There are a limited number of scholarships to be awarded to cover the cost of conference registration and possibly 3 nights at the conference hotel. All conference attendees are eligible.

Remember to fill out your scholarship application by July 31st!

Pasco School Board members, in Florida, are set to adopt stricter rules governing online behavior in the Student Code of Conduct for the coming year. If a student in uniform violates the district’s digital citizenship guidelines, the proposal states, that person will be held accountable, and consequences could include suspension or dismissal from the team, or forfeiture of games, contests, or results. “If they are wearing school stuff, they are representing the school, especially if it is a school-issued uniform,” board chairwoman Colleen Beaudoin warned.

As coronavirus cases continue to rise across the country, school districts large and small are announcing plans to start the year virtually. The head of Miami-Dade schools is working with the county's mayor and public helath experts to decide next steps as coronavirus cases surge.  Due to skyrocketing coronavirus infection rates in California, Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, announced plans jointly with San Diego Unified on Monday that they would both start the school year with online instruction. Indianapolis Public Schools, an 11,000-student district, also said Monday it would start school in late July with fully virtual instruction after receiving "little guidance" from state and local officials. While school officials in Memphis have signaled they may start the year virtually if cases continue to rise in their area, education leaders in metro Nashville, Atlanta, and Phoenix too have already decided to reopen virtually. The head of Dallas ISD is considering pushing back the start of the school year by a few weeks to delay offering in-person instruction, while the Houston teachers union on Monday called on the district to begin with virtual instruction given the spike in coronavirus cases in the city.

President Trump’s push to reopen schools is seemingly dividing everyone beneath him over how to actually do it. While the President and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos want schools up and running this fall, despite record-breaking numbers of new COVID cases in states including Florida, Texas, and California, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted Monday that schooling will be a top priority in the coming package. While Senate Democrats have already proposed a $430 billion education stabilization plan, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress needs to show Americans the country will “put children first” by ensuring enough money to make campuses safe, Senate Republicans are instead focused on creating a new "liability shield" to protect healthcare providers, schools, and businesses that reopen during the pandemic from what McConnell claims could be an “epidemic of lawsuits” by those claiming injuries. Congress, which has already approved $3 trillion since the start of the outbreak, is set to resume next week as lawmakers begin negotiating the next aid package, which would be the fifth in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

A study published this week in American Education Research Journal indicates that some 52% of students have lost an average of 39% of their total school year gains during the summer months. Researchers followed students in grades one through six over five summers, and included 200 million test scores for 18 million students across 7,500 school districts. A separate Northwest Evaluation Association report suggests without summer reading, students will only retain about 70% of their progress compared to a normal year, and that math retention could regress half a year to a full year. Socioeconomically disadvantaged students and those without internet access or home computers are expected to suffer more and, as many students haven’t been in school since March due to the coronavirus pandemic, experts fear that the extended period could significantly exacerbate learning losses.

Chalkbeat’s Kalyn Belsha asserts that it’s "widely acknowledged" that the CARES Act isn’t nearly enough to cover the cost of what schools will need to operate in the coming year, especially as many districts are likely to see their budgets "slashed" as local and state tax revenue falls amid the coronavirus recession. Without another federal aid package, schools will have to use up their savings or make deep cuts, she warns, and Sarah Abernathy, deputy executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, which advocates for more federal investment in education on behalf of many education groups, agrees that the CARES Act is merely a “down payment.” Morcease J. Beasley, Superintendent at Clayton County Public Schools, just south of Atlanta, comments: “That’s why we need the federal government and Congress to step up to the plate. If they want kids to get back to school face-to-face, and we all do, then let’s put our money where our mouth is and let’s make it happen.”