The Oakland Education Week in Review: 3/30-4/5

last week– the need to get kids online, and how you can help, lots of COVID fallout and ways that you can help, including inspiring work by the Oakland REACH, a virtual awards ceremony for high schools making a difference, get your census on, some great education resources including art projects that focus on the happy, and much more, please read share and make a difference

Oakland:

California:

Other Stories:

Resources:

How You Can Help:

Oakland:

California:

  • Los Angeles Unified and Verizon Reach Agreement to Provide Unlimited Internet to Students Without Access
    • Los Angeles Unified School District and Verizon announced today that they have reached an agreement to provide Internet connectivity for all students who have no Internet connectivity at home. This agreement is a critical component in the district’s plan for students to continue learning as campuses remain closed in response to COVID-19. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
  • Thousands of Los Angeles high school students are not accessing online learning during school closures
    • About 15,000 high school students in Los Angeles Unified did not participate in any online learning during the first two weeks of school closures, district Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday. In addition, for the remaining 105,000 high school students who have participated in online classes, about 26,000 of them are not doing so on a daily basis.
  • Coronavirus stretches California’s special education system to the brink
    • Across California, schools have physically shuttered as they make the unprecedented move toward online instruction amid the coronavirus pandemic. The virus has upended almost every facet of education in California and the nation — but perhaps no other student group stands to be more affected than students with special needs.
  • Governor, ed chief tell districts to crank up distance learning
    • The announcement comes as Bay Area school officials scramble to come up distance learning plans that work
  • Governor, legislators helping to ensure equity to computer science education in California
    • Most kids like to play on their phone, but few know how to program one. Although they are avid consumers of technology, most students in California don’t have the opportunity to learn computer science in order to become creators of it. In particular, students of color, girls and students in low-income and rural communities do not receive the same high-quality computer science education as students in more affluent districts. To change this, California needs to provide high quality teaching and learning opportunities in our schools.
  • California Schools Unlikely to Reopen This Academic Year
    • California school districts on Wednesday began announcing the unwelcome but not unexpected news that they will remain closed for the rest of the academic year. Long Beach and Oakland were among the first to pull the plug, making their announcements hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom said districts should focus on teaching students from afar because it’s unlikely the coronavirus will allow them to reopen before summer.
  • Forget summer school: California districts facing fiscal nightmare may take years to recover
    • With schools across California expected to remain closed until the fall, district officials this week started looking toward an ominous future, one filled with fiscal calamity and academic losses from the fallout of the coronavirus crisis.
  • California school board meetings go virtual, but not without obstacles
    • To make it possible for boards to carry out their business during the coronavirus crisis, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order last month allowing elected local government officials throughout the state — including school boards, city councils and county boards of supervisors — to conduct all meetings virtually. A key requirement: Governing bodies must provide options for the public to view and participate in meetings. 

Other Stories:

  • How Racial Health Disparities Will Play Out in the Pandemic
    • The federal government has failed its populace in many ways since the COVID-19 pandemic reached American soil. It began early on with an inadequate supply of test kits being provided to clinicians, compounded when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enacted strict criteria for which patients could even receive one. Dr. Uché Blackstock notes that discriminatory effects were embedded into those criteria. The initial CDC recommendations discouraged doctors from testing every patient who came in with a fever, coughing, and difficult breathing. A test, they said, should only be performed if those symptoms presented in someone who had recently traveled to an area where COVID-19 cases were prevalent, or if they had come into close contact with someone who had already been diagnosed with the coronavirus.
  • Foster kids who can’t visit parents are struggling under coronavirus isolation, advocates say
    • America’s 437,283 children in foster care, for whom life can already feel unpredictable, are particularly vulnerable to the disruption that COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has brought to daily life.
  • How Black Girls Get Pushed Out of School
    • The debate about the school-to-prison pipeline has largely been centered on boys. Meet the author and academic who has worked to change that.

Resources:

  • How to Make Digital Comics in the Classroom
    • Learn how to make digital comics in the classroom in this week’s education technology tutorial. In this week’s video about how to use education technology, Sam Kary teaches you everything you need to know about teaching students how to make digital comics using Storyboard That! 

How You Can Help:

  • Oakland School Launches GoFundMe For Families Hit Hard By Coronavirus
    • East Oakland’s Esperanza Elementary School announced Monday the creation of a crowdfunding campaign for families of the school who have been significantly affected by the novel coronavirus outbreak.
  • We Demand Free Internet for ALL Low-Income Families During COVID-19
    • Children are being forced to learn from home due to school closures, and as many as 12 million do not have access to internet. Internet providers have signed the FCC’s Keep Americans Connected Pledge, promising to provide internet to families in need. However, the children who face the most challenges are actually left out of this pledge. 
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