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Because of a 6-year plan put into place at Amherst schools teachers of color now makeup 31% of educators compared to 20% 6 years ago.

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Because of a 6-year plan put into place at Amherst schools teachers of color now makeup 31% of educators compared to 20% 6 years ago.

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AMHERST - A 6-year-old project to diversify the teaching staff in the Amherst and regional public schools to better match the racial makeup of the student body continues to yield results.

At the Amherst Regional School Committee on Tuesday, members of the Diversity, Equity and Human Resources department gave an overview of the ongoing work that, according to Department of Elementary and Secondary Education statistics, shows there has been significant progress since the 2016-2017 school year.

As of the 2021-2022 school year, Black educators, measured as full-time equivalents, have gone from 33.8 to 55.6, the number of Latino educators has increased from 49.5 to 76.3, and the number of Asian educators has risen from nine to 21.6. Teachers of color now make up about 31% of educators at both the elementary and secondary schools, up from about 20% six years ago. Meanwhile, students of color represent 55% of the elementary school population and 43% of the regional population.

"We are on a good trend as far as diversifying," Doreen Cunningham, assistant superintendent of Diversity, Equity and Human Resources, told the school board on Jan. 17.

Although Cunningham said progress still needs to be made, the challenges of doing outreach and recruitment have diminished.

"We've come so far, and we're doing much better, and we acknowledge where we make mistakes and where we have to do better by everyone," Cunningham said. "People look at that and they appreciate we are this transparent."

These numbers are being achieved by improving hiring practices, retention efforts and professional development, among other strategies, education officials said.

Cunningham explained that the charge to increase the diversity of staff until teachers matched student diversity began in 2017, with directions taken from a Search Process Review Committee that gave input on changing hiring practices by creating a more consistent process, with an emphasis on getting more people of color into the system.

"As we know from our previous numbers, the district as well as Massachusetts at the time was predominantly white," Cunningham said.

Since then, the schools have included a process for promoting educators to professional teacher status within the organization, interviewing applicants without using resumes as primary criteria, and helping staff prepare for advancement through professional development.

"It's a broad approach we've taken and I think we've realized significant results," Superintendent Michael Morris said.

"Those numbers of increasing diversity of staff over five years are amazing," Amherst representative Peter Demling said. "It's really a testament to how you've taken it as a holistic view."

"You are a small but mighty team that's tackling a plethora of small things that together add up to much, much greater than the sum of their parts," said Amherst representative Allison McDonald.

Work underway

Other staff in the department gave more specifics about the work underway.

Carol Newman Rose, assistant to the assistant superintendent and a human resources generalist, said an important adjustment to the hiring process was separating the screening committee from the interview committee.

This allowed members of the screening committee to examine resumes and then not forward certain information to the interview committee, including resumes. This two-step process is a cornerstone of diversifying the staff, which also includes having the interview committee focus on asking consistent, prescribed questions to all applicants and having a robust conversation.

This process, Rose said, also is a way to ensure that diverse candidates with emergency or provisional licenses - who might not yet have earned permanent licenses - would be given interviews. Without relying on a resume at the interview stage, a consistently framed conversation can ensue, and followup questions can be presented.

"We try to make sure that there's always consistency so that no one can come back and say they asked me question this because I'm x, y or z," Cunningham said.

Damany Gordon, equity and diversity specialist, referred to the changed hiring practice and other recruiting strategies for outreach that has meant "significant changes in terms of diversification of our staff."

Gordon cited the district's participation in Grow Your Own - Amherst Futures, a partnership with Mount Holyoke College in which paraeducators of color have a pathway to get teacher certification.

"From this program that we started a few years ago, so far we've had 22 paraeducators move into teaching roles, as well as admin roles," Gordon said.

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Diversity of staff in Amherst's schools on the rise School staff behind 6-year initiative

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AMHERST - A 6-year-old project to diversify the teaching staff in the Amherst and regional public schools to better match the racial makeup of the student body continues to yield results.At the Amherst Regional School Committee on Tuesday, members of...

