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| State & Local Education News |
Virginia Tech's New Leader in Diversity on Campus Takes Her Post
WVTF
February 2, 2016
he freshman class at Virginia Tech this year is not only the largest in the university’s history, it’s also the most diverse. Next month a new vice provost for inclusion and diversity will lead the effort to build upon that.
Menah Pratt-Clarke hales from the University of Illinois, where she held a similar position. Here’s how she describes her goals.
“Making sure that everyone who is on campus feels welcome, included, safe, supported affirmed, in their identity and who they are.”
Virginia Mom Takes Fight Against Sexually Explicit Books to State Lawmakers
The Daily Signal
February 1, 2016
After discovering what she considers over-the-top, sexually explicit material in her children’s high school reading assignments, a Northern Virginia mother is lobbying for greater transparency inside the classroom.
“This happened four years ago, when I first became aware of the books that were being taught in schools,” Laura Murphy, a mother of four in Fairfax, Va., told The Daily Signal.
“As I read it, I was disturbed by some of the content.”
The content, Murphy said, was brought to her attention by her son, who at the time was a sophomore. “He said he couldn’t read it anymore.”
Danville superintendent addresses education across the division, community concerns
CBS 7 (WDBJ)
January 29, 2016
Danville City School's Superintendent is working on transparency between school leaders and the community.
On Friday, Stanley Jones presented an overview that addressed a new discipline program, the curriculum and school accreditation.
“Everybody cares about what's happening in Danville public schools, that's good. I'd be more concerned if we weren't hearing from the public,” Jones said.
In a State of the School Division presentation Friday, Danville City Schools Superintendent Stanley Jones says improving instruction, behavior, safety and schools climate are at the top of his list.
Two Richmond schools denied accreditation from Virginia Board of Education
CBS 6 (WTVR)
January 29, 2016
Two Richmond schools, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle and Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts were denied accreditation by the Virginia Board of Education Thursday.
This means the local school board must submit a corrective plan of action to the Board of Education. They must also enter into a binding memorandum of understanding with the state board detailing steps to be taken to raise student achievement to state standards.
Schools denied accreditation, however, do not lose state funding, nor are they subject to state takeover.
Michelle Stoll, spokesperson for Virginia Board of Education, told CBS 6, “Looking at the most recent data, both schools demonstrated downward trends in state accreditation results for students.”
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National & Federal Education News
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How college and career ready are the 2015 ACT-tested high school graduates?
National Council for Community Education Partnerships/ACT
February 2, 2016
A record number of students from poorer families took the ACT® test, but their progress toward reaching key readiness benchmarks for college remained unchanged and significantly below national averages for the sixth consecutive year, according to a new report from ACT and the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP).
The report, The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2015: Students from Low-Income Families, focuses on the academic preparation and postsecondary aspirations of 2015 high school graduates who took the ACT and reported annual family earnings of less than $36,000. Nearly one in four of the 1.9 million ACT-tested 2015 high school graduates identified themselves as low income.
Among the findings:
- Half at zero: Half of students from poorer families failed to meet any ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, compared to 31% of all students.
- Falling short of peers: Twenty percent of low-income students met three or four Benchmarks, compared to 40% of all students nationally. For the past five years, neither group has made any progress in meeting this qualifier, which indicates strong college readiness.
- Rich/poor divide: Across all four Benchmarks-English, reading, mathematics, and science-the proportion of students reaching each one was between 38 to 43 percentage points lower for students from low-income families when compared to those from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or more.
Nation’s prominent public universities are shifting to out-of-state students
Washington Post
January 30, 2016
America’s most prominent public universities were founded to serve the people of their states, but they are enrolling record numbers of students from elsewhere to maximize tuition revenue as state support for higher education withers.
The shift has buttressed the finances and reshaped the profile of schools across the country, from the University of California’s famed campuses in Berkeley and Los Angeles to the universities of Arkansas, Oregon, Missouri, South Carolina and numerous other places. Forty-three of the 50 schools known as “state flagships” enrolled a smaller share of freshmen from within their states in 2014 than they had a decade earlier, federal data show. At 10 flagships, state residents formed less than half the freshman class.
What the 2016 contenders have to say on education
The Hill
January 29, 2016
After many months of fevered commentary, we're finally into primary season. This is the point when the presidential contest starts to come into sharper focus. Though the polls and debates suggest that education will have only a modest role to play in this tumultuous year, millions of families, students and educators have a very concrete interest in where the candidates stand on things like schooling, pre-K and college. Given that, it's worth taking a quick spin to see what some of the major presidential contenders have to say on education.
The Republicans
Key Republican themes this year include opposition to the Common Core, calls to shrink or abolish the U.S. Department of Education, and support school choice. The leading candidates, Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), have tended to be far less specific on education than the lagging, more "establishment," candidates.
The Democrats
The major Democratic candidates, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have talked about a very different set of concerns than the Republicans, tending to focus much more on federal spending to make college free (or nearly so) and to provide more pre-K.
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What is public opinion on policy toward English Language Learners?
