Chalkbeat

Vaping, bathrooms, stress: What 357,000 NYC students revealed in revamped school survey

2026-08-17T22:28:45+00:00

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How often do students at your school vape? Are school bathrooms aligned with your gender identity? Is your school connecting your learning to the real world?

These are among the new questions that New York City’s annual school survey now asks students.

Middle and high school students are asked every spring, along with parents and teachers, to fill out the annual school survey. But the questions for students were too wordy and confusing, and there were too many of them, Education Department officials acknowledged.

So, education officials decided to make substantial changes, shortening the number of questions to 61 from 79 the year prior and making the language more direct. The goal, officials said, is to give educators more insight into particular problems. The changes are already bearing some fruit in terms of participation: More than 357,000 of the city’s students in grades 6-12 participated in the 2026 school survey, up 3 points from last year’s student participation rate, officials said this week.

To redesign the survey, the city sent a ballot of questions to school leaders and survey coordinators, garnering more than 300 responses. They held listening sessions with more than 50 school leaders, and convened more than 20 students — some of whom served on the Chancellor’s Student Advisory Committee and some who were part of a Brooklyn Summer Rising site.

While some of the questions tweak language from the previous year’s survey, others are new. Because of the survey’s changes, the 2026 results can’t be compared to prior years, but will serve as a new baseline moving forward.

“You may notice lower favorability scores on some items compared to prior years,” stated an explainer about the redesign. “This does not necessarily mean things got worse. It often reflects students answering more directly and precisely under the new language — not a change in classroom reality.”

Here are some highlights from the survey’s new questions.

How often do students in this school vape?

Many students, parents, and educators will tell you: Vaping is a big problem in schools. Some schools have been figuring out ways to cut down on vaping in bathrooms, but many have been struggling with how to respond.

Now the city’s survey is catching up with these concerns, adding a question about vaping. More than a third of students said vaping is common, with 19% of students saying students vape “very often,” and 16% reporting that students vape “often.” About 39% of female students reported their peers vape often or very often, compared to 32% of males.

The responses varied by grade, with fewer sixth graders (19%) reporting vaping as an issue compared to the ninth graders (45%), who reported seeing the most vaping use.

Curious and concerned parents can check out the responses for all questions at individual schools. For example, nearly three-quarters of the students at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts reported that students vape very often or often, compared with just 11% of students at University Neighborhood High School reporting that.

How often can you use a bathroom that matches your gender identity in your school?

A few years ago, the city began allowing families to list their child’s gender as “X” instead of “M” or “F” to accommodate nonbinary or gender-expansive youth.

The school survey data is catching up, now asking about whether students can use school bathrooms aligning with their gender identity. Under city guidance, students are entitled to use bathrooms that match their gender identity — a policy that has come under fire from the Trump administration.

At first glance, most students reported favorably to this question, with 86% saying they can use a bathroom matching their gender identity “always” or “most of the time. But drilling down into the data, for those students identified as neither male or female, 65% said they had access to a bathroom matching their gender identity.

How many of your teachers connect what you are learning to life outside the classroom?

Many students often complain that what they’re learning in school feels irrelevant to their lives and careers. In response, the city has ramped up its focus on career education.

Students see room for improvement. Less than half — 49%— said most or all of their teachers connect what they’re learning to life outside the classroom. The answers vary by grade, with the fewest favorable responses in ninth grade (45%). But by senior year, more students — 59% — responded favorably to this question.

How often do you use strategies you learned at school to stay focused when something frustrating happens?

Schools across the city have been trying to incorporate more mindfulness practices, with former Mayor Eric Adams bringing daily breathing exercises to students. But when it comes to learning coping mechanisms, students say schools still have work to do. Just 45% said they use strategies learned at school to stay focused in the face of frustration. Asian American girls had fewer favorable responses (37%) compared to their Black male counterparts (51%).

How often do you feel included in school activities like clubs, sports, recess, field trips, and school events?

While the 2025 survey asked students whether they felt like they belonged at their school, the redesigned survey took things a step further, asking students specifically about their experiences in school activities outside the classroom.

About 10% of students surveyed reported they “never” feel included in these activities, and another 30% reported feeling included “sometimes.” Girls reported feeling excluded more often than boys, with 43% reporting they sometimes or never felt included compared to 38% of boys. Broken down by grade, ninth graders (45%) reported feeling excluded most often , while sixth graders (35%) felt excluded least frequently.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

35% of Summer EBT money went unspent by Colorado families last year, data shows

2026-08-14T14:00:00+00:00

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More than a third of the money that some low-income Colorado families received last summer to help feed their children went unspent, state data shows.

Summer EBT provides eligible families with $120 per child to buy groceries during the months when kids are not getting breakfast and lunch at school. The federal program grew out of a pandemic-era effort to keep students fed while schools were shuttered.

The under-spend matters because it means families are losing out on free food money during what advocates called “the hungriest time of year.” State officials made changes to this year’s Summer EBT rollout to encourage more families to use their benefits.

Once a family gets their money, they have 122 days — or about four months — to use it. The timeline will start running out in late September this year.

This summer is the third that Colorado has participated in Summer EBT. Last summer, the state gave out $57.6 million to more than 480,000 families of preschool through 12th grade students. But state data shows that 35% of those students never used their one-time $120 benefit, meaning that nearly $20.2 million went back to the federal government.

That money could have fed more than 168,000 additional children, according to the data.

Colorado had the lowest Summer EBT usage rate of the 20 states for which education policy consultant David Rubel gathered data. For instance, Missouri also distributed about $57 million in Summer EBT benefits last year. But that state only lost $3.5 million, according to Rubel.

“There’s so much bad stuff happening,” Rubel said, referencing cuts to other federal food assistance programs. “But here, you have something where the money was already allocated. Let’s use it. We don’t have to fight over it. It’s there.”

There are several reasons why families might not use their $120 per child, advocates said. The benefits are issued on a reusable card that’s separate from a family’s regular benefits card. If a family loses or throws away their Summer EBT card, they must request a new one.

Some families don’t know that Summer EBT exists, advocates said. Students are automatically eligible if their family receives public benefits such as SNAP, Medicaid, or Colorado Works, or if they qualify for free- or reduced-price school meals. Others must fill out an application.

But some automatically enrolled families “expressed hesitation or uncertainty about utilizing the benefit,” said John Rosa, a Colorado Department of Human Services spokesperson.

“Because it is such a new program … there is a general awareness-raising that needs to happen,” said Chloe Eberhardt, the associate director of benefits access for the nonprofit No Kid Hungry. “It’s easy for families to be confused about eligibility for the program.”

Operational and customer service challenges also contributed to the lower usage rate last year, Rosa said, as did outdated mailing addresses. Colorado was using addresses supplied by school districts from previous academic years, an issue the state remedied this year by mostly using current addresses from the state’s public benefits system, Rosa said.

School districts also play a role in telling families about Summer EBT, and advocacy organizations held a training call this year to provide district staff with up-to-date information, said Graciela Guillen, the applied policy and economic justice coordinator for Hunger Free Colorado.

But Jeffco Public Schools spokesperson Devra Ashby said that while the state’s second-largest district shares information about Summer EBT broadly, it doesn’t send targeted communications to families because eligibility is based on confidential student and household information.

“Protecting the privacy of our students and families is a priority,” she said.

The Colorado Department of Human Services does send targeted communications, and it updated them this year with clear “keep your card” guidance, Rosa said. To help boost usage, the department also rolled out two new online tools this summer.

The Summer EBT Enrollment Checker allows families to check if their child is eligible. The Summer EBT Portal lets families request a new card, change their address, or check the status of their application without having to make a phone call.

The online tools are available in English and Spanish.

“What we know is that summer is the hungriest time of year,” Eberhardt said. “Summer meals and Summer EBT help close that summer hunger gap.”

Clarification, Aug. 18: This story has been updated to clarify that families who lose their Summer EBT card can request a new one. They don’t have to reapply for one.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

NY families left $62 million in summer food benefits unspent last year. Here’s how to claim your $120 now.

2026-07-17T19:32:07+00:00

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Thousands of New York families might be leaving millions of dollars on the table when it comes to summer food benefits.

To combat hunger while schools are closed, the state’s Summer EBT program sends eligible families $120 per child in food benefits. Last year, the state issued about $237 million in benefits to families, but about $62 million — or 26% — remained unspent during the 122-day window families had to use them, according to records obtained by David Rubel, an education consultant who tracks Summer EBT rates.

That money could have fed about 518,000 children in need, the data showed.

Instead of going to struggling families, Rubel said, the money reverted back to the federal government.

More people across the country are going hungry now than at the height of the COVID pandemic, according to a May survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In New York City, 1 in 4 children experiences food insecurity, food rescue group City Harvest estimates.

Advocates and educators are concerned about an increase in hunger as new federal work requirements to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, took effect in March. Food pantry lines have lengthened this summer, Gothamist reported Wednesday.

Under federal guidelines, children are eligible for the Summer EBT program if they attend a school that offers free lunch and meet household income requirements for free or reduced-price school meals. The income limits vary by household size. A family of four qualifies with an annual income at or below $61,050, for example.

Families who receive SNAP or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits, or who are enrolled in Medicaid, automatically receive the funds. Other families who qualify based on income must apply. Last year, roughly 99% of Summer EBT recipients were enrolled automatically because they qualified through SNAP, Medicaid, or information provided by the state Education Department, officials said.

Families have until Sept. 8 to apply for the food benefits.

Lost your Summer EBT card? How to claim your benefits

Nearly 1.6 million children from low-income families have received $189 million in summer food assistance through the program, said Darren O’Sullivan, spokesperson for the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, or OTDA, which oversees the program.

“At a time when vital nutrition programs like SNAP face continued attacks in Washington, Summer EBT puts money back in the pockets of New York’s working families, helping them afford to buy healthy food during the summer months when schools are out of session and many children lose access to free school meals,” O’Sullivan wrote in a statement to Chalkbeat.

The benefits for all eligible families are loaded onto a child’s Summer EBT card and can be used wherever SNAP or EBT benefits are accepted. Last year, families were supposed to use cards they were sent in 2024. Rubel said he worries that some families may not have realized that or may have lost their cards.

This year, however, the state is sending new cards to families that did not spend any of their food benefits last year.

Families can also request a replacement card either online or by phone (1-888-328-6399). Cards take about a week to arrive, state officials said.

Rubel is hopeful that less money will be left on the table this year if families understand they can get replacement cards. He praised OTDA for stepping up its outreach efforts.

Besides mailing eligibility letters to families before issuing the benefits, the agency is also texting reminders to use the benefits, sending texts and emails with other important Summer EBT updates, and scaling up a public awareness campaign at Thruway rest stops and Department of Motor Vehicles locations.

Rubel, however, felt that the city’s Education Department missed an opportunity to promote the initiative by not sending home a letter with students before the school year ended.

Education Department officials told Chalkbeat that information about the benefits would be reiterated to families through a flyer included in this week’s “Principal’s Digest” newsletter, which is emailed to all principals. The department also plans to share the information directly with students and on its social media channels.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

An upper Manhattan mom was tired of screen time. She convinced 38 schools to take a ‘screen break.’

2026-05-22T21:42:47+00:00

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Amid a growing backlash against screen time use in and out of school, one upper Manhattan mom is starting a week-long initiative to help parents and educators limit devices and educational technology in the classroom and at home.

Olympia Kazi, the parent of a third and fifth grader, enlisted the support of her superintendent to convince the 38 elementary and middle schools serving more than 10,000 students in her local school district to cut out screens and offer more recess — as much as possible — next week.

Dubbed “Screen Break,” the week-long pilot program for Manhattan’s District 6, spanning Washington Heights and Inwood, also encourages families to ditch screens and come together as a community, offering a lineup of activities after school and on the two days off. (Monday is Memorial Day, and Wednesday is Eid). She suggests parents and guardians organize book clubs and documentary screenings about the risks of overexposure to screens, providing a list of resources, in English and Spanish, to get them started.

The surgeon general’s office this week raised the alarm about the dangers of screen time for young people, linking various health concerns to excessive time online, including anxiety, depression, poor sleep, and alcohol use.

Across the nation, families are fighting back against screens and ed tech in their children’s schools. In Los Angeles, the parent-led Schools Beyond Screens coalition helped push the school district to come up with a proposal that may include a total screen ban until second grade and other limits by age. Iowa recently passed a law limiting screens in schools. And in New York City, in addition to a grassroots surge of families calling for an AI moratorium in schools, parents on local Community Education Councils are taking action. The council in East Harlem’s District 4 last week passed a resolution to set school screen time limits based on age (and calls for strengthening student privacy protections).

“I think parents are seeing the consequences: privacy issues, lack of alignment of computerized assessments with better outcomes, and the mental health studies,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a neuroscientist and president of District 4’s Community Education Council.

Ultimately, Kazi hopes her Screen Break pilot will give families and educators an opportunity to pause and have some conversations about how prevalent screens have become in education since the COVID pandemic. And she wants to hear from schools afterward about what worked and what didn’t to help fine tune the program for next year.

“I think what happened with the pandemic is we were all rushed. It was an emergency,” said Kazi, a community advocate and former nonprofit leader whose children attend P.S. 187. “Things changed, and the things haven’t been evaluated to understand: What is working and what isn’t working? What is worthwhile keeping and what shouldn’t be kept?”

An effort to replace screens with other activities

The seeds for Screen Break week were planted when Kazi fired off a March 12 email to her superintendent, Renzo Martinez, and New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, telling them she didn’t want to lament about screen time in schools but wanted to do something “positive.” Her original idea was for a fully screen-free week with double recess, but she later realized the approach needed more flexibility based on schools’ needs. (She’s upset that her kids’ school, like many schools, only has 20 minutes of daily recess, and during inclement weather, they spend it inside watching movies or videos.)

To her surprise, Martinez agreed to work with her on the initiative, and together, they pitched it to the local Community Education Council.

Martinez handled the school side of things, explaining the initiative to principals, while Kazi focused on family engagement and lining up community activities, she said. On Tuesday, for instance, she curated “book fest,” where the Washington Heights New York Public Library branch will do read-alouds in the garden of the Morris Jumel Mansion, and Uptown Stories will offer writing games. The Fountain Bookshop and Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria will have book giveaways. And there’s an improv class for all ages, in English and Spanish at The People’s Theater.

Martinez did not respond for comment, but after this story initially published, Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said the city “empowers our superintendents and school communities to make decisions that best reflect the needs and priorities of their students and families.”

Kazi wanted to make it easy for families and schools to participate, which is why she chose a three-day school week after state testing ended.

For her own family, Kazi hadn’t allowed her 10-year-old son to play video games, so she was incensed when she learned that his school used Prodigy Math, a game-based learning tool, in class. She was even angrier when she learned that the company also had a paid account option. She didn’t want her son to be exposed in school to a company with a commercial interest or put a burden on families who couldn’t afford accounts. But instead of complaining, she preferred to find a way to broaden the conversation.

“I’m a big believer in public schools and to show to everybody that these are our schools,” Kazi said. “We can make them what we want them to be as long as we do the work.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

He didn’t think he’d see past 16. Now he’s saving lives with a beat.

2026-05-11T20:45:08+00:00

This story originally appeared on May 5 in the NYCity News Service, run by the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

JC Hall was not supposed to make it.

Growing up on Long Island, drowning in addiction, alcoholism, and major depression, Hall had plans “not to see 16.” He also resisted the one thing that might have helped. “I was very anti-therapy,” he said. “I just saw it as something for weak people, and I wasn’t going to ask for help.”

But hip-hop kept him alive long enough to see 38.

He found solace listening to artists like DMX, Tupac, Biggie, and Eminem talk about the kinds of pain he didn’t hear anywhere else. Hearing those artists confront desperation and survival so honestly gave him something to hold onto.

Hall’s healing began when he started creating his own raps at age 15. “There was something about taking all of the madness swirling around in my head and finding a way to put it to a beat—writing raps in rhythm and laying that chaos out in front of me on a page,” he said.

Decades later, Hall now runs a hip-hop therapy studio program at Mott Haven Community High School in the South Bronx. About 30 students participate each year, with eight to 12 students in the studio at a time. The moniker conjures up a vision of therapy with a playlist and a couch. But neither factor into the sessions.

In Hall’s program, hip-hop and traditional therapy are fully intertwined. Students participate in group as well as individual counseling. Technical coaching on breath control for rapping doubles as training in nervous system regulation. Learning to breathe deeply from the diaphragm not only improves vocal performance but also helps calm the body, sharpen focus, and manage anger or panic. The craft of writing strong verses that are specific, sensory, and present in a scene, naturally cultivates mindfulness.

Hall was taught the principles of using rap as therapy from his late mentor, Fordham University professor Edgar Tyson who coined the term “Hip Hop Therapy.” Tyson served as Hall’s advisor at the school’s graduate program in social work.

Hall arrived at Mott Haven Community High School as an intern in 2013 during the school’s initial year. In addition to his casework, he ran an informal after-school group. Upon graduation and licensing later that year, he was hired full-time and given the funding to build a professional studio and develop the full clinical program. While other schools incorporate hip-hop into school programming and therapy, it is mostly piecemeal. Hall’s program is the first in New York City to fully integrate a purpose-built professional studio with a therapeutic practice.

Hip Hop Therapy offers a cultural framework that many of his students already live inside.

“Conventional therapy reflects this Western, Eurocentric, very culturally incompetent thing,” Hall said. “Hip Hop Therapy is a contemporary approach to mental health treatment,” he said, one that taps into hip-hop’s roots in the African diaspora.

Hall said that doing this work in the South Bronx, “the birthplace of hip-hop,” represents a kind of poetic justice.

Hall traces some of his struggles to spending his 13th summer in a body cast. The devastating accident resulted from an ill-timed leap from a tree into a swimming pool, where his body hit only half his mark. Hall recovered in the hospital after breaking his femur in half, and found relief in the soothing flow of a morphine drip and pain pills. That first taste of relief doubled as escape. It took him the next year to learn to walk again.

Hall struggled with both internal and external demons. He leaned toward self-destructive behavior as a child, even before the accident, describing himself as a thrill seeker as far as he can recall. “I definitely showed tendencies towards these predispositions long before that, though, and there is certainly family history,” he said. “So both nature and nurture for sure.”

He said people in recovery describe a sense of searching that predates substance use—“I always felt like I was trying to fill a void within, as far back as I can remember.”

Hall’s teenage recovery process required medication, 12-step programs, psychiatric care, and a family with the resources to access all of it. “Hip-hop kept me afloat, right? But it alone was not enough,” Hall said. “It was really like a whole slew of things that, if even just one of them wasn’t there, I don’t see why I would be here today.”

And he describes himself as still in recovery. “It’s a process as opposed to an endpoint; in recovery rather than recovered.”

Mott Haven, a transfer high school, draws students who have already failed somewhere else or believe they have failed themselves. “In the community I’m in, it seems like there’s generally not much interest in these kids or what they have to offer,” said Hall.

Kryst Jackson, 19, said that Mott Haven and Hall’s studio opened another world.

“I got kicked out of my other school, you know, through the street stuff,” he said. “So I came here as, like, a second opportunity.” Even that felt fragile at first. “I ain’t gonna lie, I thought it was too good to be true, ’cause I never seen no school like that,” Jackson said. “JC, he helped me pursue that path. He just helped me get a voice for myself in terms of music.”

Victor Ferreira, 18, arrived with a similar story. At his previous school, he said he skipped classes, failed every subject, and stopped showing up altogether for six months. He walked into Hall’s program in September 2024, expecting, in his own words, “a whole bunch of bullshit.” He found something different. Hall’s studio has a rule: no lyrics glorifying gang violence. Ferreira had assumed that was simply what rap was, and the constraint opened a door. “Now you’ve got people thinking about becoming more lyrical with their songs — the stuff that people are really thinking about, like, deeply — that’s what comes out into the songs now,” Ferreira said.

Hall’s work is gaining attention for its innovation and success. In 2024, Hall won the David Prize, a $200,000 no-strings award for innovative solutions to New York City problems. In Mott Haven, where median household income hovers around $34,000, only 78% of students graduate from high school compared with a 99% graduation rate and roughly $157,000 median income on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Compared with their classmates, students in Hall’s program graduate at a significantly higher rate than students who don’t participate. Ferriera and Jackson made it across that stage last year.

Hall’s philosophy, lived and practiced, comes down to this: “The beautiful thing about hip-hop is you can still maintain strength through your vulnerability,” he said. “The artists with the greatest longevity are the ones who are the most vulnerable on the microphone.”

New York City Council passes plan to step up education on vaccines

2026-04-30T23:41:16+00:00

This article was initially published by Healthbeat on April 30. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

The New York City Council on Thursday passed a package of bills seeking to do more to educate parents about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines as immunization rates show signs of starting to dip.

The five bills aim to make it easier for schools to disseminate accurate information about vaccines to parents, as well as to require the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to develop a plan by year’s end that will educate New Yorkers about the importance of childhood and adolescent vaccinations.

The package will be sent to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has 30 days to sign, veto, or let the bills lapse into law.

The action comes as the federal government led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and followers of his Make America Healthy Again movement are working to sow doubt and confusion about vaccines, which are scientifically proven to be safe and effective. As a result, state and local governments are taking a greater role in educating the public.

New York state has long had some of the highest vaccination rates in the country, but that record may be faltering.

In New York City, new data suggest parents are delaying routine vaccinations for their children. In March, the city reported that about 1 in 3 2-year-olds had not received all doses of seven vaccines – DTap (diptheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis); polio; measles, mumps, and rubella; hib; hepatitis B; varicella (chickenpox); and pcv (pneumococcus).

S.C. measles outbreak declared over after 997 cases

This prompted city health officials to launch a $1 million campaign over four weeks encouraging parents to vaccinate their children. Officials say the campaign ran in multiple languages and on TV, radio, print news, kiosks, and transportation hubs in neighborhoods with low vaccination rates.

“The new life that Kennedy is giving to the movement has clearly given new life to the diseases themselves,” City Council Speaker Julie Menin said at the council meeting, before the bills were introduced. “The erosion of public trust in science doesn’t just increase health risks for his own band of followers, it also puts our wider community in jeopardy. As lawmakers and as leaders, we cannot sit back and let that happen.”

The United States has seen more measles cases over the past year than it has in decades. An outbreak in South Carolina reached nearly 1,000 cases. Most of those infected were unvaccinated.

James Alwine, a virologist, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, and visiting professor at the University of Arizona, is a member of Defend Public Health, a nationwide network of public health leaders and advocates. He applauded the legislation and offered this advice for the health department on vaccine messaging: Keep it simple and straightforward while highlighting the harm that these preventable diseases can inflict on children.

“Stay out of the real science and data — that just doesn’t work,” Alwine told Healthbeat. “You can’t fight against what they’re saying by trying to tell people, ‘Well, here’s the science, here’s the data, here’s the study.’ It just falls on deaf ears, mainly because it’s hard to explain in lay terms.”

Here is a rundown of the bills:

Educating parents: Sponsored by Council Member Shekar Krishnan, Introduction 260-A requires the health department, in collaboration with the Department of Education, to develop informational material about vaccines. DOE is also required to distribute the materials to parents of all New York City public school students, including those enrolled in early childhood programs such as 3-K and Pre-K. The material must include general information on how vaccines work, their public health benefits, their safety, and where to access vaccines required for school attendance.
Educating the public: Sponsored by Council Member Eric Dinowitz, Introduction 693-A requires the health department, in collaboration with relevant agencies, to develop and implement a plan by no later than Jan. 1, 2027, to educate the public about the benefits and importance of childhood and adolescent vaccinations. In developing the plan, the health department is required to consider recommendations adopted by major medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Authorizing dentists to immunize: Sponsored by Council Member and Health Committee Chair Lynn Schulman, Resolution 273 calls on the New York State Legislature to pass, and the governor to sign legislation authorizing dentists to administer flu shots, Covid vaccines, human papillomavirus vaccines, or a vaccine related to a public health emergency.
Recommending vaccines: Also sponsored by Schulman, Resolution 425 calls on the legislature to pass, and for the governor to sign state legislation requiring vaccines to be regulated, recommended, administered, and insured based on the recommendations of various nationally and internationally recognized health care organizations.
Reimbursing costs for providers: Also sponsored by Schulman, a preconsidered resolution calls on the legislature to pass, and the governor to sign a bill requiring insurance to reimburse the total direct and indirect expenses for providers administering vaccines.

In a written statement attributed to city Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin, the health department said it looks “forward to continuing our partnership with Chair Schulman and City Council on this issue.”

Trenton Daniel is a reporter covering public health in New York for Healthbeat. Contact Trenton at tdaniel@healthbeat.org or on the messaging app Signal at trentondaniel.88.

Rutabagas and beet muffins in the cafeteria? This Colorado teacher shares her passion for produce

2026-03-17T22:07:30+00:00

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Do radishes belong in breakfast burritos? Do frozen pancakes taste good when they’re reheated? Will strawberry-topped yogurt cups with marshmallows, potato chip crunch, and chocolate drizzle win fans?

These are some of the questions students answer in Sabra Sowell-Lovejoy’s food production classes at Campo Undivided High School on Colorado’s Eastern Plains.

