It was another busy week in Washington as lawmakers prepared for the congressional recess the following week. Conversations are heating up behind the scenes surrounding FY22 appropriations and a new iteration of the Build Back Better Act. Advocacy work will be critical in the coming weeks to ensure the historic proposals for education funding are included in both pieces of legislation.
In just over a month, AACTE’s 74th Annual Meeting, Rethink, Reshape, Reimagine, Revolutionize: Growing the Profession Post Pandemic, will commence March 4-6, 2022, in New Orleans, LA. As conference preparations continue, know that the AACTE team remains committed to providing an enriching and engaging educational experience in an environment that promotes health and safety and follows the local COVID-19 guidelines and recommendations.
As of January 25, 2022, the city of New Orleans remains in Phase Three of their COVID-19 recovery plan. However, new regulations have been added to combat the spread of the Omicron variant. As a result, the following guidelines are currently in effect within the city:
This weekly Washington Update is intended to keep members informed on Capitol Hill activities impacting the educator preparation community. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
The Senate adjourned for the long weekend on Thursday and postponed next week’s scheduled recess to the week of January 24th. The chamber will return on Tuesday to continue debate on voting and election legislation. Behind the scenes, conversations surrounding FY22 appropriations are garnering more traction than they have in recent months. We expect the next month to be especially busy as we inch closer to the February 18th deadline for either passing FY22 appropriations or extending the Continuing Resolution (CR) to avoid a government shutdown.
AACTE cannot wait to welcome you to its 74th Annual Meeting, Rethink, Reshape, Reimagine, Revolutionize: Growing the Profession Post Pandemic, March 4-6, 2022 in New Orleans, LA. As we prepare to welcome you to the “The Big Easy,” the AACTE team is committed to providing an enriching and engaging experience that promotes health and safety and follows the local COVID-19 guidelines and recommendations.
Permission granted by Jeremiah Robinson, the Office of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, City of Boston
In this time of division and crisis, we, as school leaders, cannot sit quietly by. Volatile and violent debates threaten to erode our hallways and undermine our solemn promise to America’s students—to provide them with high-quality education in safe spaces. We are compelled to reaffirm what and who we stand for and to advocate for a collective recommitment to civility in our schools and in our communities.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of children—at least one in five—have missed critical vaccinations that keep them healthy and our communities free from disease.
Students without these vaccinations may not be eligible to return to in-person learning in the fall. Even worse, losing herd immunity could put millions of unvaccinated children and adults at risk for deadly or debilitating diseases such as measles, whooping cough and polio.
This blog post is written by AACTE consultant Jane West and is intended to provide updated information. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
Biden Administration Forges Ahead on School Reopening/Vaccines for Teachers as Secretary of Education Cardona Takes Office
On Tuesday evening Miguel Cardona was sworn in as the nation’s new Secretary of Education. The Senate voted 64-33 to confirm Cardona, a former public school teacher, principal and state superintendent. Cardona assumes the Education Department’s top job as the debate around how to safely reopen schools has grown increasingly bitter. President Biden in response is now walking a political tightrope, reassuring teachers they should be prioritized for the vaccine while recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that vaccinations should not be a prerequisite for reopening schools. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last month that vaccinating all teachers against COVID-19 before reopening schools is “non-workable,” Cardona wasted no time, diving into the debate over school reopening—with a USA Today op-ed posting as his swearing-in ceremony concluded. In the article, Cardona reaffirmed his commitment to safely reopening schools, announcing that he will convene a “national summit on safe school reopening” later this month.
AACTE Board member Kimberly White-Smith, dean, LaFetra College of Education at University of La Verne, is among the featured education leaders presenting at the “Speaking Up for Public Schools” livestream discussion on Tuesday, February 23 at 2:00 p.m.
Each year Public Schools Week brings together Learning First Alliance members, educators, parents, business and community leaders, and many others across the country to show the strength—and potential—of our nation’s public schools and our students’ futures. Even now, public schools are making connections each day with their students, families and broader communities.
We will celebrate Public Schools Week 2021, Feb. 22-26, virtually. On Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 2 p.m. EST the Learning First Alliance and its members will host a discussion on what has been learned and how public schools can move forward from the Covid-19 pandemic. The event will spotlight social-emotional learning and how the educators are meeting student needs as well as future needs. The show can be viewed on LFA’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.
Deeper Dive: Understanding the Preventative and Responsive Trends in Campus Safety
For decades, students, teachers, and parents have lived with the reality of campus violence, particularly gun violence. It is clear that meaningful action is needed to keep our schools safe, and to prevent violence from occurring in the first place. Educators have a special responsibility to lead on this issue. Across the country educators are joining community and political leaders in search of a multi-faceted approach to intervene, prevent, and respond to school-based violence.
