SAN DIEGO: Late last month, San Diego high school teacher Jessica Macias put aside her worries about her future, psyched herself up and launched into an enthusiastic lesson via video feed to her class on the theory of knowledge.

Macias, a 26-year-old English teacher, had attended Castle Park High School herself as a student. While delivering that lecture, she said, she was “pushing to the back of my head” that she’d soon be unemployed. Macias, along with 204 other teachers in San Diego’s Sweetwater Union High School District, will lose her job when the school year ends Jun 5.

The night before the class, she said in an interview, “I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about not having a job.”

Macias will join the staggering number of public school personnel across the United States who have lost their jobs in the wake of school closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In April alone, 469,000 public school district personnel nationally lost their jobs, including kindergarten through twelfth-grade teachers and other school employees, a Labor Department economist told Reuters.

That is more than the nearly 300,000 total during the entire 2008 Great Recession, according to a 2014 paper by three university economists financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. The number of public school teachers hasn’t recovered from that shakeout, reaching near-2008 levels only in 2019.

Multiple school district administrators, public officials and teaching experts have warned that the current school personnel job loss will last for years, hurting the education of a generation of American students. It also could be a drag on economic recovery, for one thing because school districts are big employers.

The Labor Department reported on May 8 that 20.5 million non-farm workers lost jobs in April, including 980,000 government workers. Of those, 801,000 were local government employees. Although the Labor Department report does not break out the number, 469,000 of the 801,000 local government workers were K-12 public school teachers and other school personnel, the department economist told Reuters.

READ: US unemployment rate seen near 20% as COVID slams jobs market again in May

BIG BLOW TO POOR AREAS

School districts in poor areas face the most punishing blows. A Brookings Institution paper in April predicted that education layoffs “would come at the worst possible time for high-poverty schools, as even more students fall into poverty and need more from schools as their parents and guardians lose their own jobs”.

Low-income districts are particularly troubled because of plunging revenue amid the COVID-19 recession. Districts rely on local property taxes and state subsidies for revenue. Poorer districts, where property tax revenue is low, rely on states for most of their income. With states hit hard by falling income and sales taxes, aid to school districts is dwindling in many places.

READ: US labor market stabilizing as layoffs abate

READ: US services sector off 11-year trough; still contracting

The job losses at public K-12 schools are bigger and coming faster than experts anticipated. Michael Griffith, a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute, says “we’re looking at record cuts in teaching positions”.

In addition, many librarians – who now perform a variety of essential classroom functions – are expected to be let go. So may college advisors and the aides who work with developmentally and physically disabled students.

Many teachers and administrators are predicting class sizes will double with fewer teachers on the payroll. Some say the teacher losses will be felt in other ways.

Robert Hull, chief executive of the National Association of State Boards of Education, which represents states’ interests, told Reuters most class sizes actually will shrink when schools reopen due to the need for social distancing.

One option will be to have students come to school, on a staggered basis, only on certain days of the week, and possibly receive video instruction on other days. He predicted that some of these changes would be permanent.

DEMOCRATS SEEK AID BILL

A Bill passed recently by the Democratic Party-controlled US House of Representatives would provide US$13.5 billion in aid to K-12 public schools. Republicans, who control the Senate, oppose the bill as written. Its fate hangs in the balance as school teachers and administrators hope for the bailout.

April was an especially cruel month for education. The Labor Department report said that in addition to the 469,000 K-12 personnel, state-run colleges and universities laid off 176,000 professors and other employees. Private schools, including well-known colleges and universities and K-12 private schools, were down by 457,000.

On average, 80 per cent of public K-12 school budgets go to salaries and benefits, according to data from the Learning Policy Institute, leaving little besides employees to cut.

Susanna Loeb, a professor of education at Brown University, said she believes most of the 469,000 laid off in April were non-teacher personnel, as districts tend to fire teachers last. But anecdotal evidence from interviews and press reports suggests that the toll includes significant numbers of teachers.

The Paterson, New Jersey, school district is laying off 243 teachers. The school board of Rochester, New York, has authorised laying off up to 198 teachers. The Napa school district in California’s Napa Valley has voted for 145 teacher layoffs. Many small districts are laying off proportionately large numbers of teachers.

Like schools across the country, San Diego’s Sweetwater already had severe financial problems before COVID-19 hit. Sweetwater Superintendent Karen Janney did not respond to attempts to reach her for comment.

English teacher Macias is out of luck. Because she had been a teacher there for only four years, her lack of seniority put her on the chopping block. There would be no reprieve even though she taught challenging classes, including baccalaureate degree courses required by European universities. She says she hasn’t yet seen any other openings in California.

“One of my biggest dreams was to teach at Castle Park,” Macias says.

One student was shot in what Arkansas’ Watson Chapel School District calls an “isolated incident” Monday morning.

