California Department of Education
Press release
California Department of Education
Press release
Exit: #22-48
October 12, 2022
SACRAMENTO – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hosted the first of what will be a series of virtual webinars on Oct. 11 to brief local education agencies (LEAs), including district school administrators and at charter and classroom educators, about accelerating learning and how schools are using billions of dollars in public funding to successfully address learning loss due to the pandemic. He was joined by experts Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the California State Board of Education; Cheryl Cotton, deputy superintendent of the California Department of Education’s (CDE) Instruction, Measurement and Instruction Branch; Dr. Michelle Magyar, Executive Advisor of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE); and Dr. Ingrid Roberson, Associate Director of Research and Learning at CCEE.
“The entire nation has gone through a very difficult time and our students have faced many challenges. We want to make sure we take care of their well-being, and our state has provided incredible resources to provide mental health support to our students,” Superintendent Thurmond said. “While our young people have faced many challenges, we start where our students are and also look forward to how we want to help our students heal, recover and thrive. This is meant to be one of many conversations we will have, keeping in mind: we are all in this together. »
The webinar provided an opportunity to hear about proven strategies to support learning recovery, including high-dose tutoring, school year extension, mental health and counseling services, and the use of new data to guide the teaching of students. The start of a new school year marks a time of opportunity for California schools. New state budget includes $7.9 billion for learning recovery; specifically, one-time funds to be used through 2027-2028 for strategies to support the resumption of academic learning as well as the social and emotional well-being of staff and students after a difficult two and a half years of the pandemic of COVID-19. Additional resources for districts to support these efforts include $3 billion for expanded learning to increase time during the school year, summer school, intersessional programs, reduced staff-student ratios, and $250 million to develop literacy programs and hire and train reading and reading. literacy trainers and specialists.
“Part of the key to effective expanded learning is that we have to consider both the socio-emotional and the academic,” Dr. Darling-Hammond said. “We also need to dismantle traditional factory-style schools to find ways to dedicate time to the work needed so that children are both motivated and have the opportunity to develop their skills.”
Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Enikia Ford Morthel joined the panel to explain how her district provided academic support through the Expanded Learning Opportunities Grant, while adding support addition to the summer school, increasing the number of books in the classroom and targeting professional development for teachers. Dr. Cathy Nichols-Washer, superintendent of the Lodi Unified School District, shared how her district is using funding to address learning loss in several ways, including increasing tutoring supports, elementary business books for students and more scientific manipulations to emphasize key concepts. The Lodi Unified School District has also hired 20 intervention teachers to meet learning needs as a multi-level response to learning loss with additional counseling services provided and enrichment activities funded for students. extracurricular activities, intercession and during the summer.
The CDE has created an online resource for LEAs to support their efforts to promote recovery and accelerated learning. This CDE Learning Acceleration and Recovery Resources webpage centralizes information from several programs that can be used to support learning recovery efforts. This includes programs and also several highlights of what LEAs have done with these and other funding sources to promote the resumption of learning. These LEA success stories can be used to inform other LEAs as they create their own learning recovery programs.
Stay tuned as the CDE will host future webinars on this topic. A full recording of this webinar is available on the CDE Facebook page
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Tony Thurmond – State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100
Last revised: Wednesday, October 12, 2022
