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What happens when an ‘all-of-government approach’ to preventing evictions leaves out schools: Advocates fault Biden plan for delays in rental assistance

Most of the students at Monte Del Sol Charter School live along what is known as the Airport Road corridor in Sante Fe, New Mexico — a high-poverty, mostly immigrant community where “trailer parks hide behind fake adobe walls,” said Cate Moses, the school’s homeless liaison. These are the families she had in mind last...
By Linda Jacobson | October 4, 2021
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As the pandemic set in, charter schools saw their highest enrollment growth since 2015, 42-state analysis shows

Charter schools experienced more growth in 2020-21 — the first full year of the pandemic— than they’ve seen in the past six years, according to preliminary data released earlier this month from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In contrast to traditional public schools, which saw a significant, 1.4 million drop in student enrollment during the tumultuous...
By Linda Jacobson | September 29, 2021
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‘Too much masking is real’: More districts call on students to mask up outside, but scientists are skeptical

It wasn’t long after school started in California’s Solana Beach School District that some classrooms shifted to remote learning because of positive COVID-19 cases. During the first four weeks of school, there were 19 positive cases among students and staff and eight classrooms in quarantine. But on Aug. 30, the 2,800-student district began requiring students to...
By Linda Jacobson | September 22, 2021
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‘The first big domino to fall’: Los Angeles district mandates student vaccines as Biden unveils aggressive COVID testing plan

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, voted Thursday to require all eligible students to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 10 — a move that could prompt other districts across the country to follow suit and fuel ongoing opposition from families and politicians opposed to such mandates. Los Angeles students must get their second...
By Linda Jacobson | September 10, 2021
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From reopening schools to mask mandates, education policy expected to play key role in upcoming Newsom recall vote in California

Updated September 15 California Gov. Gavin Newsom decisively beat back a recall effort Tuesday, as almost two-thirds of voters chose to keep him in office for the remainder of his first term. While mail-in votes await to be counted, the race was called for the no votes. Republican Larry Elder, the frontrunner to replace Newsom...
By Linda Jacobson | September 9, 2021
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As Biden pushes nation toward universal pre-K, home-based child care could help fill gaps in the system. But a new report urges caution

When a little girl in Chris Nelson’s family child care center painted a picture of a purple cow, a boy in the program was quick to correct her: Cows, he said, could only be black and white. So the North Troy, Vermont, provider began organizing cow-related field trips so the preschoolers could reach their own...
By Linda Jacobson | September 8, 2021
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Virtual pre-K filled a void for ‘overwhelmed’ parents last year, but experts disagree about its role — and federal funding — in a post-pandemic world

As in most pre-K classrooms, Geneva Gadsden’s students — known as the All Stars — rotate through different stations, from dress-up corners to building block areas. But the All Stars, the Happy Owls and other groups of preschoolers at the Whitted School in Durham, North Carolina, also take turns with Chromebooks, spending 15 minutes a...
By Linda Jacobson | August 17, 2021
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Twitter breaks, meditative walks, security guards: How school leaders are responding to an unsettling season of public outrage

As one of 27 district leaders on a national COVID recovery task force, Virginia Beach schools Superintendent Aaron Spence helped craft a list of the issues his counterparts across the country would need to consider as they reopened schools. But during one meeting earlier this year, he said he interrupted the conversation with a more...
By Linda Jacobson | July 29, 2021
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More than a quarter million fewer students applied for financial aid during pandemic, signaling COVID’s effect on college entry

More than a quarter of a million fewer high school seniors have applied for financial aid since the beginning of the pandemic, and the slip is particularly striking in schools with high minority and low-income student populations — an early indicator that the decline in college enrollment among disadvantaged students is continuing. The analysis, released...
By Linda Jacobson | July 26, 2021
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With some parents mad over issues from school closures to critical race theory, leaders fear impact on fall enrollment

Momentum may be building toward a full school reopening this fall, but some families say it’s too late. “My daughter will never go back to public school,” said Michelle Walker of McMinnville, Oregon, outside Portland. She took out a loan to move her fourth-grader MacKenzie into a private school and is working to mobilize families...
By Linda Jacobson | July 15, 2021