an “A to Z guide” for stopping critical race theory.
Vought said the 33-page handbook is a crash course in CRT, a “one-stop shopping” for parents trying to hold their school board members accountable.
Earth’s tectonic plates have moved continuously since they emerged a whopping 3.6 billion years ago, according to a new study on some of the world’s oldest crystals. Previously, researchers thought that these plates formed anywhere from 3.5 billion to 3 billion years ago, and yet-to-be published research even estimated that the plates are 3.7 billion years old.
The scientists on the new study discovered the onset date of plate tectonics by analyzing ancient zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia. Some of the zircons date to 4.3 billion years ago, meaning they existed when Earth was a mere 200 million years old — a baby, geologically speaking. Researchers used these zircons, as well as younger ones dating to 3 billion years ago, to decipher the planet’s ongoing chemical record.
“We are reconstructing how the Earth changed from a molten ball of rock and metal to what we have today,” study lead researcher Michael Ackerson, a research geologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.
Young students wearing masks entered the doors and were greeted by school staff, including Principal Nathan Berkowicz.
“This was very, very exciting today,” Berkowicz said. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. This has been a year in the making since the students have last been in the building.”
Inside the school, stickers were on floors to remind students to keep 6 feet of distance, though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says 3 feet will suffice.
Teachers sat in classrooms behind their plastic shields near rearranged student desks.
It may not be perfect, but Berkowicz said in-person learning is the focus here.
“It’s very difficult in a remote environment — you know, students holding devices and keeping their attention span — so at that age, it’s real important to get them in front of their teachers,” Berkowicz said.
When you don’t get students in front of teachers, Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said the educating starts to become undone, which is why expanded summer learning and Saturday courses are being explored for potentially 6,000 students.
“That’s something we’re planning for next year, and, so, traditionally, being in the situation we are with the learning loss, we’ve already had the summer slide, now what I call the COVID slide coupled with the summer slide, we know some kids will be behind,” Hamlet said.
To bring the students up to speed for later, day one for in-person is the first step.
“I was always confident we would be here at some point,” Hamlet said.
Parents are angry over plans for teachers providing in-person instruction to migrant children while their kids have been stuck at home slogging through virtual Zoom sessions.
Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki has stood by the decision in San Diego schools
Teachers have been working with 500 migrants who have crossed the border
The children are currently on Spring Break, but have yet to return to classrooms since the start of the pandemic
Psaki said ‘context is important’ and teachers can ‘volunteer’ on Spring Break
She added that San Diego students will be going back to classrooms ‘early April’
The Biden administration has promised that students will return to the classroom five days a week
About 4,800 Pittsburgh students are expected to return on April 6. They are a group that includes PreK and kindergarten students and others who have been determined to not be making progress in eLearning, who have disabilities, are English language learners or in other vulnerable groups.
On April 26 another cohort of about 5,200 students — those who were making “some” progress — will be brought back to the classrooms.
On May 3 the remainder of students, a group of about 10,000, will return.
The majority of students will attend via a hybrid model, with some in class on Mondays and Tuesdays and others attending Thursdays and Fridays. Schools will be cleaned on Wednesdays, when all students learn online.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the business running the late author’s estate, said it made the decision last year to cease publication and licensing of six of his books.
MERIDEN, Conn. — Having told educators that they would soon be vaccinated, the Biden administration began an aggressive push on Wednesday to drum up support for reopening schools, putting on a show of unity with the leaders of teachers unions and highlighting measures to keep students and staff safe from the coronavirus.
A day after President Biden announced a new federal program to give teachers nationwide access to at least a first dose of the vaccine by the end of March, the administration sought to position itself as intent on opening schools as soon as possible while also addressing the concerns of teachers that their fears were being ignored.
To carry the message, the White House dispatched the first lady, Jill Biden, and the newly confirmed education secretary, Miguel Cardona, on a trip to Connecticut and Pennsylvania to emphasize that teachers should no longer fear returning unprotected to the classroom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that teachers do not have to be vaccinated for schools to reopen safely.