A recent report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) noted that the population served by public school systems in Virginia is increasingly diverse, including a growing number of recent immigrants, some of whom arrive in their new homes with limited ability to speak or understand English. Similar to the challenge of delivering quality education in high-poverty areas, there are unique challenges to working with a higher percentage of English language learners in schools, whether the learner is a student in the classroom or the parent of a student coming in for a parent-teacher conference.
This year’s
Commonwealth Education Poll surveyed the public on two areas of policy toward English Language Learners (ELLs):
- using more funds to increase parental access to information about their child’s education in a language they understood
- deterimining the path ELL students should take while they are learning English – learning English in special classes at the parents’ expense, learning English in separate classes in public schools or receiving instruction in the students’ native language.
CEPI was privileged to be able to share the results of the poll, including the questions on ELLs, with attendees of the
annual conference of the Virginia English as a Second Language Supervisors Association (
VESA). Check out their website for
access to a number of the presentations given during breakout sessions on a range of ELL topics from classroom techniques to policy questions.
On the first question, a majority of respondents (61%) support more funds being used to make sure that parents with limited English have information about their child’s education in a language they can understand.
Younger cohorts were more supportive with 78% of those aged 18-34 being supportive, compared to 61% of 35-44 year olds, 51% of 45-64 year olds and 50% of those 65 years and older. Minority respondents (74%) were more likely than white respondents (54%) to support more funding being used to facilitate communication to parents in languages other than English. Support varied by education level as well with those with a college degree or more (70%) being more supportive than those with some college (53%) or a high school diploma or less (58%). Finally there were also significant partisan differences with support among Democrats (73%) being very similar to Independents (69%) while only 46% of Republicans expressed support for such a policy.
In regards to which path respondents thought an English learner student should take, a majority (51%) said students should learn English in separate classes within the public schools before enrolling in mainstream classes. Twenty-seven percent (27%) thought special classes paid for by parents were the best path while only 15% felt students should be taught in their native language until they learned English.
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On this question, support again varied by income and education demographics but also based on the geographic region of the respondent. Respondents with household income above $100,000 were most likely to support English language learners being enrolled in separate classes in public schools, at 63%. This compared to 47% support for that option from those in the $50,000 to $100,000 income bracket and 46% support from those with household income below $50,000. Similarly, respondents with a college degree supported separate classes in public schools at a 63% rate while those with some college and those with a high school diploma or less were less supportive of that option (50% and 41% respectively.)
Regionally, 59% of respondents in Northern Virginia supported separate public school English classes while respondents from the Northwest region were evenly split with 41% of respondents supporting separate public school English classes and 41% supporting special classes paid for by parents.
Please go to
our website to read both releases - January 18th on higher education and workforce development, and January 11th on K-12 funding and policy issues.
We're also pleased to feature in this week's Compass Point the latest Education Law Newsletter. This issue is written by Dr. Richard Vacca and focuses on school bus safety and items to include in system-wide transportation policies and training.
Finally, check out
David Blount's update on K-12 related action during Week 3 at the General Assembly session.
We hope you have a great week!
Sincerely,
CEPI
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General Assembly Update - Week 2
Excerpted from CEPI's
General Assembly Update, written by Policy Analyst David Blount. The update will be published weekly during the General Assembly session.
"Overview/Budget Issues
House and Senate money committees will get serious next week about crafting amendments to the biennial budget proposed by Governor McAuliffe, as three weeks remain until their budget amendments are presented. Budget amendments are expected to be extensive. Over the past week, subcommittees have been hearing presentations of member budget requests and examining the amount of money available for their program areas.
Legislators are doing this amid increasing concern about the FY16 budget meeting revenue projections. Through December, state revenue collections had grown 1.6% over the previous year, well behind the yearly estimate of 3.2% growth. Should the revenue estimate be downgraded for the current fiscal year, keep in mind that a lower FY16 budget also lowers the base budgets for FY17 and FY18. This means legislators will be looking to pare back the new spending proposed in the McAuliffe budget. By mid-February, legislators will have received January revenue collection numbers, which should provide a clearer picture of where revenues may land by the end of June. (Keep in mind that May and June are two of the biggest revenue months for the state.)
Money committee members in both the House and Senate have been talking about providing more flexibility with state dollars that will be provided for public education, particularly looking at the $139.1 million proposed in the introduced budget for school divisions to hire additional teachers. Specifically, the House Appropriations Committee (HAC) this past week discussed a possible return to previous policy in which it shared profits from the Virginia lottery (which are Constitutionally-required to be used for educational purposes) with local school divisions on a per pupil basis. This was done back in the early 2000’s, until 2004, when the State started using the lottery proceeds to replace general funds in various categorical accounts. No per pupil amounts have been shared with school divisions for the past five years. The HAC also may be looking to advance a teacher salary increase to the first year of the next biennial budget; the introduced plan included the state share of a two percent salary increase for state-recognized instructional and support position, effective at the start of FY18.
The money committees will report their respective amendments to the McAuliffe budget on February 21.
Click
here for additional information about Governor McAuliffe's proposed changes to the public education budget for the remainder of FY16; and
here for the proposed FY17/FY18 education budget.
