This week, two important education bills were reported out of the Senate Committee on Education and Health. Here are the highlights:

State-level education legislation matters! Stay tuned for more; we will pass along information as we see bills we think you all will be interested in (like this bill focused on literacy). Get involved in the following ways:

Arlington’s current State legislative representatives are:
House of Delegates: Delegate Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, Delegate Patrick Hope, Delegate Alfonso Lopez, and Delegate Rip Sullivan;
Senate: Senator Barbara Favola, Senator Janet Howell (Serves on the Senate Education and Health Committee, and its Subcommittee on Public Education), and Senator Adam Ebbin. There is no Arlington representation on the House Education Committee.

Find and email your legislator here. Urge them to support these SB739 and SB431!
Read the full list of VA Senate education-related bills.
Read the full list of VA HOD education-related bills.
Please consider donating to APE to help with FOIAs, recruitment and research.

(Editor's Note: From time to time, we will offer a perspective written by an APS parent or teacher on a topic of concern or interest for APS. What follows has been only lightly edited for clarity.)
 
Our 4th grade son has struggled on so many levels since schools closed nearly 2 years ago. Gone is the boy who was always happy, who was making progress in school, who enjoyed learning and reading. He now struggles to read and to have any desire to learn. He gives up all the time. He says anything that requires effort is too hard. Sadly, he has gone from being an average student at grade level to being 2 years behind in reading and struggles to have enough focus to learn new material. He has gone from being a dominant athlete to giving up in competitions.
 
Recently, we had a discussion with his psychiatrist regarding why he is such a different boy today versus pre-pandemic. The psychiatrist responded by saying that our son is having trouble with industry versus inferiority, which is a stage of psychosocial development, as defined by psychologist Erik Erikson.  Here is a summary of this stage:
 
Overview of Industry vs Inferiority

• Psychosocial Conflict: Industry vs. Inferiority
• Major Question: "How can I be good?"
• Basic Virtue: Competence
• Important Event(s): School

The important event in this phase is in-person school and all that comes with that - interaction with peers, teachers, emotional and academic impacts, etc. Unfortunately, for some kids, the last two years have had a major disruptive effect on this stage of development. To me, this underscores why schools need to be open for in-person instruction and cannot be replaced by virtual learning. We are working hard to try to help our son recover his losses, but it's going to be a long road. He requires much more individualized support in school today. And right now, it can be challenging for many kids to get the individualized support they need. For example, APS has only added twelve reading and math coaches system-wide, and those coaches are coaches for teachers, not students. Kids will need a lot more support than that to recover their losses.
 
For more information on this phase of development, see the below excerpt from a medically reviewed article on this topic:
 
Schoolwork Helps Build Competency and Confidence
 
At earlier stages of development, children were largely able to engage in activities for fun and to receive praise and attention. Once school begins, actual performance and skill are evaluated. Grades and feedback from educators encourage kids to pay more attention to the actual quality of their work.
 
During the industry versus inferiority stage, children become capable of performing increasingly complex tasks. As a result, they strive to master new skills. Children who are encouraged and commended by parents and teachers develop a feeling of competence and belief in their abilities. Those who receive little or no encouragement from parents, teachers, or peers will doubt their ability to be successful.
 
Children who struggle to develop this sense of competence may emerge from this stage with feelings of failure and inferiority. This can set the stage for later problems in development. People who don't feel competent in their ability to succeed may be less likely to try new things and more likely to assume that their efforts will not measure up under scrutiny.
 
Ask APS to develop a plan to address learning loss and help struggling kids regain a sense of industry.
Let the School Board know if you want more math and reading support for kids, and more tutoring and intensive interventions, so they develop a sense of competence and confidence in their abilities.
Would you like to be featured in a future Parent Corner or Teacher Corner? Please contact us.

Last month the Washington Area Boards of Education (WABE) issued its newest benchmarking study of school spending.  That report reflects that despite its high cost per student, APS has some of the largest class sizes and is among the last in teacher compensation. APS spends the second most per student in the region, and the most per student when actual enrollment is considered. APS' operational costs per student are also among the highest in the region. With respect to the sources of APS' funding, while funding from the state is low (because the state's apportionment rules suggest Arlington can afford a greater share of APS' costs), Arlington County actually spends less on schools as a percentage of its general fund than almost any other district in the region. Research shows that devoting resources to student-facing instruction vs. administrative functions is key to high student performance. APS should reverse last year's trend of investing in central office positions by prioritizing school-based over non-school based roles and instructional over administrative positions.  Read more on our Think Tank page.