Getting shots into the arms of educators and school staff would be his “top priority” as education secretary, Dr. Cardona said in Connecticut, where he and the first lady were joined by Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday said the state will give the Johnson & Johnson single-dose COVID-19 vaccine to PreK-12 teachers and other school staff, an announcement that comes as Pittsburgh Public Schools employees are expected to return to their buildings this month for the first time in a year.
President Biden appears to have erased Dr. Seuss from “Read Across America Day”, the annual celebration of reading in honor of the legendary children’s author, whose birthday falls on March 2.
While Biden followed presidential tradition in proclaiming Tuesday “Read Across America Day,” he bucked his predecessors by leaving out any mention of Dr. Seuss from the proclamation.
The White House didn’t immediately return a request for comment on why Dr. Seuss was left out of the proclamation, but the snub comes as progressives have sought to cancel the beloved children’s author.
One of Virginia’s biggest school districts, Loudoun County Public Schools, reportedly nixed Dr. Seuss from the school’s “Read Across America Day” celebration, citing alleged racial “undertones” in his children’s books.
The U.S. Department of Education will have a new leader. Late Monday, in a 64 to 33 vote, the U.S. Senate confirmed Miguel Cardona to be the next Secretary of Education.
Before being nominated by President Biden, Cardona served as Connecticut’s education commissioner for the past year and a half, arguing forcefully that schools should reopen during the COVID-19 crisis in order to keep equity gaps from growing ever wider. Before that, he spent his entire career working for the public school system that helped raise him — as a fourth grade teacher, principal and assistant superintendent in the old factory town of Meriden, Conn.
Cardona assumes the Education Department’s top job as the debate around how to safely reopen schools has grown increasingly bitter, with many parents clamoring for children to be able to return to classrooms and with many teachers resisting a return before all educators have been vaccinated. That has forced Biden to walk a political tightrope, reassuring teachers they should be prioritized for the vaccine while new guidance from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes clear that vaccinations should not be a prerequisite for reopening schools.
What police believe may have been a prank 911 call on Wednesday shut down Latrobe Elementary School as authorities investigated a reported threat, according to Greater Latrobe district officials.
The situation was cleared just before 2 p.m. and no one was hurt. Anxious parents who gathered outside the police perimeter on Lincoln Avenue were told that dismissal would happen at the normal time.
City and state police were called to the Cedar Street school just before 1 p.m. Officers searched the building after an anonymous phone call was made to Westmoreland 911 reporting a threat. All district buildings were locked down as a result.
“The agencies believe this threat may have been a prank,” district officials said in a Facebook post.
Latrobe police said they were investigating the source of the call that was found to be not credible. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 724-537-5526. Officers from other nearby departments assisted at the scene.
Carl Hart is a Columbia University professor of psychology and neuroscience. He chairs the psych department and has a fondness for heroin – not only as a subject of scholarly pursuit but also as a substance for personal use.
At 54, the married father of three has snorted small amounts of heroin for as many as 10 days in a row andenjoyed it mightily – even if, as he recalls in his new book “Drug Use for Grown-ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear” (Penguin Press), he’s experienced mild withdrawal symptoms “12 to 16 hours after the last dose.”
But, as Hart sees it, the discomfort is a worthwhile trade-off.
(CNN)Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says city officials have reached a tentative agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union, paving the way for some Chicago Public Schools students to return to in-person learning over the next several weeks.
The plan still needs to be ratified by the CTU’s house of delegates, officials acknowledged in a news conference Sunday. The union, prior to the news conference, said it did “not yet have an agreement” with city officials, indicating it would continue discussions with its rank-and-file members throughout Sunday.
“We are here to announce the very good news that our children will be returning to in-person learning this week,” Lightfoot said in a news conference Sunday.”
This agreement was about making sure everyone in our school communities just aren’t safe, but also that they feel safe,” Lightfoot said, “And feel that their lived experiences and fears and frustrations have been heard.”
