Sunday, June 09, 2013

EdSource Quick Hits: FRESH AIR IMPROVES ATTENDANCE, SENATE GIVES UP ON DELAY OF LCFF, SCHOOL NURSES IN SUPREME COURT

Quick Hits | EdSource Today http://bit.ly/11P2H4L

Study: Improved ventilation in classrooms could reduce student absences

June 7th, 2013 | Add a Comment | By Jane Meredith Adams

California could significantly improve elementary school student attendance and health by increasing the amount of fresh air coming into classrooms, according to the largest U.S. study to date of ventilation rates in classrooms. Poor ventilation in classrooms is correlated with student absences due to illness, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found, and they calculated that increasing air flow in all California classrooms to state-mandated ventilation rates may have potentially significant effects: reducing student absences caused by illness by 3.4 percent and, because schools are funded based on average daily attendance, increasing overall state funding to schools by $33 million. “Our overall findings suggest that, if you increased ventilation rates of classrooms up to the state standard, or even above it, you would get net benefits to schools, to families, to … Read entire article »

Filed under: Quick Hits

No year’s delay: Deal likely on school finance reform, Steinberg says

June 6th, 2013 | Add a Comment | By John Fensterwald

The Senate has dropped its call for a year’s delay in implementing Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan for sweeping K-12 finance reform, making it likely a deal over Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula will be struck in the next few days, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said Thursday. Steinberg made the prediction during a public luncheon address in Sacramento with Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California. Taking an extra year to work out details on finance reform was one of the key differences with Brown in Senate Bill 69, the version of the funding formula that the Senate passed last week. Other key differences remain, however. The Senate version eliminates the concentration grant, the extra dollars for low-income students and English learners that Brown would provide districts in … Read entire article »

Filed under: Featured, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Quick Hits, Revenue and taxes, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)

State Supreme Court to decide who should administer shots to students

May 30th, 2013 | Add a Comment | By Jane Meredith Adams

The debate in the California Supreme Court this week about whether schools must provide a licensed school nurse to administer insulin to diabetic schoolchildren comes as the school nursing profession is reeling from job cuts as well as position replacements by part-time licensed vocational nurses and health aides. “Before Proposition 13, it used to be that just about every school in California had a full-time school nurse,” said Linda Davis-Alldritt, president of the National Association of School Nurses who served as the state school nurse consultant for the California Department of Education from 1996-2012. “Now there are very few.” It is common practice now for a nurse to serve four or five different schools in a district, she said. “The jobs are there, but the hiring that’s going on is for licensed … Read entire article »

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