Tell the School Board you want student-facing positions prioritized.
Ask APS to fund more classroom teachers.

The Arlington Special Education Advisory Committee (ASEAC) held its monthly meeting on January 25th. Mary Kadera joined as the new School Board liaison to the Committee.
 
Meetings always begin with a period of public comment where parents can speak for 3 minutes, or otherwise submit comments, about questions or concerns they have regarding special education services in APS. The Office of Special Education (OSE) typically responds to those public comments at the next month's meeting. Notably OSE clarified during public comment responses that special education students in the Virtual Learning Program (VLP) will receive less than 3,000 hours in compensatory services for special education services that were missed due to staffing shortages. This is a significant downward revision from an estimate last fall of more than 9,000 hours owed to VLP students, and OSE indicates the reduction is because parents have either declined compensatory hours or because a student's performance suggests they may not need compensatory hours.
 
The primary focus of this meeting was on APS's 5 year student support action plan for special education services focusing on inclusivity, excellence, access, equity, and collaboration. The Office of Special Education provided an update on progress in these areas, noting the challenges created by the pandemic. As part of the 5-year plan's goal of collaboration, conversation focused on the ongoing and new efforts by Parent Resource Center, including an APS-designed telenovela series, to help parents understand the special education process. In addition, the Parent Resource Center provides regular training and events for families, as well as individual consultations, among other resources.
 
EmASEAC.mail@gmail.comail your written comment to ASEAC to be read at the next meeting, if you can't attend in person.

Arlington County Democratic Committee
Votes to Keep School Board Caucus

Last Friday, a judge in Arlington County temporarily halted Gov. Younkin's executive order making masks optional. The Arlington School Board joined the school boards of Alexandria, Fairfax County, Falls Church, Hampton, Prince William and Richmond in suing Governor Youngkin over his emergency order that would allow parents to opt their children out of school mask mandates.
 
The school boards focused on a provision in the state Constitution that says “the supervision of schools in each school division shall be vested in a school board.”

The school board’s brief and remarks also cited Senate Bill 1303, a Virginia state law that passed last spring, requiring districts to offer five days of in-person learning and to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “to the maximum extent practicable."

However, Deputy Attorney General Steven Popps said the governor’s emergency powers are “vast and broad,” allowing him to act by executive order to protect the constitutional rights of students and their parents to choose whether to wear face masks in school. “The public interest favors parental constitutional rights,” Popps said.

Judge DiMatteo wrote in the ruling granting a temporary restraining order, “The single issue before the Court is whether the Governor, via his emergency powers, can override the decision of local school boards delegated to them. On this pivotal point, the Court concludes that the Governor cannot.”
 
Youngkin’s spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said the state intends to appeal the decision, calling the ruling “just the first step in the judicial process.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court of Virginia dismissed a lawsuit brought by parents in Chesapeake, Virginia, attempting to override the Chesapeake School Board’s decision to rescind its mask mandate. In its opinion, the Court noted, "By allowing school boards to follow the recommended COVID-19 mitigation strategies ‘to the maximum extent practicable,’ SB 1303 necessarily gives the boards a degree of discretion to modify or even forgo [emphasis added] those strategies as they deem appropriate for their individual circumstances.”

Yesterday, one of the co-sponsors of SB1303, Senator Chap Petersen, sent a letter to Fairfax County Public Schools, which participated in the school bard lawsuit, warning them if they did not use their new-found authority to make masks optional in their schools that he would seek a legislative remedy codifying parental choice.  Read the full letter here.

What does this mean for APS students? Due to the temporary restraining order on the Governor’s mask optional policy and the Supreme Court of Virginia's ruling, APS mask policy is now set by the School Board; there is no longer a State-level mask mandate based on emergency order. If you would like to advocate your preference on this issue you can let APS know your thoughts on mandatory universal masking.
 
Click here to tell the School Board your thoughts on mandatory masking. You can also sign up for office hours and to speak at school board meetings - see below for those dates.

2/3 School Board Meeting Recap
 

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