Date & Time: Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 2:00 pm

Speakers: Pending

As more students enter all grade levels with multi-lingual backgrounds, there is unprecedented demand within general education classrooms to help English learners reach math and reading proficiency.

Join this webinar to learn how several innovative districts have leveraged technology to effectively help English learners feel engaged and achieve rigorous grade-level academic standards.

Our expert panel will discuss how they’ve driven student success by using the right programs to extend their reach and support learning development for English Language learners in every grade.

This event is sponsored by DreamBox Learning.

By submitting your contact information, you are agreeing to receive communication from DreamBox Learning.

The post Providing English Language Learners with the Right Support, Right Now appeared first on District Administration.

The spending cap, known as the Aggregate Expenditure Limit (AEL), tells AZ schools how much they’re allowed to spend each year, and Democrats are pleading for Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to lift that cap for a second time this year.

“They are already very worried about this issue, and they are worried about whether or not they can spend the money that has been allocated to them by the legislature,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman at a press conference.

However, an override on the spending cap rests in the balance of political consensus between Democrats and Republicans. If the votes are there, according to Ducey’s spokesman C.J. Karamargin, state legislation would consider calling a special session ahead of the legislature’s scheduled return to work in January 2023.

For Arizona’s teachers, it’s a much more serious situation. Hoffman points out that schools will be forced to begin layoffs and implement larger classroom sizes. Students are already struggling to recover from the pandemic, according to a report from the Helios Education Foundation, the Arizona State Board of Education and the Arizona Department of Education. Most notably, the report reveals an 11% drop in math proficiency across all grade levels.

Additionally, data from the Economic Policy Institute shows that teachers are significantly underpaid, with Arizona teachers experiencing a 32% wage penalty in 2021 compared to workers with a college degree in other fields. That makes it the fourth-largest teacher pay gap in the country.

Teachers and other school staff don’t need anything else on their plate, notes Hoffman. “In a school year where safety and the mental health resources are more important than ever, positions like school counselors, behavior coaches, nurses and other critical school safety positions are also at risk,” she said.

More from DA: These political advocacy groups have banned over 1,500 books in school libraries

More than 190 state superintendents across political ideologies submitted a letter addressed to Gov. Ducey desperately asking for a special session to lift the spending cap. In it, they addressed specific areas that the $1.3 billion in funding would support:

• “Across the state, many certified teachers received significant pay raises. This has resulted in many districts starting and average salaries becoming competitive.”
• “In anticipation of the minimum wage increase, many school districts will use these funds to increase staff pay at minimum to comply with the legally required increase.”
• “Dedicated funding for the completion of capital projects that will address district infrastructure, including broadband.”
• “Continued work to increase school safety through capital projects and additional SROs.”

A bipartisan group of over 190 public school superintendents from across the state are asking the #AZLeg to act w/ the urgency our kids deserve and call a #SpecialSession to override the K-12 #AggregateExpenditureLimit. 1/ pic.twitter.com/jVS2xUGPK5

— Sen. Martín Quezada (@SenQuezada29) September 6, 2022

“The current estimated impact to the school districts if an AEL fix is not enacted would be a budgetary cut in excess of $1.3 billion,” the letter reads. “As some of the largest employers in our respective communities these cuts would devastate our local economies and the families in our communities, not to mention the aggregate effect on the state economy.”

According to state law, a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House will override the cap for one year. This has been done on only three separate occasions: Once in 2002, in 2008 and in February of this year. February’s vote lifted the cap for the 2022 fiscal year, which ended in June.

The post Arizona teachers’ careers are at the mercy of political consensus appeared first on District Administration.

And yet, on a per-student basis, schools today employ more teachers and other staff than they’ve ever had.

This may sound surprising or counterintuitive, so let’s use data on my home state of Virginia as an example.

Read more on The 74.

The post On a per-student basis, school staffing levels are hitting all-time high appeared first on District Administration.

On Tuesday, New York’s Board of Regents approved, for the first time, rules aimed at addressing long-standing allegations that scores of ultra-Orthodox private schools, called yeshivot, are defying state law by failing to provide an education in English, math and other basic subjects, purposefully denying some 50,000 students a basic secular education.

