parents

Parents, teachers and community members rallied in Rutherford County against the proposed school voucher program.

Some Walden Grove High School parents are out hundreds of dollars.

The district worries closing schools may be an option down the road.

Nearly nine out of 10 parents believe their child is performing at grade level despite standardized tests showing far fewer students are on track, according to a poll released Wednesday by Gallup and the nonprofit Learning Heroes.Related video above: Average score for ACT college admissions test falls to 30-year lowReport cards, which many parents rely on for a sense of their children’s progress, might be missing the whole picture, researchers say. Without that knowledge, parents may not seek opportunities for extra support for their children.”Grades are the holy grail,” said Bibb Hubbard, founder and president of Learning Heroes. “They’re the number one indicator that parents turn to to understand that their child is on grade level, yet a grade does not equal grade-level mastery. But nobody’s told parents that.”In the Gallup survey, 88% of parents say their child is on grade level in reading, and 89% of parents believe their child is on grade level in math. But in a federal survey, school officials said half of all U.S. students started last school year behind grade level in at least one subject.In a report examining grade point averages and test scores in the state of Washington over the past decade, researchers found grades jumped during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many districts had eased their grading policies to account for the chaos and hardship students were experiencing.Some of that leniency could still be in place, masking gaps in learning that are showing up in standardized tests, but not in grades, said Dan Goldhaber, a co-author of the report and the director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.Districts across the U.S. have invested federal pandemic relief money in programs to get students back on track academically, from intensive tutoring to summer academic programs. But often far fewer students show up than the district had planned, Goldhaber said.For programs like summer school or online tutoring, where the family chooses whether to participate, “what we see is that it’s only a fraction of the students that are invited or eligible to that are actually participating,” he said.The Gallup poll findings underscore that trend, pointing to families who may not realize they should take action about their child’s academic performance.In the poll of more than 2,000 parents of K-12 students, half the respondents say they’ve discussed their child’s academic progress with a teacher. But among parents who know their child is behind grade level in math, the percentage skyrockets: 74% have spoken with the teacher.Report cards generally don’t convey enough information, said Sarah Carpenter, director of The Memphis Lift, a parent advocacy organization in Tennessee.”A report card is really tricky in our opinion, because you’re just looking at A’s and B’s and C’s,” Carpenter said. Nowhere on the report card does it say “what reading level your baby’s on, and that’s what’s throwing parents for a loop.”By talking to parents about issues like literacy and the nuances of grading, families are better able to advocate for their children in the school system and work in partnership with educators, said Trenace Dorsey-Hollins, a parent and founder of the advocacy group Parent Shield Fort Worth in Texas.”Knowledge is power,” she said. “Parents don’t know what they don’t know. So we don’t want them to blame themselves. But now that you have the information, use the information to demand better and ensure that your child and all children get exactly what they need.”

State officials have launched a new tool to help you better understand how your child’s school district is spending your tax dollars.

Alamance County Commissioners have allowed the reallocation of almost $4 million in funding to support ongoing mold remediation efforts in ABSS schools. More than 2,000 contractors are working around the clock to make sure students can return to class by next Monday, but parents in Alamance County are still wondering how long mold has been an issue and the effects it could have on their kids. WXII spoke to Brian Carlson, the owner and operator of a Servpro in Winston-Salem and someone who routinely does mold remediation. He said mold is everywhere, and theres a balance that needs to be maintained when managing indoor environments. Its when things get out of balance that issues arise that can affect a persons health. Carlson says the first thing to understand is that the easiest way for mold to invade a space is through water damage. ABSS officials site root causes of mold in their schools to be the age of the buildings, insufficient airflow from HVAC systems, and high humidity levels over the summer, things that Carlson says can definitely have an effect.”When our building materials get wet, and they’re not dried properly or mitigated in industry term, then mold can develop,” he said. “If left unattained, the mold will just get worse and worse in most cases.” A major concern with the ongoing Alamance Burlington School System mold issue is the presence of mold harmful to humans in 16 schools and how long mold was in those schools for it to become toxic. Carlson says when it comes to mold development, there isnt an exact timeline. “We’re talking about how long it’s harmful to a person, and all of our immunologies are a little bit different,” he said. “There are mold levels that can irritate you before they irritate me, or vice versa.” Dr. Murali Ramaswamy is the center director for pulmonary fibrosis at Lebauer Healthcare with Cone Health in Greensboro. He says in the short term, symptoms of mold exposure are a lot like allergies. However, in the long term, over the course of months or even years, lung inflammation can develop and, in some cases, can lead to scarring of the lungs. “People can develop a condition called hypersensitivity pneumonitis, or HP,” he said. “Then over time, what can happen is that with lungs can get scarred up, and then they can develop a condition called pulmonary fibrosis, otherwise called chronic HP. These two are not good situations to be in.”Ramaswamy says then its for the best that kids arent currently in class, and that cleaning the environment is the best way to avoid future problems. “Not going to the campus is a good thing,” he said, “because the exposure is not there. However, I believe they can return once there’s remediation in the place and the buildings are clean.” “If I were the contractor in charge of this job, though, it would be my end goal would be to make sure that I have very, very clean air test results in all of the classrooms,” Carlson said. “We want to prove to our client that what we did was effective, and so we want to do air testing. We want to leave the house in a good condition for our client.” WXII also reached out to ABSS about the continued plans for remediation. The district says they have a third party handling post-remediation testing and air quality verification and will post-certification of that on their website. They also said in light of these events, theyre developing new protocols and having their buildings inspected by outside contractors. The district says: We remain in crisis mode and our immediate attention is being placed on getting students back in our buildings on Monday, Sept. 11. We will look at long-term solutions with our county commissioners once we have students back face-to-face with our teachers.

Its that time of year again when teachers are emptying their wallets to fill their classrooms.

The Learning Experience preschool in Hoboken New Jersey is shaping the future by teaching children kindness

A Peckham playground where Rio Ferdinand used to play football as a child has been voted as one of the saddest playgrounds in London.

In a festive scene outside Nelson County High School on Nov. 22, county schools’ employees received free turkeys as a sign of thanks from the community.

I am watching with interest the Criglersville issue. I have two great-granddaughters who live next door to the proposed development. You only have to be in their yard when kids

#autism #disability #parents#funding #school #system my personal experience of autusm vs the system just getting me angry how things still havent changed