schools

Personal

Karavel Shoes Donates 3D Face Masks to Schools, Famous Footwear and Coach Make Big Donations + More

By Gertrude Aziz 3 days ago

Aug. 11, 2020: Fashion-comfort retailer Karavel Shoes in Austin, Texas, is doing its part in the prevention of the spread of COVID-19. The family-owned business is in the process of printing 1,200 3D face shields to be donated to staff working in 15 schools located in low-income neighborhoods in Austin. The store also hired three high school students to work on the project. In addition, said Karavel owner Rick Ravel, the store will be selling additional masks to consumers with all proceeds from their sale donated to the Central Texas Food Bank.

Aug. 11, 2020: Famous Footwear has announced a new multiyear partnership with Ticket to Dream, which provides opportunities for foster children across the country. As part of the move, the brand is donating more than 12,000 new pairs of shoes this month to foster kids ahead of the back-to-school season and plans to provide supplies throughout the fall.

Personal

Miami public schools return to online learning. What lessons were learned from spring?

By Gertrude Aziz 5 days ago

Reopening Miami-Dade public schools began as a game of “ifs.”

If positive cases trend downward for 14 days. If testing for asymptomatic minors becomes widely available and expeditious. If at least 25% of a school’s student body opts to stay home, then the rest can go to the schoolhouse.

But as students, parents and teachers approach the first day of school — now Aug. 31 for Miami-Dade — there is finally more clarity on what school will look like. School will be remote and online until at least Oct. 5.

For at least a dozen districts around the state, including Miami-Dade, even the first day of school became another “if.” Start dates have been pushed back and some districts have conceded that virtual learning will take place for the first few weeks. Miami-Dade pushed its first day of school from Aug. 19 to Aug. 24 and then to Aug. 31

Personal

Connecticut Schools In The Era Of Coronavirus: How Do They Rank?

By Gertrude Aziz 6 days ago

CONNECTICUT — As parents across the state debate how or even whether their children will return to class in the fall, school superintendents are racking up accolades on how well their systems perform.

The latest trophies come from personal finance website WalletHub, which has named Connecticut’s public schools second best in the nation, just behind those of neighboring Massachusetts.

The Nutmeg State scored particularly well with some new criteria beyond the traditional metrics of academic excellence and standardized test scores. Connecticut ranked No. 1 in the category of COVID-19 response, for instance, and 20th in bullying incidence rate.

Money, of course, matters in school district performance, as it does in just about everything else. Research from the Albert Shankar Institute concluded that “On average, aggregate measures of per-pupil spending are positively associated with improved or higher student outcomes.” To really make a difference, that money needs to be spent on

Insurance

What Teachers Want Parents To Know As Schools Reopen

By Gertrude Aziz 1 week ago

The coronavirus pandemic is raging, but schools are beginning to reopen across the country — many with terrifying results.

HuffPost Parenting asked the teachers from our Facebook community what they want parents to know right now. Here’s what they had to say.

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“Educators will all tell you that we want to see our kids! We want group work, laughter in our hallways, pizza party incentives and everything that we once had in our schools. We also want to live, and we want our children to live.

With the disruption of 2019-20’s school year, alongside immense loss-grief-trauma, our children will need time to make up any deficits they’ve encountered. This is doubly true for students of color and students with disabilities. … The plans that have been laid out thus far are vague and put us all at risk. It would be great to have had actual teachers

Personal

Students among first to return offer lessons for reopening schools

By Gertrude Aziz 1 week ago

NASHVILLE — Abigail Alexander shuffled through a stack of papers trying to find instructions for logging in to her school-issued laptop.

The 10-year-old chatted with her best friend, a fellow fifth grader, about who is in their classes this year at Head Middle Magnet Prep in Nashville and what period they have a specific teacher.

Their conversation Tuesday sounded like a typical one between excited, anxious students on the first day at a new school — except this year’s first day of school was like no other.

Abigail was seated in the dining room of her North Nashville home while her two younger foster siblings played around the table. Her friend was on FaceTime, the phone propped up against the side of Abigail’s laptop.