And here’s a question they asked: Can we grow rutabagas?

That came about when the root vegetable turned out to be a sleeper hit after Sowell-Lovejoy’s recent lesson on preparation techniques.

“None of the students had eaten a rutabaga before,” she said. “They loved them and asked us to start growing them so we could eat them in the cafeteria.”

The answer was yes.

Sabra Sowell-Lovejoy, teacher at Campo Undivided High School.

Sowell-Lovejoy, a semifinalist for Colorado’s 2026 Teacher of the Year award, also teaches social studies and English to fifth through 12 graders in the rural 38-student Campo district.

She talked to Chalkbeat about what experiments students run in the school’s dome greenhouse, how she covers water scarcity, and why students are brainstorming ideas for freezable breakfast foods.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

At the end of my undergraduate studies, my metal arts professor encouraged me to start teaching as an adjunct professor. Fifteen years later, the principal of my children’s school in New Mexico encouraged me to teach again. I was working as a part-time librarian while also teaching at the university. I reluctantly accepted, and now have a career that chose me — one that I wouldn’t change for anything.

How did your own experience in school influence your approach to teaching?

I went to school in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Mr. Harban, my fifth grade teacher and seventh grade math teacher, and Mrs. Malloy, my sixth grade teacher, provided hands-on learning opportunities and clear in-class instruction.

We observed stars through large telescopes in the cold, participated in a mock voting process at a replica voting booth that our parents drove us to, and recreated Christmas traditions from various countries. I still remember those lessons vividly and aim to provide similar experiences to my students.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach.

Currently, I am teaching a civics lesson in which students examine the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and look at James Madison’s ideas for building a healthier democracy. Students debate the tension between majority rule and the tyranny of the majority. They determine whether the Virginia Plan and the “double-negative” proposal would work. The double negative was a proposal that would have given Congress the power to veto state laws and to exercise federal oversight over states. Ultimately, the Constitution was written after these debates, and the double negative was rejected.

Tell us about the Dome Project.

The dome greenhouse was a replacement for the previous student-built greenhouse, which blew away. It’s a little larger and taller than a two-car garage. We expanded our growing capacity by adding more grow boxes and a hydroponic system. Both shop class and food production students contributed designs for the boxes, and shop class students constructed them.

Students and community members spent a week in the summer constructing the dome from a kit purchased from Growing Spaces in Pagosa Springs.

Inside the greenhouse, we have a pond featuring plants and experimental food crops, along with four koi fish that the students enjoy feeding. We have strawberries, lettuce, basil, dill, and some flowers growing in floating rafts. Students track the nutrient relationships with the various plants to see which performs well in the pond and at what temperatures.

We have different soil tests going for tomato plants, various peas, and lettuces. We are tracking whether the same lettuce grows faster or has a different taste when grown hydroponically versus in soil. We have also planted a few trees — lime, lemon, and cherry.

Tell us about the Farm-to-Freezer project.

We started the Farm-to-Freezer learning initiative to strengthen our Farm-to-School program. It’s funded by the Colorado Department of Education’s Harvest Innovation grant, and the purpose is to develop recipes so we can process produce in the summer and use it in breakfast items that can be frozen. That will allow the cafeteria staff to provide scratch-made food and local products year round rather than only during peak season.

Junior high and high school students are currently creating recipes that use our produce, comply with child nutrition guidelines, and will be taste-tested by students. We are currently working on carrot cake bars or muffins, as well as breakfast casseroles or burritos featuring peppers and onions.

The students have not found a food that they didn’t like yet. I challenge them to try some of my ideas, including radishes in the breakfast burritos and beets in their muffins.

Connecting students to local foods is a passion of yours. How do you get students interested?

Our program emphasizes the entire process of growing, producing, and consuming food. The produce we cultivate is selected by the students, focusing on their favorite items for the cafeteria salad bar. Classes take place in a room equipped with a hydroponic system, providing a relaxing environment filled with the soothing sound of flowing water and the presence of lush plants.

We host two major events each year. The first is Colorado Proud Meal Day, where the entire school works together to collect local foods, such as goat milk and harvested wheat. Throughout the day, we transform these ingredients into delicious meals, and the goat milk ice cream served on the playground in the afternoon is always a highlight.

The second event is our annual Campo Chopped competition. Junior high and high school students use the produce they’ve grown and the cooking techniques they’ve learned to create three dishes for the judges. Winning dishes include a chicken rice bowl with apple and turnip slaw, strawberry basil cake, and a crispy tortilla wrap with bell peppers, lettuce, carrots, and a dipping sauce.

What is something going on in the community that affects your students? How do you address it?

Our community is facing water scarcity. It’s a topic taught in food production and social studies classes. We study human-nature relationships and how they played out during the Dust Bowl, which hit our area hard. We also educate students about responsible water use for crops and livestock and the history of water rights in Colorado and the country.

Reducing food waste decreases the need for additional water to grow more food, so students learn to use parts of plants that are typically discarded. For example, after removing stems, skin, or leafy tops from vegetables, students will make vegetable stock to use for future cafeteria recipes such as chicken pot pie.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Spring break is coming. South Carolina wants schools’ help to avoid a measles surge.

2026-03-13T17:23:21+00:00

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Amid concerns that spring break could reignite South Carolina’s measles outbreak, state health officials are trying to avoid a repeat of the communication gaps that delayed measles exposure investigations when schools were closed for winter break.

Healthbeat revealed last month that the South Carolina Department of Public Health was hamstrung in late December in its efforts to quickly warn and quarantine students and staff who had been exposed to measles. The problem: Schools were closed over winter break and they had nobody available to provide contact information to outbreak investigators.

The result was that people who were unaware they were infectious continued to interact with others in the community during the busy winter holiday season. In the weeks that followed, cases of measles surged dramatically and the South Carolina outbreak became one of the largest in decades.

“We are concerned that we may see another surge in cases,” Dr. Linda Bell, South Carolina’s state epidemiologist said. “So we have actually been in contact with schools to work with them more closely, to make sure that we have points of contact.”

Bell said Thursday that the department has sent letters to schools in South Carolina’s 11-county Upstate region asking them to identify a person who will be available during the spring break vacation period – when schools and administrative offices are closed – who can provide school attendance and contact information if it is needed for measles exposure investigations.

Here's how the S.C. measles outbreak grew after the holidays

“We’ve been receiving steady responses from the schools for those points of contact,” she said.

The health department said late Thursday that the letters, which requested contact information by March 10, were sent to all public school superintendents in the Upstate region. Only 11 of the 23 superintendents had supplied contacts as of Thursday. “DPH has previously established contacts at private and charter schools that have been impacted by the outbreak,” the department said.

Of the 993 measles cases recorded since the outbreak was identified in October, 936 have been in Spartanburg County and most of the others in nearby Upstate counties, according to state data. Almost all of those who have been infected were unvaccinated and most have been school-age children and teens.

In recent weeks, the number of new measles cases being reported to the department has slowed to a trickle. On Monday, the health department said just two new cases had been identified since Friday.

In Spartanburg County, spring break is scheduled for April 6-10 for many schools, but dates vary throughout the state.

“We’re very encouraged by the decline in cases, but we won’t be able to declare this outbreak over until we’re certain that measles transmission has ended,” Bell said. School holiday break periods pose an increased risk for the spread of measles because they often involve people traveling and socializing more.

The winter holiday break was a time of significant spreading of measles in the Spartanburg area.

Between early October – when the outbreak began – and Dec. 22, when Spartanburg County schools closed for winter break, there had been a total of 144 measles cases during the nearly three-month period. Then, in just the three weeks after schools reopened in January, there were more than 500 new cases of measles, state data show.

When Healthbeat asked South Carolina’s health department last month why it hadn’t reached out to schools to have contacts in place before winter break, the department said: “DPH cannot direct school employees to come to work to assist with outbreak investigations.”

Bell on Thursday said the new outreach to schools is an example of the department incorporating lessons learned into its outbreak response. “DPH has made the ability to communicate with school officials who have access to the information needed for case investigation a priority ahead of the upcoming spring break,” she said.

Measles is highly contagious and spreads through the air when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. The virus can linger in a room for up to two hours after an infectious person has left. Because a person is infectious for four days before the telltale measles rash appears, and initial symptoms may seem like a cold, many people spread the disease before they know they have it.

While two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is 97% effective in preventing measles, those who are unvaccinated are at high risk of infection if they are exposed.

Christian school refused to share student information

Based on internal health department records, Healthbeat reported last month that during winter break there were delays quarantining people who had been exposed to measles – just prior to the holiday recess – at three public schools and one private Christian school.

In most cases, the schools were closed and didn’t have anyone available to provide information.

But when outbreak investigators reached Westgate Christian School in Spartanburg, the principal refused to provide information required to ensure those at risk of spreading the disease knew of the need to stay in quarantine, according to a health department warning letter to the school that Healthbeat recently obtained under South Carolina’s public records law.

According to the Jan. 9 letter, Westgate Christian School Principal Gail Grab responded to requests for information about exposed students by sending an email on Dec. 30 that said in part: “We will not provide personal details and immunization status information for the students in our school.”

Then when Grab sent outbreak investigators a list of exposed students on Dec. 31, the only names on it were the siblings of the person who had measles.

The department’s “final warning” letter on Jan. 9 gave the school until 1 p.m. the next day to provide the required information about all students who were had contact with the person with measles or the department would issue a public health order, under which the school could face fines of $1,000 per day for each exposed student’s name left off the list.

“Your continued failure to comply with this lawful demand has significantly impeded DPH’s ability to conduct mandatory case investigation, contact tracing, and quarantine monitoring,” the letter said. “This lack of cooperation places quarantined students, school staff, and the families of your students at increased and unnecessary risk of measles exposure, a highly contagious and serious disease.”

The school did comply before the deadline, Bell said.

Grab did not respond to requests for an interview on Wednesday. Pastor James Wooten, Westgate Christian’s president, replied Wednesday to emailed questions about the letter by saying he was traveling. He previously told Healthbeat that the school thought it had provided all necessary information on Dec. 31. He did not previously disclose that the school’s principal had sent an email refusing to provide required information.

Plans unclear at schools with past delayed measles investigations

Officials at the other three schools where state investigations of measles exposure incidents were delayed during winter break did not answer Healthbeat’s questions Wednesday and Thursday about any changes they have made for the upcoming spring break period.

Mark Robertson, principal at Global Academy of South Carolina, a public charter school where state records show only 21% of students are up-to-date with school immunizations, said he had no comment.

A vaccination rate of 95% is needed in communities to stop the spread of measles.

South Carolina has spent $1.6 million to combat its huge measles outbreak – and it’s not over yet

Cynthia Robinson, a spokesperson for Spartanburg County School District 6, did not respond to emails and calls on Wednesday and Thursday. Delays investigating measles cases over winter break occurred at the district’s Jesse S. Bobo Elementary School, where state data show 94% of students are up-to-date on vaccines.

Other schools that had delayed measles exposure investigations over winter break were in Spartanburg County School District 2: Sugar Ridge Elementary, where state data show 78% of students are up-to-date on vaccines, and Boiling Springs Elementary, where 80% of students are up-to-date on vaccines, also had delays investigating measles exposures during winter break, Healthbeat previously reported.

Adrian Acosta, a District 2 spokesperson, did not answer Healthbeat’s questions about what the district will do differently during spring break to avoid the winter break problems providing health officials with measles contact tracing information.

Acosta first sent a statement saying a district nurse supervisor is available 24/7. Then when asked if this person will be available during the spring break vacation period, Acosta emailed another statement saying school administrators are “always on the job.” Acosta added: “If an administrator knows they will be out of touch or unreachable, then it is expected that they have a communication plan in place.”

But Acosta did not respond to questions about what the district will do differently during spring break to prevent a recurrence of the delays.

Alison Young is Healthbeat’s senior national reporter. You can reach her at ayoung@healthbeat.org or through the messaging app Signal at alisonyoungreports.48

Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health. Healthbeat is published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

Measles cases surged after holiday school closures delayed outbreak investigations

2026-02-17T13:00:00+00:00

This story originally appeared in Healthbeat. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free national newsletter here.

South Carolina’s state health department faced a significant problem in the critical weeks before the state’s measles outbreak surged in January.

As schoolchildren continued to fall ill with measles in late December, outbreak investigators needed help from schools to get contact information for the classmates, staff, and others who had been exposed. They needed to be warned quickly so they wouldn’t spread the virus to others if they were infected.

But schools were closed for their two-week winter break. Nobody was available at most schools to provide the information health officials needed, according to South Carolina’s state epidemiologist and records obtained by Healthbeat.

This communication gap between the South Carolina Department of Public Health and schools in Spartanburg County – the outbreak’s epicenter – resulted in delays quarantining people who were at risk of unknowingly spreading the highly contagious disease. An infected person is contagious beginning four days before the tell-tale measles rash appears.

At the same time, the state health department was grappling with its own holiday staffing challenges, according to the internal DPH outbreak reports that Healthbeat obtained under South Carolina’s public records law.

While the number of measles cases grew in December, the number of DPH staff assigned to combat the outbreak dropped. The internal DPH reports repeatedly note concerns about holiday staffing, workloads, burnout, the availability of backup staffing, and “limited support due to workforce reduction in April 2025.”

Only after New Year’s Eve did outbreak staffing begin to increase significantly, records show.

Dr. Linda Bell, the state epidemiologist who is leading South Carolina’s outbreak response, said that despite challenges, public health staff “worked diligently throughout the holidays.”

“DPH made many efforts to reach impacted schools over the holidays with limited success because the schools were closed,” Bell said in written responses to Healthbeat’s questions.

By early January, the South Carolina measles outbreak surged to become one of the largest in the United States in decades.

“It’s impossible to know exactly what impact school closures and the resulting delays had on the spike in cases,” Bell told Healthbeat.

However, the delays hampered one of the department’s key strategies for slowing the virus’ spread: Rapid identification and home quarantine of exposed children and adults who were at risk of developing and further spreading the disease because they aren’t vaccinated.

“Our inability to get contact information for potentially exposed students and notify those families resulted in some people being out and about in the community without knowing that they were infectious,” Bell said. “The consequences being new cases due to additional exposures from people who would have otherwise been in quarantine had we been able to make contact.”

This occurred during a time of increased socializing over the holidays, she noted.

It usually takes a week to 12 days, and sometimes as long as three weeks, for people infected with measles to start showing symptoms. The virus spreads through the air when a contagious person breathes, sneezes, or coughs.

Before Spartanburg County schools closed for winter break on Dec. 22, the state health department had logged 144 measles cases since the outbreak began in early October, state data show. In the three weeks after schools reopened during the week of Jan. 5, outbreak investigators were chasing after more than 500 new cases of measles.

The outbreak continues to grow, reaching 950 confirmed cases in South Carolina as of last week, a tally that doesn’t include cases sparked in other states.

School officials with Spartanburg County’s District 2 and District 6, whose elementary schools were among those with delayed exposure investigations during winter break, have declined repeated requests from Healthbeat for interviews or information about their procedures for providing time-sensitive public health information during extended school break closures.

Both districts have had multiple measles exposure incidents in their schools since the outbreak began last fall, requiring dozens of students to be excluded from class due to quarantines.

What happened in South Carolina is a cautionary tale for health departments and schools across the United States – especially as measles makes a resurgence amid declining vaccination rates. So far this year, at least 24 states have reported measles cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the coming weeks, schools across the country will be closing again for spring break.

“I just want to emphasize how normal Spartanburg is,” said Scott Thorpe, executive director of the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Public Health Leadership, noting that the pockets of low vaccination rates that have fueled the South Carolina measles outbreak are also common in other communities. “I hope that everybody is really preparing for this, because I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.”

With some communities having multiple school districts plus numerous private schools, Thorpe said that strengthening lines of communication between public health and schools takes time. “To try to figure out how to interact successfully in all these circumstances, in a crisis situation, is really hard,” he said.

School nurses, staff often not paid to work over breaks

Pat Endsley, president-elect of the National Association of School Nurses, said school breaks can pose a special challenge for health departments doing infectious disease contact tracing because school nurses and other staff often aren’t being paid to work during those periods – and they may even be traveling out of town.

With every state operating differently, Endsley said she’s not aware of any national best practice for addressing school contact tracing for measles during extended school break periods. A lot of the best practices were written specifically to address the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, she said.

“The gold standard would be to have some kind of person who is at the school, who’s not going anywhere, who could have access to information,” said Endsley, who served as a school nurse in Maine for 23 years and now teaches full time.

“Maybe that’s something that would come out of South Carolina, or Texas, or these other places with measles,” she said. “Based on this information, we could develop some exemplars of communication.”

How the South Carolina measles outbreak grew from 5 to over 900 cases

In at least some communities, health departments have found ways to ensure measles exposure investigations aren’t thwarted by school breaks.

Health officials battling another large measles outbreak along the Utah-Arizona border said they had no difficulties reaching impacted schools over the recent winter break.

“Our epidemiologists report that contact tracing and other issues involving students ran uninterrupted over the winter holidays, mainly due to frequent communication with an established point of contact with our largest school district,” said David Heaton, a spokesperson for the Southwest Utah Public Health Department. The school contact was available to help over the holidays, Heaton said.

Dani Lagana, a spokesperson for the Mohave County Department of Public Health in Arizona, said the department’s measles response activities are not dependent on school calendars.

“Effective contact tracing in school-associated cases relies on established communication protocols and coordination between public health and education partners,” Lagana said by email. “Health departments routinely plan for coverage during holidays and breaks to ensure appropriate notification and follow-up when needed.”

It’s unclear why – before winter break closures began – similar arrangements weren’t put in place between the South Carolina DPH and schools in Spartanburg County.

“DPH cannot direct school employees to come to work to assist with outbreak investigations,” the South Carolina department said in an emailed statement to Healthbeat.

The department said it has contact lists for school administrators, but these administrators may not have access to the detailed information outbreak investigators need when schools are closed.

“Comparisons of response activities from one jurisdiction to the next should be made with caution,” the state health department said. “Each jurisdiction has unique circumstances including differences between centralized vs. autonomous county public health agencies.”

Winter break delays in investigations of measles exposures occurred at Boiling Springs Elementary, where 80% of students are up-to-date on vaccines.

In South Carolina, public health activities are centralized and provided by state DPH employees at offices across the state. Arizona and Utah, have multiple local health departments covering a single county or multi-county region, in addition to state health departments.

Healthbeat asked each of Spartanburg County’s seven public school districts whether they had any policies or procedures that would specifically enable rapid sharing of student contact information during holiday breaks with public health officials who are trying to control infectious disease outbreaks. None of the districts provided answers to these questions.

What a Supreme Court decision on inclusive curriculum could mean for vaccine laws

Schools play an important role in helping public health investigators quickly determine which students, teachers, staff, and visitors may have been exposed to the infected individual. Not only does measles spread through the air, the virus can linger in a room for two hours after the contagious person has left.

School staff can provide health investigators detailed information about the movements of an infected student – and who was around them while they were contagious – by going through class schedules and rosters of those participating in extracurricular activities and riding on school buses. They also know which students lack immunity to measles because school records show which ones have exemptions from vaccine requirements for medical or religious reasons.

Rapid notification of at-risk individuals is critical, health officials say, so they know to quarantine at home and watch for early signs of measles that might otherwise be mistaken for a cold or the flu. In the four days before measles’ hallmark rash appears – and the person is already contagious – their earliest symptoms are typically a fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes.

“I definitely can see the issue that DPH had during winter break with schools closed two to three weeks, and no way to do that school notification, contact trace, get information from nurses,” said Dawn MacAdams, president of the South Carolina Association of School Nurses. “But then you run into: nurses don’t get paid during that time.”

MacAdams said that during Covid, school nurses faced overwhelming workloads and long hours helping with contact tracing without being paid for the extra work. “Nurses were working Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s because the numbers were exploding and the guidance was changing,” she said.

MacAdams said she’s not sure what the solution is for ensuring timely contact tracing of school-associated measles exposures when schools are closed.

“That’s a really good question to think about with DPH on what are the things we can do,” she said. “Most spring breaks are somewhere the first or second week of April this year. So we’re going to be in another desert of the availability of school personnel to provide information.”

Records show quarantine delays at five Spartanburg schools

Internal South Carolina DPH reports show there were delays during winter break notifying and quarantining people who had been exposed to measles at three public schools, one public charter school, and one private Christian school.

For the exposure incidents at these schools, the department’s internal daily outbreak summary reports during winter break repeatedly listed that health officials were reaching out to the facilities or that the status of quarantine actions were still “TBD” – or to be determined.

It’s unclear how many exposed students and staff weren’t contacted quickly because these schools were closed. “Parsing out all those we were working to reach, whether students or others, during that time when cases were surging is not possible,” Bell said.

Measles investigation and quarantine delays occurred at Global Academy of South Carolina, a public charter school where only 21% of students are up-to-date on required school vaccines.

One of the schools where winter break investigation and quarantine delays occurred is Global Academy of South Carolina, a public charter school where only 21% of students are up-to-date on required school vaccines, including the measles, mumps and rubella shot. To prevent measles outbreaks, 95% coverage is needed.

It took Global Academy until Jan. 9 to provide outbreak investigators with a requested “line list” detailing the names and contact information for exposed students and staff, the DPH documents obtained by Healthbeat show. The school’s winter break was Dec. 22-Jan. 2.

“Global Academy finally provided a line list yesterday, and we are going through it,” a DPH official said in a Jan. 10 email updating the South Carolina governor’s office on the outbreak response.

The school’s principal, Mark Robertson, did not answer Healthbeat’s questions and told a reporter to contact DPH.

Global Academy was one of the first two schools to have confirmed measles cases when the outbreak began in early October. The school has had repeated rounds of students being quarantined and excluded from class.

Other schools that had delayed winter break investigations of measles exposure incidents included large public elementary schools in Spartanburg County School Districts 2 and 6, the records show. Throughout the outbreak, the district’s schools have had exposure incidents requiring students to quarantine, state records show.

In District 2, winter break delays occurred in investigations of exposures at Sugar Ridge Elementary, where state data show 78% of students are up-to-date on school vaccines, and at Boiling Springs Elementary, where 80% of students are up-to-date on vaccines.

In District 6, the delays also occurred at Jesse S. Bobo Elementary School, where state data show 94% of students are up-to-date on school vaccines.

Officials with both districts have declined repeated requests from Healthbeat since Jan. 9 for interviews or answers to specific questions about the outbreak’s impact on student health, as well as the circumstances surrounding the exposure investigation delays over the winter break.

Health officials’ efforts to get complete exposure contact information from one school were so protracted coming out of the winter break that they were preparing to issue a formal public health order to force compliance. The school says it promptly provided information.

In January, the state health department issued a “final notice letter” to Westgate Christian School in Spartanburg because of the school’s continued “noncompliance,” Healthbeat reported earlier this month. The school was closed for its Christmas break from the afternoon of Dec. 19 through Jan. 2.

Outbreak investigators had been asking for contact information for exposed students and staff since Dec. 29, Bell said. A list that the school provided on New Year’s Eve was deemed “insufficient.”

When Westgate Christian’s break was over and the requested information still hadn’t been provided, Bell said the department issued a “final notice” to the school on Jan. 9. The letter warned that if the information wasn’t received by 1 p.m. on Jan. 10, the department “would issue a Public Health Order pursuant to S.C. Code § 44-1-140 compelling compliance.”

The issue was resolved the next day when the school provided the requested information, Bell said.

Pastor James Wooten, Westgate Christian’s president, said that until the school’s administrator received the “final notice” email – at 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 9 – she thought the health department had been provided everything it needed on Dec. 31.

“Other than a thank you acknowledging receipt, she received no further correspondence or request for information until the final notice warning,” Wooten told Healthbeat last week. School officials wonder why, if outbreak investigators needed more information, “they didn’t simply reply to the email and request it,” Wooten said.

Alison Young is Healthbeat’s senior national reporter. You can reach her at ayoung@healthbeat.org or through the messaging app Signal at alisonyoungreports.48

Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health. Healthbeat is published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

A $10.5B school construction bond could help fix Newark’s old school buildings

2026-02-06T21:05:04+00:00

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A proposed $10.5 billion state school construction bond could unlock new funding for Newark Public Schools and other school districts in the state to address longstanding needs for new schools and urgent repairs.

Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz introduced legislation Thursday that, if approved, would ask voters in November to authorize new state bonds for school construction, expansion, and renovation projects in high-poverty districts as well as others.

The state, through the Schools Development Authority or SDA, is obligated to fully fund school construction in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts, including East Orange, Elizabeth, and Paterson. New Jersey’s other school districts can apply for state-funded construction grants through the SDA, which typically contributes a minimum 40% of construction costs.

Senate Bill 3382, as currently written, does not specify repayment terms such as the number of years, interest rates, or the effect on taxpayers.

“This bill marks the start of a broader conversation about how we can modernize our public schools and provide students with an education that meets the demands of the 21st century. While this approach may be one path to address the issue, the need for action is clear,” Ruiz said in a statement.

Debra Coyle, executive director of the New Jersey Work Environment Council, said the new bill is a step in the right direction, but many schools are already in need of urgent repairs. The state estimates that construction needs in SDA districts that aren’t already funded would cost about $7 billion.

