The Morning Read
Your Daily Roundup of LAUSD news from across the web | 10.05.21
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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
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Updated CDC guidance relaxing mask requirements for some students, but not others, puts school districts in tough spot

Friday’s updated school reopening guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts districts in a tough spot — do they require all students to wear masks indoors or just those who haven’t been vaccinated? District leaders say it would be difficult to implement a policy where masks are optional for some but not...
By Linda Jacobson | July 14, 2021
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New federal data confirms pandemic’s blow to K-12 enrollment, with drop of 1.5 million students; pre-K experiences 22 percent decline

Data released last month revealed a startling decline in the number of American children attending public schools: Total K-12 enrollment dropped by roughly 3 percent in 2020-21 compared with the previous school year. The overall number obscures an even more dramatic drop among the youngest children. According to the data circulated by the National Center for...
By Kevin Mahnken | July 13, 2021
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Goldstein: 3 key recommendations for ensuring better Title IX protections for K-12 students

On June 8, I delivered comments during session 3 of the public hearings on Title IX before the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. This was a much anticipated and long-awaited opportunity to re-engage with the department, under new leadership, to participate in the thinking about changes to Title IX regulations that can...
By Heidi Goldstein | July 12, 2021
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Food insecurity now a growing concern for America’s college students

This article originally appeared at El Paso Matters For the first time in her life, Giselle Paredes needs help feeding her family. “Many times I don’t have something to cook so I’m like, ‘what am I going to do?’” Paredes said. “They’re hungry because they’re studying.” The 45-year-old wife and mother of two says she has...
By Jewel Jackson, El Paso Matters | July 8, 2021
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Spread of Delta variant marks ‘most dangerous’ time in pandemic for kids, may force schools to re-up safety measures, experts say

The highly contagious Delta COVID variant quickly spreading through the U.S. may force schools to double down on mitigation measures in order to reopen safely later this summer and into the fall, health experts say. It’s “one of the most dangerous time periods [in the pandemic] for people who aren’t vaccinated,” said Taylor Nelson, a...
By Asher Lehrer-Small | July 7, 2021
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More colleges following California’s lead in no longer holding transcripts hostage over unpaid bills

James Smith missed his final housing payment to the University of Massachusetts Amherst when he spent a year there in an exchange program on his way to a degree at the University of Minnesota. Strapped and with his family struggling financially at the time, he promised to pay off the $2,000 balance as soon as...
By Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report | July 6, 2021
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Analysis: Tutoring during the summer is a great first step toward fixing pandemic learning loss. It must continue into the fall

There’s a lot riding on this summer. Schools are reopening their doors to in-person learning in the fall, and many see this summer as a chance to address the unfinished learning the pandemic leaves in its wake. But no matter how successful summer programs are, schools can’t expect to operate business as usual this fall....
By Amanda Neitzel | July 1, 2021
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Analysis: Digital learning is here to stay. Now, give non-traditional online schools the funding to meet their students’ needs

If we have learned one thing from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that a one-size-fits-all approach to education doesn’t cut it. While many students struggled with the transition from in-person learning to emergency remote instruction, others have thrived using some of the new and innovative models implemented during the pandemic. As education continues to evolve and...
By Yovhane Metcalfe | June 30, 2021
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Can right answers be wrong? Latest clash over ‘white supremacy culture’ unfolds in unlikely arena: Math class

To learn the geometric concept of transformations this year, Crystal Watson’s eighth-graders drew up blueprints of apartments. As they worked, she asked them to imagine designing affordable housing for Black and Hispanic families like theirs in Cincinnati who have been priced out of their neighborhoods. But when she had them add a hallway down the...
By Linda Jacobson | June 29, 2021