AP: Indiana to track COVID-19 in schools with new data dashboard. “The data dashboard will reflect the new and cumulative numbers of positive COVID-19 cases among students, teachers, and in a given school. It will be updated on a weekly basis, said Dr. Kristina Box, commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health.”
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New York Times: What We Know About Coronavirus Cases in K-12 Schools So Far
New York Times: What We Know About Coronavirus Cases in K-12 Schools So Far. “In an effort to better account for virus cases in kindergarten through 12th grade, The New York Times set out to collect data from state and local health and education agencies and through directly surveying school districts in eight states. Our goal was to understand, as well as possible, how prevalent the virus was in America’s schools over the first weeks of classes.”
Crossing guards get new tool to guide kids during coronavirus: Handheld sirens (Tampa Bay Times)
Tampa Bay Times: Crossing guards get new tool to guide kids during coronavirus: Handheld sirens. “This school year, though, [school crossing guard Ellen] Cipriani can’t identify students’ faces when they’re hidden behind the masks that Cipriani and the students are required to wear to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Nor can she blow the silver whistle she has used since she first trained as a crossing guard with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in September 2011. So the Sheriff’s Office has handed Cipriani and the county’s 369 crossing guards a new tool to help keep kids safe heading to and from school — electronic, handheld sirens.”
Montreal Gazette: Dad sets up website to track number of COVID cases in Quebec schools
Montreal Gazette: Dad sets up website to track number of COVID cases in Quebec schools. “Olivier Drouin, like so many other Quebec parents, is worried about his kids going back to school in these COVID times. Unlike most, though, Drouin is doing something about it. The Nuns’ Island father of two girls, 13 and 15, has created a website… that compiles data tracking the number of COVID-19 cases in schools to help parents make informed decisions.”
WCPO: DeWine unveils first school-based COVID-19 database
WCPO: DeWine unveils first school-based COVID-19 database. “Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday unveiled the Ohio Department of Health’s first round of COVID-19 data showing how many cases are tied to each of the state’s individual school districts. The new case-tracking system, which anyone can access online, relies on schools’ self-reporting. Not every school had submitted numbers by the time DeWine premiered it to the public.”
Sixth Tone: China to Build National Sex Offender Database for Use by Schools
Sixth Tone: China to Build National Sex Offender Database for Use by Schools . “In a landmark national policy aimed at protecting children, China has moved to bar people with histories of sex abuse from working in early childhood, primary, or secondary education. According to a new guideline issued Friday by three central government agencies — the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Public Security — the latter will build a database of sex offenders, including those who rape or molest children.”
Future of Privacy: The First National Model Student Data Privacy Agreement Launches
Future of Privacy Forum: The First National Model Student Data Privacy Agreement Launches. “Protections for student data privacy took an important step forward this summer when the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) released the first model National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) for school districts to use with their technology service providers. Ever since education technology (edtech) emerged as a key tool in classrooms, both schools and edtech companies have struggled to create data privacy agreements (DPAs) that adequately protect student data and meet both schools’ and providers’ needs. DPAs provide crucial protections for student data by limiting its use and sharing.”
KAGS: TEA offers free beginning-of-year assessments
KAGS: TEA offers free beginning-of-year assessments. “The Texas Education Agency is offering a new tool for parents and districts concerned about how much their kids retained last school year. With COVID-19 interrupting the 2019-2020 school year, They are offering beginning of year assessments for districts and parents. Kids can be registered for a free, optional online test to measure their knowledge and skills from last school year.”
Los Angeles Times: Why are so many schools closed when California cleared them to reopen?
Los Angeles Times: Why are so many schools closed when California cleared them to reopen?. “The recent decline of new coronavirus cases in California has freed 25 counties to reopen schools in the weeks ahead. On Sept. 1, San Diego County — home to the second-largest school district in the state — got the go-ahead. Orange County is on track to reopen schools on Sept. 22. San Francisco, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz are also cleared to soon open. But state and county clearance are only the first steps. In sprawling and diverse Orange and San Diego counties — and in the future Los Angeles County — school district leaders face disparate situations and complicated decisions that must take into account neighborhood COVID-19 rates, the size of the district, parent opinions and negotiations with employee unions.”
Politico: Florida schools defy DeSantis order to keep virus stats under wraps
Politico: Florida schools defy DeSantis order to keep virus stats under wraps. “Florida school districts are defying Gov. Ron DeSantis and publicly reporting new Covid-19 cases among students and staff that the state government considers confidential. The state Department of Health has tried to directly quash reporting on the virus in some instances, after DeSantis said K-12 testing data ‘needs to be put in the right context.'”
New York Times: N.Y.C. Will Again Delay Start of In-Person Classes for Most Students
New York Times: N.Y.C. Will Again Delay Start of In-Person Classes for Most Students. “Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday once again delayed the start of most in-person classes in the New York City public schools, acknowledging that the system had still not fully surmounted the many obstacles that it faced in bringing children back during the pandemic.”
New York Times: As School Returns, Kids With Special Needs Are Left Behind
New York Times: As School Returns, Kids With Special Needs Are Left Behind. “When the coronavirus pandemic first hit, the Education Department stressed that all public schools that would be providing virtual or online education during the pandemic must continue to serve their students with disabilities. But a survey released at the end of May by the advocacy group ParentsTogether, found that 40 percent of kids in special education hadn’t received any support at all, and only 20 percent received all the services they were entitled to. Over a third were doing little to no remote learning, compared with 17 percent of their general education peers.”
Esquire: The Crushing Reality of Zoom School
Esquire: The Crushing Reality of Zoom School. “Every choice has been terrible since the start of the pandemic, when we were told we had to choose life or an economy, a false dichotomy from the start—mass death and sickness are also bad for the economy—but the awful choices we face as parents at the start of school feel especially difficult because we’re all burnt out. The idea of facing all of this for one more day, let alone the seemingly endless months ahead, feels basically impossible. The pandemic balancing act for parents—choose two: your kids, your job, or your health—has always been difficult, but six months in it’s in full collapse.”
CNN: Parents send student to school while knowingly infected with coronavirus, mayor says
CNN: Parents send student to school while knowingly infected with coronavirus, mayor says. “Almost 30 teenagers have to quarantine after parents sent their child to a Massachusetts school despite knowing they were positive with Covid-19, according to Attleboro Public Schools and the town’s mayor. A Covid-19 positive student attended class on Monday, but the school wasn’t notified of their diagnosis until the next day, Attleboro High School superintendent David Sawyer said in a letter sent out to families Tuesday night.”
Slate: “It Feels Like There’s No Winning”
Slate: “It Feels Like There’s No Winning”. “Christopher Pinto is a high school math teacher at the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District outside of Houston. His school only decided to take on a hybrid model—both online and classroom education—less than a week before the fall semester started, even though it had gone fully remote in the spring. Thus, families got to choose between in-person learning and virtual, but teachers were expected to show up unless they had health issues. Pinto is immunocompromised—he has Type 1 diabetes—and applied to get a medical waiver so he could teach remotely, but he was denied. He still had some hope that the school’s hybrid approach would suit him better, since remote learning was so isolating, but it’s not normal at all. On Wednesday’s episode of What Next, I spoke with Pinto about the hybrid learning experiment being tested all over the country, and why teachers feel so alienated right now.”