“School construction, if we don’t start addressing the need, then that price tag is just going to keep going up on the current backlog of projects,” Coyle said.

Since the SDA was established in 2007, more than $760 million has been spent on renovation projects in Newark alone, the most of any school district in New Jersey. The SDA estimates that without additional funding or new bond authorization, it will run out of funds for new capital projects by 2030.

The $10.5 billion bond proposal introduced by Ruiz would authorize $7 billion for SDA districts and $3.5 billion for school construction grants in other school districts. That funding is especially crucial as the state agency has already committed all its funding from previous allocations to current school projects.

In Newark Public Schools, the state’s largest school district, students struggle in hot schools during summer temperatures, while others encounter inoperable water fountains, crowded hallways, and no central heating or air conditioning. Superintendent Roger León estimated that roughly $2 billion is needed to fully repair and update schools, which are among the oldest school buildings in the state.

Nikki Baker, organizer for the Healthy Schools Now coalition and a former educator, said that she’s been in schools with dirty bathrooms, loose ceiling tiles, leaky and broken pipes. Her team, along with Coyle, has been working with Ruiz on the new legislation, which has been months in the making, Baker said. She hopes the new bill will pass with voter approval to provide more equity in school learning environments.

“Within the same school district, children can be having very different experiences in their schools. That doesn’t mean that you have to necessarily tear down the schools, but unfortunately, a lot of schools have gotten to that point. Even making renovations to make [students] safer, to keep everyone well, that just feels good,” Baker said.

In 2008, the state allocated $3.9 billion in funds to the SDA, of which $2.9 billion went to high-poverty districts. That was the largest, and most recent, cash infusion to the SDA before former Gov. Phil Murphy unlocked nearly $2 billion over the last two budget cycles, resulting in 19 new construction projects and hundreds of building repair projects for districts across New Jersey included in the SDA’s 2022 strategic plan.

In 2024, the state agreed to replace 13 of Newark Public Schools’ oldest buildings, but that deal leaves out 20 schools that need to be replaced, according to the district. Also in 2024, the state committed to spending nearly $153 million to build a new high school in Newark’s South Ward and relocate a nearby elementary school – a project still in its early stages that requires state funds to begin. And since Newark can’t build its own schools, the district last year agreed to pay $300 million over 30 years for a new trade high school in the city’s densely populated East Ward neighborhood.

The state “remains on the hook to meet its constitutional obligations” to fund school construction in Newark and other high-poverty districts, said Theresa Luhm, attorney and managing director at the Education Law Center.

“This has been a long time coming and it’s very necessary, not just for the SDA districts, but for all school districts across the state,” Luhm said.

Currently, the SDA receives funds from the legislation on a “pay as you go” basis with no longterm funding to support their work. In 2024, Newark Public Schools was weighing whether to present a $1.2 billion bond referendum to city voters last April to cover school repairs. But district leaders squashed that plan after learning that it was unlikely to gain support, according to León last year.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Hochul proposes mental health first-aid training for all New York 10th graders

2026-01-06T14:07:38+00:00

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to make mental health first-aid training available to every 10th grader in the state.

The plan – announced today in a preview of the governor’s State of the State proposals – would expand a program that teaches students to recognize and respond to mental health and substance use challenges among friends and peers.

The Teen Mental Health First Aid program is a 4.5-hour course developed by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, a nonprofit. It teaches teens to identify signs that their peers are struggling, understand the effects of school bullying and violence, and talk with friends and classmates about mental health. The program also gives young people tools to monitor and care for their own well-being.

As Healthbeat reported in September, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that students who took the first aid training were more likely to intervene appropriately and empathetically with peers facing mental health challenges.

“We hear all the time, ‘Our teens are in crisis, our teens are anxious. But if you empower them with tools to have conversations about mental health, you see the impact right away,” said Katie Oldakowski, senior director of training and programs at Mental Health Association in New York State, which currently administers the first-aid training program in 43 schools.

“When we give teens language to talk about mental health, we build resilience,” Oldakowski said.

The state currently allocates $3.5 million per year to the program, and has trained close to 4,850 students so far, officials told Chalkbeat after this story initially published. Under the governor’s new proposal, the program would grow over five years, with a target of training all of New York’s approximately 180,000 10th-graders by the fourth year, according to state officials. The governor’s announcement did not say how much the expansion would cost, and her office did not immediately respond to requests for that information.

The training initiative is part of Hochul’s ongoing agenda to expand access to mental health support in schools. In the past five years, New York has increased the number of state-supported, school-based mental health clinics by nearly 50%, bringing the total to 1,300 clinics, based in 25% of the state’s public schools. Monday’s announcement did not include a commitment to increase funding for school-based clinics.

Any effort to expand school-based mental health support “is a great step in the right direction,” said Alice Bufkin, an associate executive director at the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, an advocacy group calling for increased investment in mental health service for kids and teens.

However, schools and school-based clinics continue to struggle to pay for much of the essential work they do, Bufkin said. For example, clinics typically cannot bill for providing treatment to undocumented students, who are not eligible for Medicaid. Nor can they be reimbursed for work like helping teachers manage students with behavioral challenges, or intervening when students are in emotional crisis.

“Our state has a long way to go to fully support students in schools and communities. We are still facing a behavioral health crisis for children and families throughout New York,” Bufkin said.

In other efforts to tackle the teen mental health crisis, Hochul is trying to keep kids safe from social media-related threats and online gaming platforms by expanding age verification requirements, disabling AI chatbot features, and including “privacy by default” settings, giving parents control over who can connect with young people under the age of 13.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

What a Supreme Court decision on inclusive curriculum could mean for vaccine laws

2025-12-11T19:52:51+00:00

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What does the book “Pride Puppy!” have in common with a measles vaccine?

Some religious parents don’t want their children exposed to either one.

But is that position enough to overturn New York law and force the state to offer a religious exemption to Old Order Amish parents and others who say their faith does not allow them to vaccinate their children? That’s a question the U.S. Supreme Court recently told a lower court to consider.

In its Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling last summer, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority found that Montgomery County Public Schools’ interest in having all children learn from an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum was not greater than parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing. Parents must have the ability to opt out, the court said.

On Monday, the Supreme Court vacated a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upholding New York’s vaccine mandate, which does not allow for religious exemptions, and told the lower court to reconsider it in light of the Mahmoud decision.

Legal experts told Chalkbeat that doesn’t mean the Supreme Court is poised to require religious exemptions. It’s not unusual for the Supreme Court to ask lower courts to re-examine rulings in light of new decisions that have even a tangential connection, they said. Often, the outcome remains the same.

But if the Supreme Court were confident Mahmoud had no bearing on vaccine law, the justices could have simply declined to take the case and let New York’s law stand, said Dorit Reiss, a law professor at the University of California San Francisco who has studied religious exemptions. Vaccine supporters should be concerned by the court’s decision not to take that course, she said.

“At the very least, they think there might be something there,” Reiss said. “But how much they believe it is up in the air.”

The case is playing out during a tenuous time for public health and as the Supreme Court steadily expands the bounds of religious freedom. An investigation by NBC News and Stanford University found vaccination rates falling and the use of exemptions rising in many communities. A measles outbreak killed two unvaccinated children in Texas, and the United States is at risk of losing its measles elimination status.

Many public health experts fear that under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the federal government is dismantling a vaccine infrastructure that saved countless lives and actively undermining public trust in vaccines.

In a Dear Colleague letter earlier this year, Kennedy warned states they risk their federal funding if they don’t allow religious exemptions.

Most states already have religious or personal belief exemptions. Any change in the legal status quo would have limited effect. But it would take away a tool — narrowing or reducing exemptions — that has been shown to increase vaccination rates. Four of the five states without religious exemptions — California, New York, Connecticut, and Maine — tightened their requirements in recent years in response to disease outbreaks.

“It adds worry at a time when we have a lot to worry about with vaccines,” Reiss said.

Religious exemptions raise questions about sincerity

School vaccine mandates go back to the 19th century, and the courts have repeatedly upheld their validity, even without religious exemptions.

A 1970 measles outbreak in Texarkana underscored the role mandates could play in increasing vaccination rates — nearly all the cases occurred on the Texas side of the city, where there was no school mandate. Arkansas, in contrast, had a school mandate and had conducted mass vaccination campaigns. Along with federal incentives, the Texarkana example contributed to more widespread adoption of school vaccine requirements.

Many states adopted religious exemptions, Reiss said, with the assumption that only very small religious minorities would use them. Most major faith traditions allow or even encourage vaccination. But over time, these exemptions became widely abused and hard to police, she said. The government could not make religious exemptions conditional on membership in a particular faith, nor could the government require, say, that a Catholic follow the Pope’s teachings, or that a Jewish person listen to their rabbi.

But more significantly, Reiss said, people lie. Anti-vaccine Facebook groups coach non-religious parents on what to say to obtain a religious exemption, and studies find that parents claiming religious exemptions often cite safety concerns when questioned.

That dynamic contributed to states like California and New York removing religious exemptions. They now allow only medical exemptions.

The Texas-based First Liberty Institute, which is representing the Amish parents, argued in its petition to the Supreme Court that because New York allows medical exemptions, the lack of a religious exemption amounts to discrimination.

“Today in New York, if a vaccine would harm your lungs, you may be exempted; but if it would harm you soul, you may not,” attorneys wrote.

While not all Amish families reject vaccines, no one doubts the religious sincerity of the families suing the state, Reiss said. That makes the case one to watch.

“Yes our Almighty God wants us to fully put our faith + trust in Him,” Joseph Miller, one of the Amish parents suing New York, said in written testimony. “Which is in conflict to put our trust in vaccines. We are also commanded to not be conformed to this world.”

West Virginia’s vaccine mandate, with no religious exemption, has been in place since 1905, and the state enjoys very high vaccination rates. Gov. Patrick Morissey, a Republican, issued an executive order allowing religious exemptions shortly after taking office in January, but the state Supreme Court blocked the order from going into effect. The mandate remains in place for now.

That shift highlights how views of vaccines are increasingly partisan, with support declining among Republicans. In a related development, vaccine legislation became nearly as partisan as abortion even before the pandemic, according to research by Kevin Estep, a sociologist and associate professor of health administration and policy at Creighton University.

“The most dangerous thing right now, in my mind, is putting fuel on the fire of the idea that the government is infringing on parental rights,” Estep said. “That might create new vaccine hesitancy where there wasn’t before.”

It’s unclear how expanding religious freedom affects vaccines

Richard Katskee, an assistant clinical law professor at Duke University, authored an amicus brief in support of the school district in Mahmoud, and he believes the case sets a dangerous precedent. But the justices were careful to stick to curriculum, which could limit how widely it applies.

“I still think there will be real wariness from the court to hurt public health,” Katskee said. “There has been a history of deference.”

Douglas Laycock, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas and the University of Virginia, wrote a brief in support of the parents in Mahmoud. But he agrees that applying Mahmoud to vaccine exemptions could be a stretch.

“One [case] is about asking kids to listen to these stories that are about topics that are pretty religiously sensitive,” Laycock said. “The other is about a medical requirement that protects every kid in the school from diseases that are at best a problem and at worst disabling or fatal.”

Mahmoud isn’t the only Supreme Court decision potentially weighing on vaccine law.

In Tandon v. Newsom, the Supreme Court overturned a California restriction on in-home gatherings during the depths of the pandemic that was challenged by a couple that held Bible study in their home. A federal judge in 2023 cited that case in ruling that Mississippi must allow religious exemptions to its school vaccine mandate.

The reason Mississippi had no religious exemption at the time was because the state Supreme Court had struck it down in 1979. In that ruling, the justices could not believe that the First Amendment requires that “innocent children, too young to decide for themselves … be denied the protection against crippling and death that immunization provides because of a religious belief adhered to by a parent or parents.”

Mississippi regularly boasted the highest vaccination rates in the nation. Now that religious exemptions are allowed, Mississippi still has high overall vaccination rates, but it’s no longer No. 1. Rates for children under 2 years old are now below the national average.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

This Tennessee school is stepping up to feed local families cut off from SNAP

2025-11-05T23:15:27+00:00

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Every Wednesday, a group of fourth graders at Winchester Elementary put on black aprons and start packing up cardboard boxes with canned vegetables and mac and cheese.

The young volunteers spend their free periods prepping weekend meal boxes for around 30 Whitehaven families who line up outside the Memphis school building each Friday afternoon. It’s a routine that’s been in place since Winchester opened its food pantry in March.

Denise Wilson, a fourth grade math teacher who runs the pantry, said families typically show up once a month for help. She expects the number of families seeking food to increase in the coming weeks because of delayed and missing SNAP benefits, which are affecting one in 10 Tennesseans as the federal government shutdown drags on.

“Last month, we started seeing more families every two weeks,” Wilson said. “And I do expect we may end up seeing families every week.”

Each family at the Winchester food pantry gets frozen meat and refrigerated staples along with pantry items. They can also ask for hygiene products like toilet paper and diapers.

“A lot of our students and families live in hotels, which makes their situation a little different than most families because they don’t have freezers, refrigerators, or stoves,” Wilson said. “They’re cooking with microwaves. So we even do special boxes just for them.”

President Donald Trump said last week that he wouldn’t give out funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, until the weeks-long government shutdown ends. But a federal court ruled that the Trump administration must use emergency funds to pay at least partial benefits to SNAP recipients in November.

It’s unclear when those funds will be distributed, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday it could be a “very complicated” process for the state to accept and distribute partial payments.

Under political pressure from Democrats to help alleviate the shutdown funding gaps, Lee announced this week that Tennessee would give $5 million to food banks after previously declining to dip into the state’s robust rainy day fund.

Lee said the money would be distributed proportionally in the state based on SNAP recipient locations. Over 150,000 Shelby County residents rely on the monthly food assistance, and around 40% of those affected are estimated to be children.

School nutrition programs like free and reduced price breakfasts and lunches have not yet been affected, Tennessee officials say. But that could change if the shutdown, already the longest in the nation’s history, continues beyond November.

The Winchester food pantry gives each family frozen meat, refrigerated staples, and pantry items.

The governor expressed frustration with the continuing shutdown on Tuesday, noting Tennesseans have paid federal taxes that fund programs like SNAP.

“This whole federal shutdown problem has created a tremendous hardship for a lot of Tennesseans,” Lee said. “It’s disappointing that it’s happened. It’s frustrating to people, including myself, and it needs to come to an end. The government needs to open up.”

Wilson said she’s started giving out bags of snacks and pantry items to any middle or high schoolers who stop by on Fridays, “no questions asked.”

“We know if one child is struggling in the house, all children are struggling in the house,” she said. “And we all understand in this building that you can’t teach a hungry child.”

The pantry hasn’t received any additional money or donations during the government shutdown, Wilson said. But the school received enough donations in the past few months to fully stock a classroom and two freezers as backup for the expected rush.

“We’re just hoping that the shutdown doesn’t last too much longer,” she said.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Federal SNAP-Ed program cuts mean less nutrition education for Colorado students and families

2025-10-17T22:50:57+00:00

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Southern Colorado’s Center school district used to offer young children fruits and vegetables to try that they might not have previously eaten at home, like kiwi and jicama.

The federally-backed program that helped provide these foods also assisted educators in teaching preschool and elementary students’ families why fruits and vegetables are good for their health. With kiwi, for example, the district would send home recipes for a salad that could be made by parents, said Janet Sanchez, Center Consolidated School District 26JT’s director of preschool.

The program in Center and others like it across the state received support through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, or SNAP-Ed, which ended on Sept. 30 as part of federal budget cuts passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.

The federal government provided Colorado more than $6 million annually to use on educational programs like the one offered in the 600-student school district located in the San Luis Valley.

These programs were meant to reinforce healthy behaviors and show families that even on a shoestring budget, healthy eating could be in reach. Improving eating habits, in turn, can help improve health outcomes, experts say.

“We serve poverty-level families. This gave children an opportunity to try new foods and try new physical activities,” said Sanchez, who works in a district where 90% of the students qualify for free or reduced price meals.

Administrators and advocates say that without the funding, schools and communities have lost a program that taught children and families healthy habits, including lessons on nutrition and cooking from scratch.

Sanchez said the Center school district can’t replicate these types of programs on its own, especially because teachers aren’t experts on nutrition.

“With our budget constraints,” Sanchez said, “we just can’t continue the teachings.”

Nationwide, the federal government spent about $536 million annually for the SNAP-Ed program. Congress also cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $186 billion through 2034 and has put more of the cost burden on states. The cuts come during a time when food insecurity is on the rise.

While the SNAP program ensures families get fed, the education component was created to teach healthier habits. States used SNAP-Ed in different ways to educate families and students.

The Colorado Department of Human Services distributed the $6 million in federal funding for SNAP-Ed programs to the Colorado School of Public Health and Nourish Colorado.

The Colorado School of Public Health, a collective of three universities that partner on health research and education, primarily operated its programs in preschools and elementary schools, including ones in the Center district.

Associate professor Jini Puma said the programs promoted wellness in schools and created lifelong skills and habits to prevent serious diseases like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and cancer.

The SNAP-Ed cuts forced the Colorado School of Public Health to lay off 25 employees who supported school gardens where students learned to grow and taste their own food, developed classroom lessons for teachers, and advised cafeterias on healthier meal options, she said.

Colorado School of Public Health officials would also put together the recipes that were sent home with students, created newsletters about nutrition, and promoted classroom activities that helped keep kids active.

They even reinforced lessons in Center such as proper handwashing techniques and how to stay healthy during the flu season, Sanchez said.

The school of public health’s programs operated in over 140 preschool and 56 elementary schools and taught about 19,000 children, teachers, and caregivers in 19 counties, Puma said.

“We really could change the trajectory for those children so that we can prevent later chronic diseases,” Puma said.

Sanchez said the program greatly contributed to the health of her community. The program not only provided the food for students to try, but also made it easy on teachers to teach about nutrition.

Many of the parents in Center work long hours, she said. The program offered easy activities and meals to try with kids, she said.

“And the program also showed parents that they need to take care of themselves,” Sanchez said.

Nourish Colorado, a nonprofit focused on advocating for accessible, nutritious foods, also was granted the federal funds from the state and delivered nutrition education services in 56 of the state’s 64 counties to help reach almost 400,000 Coloradans. The community-based nutrition education programs worked primarily with adults.

Nourish’s Executive Director Wendy Peters Moschetti said the cuts are bad for everyone, especially because the program has proven to improve the health of communities.

U.S. Department of Agriculture research shows that every $1 spent on SNAP-Ed saves up to $10.64 in health care costs by teaching students and families about nutrition and health.

Colorado lawmakers have asked voters for more money for school meals and food programs such as SNAP-Ed on the state’s Nov. 4 ballot.

She said there’s likely to be significant discussion about how the state would use new revenue if Proposition MM passes. She plans to advocate for the SNAP-Ed programs

“We will be at that table,” Peters Moschetti said. “And that is our best bet right now to continue to fund public, community-based nutrition education.”

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Students, schools race to save clean energy projects in face of Trump deadline

2025-09-11T13:26:55+00:00

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This story was produced by The Hechinger Report and is republished with permission. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

Tanish Doshi was in high school when he pushed the Tucson Unified School District to take on an ambitious plan to reduce its climate footprint. In Oct. 2024, the availability of federal tax credits encouraged the district to adopt the $900 million plan, which involves goals of achieving net-zero emissions and zero waste by 2040, along with adding a climate curriculum to schools.

Now, access to those funds is disappearing, leaving Tucson and other school systems across the country scrambling to find ways to cover the costs of clean energy projects.

The Arizona school district, which did not want to impose an economic burden on its low-income population by increasing bonds or taxes, had expected to rely in part on federal dollars provided by the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, Doshi said.

But under HR1, or the “one big, beautiful bill,” passed on July 4, Tucson schools will not be able to receive all of the expected federal funding in time for their upcoming clean energy projects. The law discontinues many clean energy tax credits, including those used by schools for solar power and electric vehicles, created under the IRA. When schools and other tax-exempt organizations receive these credits, they come in the form of a direct cash reimbursement.

At the same time, Tucson and thousands of districts across the country that were planning to develop solar and wind power projects are now forced to decide between accelerating them to try to meet HR1’s fast-approaching “commence construction” deadline of June 2026, finding other sources of funding, or hitting pause on their plans. Tina Cook, energy project manager for Tucson schools, said the district might have to scale back some of its projects unless it could find local sources of funding.

“Phasing out the tax credits for wind and solar energy is going to make a huge, huge difference,” said Doshi, 18, now a first-year college student. “It ends a lot of investments in poor and minority communities. You really get rid of any notion of environmental justice that the IRA had advanced.”

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The tax credits in the IRA, the largest legislative investment in climate projects in U.S. history, had marked a major opportunity for schools and colleges to reduce their impact on the environment. K-12 school infrastructure releases an estimated 41 million metric tons of emissions per year, according to an analysis from the New Buildings Institute. The K-12 school system’s buses — some 480,000 — and meals also produce significant emissions and waste. Clean energy projects supported by the IRA were helping schools not only to limit their climate toll but also to save money on energy costs over the long term and improve student health, advocates said.

As a result, many students, consultants, and sustainability leaders said, they have no plans to abandon clean energy projects. They said they want to keep working to cut emissions, even though that may be more difficult now.

Solar panels, electric vehicles affected by policy changes

Sara Ross, cofounder of UndauntedK12, which helps school districts green their operations, divided HR1’s fallout on schools into three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

On the bright side, she said, schools can still get up to 50% off for installing ground source heat pumps — those credits will continue — to more efficiently heat and cool schools. The network of pipes in a ground source pump cycles heat from the shallow earth into buildings.

In the “bad” category, any electric vehicle acquired after Sept. 30 of this year will not be eligible for tax credits — drastically accelerating the IRA’s phase-out timeline by seven years. That applies to electric school buses as well as other district-owned electric vehicles. Electric vehicle charging stations must be installed by June 30, 2026, at an eligible location to claim a tax credit. EPA’s Clean School Bus Program still exists for two more years and covers two-thirds of the funding for all electric school buses districts acquire in that time. The remaining one-third, however, was to be covered by federal and state tax credits.

Electric school buses give students a healthier ride. The break from pollution could also help their grades.

The expiration of the federal tax credits could cost a district up to $40,000 more per vehicle, estimated Sue Gander, director of the Electric School Bus Initiative run by the nonprofit World Resources Institute.

Solar projects will see the most “ugly” effects of HR1, Ross said.

Los Angeles Unified School District is planning to build 21 solar projects on roofs, carports and other structures, plus 13 electric vehicle charging sites, as part of an effort to reduce energy costs and achieve 100% renewable energy by 2040. The district anticipated receiving around $25 million in federal tax credits to help pay for the $90 million contract, said Christos Chrysiliou, chief eco-sustainability officer for the district. With the tight deadlines imposed by HR1, the district can no longer count on receiving that money.

“It’s disappointing,” Chrysiliou said. “It’s nice to be able to have that funding in place to meet the goals and objectives that we have.”

LAUSD is looking at a small portion of a $9 billion bond measure passed last year, as well as utility rebates, third-party financing, and grants from the California Energy Commission, to help make up for some of the gaps in funding.

Many California State University campuses are in a similar position as they work to install solar to meet the system’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, said Lindsey Rowell, CSU’s chief energy, sustainability, and transportation officer.

Student climate activist Emma Weber leads a chant at a rally in front of the Colorado State Capitol in support of “The Green New Deal for Colorado Schools.”

Tariffs on solar panel materials from overseas and the early sunsetting of tax credits mean that “the cost of these projects are becoming prohibitive for campuses,” Rowell said.

Sweeps of undocumented immigrants in California may also lead to labor shortages that could slow the pace of construction, Rowell added. “Limiting the labor force in any way is only going to result in an increased cost, so those changes are frightening as well,” she said.

Projects will need to start work soon to qualify

New Treasury Department guidance, issued Aug. 15, made it much harder for projects to meet the threshold needed to qualify for the tax credits. Renewable energy projects previously qualified for credits once a developer spent 5% of a project’s cost. But the guidelines have been tightened — now, larger projects must pass a “physical work test,” meaning “significant physical labor has begun on a site,” before they can qualify for credits. With the construction commencement deadline looming next June, these will likely leave many projects ineligible for credits.

“The rules are new, complex, [and] not widely understood,” Ross said. “We’re really concerned about schools’ ability to continue to do solar projects and be able to effectively navigate these new rules.”

Schools without “fancy legal teams” may struggle to understand how the new tax credit changes in HR1 will affect their finances and future projects, she added.

Some universities were just starting to understand how the IRA tax credits could help them fund projects. Lily Strehlow, campus sustainability coordinator at the University of Wisconsin, Eau-Claire, said the planning cycle for clean energy projects at the school can take 10 years. The university is in the process of adding solar to the roof of a large science building, and depending on the date of completion, the project “might or might not” qualify for the credits, she said.

“At this point, everybody’s holding their breath,” said Rick Brown, founder of California-based TerraVerde Energy, a clean energy consultant to schools and agencies.

Brown said that none of his company’s projects are in a position where they’re not going to get done, but the company may end up seeing fewer new projects due to a higher cost of equipment.

