Blog

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, September 18, 2020 Two months after a divided Los Angeles Unified school board slashed funding for its police department by more than a third, the contours of a dramatically diminished force emerged this week. Under a plan presented to the board on Tuesday, police officers would be removed from school campuses and weekend patrols meant to protect schools from vandalism would be eliminated, among other cuts. The debate over the proposed cuts, set for later...

By Mandy Savitz-Romer, Heather Rowan-Kenyon, Tara Nicola, and Laura Hecht, Education Week, September 16, 2020 As the global pandemic threatens students' academic progress, recent reports have also raised alarms about students' mental health. Fear, loss, and the anxiety brought on by uncertainty are raising already-high levels of trauma and stress among young people. It will be tempting for schools to direct resources and attention this fall to bolstering the instructional core, given...

Before coming to Hanna, Walter Linares was living in a small townhouse in San Francisco with 16 people, from three different families. His father died when he was seven, leaving his mother to support Walter and his three siblings. “My mom was working 16 hour shifts to provide for us and while she was at work I was babysitting my siblings and shouldering a lot of responsibility from a very young age.” Without supervision and left to themselves, Walter and his siblings were “running a bit...

By John Fensterwald and Louis Freedberg, June 25, 2020, Ed Source. *This article was updated June 25 with final votes of passage by the Senate and Assembly. Legislature lays out steps, timetable for linking preschool to workforce education data. With $10 million in funding, an ambitious timeline and a champion in Gov. Gavin Newsom behind it, the Legislature this week passed legislation for a statewide education data system that will follow children from infancy through the workplace. The...

Rudy’s early childhood was ordinary and happy; he enjoyed school, played sports, and had lots of friends. He always had a huge appetite for learning and was nicknamed “Speedy” by his fourth-grade teacher for his desire to finish his schoolwork before his classmates. Early on, Rudy’s home environment was solid and enjoyable. He was raised by two working class parents who taught him the importance of discipline, education, and respect. However, his father was an alcoholic and a drug addict who...

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are known for helping students of color and opportunity youth access an affordable and quality higher education. Realizing that high SAT scores and GPAs aren’t necessarily indicators of student success in college, HBCUs instead focus on developing learners through personalized learning and support. Learn4Life and FLEX High serve at-risk students and share this approach to recover dropouts, and promote college access, readiness and...

From Education Week, September 14, 2020 The education field has been criticized for focusing too narrowly on a set of academic skills and disciplines, reinforced through standardized assessments, accountability measures, and other policy levers, but with the rise of the pandemic this spring and the national fight for racial justice, schools were forced to evolve quickly. At the same time, young people have been encountering death, food insecurity, trauma, and unemployment in their own homes...

CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY (CAA) , funded by ACEs Aware, is providing free online training to Medi-Cal providers and others featuring: Practical strategies for integrating trauma-informed health care into your team’s practice that improves patients’ well being and the productivity of your practice. Meet colleagues with experience and success providing trauma-informed health care in their practices. Learn from national and local experts. Talk to other professionals from your region in small...

By Kalyn Belsha, Michael Rubinkam, Gabrielle LaMarr, and Larry Fenn, Chalkbeat, September 11, 2020 Missi Magness wanted her children back in school. The parent of a first-grader and a sixth-grader who attend schools on Indianapolis’ southeast side struggled trying to oversee her children’s schooling while working from home this spring. “They need the structure, they need the socialization, they just need to go,” said Magness. “‘I love you, but here’s your backpack, here’s your lunch ... have...

By Emily Berger , Monash University , Karen Martin , University of Western Australia, September 11, 2020. Mental health issues among children are on the rise due to the impacts of the COVID pandemic, including lockdowns. Recent reports show there has been a 28% spike in calls to the phone counselling service Kids Helpline between March and July 2020 compared with the same period last year in Victoria, which is under stage 3 and 4 restrictions. This prompted the state government to fast-track...

By Stephen Merrill, Edutopia, September 11, 2020 Some of the first adorable patients to trickle into Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s pediatric clinic when it opened in 2007—long before she was named the first surgeon general of California—were referred by teachers and principals. Sitting in her examination rooms back then, in one of San Francisco’s poorest neighborhoods, Burke Harris knew almost immediately that something was amiss. Her young patients arrived with tentative diagnoses of...

It's the CA Community College Assoc for Occupation Education conference! Keynote Speaker, Susan Jones of Creative Behavior Systems The impact of ACEs on children can manifest in difficulties focusing, self-regulating, trusting others, and can lead to negative cognitive effects. One study found that a child with 4 or more ACEs was 32 times more likely to be labeled with a behavioral or cognitive problem than a child with no ACEs. CCCAOE is looking for ways to educate participants about ACEs...