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The teachers of color act was presented to a senate panel that strives to increase the number of BIPOC teachers by 2% each year, so all students have access to diverse educators by 2040.

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The teachers of color act was presented to a senate panel that strives to increase the number of BIPOC teachers by 2% each year, so all students have access to diverse educators by 2040.

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/ CBS Minnesota

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Fourth grader Azomali Obiasakin was at the Minnesota State Capitol Wednesday with a personal plea: Asking the legislature to pass policies to increase teachers of color in schools across the state.

"At my new school, they know how to handle difficult situations because there are more teachers of color," Obiasakin told a Senate panel. "Please pass the teachers of color act so more kids can feel happy in their schools."

Obiasakin and other students told a Senate committee on Wednesday there is a crucial need for educators who look like them in classrooms everywhere. The current make-up of Minnesota's teacher workforce doesn't accurately reflect the diversity of the student population -- 37% of students identify as Black, Indigenous or people of color, compared to just 6% of the state's teachers.

State lawmakers are trying to bridge that gap, as research shows better representation positively impacts students' learning.

"The proposed policies in this bill are essential to closing the persistent and unacceptable opportunity and achievement gap," said Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton. "And the policies and the provisions in this bill are crucial to ensuring a strong return on our state investment."

A proposal that cleared a Senate committee on Wednesday would expand and strengthen some provisions of the Teachers of Color Act, an effort that has seen bipartisan support in the past. It sets a new benchmark of increasing the number of BIPOC teachers by 2% each year, so all students have access to diverse educators by 2040.

The bill also earmarks $100 million in grants and scholarships for recruiting and retaining people with diverse backgrounds into the profession and increase hiring bonuses for out-of-state teachers to come to Minnesota.

Sarah Lancaster, who teaches first grade in Onamia, said she is the only teacher of color in her whole district. She testified that she's seen the impact of having someone like her lead the classroom.

"It's impossible for one person or one type of person to show up for every child," Lancaster said. "And in order to provide rich learning experiences for all of our students, we must ensure that the population of educators is as beautifully diverse as the students we teach."

The legislation also prohibits public schools for adopting a name, symbol or image that is associated American Indian tribes to be used in mascot, nickname, logo, or team name in a school district.

"If you want to put a title on this [bill] -- this is certainly the biggest one -- this is like 'Teachers of Color: We Mean It,''' Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who has authored previous iterations of this proposal now in law.

He said he supports the proposal, but raised concern that some language used in the bill, like "antiracist," would drive some lawmakers away from also voting for it.

Caroline Cummings

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Minnesota Senate committee advances bill to increase teachers of color in Minnesota schools

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CBS Minnesota ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Fourth grader Azomali Obiasakin was at the Minnesota State Capitol Wednesday with a personal plea: Asking the legislature to pass policies to increase teachers of color in schools across the state. "At my new school, they know how to handle difficult situations because there are more teachers of color," Obiasakin told a Senate panel.

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Students at UCLA take a stand when it comes to accessible education for disabled students who cannot obtain an adequate education with the current conditions. 

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Students at UCLA take a stand when it comes to accessible education for disabled students who cannot obtain an adequate education with the current conditions. 

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In early 2022, hundreds of UCLA students occupied Murphy Hall and brought public attention to the failure of the campus administration to provide for students with disabilities who continue to need remote access to classes.

Many faculty were frustrated as well, particularly in the absence of a coordinated approach to working with students who have disability-based needs for remote learning. Questions of meaningful access to education were left to individual faculty and students to negotiate or troubleshoot in the absence of adequate technical support, civil rights-compliant standards or collective dialogue.

While student protests eventually abated in response to some modest concessions, it is dismaying that our disabled students continue to report ongoing failures in educational access, unlawful denials of accommodations or requests involving remote learning, and disregard for legitimate student needs in multiple arenas. Within our disability communities, we have been persistently alarmed by student reports indicating overt retaliation and cruel behavior directed by UCLA staff against those students who assert their disability civil rights.