Tim Carter, president of Second Nature, which supports climate work in education, added that colleges and universities are in a broader period of uncertainty, due to larger attacks from the Trump administration, and are not likely to make additional investments at this time: “We’re definitely in a wait and see.”

Student activists look for new paths toward climate goals

For youth activists, the fallout from HR1 is “disheartening,” Doshi said.

Emma and Molly Weber, climate activists since eighth grade, said they are frustrated. The Colorado-based twins, who will start college this fall, helped secure the first “Green New Deal for Schools” resolution in the nation in the Boulder Valley School District. Its goals include working toward a goal of Zero Net Energy by 2050, making school buildings greener, creating pathways to green jobs, and expanding climate change education.

“It feels very demoralizing to see something you’ve been working so hard at get slashed back, especially since I’ve spoken to so many students from all over the country about these clean energy tax credits, being like, ‘These are the things that are available to you, and this is how you can help convince your school board to work on this,’” Emma Weber said.

Emma, far left, and Molly Weber, far right, work with climate leaders from the Boulder Valley School District’s Sunrise Movement to prepare for Colorado’s legislative session.

The Webers started thinking about other creative ways to pay for the clean energy transition and have settled on advocating for state-level legislation in the form of a climate superfund, where major polluters in a community would be responsible for contributing dollars to sustainability initiatives.

Consultants and sustainability coordinators said that they don’t see the demand for renewable energy going away. “Solar is the cheapest form of energy. It makes sense to put it on every rooftop that we can. And that’s true with or without tax credits,” Strehlow said.

Correction: This version of the story includes updated information on the timeline for the expiration of tax credits for electric vehicle charging stations.

Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.

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Deadline nears for $120 per child in summer food benefits for NYC families

2025-09-02T19:30:33+00:00

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New York City families eligible for $120 per child in summer food benefits have just a few more days to apply.

As the Sept. 4 application deadline looms, millions of dollars could be left on the table for the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, program, which aims to help low-income families cover costs for meals usually provided at school. (Families can apply online and check their income eligibility here.)

The 2025 Summer EBT program is expected to provide more than $250 million in food assistance to an estimated 2.2 million low-income, school-aged children, said officials from the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. That’s roughly the amount the summer program provided last year, the first year of the program.

While most of the money is sent to families automatically, some families must apply to receive the benefits, and as of Aug. 25, about 12% of that money had yet to be issued, with $194 million in benefits sent to 1.6 million of the state’s school-age children. And of the money that had been issued, many families have yet to touch the benefits: As June 18 about $123 million had been issued, and 24% of those dollars have still not been redeemed.

Some observers wondered if some eligible families, particularly from immigrant households, were too afraid to use or apply for the benefits because of the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

“It’s unclear at the moment whether the main driver is immigrants leaving the U.S. or immigrants in the U.S. increasingly afraid to take up benefits for their children, most of whom are U.S. citizens,” said Jennifer Laird, an associate professor of sociology at Lehman College in the Bronx.

The foreign-born population is going down, and historically more than 10% of eligible households are headed by an adult who is a non-citizen, she noted. Additionally, immigrants are increasingly afraid to sign up for the benefits, she said. Even naturalized citizens, Laird added, now fear denaturalization, and that could affect enrollment in benefit programs as well.

The food assistance program is especially helpful as concerns about childhood hunger increase. President Donald Trump’s budget bill passed by Congress last month significantly cuts access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits.

“At a time when federally funded nutrition programs like SNAP are under attack in Washington, Governor Hochul has been laser-focused on making New York more affordable for families across the state who are struggling to make ends meet,” Darren O’Sullivan, a spokesperson for the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance said in a statement.

Though most families — particularly recipients of SNAP, Temporary Assistance, or Medicaid — automatically receive the funds, some still need to apply. State officials said out of last year’s 2.1 million recipients, roughly 4,000 received the benefit through the application process.

State officials have tried to raise awareness of summer EBT through a social media campaign, working with local community groups, and text messages sent to recipients, including reminders to check their cards when benefits are issued. Officials said they sent three rounds of text messages to more than 707,000 recipients with such reminders. (Families have 122 days to spend summer EBT dollars after the state issues their cards.)

Officials also said they provided EBT information to schools.

Last year as well, nearly a quarter of families who received summer EBT last year had not spent the dollars at least two months after being issued the money, said David Rubel, an education consultant who closely tracks food benefit usage.

“If a family didn’t spend anything by now it’s likely one of the following happened: They lost or misplaced the old card they got last summer; they were issued a new card but it went to a wrong address, or the family moved,” Rubel wrote in an email. “Schools can help here with alerting families that the summer EBT cards were issued new money or new cards were mailed out.”

Correction: This article initially stated a higher number of families were eligible for summer EBT through the application process. About 99% last year received it automatically.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC tightens food standards for schools, hospitals, banning processed meats

2025-08-29T17:53:24+00:00

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Meals in public schools and city-run hospitals are set to become healthier, as New York City rolls out new food standards that ban processed meats, restrict artificial colors, and promote whole foods.

The new standards, which take effect on July 1, will impact about 219 million meals and snacks served annually by 11 city agencies, from school lunches and hospital meals to home-delivered meals for elderly New Yorkers.

“I often say, when it comes to your health, it’s not just what is in your DNA, it’s also what is in your dinner,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “I’ve turned my life around from being pre-diabetic to living a plant-based diet, and when we came into office, we committed to ensuring all New Yorkers have access to healthy, fresh foods.”

New York City will tighten restrictions on artificial colors, low-calorie sweeteners, and certain additives and preservatives. Processed meats will be banned, with a recommendation against food products that are pre-prepared by deep-frying, including chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, and potato tots. Under the updated standards, the city will recommend whole or minimally processed food, meals cooked from scratch, and locally sourced ingredients whenever possible.

U.S. food makers are still using dyes linked to hyperactivity in kids. Parents want them banned.

First established in 2008, the city’s food standards are required to be revised every few years. The new standards build on the city’s existing restrictions on artificial ingredients and processed meats. They also reflect a citywide effort to combat chronic and diet-related diseases, which are leading causes of death for all New Yorkers and disproportionately impact Black residents.

Dr. Jennifer Cadenhead, an assistant professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, described the new food standards as “very thoughtful” and said that they would positively impact families who rely on city-distributed meals. The expanded restrictions on sweeteners, artificial colors, additives, and preservatives were especially important, she said.

“The things that they’re prohibiting have either not been well studied in humans, or there has been some indication that they could cause illness in humans,” she said. “So why would we feed our children food that we’re not really certain about?”

Cadenhead noted that the more that children are exposed to healthier options when they are young, the more likely they are to accept those foods when they are older. Reducing exposure to unhealthy foods can help “delay, or maybe prevent, other illnesses or adverse health conditions,” she said.

As part of HealthyNYC, the Health Department’s campaign to increase New Yorkers’ life expectancy, the city aims to decrease heart- and diabetes-related deaths by 5%, and screenable cancer deaths by 20%, by 2030. Poor nutrition, tobacco consumption, physical inactivity, and excessive alcohol use are the key drivers of most chronic diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse said in a statement that the new standards “underline our longstanding work to ensure New Yorkers have access to healthier foods while advancing our commitment to health equity and climate health.”

On the federal level, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has emphasized the link between poor diet and chronic disease and has made the elimination of food dyes and other additives a top priority. And while the city’s new food standards may reflect a point of alignment with the federal government, experts caution that the Trump administration’s cuts to programs like SNAP and Medicaid are poised to significantly harm New Yorkers’ health.

“These standards are really important,” said Dr. Nevin Cohen, an associate professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy and director of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, whose team discussed the standards with city agencies while they were in development. “But to improve population health also requires support for households through programs like SNAP and WIC and access to medical care through programs like Medicaid.”

He added that if the scale of cuts to those programs is as extensive as expected, “these changes at the local level in food standards will be outweighed by the negative impacts of these larger national policy changes.”

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org.

Shelby County offers free lead testing to students exposed to unsafe water

2025-08-14T22:38:02+00:00

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The Shelby County Heath Department is offering free blood testing for all students who attend the 24 Memphis schools that reported lead-contaminated water last week.

District officials said in a press release Aug. 8 that most sites with unsafe lead levels are kitchen or concession stand sinks. But seven schools have at least one water source containing over 10 times the state legal limit. And Kingsbury Middle and Raleigh Egypt High schools found the toxic metal in drinking fountains.

Health Department Director Bruce Randolph urged families notified of school lead risk to call 901-222-8219 to set up a blood screening appointment.

“Early detection and treatment is the best way to protect children who have been exposed to lead,” he said in a Thursday statement.

Children under six years old are especially vulnerable to the metal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even a small amount of lead in a child’s bloodstream can damage developing brains and nervous systems, causing learning and behavior issues.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials said last week that they immediately shut off water sources with high lead levels, and will be providing bottled water in affected buildings. Health officials have already started visiting those campuses to ensure compliance.

MSCS will be required to test contaminated water sources annually, the health department said, until the lead level falls below the state-mandated maximum of 20 parts lead per billion parts of water.

Parents can also request a blood lead screening through their child’s primary health care provider.

The following MSCS schools reported water contamination:

Bellevue Middle, kitchen sink (48 ppb).
Bolton High, two concession sinks (148 and 28 ppb).
Central High, kitchen sink (24 ppb).
Cromwell Elementary, kitchen sink (29 ppb).
Ford Road Elementary, kitchen sink (21 ppb).
Geeter Middle, kitchen sink (44 ppb).
Georgian Hills Elementary, kitchen sink (204 ppb).
Germantown High, two stadium sinks (422 and 30 ppb).
Invictus Academy at Airways, cafeteria sink (765 ppb).
Jackson Elementary, kitchen sink (49 ppb).
Kingsbury Middle, bottle filler outside cafeteria (23 ppb).
Middle College High, concession sink (212 ppb).
Northeast Prep Academy, kitchen sink (27 ppb).
Oak Forest Elementary, kitchen sink (113 ppb).
Peabody Elementary, kitchen sink (29 ppb).
Raleigh-Bartlett Meadows Elementary, kitchen sink (235 ppb).
Raleigh Egypt High, kitchen sink and cafeteria water cooler (276 and 31 ppb, respectively).
Raleigh Egypt Middle, kitchen sink (23 ppb).
Sheffield Career and Technical Center, kitchen sink (34 ppb).
Sheffield Elementary, kitchen sink (42 ppb).
Southwest Career and Technical, kitchen sink (161 ppb).
Treadwell Middle, kitchen ice machine (236 ppb).
White Station High, kitchen ice machine (36 ppb).
Whitehaven Elementary, kitchen sink (581 ppb).

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Trump plans to revive the Presidential Fitness Test. Here’s what 3 P.E. teachers say.

2025-08-08T19:03:07+00:00

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Ask just about any American 30 or older about the Presidential Fitness Test, and they are likely to have feelings. A lot of feelings.

Pride among the top performers, who managed to make pull-ups look easy; determination among those in the middle of the pack, as they huffed and puffed their way to a 10-minute mile; and, for many, embarrassment or worse because they could not sustain a flexed-arm hang or reach past their toes in a seated position. Students with disabilities were often left out altogether.

Now, those with memories of taking the Presidential Fitness Test have a new reason to share them: President Donald Trump said he is bringing the test back.

In reviving the test through a July 31 executive order, Trump invoked America’s upcoming 250th anniversary and the Make America Healthy Again Commission, chaired by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The president’s order said declining health hurts national morale and military readiness, and the order establishes a council to devise new versions of the Presidential Fitness Test and the Presidential Fitness Award for exemplary achievement.

A precursor to the Presidential Fitness Test was developed during the Eisenhower administration to ensure that young people were in fighting shape during the Cold War. An early version of the test included a softball throw that mimicked the motion of throwing a grenade.

Shortly before his inauguration, President John F. Kennedy unleashed something of a moral panic when, arguing in Sports Illustrated for national fitness standards, he wrote that American “softness” was tantamount to a national security threat. Trump cited that article in his executive order.

The test and award were phased out during the Obama administration in favor of a more inclusive and holistic program that stressed healthy fitness zones and personal goal-setting. It commonly included the PACER test, an aerobic capacity drill that involves running 20-meter laps at an increasingly fast pace.

Chalkbeat asked three public school P.E. teachers to share their thoughts on the likely return of the Presidential Fitness Test, what should be on it now, and the pros and cons of turning fitness testing into a national competition.

The teachers’ responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Tom Filline, who teaches P.E. to elementary school students in Melrose Park, Illinois, said returning to the Presidential Fitness Test is “a step backward” from the current iteration. Felline, known as The Angry Gym Teacher on TikTok, said he prefers the PACER test to the timed mile, which he struggled with as a kid.

In middle school, we did the mile run, and that’s what I have the most vivid memories of. I was always one of the last, if not the last. I think I ran a 12- or 13-minute mile in middle school. It was humiliating. It’s hard to build up your own confidence when you’re just thinking about that spotlight on you.

If students are constantly being pitted against each other and told they need to get strong so they can fight in a war someday, then what they are going to remember is the trauma, the pressure, the intensity of the moment, instead of, “I scored 20 laps on the PACER test last year, and this year I was able to get 25 or 30 laps.”

These days, kids go through a ton of standardized tests in the classroom, and imagine what it would be like if everyone could see each other’s reading and math scores. It would be a nightmare, and that’s how it is with fitness testing, so you have to be extra sensitive. The Presidential Fitness Test was not sensitive. It was more like a bootcamp experience.

It doesn’t surprise me that this is the approach the Trump administration is taking. Almost every policy decision they’ve made is based on “we need to toughen up.” The message it sends to individual boys and girls is, “you’re not good enough, you’re not strong enough,” when the focus should be on teaching kids to intrinsically value having a good level of fitness so they can live a long life and dream big and do whatever they want to do.

Even when presidents go after education, they usually leave us P.E. teachers alone. Now it’s come for me, and I’m in the position of having to defend the future generation against this whole macho B.S.

Gilbert Schuerch teaches high school P.E. in Harlem. Schuerch, who writes the Substack Fit to Teach, said he’s not convinced that reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test will curb America’s obesity epidemic, but if it “sheds a bit more spotlight on kids working hard on their fitness, I’m not opposed to it.”

It would not surprise me if this administration was looking to create this as a massive national competition again, and there are pluses and minuses to that.

Gilbert Schuerch

If you’re celebrating a kid who runs the fastest mile, that’s great. We recognize valedictorians and salutatorians in our schools all the time. You just have to acknowledge that this kid isn’t any better or more worthy than anybody else because of that. It’s your job as a teacher to emphasize, “Hey, did you improve?” That’s a huge deal, too.

I think people have such a visceral reaction to the Presidential Fitness Test because it may have been their first true introduction to pain. It’s not like failing a math test, where you’re sitting there helplessly and just don’t know what to do. This test is the opposite. You know exactly what to do, and your body is showing you why you may not be able to run as fast as you’d like to.

Maybe you do a pretest. Have them run half a mile, time it, and double it, and that’s their pre-score for the mile. Then you prepare for a month, and see if you can beat your time. And then, even if you’re in the bottom 50% but you improved on your test from a month ago, you can say, “You guys trained, you had a biological response to it, and you improved.” Much like any learning.

If I was going to design the Presidential Fitness Test [for my students], I think the PACER test is a great test. I also think it’s important for kids to learn how to move their body in a really safe way to pick up some weights. There would be some basic standards, like you’re healthy if you can lift your body weight off the ground in a trap bar deadlift. And then on test day, you celebrate the kids who can lift double, triple their body weight, because those are incredible feats of strength. That’s cool stuff.

Alicia Mannino will begin teaching at a K-8 school in Philadelphia this fall, marking her 16th year as a P.E. instructor. She worries that reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test will mean a return to a “one size fits all approach” to fitness that doesn’t work for everyone and could leave students feeling discouraged.

Over my whole career, I never had a coworker be like, “We’ve got to do the Presidential Fitness Test.” I don’t really know any gym teacher that thinks that’s a good idea.

I do kind of make my own fitness test, with push-ups and sit-ups. I work on different varieties of these exercises. There are wider push-ups. There are CrossFit push-ups — it’s not just one size fits all. I don’t like any of the mile runs because some people are born runners, and some people just aren’t. I do the [PACER] beep test, which is also not the best, but these tests don’t count for any type of grade.

Alicia Mannino

I love putting music on for them to relate to, that’s appropriate for them to dance to. If they’re breaking a sweat and doing the right things with the activity or game we’re doing, who am I to say what anyone else’s fitness is like? I like to lift weights. Some people like to dance. Some people like to walk. Gym is supposed to be that place where you go, you have fun, you let loose. So, standardizing a fitness test — we’re setting ourselves up for failure. I think it’s a publicity stunt, honestly.

It’s literally drawing out the athletes, and it’s going to create a line of who can do this the most, who can do it the best, and who can do it the worst. It’s just going to lead to bullying, to body dysmorphia, to low self-esteem.

You tell kids not to bring their phones to class, but they sneak them in no matter what. People take pictures if a kid wears the wrong thing. Now, imagine, on top of everything else, you have someone taking pictures of people in their gym uniforms, on the track, sweating and feeling vulnerable.

Gabrielle Birkner is Chalkbeat’s features editor and fellowship director. Email her at gbirkner@chalkbeat.org.

Alcohol ads are returning to the NYC transit system, alarming public health experts

2025-08-08T18:24:07+00:00

This story was originally published by Healthbeat. Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

In 2018, hoping to curb underage drinking, the Metropolitan Transit Authority banned advertising for alcoholic beverages in New York City’s transit system.

But the MTA board backtracked this summer, approving significant carve-outs for alcohol ads in subways, buses, and stations. The move stunned public health experts and advocates, who say that the harmful health effects of alcohol consumption, particularly for young people, far outweigh any potential revenue.

“The research on the public health side at this point has concluded that alcohol marketing plays a causal role in kids’ decisions to drink,” said Dr. David Jernigan, an expert on alcohol policy and a professor of health law, policy, and management at the Boston University School of Public Health.

The MTA board approved the new policy in June, hoping to generate an estimated $7.5 million to $10 million in annual revenue from the ads. Transit authority officials have cast the decision as a loosening of the policy, not a full-scale reversal.

“We didn’t reverse the ban,” chief executive Janno Lieber told reporters last week. “We had adopted a couple of narrowly tailored, common-sense exceptions to it that make sure that the original purpose of the ban, which remains in effect, is achieved, which is the protection of school kids from exposure to that.”

Under the new policy, alcohol ads will be permitted on digital displays inside and outside subway stations and within subways and buses, except during “typical student commutation hours” of 6 to 8 a.m. and 2 to 5 p.m. on weekdays when school is in session, according to documents from the transit authority.

Alcohol ads will also be permitted on “static displays” on major commuter rail hubs and stations next to large venues that sell alcohol. They will be allowed on advertising that wraps around the S shuttle train between Times Square and Grand Central. And they will be permitted on billboards, so long as they are not readable within 500 feet of a school, playground, or place of worship.

Dr. Michelle Morse, acting commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told Healthbeat her agency is “very concerned” about the MTA’s decision, particularly regarding its impact on young people.

“We’re very worried that this sends the wrong signal,” she said.

MTA seeks potential revenue

The MTA prohibited tobacco advertising more than 30 years ago and banned marijuana product ads in 2021. When the MTA approved the alcohol ad ban, which took effect in January 2018, chairman Joseph Lhota said the authority wasn’t concerned about making up the lost revenue, an estimated $2 million annually. The City of New York soon followed suit, banning alcohol ads on most city-owned properties, relinquishing about $3 million in annual revenue.

But now the leadership of the transit authority, which has a $20 billion annual operating budget, says the ban was overly restrictive, and that the extra revenue would be beneficial.

“It does help. It really does,” Haeda Mihaltses, a board member, said during a June finance committee meeting.

In a statement, MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults said the original policy “prohibited ads for restaurants with a glass of red liquid on the table and told sponsors of major sports and entertainment venues — where alcohol is legally served — to spend their ad dollars elsewhere instead of in the subway stations connected to those venues.”

The decision has garnered praise from the Distilled Spirits Council, a trade association.

“Spirits advertising has been a responsible source of revenue for mass transit authorities in other cities, and the ads have been met with broad public acceptance,” the organization said in a statement. “We have long maintained that the NYC MTA ad ban was misguided and welcome the opportunity to participate in this market.”

Research shows harmful public health impacts

Opponents of the policy shift say that any profit to be made isn’t worth the harm to public health. Statewide, more than 8,050 New Yorkers die each year due to excessive alcohol use, according to the state Health Department. A 2010 study found that excessive drinking costs the state $843 per person each year in health care costs and lost productivity. Adjusted for inflation, that’s more than $1,200 today.

“It’s not worth it for the MTA to make some money in the short term if it’s going to increase costs in the long term in a way that’s going to harm New Yorkers,” said Dr. Betty Kolod, a primary care physician in Manhattan and the Bronx.

An extensive body of research links alcohol consumption to health risks. In January, then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned that alcohol consumption increases a person’s risk of developing at least seven types of cancer. In 2023, the World Health Organization concluded that no amount of alcohol is safe for human health.

Studies have found that alcohol advertisements tend to be concentrated in subway stations in neighborhoods with greater levels of poverty and higher percentages of Black and Hispanic residents. And researchers have established a strong causal link between alcohol advertising and underage drinking.

Jernigan, the Boston alcohol policy expert, said young people are especially susceptible to alcohol brand advertising — drinking precisely the brands shown to them — and that there are significant adverse health consequences to starting to drink early in life.

“Are you going to put alcohol ads on a school bus? I don’t think so, but that’s the equivalent of what the MTA is doing,” he said.

Concerns raised over youth protections

Public health experts and advocates are particularly skeptical of the MTA’s attempt to prevent student commuters from seeing alcohol ads.

Young New Yorkers use public transportation day and night, traveling to sports games, cultural events, jobs, and friends’ houses, said Dr. Sean Haley, an associate professor of health policy and management at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

“Partial coverage is not effective,” he said. “It’s not what our children deserve.”

Robert Pezzolesi, a public health advocate who spearheaded the original campaign to ban alcohol ads, pointed out that the restrictions for young commuters don’t apply to half the year, when school is out of session. And digital ads — which were just emerging when the initial ban was approved — are now the norm in the subway system, with “extremely compelling visual imagery” made to hold audiences captive.

“It’s not like a magazine where you can turn the page, or television where you can change the channel,” he said. “It’s in your face and hard to avoid.”

Other cities across the country, including Washington, D.C. and Boston, have banned alcohol ads only to bring them back.

A 2009 study of alcohol advertising on Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority system estimated that alcohol ads reached more than half of Boston Public School students taking public transportation on an average weekday. Citing that high level of exposure, researchers concluded that the transit authority should ban the ads, which it did in 2012. Five years later, the ads returned.

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org .

Electric school buses give students a healthier ride. The break from pollution could also help their grades.

2025-07-29T17:21:40+00:00

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As Atlanta students head back to school in the coming days, a fraction of them will be taking electric buses. Those students will be getting a healthier, quieter ride - and research shows they may also perform better on tests and have fewer absences.

Most of Georgia’s school bus fleet is traditional diesel-fueled vehicles, which contribute to air and noise pollution. Replacing them with electric versions is a pricey endeavor at about $300,000 or more apiece, compared to about $100,000 for a traditional bus.

About 124 of Georgia’s 20,000 school buses are electric so far, according to data from the World Resource Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative.

The transition to electric school buses is in the early stages in the United States, jumpstarted by federal funding during the Biden administration, said Susan Mudd, a senior policy advocate at the Environmental Law and Policy Center. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 included $5 billion over five years for the Clean School Bus program at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Some Atlanta area districts got funding, but others that applied, like Gwinnett County, did not. And the most recent round of awards under the infrastructure bill has stalled amid changes at the EPA since President Donald Trump took office in January.

Meanwhile, local climate and children’s health advocates are looking for cheaper, interim solutions to ease school bus pollution until more electric buses are on the road.

How diesel-fueled school buses affect students’ health

Traditional diesel school buses create air pollution that can damage children’s lungs, said Sara Adar, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health who is an expert on air pollution.

There are several reasons for that, she said, including that children are still developing. They breathe in more air relative to their body size than adults do, and since they’re typically shorter than adults, they are closer to the tailpipes that emit exhaust fumes.

“We’ve found that there are no safe levels of air pollution, so it is of concern to all children,” Adar said. The oldest buses are the least clean, she said. About half of the school buses in Georgia are from 2009 or before, when buses were subject to lower emissions standards, according to the Electric School Bus Initiative.

Electric school buses look like the traditional yellow vehicles, but run quieter and produce less air pollution.

Replacing older school buses with models that pollute less can also bring educational benefits, Adar said. That includes better performance on math and language arts standardized tests, as well as improved attendance.

“The evidence for those associations is really strong,” Adar said.

There are two theories for explaining those links: Kids who ride cleaner buses may perform better because they have better attendance due to breathing cleaner air.

“Their lungs are less irritated. They’re less likely to get sick or to have asthma attacks and therefore be at school more frequently,” Adar said.

Or air pollution could be damaging kids’ brains.

“We also know that air pollution can damage our brain, so on high air pollution days, we know that your brain just is a bit more sluggish than usual, and so it’s possible that the improvements we see in the standardized testing actually have to do with reducing harm to the brain itself,” Adar said.