The girls were among more than 86,000 Nashville students who started the school year virtually while their schools remained closed due the ongoing spread of the

Personal

Biden won’t go to Milwaukee for convention; Chicago schools to start online; Florida surpasses 500,000 cases

By Gertrude Aziz 1 week ago

Another pharmaceutical giant announced a vaccine deal with the U.S. on Wednesday while Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic celebs bid adieu to Milwaukee’s political convention before the coronation train ever rolled into town.

Johnson & Johnson said it has a $1 billion agreement to supply 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate to the U.S. government. Also Wednesday, Moderna said it expects to fully enroll 30,000 people for a trial of its vaccine candidate next month. And a day earlier, Novavax released promising results of an early trial.

Milwaukee’s 2020 Democratic National Convention suffers the same fate as Charlotte, where plans for a full-blown GOP convention have been whittled down to a few small gatherings later this month.

While the nation waits for a vaccine that could fully reopen schools and businesses, the University of Connecticut became the first top-level college program to cancel its football season.

Money

Johnson & Johnson, US cut vaccine deal; Chicago schools to start online; Florida surpasses 500,000 cases

By Gertrude Aziz 1 week ago

Another pharmaceutical giant announced a vaccine deal with the U.S. on Wednesday, and a second round of coronavirus stimulus checks could soon be in the mail.

While the nation waits for a vaccine that could fully reopen schools and businesses, Democrats and negotiators from the White House say another stimulus deal could be reached by the end of the week. That could be good news for tens of millions of unemployed Americans whose $600 weekly boost in unemployment benefits has expired.

Here are some significant developments:

📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has recorded more than

Money

Schools seeking alternative to remote learning move classes outside

By Gertrude Aziz 1 week ago

DETROIT — With just days to go before the start of the new academic year, schools around the country are rushing to gather materials they never thought they would need: plexiglass dividers, piles of masks and internet hot spots to connect with students remotely.

And then there are schools that have an even more unusual list.

The Detroit Waldorf School in Michigan is buying carriage bolts, berry bushes and 8,000 square feet of cedar wood.

The San Francisco Unified School District has been busy gathering tree stumps.

And the Five Town Community School District in Maine is buying tents, yurts and enough all-weather snowsuits for each of its elementary school students.

These schools and districts are all laying the groundwork to move at least some instruction to outdoor classrooms. They’re making a bet that the lower risk of disease transmission in the open air, and the extra space outside for

Finance

The MLB Couldn’t Keep COVID-19 At Bay, But We Still Think Schools Stand A Chance?

By Gertrude Aziz 2 weeks ago

As a huge baseball family, there’s been a hole in our lives since spring. Every March and April we all anxiously anticipate watching those first few pitches. As we see our favorite players run out onto the field on the big screen in our living room, my husband and I crack a beer, put out some snacks for us and the kids, and make it official. It’s baseball season.

But this year COVID-19 took professional sports away, like it took everything else away, and we’ve spent the last few months watching Netflix and Friends reruns and movies we love instead.

Until recently, when MLB announced they’re going to try and make it work, somehow, in 2020. But, as many expected, COVID-19 began to spread throughout the clubhouses, throughout the teams, infecting player after player. And now it’s looking grim and likely that this modified, shortened season will, for some teams,

Business

The Maryland county where Barron Trump attends school ordered private schools to stay closed until October, but the governor overrode the decision

By Gertrude Aziz 2 weeks ago

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron Trump walk across the South Lawn before leaving the White House on board Marine One November 26, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Monday issued an emergency order to block the county where Barron Trump goes to school from banning private schools from opening for in-person instruction.
On Friday, the Montgomery County, Maryland, health officer issued a mandate that ordered private schools remain closed for in-person learning until at least October 1.
President Trump’s son, Barron, attends the St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in the Maryland county.
“The blanket closure mandate imposed by Montgomery County was “overly broad and inconsistent with the powers intended to be delegated to the county health officer,” Hogan said in a statement Monday.
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Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Monday blocked a county’s