Across the University of California system, student activists, faculty and staff in the disability justice community recognize an ongoing pattern of discrimination that has particularly sharp effects for students of color with disabilities and for students in mental health crises. This pattern affects graduation rates, educational achievement and future life chances.

As we enter 2023, our campus is reacting again to student protest, embodied in the activism of many of our unionized graduate students, who called for a living wage, access to funded childcare and notably improved accessibility protections for student employees with disabilities.

Nevertheless, we witnessed essentially no institutional acknowledgment of the immediate implications of the strike for students and faculty with disabilities, despite the vital role that graduate student teaching assistants play in helping to mitigate institutional failures in accommodation.

For all faculty who teach large classes, the collaboration of our teaching assistants is absolutely vital in allowing us to balance teaching, research, family and life demands without reducing every course to a series of Scantron tests. For faculty with disabilities, the contributions of teaching assistants also embody an essential form of accessibility. Teaching assistants are vital partners for faculty with disabilities - completing supportive tasks that are otherwise inaccessible and helping to manage workloads that would otherwise be untenable for faculty dealing with severe illnesses or injuries.

When faculty lose disability access, education suffers.

In addition, for students with disabilities in larger classes, it is the graduate student teaching assistants who are best positioned to build trust, notice gaps in access and learning outcomes, deliver accommodations in testing and access to materials, and troubleshoot in order to ensure that disability-based barriers do not relentlessly compromise the quality of education.

As faculty with disabilities who have an investment in mentoring and advocacy for disabled students, we invite the university community to understand that relative to the campus mandate to provide accessible, equitable education compliant with federal and state civil rights requirements, the loss of our teaching assistants was akin to pouring gasoline on a fire.

Simply put, too many of our students with disabilities were struggling already and relentlessly missing out on an adequate education.

Without teaching assistant support, undergraduate education at UCLA could not possibly succeed in meeting even the most minimal standards for accessible education mandated under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Nevertheless, as the strike progressed through the end of fall quarter, we witnessed no institutional guidance, acknowledgment or adaptations for faculty or students with disabilities intended to manage the significant impact of the strike on educational access for UCLA's disability communities.

It would not be hard to infer that disability equity, access and inclusion have been forgotten - again - by the institution.

We were saddened to learn that the only disability-related addition to the new contract the UC did offer to our graduate student teaching assistants was in the form of access to "interim accommodations" while negotiating student accommodation requests. Absent a strong commitment to ensure that accommodations actually conform to the needs of graduate student workers, this imagined gain is essentially empty.

There are many excellent reasons why the UC should have bargained in good faith and should have settled this strike more rapidly and more equitably.

We foreground two that might otherwise be unacknowledged. First, the absence of teaching assistant support exacerbated the ongoing need for equity, inclusion and accessibility. The quality of education at UCLA has suffered, with escalated effects for students with disabilities and compound effects for students of color with disabilities, who are often at the highest risk of slipping through the cracks when efforts to realize disability inclusion fail. Any semblance of disability or racial equity cannot be actualized under these conditions.

Second, should this imperative not motivate state-level decision-makers, then we must pose the question: if the UC will not voluntarily learn to prioritize disability civil rights compliance, at what point should we anticipate that our students will need to ask the U.S. Department of Education and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the UC for engaging in systemic and harmful violations of federal civil rights law?

Students continue to bear the brunt of inadequate educational services and inaccessible pedagogy. The UC system must and can do far better.
Professor Beth Ribet (Ph.D., J.D.) teaches at UCLA in disability studies, gender studies and sociology. She also directs Repair, a health and disability justice organization in the Los Angeles nonprofit sector. Juliann Anesi is an assistant professor of gender studies at UCLA. She is also an affiliate faculty member in Asian American studies, disability studies and American Indian studies.

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Op-ed: Strike exposes UCLA's lack of disability access for students, professors - Daily Bruin

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This post was updated Jan. 10 at 11:38 p.m. In early 2022, hundreds of UCLA students occupied Murphy Hall and brought public attention to the failure of the campus administration to provide for students with disabilities who continue to need remote access to classes.