Read more on The Jerusalem Post.

The post New York’s ultra-Orthodox schools go under the microscope appeared first on District Administration.

Five-year-old AJ has cerebral palsy and he doesn’t speak. His northwestern Indiana school serves students with emotional and developmental disabilities. Many of his classmates use wheelchairs.

“My biggest thing is safety,” Gober said. “If there’s a fire in that building, how do you evacuate all of those kids?”

Read more on WYFI.

The post This special education school’s classrooms are so understaffed parents say it’s unsafe appeared first on District Administration.

Political interference has heavily impacted teachers, and now they’re saying enough is enough. The Texas Teachers Association, for example, reported a record number of employees (70%) who admit they’re seriously considering abandoning the profession in August.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten attributed teacher dissatisfaction to a lack of respect and resources.

“Teachers and school staff have been struggling for years with a lack of professional respect, inadequate support and resources, subpar compensation, untenable student loan debt, endless paperwork, and a culture of blame that weaponizes standardized tests to attack public schools and public school teachers,” she said a statement.

Political actors

Who else is standing on the frontlines of what has been labeled “political” and “cultural warfare” in our nation’s schools: librarians.

According to the latest report from the anti-censorship organization PEN America, there have been 2,532 instances of individual books being banned during the 2021-22 school year, leading to 1,648 unique book titles facing censorship.

Additionally, at least 50 political advocacy groups are the driving force contributing to this recent uptick in banned books. Among these groups, the most prominent are:

• Moms for Liberty
• US Parents Involved in Education
• No Left Turn in Education
• MassResistance
• Parents’ Rights in Education
• Mary in the Library
• County Citizens Defending Freedom USA
• Power2Parent

“While we think of book bans as the work of individual concerned citizens, our report demonstrates that today’s wave of bans represents a coordinated campaign to banish books being waged by sophisticated, ideological and well-resourced advocacy organizations,” said Chief Executive Officer of PEN America Suzanne Nossel in a statement.

These groups, according to the report, are “linked directly” to at least 20% of the bans that were implemented during the 2021-22 school year. Additionally, these groups commonly operate to promote Christian values.

More from DA: 17 Senate Republics say mask requirements are ‘unnecessary’ in Head Start programs

“Some of the groups espouse Christian nationalist political views, while many have mission statements oriented toward reforming public schools, in some cases to offer more religious education,” the report reads.

States enacting book bans

In addition to revealing an uptick in censorship among libraries, the report also identified which states have enacted the most book bans. According to the data (see below), Texas far exceeds any other state.

Republican state representative Matt Krause issued a letter to school districts and a list of 850 book titles asking them to report on which books their libraries currently held. In the letter, Krause asks districts to report any books that address or contain the following topics:

“human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law, or contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Topics facing censorship

Among the 1,648 unique book titles that were banned, 674 (41%) address LGBTQ+ themes or include LGBTQ+ characters. Additionally, 659 titles (40%) include protagonists or secondary characters of color. 338 titles (21%) discuss the issue of race and racism.

These are the most frequently banned books among districts, according to the report:

• “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe (41 districts)
• “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson (29 districts)
• “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez (24 districts)

“This rapidly accelerating movement has resulted in more and more students losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship,” said Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America’s Free Expression and Education Programs and lead author of the report in a statement.

“The work of groups organizing and advocating to ban books in schools is especially harmful to students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who are forced to experience stories that validate their lives vanishing from classrooms and library shelves.”

The post These political advocacy groups have banned over 1,500 books in school libraries appeared first on District Administration.

• Texas pays teachers the highest starting salary: $46,113 (adjusted for cost of living). That’s 1.5 times higher than the lowest, Montana, at $31,215.
• New York offers the highest annual salary for public-school teachers: $80,286 (adjusted for cost of living), which is 1.7 times higher than salaries in Hawaii, which, at $47,156, are the lowest.
• Nevada projects to have seven teachers per 1,000 students by the year 2028, the lowest rate, which is 14 times lower than the District of Columbia’s projected 98.
• Vermont has the lowest pupil-teacher ratio, 10.34, about two 2.2 lower than the state with the highest rate, Utah at 22.63.
• New York spends the most per student, $29,897, 3.5 times more than Idaho, the lowest at $8,662.