There can be other community benefits, as well, Mudd said. Some models of electric school buses can store energy and send it back to buildings or the power grid when the buses are not in use, like during school holidays, and during emergencies.

Districts praise EV benefits: cleaner air, cheaper maintenance

DeKalb, Atlanta, and Clayton school districts are among those trying out electric school buses.

Clayton has a total of 467 school buses. Twenty-five are electric, with another 75 slated to arrive within the next year, said Denise Hall, executive director of transportation for the district. While most of the funding came from the EPA grants, the district paid $2.9 million to build charging stations and infrastructure.

“The buses have provided clean air for our scholars and reduced gas and maintenance expenditures,” Hall said.

Neighboring DeKalb has ordered 25 electric school buses for its fleet of 1,005, with plans to order 50 more, using EPA funding, spokesperson Carla Parker said.

Atlanta Public Schools has 25 electric buses purchased through the Clean School Bus fund, said Anthony Ashley, senior director of fleet operations for the district.

How an Atlanta pediatrician deals with climate anxiety – and finds joy in action

“You want to give them the best environment to grow in, and EVs advance that avenue for them, because, for years, kids were exposed to diesel fumes, which have been shown in studies that tend to stunt kids’ growth or their brain,” Ashley said. “We always want the best for our kids, and this is one pathway to advancing that cause.”

Students and drivers also enjoy the quieter environment, Ashley said.

“Kids don’t want to make as much noise as they have in the past, when they have to talk over the engine or yell or scream or whatever. So the environment tends to be a bit more quiet and calm,” he said. That makes for a nicer ride for both students and drivers.

Some APS drivers were initially reluctant to make the switch, but he now has a waiting list of drivers who want electric buses.

Mothers and Others for Clean Air, a local advocacy group, partnered with Georgia Physicians for Climate Action and the Georgia State Medical Association on a campaign to advocate a switch to electric school buses. They have met with district leaders from across the state to educate them about the benefits and how to find funds.

Fulton County Schools has only one electric school bus in its fleet of 930, spokesperson Anne Hamspon Boatwright said. It was bought with funds from the EPA and local taxes.

“We use our bus on a limited basis but have not found it to be practical or effective for our needs. Our green, natural gas-powered buses work very well for us,” Boatwright said.

Natural gas- and propane-powered school buses still pollute, albeit less than diesel, said Tanya Coventry-Strader, executive director of Mothers and Others for Clean Air.

Gwinnett County Public Schools – which claims to be the third largest transporter of students in the country – operates 2,006 buses, but none of them are electric, said Kondria Woods, director of communications. The district applied for federal funds over the past four years but was not selected.

Much of the funding is allocated to eligible school districts through a lottery system, according to EPA materials.

Advocates testing air-cleaning devices on diesel buses

Applications for the fourth year of the Clean School Bus program were due in January, and EPA materials state that notifications to awardees were to be sent out in May.

The notifications have not been sent out, according to a statement to Healthbeat from the EPA press office. The agency will provide an update to applicants “in the near future,” the statement said.

“The good news is that in the BBB [the Big Beautiful Bill signed by Trump on July 4], they did not claw back future rounds of Clean School Bus program” funding, Mudd said.

The EnviroKlenz device monitors and helps clean the air on school buses.

Meanwhile, Mothers and Others for Clean Air in Atlanta is exploring other ways to reduce the impacts of air pollution on children riding diesel buses, Coventry-Strader said.

The group worked with a company called EnviroKlenz to install air-cleaning devices, called Smart Mounts, on four school buses in Atlanta to see whether the devices would reduce air pollution. They found that the filters did reduce air pollution.

Coventry-Strader said that ideally, all Georgia children could travel to school on a non-polluting electric bus. However, that transition could take a long time due to the high cost of the buses.

“The initial test looks really great,” she said of the air filters, which help protect passengers from ambient air pollution that may enter the bus from surrounding vehicles.

She emphasized that electric school buses are a top priority since they protect children and do not emit air pollutants.

“These are a much more cost-effective means to clean the air inside the bus, to immediately affect the health of students and the bus drivers while districts make the switch to electric buses,” Coventry-Strader said. “We know that these diesel school buses are harming our kids’ health.”

Rebecca Grapevine is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org.

Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

An after-school program reenvisioned wellness for NYC middle-schoolers. The USDA terminated it.

2025-07-25T18:54:29+00:00

This story was originally published by Healthbeat: Public health, explained. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

Dr. Tashara M. Leak spent years developing a pioneering program in nutrition education for adolescents in New York City.

Through the Advanced Cooking Education 4-H After School Club, seventh and eighth graders met once a week to learn about wellness, develop culinary skills, and gain exposure to careers in food and nutrition. The 12-week program worked with Brooklyn and Manhattan schools where a significant share of students come from low-income households.

“People think about hunger, but to be able to prioritize nutrition is a privilege,” said Leak, an associate professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University and an associate dean at the College of Human Ecology in New York City.

Dr. Tashara M. Leak, an associate professor at Cornell University, created a wellness program for New York City teens.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the ACE program with a 5-year, $990,000 grant, and Leak envisioned it as a new model for 4-H, expanding the reach of the agency’s youth development program. In January, Leak received a 2025 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed on early-career scientists and engineers by the federal government.

But in May, her program came to a sudden halt. Leak received a stop work order from the USDA, part of a wave of federal research grant terminations across the country.

Now, she’s hoping to find a way to continue the ACE program, which has been fully operational for two years and has served at least 60 students.

Here’s an interview with Leak about the program and the impact of the grant termination. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did the ACE program come to be?

If I think about nutrition education, it’s teaching a lot of adolescents how to make yogurt parfaits and fruit kebabs. But we have a whole subgroup of adolescents who are actually responsible for entire meals from start to finish. I thought about that “adultified” adolescent, and was like, “How do we support them? Where are they located?”

A lot of times, they’re located in big cities. They’re usually “adultified” for very specific reasons, maybe because they live in a single-parent household, or even in two-income households with shift work. Oftentimes, it’s affiliated with poverty. In New York City, you’ve got middle-schoolers riding to and from school on subways by themselves by the time they’re 10. We have quite a few “adultified” adolescents in New York City. What about their health and well-being, and how do we support them? That’s why I created the Advanced Cooking Education 4-H After School Club.

What does the ACE program involve?

It’s 12 weeks, specifically targeting seventh and eighth graders at schools that receive Title I funding. What we’re doing is exposing them to careers in food and nutrition, hoping that if they see themselves working in the field, maybe they will want to eat healthier and role model healthy eating. What we’re not doing is saying, “Eat healthy. Don’t eat this.” These are teenagers; they have a lot of autonomy.

The careers we’re exposing them to include food science, urban agriculture, and food photography. Culinary science is a huge part of this. Every other week, we send them home with a bag of groceries, and they take it home and complete a cooking lab at home. This isn’t just cooking for their family. They’re actually learning about sensory evaluations and various knife skills and, “Oh, this tasted too salty. How do you alter the recipe so it’s less salty?” At the end, they have a public speaking competition, which functions almost like a job interview.

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At the beginning of every session, we have a mindfulness component. We start with a brief meditation, and then they stretch, and there’s a journal prompt that’s informed by the CASEL Framework around social and emotional learning. When we decided to do this, it was in response to so many of the adolescents talking about how stressed they were, not just about applying to high school but just stressed about life.

You could tell that they have been exposed to adult-level issues, and they were aware of their neighborhood poverty or various social issues. While I can’t solve these bigger problems, our goal is to give them tools to center themselves and create quiet spaces, even in the midst of living in this very large city.

With the recipes, we made sure to inquire about the identities of students in New York City and also the cuisines they’re exposed to. So they’re making plant-based dishes from various cultures — they’re making Korean food, they’re making Caribbean food. This idea that you have to abandon your cultural food to be healthy is not, indeed, factual. Whenever they’re cooking the dishes, they also learn about the cultural significance of the dish and the ingredients used in that dish.

The Advanced Cooking Education 4-H After School Club aims to help middle-schoolers learn about wellness, develop culinary skills, and explore careers in food and nutrition.

What would you hear from students about the program?

We’ve only gotten really positive feedback. With the mindfulness piece, we conducted focus groups at the end of every cohort, and [students] talked about how they use it during school, if they’re studying for a test, and how they acquired some tools to center themselves during challenging times.

Trying new foods is actually quite a privilege. If you’re on a limited income, it’s really hard to try new foods because you are concerned about food waste, and every dollar counts. The students talked about preparing dishes that they have never prepared before. They were like, “I didn’t know I would like a black bean burger, but I’m so glad I was able to try that in this program.”

With the public speaking competition, they are so nervous when they’re preparing, and then at the end, they always talk about how proud they are of themselves. They all have amazing skills, but I think they didn’t know how to tap into those skills, and then how to articulate that.

What was the research component of the program?

From a research standpoint, we wanted to know how the program was impacting their nutritional status. We were curious if, by the conclusion of the program, were they eating healthier? We use something called the Healthy Eating Index. It has 13 sub-components, and it really allows the students to choose where they want to improve, so it could be that they decide to eat more whole-grain snacks, or it could be that they decide to eat more vegetables or more fruits. We didn’t look at one food group. We gave them the option to set goals each week around how they wanted to improve their nutrition.

That was the primary outcome: their diet intake. Then we also were looking at cooking skills, attitudes, and self-efficacy. If these are kids who are at risk for being “adultified,” I can’t change the fact that now, or maybe in a couple years, you are going to have household cooking responsibilities; but maybe I can help you cook more efficiently and healthfully with limited resources.

With the mindfulness, we’re looking at improvements in their stress: Are they reporting that they’re less stressed? And then we also looked at a sense of purpose and identity: Do they see themselves in this program, and do they feel more centered and grounded in purpose after participating in this?

What was it like to receive the stop work order?

I was really blindsided, just because I’ve been so well supported by USDA for like a decade. This particular study has received so much local, statewide, and national attention. Then I get [the stop work order], and I’m supposed to call parents the next day and say, “Sorry, your kid can’t show up to after-school.” I just couldn’t do that, especially since we were so close to the end of the school year. So I’m very grateful that I had some money in reserves at my job, that I was able to use those funds to finish out the school year.

I was able to piece together funds so that the students weren’t aware of what was happening. But these schools, they’re expecting we were going to do this another year, and right now, I don’t have any funding for another year. I’m working really hard to identify alternate funding sources so I can fulfill my commitment to the schools and to the students.

Does it seem likely that you’ll be able to find other funding sources?

These are real people. I know these students, I know these teachers. I know these principals and the school nurses. I have been integrated into their communities. And so while I don’t know, today, how I’m going to pull this off, I’m going to pull it off. I can’t sleep at night knowing that I made a promise to schools that have historically had so many people make promises and break those promises. I know that all of my sites know that this is not of my choosing, but I am going to find a way to fulfill my commitment. I’m going to figure this out, because it’s just too important.

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org.

U.S. food makers are still using dyes linked to hyperactivity in kids. Parents want them banned.

2025-07-14T11:05:00+00:00

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Long Island mom Stefanie Lomuto’s 7-year-old son came home from school one day in April angry and hyperactive. “He was off the wall,” she said.“We were in hell for five days.”

She asked what he had for lunch. A bagel with yogurt. “I was, like, what kind of yogurt did you have? And he’s, like, strawberry. I was, like, oh, no.” She contacted the school and learned that yes, the pink yogurt contained food dye.

When Lomuto’s son was 3 and having behavioral and impulse control issues, she came across an article that recommended cutting out food additives. “First thing we cut out was high fructose corn syrup. We saw a bit of an improvement. Food dyes were the next one on the list. I cut those. And our issues drastically went away.”

The family saw a huge improvement in his behavior, but since then he has become more sensitive to dyes than ever. “He has one maraschino cherry, and our whole week is just destroyed,” she said.

While Lomuto makes sure not to let her son eat artificially colored foods at home, she can’t control what happens at school. His teachers know that he’s dye-free, and Lomuto sends him with his own cupcakes for class parties, but the food that the cafeteria sells is harder to track.

“His friends are buying ice pops, and he asked me for a dollar to buy an ice pop,” she said. “I can’t even let the kid have a simple ice cream at school like his friends.”

Studies have consistently found that artificial food colorings including Red 40, Yellow 5 and 6, and Blue 1 and 2, can make some children hyperactive, inattentive, and irritable. In early 2025, Red 3 was banned in U.S. food products; it was originally banned in cosmetics in 1990 due to cancer links.

Since 2010 in Britain and the European Union, any food containing artificial dyes must carry a warning label that the additives may cause hyperactivity. Many manufacturers stopped using them. But in the United States, until this year, the Food and Drug Administration had stated that dyes were safe, while acknowledging that “some children may experience sensitivities.”

RFK Jr. asks food producers to phase out dyes, but it’s not mandatory

Artificial food dyes are everywhere: in Cheetos, Jolly Ranchers, applesauce, pickles, spinach wraps, ice cream, even Tylenol. A 2016 study found that dyes were present in 43% of the foods marketed to children in a single grocery store.

New Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made food dyes a pillar of his crusade against chronic illness. In March, he directed the FDA to request that food producers phase out dyes by 2026. Compliance will be voluntary.

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“Everyone realized they weren’t talking about actual regulations or a regulatory ban,” said Jensen Jose of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has advocated removal of dyes from children’s food. “We’re disappointed in the limited scope.”

New York City public schools already ban a range of additives, preservatives, and sugar alternatives. A bill in the state legislature seeks to ban six common dyes from food served in public schools, but it did not pass this year.

It was drafted by State Assembly Member Dr. Anna Kelles, who holds a PhD in nutritional epidemiology, and State Sen. Brian Kavanaugh, who began working on the issue several years ago after learning about artificial dyes at a conference.

“As more and more legislators become educated about the dangers of these foods, you gain greater support,” said Stanley Davis, a spokesman for Kavanaugh.

Parents of dye-sensitive children said the legislation could change their lives.

“It would be huge,” said Christine Einzig of Corinth, New York, who has 7-year-old triplets who are sensitive to dyes. “We would see a change in behavior for so many kids.”

Behavior of all 300 children in one study was impacted by dyes

What persuaded policymakers in Europe and the United Kingdom to regulate dyes was a 2007 study conducted by researchers at the University of Southampton.

The study followed 300 3- and 8-year-olds who did not have any known behavioral or attention problems. After removing dyes from their home diets, scientists gave the children an identical-looking fruit-flavored drink each day — sometimes containing artificial dyes, sometimes not. Parents, teachers, and external observers recorded the children’s behavior daily, without knowing which ones had consumed the artificial dyes. In addition, the 8-year-olds were given a computerized attention test.

How the FDA opens the door to risky chemicals in America’s food supply

All the children in the study, including ones who had not previously been identified as sensitive, were impacted by dyes. “These changes shift the children along the hyperactivity scale. For children who are already predisposed to attention problems, the impact of dyes can move them far enough up that scale to cause a real problem.” said Dr. Jim Stevenson, the author of the study.

The paper estimated that about 10% of the difference between the behavior of children with ADHD and those without could be attributed to dyes.

“It’s a public health issue, because you cannot identify the kids who are going to react. So the best thing to do is take the dyes out of the food. In Europe, and Britain too, we operate on a precautionary principle. If we have a concern that something may have an effect, then let’s take action,” Stevenson said.

Lisa Lefferts was a part of the 2011 FDA panel tasked with deciding whether U.S. foods should carry warning labels for dyes.

“They did not ask us if we thought dyes were safe,” she said. “What they did ask us is if we thought a causal relationship had been established for certified color additives and hyperactivity.”

In 2011, she said, scientists were not sure about the causal link between hyperactivity and dyes – and the FDA decided not to ask a direct question about whether dyes caused any other kind of “harm.” Looking just at hyperactivity limited the scope of the panel and the power it had to make recommendations – but “they did not ask us if we thought dyes were safe,” Lefferts said.

Limiting children’s exposure to dyes can be burden for parents

In 2021, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment published a systematic meta analysis of 27 studies of dyes, exploring their impact on humans and animals. The finding was consistent with the UK study – and with the parental perception – that synthetic dyes impact neurobehavior in some children. And, these days, Lefferts puts a lot of stock in its findings.

“It was informed by a scientific symposium. They asked for public information. They put the report out for public review and comment, as well as peer review,” she said.

And while some officials suggest that parents should be responsible for keeping their children away from food dyes, parent advocates say that could be an undue burden for people who lack educational advantages or are financially struggling.

“Our child had a mother that had the opportunity and the time to investigate. I make all the grocery trips, I spend extra for the treats. There are many families that don’t have that same opportunity,” said Whitney Cawood, director and producer of To Dye For: A Documentary.

Cawood and her husband, who live in Dalton, Georgia, created the documentary, interviewing legislators, scientists, and families to understand how dyes made it into American food and the impact the additives have on individual children and their families.

A former teacher, Cawood said many single parents, parents who struggle with literacy, or those who don’t drive, may not have the resources or awareness to seek out dye-free options. She points out that schools are also a place where students have less control over their diet.

“Many families are dependent upon free and reduced [price] lunch and snack programs within their schools,” she said.

Einzig echoes this sentiment in New York.

Food as medicine: How New York is treating chronic health conditions with medically tailored meals

“We’re in a poorer part of the state,” she said, “and we only have one grocery store in town.” Other parents, she said, might not have the time or the money to go to another store half an hour away.

There’s no medical name or test for a dye sensitivity, but about 8% of children with ADHD were particularly affected, according to a 2012 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

“You want to know the worst thing right now?” Einzig said. Her son has been prescribed a new ADHD medication – “and it’s pink. Why is it pink?”

She is referring to an extended-release version of Vyvanse that contains Blue No. 1, Red No. 3 and Yellow No. 6. Lomuto has had the same experience. “The capsule is pink, but the pill [inside] supposedly doesn’t have dyes - so there’s a chewable version I’m now trying to get.” However, her insurance won’t cover that version because her son can technically swallow a capsule. “Why are we feeding him this thing that’s making him hyper while giving him the medication to make him not hyper? You can’t make that make sense,” she said.

Although not all children are equally sensitive to dyes, children can be affected by the behaviour of their classmates. Even one child struggling to regulate themselves in a class can disrupt teaching for an entire day, educators say. A research overview from Ohio State University in 2012 found that the presence of a child with a dye reaction “may have an aggregated effect on classroom climate.”

Einzig sees this as an important issue to make education better for all children. “How much time are these teachers actually spending teaching, versus behavior management?” she asked.

Einzig hopes that nationwide legislation will eventually phase out all dyes so her kids can go back to eating their favorite foods. “They talk about Doritos a lot,” she said. She’s found another type of cheesy nacho chip that they like – “but, I know they miss it.”

This story was produced in partnership with the Health & Science Reporting Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

How Trump’s sweeping tax and domestic policy bill will affect children and schools

2025-07-03T18:33:47+00:00

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Republicans in Congress have approved President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and domestic policy bill that will ramp up spending on immigration enforcement and make deep cuts to social safety net programs, with major ramifications for children and schools.

The bill, which the president is expected to sign by Friday, slashes spending on Medicaid, which provides health insurance to some 37 million children and is a critical revenue source for schools. It also limits eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides food assistance to over 13 million children and makes kids automatically eligible for free meals at school.

The legislation significantly raises spending on immigration enforcement, which will likely translate to more immigration arrests and deportations. The president’s deportation campaign has already left schools working overtime to assure families it’s safe to send their children to school.

“When you take it all together it’s kind of like an assault on children and families policy-wise,” said Megan Curran, the director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. “We’re going to see that the effects reverberate well beyond what we’re even understanding” right now, she said, “and schools are going to be on the front lines.”

The nearly 900-page bill also creates a new voucher-like program that will pay for private school scholarships — a major victory for school choice advocates who have successfully expanded similar programs in several states, but have previously failed to enact a nationwide version. States will be allowed to opt out, however, and it’s likely many Democrat-led states will.

Here is more on how what the president calls the “big, beautiful bill” is likely to affect children and schools:

Medicaid cuts will hurt school budgets

Trump’s policy bill makes historic cuts to Medicaid, which is the fourth-largest source of federal funding for schools. If millions of children lost their health insurance, it would undoubtedly reduce funding for schools, though it’s unclear by how much.

“Cutting Medicaid is equivalent to cutting school district budgets,” said Jessie Mandle, the national program director at the nonprofit Healthy Schools Campaign. “School districts are very much aware of how important Medicaid dollars are to serve students with disabilities, address the youth mental crisis, [and] address students’ behavioral health needs.”

In March, Mandle’s organization and other education groups surveyed 1,400 school staffers and officials from across the U.S. about how they rely on Medicaid. Around 9 in 10 respondents used Medicaid to pay the salaries of school health staff, such as school nurses, psychologists, and speech therapists. A little under half relied on Medicaid to buy assistive technology and other specialized equipment for students with disabilities.

Cuts to Medicaid would likely require schools to lay off staff and make cuts elsewhere in their budgets, the survey found.

And schools in rural communities, where a higher share of kids are enrolled in Medicaid and schools often play a big role in providing health care, are likely to feel the cuts more acutely.

SNAP cuts could limit free school meals

The federal legislation makes a series of changes to the SNAP program, including requiring more parents of school-aged children and teens aging out of foster care to work, scrapping eligibility for refugees and people who’ve been granted asylum, and raising how much states have to kick in.

The changes could result in hundreds of thousands of parents losing their SNAP benefits, which could have ripple effects on schools — though earlier provisions that would have more directly targeted the school meal program were stripped out of the bill.

When kids are enrolled in SNAP, they automatically qualify for free breakfast and lunch at school. And when a high share of kids are enrolled in SNAP, it’s more financially viable for schools to provide free meals to all students. That has a number of academic and social benefits for kids.

If families fall off the SNAP rolls, they may not realize they have to fill out paperwork at their child’s school to get free meals. And if fewer kids qualify for free school meals, schools will get a lower reimbursement from the federal government, which will make it harder to cover the cost of providing free meals to all kids.

“The cuts to SNAP that are currently proposed will increase hunger in homes and in classrooms,” said Erin Hysom, the senior child nutrition policy analyst for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center. “It’s really going to be this kind of double whammy for families.”

Boost for immigration enforcement likely to affect schools

The president’s policy bill includes $31 billion in additional funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hire more agents and cover the cost of deportations. The legislation also includes $13 billion in grants for states and local communities to assist with immigration enforcement.

An increase in immigration enforcement is likely to put additional burdens on school communities, many of which have already spent time and resources tending to students whose family members were arrested, advocating on behalf of students who were detained, and adding transportation and safety measures to assuage the fears of immigrant parents.

Recent research from Stanford University found that raids carried out by the Trump administration earlier this year in California’s Central Valley notably increased daily absences from school, especially for younger children. And earlier research has found that immigration raids have significant effects on children’s physical and mental health, as well as on broader school climate.

New voucher-like program will pay for private schooling

Tucked into the bill is the creation of a tax-credit scholarship program that will pay for private school tuition. Individuals can knock $1,700 off their tax bill if they donate that amount to an organization that awards scholarships to kids who attend private school.

The inclusion is a win for private school choice advocates who have long championed an idea like this.

But the program will be optional for states, after the Senate parliamentarian ruled states could not be required to participate. That will probably curb the program’s impact, because it’s unlikely that Democrat-led states — where officials have vociferously opposed using public money for private schools — will opt in.

It is unclear exactly how much the federal voucher-like program will cost, as there is no cap on the amount of tax credit payouts. (An earlier House version would have capped those costs at around $5 billion to $6 billion a year.)

Many states have their own tax-credit scholarship or voucher program.

Pell Grants now available for workforce training

Starting with the 2026-27 school year, students from low-income backgrounds who’d normally qualify for a federal Pell Grant to pay for college can get aid for short-term workforce training.

Known as a Workforce Pell Grant, the money could be spent on training programs that last eight to 15 weeks and lead to some kind of credential or academic credit toward a degree or certificate program. The idea has gotten bipartisan support in Congress, and has been endorsed by both Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

The training would need to prepare students for jobs or industries that are high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand — in line with the federal Perkins Career and Technical Education Act — and governors and state school boards would decide which programs qualify.

The Congressional Budget Office expects the program will be relatively small to start: Just $17 million in the first year and $20 million the following year.

Child tax credit bump excludes many low-income families

The bill increases the size of the credit from $2,000 to $2,200 a year, but does nothing to ensure more low-income families can benefit.

That means the child tax credit is actually “less generous” in today’s dollars than when the $2,000 credit began in 2018, because it was never adjusted for inflation, said Curran of Columbia University.

A July analysis by Curran and others found that 19 million children are in families who would get only some, or none, of the revised tax credit because they don’t earn enough money. That’s up from 17 million children who don’t fully benefit from the current child tax credit.

The final result is “head-scratching,” Curran said, after all of the bipartisan enthusiasm to expand and increase the child tax credit.

During the pandemic, the federal government temporarily raised the credit to $3,000 per child and $3,600 for younger children, and made it available to many more families with low or no income. There’s solid evidence that helped many families stay on top of household bills and pay for school supplies and other items for their children.

But the bill Trump is about to sign does not include those changes.

