TALAS E-newsletter – August 12

The Dallas Independent School District will require face masks on district property beginning Tuesday, a move the district says is necessary to help prevent the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus.

“You don’t have to wear a mask!” the man shouted as I approached the Army Store in downtown Killeen. It was a brutally hot afternoon in late July, and Bell County, where Killeen is located, was reporting around a hundred new coronavirus cases a day—a fivefold increase from the previous month. COVID-19 patients occupied 15 percent of the region’s hospital beds, among the highest rates in Texas. There were just five available ICU beds in the surrounding six counties.

In recent years, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have vaulted to become a top-of-mind issue for companies everywhere. And while things are trending in a positive direction, many workplaces still have a long way to go before everyone sees different as good.

What’s encouraging, says CareerHigher founder and director Andy Agouridis, is that even while companies make progress in DEI, workers from non-traditional backgrounds can leverage their uniqueness as an asset in today’s workplace.

The Biden administration is backing school district leaders in Florida who are defying Gov. Ron DeSantis’s executive order banning mask mandates in schools this fall.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday it would be possible for federal relief funds to cover salaries if the governor follows through on withholding pay from superintendents and board members who require students to wear masks.

Teachers and students may be required to get COVID vaccines to keep schools open throughout the pandemic, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona says.

California and New York City have so far required teachers to get vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID testing. Cardona not only said he supports these mandates but might also expand the requirement once the vaccines are fully authorized by the FDA for Americans of all ages.

As more schools open for in-person learning during the 2021-22 school year, some are predicting a “kindergarten bubble” — an influx of 4-to-6-year-olds who may be entering formal education for the first time and whose range of skills will vary widely depending on their educational experiences last year.

Kindergarten entry assessments, also known as KEAs, are typically administered in the early weeks of kindergarten and can consist of direct assessments, which require a child to respond to a direct prompt from the assessor, and observation-based assessments, in which teachers document a child’s interactions and behaviors across a range of activities like playtime or whole-class learning.

Thanks to hard work, vaccinations, carefully orchestrated safety precautions and many collaborative efforts, we have turned the corner on the pandemic, at least here in the United States.  

In education, school and district leaders brought new tools and procedures online to deal with the pandemic. Many of the actions we took were unprecedented and unpopular, but necessary. State and local leaders made tough calls, erred on the side of caution and learned lessons that have redefined our playbooks.  

Just who is Daisy Gonzales, California’s new acting community colleges chancellor? Her journey, which she describes as an “incredible story,” may resonate with many of the system’s 2 million students.

 “I became aware that I was in foster care at the age of 4,” she said. As a child, Gonzales grew up in a variety of places including group homes, child care facilities, and even with relatives.