The rankings, by the personal finance website WalletHub, analyzed 24 key indicators of “teacher-friendliness” as many districts grapple with staff shortages—particularly in STEM and special education—that emerged as a challenge for K-12 well before the pandemic.

Now, reports of worsening morale are becoming the norm, with teachers citing the “teacher pay penalty” that leaves them with lower salaries compared to professionals with similar education and experience. In countless surveys, teachers have also said that respect for their profession has declined while politicians and others are interfering with instruction more frequently and aggressively.

“Leaders in the community and schools must work to create an environment of respect for teachers and support for their work,” Rene S. Parmar, dean of the School of Education at Lehman College, part of the City University of New York. “Salary is important as well, but we see teachers leaving high-paying districts when the working conditions are not supportive or safe.”

More from DA: Ranking all 50 states on highest teacher pay shows the pinch of inflation 

“If local officials disrespect them, parents and Boards challenge their professionalism, the environment around schools is unsafe and poorly maintained, and the local media promotes negativity, teachers will leave,” Parmar said.

Best and worst states for teachers

Here’s where your state ranks, from best to worst:

1. New York
2. Utah
3. Virginia
4. Florida
5. Washington
6. New Jersey
7. Pennsylvania
8. Massachusetts
9. Maryland
10. Connecticut
11. North Dakota
12. Delaware
13. Minnesota
14. Georgia
15. California
16. Illinois
17. Indiana
18. Alabama
19. Mississippi
20. Idaho
21. Kentucky
22. Wyoming
23.  Texas
24. Iowa
25. Kansas
26. Ohio
27. Vermont
28. North Carolina
29. West Virginia
30. Oregon
31. Rhode Island
32. Nebraska
33. Wisconsin
34. Oklahoma
35. Arkansas
36. Colorado
37. Alaska
38. South Carolina
39. South Dakota
40. Michigan
41. Tennessee
42. Nevada
43. Montana
44. Maine
45. Louisiana
46. Missouri
47. New Mexico
48. Arizona
49. District of Columbia
50. New Hampshire
51. Hawaii

It’s not all about salaries

Where states placed in the rankings was not solely determined by teacher pay. For instance, Florida landed No. 4 overall, with high rankings for job opportunities and work environment, but fell among the bottom five states for teacher pay, along with Washington, D.C., South Dakota, Maine and Hawaii. The top five states for teacher pay are New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Still, pay is definitely important. Washington, D.C., for example, is at the bottom for teacher pay and among the top five for highest projected turnover, along with Indiana, Virginia, Arizona and Vermont. New York, which is No. 1 for pay, is expected to have among the lowest turnover rates, just behind Kentucky, Montana and Missouri. New York also spends the most per pupil. 

When it comes to the lowest student-teacher ratio, New England dominates the top five: Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Connecticut. The highest ratios are all found in large western states with expansive and remote rural areas: Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, California and Utah.

The post Ranking the best and worst states for teachers: Is it all about pay? appeared first on District Administration.

Administrators at the Robert E. Peary school in Ridgewood — a part of the city’s District 75 for students with significant disabilities — say the 13-year-old boy injured himself in a fall while running through a hallway, according to an Education Department incident report reviewed by the Daily News.

Read more on Yahoo News

The post Queens public school staffer broke autistic student’s arm: notice of claim appeared first on District Administration.

The administration of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) this weekend sharply restricted the rights of transgender students, sending schools into turmoil and drawing strong denunciations from Democratic legislators and some educators, but earning applause from Republicans and parents’ rights advocates.

The post Virginia will block schools from accommodating transgender students appeared first on District Administration.

She was a teen mom — like her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother. Her school did not teach sexual health education, and preventing pregnancy was a foreign concept. Her sons are now teenagers.

Read more on NBC News

The post As abortion bans take effect, Texas revises sex education to reduce teen pregnancy appeared first on District Administration.