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The Urban Christian Academy in KC lost the majority of its funding resulting in the school shutting down after funders had an issue with the inclusive theology and support of the LGBTQ community.

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The Urban Christian Academy in KC lost the majority of its funding resulting in the school shutting down after funders had an issue with the inclusive theology and support of the LGBTQ community.

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Urban Christian Academy at 2810 East 80th St. in Kansas City, is closing at the end of this school year. The school has lost donations since it announced it supports the LGBTQ community. ecuriel@kcstar.com

In its nine years of existence, Urban Christian Academy steadily grew, adding a new grade each year in a neglected southeast Kansas City neighborhood.

The school has provided its students, kindergarten through eighth grade, with a tuition-free private education.

And with its "inclusive theology," it always supported LGBTQ students and staff. But it did so quietly, as issues like same-sex marriage and gay clergy divided Protestant denominations while hate crimes and violence against the LGBTQ community rose.

But last winter, executive director and co-founder Kalie Callaway-George felt the school could no longer keep its LGBTQ support in the shadows.

"I think our community members felt safe within our walls, but we wanted them to feel publicly protected as well. Eventually, it felt like our silence was contributing to the hurt and pain our queer community members were experiencing," she said in an email to The Star. "We deeply longed for all people to feel welcomed, loved and celebrated not just secretly within our walls but very explicitly to the public as well."

The school updated its mission statement and website, stating that it affirms LGBTQ rights, and informed the school community of the change in a newsletter. In the following six months, Callaway-George said, the school lost 42% of its funding - donations from churches and congregation members that keep the school running and pay for students' tuition.

By the end of 2022, the school lost 80% of its funding. And now, officials say the school is forced to close this spring.

"We find ourselves in a season where we are running on very few resources and each time attention is brought to the issue we are bombarded by hate which further distracts from our ability to care for the scholars we have in our care," Callaway-George said.

The controversy goes to the heart of how Christians define Christianity.

One angry patron wrote the school: "Although we love and admire you in many ways, for your hard work, compassion, commitment, strength, we draw the line at this issue. Christian compassion doesn't mean universalism. Jesus loved all, but told them, 'go and sin no more.' He died so we could be saved, healed, delivered, and set free."

Callaway-George takes a different view of Jesus' teachings: "As a Christian school, we believe that each of these beloved humans was made in the image of God."

Donations disappear

Before publicly supporting the LGBTQ community, Urban Christian Academy raised nearly $334,000 in December 2021. This past December, donations dropped to $14,800.

All eight churches that helped fund the school withdrew their support, "citing a disagreement of values based on the inclusion of the LGBTQ community," Callaway-George said.

"We have zero regrets in putting that stake in the ground. However, we are heartbroken and devastated that so many donors choose to withdraw their funding from the UCA scholars in response to this message," officials said in a recent newsletter.

Some families pulled their children out of the school of 100 students. And after two teachers resigned at Christmas break this school year, Urban Christian Academy closed its first, second and third grade classrooms.

As a result, mother-of-five Darnisha Harris said she had to take her children out of the school, except for her youngest in kindergarten. They're now enrolled in the Independence district, she said.

When she told her children the school was closing down, she said, "They cried. They told me, 'Mama, we don't want any Christmas gifts. Can we just give the money to the school?'"

"It really hurt my heart. It really, really crushed me," Harris said. "Love is love. And they don't teach our kids anything about sexuality. The only thing I've heard my kids talk about is being kind and treating others with respect and taking accountability. It really, really hurt my feelings that people would be ignorant like that."

The school, she said, has always offered a "helping hand. From giving us a coat to a gas card to a grocery gift card, just helping me out with my children. They were just wonderful."

Callaway-George said the school has reached out to churches that openly support the LGBTQ community in Kansas City, but none offered financial help.

The school has relied on Kansas City area churches since its start. Donations from churches made up only 2% of the school's funding, though, with more coming from individuals. Callaway-George claimed that no other issues have led to the school's situation.

