Educate Our State

Join the fun!
We know -- it has been awhile; we have been busy sending our kids off to college and the workforce, joining school boards, advocating in Sacramento and working with state legislators to fix the loopholes that hurt public education funding in California.
We also realize it is time to pass the torch to parents who are still in the public school system. Are you a parent advocate with the energy and interest to also work statewide to help our public schools? We promise it is interesting and important. Let us know below or message us and we will reach out. Thank you!

For real though. 💯
📷 Jennifer Coogan

If opening schools is so important, why are we skimping on protections that curb COVID? End the scarcity mindset and bare-minimum policies on COVID and education. Mobilize public health spending and precautions to help teachers and schools.

Kids, parents, teachers have all been superheroes this year. Well, teachers are used to it. 🙂We thought this article resonated in these challenging times.

I’ve lost a year with my kids battling over school and I’m done.

My seven year old and I were in the midst of our usual asynchronous day battle. I had his writing homework in my hand from school. He’d written several full, well-thought-out sentences.

But he won’t do the same for me, at least not without a fight.

I told him he didn’t have to write about his best day like his teacher asked, he could write about his worst. He could write about whatever he wanted as long as he wrote a few sentences.

He said he’d get in trouble. He said he was doing a bad job in first grade. He was on the brink of tears but didn’t know why.

And it hit me.

Instead of getting frustrated and pushing the assignment, I sat down with him at his desk in his superhero bedroom.

I said “you won’t get in trouble and you can’t fail first grade. In fact, you’re kind of a superhero yourself.”

He sat up in his chair just a little and looked at me with disbelief.

I said, “Do you know that no kids in the history of kids have ever had to do what you’re doing right now? No kids in the history of kids have ever had to do school at home, sitting in their bedroom, watching their teacher on a computer. You and your friends are making history.”

A visible weight lifted from his seven year old shoulders, “What does that mean?”

I told him it means I haven’t given him nearly enough credit for rolling with the punches. I told him how proud I am of him and his friends. That kids this year are doing the impossible and they’re doing a really great job.

I apologized for not saying it sooner and more often. A little tear fell down his cheek.

We’ve thanked everyone from healthcare workers to grocery store employees but we haven’t thanked the kids enough for bearing the burden of what we’ve put on their shoulders this year.

We’ve said kids are resilient, and they are. But they are the real superheroes in this whole scenario for having ZERO say in their lives but doing their best to adjust every day.

We closed his school-issued laptop and spent the rest of the day playing. This was supposed to be temporary and here we are a year later still trying to hold our head above water.

This is our home and I won’t turn it into a battle ground anymore over something we can’t control. Something that no longer makes sense.

Hug your little superheroes today and don’t forget to cut them the slack we’ve given everyone else.

Join me in the trenches at Christine Derengowski, Writer !!

We think kids and families feel this way too!

Exactly!

First Grade Fun Times

♥️

https://twitter.com/nursekelsey/status/1303866132101763072?s=21

Do not know source (on pants pocket) but thank you, teachers 😞🙏

Thanks to our Research Director Jennifer Bestor who took apart the history of deferrals and why it hurts the poorest school districts and their students the most. Yes, public education funding is MUCH more complicated than it should be...

Deferrals and their Impact on Schools Educate Our State

Most public schools will be dealt a heavy blow due to California's falling revenue, in the form of record setting deferrals. These started yesterday, with a delay in their June 30 payment. Our poorest school districts will suffer the most.

Guide to California’s education budget deferrals: pros, cons and costs of delayed payments School districts prefer late payments to budget cuts but some districts will bear a larger burden, and it may be years before deferrals are paid off.