“It’s a huge pendulum swing,” Curran said. “The child tax credit doesn’t really do anything extra for families.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Public Schools to pay over $300 million for trade high school under new 30-year lease

2025-06-04T20:15:38+00:00

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Newark Public Schools will pay over $300 million over 30 years for its new trade high school — but after many delays, the gym and auditorium may not be finished when it opens this fall.

The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is expected to welcome students in September, per an amended lease agreement that extended the deal from 20 to 30 years and was approved by the district’s Board of Education last month. But the deadline for the developer to finish those parts of the school isn’t until the middle of 2026.

The district also has the option to purchase the building for $1,000 at the end of the 30-year lease, according to the revised agreement obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

The amended lease agreement comes after the developer of the property and Summit Assets CEO Albert Nigri promised last fall that the entire school facility would be finished by the start of the upcoming school year.

When the lease for the new trade high school was first signed by the district in 2021, NPS agreed to a $160 million, 20-year lease. The following year, Superintendent Roger León announced the opening of the new trade high school in the city’s East Ward at an invite-only groundbreaking ceremony. He touted the school — the first of its kind in the district — as an opportunity for students to fast-track their technical careers and earn a contract to work with the district.

It was originally scheduled to open in the fall of 2022. But stop-work orders issued by the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development over wage complaints and changes in contractors have delayed the project.

The district’s communications director Paul Brubaker did not respond to questions from Chalkbeat about the project’s setbacks, how the district plans to pay the lease for the school, or its reasoning for extending the lease agreement. Nigri did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is set to focus on three trades — plumbing, electricity, and HVAC — and allow students to study architecture and interior design. The curriculum will also give students a high school diploma and a license for trade work, district officials have previously said.

The new school is housed at the former St. James Hospital building that has stood vacant for years in the middle of the city’s Ironbound neighborhood. When it opens, the school will enroll 240 ninth grade students and add a grade level each year. Payments to Nigri, the property’s landlord and developer, are set to begin when the school opens this fall.

New high school delayed amid pay complaints

The latest version of the amended lease, approved by the school board in May, includes two new deadlines for the completion of the school.

By Aug. 1, 2025, the base of the school building must be completed, which includes new walls, roofs, and windows, elevators, restrooms, a courtyard, and landscaping. By June 1, 2026, the newly constructed gym and auditorium must be completed and the building must be finished, according to the lease amendment.

Those deadlines are later than those in the first amendment to the lease approved by NPS in August 2024, which were for the base of the school building to be completed by Jan. 9, the new gym and auditorium to be finished by July 30, and the building to be completed by Sept. 1.

The amended lease also extends the deal from 20 to 30 years and bumps up the total lease to $295,979,990 over 30 years. The district must also pay a total of $20 million in additional payments to Nigri between year two and year six and year 26 and year 30 of the lease.

Union workers at the high school’s construction site also encountered poor working conditions that were making their jobs unsafe and many were being paid late or in cash. That resulted in the union filing wage complaints with the state.

In September 2022, the New Jersey Department of Labor issued stop-work orders to Summit Assets as well as the former general contractor and an ex-subcontractor. That order halted work on the site for months before Nigri hired a new contractor and subcontractor.

Days later, dozens of union workers showed up to a district school board meeting demanding that León intervene after they were forced out of work and owed pay. León addressed laborers’ complaints and reiterated the district’s plan to open the school in September 2023.

In October 2024, the Department of Labor issued a second stop-work order on the site and to the new contractors and subcontractors of the project. Although the work subsequently resumed, district leaders have not addressed the project’s delays or issues related to worker pay.

Instead, the district began to advertise a fall 2025 opening date, and this spring, it opened up enrollment to the school. Brubaker did not respond to a request for comment about the district’s contingency plan if the landlord fails to deliver part of the building by Aug. 1.

State remains responsible for new school construction in Newark

During a May 2021 public hearing on the project, former assistant school business administrator Jason Ballard said that leasing a high school building is more affordable than building a new high school, which he said costs an average of $134 million. That’s less than half of what the district will pay on its lease for the new trade school, based on construction plans in other New Jersey cities.

The Schools Development Authority is the state agency responsible for paying construction projects in Newark and 30 other low-income school districts. According to its 2022 biannual report, the cost per square foot for a high school project was $369 at that time.

The agency’s largest and most expensive construction project is Perth Amboy High School, which opened its doors last fall and cost $284 million to add room for nearly 3,300 students.

Over the years, the agency has promised the district it would pay for school repairs and provide new buildings. But despite efforts to address these challenges, including the allocation of $18 million in state funding for building upgrades over the last three fiscal years, the district estimates that it would need more than $2 billion to repair and update all schools.

The Newark school district has identified 33 out of its 64 total schools that need replacing and dozens more that need renovations. The state agency last summer promised to replace 13 of Newark’s oldest buildings, but the deal still leaves out 20 schools that need replacements. The state agency also said it would spend nearly $153 million to build a new University High School and relocate Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School, but the plan is still in its early stages.

In 2023, the Schools Development Authority purchased the former University Heights Charter School building for $15.5 million and transferred it to the district to fulfill its promise to provide a new elementary school, now known as the Nelson Mandela Elementary School.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Newark middle schoolers face overcrowded classrooms and space shortages, state report says

2025-05-22T09:45:00+00:00

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Middle schoolers in Newark Public Schools are attending classes in overcrowded buildings that fall short of state space requirements, a new report from the New Jersey Department of Education finds.

Newark, New Jersey’s largest school district, does not have a dedicated middle school and enrolls grades 6-8 in elementary and high schools across the district. The district’s enrollment has increased in recent years, pointing to its need for more school space.

The report highlighted Newark’s ongoing need to replace its public schools, some of which date back to the 1920s and are among the oldest in the state. The report also found that roughly two-thirds of high-poverty districts — formerly known as Abbott districts — do not have enough space to meet student needs, underscoring other existing infrastructure problems such as inadequate HVAC systems and outdated school buildings.

Newark faces significant facilities challenges due to its crumbling school buildings and a lack of funding from the state. The district has identified 33 out of its 64 total schools that need replacing and dozens more that need renovations.

The state’s Schools Development Authority, or SDA, is required to pay for construction projects in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts. Despite efforts to address these challenges in Newark, including the allocation of $18 million in state funding for building upgrades over the last three fiscal years, the district estimates that it would need more than $2 billion to repair and update all schools.

The new report “speaks to the ongoing need to continually assess school facilities” and fund construction projects, said Theresa Luhm, an attorney and managing director at Education Law Center, a nonprofit that works to protect the rights of public school students.

“I would argue it’s also for the SDA to have some kind of consistent funding stream so they can make plans as they go. Right now, it doesn’t matter what needs they identify because there’s no money to fund projects in the long run,” Luhm said.

Studies show that investing in school facilities, and new school construction in particular, can improve K-12 student outcomes, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds. A report from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University found that after three years in a new school building, student attendance improves by “a statistically significant but small one percentage point” annually.

Luhm added that overcrowding can also cause schools to sacrifice specialized spaces to make room for classrooms.

“So now you’ve taken away your science labs or art, music rooms, or other areas because now you’re just using that as regular classroom space,” Luhm added.

Newark among 31 school districts with urgent repair needs

Required every five years to help the SDA prioritize school construction projects, the new report found that 19 of the 31 SDA districts have capacity deficiencies or provide fewer square feet per student than mandated in the New Jersey Facilities Efficiency Standards, which set minimum square footage to support learning.

Newark Public Schools’ buildings serving grades 6-8 are over capacity, and provide less space per student than required, according to the report. The district does not have a school dedicated solely to middle school grades. Of the district’s 64 schools, 36 enroll students in pre-K-8, three enroll K-8, two high schools enroll grades 7-12, one enrolls K-6, and another enrolls pre-K-7, according to the district’s school directory.

Newark’s neighboring city Elizabeth faces the most severe overcrowding and space shortages across all grade levels, the state report says. Bridgeton, Garfield, Irvington, New Brunswick, Orange, and Union City face overcrowding and inadequate space in at least one grade span. Paterson, Perth Amboy, Plainfield, West New York, Union City, and Vineland rank among the districts with the lowest square footage per student.

To fix the problems in these and other districts, the SDA needs more money. Over the last three fiscal years, New Jersey has allocated $2 billion for school construction projects, but that money has already been committed to emergency projects, leaving no money for new projects, according to Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Monmouth) earlier this year.

It currently receives funds from the legislature on a “pay as you go” basis with no long-term funding to support their work.

Last year, Newark Public Schools was weighing whether to present a $1.2 billion bond referendum to city voters this April to cover school repairs. But district leaders squashed that plan after learning that it was unlikely to gain support, Superintendent Roger León said earlier this year.

Luhm and others have called on state leaders to provide more funding. The Healthy Schools Now coalition, which represents more than 100 organizations across the state, is also calling on Gov. Phil Murphy and the legislature to provide $500 million annually to the SDA, starting with the upcoming budget, which must be finalized by June 30.

The SDA last summer promised to replace 13 of Newark’s oldest buildings, but the deal still leaves out 20 schools that need replacements. The state agency also said it would spend nearly $153 million to build a new University High School and relocate Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School, but the plan is still in its early stages.

Since 2006, only nine new schools have been built in the district; one other property was given to Newark by the state to open the Nelson Mandela Elementary School. And since 2016, district officials have asked the SDA to fix more than 100 buildings.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Locked doors, vape detectors: Students explore NYC school bathroom rules

2025-05-15T10:00:01+00:00

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Cutting class. Fights. Vaping. School bathrooms have long been notorious for all sorts of illicit behavior. And in response, many schools now significantly restrict access to bathrooms or are adding surveillance tools, including vape detectors.

Producers Isabella Mason, of Midwood High School, and Bernie Carmona, from Beacon High School, wade into the debate over school bathroom policies.

At Midwood, for instance, the school locks bathroom doors for the five minutes while changing classes, and bars access during the first and last 10 minutes of class. The school’s assistant principal of safety and security, Richard Franzese, discusses the evolution of the policy and the lengths the school has gone to crack down on incidents. Beyond limiting the times the bathrooms are open, the school has bathroom sign-in sheets, allowing up to three students in at a time, and has school aides stationed outside.

“There’s no perfect solution,” he said.

And Chalkbeat reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney sheds light on how schools are specifically responding to student vaping, illuminating the tension between simply enforcing rules versus dealing with larger issues related to addiction and mental health.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Listen for new P.S. Weekly episodes Thursdays this spring.

Read the transcript below

Joseph: I’ll have classes like, on the way end of the fourth floor, and I’ll have to go down to the annex of the basement, which are at the complete other ends of the school on the bottom floors. And it ends up being like a seven, eight minute round trip.

Isabella: You’re listening to a student who goes to my school, Midwood High School. His name is Joseph Trontz, and every so often he has to take a journey. And actually, he’s not the only one making the trek.

Joseph: This isn’t just a problem with me, either. This is, you know, a problem that a lot of students and, in fact, teachers have

Isabella: I have to take the same journey we all do. I’m Isabella Mason, and

Bernie: And I’m Bernie Carmona, and this is PS weekly, the sound of the New York City school system.

Isabella: So okay, let’s say it’s a typical day at Midwood High School and I’m at AP macroeconomics, and suddenly I get that urge to use the bathroom.

Bernie: Okay, nerd, so what’s your journey like?

Isabella: Okay? Step One, I have to decide what class is the best class to go based on how close it is, what the nearest bathroom is, and also who’s teaching it, because some teachers are more of a stickler for rules. Step Two, You’d think that I’d be able to go in between my class periods, but I can’t, because of a rule that my school has called the 10, 5, 10, rule, which basically says we cannot go to the bathroom the last 10 minutes of a class period, the five minutes that we have to transition between classes, and then the first 10 minutes of that class, which whatever. Step Three, If I’m in like macroeconomics, that’s definitely the worst class to go to the bathroom in, because of how far it is from the nearest bathroom. I either have to go downstairs to a bathroom that’s guaranteed to be dirty and like infested with vape smoke, or it goes two floors up and definitely have to wait in a line. Okay, Step Four, So for some classes, I need a sign out sheet whenever we leave the class, and then when I arrive at the bathroom, there’s a sign in sheet, which is just also whatever. And Step Five, I’m finished and back in class, but by then, I’ve missed around 10 or 15 minutes of class time,

Bernie: So you’ve signed in and out. How many times now?

Isabella: 3

Bernie: 3

Isabella: 3

Bernie: And what happens to these signatures? Like–

Isabella: I don’t, they don’t. I don’t even know why they have them, because I just scribble whenever I sign into the bathroom, they don’t check it. I don’t, I don’t know.

Bernie: And why do you have to travel so far?

Isabella: Because Bernie, unlike your school, we only have five bathrooms for 4000 students. Did you know we actually have four extra bathrooms that are just out of service? Okay, I was making sure we actually have nine bathrooms, but we don’t whatever. So the thing is, it isn’t just an issue at my school,

Bernie: Yeah, at my school, Beacon High School, we used to just walk out of the bathroom whenever we wanted to. I never had to raise my hand. But now we have the 10, 5, 10, rule, and for a lot of us, that kind of feels a lot more like surveillance and safety.

Isabella: So I wanted to figure out why these bizarre policies were in place. So who else to speak to besides the assistant principal of safety and security. Richard Franzese.

Franzese: I came here as a young teacher in 1995, I quickly became a dean shortly after that. And then in about 2002 I assumed the role of the assistant principal safety and security here.

Isabella: And how would you describe the atmosphere of Midwood? And I guess, yeah, the atmosphere of Midwood and also its shared spaces like hallways or bathrooms,

Franzese: Crowded, you know, crowded, sometimes the hallways. I always say it’s kind of like Grand Central Station on Christmas Eve, Everybody’s rushing to get home.

Isabella: Okay, do you think there is an excessive number of students in the bathroom at once?

Franzese: Yes, that can happen. What we do identify, and this is the truth. You have some students who legitimately need to use the bathroom, and there are other students that legitimately do not want to be in class, and every period, they will ask their teachers for the pass to use the restroom facilities bathrooms.

Isabella: And have you noticed the change in the school’s bathroom policies over the years?

Franzese: No question, and I’m probably the reason why that change took place so years ago, the bathrooms are not supervised by staff members such as school aids, but we did not have an effective pass policy or bathroom policy. That all started to change about 10 years ago, when I was able to introduce new policies, and primarily the reason being is that we wanted to cut down on the number of disciplinary incidents that occurred in these student bathrooms.

Isabella: How would you describe students’ reactions to the changes?

Franzese: I think it’s been mixed. I think in some cases, the students appreciate the fact that there’s only a limited amount of students that are allowed in the bathrooms. However, I think that students don’t like the ideas the bathrooms being closed throughout the day before the bell rings, the five minutes during passing and not immediately opened after late bill.

Isabella: All right, and how do you think these bathroom policies have helped reduce bathroom related issues like skipping–

Franzese: Without question. If I look at the data of incidents in the bathrooms, let’s say, from 10 years ago to today, this is sound very corny, but that the incidents have gone down like a duck in winter, that we’ve had less and less physical altercations, less incidents of fighting or any type of violation. The chances regulations students use the bathrooms and they leave for the most part, and if too many students congregate, that’s when a school aide, with the assistance of the deans, will come in and then clear out the bathroom.

Isabella: And can you describe what Midwood bathrooms used to look like or feel like, before these policies?

Franzese: They were very, very crowded. You had incidents of smoking, of play fighting, incidents of students, even I hate to say it, sometimes getting robbed in the bathroom too, and that was, obviously there are no video surveillance cameras in the bathroom. But, by enforcing this type of bathroom policy and with, with adult supervision outside of it. What we’ve noticed over the years, that these incidents have gone down, and it’s created a more safer environment.

Isabella: When policies were first implemented, were they always like the 10, 5, 10 rule? Or has it been like we have something here, but now it’s 10, 5, 10 rule? Maybe it’s a five, five, five rule–

Franzese: No, we’ve always done a 10, 5, 10 rule, but that’s actually now been changed. I think that we’ve, we’ve cut it down to seven minutes. I believe now, one of the things that student government had complained about that, you know, they would like to have the bathrooms open a little bit more. So we listened, we listened, and we said, Okay, how does 7, 5, 7, sound? They said we could work with that. So a compromise was made.

Isabella: So its bathrooms are closed for the first and last seven minutes of the period,

Franzese: Correct? And then the five minutes during, during the passing could not be compromised, because we did not want students hanging out the bathroom during passing as cutting class, so looking to skip class.

Isabella: And when it came to hiring and having to find the resources for bathroom aids, was that a challenge for Midwood

Franzese: Yes, it was initially our budget operated on fumes, meaning that we had very little financial sort of latitude. But since about 2016 when the school started receiving Title One funds, we were able to expand hiring school aid.

Isabella: And how do you feel about these policies? How do you think they impact students with medical needs or other special conditions?

Franzese: So if any students with medical needs, they know, and we explain to these students that they could utilize even the staff bathrooms. I myself have opened up the doors to the staff bathrooms for students, have a medical emergency. Or, for example, I one time had a student with colitis. What colitis is, it’s, it’s almost like an irritable bowel syndrome, that all of a sudden you have to go to the bathroom and it’s uncontrollable. We allow this student to use the staff bathroom at any moment’s time. We always make exceptions for students.

Isabella: And do you think Midwood’s bathroom policies need any more work? Or we’re fine with the 7,5,7–

Franzese: I think, listen, I know it works fine, as long as if students can think of something that would improve upon it, I will always listen. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen, but I will always listen.

Isabella: And do you think Midwood’s bathroom need any more work in terms of reducing like student drug use and vandalism or student skipping?

Franzese: There’s no perfect solution to that. I like, just recently what we did downstairs that we set up in the boys bathroom downstairs, we set up stanchions, and now the school aids only let two to three male students into the bathroom at a time, and that will cut down on the number of students, let’s say, cutting or hanging out, or any type of horse play, or possibly vaping. Could I put vape detectors in the rooms? I could do that, but it could also be, you know, a little bit of a big brother was watching. And I don’t want our students to feel that way, that could put vape detectors in so, but we don’t really have, you know, to be honest with you, do students vape? I’m sure they do. I know, but if we see it on camera, we confiscate the vapes. We follow the proper protocol in terms of the chances, regulations, and, you know, provide family out, parental outreach and explain, but we don’t really get a lot of incidents of vaping in the bathroom. Be quite honest with you,

Isabella: That’s what I was glad to hear because there’s been other schools that have implemented, like, vape detectors,

Franzese: Yeah,

Isabella: But it’s good to hear from right?

Franzese: We don’t have it. It’s not as prevalent. Listen, I’m sure they do. I’m sure if I go into the boys bathroom, and also I smell strawberries, that doesn’t mean that a boy decided to put body spray on him. Get my drift? That being said, well, if you did it, then again, in this day and age, you never know, but we don’t. When I speak to the school aides, and they go in to monitor and they will physically walk in, they don’t smell it, they don’t see it.

Isabella: And I guess if someone said it’s just a bathroom, why does it matter? How would you respond?

Franzese: It’s still Midwood High School. It’s no different than a classroom. It’s no different than a hall. It’s no different than the cafeteria. It’s no different than the gymnasium. You know, would it be your bathroom? Would it matter if it was your personal bathroom in your home? Yes, well the answer would…yes, it does matter.

Isabella: That was Midwood AP of security and safety, Richard Franzese. There was one part of our conversation. I wanted to learn more about vaping, even though Mr. Franchisee said it’s not a big problem at my school, I’ve seen kids vaping in the bathroom more times than I can count, and I know my school is not alone on this issue.

Bernie: I also think your school isn’t on its own. Overall, teen vaping rates have declined from five years ago, and that was during a time when almost 1/3 of all teens were vaping. Cannabis, however, is on the rise recently, and vaping has been a problem for over a decade,

Isabella: Right? 10 years the same time period when my school’s bathroom policies started getting stricter.

Bernie: So next up, we’re digging into teen vaping, why it’s happening, and what some schools are trying to do about it. But first the break

Zimmer: We hope you enjoy listening to PS weekly as much as we enjoy making it. I’m Amy Zimmer with Chalkbeat New York. We spend a lot of time planning each episode, setting up and conducting interviews, cutting the tape, writing scripts. It’s a long process and totally worth it. But here’s the thing, we don’t have a bunch of money or millions of followers, so we’re counting on you loyal listener to help us get the word out. Take a few seconds and send this link wherever you’re listening to three friends so they too can enjoy PS weekly. Thanks for your support.

Bernie: Welcome back to PS Weekly. I’m Bernie,

Isabella: And I’m Isabella.

Bernie: At the end of Isabella’s interview with her assistant principal, they were talking about an issue that has been on both of our minds, and that issue is vaping. I’ve seen it happening more and more at my school, and I was especially curious to learn more of the vape detectors that Mr. Franchisee mentioned, even though Midwood hasn’t installed them, other New York City schools have. So we called up a Chalkbeat reporter, Mike Elsen-Rooney, who has been writing about these issues, to find out more.

Rooney: Yeah, so I’d been writing about issues related to teen drug use and vaping for a couple years, and I got interested in it because a couple years ago, I started hearing from more people who work in schools that they were just seeing more visible drug use, like spilling into the school day, and that was around the time when we were seeing a lot of the kind of smoke shops popping up around the city. It was still, like, pretty fresh off the pandemic. And so I think a lot of kids were, like, struggling with mental health. You know, at some point after I wrote that first story, I started kind of reaching out to people about, like, do you have policies in place? What are you doing to try to address this? And I heard about just a number of kind of interesting different approaches, ranging from counseling to, like, actual policies of like, you know, locking or restricting bathroom use to installing vape detectors, which I had never heard of until I started doing this reporting. Can

Bernie: Can you tell me a little bit more about those policies that you were finding and what helped you, like, add those to the article of from Chalkbeat.

Elsen-Rooney: Yeah. So it’s hard to quantify, because the DOE is not keeping track, really, of any of this centrally, and the DOE is not buying vape detectors centrally either. It’s just kind of been like a little scatter shot among schools who are interested. But I definitely found a couple examples. I reached out to one company that said they were working with about 30 schools in New York City, and that was just one company. And then bathroom policies, how prevalent those are is also really hard to know, but certainly anecdotally, like talking to teenagers, to some of you guys last year, like it’s not an uncommon thing to have.

Bernie: And how do you think vaping compares with the drug use in the bathroom? Because I know that were some of these vaping devices also meant to, like, alert admin about the drug use or?

Elsen-Rooney: Right? So, yeah, this is, I, you know, when I was in high school, vaping was not really a thing, right? And it’s like, exploded since then, and so I’ve had to kind of learn about some of this. But basically, like, as people may or may not know you can vape either nicotine or THC, it’s a little hard to tell sometimes which one is which you know. Sometimes the devices look different, but like they don’t really emit, always a super clear smell. And one of the selling points, of some of these vape detector devices. I’m not sure how well it actually works, but was that it could distinguish between THC vapor and nicotine vapor. So I think, as you pointed out, that THC is probably a more kind of immediate concern for schools, because then you have kids in school who are like under the influence, and it’s also really like what I heard from substance abuse people is that their biggest concern is that if you are doing that in school, that is an indication that you are addicted.

Bernie: Are there any positive changes that have you know arose in regarding vaping since the introduction of these devices. Or how do you think it’s helped? You know, just in general, track student drug use?

Elsen-Rooney: Yeah, so from one principal I talked to, like they did really see a pretty significant reduction in kids vaping in the bathroom. AndI talked to students who were so kind of frustrated that people would be vaping in the bathroom and they did not want to be around that, that they just wouldn’t go to the bathroom all day, which is a problem. But then if you have policies that maybe restrict the amount of time people can be in the bathroom, then they also are not using the bathroom. So it’s like there’s trade-offs, certainly this principle felt like the vape detectors were kind of an effective way to at least make this problem more visible and allow the school to kind of address it, because it’s hard for administrators to know what’s going on in the bathrooms.

Bernie: Yeah, it is. I’ve heard there’s, like, substance abuse counselors in these schools. How do you perceive the role of those substance abuse counselors in schools?

Elsen-Rooney: Yeah, that was one of the biggest surprises for me in doing this reporting, that we basically have half the number of substance abuse counselors that we had, like, a couple decades ago. And you know, arguably, like the mental health challenges, the kind of availability of some of these products has, has grown even more kind of pervasive. And so the fact that we have like, 260 or so SAPIS counselors in a school in a system with 1600 schools, which is like an eighth or seventh of schools. You know that, to me, kind of speaks to the fact that we as a system are still not adequately confronting the magnitude of this challenge and what it would actually take to address it in a real way.

Bernie: Looking ahead, what changes would you like to see in the school’s handle of vaping and bathroom policies?

Elsen-Rooney: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think there’s, like an easy, clear cut solution here, but what I would like to see is just more discussion of this at, like, a city wide level, like, like I said, I think if you just completely leave it to schools to deal with on their own, like, number one, it’s not it’s a lot of burden to put on schools. And number two, you might start to see these kind of inequities in how schools respond. And so I think, like a more robust system wide, city wide, discussion of like this is an issue would be a good first step.