In 2014, for example, Wornall Road Baptist Church offered up space to house the school until it could secure its own building, at 4328 Jackson Ave., starting with only a kindergarten class, according to a blog post from the school. After outgrowing the space in 2020, leaders purchased and rehabilitated an old school at 2810 E. 80th St., with the help of a $160,000 pledge from Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, a post says.

Merle Mees, Pleasant Valley's lead pastor, said in an email to The Star, that the donation was a gift raised by its congregation.

"We steward the gifts of our congregation through partnerships with a number of both local and international organizations with the understanding that each partnership is for a season, so we are able to serve with a variety of organizations that help fulfill community needs."

"I was unaware and saddened to learn that UCA will be closing at the end of this semester," the pastor said.

Preparing to close

The school has prioritized enrolling children within the 64130 ZIP code, most of them low-income students of color.

"We believe that lack of financial resources should not inhibit scholars from the opportunity to receive a high-quality, holistic education," Callaway-George said. "We also wanted to partner with parents and caregivers in the neighborhood in delivering that education. We hosted Family Nights once a month to foster community. Over the past nine years, our attendance rate at parent-teacher nights is 98%."

But school leaders supporting the LGBTQ community quickly fractured the tight-knit community.

Callaway-George said she began receiving hateful messages and requests to refund donations immediately after putting the support in writing.

She shared examples of the responses donors and parents sent the school:

"As Christian ladies, you cannot have an inner peace in your heart about this. May God burden and chasten you with his mighty hand," one message read.

"It makes me very sad to see that you have taken this path. My prayer is that God will protect these young lives from the false Gospel you are embracing, presenting and promoting to them. I believe this is a very sad day for the school, its students, teachers, parents and benefactors," another said.

Callaway-George said she believes "affirming our LGBTQ students and staff in their identities is life-saving work." In the past year, 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide, according to a 2022 survey from the Trevor Project. Nearly 1 in 5 transgender and nonbinary youth attempted suicide.

Da'Lesa Goodspeed, whose fourth grade son has attended the school since kindergarten, said she wasn't surprised that officials supported the LGBTQ community.

"They were so welcoming and loving and wanted to show love through the Christian way, that I knew they were accepting of it," she said. "It wasn't a shocker for me. But I know for a lot of families, it was a shocker.

"I think some of the parents were concerned it was a Christian-based school. And some parents feel or believe because it's Christian-based it should not be accepting of LGBTQ communities. That it's against God," she said. "And it spiraled down from there. Parents started talking about how they disagreed with it."

While Goodspeed would stay at Urban Christian Academy if she could, she's been applying to charter schools for her son to enroll in next fall. She says her fourth-grader reads at about a seventh-grade level, and "I'm just trying to find a school that can meet his academic needs. That's going to prepare him for college."

"I don't think he'll be in an environment as loving, as caring, where they provide that Christian structure and biblical teachings. I'd have to pay for him to go to a private school, which I can't do. So I'm going to have to continue that at home."

Urban Christian Academy made a final fundraising push in December, but raising only 4% of the previous December's total, she said, "was a signal that continuing on in our current format is unsustainable."

That month, officials told parents the school would close. They've been helping families find alternative schools for next year.

"We are meeting with each family individually and have received an enormous amount of tenderness and support. UCA is a really sacred place and there is so much grief around losing the community that has made it so, so special,"Callaway-George said.

The school will close after the last day of the year, May 24.

This story was originally published February 6, 2023, 5:30 AM.

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KC Christian school lost donations after supporting LGBTQ rights. Now it's closing

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In its nine years of existence, Urban Christian Academy steadily grew, adding a new grade each year in a neglected southeast Kansas City neighborhood. The school has provided its students, kindergarten through eighth grade, with a tuition-free private education. And with its "inclusive theology," it always supported LGBTQ students and staff.

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North Caroline passed a bill requiring teachers to notify parents before calling a student a different name or pronoun. Some think this could endanger LGBTQ students who do not have support at home.

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North Caroline passed a bill requiring teachers to notify parents before calling a student a different name or pronoun. Some think this could endanger LGBTQ students who do not have support at home.

