Greensboro News & Record: From math to PE, teachers creating online video library for Guilford County Schools students. “Guilford County Schools is pulling together a new resource for parents and students, who are finishing the school year virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. It is an online library of district-made videos explaining topics that students should or would be learning about in their grade levels. Teachers and others have been working for weeks to make the videos. This week, the district started uploading them to a special spot on its website for distance learning.”
public schools
What Librarians Are Doing to Support Students and Teachers in the Shutdown | SLJ COVID-19 Survey (School Library Journal)
School Library Journal: What Librarians Are Doing to Support Students and Teachers in the Shutdown | SLJ COVID-19 Survey. “School Library Journal’s School COVID-19 Response Survey queried K-12 librarians from April 2 to April 12 about their experience. More than 1,000 librarians responded, providing information about preparedness for remote learning; how librarians are supporting students and teachers, and more. Topics included services they have provided staff and students, school schedules and curriculum, plans for returned library books when schools reopen, and the pandemic’s possible impact on future purchasing.”
New York Times: How School Districts are Outsmarting a Microbe
New York Times: How School Districts are Outsmarting a Microbe. “Confronting the unprecedented challenge of lengthy school closures because of coronavirus, the nation’s roughly 13,000 public school districts are scrambling to cope. Almost no district was truly ready to plunge into remote learning full time and with no end in sight. There is no one-size-fits-all remedy and no must-have suite of digital learning tools. Leaders have largely had to find their own way, spurring a hodgepodge of local innovations. As the struggle continues, a few overarching lessons learned — about equity, expectations and communication — are now helping schools navigate this crisis on the fly.”
US News & World Report: Many Schools Are Not Providing Any Instruction Amid Closures
US News & World Report: Many Schools Are Not Providing Any Instruction Amid Closures. “WITH SCHOOLS CLOSED FOR more than 55 million children across the country – and shuttered for the rest of the academic year in seven states – school district leaders are scrambling to establish some kind of distance learning routine.”
New Database: Dozens of School Districts Share Their Early Plans for Teaching, Learning and Supports During the Pandemic. Here’s What the Top 12 Systems Are Doing (The 74)
The 74: New Database: Dozens of School Districts Share Their Early Plans for Teaching, Learning and Supports During the Pandemic. Here’s What the Top 12 Systems Are Doing. “…the logistics of getting millions of kids — and also their parents — comfortable with online tools and curricula will be a considerable challenge. So what are districts doing in the face of this unprecedented challenge? A new and evolving public database compiled by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research center based at the University of Washington Bothell, is capturing specific district-by-district efforts in transitioning to distance efforts.”
No Kid Hungry North Carolina: School Meals Updates During COVID-19 Closures
From No Kid Hungry North Carolina: School Meals Updates During COVID-19 Closures. This is a breakdown of where to get school meals for kids in North Carolina, broken out by county.
Amazing Educational Resources: Educational Companies Offering Free Subscriptions due to School Closings
It started off as a Google Sheet and then it moved to its own domain because it got really, really big: Amazing Educational Resources. It’s described on the front page as “Education Companies Offering Free Subscriptions due to School Closings (Updated) : Amazing Educational Resources.” There are also links to a Facebook support group.
Exclusive: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan Is Giving K-12 Schools His Videoconferencing Tools For Free (Forbes)
Forbes: Exclusive: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan Is Giving K-12 Schools His Videoconferencing Tools For Free. “Students or teachers who fill out an online form using their school email addresses and are then verified by Zoom will have any accounts associated with that school’s domain also gain unlimited temporary meeting minutes, according to a site set up for the process overnight. The free Basic accounts are also available by request in Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland, Poland, Romania and South Korea, a spokesperson for Zoom said.”
US Department of Education: Secretary DeVos Releases New Resources for Educators, Local Leaders on K-12 Flexibilities, Student Privacy, and Educating Students with Disabilities During Coronavirus Outbreak
US Department of Education: Secretary DeVos Releases New Resources for Educators, Local Leaders on K-12 Flexibilities, Student Privacy, and Educating Students with Disabilities During Coronavirus Outbreak. ” U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued new resources today that will assist education leaders in protecting student privacy and ensuring students with disabilities continue to receive services required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in the event of school closures due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The Education Department also released importantinformation for K-12 educators on flexibilities the Department could grant when it comes to the accountability standards required by law under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).”
CNET: How schools are using kids’ phones to track and surveil them
CNET: How schools are using kids’ phones to track and surveil them. “Teachers often lament that phones can be a distraction in classrooms. Some governments have even banned phones outright in schools. But a few school administrations see phones in schools as a benefit because they can help keep track of students more efficiently.”
Kingston Whig Standard: Legacy Project looks to archive and display closing schools’ history
The Kingston Whig Standard: Legacy Project looks to archive and display closing schools’ history. “The Legacy Project is preserving the combined history of Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute and Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute.”
Facial Recognition Moves Into a New Front: Schools (New York Times)
New York Times: Facial Recognition Moves Into a New Front: Schools. “Jim Shultz tried everything he could think of to stop facial recognition technology from entering the public schools in Lockport, a small city 20 miles east of Niagara Falls. He posted about the issue in a Facebook group called Lockportians. He wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times. He filed a petition with the superintendent of the district, where his daughter is in high school. But a few weeks ago, he lost.”
Digital NC: List of Public North Carolina African American High Schools Enhances Efforts at Preserving Their History
Digital NC: List of Public North Carolina African American High Schools Enhances Efforts at Preserving Their History. “We help cultural heritage institutions scan high school yearbooks. To date we’ve added over 8,200 to DigitalNC. Less than 5% come from African American high schools*…. To highlight the rarity of these yearbooks and to possibly help locate more, we’ve created a list of the names and locations of all of the public African American high schools compiled from the North Carolina Educational Directory around the time that the schools were desegregated.”
Indianapolis Business Journal: Indiana has new tool to give parents data about schools
Indianapolis Business Journal: Indiana has new tool to give parents data about schools. “Indiana has launched a new online tool that aims to make it easier for parents to access and compare information about their schools, including, for the first time, how much each school spends per student.”
Lake County Record-Bee: As California launches preschool expansion, federal government seeks to limit data
Lake County Record-Bee: As California launches preschool expansion, federal government seeks to limit data. “…the U.S. Department of Education is proposing to stop collecting a wide range of data, including information about young children, such as how many children have access to preschool and kindergarten, broken down by race, sex, disability and English learner status.”