During the 2020 Annual Meeting, a panel for explored this topic during the “School Safety Matters” Deeper Dive session, beginning with a national overview of the state of gun violence on school and college campuses. The presenters discussed policy levers used to address this violence and acquainted attendees with the tools and strategies being used to prevent and respond to school-based gun violence. Moderator Ben Erwin of the Education Commission of the States (ECS) facilitated the discussion between his ECS colleague, Zeke Perez, Amanda Fitzgerald from the American School Counselor Association and Elizabeth Brown, principal of Forest High School in Ocala, FL.
This blog post is written by AACTE consultant Jane West and is intended to provide updated information. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE
Congress Delivers a Big Christmas Present – and On Time!
Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate came together to have bipartisan votes in both bodies to pass two packages of funding bills, which will keep all of the federal government running. President Trump has indicated that he will sign the bills today, thus preventing another government shutdown.
Some key points about the education portion of the bill:
Kindergarten teacher and doctoral student Kimberly Atkinson directs her students in a stretching exercise with belly breathing to help them reset their bodies and minds for learning.
Ed Prep Matters features the “Revolutionizing Education” column to spotlight the many ways AACTE, member institutions, and partners are pioneering leading-edge research, models, strategies and programs that focus on the three core values outlined in the current AACTE strategic plan: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Quality and Impact; and Inquiry and Innovation.
This article originally appeared in The 74 and is reprinted with permission.
Seven years ago, Michael P. Alfano was sitting in his office at Southern Connecticut State University when a faculty member ran into the room in tears. That was how he first learned about the deadly school shooting 20 miles away at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 26 people—including a student in his graduate education program, first-grade teacher Victoria Soto—were killed.
The tragedy sparked a reckoning in Alfano—and educators across the country—who questioned whether school systems had failed to support individuals who acted out so violently. For Alfano, part of preventing a shooting, bullying, or any other form of violence in schools meant addressing childhood trauma, helping students understand and manage emotions, and training educators in this work.
This Opinion article by Renée A. Middleton, a past AACTE president and dean of the Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education at Ohio University, originally appeared in the Columbus Dispatch and is reprinted with permission.
Hate crimes are on the rise in the United States. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the United States last year saw the third-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since 1979. There were 1,879 reported anti-Semitic acts—a 48% increase from 2016 and a 99% increase from 2015. Ohio, meanwhile, ranked third in the nation in hate crimes in general in 2016, according to the FBI. Columbus has more than doubled the number of reported hate crimes in Cincinnati and Cleveland combined.
These troubling numbers come against the backdrop of a humanitarian crisis at the southern border. Refugees are being separated from their families, detained against their will and are not being treated with dignity and respect. The majority of these refugees are children, who are powerless in every sense of the word.
Our nation and the entire world are changing rapidly. With the rise of threats to our children’s safety like depression, lack of mental health resources, familial disruptions, and school violence and shootings, it is imperative that we equip teachers and school personnel with the tools they need to recognize and respond to all students, in all classrooms.
In today’s schools, students are suffering from a variety of issues; one that arises too often is mental health. Unfortunately, it is not always apparent what these students are experiencing. Depression is rampant. Emotional stress stems from a variety of external factors including depression, divorce, social media anxiety, lost friendships, bullying or simply feeling out of touch with others. It is imperative, now more than ever, that our teachers are prepared to notice when students are experiencing these types of trauma. Trauma informed practices allow teachers to be trained well beyond the obvious clues and prepares them to be aware of early, less apparent warning signs, so they can successfully and swiftly intervene to help a student in need.
During the month of October, AACTE has addressed the importance of school safety in its recent Thought Leadership series. AACTE Dean in Residence Leslie T. Fenwick took time to share in this video how she led a new approach at Howard University to prepare teacher candidates for ensuring safe learning environments in classrooms. In 2010, Howard’s College of Education innovated its undergraduate elementary education program by focusing on ways to better meet the safety needs of local students in its Washington D.C. community.
To evaluate the impact of the new program, “Teacher Talks” were convened with faculty members and novice teachers who were recent graduates of Howard’s College of Education. The graduates shared case studies about their students during the meetings and stories about how many of their children were exposed to violence either in their home or community, oftentimes with a relative being shot. The graduates also reported that their training in human development, with an asset lens, and the knowledge base they received from courses outside of the college of education helped them to reach their students individually as a teacher or connect them to resources in their community.
The Problem
As educators, protecting and nurturing the health and well-being of our nation’s most precious investment—our youth—is always top of mind. Safeguarding their welfare and creating supportive learning ecosystems should be national priorities. Unfortunately, no one piece of legislation, no one initiative, no one activist, or caring teacher can bring that umbrella of safety to every student, everywhere, all the time. What we need to be talking about openly and often across the nation is prevention: training, learning, and preparing. This begins at the federal level with funding to equip our state and local leaders with the tools necessary to create and foster a safe and balanced learning environment for all students.
There are classrooms and schools in this country where teachers are armed with weapons. It is a dark reality, and one that AACTE does not support. Federal funds should not be used to arm teachers. Funds should instead be used to incentivize building learning communities through supportive training in social and emotional learning, and to prepare profession-ready teachers. Federal money