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North Carolina's Republican-controlled Senate passed a bill requiring teachers to alert parents before calling a student by a different name or pronoun.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Public school teachers in our state could be required to notify parents before they call a student by a different name or pronoun.

This would be a stipulation under the "Parents' Bill of Rights" that passed the republican-controlled senate Tuesday.

Some lawmakers believe the bill could endanger some LGBTQ students who do not have support at home.

Sponsors of the bill believe it's needed in order to help keep parents informed on what their children are being taught in school.

The proposal, which passed the Senate 29 to 18, would also ban teachers to talk about gender identity and sexuality in K-4 classrooms, with an exception for "student-initiated questions."

Now, it heads to the House.

Republicans are one seat shy of a supermajority and would need some democratic support to push it through.

A similar version of this bill passed the Senate last session but didn't get a vote in the House.

Bill sponsor Sen. Amy Galey, an Alamance County Republican, refuted criticisms Tuesday that it might jeopardize the physical safety of transgender and nonbinary students who could be outed to their parents without consent. She pointed again to an exception in the bill that would keep parents from accessing school records if there's reason to believe it would lead to abuse or neglect.

"Parents have rights that we do not give up when we send our kids to government-run schools. Parents are not an afterthought in public education," said Amy Galey.

Senate Democrats criticized the measure during floor debate, they and their House counterparts have offered an alternative bill they say protects both parents and students without putting LGBTQ children at risk.

Lawmakers in at least 23 other states are considering similar bills, constitutional amendments, or both.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper told reporters Tuesday morning that he's concerned the North Carolina bill could have similar economic consequences to a 2016 bill that had restricted transgender access to public restrooms and blocked cities from enacting new anti-discrimination ordinances.

That measure, which has since been rolled back, cost North Carolina hundreds of millions in revenue as businesses, athletic tournaments, and conventions cut ties.

Sen. Michael Garrett, a Guilford County democrat weighed in as well.

"Gov. Cooper said he would veto it if it got to his desk because he was worried it would harm children, and our ability to attract top-tier companies to our state," said Michael Garrett.

House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters on Monday that prospects looked promising in his chamber but that he didn't anticipate the measure would be fast-tracked. He said discussions so far within the House have been broad and suggested that another version of the measure could be proposed.

Moore has said he expects some democrats will join republicans to complete veto overrides this session, but he hasn't identified the topics on which they could. Democratic unity has yet to be tested by an override vote this session.

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Parents' Bill of Rights could ban teachers from talking about gender identity and sexuality in NC

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North Carolina's Republican-controlled Senate passed a bill requiring teachers to alert parents before calling a student by a different name or pronoun. GREENSBORO, N.C. - Public school teachers in our state could be required to notify parents before they call a student by a different name or pronoun.

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Young athletes program is a program where students with disabilities learn with their peers how to play sports along side one another and how to include everyone even though it may look differnt.

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Young athletes program is a program where students with disabilities learn with their peers how to play sports along side one another and how to include everyone even though it may look differnt.

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Young Athletes aims to teach children about inclusivity - Albert Lea Tribune

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The sounds of squeals, laughs and the occasional smack could be heard Tuesday night as young children had the chance to come together.

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In Australia, the government began an inclusive education policy in 2022 but people are still seeing a divide in classrooms between students with disabilities. 60% of teachers with less than 10 years of experience believe that inclusive classrooms are an effective way to educate students while only 37.5% of teachers with more than 10 years of experience thought it was an effective way to educate students.

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In Australia, the government began an inclusive education policy in 2022 but people are still seeing a divide in classrooms between students with disabilities. 60% of teachers with less than 10 years of experience believe that inclusive classrooms are an effective way to educate students while only 37.5% of teachers with more than 10 years of experience thought it was an effective way to educate students.

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Students with disability struggling to receive inclusion education

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A new investigative paper exposes the depths of exclusion within the NSW education system

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In Washington schools, special education students are integrated into the classroom with special supports like communication cards to promote inclusivity. 