Officials for the city and the nation’s third largest school district have been at odds with the teachers union over Covid-19 reopening plans. Mayor Lightfoot and CPS officials, including CEO Janice Jackson, have said in-person learning is safe with Covid-19 mitigation strategies. But the CTU had maintained teachers and students remained at risk if they return to the classroom too soon.
Pittsburgh Public Schools administration has introduced a proposal to close eight schools over the next two years.
By Mary Niederberger
Pittsburgh Current Education Writer
Mary@Pittsburghcurrent.com
As part of its new strategic plan “Imagine PPS,” and to help reduce a $39.4 million budget deficit, the Pittsburgh Public Schools administration has introduced a proposal to close eight schools over the next two years.
The only closing slated for the 2021-22 school year is Woolslair PreK-5, with students reassigned to Arsenal PreK-5. Also in the coming school year, the proposal calls for moving the program for students with disabilities at Oliver Citywide Academy though a new location has not yet been designated.
The plan also calls for creating two regional middle schools — an East End middle school at Minadeo School and a Career Middle School at the former Oliver High School building. In addition, the plan calls for a “Birth to Second Grade” school in Northview Heights.
The schools proposed for closure in 2022-2023 are: Allegheny 6-8, Arsenal 6-8, Fulton Prek-5, Manchester PreK-5, Miller Prek-5, Minadeo Prek-5 and Sterrett 6-8. In addition, the Morrow primary building and the Montessori building will close, but the schools will be moved to different facilities.
The plan was presented at the board’ business and finance committee meeting on Monday Feb. 1. The school board will hold a special legislative session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to vote on the process that will allow for public input and planning on the proposal.
The teachers at Keystone Oaks School District announced Sunday that they will go on strike Monday, as they and the district’s board of school directors have not yet reached an agreement on a new contract.
Classes are canceled until further notice. However, the district must complete 180 days of school by June 15, according to state law, which leaves the union only six days to strike.
That means the strike can last no longer than Feb. 9, based on the number of makeup days the district has remaining.
“Our hope is that an agreement can be reached and students can return to classes as soon as possible,” Superintendent William Stropkaj said in a statement on the school district’s website.
The teachers association had originally announced on Jan. 22 that they had intentions to strike Feb. 1. Pennsylvania state law requires at least a 48-hour notice for teachers to strike.
After negotiations on Thursday and Sunday, the two groups were not able to come to an agreement.
“When we met today, we came to the realization that neither one of us were going to compromise,” association president Kevin Gallagher said. “It just wasn’t going to happen, as sad as that is. I understand that this does not look good in terms of a pandemic, but this is the third time we’ve been in this situation with the district in the last four years, and we just can’t stand for it anymore.”
Currently, there are no negotiation meetings scheduled, according to Mr. Gallagher. The association is willing to meet at a neutral site off campus to continue discussions, he said.
Teachers will be picketing at Aiken, Dormont and Myrtle elementary schools as well as at the Keystone Oaks high school and middle school complex beginning Monday.
Keystone Oaks teachers have been without a contract since June. 30, 2020.
Athletic practices and games will continue as normal for sports that are in season, according to the announcement.
The free meals program also will continue with curbside pick-up at each building.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the district was operating on a hybrid schedule where students attend classes in person and online throughout the week.
Members of the community are urging the Mt. Lebanon School board to move forward with five-day-a-week in-person instruction for students.
The district returned to a hybrid format for elementary school students Jan. 11, with children in classrooms two days a week. The middle schools and high schools returned to the hybrid format Jan. 21.
Superintendent Tim Steinhauer said the next step will be to add a four-day-per-week hybrid option in the secondary schools and a five-day-a-week option at the elementary level, but no set time frame was given at the Jan. 19 meeting.
“This year has been really hard for students — going in and out of school — and technical difficulties,” said fifth grader Ava Cantore, who added she has friends in neighboring school districts that are in school and learning “in a better way.”
“This experience has been hard on all kids — cyber and hybrid — and all of us are at our wits’ end,” Ava said.
Resident Susan Uffelman said she was “appalled” by the school board and administration. She said her son completed his studies and graduated early from Mt. Lebanon just last week.