Bernie: That was Mike Elsen-Rooney, a reporter from Chalkbeat,

Isabella: Schools are creating massive restrictions to stamp out the limited number of vape or behavior incidents that only sometimes happens,

Bernie: Everyone is being harmed throughout this process, and it’s taking a sledgehammer to an issue that maybe could be solved with something much smaller.

Isabella: So what do you think schools should do differently?

Bernie: Well, the DOE and schools should be consulting with students and making any bathroom policies. Students should have their voices represented in these policies. And for Midwood, maybe they should just open up more bathrooms.

Isabella: Yeah, duh.

Isabella: PS weekly is a collaboration between the bell and Chalkbeat made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation, the Summerfield foundation and FJC

Bernie: Producers for this episode were me, Bernie Carmona

Isabella: and me Isabella Mason, and with reporting help from Chalkbeat reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney,

Bernie: Our executive producer for the show is Ave Carrillo and executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

Isabella: Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay and our friends over at Chalkbeat. Our engagement editor is Carolina Hidalgo.

Bernie: This episode was made using Hindenburg Pro music is from Blue Dot sessions, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only Erica Wong and

Isabella: And a big special thanks to. Our mentor, Harry Higgins, who was super duper awesome and helped us with this story.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

School health clinics provide New York students with vital care. Here’s why a payment overhaul could change that.

2025-04-28T09:00:00+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

For Panagiotis Sotiropoulos, a physician assistant, most days bring nosebleeds, ankle sprains, and headaches. There’s diabetes to control and asthma attacks to manage — sometimes so severe they require use of oxygen tanks.

To provide all this care, Sotiropoulous isn’t in a hospital or an urgent care facility. He’s just down the hall from where his patients, who range from 11 to 19 years old, spend most of their time.

Sotiropoulos is the medical provider for a school-based health center in the South Bronx.

“As soon as I walk out of the clinic, it’s like I’m in a different world,” he said. “I smell the food from the cafeteria, I see kids dressed up in uniforms.”

About 250 in-school clinics like this are scattered throughout New York state, reaching roughly 250,000 students in underserved rural and urban areas. But providers and advocates of these clinics fear that this system of care could soon be jeopardized due to a state overhaul of how school-based health centers are paid through the state’s Medicaid system.

For decades, these clinics have provided a wide range of health care to students, offering vaccines, teeth cleaning, and help for mental health struggles, all at no cost. The clinics are integral to their schools and neighborhoods, providing health services in areas where access to care can be limited and issues like asthma can be particularly widespread, advocates say.

The clinics are run by a range of providers, from major hospital systems to nonprofits to federally qualified health center systems like Urban Health Plan, which runs Sotiropoulous’s clinic, as well as others in the Bronx and Queens.

Under the current system, the clinics bill Medicaid on a fee-for-service basis. Last fall, however, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that a long-delayed school clinic payment overhaul would come due this spring. The clinics would be “carved in” to the state’s Medicaid managed care program, requiring them to negotiate a slew of contracts with private health insurance providers.

Providers at school-based health centers are worried the change could mean lower reimbursement rates, reduced services, and clinic closures. And they’re also concerned about what any cuts to Medicaid could mean for the system, as congressional Republicans seek $880 billion in budget cuts over the next decade.

“This is just the worst possible time for you to do anything to shake the foundations of your safety-net care,” said Sarah Murphy, executive director of the New York School-Based Health Alliance, an advocacy organization.

The state postponed its payment overhaul deadline, originally set for April 1, to Thursday at the earliest. Meanwhile, the state budget is nearly a month late, and lawmakers have expressed opposition to the transition, proposing to abandon it in their one-house budget proposals.

The Health Department told providers that the transition would occur no sooner than May 1, “but we cannot comment further at this time due to ongoing budget negotiations,” spokesperson Danielle R. De Souza said in a statement.

School clinics bring comprehensive care to students

New York’s network of school-based health centers has long been a national model, said Dr. Veda Johnson, a professor of pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, who helped open the first school-based health clinic in Georgia in the 1990s.

Johnson’s research into school-based health centers has shown that they are of “tremendous value,” she said, not only by improving preventative care for children, but also by decreasing the burden on the state Medicaid system through reductions in emergency room visits.

The clinics also solve the logistical problem of accessing children’s health care, said Adria Cruz, deputy director of health programs and integration at Children’s Aid, a New York City nonprofit that runs multiple school-based health centers.

“Often the parents have hourly paid jobs,” she said. “Taking time off from work to take their kids to see the doctor could mean that they’re not working that day.”

That could mean annual physicals that don’t happen on time, dental care that gets postponed, or a student coming into school sick because there are no other options. A school-based clinic means that care can happen as part of the school day.

Dr. Viju Jacob, the medical director and vice president of medical affairs at Urban Health Plan, received some of his own early dental care at a school-based health center in the Bronx.

“Many school-based health centers offer the whole-body experience that health care has been talking about forever and ever: integrating services and making sure that they have access to not just physical health, but mental health and dental health,” said Jacob, a pediatrician and vice chair of the New York School-Based Health Foundation.

How a payment overhaul could impact care

While the services that school-based health centers provide are essential, advocates and providers say, the system has always been somewhat financially tenuous. New York City has already seen some of its school-based health clinics close due to budget constraints, and advocates worry that the state’s reform plan could lead to further closures or service reductions.

The state has previously explained the payment overhaul as an effort to integrate school-based health services into the “larger health care delivery system” and coordinate services with children’s primary care providers.

Murphy, of the New York School-Based Health Alliance, said that the current Medicaid fee-for-service system is generally efficient and health centers already work closely with pediatricians.

Under the governor’s plan, school-based health centers will need to negotiate contracts with many private insurers. Advocates are concerned that will mean increased administrative burden on clinics, lower reimbursement rates, and payment delays. As the new deadline approaches this week, Murphy said that while negotiations are underway, they have been complicated, and in many cases, aren’t finished.

For two years following the transition, Medicaid managed care programs will be required to pay school-based health centers no less than the current rates they receive, but providers worry about what could happen next.

Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Bronx Democrat and chair of the Senate Health Committee, has been particularly outspoken in opposing the state’s plan. He sponsors a bill in the state legislature that would permanently carve out school-based health centers from the state’s Medicaid managed care program. Hochul has vetoed previous versions of this bill.

“The administration is insisting on doing a change that makes no sense, that nobody wants,” he said. “The schools don’t want it, the providers don’t want it, the insurance companies don’t want it, the kids and the parents certainly don’t want it. And they’re just, in a boneheaded way, going forward and doing it.”

A poster board in the waiting area of the school-based health center at the I.S. 158 Campus in the South Bronx.

A South Bronx clinic facing an uncertain future

On Friday, the waiting room at the school-based health center in the South Bronx was filling up. The clinic serves students from three schools: Bronx Latin, Bronx Career & College Preparatory High School, and the Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health & Science Charter School.

Nearly 70% of the students at the schools — more than 900 students — are enrolled in the clinic, according to Jacob. In addition to obtaining medical care, students can see a dentist, talk to a behavioral health specialist, or seek out reproductive and sexual health resources.

Carolyn O’Neal, a licensed clinical social worker and behavioral health manager, helps students navigate issues from relationship problems to anxiety and depression. Many behavioral health issues benefit from early intervention, she noted, and school-based clinics can be an ideal place to notice students who are struggling — and step in to help. The same is true for reproductive health care, she said.

“Sometimes you can just tell, when there’s a lot of nervousness, when they come with a group of friends — we know someone needs something,” O’Neal said.

Down the hall, Sotiropoulos jokes that he runs a mini emergency department. It’s a far cry from the in-school health care he remembers from his own education in Queens: a school nurse dispensing Tylenol in the basement.

The repercussions of the approaching payment overhaul are still uncertain, he said.

“I’m worried, honestly. I don’t know what will happen,” he said. “I just hope we stay open. I hope we still offer this. We’ve been doing this for years.”

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org .

See how many students in your Colorado school district are vaccinated against measles

2025-04-11T19:15:47+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Measles cases in Colorado are rising amid a national resurgence of the contagious disease. At least one Colorado case was in an unvaccinated infant, and public health officials are now warning of “possible community transmission.”

The MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, is highly effective at preventing the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly all reported cases in the U.S. are in people who are unvaccinated.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment tracks vaccination rates in school districts, child care centers, colleges, and universities. Overall, nearly 94% of students in preschool through 12th grade have gotten the MMR vaccine, according to the department.

But vaccination rates vary by school district. How many students in your district have gotten the MMR vaccine? Find the answer in the map below.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

NYC comptroller slams Ed. Dept.’s ‘stunning’ failure to complete mandated school asbestos checks

2025-04-09T20:47:06+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department is severely out of compliance with a federal law mandating regular inspections of school buildings containing asbestos, an audit released Wednesday by comptroller Brad Lander found.

Out of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools, a whopping 80% have been identified to have asbestos and are required by federal law to be inspected by an accredited professional once every three years. Yet, only 18% of the more-than 1,400 schools containing asbestos had such inspections between 2021 and 2024, the audit found.

School buildings with asbestos are also required to have routine inspections by a trained employee, such as a custodian, every six months. But the city only began systematically tracking those inspections in 2023 and completed them at just 22% of schools between 2023 and 2024, the audit revealed.

“[The Education Department] has stunningly failed to follow the minimum national standard for asbestos management for years,” Lander said in a statement. “I am urging the Adams Administration to take swift action to come into compliance because no parent, teacher, or school staffer should feel unsafe walking into a school.”

The audit advises the Education Department to create new policies, tracking systems, and accountability plans to quickly improve its compliance.

Asbestos can cause serious health complications including cancer when inhaled. The compound was widely used in school construction during the 20th century, and it can be found in insulation, flooring, and air conditioning equipment. Asbestos can be safely left in buildings as long as it’s intact, but when materials containing asbestos start to degrade, it becomes a safety risk.

Education Department officials claimed there was no risk of exposure because of the city’s abatement practices, according to Lander’s report — an assertion with which the auditors disagreed.

The 1986 Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, mandates regular inspections. Failure to comply with the law can result in financial penalties, according to the audit.

The city school system has a history of falling short on its asbestos inspection obligations: The start of school in 1993 had to be delayed by more than a week after officials had to scramble to conduct hundreds of last-minute emergency inspections.

From 1997 onward, the city completed an average of just 11% of the required triennial inspections in each three year stretch, the audit found.

The comptroller’s audit found the recent rates of inspections were the lowest in Brooklyn, where just 13% of school buildings containing asbestos got their required triennial review between 2021 and 2024. The highest rate was in the Bronx, where 25% of schools received the required inspection.

City officials have also maintained spotty records of their efforts to train custodians to conduct the twice yearly surveillance inspections and of whether those inspections were completed, the audit found. The system improved starting in 2023, but still shows the city completing only a fraction of the required inspections, auditors said.

The auditors also pointed out that some 60 school buildings may be improperly listed as containing asbestos — and receiving unnecessary inspections — because the city’s recordkeeping is out of date.

In a letter to Lander’s office responding to the audit, Education Department Chief Operating Officer Emma Vadehra agreed to all of the comptroller’s recommendations.

The department is hiring an executive director of health and safety to oversee all building safety work citywide, along with five borough-based deputies, and is working to digitize its asbestos inspection records, she added.

Custodian engineers are trained on asbestos and complete “daily walkthroughs” of their buildings that include checking the condition of materials that contain asbestos, Vadehra said.

An Education Department spokesperson noted that the agency requires testing before doing any work on a building.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Las escuelas temen el impacto del recorte en las comidas gratuitas

2025-03-22T03:50:19+00:00

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Todas las escuelas del condado de LaRue, en Kentucky, ofrecen desayuno y almuerzo gratis a cualquier estudiante que lo desee.

Así ha sido durante una década, desde que el gobierno federal puso en marcha un programa que permitió a las escuelas del condado de LaRue, junto con miles de distritos en todo el país, omitir la documentación sobre los ingresos familiares.

En estas comunidades, muchos niños ya reciben asistencia gubernamental por los bajos ingresos familiares. Entonces, las autoridades federales encontraron una forma de optimizar el programa de comidas subsidiadas: en vez de comprobar los ingresos de cada familia, calcularon los costos según el número de niños que reciben programas de ayuda.

Sin embargo, las escuelas del condado de LaRue podrían perder este beneficio si se aprueban los recortes a los programas sociales que impulsan los republicanos en el Congreso. Según los legisladores republicanos, su propuesta busca que la ayuda llegue únicamente a las familias que cumplen con los requisitos y que los fondos federales se concentren en los estudiantes con mayores necesidades. Advierten que de esa manera, los subsidios federales para la comida en las escuelas sería más sustentable. No obstante, una estimación indica que las consecuencias del plan de los republicanos podrían perjudicar a casi una cuarta parte de los estudiantes de las escuelas públicas del país.

Estudios han encontrado que garantizar comidas gratuitas universales en las escuelas puede mejorar la asistencia escolar, elevar los resultados académicos y reducir las suspensiones. Probablemente se debe a que elimina el estigma que muchos estudiantes sienten al recibirlas. Entonces, quitar el beneficio a gran escala podría afectar desde la economía de las familias hasta el desempleo en las comunidades locales.

Stephanie Utley, directora de nutrición infantil del distrito de LaRue County, señaló que, inevitablemente, menos niños consumirán los alimentos escolares. Ya sea porque sus familias ya no cumplen con los requisitos para recibir desayuno y almuerzo gratuitos o porque no pueden presentar los documentos necesarios para comprobar sus ingresos.

Si menos estudiantes reciben las comidas escolares, los costos para el distrito se vuelven más difíciles de manejar. Para ajustarse al presupuesto, Utley señaló que posiblemente tendrían que reemplazar productos de alta calidad por alternativas más económicas.

Las manzanas y la carne de res de granjas locales desaparecerían del menú. En la high school servirían menos ensaladas, ya que su preparación requiere demasiado trabajo. Y el popular sándwich de pechuga de pollo sería reemplazado por una hamburguesa de pollo procesado.

Utley también señaló que podría verse obligada a despedir personal, lo que afectaría la economía de la comunidad rural.

“Somos el comedor más grande de la comunidad”, dijo. “Sería una pesadilla”.

Las propuestas del Partido Republicano sobre comidas escolares afectarían a los estados

Para compensar los recortes fiscales promovidos por el presidente Donald Trump, los legisladores republicanos están debatiendo tres propuestas que serían “devastadoras” para los niños y las escuelas, advierte Erin Hysom, analista principal de nutrición infantil en Food Research & Action Center.

Una de las propuestas aumentaría considerablemente el porcentaje de estudiantes que deben estar inscritos en programas de asistencia, como SNAP (Programa de Asistencia Nutricional Suplementaria) y TANF (Asistencia Temporal para Familias Necesitadas). Solo así, las escuelas podrían seguir ofreciendo comidas gratuitas a todos los alumnos bajo la Disposición de Elegibilidad Comunitaria.

Actualmente, las escuelas pueden participar en la Disposición de Elegibilidad Comunitaria si el 25% de sus estudiantes están inscritos en alguno de los programas de asistencia. La propuesta republicana en la Cámara de Representantes elevaría el umbral al 60%, un nivel sin precedentes. Como resultado, más de 24,000 escuelas perderían el acceso a esta disposición y aproximadamente 12 millones de estudiantes dejarían de calificar automáticamente para comidas gratuitas, según estimaciones de la organización de Hysom.

En esencia, solo las comunidades donde casi todos los niños califican para almuerzos gratuitos o a precio reducido podrían seguir ofreciendo comidas sin costo a todos los estudiantes.

“Han elevado el umbral de pobreza a su nivel más alto”, dijo Hysom. “No podría ser más alto que eso”.

Según la segunda propuesta, las familias que no reciben automáticamente comidas gratuitas a través de programas como SNAP tendrían que presentar documentación que justifique sus ingresos al solicitar el beneficio. La implementación de este requisito añadiría una carga administrativa tanto para las familias como para las escuelas, lo que aumentaría la burocracia. Como efecto, las escuelas podrían verse obligadas a reducir el personal que diseña los menús y prepara los alimentos.

A partir de los ajustes, se generaría un ahorro de 12 mil millones de dólares en un período de 10 años. Así lo indica el documento con la lista de propuestas difundido por el congresista republicano Jodey Arrington, presidente del comité de presupuesto de la Cámara de Representantes.

La tercera propuesta realizaría cambios en los criterios de elegibilidad para SNAP, lo cual probablemente privaría a más de un millón de estudiantes el acceso a la elegibilidad automática para recibir comidas escolares gratuitas. La modificación además, incrementaría la carga de trámites administrativos.

Todo haría que los estados con programas de comidas escolares gratuitas universales enfrenten mayores costos para mantenerlos, ya que dependen en gran medida de los reembolsos federales. Algunos estados ya están evaluando si podrían seguir financiando las comidas gratuitas para todos los estudiantes.

La administración de Trump ya eliminó un programa del Departamento de Agricultura, valorado en mil millones de dólares, que permitía a las escuelas adquirir alimentos de productores locales.

Los recortes en las comidas escolares gratuitas tendrían efectos en cadena

Si menos niños pueden acceder a comidas gratuitas en la escuela, más familias podrían enfrentar dificultades a la hora de realizar las compras para el hogar. Muchas familias que no cumplen con los requisitos para recibir comidas gratuitas tienen problemas para cubrir el costo de la comida. Durante este año escolar, una familia de cuatro miembros podía acceder al programa de comidas escolares gratuitas si su ingreso anual era inferior a $40,560.

Tras la pandemia, las escuelas dejaron de ofrecer comidas gratuitas para todos los estudiantes, lo que provocó un incremento en la deuda por comidas escolares impagas. Según el personal escolar, la situación solo se agravará si estas propuestas son implementadas.

En este momento, las escuelas verifican los ingresos familiares en solo el 3% de las solicitudes. Si se les exigiera revisar cada solicitud, la carga administrativa sería abrumadora, advierten el personal escolar y los defensores de la alimentación infantil.

Las familias que se las ingenian para subsistir con múltiples trabajos podrían tener problemas para recopilar todos los documentos que se requieren para demostrar sus ingresos. Aunque los niños pueden acceder a las comidas escolares sin importar su estatus migratorio, los padres indocumentados podrían tener miedo de proporcionar documentos personales. Especialmente en un contexto de amenazas de deportaciones masivas por parte de Trump.

“Los niños que califican van a quedar fuera del sistema”, advirtió Hysom.

De acuerdo con una encuesta de 2024 realizada a casi 1,400 directores de nutrición escolar, muchas escuelas ya están lidiando con dificultades económicas debido al aumento en los costos de los alimentos y la mano de obra. Además, deben cumplir con nuevas normativas más estrictas que regulan los niveles de sal y azúcar en las comidas escolares.

Las escuelas están obligadas a comprar la mayor parte de sus alimentos de proveedores estadounidenses, pero si Trump impone ciertos aranceles a largo plazo, eso podría generar nuevas dificultades económicas.

“El costo es una preocupación importante”, afirmó Diane Pratt-Heavner, vocera de la Asociación de Nutrición Escolar, la cual representa a los directores de nutrición de las escuelas y llevó a cabo la encuesta. “Si los aguacates o tomates importados de México se vuelven mucho más caros, eso provocará un incremento en la demanda de productos cultivados en el país, lo que también hará subir los precios”.

Shannon Gleave, presidenta de la Asociación de Nutrición Escolar, comprende la importancia de garantizar que el programa de comidas escolares funcione correctamente.

En el Distrito Escolar Primario de Glendale, Arizona, donde Gleave es directora de alimentación y nutrición, los estudiantes pueden avanzar rápidamente en la fila del almuerzo, ya que todos tienen derecho a comidas gratuitas. Aun así, el personal escanea sus credenciales para garantizar que cada niño reciba solo una ración y que quienes tienen restricciones en sus dietas reciban la comida correcta.

Según ella, elevar ligeramente los requisitos de verificación podría ser factible. Sin embargo, revisar el 100% de las solicitudes “no es una forma eficiente de utilizar el tiempo”.

“En este momento, mi equipo no tiene la capacidad de hacer eso”, dijo. “Es necesario encontrar un punto medio entre gestionar bien los recursos y evaluar el peso administrativo que esto supondría”.

Traducido por Flavia Melisa Franco

Kalyn Belsha es reportera senior de educación a nivel nacional y reside en Chicago. Para contactarla puedes escribir a kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Program looks to support high-schoolers responsible for caregiving at home

2025-03-20T15:33:14+00:00

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Aaliyah Taylor, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, is used to having more responsibilities than a typical teenager. She helped her dad feed and tend to her grandmother until she died in 2023, tasks that frequently stressed her out as she was trying to manage her own health issues, like her scoliosis.

“I felt like every 5 seconds I was called for something, even though I just sat back down,” she said.

Mariyah Carson, Taylor’s best friend and a 15-year-old freshman, managed similar family duties as her uncle struggled with diabetes-related immobility and blindness until his death a few years ago. She remembers planning with her siblings how they would approach his care.

“We’d take turns. Like, if you’re doing homework, it’s my turn, and I go down there and watch him,” Carson said. She and Taylor said they continue to help out with other loved ones.

Michelle Bolden, founder of Call for Caring Inc., congratulates students for completing her inaugural Young, Gifted and Caregiving class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

On a recent afternoon inside a Charles Drew High School auditorium, the two sat next to each other at a table topped with plastic bags, fragrant oils, and sugar pouches. The girls quipped and giggled over the instrumental jazz background music while they made body scrub bags, kits intended to help them relax at home.

Carson and Taylor are students at the school in Riverdale, just south of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The body scrub station was the opening activity for this school year’s final session of the Young, Gifted and Caregiving program, a new Atlanta-area initiative to support high-schoolers responsible for taking care of adults or children.

While most of the over 50 million unpaid family caregivers in the United States are adults, experts estimate that there are millions of adolescent Americans who provide this type of work every year. Research on the experience of teenage caregiving is limited, but studies suggest that young caregivers struggle to care for themselves and are at higher risk of anxiety and depression, chronic diseases, and dropping out of school.

These risks are what Young, Gifted and Caregiving aims to address. Once a week throughout February and March, Michelle Bolden, a registered nurse and the founder of the Atlanta caregiver support nonprofit Call for Caring, traveled to Charles Drew to lead lessons for 10 students.

She and an array of guest speakers — like attorneys, nurse practitioners, and mental health specialists — have tried to teach the students how to manage caregiving responsibilities while maintaining their own well-being and ambitions.

It’s the first time Bolden, who recently finished a Chamberlain University doctoral nursing program, has hosted in-person classes for high-school caregivers.

“We couldn’t create that community without them being in-person,” Bolden said.

Charles Drew High School students Zahion Mikell (from left), Mariyah Carson and Aaliyah Taylor listen to Dr. Adrienne during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

Erin Kent, a caregiver research associate professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, said that while there’s strong evidence that support programs can help adult caregivers, there are few, if any, analyses that have examined the best ways to aid high-schoolers with these responsibilities.

But she said evaluating new programs, like the Charles Drew program, is how researchers like herself can determine what could help young people in that position. And school-based initiatives could be more effective at finding teenage caregivers than programs in other settings.

“School is probably going to be the place that reaches more youths,” she said.

School supports teens with caregiving duties at home

Tangela Benjamin had only been Charles Drew’s principal for a few months when she was called to address a student meltdown in October 2023. The sleep-deprived girl complained about how the school’s rules conflicted with family duties.

“She said, ‘A lot of parents don’t parent, and responsibilities that should be on adults are on teenage kids,’” Benjamin said. “And she was like, ‘I happen to be one of these kids with all of these responsibilities.’”

The principal knew there were plenty of students in Riverdale, where the median household income is $16,000 below the national number, who face hardships at home even without tending to their loved ones’ needs. Learning that some faced an extra set of duties, Benjamin said she felt obligated to find a way to extend the school’s support.

“It was very much a great eye opener, and it quickened my spirit a bit,” she said.

Michelle Bolden, founder of Call for Caring Inc., speaks with students during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

It’s a big reason why a year later, when she met Bolden and heard about her work, she jumped at an opportunity to bring a program tailored for high-school caregivers to Charles Drew. Last fall, the Charles Drew staff put together an email survey to find students who have been informal family caregivers. The administrators identified 30 students, and they invited 10 to join the Young, Gifted and Caregiving program.

Bolden wanted to help all 30, but she said it would be difficult to create deep connections with that many students.

“Once it gets too large, they’re not going to talk,” she said.

Those 10 students, including Taylor and Carson, were invited to attend four weekly classes throughout the winter to learn about how to balance their family responsibilities and their own well-being. Among the skills facilitators taught in each session were basic CPR techniques, chronic disease management, and supportive strategies.

An exit survey is filled out by Charles Drew High School students during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

The Young, Gifted and Caregiving program also hosted a Charles Drew charity 5K run, a fundraiser for the school and for a program to give caregivers breaks from their family duties. Bolden said one of the caregiver students on the Charles Drew cross-country team won the race.

At the start of the high school program, Bolden wasn’t sure how long it would take the students to feel comfortable sharing about home lives and experiences with caregiving. But she said it was clear from the first session that they were open to it.

“I thought it would go really slow,” she said. “But they just picked up and really engaged right away.”

Program helps teens balance caregiving with self-care

At the final session this school year, Bolden invited two guest speakers to share how the students could make plans to prioritize their own health needs while tending to their family members.