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In Washington schools, special education students are integrated into the classroom with special supports like communication cards to promote inclusivity. 

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This Puget Sound school exemplifies inclusive education in WA

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Woodinville’s Ruby Bridges Elementary is one of several dozen Washington schools working to better integrate special education students with their peers.

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Hart district is implementing a 4 part strategic plan including access and equity. This will change the way they grade, teach, and support students.

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Hart district is implementing a 4 part strategic plan including access and equity. This will change the way they grade, teach, and support students.

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The William S. Hart Union High School District's administrators presented its first update of five regarding its strategic plan during its governing board meeting Feb. 2, a plan that was first adopted last year to guide staff toward continuous improvement across the next five years.

The strategic plan consists of five focus areas including student learning and instruction, safety and wellness, access and equity, financial and human resources, and communication and collaboration. According to Superintendent Mike Kuhlman, the district is committed to sharing its progress with the board and community.

"I want to take a moment to define a word that you will hear throughout, and that word is equity," Kuhlman said. "Our definition in the Hart district is important for you to understand what our objective is here."

"Our definition of equity means that we are making sure that every student has the resources and support they need to be successful," he continued. "Through our strategic plan, we've made a commitment to the goal of every student becoming opportunity-ready."

Hart district staff discussed four topics - instruction and common assessments, equitable grading practices, multi-tiered system of support and intervention and technology - related to student learning and instruction.

Deputy Superintendent of Educational Services Michael Vierra introduced his team and had each of the members address a part of the presentation. David LeBarron, director of curriculum and assessment, discussed the importance of a common curriculum.

"That means every student in all classes across the district, whether you go to Canyon, Hart, or Saugus, English 10 is English 10, wherever you are," LeBarron said. "That's what that means to monitor student achievement."

According to LeBarron, to achieve common curriculum it takes essential standards, which serve as guidelines for instructors, assessments and data. He also said that this "road map" is available online through the district's website under curriculum and assessment.

Jan Dashier, director of special programs, reviewed the district's equitable grading practices outlined under its strategic plan.

"Grading is a form of communication measuring what students know, have demonstrated or what they can with the knowledge and new skills that they acquire," Dashier said.

Dashier said district staff and teachers constantly have conversations to develop consistency and agree what an equitable system might look like. The purpose of these discussions is to ensure each student has equal access to the same high-quality education and accurate reporting of what they've learned regardless of what teacher they are assigned, she added.

Grading will usually look like a letter grade of A through F, which includes descriptive levels of proficiency to describe how much a student has learned and how they are progressing.

In addition, the district incorporates opportunities for feedback between teacher and student. Feedback provides a chance for students to check in about their progress and discuss ways to improve and increase their learning.

"Equitable grading systems are not about telling them how to do it," Dashier said. "It's about discovering what works, what's nonnegotiable, and how we really can turn those grades into focusing on measuring the level of students' learning for each student."

There was also a discussion about the district's implementation of its multi-tiered system of support and intervention. An example of these types of supports are the various programs during the summer, when the district offers credit recovery, some credit advancement courses, career technical education opportunities and more.

Lastly, staff talked about the importance of technology and how these tools can support student learning. Data is another critical aspect used by staff to support instruction, whether it's to monitor student progress, attendance, grades, assessment and more.

Governing board members had a range of questions regarding the presentation - including how these updates are being communicated to stakeholders like parents, how often curriculum changes and the impact of that on the district's plan.

Vierra answered the board's respective questions, noting that the staff is constantly communicating with employees, whether it's through professional development meetings or other times, and they are working toward informing parents about understanding grading, curriculum and more.

He also noted that changes in curriculum happen a lot as educational agencies approve new editions or update teaching materials, but it usually occurs every five years. As new material comes in, the staff will update and develop the district's plan accordingly.

Together, these different aspects of the strategic plan create a foundation, Vierra said. It allows flexibility and creativity for teachers because they know their students and what works best for them on a daily basis, he added.

"...We all want to get to the same place, but it can be a diverse way we get there," Vierra said. "That place is wherever the student wants to go."