“He had 12 days of in-person education since March. How any of you feel that is acceptable is beyond me,” Ms. Uffelman said.
Resident Joanna Crago asked if the board could hold a special meeting to vote on getting students back in the classroom full-time.
“Other schools are back already and we are months behind,” Ms. Crago said.
As far as increased in-person learning, Mr. Steinhauer said the current two-day-a-week hybrid model “allows us to de-densify to achieve the 6 feet of physical distance” recommended by the State Department of Education and Department of Heath.
“I want to be clear, increased in-person learning will mean we will not be able to maintain the 6 feet of distancing throughout the entire school day,” Mr. Steinhauer said.
The district is also planning for recovery options which may include summer learning and enrichment opportunities.
Although no timeline was given for completely reopening schools, Mr. Steinhauer said the next school board meeting is scheduled for Feb. 8 with its regular meeting on the 15th.
“It certainly would be the board’s decision to consider that on Feb. 8 and then have a week to consider that on the 15th,” Mr. Steinhauer said.
The board also unanimously passed a resolution stating the district would not raise taxes by more than its 3.5% Act 1 Index for the 2021-22 school year.
Mt. Lebanon’s Act 1 Index, which is the state’s means of determining property tax increases justified by wage inflation in each district, allows for a maximum increase of 0.8676 mills.
The 0.8676 mill figure would equate to an increase of about $86 in taxes per $100,000 of assessed property value in Mt. Lebanon and would net the district about $2.3 million. However, the board does not have to increase taxes by the full 0.8676 mills — that is the maximum that it can raise taxes.
Mt. Lebanon’s millage rate currently sits at 24.79, or about $2,479 for every $100,000 of assessed property value.
District director of business, Robert Geletko said at a previous meeting that even with the potential millage increase, the district would still have to use some of its fund balance to balance the 2021-22 budget.
Think your dog is smart? New research suggests one way to find out.
Most dogs can’t learn words without extensive training, but a few with exceptional abilities learn words without any formal training, researchers report. They learn words simply by playing with their owners.
The team of Hungarian researchers investigated how quickly two of these talented pooches could learn new words.
Their study included a Border Collie named Whisky from Norway — already famous for her spontaneous categorization skills — and a Yorkshire terrier named Vicky Nina, from Brazil.
“We wanted to know under which conditions the gifted dogs may learn novel words. To test this, we exposed Whisky and Vicky Nina to the new words in two different conditions — during an exclusion-based task and in a social, playful context with their owners,” said study first author Claudia Fugazza, a member of the Family Dog Project research team at Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest.
“Importantly, in both conditions the dogs heard the name of the new toy only four times,” Fugazza said.
CHICAGO – Children who have been marooned at home for months by the pandemic are slowly returning to classrooms, but many teachers say they won’t go back until they’ve received the Covid-19 vaccine.
Especially in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest public school district, where teachers who were supposed to return to classrooms Wednesday worked from home again and are once more threatening to strike.
This comes days after the district said it is looking into possibly delaying the return of in-person classes until April.
The virtual public meeting lasted over three hours with more than 70 speakers voicing their concerns and support for a return to the classroom in February.
With coronavirus cases still high, board president Sylvia Wilson proposed the resolution to delay the hybrid return until April 6 last week.
Many teachers backed the proposal.
Students are currently set to return to a blend of in-person and online instruction on Feb. 8.
Some parents are becoming increasingly frustrated in the face of another delay, worried that their children are falling behind.
“The PPS school board’s decision to continue with virtual only learning has wreaked havoc on my child’s social and emotional development, on our family’s finances and our family in general,” one parent said during Monday’s meeting.
Others pleaded with the district to at least start small, asking to bring in younger students or those who are struggling the most with virtual learning.
“Let’s choose one group and get started. Please, please don’t delay the return of school until April 6. It’s going to be so messy getting kids back to school during this pandemic. But let’s accept the messiness and just start trying,” one parent said.