The shooting occurred in Watson Chapel Junior High School, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

ABC News reported the parent of the wounded student has been alerted and that all other students are safe.

KATV noted the wounded student was taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital and a “juvenile suspect” was arrested in connection with the shooting.

The Watson Chapel School District used a Facebook post to assure parents the incident is over:

KARK 4 News’ Alexis Wainwright tweeted the juvenile suspect is a male and the shooting victim “is also a juvenile and has serious injuries.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins , a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins . Reach him directly at [email protected] . Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange .

SINGAPORE: The five students who were confirmed to have COVID-19 last week have fully recovered and will return to school next week, said Education Minister Ong Ye Kung on Thursday (Jun 11).

The five students, as well as a non-teaching staff member, were tested on Jun 7 as part of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) proactive testing of school staff members and students above the age of 12 diagnosed with acute respiratory infection.

The six patients were all from different schools – Anglican High School, CHIJ Katong Convent, CHIJ St Theresa’s Convent, Geylang Methodist Secondary School, Hwa Chong Institution and Ascensia International School.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Wednesday they have since recovered from COVID-19. All but one have been discharged, with the last remaining in hospital due to administrative issues.

“Last Sunday was a difficult day for MOE as we registered 5 COVID-19 cases in five different schools,” Mr Ong said in a Facebook post, referring to the five students. “Yesterday, we were happy to learn that all have recovered, tested negative twice and can be discharged from hospital.”

“Most of them will be returning to school next week. One student in fact joined his classmates for an online lesson this morning,” he said.

READ: Singapore reports 422 new COVID-19 cases, including 5 cases in the community

READ: MOE to review how to ‘blend’ classroom and digital online learning as schools reopen after COVID-19 circuit breaker

Mr Ong said the schools have been keeping close contact with affected students and staff to offer support.

“During this period, students who have been placed on leave of absence of home quarantine orders may be worried about catching up on their studies, but rest assured that the schools will support you with online lessons and consultations,” he said.

“We are learning from each episode, and schools, students and parents must all continue to stay vigilant and socially responsible as we learn to live with COVID-19.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s public schools could get $6.6 billion from the state Legislature if they return to in-person instruction by the end of March, according to a new agreement announced Monday between Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s legislative leaders.

A staff member assists a child as they attend online classes at a learning hub inside the Crenshaw Family YMCA during the COVID-19 pandemic on Feb. 17, 2021, in Los Angeles, Calif. (Getty Images)

California, the most populous U.S. state, has 1,037 public school districts, more than 6.1 million students and about 319,000 teachers.

Most public school classes have not been held in-person since March of last year because of the coronavirus. Many districts have struggled to reach agreements with teachers’ unions on the best way to return students and staff to the classroom.

RELATED: LAUSD Opens COVID Vaccine Site At SoFI Stadium Monday For Education Staff Only

Newsom, who could face a recall election later this year spurred by his handling of the coronavirus, has been at odds with legislative leaders on the best way to encourage school districts to return students to the classroom. California can’t order schools to return to in-person instruction, but state officials can offer a lot of money to those that do.

The agreement sets aside $6.6 billion for schools that return to optional in-person instruction by March 31. The bill is a deal between Newsom, state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, all Democrats. It was confirmed by Atkins’ office. Newsom’s office has scheduled a formal announcement for late Monday morning.

RELATED: Teachers, Food Workers Now Eligible To Get Vaccinated In LA County

The details of the plan are complicated and were confirmed by two state officials with knowledge of the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

California counties are divided up into different coronavirus infection level tiers, with each tier having specific rules about how businesses and other public spaces can operate during the pandemic.

To be eligible for this new money, school districts in regions that fall under the most restrictive level — known as the purple tier — must return to in-person instruction at least through second grade, the officials said.

Districts must also have in-person instruction for special populations of students in all grades, the officials said, including the disabled, foster youth, the homeless, English learners, students without access to technology and students at risk of abuse and neglect.

Districts in the next highest tier, the red tier, must return to in-person instruction for all elementary school grades, plus at least one grade in middle and high school, the officials said.

The money will be distributed through the normal funding method that provides local districts with state money, the officials said, which would ensure more money for schools that serve primarily low-income students. In addition, the officials said districts would get an additional $1,000 for every homeless student they have.

To get the money, districts must meet the requirements by March 31, the officials said. Beginning April 1, for every instructional day school districts do not meet the requirements, the amount of money they are eligible to receive will go down by 1%, the officials said.

The bill would not require all students and staff to be vaccinated before returning to the classroom. And it would not require districts to get approval from teachers’ unions before returning, the officials said.

The officials said testing is required for schools in the purple tier. But school districts that have already reopened or have plans to reopen in March would be exempt from testing requirements, the officials said.

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