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Hart district discusses strategic plan update - student learning and instruction

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The William S. Hart Union High School District's administrators presented its first update of five regarding its strategic plan during its governing board meeting Feb. 2, a plan that was first adopted last year to guide staff toward continuous improvement across the next five years.

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New Jersey's Department of Education is looking to replace the word equality with equity in its public policy guidelines to promote fairness rather than the same structure for every student.

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New Jersey's Department of Education is looking to replace the word equality with equity in its public policy guidelines to promote fairness rather than the same structure for every student.

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Young athletes program is a program where students with disabilities learn with their peers how to play sports along side one another and how to include everyone even though it may look differnt.

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Young athletes program is a program where students with disabilities learn with their peers how to play sports along side one another and how to include everyone even though it may look differnt.

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Young Athletes aims to teach children about inclusivity - Albert Lea Tribune

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The sounds of squeals, laughs and the occasional smack could be heard Tuesday night as young children had the chance to come together.

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https://newatlas.com/robotics/children-learning-disabilities-robot-intervention/

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Students with learning disabilities (LD) struggle with particular skills like reading, writing, or mathematics and often require additional, individualized support to fill educational gaps. A team of researchers and experts has found that a cute little robot may help children with learning disabilities stay focused.

Learning disabilities cause students to be prone to distraction, meaning that they can struggle to stay focused on a task, become fidgety, and refuse to complete work. One-on-one interventions have been shown to benefit students with LD.

While researchers have studied the introduction of social robots into the classroom to provide personalized support to children with and without LD, most of the previous research has focused on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Few studies have been undertaken on using robots to assist children with LD in the educational setting.

Enter three engineering researchers from Waterloo University in Ontario, Canada, two experts from the Learning Disabilities Society, in Vancouver, Canada and QT, a humanoid robot.

QT was "born" in 2016. The brainchild of scientists Dr Pouyan Ziafati and Dr Aida Nazarikhorram, QT was the first robot developed specifically as a tool to assist children with ASD. It can gesture with its head and arms, display facial expressions, and speak. Funded by the University of Luxembourg, the pair founded LuxAI, which develops and constructs social robots. Ziafati and Nazarikhorram discuss their robot in the video below:

Building on earlier research, the team wanted to analyze how students with LD engaged with a social robot and how introducing a robot into the classroom impacted students and teachers.

Sixteen students between seven and 12 years of age with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of LD and known to have difficulty with reading participated in the new study. Eight had sessions with the QT robot, while the other eight acted as controls.

The researchers developed a web application interface for instructors, providing a protocol for the students that included warmup activities, games, and breathing exercises. The application was loaded onto a tablet, allowing instructors to control the QT robot.

While instructors controlled the robot, QT acted autonomously when triggered by the instructor. The robot set goals and, if the student was getting off-track, used strategies like games, jokes, breathing exercises and physical movement to redirect the student's focus.

Instructors recorded their interactions, including whether the session's educational goals had been achieved, the amount of time students spent off-task, and the redirection strategies used. Students were able to provide feedback about their experience with the robot.

The study showed that the students who partook in sessions with QT engaged in fewer off-task behaviors and showed greater engagement. The students perceived the robot as friendly, intelligent, and enjoyable and would be willing to engage with QT in future sessions.

Feedback from the instructors demonstrated that, to a large degree, they found the robot's intervention effective and helpful in maintaining the students' focus and engagement.

"There is definitely a great potential for using robots in the public education system," said Dr Kerstin Dautenhahn, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and an author of the study. "Overall, the findings imply that the robot has a positive effect on students."

Further studies using QT are planned to further investigate the utility of robot-assisted learning for children with learning disabilities.

The study was published in the journal Social Robotics.

Source: University of Waterloo

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Classroom robot helps keep kids with learning disabilities on track

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Students with learning disabilities (LD) struggle with particular skills like reading, writing, or mathematics and often require additional, individualized support to fill educational gaps. A team of researchers and experts has found that a cute little robot may help children with learning...