The board will vote on the delay during a board meeting on Wednesday. If approved, a hybrid schedule would begin on April 6.
Several members of the Pittsburgh Public Schools board proposed a plan to keep students in virtual learning until after Spring Break, April 6, during a board meeting on Wednesday.
The board said this would postpone the phased-in approach until after the anticipated rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine to employees.
The board will vote on the resolution at its legislative meeting next week, Jan. 27.“No one wants students back in school more than I do,” Board President Sylvia, who brought forward the resolution, said in a news release. “With COVID-19 numbers lingering in the substantial range and the genuine concerns raised by our teachers and staff of returning before the vaccine is available to them, I have to support the tough decision to postpone the return of students for in-person learning.”
By Mary Niederberger
Pittsburgh Current Education Writer
mary@pittsburghcurrent.com
A month ago, the future of the community learning hubs that were serving more than 1,700 students who needed a supervised setting during online school days in the fall was uncertain as initial funding was running dry.
But now, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services has partnered with local foundations to ensure that 60 hubs throughout the county will remain open through the school year if they are needed.
Elaine Plunkett, DHS communications specialist, said the department has already secured $500,000 in foundation funding and is applying for grants with additional foundations at the same time it is leveraging department funds to keep the hubs in operation.
Currently, three foundations have agreed to provide some funding. Those foundations and grant amounts are: the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, $100,000; Jefferson Regional Foundation, $200,000; and McElhattan Foundation $200,000.
“The 60 learning hubs (30 are outside of Pittsburgh) are critical resources for children and families,” Plunkett wrote in an email.
Those sentiments were echoed by James Fogarty, executive director of A+Schools advocacy group.
WEST POINT, New York — More than 70 cadets training at the U.S. Military Academy to be Army officers have been accused of cheating on a math exam taken online when they were studying remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, spokesman for the academy at West Point, said Monday that 73 cadets were accused of cheating on the calculus exam in May after instructors noticed irregularities in answers. All but one were freshmen, or plebes, in a class of 1,200. The other was a sophomore.
“West Point honor code and character development program remains strong despite remote learning and the challenges brought by the pandemic,” Ophardt said. “Cadets are being held accountable for breaking the code.”
After an investigation by an honors committee made up of trained cadets, two cases were dropped for lack of evidence and four were dropped because the cadets resigned, Ophardt said. Of the remaining 67 cases, 55 cadets have admitted cheating and have been enrolled in a six-month rehabilitation program focused on ethics. They will be on probation for the rest of their time at the academy. Three more cadets admitted cheating but weren’t eligible for the rehabilitation program.
Somerset Area School District Superintendent Krista Mathias reported on Friday that officials learned about four new positive COVID-19 cases in the district.
“All students and employees who were close contacts of the affected individuals have been notified and quarantined accordingly,” she wrote in an email.
As a result, the entire district will be closed for 14 days. School will resume on Dec. 7, barring additional cases or directives from the state.
All students will be learning remotely Monday and Tuesday of next week, as well as on Dec. 1-4.
Mathias said that she is in contact with state health officials each time a case is reported. Thorough cleanings and other precautions are part of the mitigation efforts.
PITTSBURGH — We are learning how Pittsburgh Public Schools are preparing to reopen their school campuses.
On Monday, a select group of students will return – following weeks of virtual learning.
Since March, schools have been closed to in-person learning to keep students and staff safe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the district, 800 students out of 23,000 will be welcomed back.Students with special needs and those who are considered medically fragile will be the first to return.
“Safety comes first. That’s what we have to go by right now. It’s unfortunate, but we are doing the best we can under the current circumstances. Please bear with us. Hopefully, we will get a vaccine soon, and we can go back to a bit of normalcy. But, if not – we are doing the best we can to educate our students,” said Dr. Anthony Hamlet, superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools.
The full reopening of schools in the Norwin School District has been postponed because of COVID-19 cases, Channel 11′s news exchange partners at TribLIVE reported.
For the second week in a row, the Wolf administration says it’s speaking with Westmoreland County school districts because of “substantial” community spread.
