STUDY: ATTENDANCE RECORDS INCREASE
Two years after COVID, states better at reporting when students are in class
Most states, including California, have improved their reports on students' attendance at school, a significant leap forward after COVID disrupted attendance-taking nationwide, according to a study released this week by Attendance Works.
Forty-four of the 46 states that participated in the survey said they now require that schools take daily attendance for in-person instruction. That's up from 31 states that required it last year, when many schools were either remote or operating in a hybrid model.
Regarding distance learning, 39 states currently require attendance-taking during long-term distance instruction, and 41 require it for short-term distance learning for students who are quarantined at home.
Nearly all student groups suffered from absenteeism during the pandemic, but Black, Latino and low-income students tended to miss more school and fall further behind academically, according to the report.
“States have an important role in guiding how schools and districts collect attendance and chronic absence data,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works. “Well-crafted state policy that requires taking attendance daily and monitoring chronic absence is essential. Efforts to support student recovery following challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic are unlikely to have the desired results unless children and youth are present in school to benefit from the programming being offered.”
— Carolyn Jones, EdSource
Biden order expands protections for LGBTQ youth and families
President Joe Biden signed a wide-ranging executive order on Wednesday that expands health and counseling services, le
gal protections and other opportunities for LGBTQ young people and their families.
The order, issued during Pride Month and at a time when some states are passing laws targeting LGBTQ people, directs various branches of the federal government to:
• Direct states to expand access to health care for LGBTQ adults and youth.
• Study the impact of anti-LGBTQ laws on students and create policies that promote the full inclusion of students who are LGBTQ.
• Clarify that federally funded programs cannot pay for “conversion therapy,” expand support for those who've survived conversion therapy and train health care providers on its harms.
• Work with states to expand access to gender-affirming care and mental health services for LGBTQ young people.
• Expand data collection about LGBTQ young people and their families.
LGBTQ advocacy groups applauded the order.
“This historic executive order will advance longsought, LGBTQ-inclusive policies and practices that will help save young LGBTQ lives,” said Amit Paley, president of The Trevor Project, which advocates for LGBTQ youth. “Despite recent and relentless political attacks, we are hopeful that this will move us forward toward a day where all LGBTQ young people can be themselves without fear of discrimination or violence.”
States fight student mental health Crisis with days off
“The more we can shift to a prevention mindset and integrate mental health promotion into schools from a young age, I see that as very key to helping reduce the needs for treatment that we see in young people.”
— Tamar Mendelson, director of the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Seventy percent of schools that responded to a federal survey in April said more students had sought mental health services since the pandemic started. The National Center for Education Statistics' polling also showed that only 56% of schools said they effectively provide mental health services to all students in need and just 41% reported hiring new staff members to help address students' mental health needs.
Nearly half the nation lives in a designated mental health worker shortage area, according to government data, and an estimated 7,550 new professionals are needed to fill that void nationwide. Even in places where mental health professionals are more plentiful, they often do not accept public insurance, making them inaccessible to many kids.
In other states where lawmakers have implemented policies that allow students to take mental health days — including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Virginia — a lack of services for young people remains a concern.
Schools in Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Utah, and Washington, D.C., have tried to narrow the gap through less costly solutions, such as in-class meditation, mindfulness rooms, and social-emotional learning. The latter became a curriculum target of conservative lawmakers in recent months.
In a 2020 Mental Health America survey of young people's greatest mental health needs, the top responses from 14- to 18-yearolds were access to mental health professionals and mental health absences or breaks as part of school or work.
“The more we can shift to a prevention mindset and integrate mental health promotion into schools from a young age, I see that as very key to helping reduce the needs for treatment that we see in young people,” said Tamar Mendelson, director of the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
— Giles Bruce, Kaisher Health News
California bill would give homeless high school seniors $1,000 a month
A bill in the Legislature would give homeless high school seniors $1,000 a month, from April until August of their senior year.
As reported by the L.A. Times, Senate Bill 1341 is projected to cost about $85 million a year, to cover approximately 15,000 students. To be eligible, students would need to meet the definition of homeless used by public schools, which includes living in unstable housing or doubling up with other families.
“It's essentially this transitional support to try to disrupt the cycle of homelessness at this age group,” Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, told the L.A. Times. Cortese introduced the bill.
A previous bill he introduced would have given $500 a month to college students from low-income families, but that was scrapped after lawmakers realized that the money would be subtracted from students' financial aid.