Education Legislation
The House and Senate now have both taken action on legislation to allow participation by homeschoolers in public high school interscholastic activities governed by the Virginia High School League.
HB 131 was approved Wednesday on the House floor by a 58 to 41 vote. In the Senate Education and Health Committee, the patron of
SB 612 noted that 31 of 50 states allow this sort of participation by homeschoolers in public school activities. The bill was approved in committee on an 8 to 7 party-line vote and awaits a vote on the Senate floor.
The House Education Committee narrowly approved
HB 518, which requires school boards to allow students in a school identified in need of improvement under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act to attend another school in the same division. The vote was 12 to 10 in the committee. Opponents of the measure argued that this option already is available to students. . . ."
(To read the full update, visit our
website.)
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THE SCHOOL BUS AND STUDENT SAFETY: POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Excerpted from from Dr. Vacca's
January 2016 Education Law Newsletter.
Overview
In the recent past several disconcerting incidents involving school buses have been reported in the news. While some reports involve highway accidents, others involve situations where automobile drivers have passed school buses stopped with their caution lights flashing. Others involve children disembarking at the bus stop being hit by passing cars and still others involve violent student behavior while the school bus is traveling down the road. While in some jurisdictions such incidents have prompted state legislatures to relook at existing statutes covering traffic laws and school buses, others have caused local school districts to mount surveillance cameras both in and on school buses.
Bus Safety. Student safety is, always has been, and will continue to be a major topic of concern in communities across this nation. Of all the areas of local public school system operation where safety is a constant focus, school system transportation, especially the school bus, is at the top of the list.
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Analysis to Apply in Search of Fault. What constitutes adequate care for students is fact based—that is, it depends on the circumstances in a given situation. To put this another way, what constitutes adequate care in one situation might not be so in another. However, one thing is certain. While student safety cannot be guaranteed, and situations differ in fact, there is no room for
negligence in any situation involving students and a potential for injury. Thus, negligence becomes the focus of the analysis—i.e., the search for fault.
As a general rule, to establish school district or employee liability where student injury occurred, the facts must show that the school officials, or employees (e.g., administrator, teacher, coach, bus driver) had a duty to keep students from harm, or either created, or had knowledge of, an existing dangerous condition but did not take reasonable steps to remedy the condition. Moreover, the breach of duty owed, or prior knowledge and failure to avoid or correct the existing condition was subsequently the
proximate cause of student injury. Russo v. Valley Central School District (N.Y.A.D.2 Dept. 2006)
In more recent cases the element of
deliberate indifference often is applied to the analysis.
Deliberate indifference has been defined as a situation in which the facts establish that school officials or employees had
direct (actual, sufficiently specific) knowledge of the potential for serious harm to students, failed to take reasonable steps to remedy the condition, and this deliberate indifference subsequently was the proximate cause of student injury. As one court succinctly phrased it, deliberate indifference exists where school officials knew or were “willfully blind” to what was going on and failed to take reasonable and necessary steps to remedy the situation. Harry A. v. Duncan (D. Mont. 2005)
Another element of analysis to apply in determining whether negligence exists involves
foreseeability. While it would be unrealistic to believe that school officials and employees can be held responsible for every mishap that occurs on school property during the school day,
foreseeability dictates that school officials or employees (administrator, teacher, coach, bus driver—working directly with and responsible for students) are expected to take
reasonable care to avoid acts of commission, or omission, and/or harmful conditions that he or she can
reasonably foresee would likely cause injury to students. (Vacca and Bosher, 2012)
Recently, while searching for new case law to add to the revised ninth edition of our text, I came across a comprehensive and instructive decision from the New York Court of Appeals—one that reads like a restatement of tort law regarding public school buses.
Williams v. Weatherstone (N.Y. 2014)
Facts. At the time of her injury (March 13, 2008) . . . .
* * * * *
Policy Implications
While the applicability of the New York Court of Appeals decision is limited to New York State, and emphasizing that incidents involving public school system buses are fact based and for analysis must be placed within the context of state law (both traffic law and public school law), the Court’s rationale is nonetheless instructive. Williams v. Weatherstone (2014) reads like a restatement of the law on tort liability as applied to public school busing. What follows are generalized suggestions for local school board policy gleaned from that decision:
School board policies must make it clear that:
- The school system, with cooperation and involvement of appropriate local municipal governmental agencies, plans for and locates school bus stops in safe locations nearest to the homes where students reside; and, regularly monitors the conditions of designated school bus stops in an effort to maintain student safety.
- Where unsafe and or dangerous conditions might develop at school bus stops the Board seeks the cooperation and involvement of parents and appropriate local governmental agencies to remedy the existing conditions.
- The Board requires that school bus drivers follow all traffic laws and implement all school board policies and procedures applicable to school bus operation and student safety; that drivers take steps to maintain student safety while the bus is in transit; and that drivers properly instruct students on safety precautions to take while boarding and disembarking from the school bus.
- The school system seeks the cooperation and involvement of parents in maintaining student safety: (1) at school bus stops; (2) while children are boarding and disembarking at school bus stops; and (3) as children transition from the school bus stop to home.
To read the full brief, visit
our website. |
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