Commentary authors
Summary

In California, over 700,000 individuals reside in multigenerational households, an essential consideration for educators and policymakers, particularly during the pandemic and potential school reopenings. Research underscores the impact of diverse household structures on families' decisions regarding students returning to school. With a significant portion of students living with elderly family members, concerns arise about their education and health risks. Urban districts, particularly in southern California, serve substantial populations in multigenerational settings, as indicated by data from the American Community Survey. The top five districts housing such households show a higher representation of Latinx and low-income students, hinting at potential socio-economic and demographic trends. Importantly, students with greater educational needs might hesitate to return to physical classrooms due to residing with vulnerable family members, posing a challenge for districts in designing equitable and safe reopening strategies. Policymakers and districts are urged to identify these students, offering tailored support and allocating additional resources to address health risks and ensure continued learning in an environment responsive to diverse household compositions and concerns amid the pandemic's uncertainties.

October 19, 2020 | The Hunt Institute

English learners, like their peers, have lost a large portion of instructional time due to the rapid shift to online learning caused by COVID-19. However, data indicates that the digital divide amongst underserved students, including English learners, has led to...

September 14, 2020 | UC Berkeley News

Deeply-grooved roadblocks to racial equity in K-12 education — and ways to surmount them — were the focal point of a compelling, livestreamed Berkeley Conversations event with four experts on Monday. Prudence Carter, dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of...

Commentary authors
Cecelia Leong
Summary

Educators throughout California are deeply engaged in strategizing to bolster student attendance, whether in remote or in-person learning setups. Addressing absenteeism, they highlight the absence of conducive learning conditions and advocate for increased support, especially for students facing challenges like internet access or COVID-related trauma. Emphasizing a non-punitive stance, this commentary introduces a multi-tiered strategy, categorizing interventions into three tiers based on students' needs. It stresses data-driven decision-making, proactive outreach, tech assistance, expanded learning programs, mentoring, mental health services, and personalized attendance plans as pivotal elements. Tailored interventions for varying levels of absenteeism (Tiers 2 and 3) encompass tech support, expanded learning programs, mentoring, mental health services, and personalized attendance plans. The authors underscore early identification of at-risk students while advocating collaborations with community agencies for extensive support, punctuating the importance of engaging students, families, and communities in crafting solutions amid the pandemic's challenges.

September 2, 2020 | Education Week

Wanted for the new school year: high-quality remote-learning experiences to engage and benefit all students. In the current pandemic reality, educators can improve learning, we believe, by finding better ways to use and structure students' work time. That's true whether...