It’s a balance some of the Charles Drew caregivers are still trying to figure out. While working at a local farmers market over the summer, Zahion Mikell, a 16-year-old sophomore who helps care for his siblings and great grandmother, remembers scampering from one task to the next when another employee asked to check his blood pressure.

“I was just ripping and running, ripping and running,” said Mikell, who also serves as a Youth County Commissioner.

The screening showed that he was at risk of hypertension, and the other employees told him to take care of his health.

Mikell said he tried to do that. But at the first student session of the Young, Gifted and Caregiving program, when Bolden and the other facilitators were teaching the students how to use a blood pressure pump cuff with their family members, they used Mikell’s arm in a demonstration. Once again, his numbers concerned the adults around him.

Since then, Bolden and the Call for Caring workers have made sure to check Mikell’s blood pressure at their weekly meetings. While reading his levels at that final session, Bolden told him he had moved from the “red zone” to the “yellow zone.”

“So that’s good,” Mikell said.

“But for you that’s high,” Bolden responded. “No, not good.”

“I like yellow though,” Mikell replied as the adults around him laughed.

Charles Drew High School freshman Zahion Mikell listens to speakers during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

Some of the students expressed the mental and emotional toll that caregiving has taken on their well-being. Tiandra Hodge, another 16-year-old sophomore, has only lived in the metro Atlanta area over the summer. She’s from the British Virgin Islands, but she left her parents and life in the Caribbean to finish her education in the United States last summer.

Hodge lives with her sister and helps feed and bathe her sister’s children, all under age 6. When the stress of adjusting to a new country, a new high school, and a new set of family responsibilities becomes overwhelming, Hodge said she can forget to eat.

She said she has few options to vent about her problems with anyone in-person.

“It’s very difficult,” she said.

That’s one of the reasons she said she’s found the Young, Gifted and Caregiving class helpful. At the end of that fourth session, in response to Bolden asking the student caregivers to share one thing that stood out about the class, Hodge focused on the shared community the program had created.

“I don’t have nobody to talk to about this,” Hodge told everyone in the auditorium.

Caregivers get continued support as they dream big about future

Bolden is excited for Young, Gifted and Caregiving’s future. She plans to lead another session at Charles Drew next school year, hoping to engage and support the other caregiver students who couldn’t fit in the first year.

She also hopes to recreate the program in at least two other Georgia schools this year. Bolden wants to host a series at one of Atlanta’s high schools and a middle school in Sandy Springs.

Charles Drew High School freshman Mariyah Carson listens to speakers during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

With these plans of expansion, she said she wants to make clear to this year’s Charles Drew students that support for them won’t wither away. Throughout the final session, Bolden brought up multiple times that her nonprofit would continue to engage with the inaugural class members and help with any challenges they might continue to experience.

She even suggested that they could be student ambassadors for the next Charles Drew caregivers in the program.

“These are adults you can trust and still be able to network,” Bolden told the students, gesturing at the Call for Caring workers and the Charles Drew staff who had joined the session. “I don’t want you to think that because you’re here in this situation, it’s not going to get better.”

Kent, the University of North Carolina professor, said one long-term benefit she’d expect from a program like Bolden’s is that the students now know that they are caregivers. With that knowledge, she said, the teenagers can start to seek out help for any issues that may come up.

Just before getting some cake to celebrate the class’s completion, Taylor, the 16-year-old who cared for her grandmother, talked about her future aspirations. She envisions moving to Houston and working as a chef or an entrepreneur.

Charles Drew High School freshman Mariyah Carson, (second from left) poses for a photo with Charles Drew High School principal Tangela Benjamin (left), Call for Caring Inc. founder Michelle Bolden (second from right) and Dementia educator Carrie Harris (right) during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

But if she’s put in a position where she has to care for adults again, like her parents, Taylor said she feels more prepared to meet that task. She’s a little nervous about forgetting the lessons of the past month, but she now knows there are resources for people in her position.

“I would be more experienced to help my mom and my dad once they get a little bit older.”

Allen Siegler is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Allen at asiegler@healthbeat.org.

Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

Almost 10 years later, NYC remains in ‘flagrant’ violation of school menstrual products law: lawsuit

2025-03-17T23:32:57+00:00

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In the nine years since New York City passed a groundbreaking law requiring public schools to provide free menstrual products in bathrooms, the Education Department has consistently “failed to deliver” on its legal obligation, a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan alleges.

The 2016 legislation was the first in the country to require middle and high schools to provide free tampons and sanitary pads in bathrooms.

But in the ensuing years, city Education Department officials violated that law “at every turn,” failing to adequately communicate the new legal obligation to schools or ensure they were complying, according to the suit filed on behalf of the nonprofit Period Law and an unnamed teenage student. As a result, students across the city still routinely miss class time because they don’t have access to menstrual products — and when they are available, students often don’t know about them or don’t want to use them because they’re so low-quality, the suit said.

“The Department [of Education]’s failure to protect the needs of its menstruating students — despite a near-decade-long legal mandate — is both unlawful and willful,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed by the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Last November, after City Council intervention and threats of legal action, the city Education Department published long-awaited compliance data. But the city’s report “falsely claimed that the Department had achieved 100% compliance,” the suit claims.

The suit asked the judge to order the Education Department to set aside a designated budget to comply with the law, hire an independent adviser to monitor its progress, and re-do its data reporting on school-by-school compliance.

Neither the city Education nor Law Department replied to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

At a 2023 City Council hearing, Education Department school facilities chief John Shea called reports of unstocked dispensers “unacceptable” and said schools should escalate complaints to his office. The Education Department has provided a “Know Your Period” student guide to every school, which walks students through how to respond to their periods, according to the city’s data.

NYC’s menstrual equity law breaks new ground

A 2019 national survey found the majority of girls across the country didn’t have access to free menstrual products in their high schools and missed school more frequently as a result.

Many girls don’t know when their periods will start and don’t bring supplies from home, and the cost of menstrual products can put them out of reach for others — a particularly acute problem in a system where more than 70% of students live in poverty. Estimates of the average cost of a month’s supply of menstrual products range from about $9 to $15.

The city’s 2016 law “was intended to put menstrual products on par with bathroom products needed by all students regardless of sex, such as toilet paper and soap,” according to the suit.

But from the outset, implementation was spotty, advocates and lawyers said.

The Education Department’s only communication with schools about the law in 2016 was a short blurb in the weekly Principal’s Digest that failed to mention the legal requirement, according to a public records request filed by Period Law.

Department officials largely placed responsibility for complying with the law in the hands of custodian engineers, who were supposed to receive the menstrual products and dispensers and replenish them when they ran low, according to the suit.

But officials did little to ensure schools were complying, and it often fell to students to ask for refills, according to the suit. Efforts to spread the word about the initiative through flyers were woefully insufficient, the suit added.

In the meantime, several enterprising student groups took oversight into their own hands. A Brooklyn Girl Scout troop visited schools in 2018 and found fewer than 1 in 5 had adequate supplies and disposal bins. An award-winning Bronx middle school podcast reported that students still had to visit the office and use a code word to get pads.

NYC Council steps up the pressure

Long-simmering complaints about the city’s lack of compliance came to the fore during a 2023 City Council hearing. Multiple lawmakers said they’d personally visited multiple schools and found no menstrual products in the bathrooms. Period Law revealed that in a recent survey of city high school students, 85% said they still lacked access to menstrual products at school.

Students said that contributed to an ongoing sense of stigma and shame about periods.

“My school didn’t provide menstrual products, and my classroom didn’t make it a comfortable place to discuss what any of us were experiencing,” said Gabriela Lopez Castillo, a recent college graduate and youth advocate for the group PERIOD, who testified at the 2023 hearing.

The suit also cites 18 examples from 2024 and 2025 of New York City educators creating crowdfunding campaigns to buy menstrual products for students who otherwise wouldn’t have access to them at school.

In December 2023, the council passed a package of new bills meant to shore up the law, expanding the mandate to cover elementary schools, and requiring the Education Department to publicly report on compliance by July 5, 2024. The Education Department blew past that deadline and only published the data in November after Period Law threatened legal action, according to the suit.

The city’s data said 100% of schools complied with the law for the 2023-2024 school year — a contention lawyers say is “obviously and demonstrably false” given the extensive testimony about lack of access to menstrual products in the September 2023 council hearing.

The suit suggests a number of possible remedies, including forcing the Education Department to work with Period Law to improve its data collection and creating a working group of advocates and officials to oversee compliance.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado governor blasts cuts to program that helped schools buy food from local farmers

2025-03-13T19:05:34+00:00

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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture for eliminating more than $13.1 million in funding for programs that help Colorado schools and food banks buy food from local farmers.

“By cutting this funding, the Trump Administration is taking away healthy meals from school children and slashing contracts Colorado farmers depend on to support their businesses and workers,” Polis, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Instead of helping communities put food on the table, this decision pulls resources from schools, food banks, and Colorado families.”

Colorado Department of Education spokesperson Jeremy Meyer said the department was notified by the USDA of the cancellation of a grant known as Local Food for Schools. Politico reported earlier this week that the USDA ended the $660 million Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program along with a similar program that supported food banks.

Colorado was set to receive $5.9 million for school districts and $1.7 million for child care centers through the program before the funding was eliminated, Polis' office said in a press release. The state was set to receive $5.5 million for food banks, the release said.

The Colorado education department already distributed $2.6 million in federal funding through the Local Food for Schools program between September 2022 and February 2024, Meyer said.

The department was planning to open the application process for another round of funding in May, Meyer said, and had “shared information about this funding opportunity with school districts in January.” None of the previous grantees will lose any money, he said.

The $2.6 million was distributed among 33 Colorado school districts and schools, according to a list provided to Chalkbeat by the state education department. The grants ranged from $298 for the tiny 769-student Trinidad School District #1 in southern Colorado to more than $986,000 for the 27,000-student Boulder Valley School District along Colorado’s Front Range.

Carolyn Villa, the food service director for the Boulder district, said in an emailed statement that the district has long sourced food from local growers when possible and will continue to do so.

“While the cancellation of local food funding programs is disappointing, it does not significantly impact our efforts,” Villa said. “The funding we received from these programs was distributed over multiple years and represented only a portion of our total investment in local food sourcing.”

Colorado’s largest school district, 90,000-student Denver Public Schools, received $106,000 through the Local Food for Schools program, according to the list. District spokesperson Scott Pribble said Denver schools spent the money on local produce.

This story has been updated with new funding figures from Gov. Jared Polis' office and with a comment from the Boulder Valley School District.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

How a Republican plan to cut universal free school meals could affect 12 million students

2025-03-12T18:34:41+00:00

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Every school in Kentucky’s LaRue County provides free breakfast and lunch to any student who wants it.

It’s been that way for a decade, ever since the federal government launched a program allowing LaRue County Schools, and thousands of other districts nationwide, to skip the paperwork asking how much families earn.

In these communities, lots of kids already receive other kinds of assistance for low-income families. Federal officials saw a way to make the subsidized meals program more efficient: Cover meal costs based on how many children are in similar assistance programs, rather than verify every family’s income.

But LaRue County Schools won’t be able to do that anymore if sweeping changes to social programs proposed by congressional Republicans become law. GOP lawmakers say they want to ensure only eligible families get help and that taxpayer dollars are reserved for the neediest students, so that federal subsidies for school meals remain sustainable. But by one estimate, the Republicans’ plan would affect nearly a quarter of the students in the nation’s public schools.

Research has found that universal free school meals can boost school attendance, increase test scores, and decrease suspensions, likely because it eliminates the stigma students often associate with the free meals. Taking them away from students on a large scale could also have downstream effects on everything from families’ household budgets to local unemployment.

Stephanie Utley, the LaRue County district’s director of child nutrition, said that inevitably, fewer kids would eat school meals, either because their families no longer qualify for free breakfast and lunch or because they cannot produce documents to verify their income.

When fewer kids eat school meals, it’s harder for districts to cover their costs. To save money, Utley would likely swap higher-quality foods for cheaper ones, she said.

Apples and beef from local farms would go. The high school would serve fewer salads — they’d be too labor-intensive to prep. And a popular chicken breast sandwich would become a ground chicken patty.

Utley may have to lay off staff, too, she said, which would hurt the rural community’s economy.

“We’re the biggest restaurant in town,” she said. “It would be a nightmare.”

GOP school meals proposals would impact states

Republican lawmakers are considering a trio of proposals to help offset tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump that would be “devastating” to children and schools, said Erin Hysom, the senior child nutrition policy analyst for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center.

One proposal would dramatically increase the share of students who need to be enrolled in aid programs — such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — for schools to be eligible to serve free meals to all kids through the Community Eligibility Provision.

Right now, schools need to show 25% of students are enrolled in those kinds of assistance programs to participate in community eligibility. The House Republican proposal would raise the share to 60% — higher than the threshold has ever been. That would kick more than 24,000 schools off of community eligibility, and some 12 million students would no longer automatically qualify for free meals, Hysom’s organization estimated.

Essentially, only communities where nearly every child qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch could serve free meals to all kids.

“They’ve really moved the needle to the upper echelon of poverty,” Hysom said. “You couldn’t get any higher than that.”

Another proposal would require all families who don’t automatically qualify for free school meals through programs like SNAP to submit documents to verify their income with their application. That would burden families and schools with time-consuming added paperwork. Schools could end up cutting staff who serve food and work on school menus to hire more people to process applications.

Together, those changes would save $12 billion over 10 years, according to the list of proposals circulated by U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, the Republican chair of the House budget committee.

A third proposal would change how families qualify for SNAP and likely make over 1 million students no longer automatically eligible for free school meals. That would increase the paperwork burden even more.

All of that would make it more costly for states with universal free school meals to run their programs, because they rely heavily on federal reimbursement. Some states were already weighing whether they could afford to keep up free meals for all.

These three proposals are part of a process known as budget reconciliation that GOP lawmakers are using to make long-term changes to federal spending and revenue. As of Wednesday, Congress was considering a separate, stopgap budget that would keep funding essentially flat for the Agriculture Department, which pays for the school meal program, through the end of September.

School staff and child nutrition advocates are taking the House’s budget reconciliation proposals seriously. The Trump administration has already cut a $1 billion Agriculture Department program that helped schools buy food from local producers.

Free school meal cutbacks would have ripple effects

If fewer kids have access to free meals at school, more families would likely struggle to afford groceries at home. Many families who don’t qualify for free meals struggle to pay for food. This school year, a family of four qualified for free school meals if they made under $40,560 a year.

When schools eliminated free school meals for all following the pandemic, there was a surge in unpaid school meal debt, an issue school staff say will only intensify if these proposals go through.

Right now, schools typically have to verify the family’s income for 3% of their applications. If schools had to check income for every application, the burden would be enormous, school staff and child nutrition advocates said.

Many families who eke out a living working multiple jobs would have a hard time gathering up all the required documents to show how much they earn. Though children can participate in the school meals program regardless of their immigration status, undocumented parents may be afraid to hand over personal documents when Trump is threatening mass deportations.

“Eligible children are going to fall through the cracks,” Hysom said.

Many schools are already facing financial pressures from higher-than-usual food and labor costs, a 2024 survey of nearly 1,400 school nutrition directors showed. On top of that, schools are navigating new and stricter requirements for how much salt and sugar can be in food served by schools.

Schools have to buy most of their food from American sources, but if Trump puts certain tariffs in place for the long term, that could create new financial constraints.

“Cost is absolutely a concern,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors and conducted the survey. “When avocados or tomatoes from Mexico become much more expensive, that will cause an increase in demand for domestic produce, and an increase in price, as well.”

Shannon Gleave, the president of the School Nutrition Association, understands the need to make sure the school meal program runs as it should.

In Arizona’s Glendale Elementary School District, where Gleave is the director of food and nutrition, kids can speed through the lunch line because everyone qualifies for free meals. But staff scan student ID badges to make sure each kid only takes one meal, and that children with dietary restrictions get the right food.

Upping the verification requirements a little could work, she said. But verifying 100% of applications “is not an efficient use of time.”

“There is no way my existing staff could do that now,” she said. “You have to figure out a way to be good stewards of resources, but also look at the amount of administrative burden that it’s going to entail.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Long Island measles case reported, possible public exposure at Queens hospital

2025-03-12T16:36:43+00:00

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The New York State Department of Health has reported a case of measles in a Long Island child, the state’s first case confirmed outside of New York City this year.

The Health Department announced the case on Tuesday, describing the patient as a Suffolk County resident under the age of 5. The child was unvaccinated, according to the Suffolk County Department of Health Services. The announcement follows two cases of measles confirmed in infants in New York City earlier this year, bringing the state’s total number of measles cases in 2025 to three.

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease that is preventable through the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. For those who are unvaccinated, particularly children, the disease can lead to serious complications or even death.

New York’s recent measles cases have emerged amid a rapidly growing outbreak on the Texas-New Mexico border, which has resulted in two deaths. Other measles outbreaks have been reported in a dozen jurisdictions across the country this year, including in Georgia and New Jersey.

Two measles cases have emerged in New York City. Here’s what to know and how to protect yourself.

The Long Island measles patient is being treated at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Queens, which is part of Northwell Health, according to public health officials. The state and local health departments warned the public of at least two potential public measles exposures at the hospital from the case. Members of the public who visited the hospital’s pediatric emergency department from Mar. 3 to Mar. 4, or the Medicine 3 inpatient unit from Mar. 3 to Mar. 6, may be at risk of a measles exposure. Visitors who believe they may have been exposed should contact their local health department, or reach out to their doctor or pediatrician.

The child did not attend daycare or school while infectious, and other potential exposures are being assessed, according to the local health department.

“We are actively working with public health officials under established exposure protocols to ensure no further cases arise from this incident,” Northwell Health spokesperson Joseph Kemp said in a statement. “The situation underscores the critical importance of vaccinations, including the MMR vaccine, and the need for them to help prevent diseases like measles and minimize the risk of spreading these diseases.”

Public health officials urged residents to ensure that they are up-to-date on measles vaccinations.

“Measles can be very serious. It’s much more than just a rash as complications can include pneumonia and inflammation of the brain, and often results in hospitalization,” State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a statement. “The most important thing people can do to protect themselves is to ensure they’ve been properly immunized against measles and immediately get a shot if they are not.”

Children should receive the first dose of the MMR vaccine at 12 months of age, followed by a second dose at 4 to 5 years of age, according to the childhood immunization schedule. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles.

Public health experts stress that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective. But vaccination levels in some parts of New York state have fallen below the 95% threshold of immunization coverage needed to reach herd immunity, or widespread community protection.

In Suffolk County, only 82.6% of children had received one dose of the MMR vaccine by 2 years of age as of January 1, according to data from the state Health Department.

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org.

Two measles cases have emerged in New York City. Here’s what to know and how to protect yourself.

2025-03-07T23:26:10+00:00

This story was originally published by Healthbeat: Public health, explained. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

With measles cases on the rise in the United States, public health experts in New York are encouraging vaccination against the highly contagious virus.

Measles spreads easily and can lead to serious complications, or death, among those who are unvaccinated. New York City has confirmed two cases of measles so far this year, according to Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Both cases involved unvaccinated infants, who have since recovered. The cases were unrelated.

In nearby New Jersey, three connected measles cases have been confirmed this year. A significant measles outbreak has also emerged on the Texas-New Mexico border, with more than 200 cases reported as of Friday. Last week, an unvaccinated child in Texas died from measles — the first known measles fatality in a decade — and on Thursday, officials announced the death of an unvaccinated adult with measles in New Mexico.

Dr. Jennifer Duchon, the pediatric hospital epidemiologist and director of antimicrobial stewardship at the Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, emphasized that measles is preventable through vaccination.

“We don’t need to have measles outbreaks,” she said. “We have a preventative strategy. People don’t need to get sick, and children don’t need to die from this disease.”

Here’s what to know about measles and how to protect yourself and your family.

How contagious is measles?

Measles is far more transmissible than the flu or Covid-19. The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to two hours, according to the World Health Organization.

That means that if someone with measles enters a room of unvaccinated people, everyone would likely become infected, said Dr. Mark Jit, chair and professor of the Department of Global and Environmental Health at the NYU School of Global Public Health.

In the 1950s, before the development of vaccine, nearly all children had measles by the age of 15, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the three million to four million Americans infected each year, about 400 to 500 people died.

The measles vaccine became available in the 1960s, followed by the combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in 1971. In subsequent decades, as vaccination coverage increased, measles cases fell.

In 2000, measles was declared eliminated in the United States. Today, most measles cases that emerge in the United States are imported through travel to countries with high rates of the disease.

What do we know about measles cases in New York City?

In addition to New York City’s two confirmed measles cases, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, reported a confirmed case of measles in an unvaccinated child who traveled by bus last week from John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens to Philadelphia.

The Health Department is aware of that case, but New York City residents were not considered at risk, said Dr. Jennifer Rosen, the Health Department’s director of epidemiology and surveillance. She did not elaborate on how the agency made that determination.

Since New York City is a global travel hub, it’s not uncommon to see measles cases emerge through travel to other countries, she said. But outbreaks are rare.

“That’s really a testament to high vaccination coverage overall in New York City, and particularly among school-aged children,” she said.

Still, vaccination coverage is not equally distributed, and areas with low vaccination rates can increase the risk of local outbreaks.

That’s what happened in 2018, when an unvaccinated child returned to the city from a trip abroad, sparking a large outbreak among Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, with more than 600 cases by the following summer. The outbreak caused serious illness, particularly among unvaccinated children, but no deaths were reported.

For Rosen, that outbreak highlighted the importance of prompt vaccination and achieving herd immunity, which refers to the percentage of immunized people needed to ensure that a disease can’t spread widely in a community. For measles, herd immunity requires about 95% of the population to be vaccinated, according to the WHO.

“If most people in the community are protected, then even if one person gets measles, they can’t transmit it to anyone, because everyone around them is vaccinated,” Jit said.

How high are New York City vaccination rates?

Overall, MMR vaccination rates in New York City are very high. By kindergarten age, 98% of children have received two doses of the MMR vaccine, according to Health Department data.

But the rate of vaccination among younger children is lower, and has fallen in recent years. For children ages 24 to 36 months, the current coverage for one dose of the MMR vaccine is 81%, a decline from 88% in 2019, according to the Health Department.

The lower rate of vaccination for younger children indicates that “we have work to do,” Rosen said.

It’s a concern for the rest of the state as well. In a recent release, the state Health Department warned that current MMR vaccination rates among 2-year-olds have fallen below herd immunity levels in all counties outside of New York City. Only 81.2% of 2-year-olds statewide, excluding New York City, have received one dose of the MMR vaccine, and some counties have rates under 65%.

What are measles symptoms and how are they treated?

Measles symptoms typically appear a week or two after contact with the virus, and can include a high fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes, or a rash, according to the CDC.

Initially, symptoms can be quite general, making it hard for caregivers or health care providers to differentiate measles from other diseases, Duchon said.

But there are telltale signs. Children experiencing the initial stages of the disease are more “miserable” than they would be with a typical cold or cough, and often have a high fever, Duchon said. About three to five days after initial symptoms, a rash typically develops, which turns white when pressed. The rash tends to start in the face and spread across the body.

Not all measles symptoms look the same, and effects can vary as well, she added.

The disease can lead to encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, which can be deadly. Measles can also weaken the immune system, making a patient vulnerable to secondary infections like pneumonia. A patient’s diminished immune system can persist for years.

There is no treatment for measles, Duchon said, and care for a patient tends to be supportive. On average, one to three in every 1,000 children infected with measles die.

How can you protect against measles?

Vaccination is the best way to avoid becoming sick with measles, according to doctors and public health experts.

The CDC recommends that children get two doses of the MMR vaccine, with a first dose at 12 months old and a second dose at 4 to 6 years old. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles. Most people vaccinated against measles are protected for life.

“The vaccine is safe and efficacious,” Duchon said.

In the late 1990s, a now-debunked study by a British researcher connected an increase in autism diagnoses to the MMR vaccine. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that the vaccine is not associated with an increased risk of autism.

An early dose of the MMR vaccine is also recommended for children ages 6 to 11 months who are traveling internationally or in the case of a local outbreak. Those children will still need to receive the full two-dose course of the vaccine at 12 months and at 4 to 6 years old.

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org.

Bill to beef up Colorado funding for universal school meals passes first vote

2025-03-07T03:25:11+00:00

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A bill that would ask voters to approve new funding for universal school meals passed its first vote from Colorado lawmakers Thursday, following testimony from people like Martha Espinoza.

Espinoza, a mom and home early child care provider in Greeley, told lawmakers at the capitol before the vote that free school meals for all students has been important for families she knows.

There are parents who have to wake up before dawn and spend an hour getting to work by 4 a.m. and then work 12-hour shifts every day. For them, preparing meals that stay fresh during the day for their children is complicated, she said.

“This proposal would help parents have the security that their children are fed in a healthy way while they’re learning,” Espinoza said.

She was one of about 30 people who supported the bill in public testimony. Many said that the Healthy School Meals for All program providing universal meals removes the stigma for students, because accepting the meals does not mean they come from low-income families. Educators said that students miss less school and learn better when they’re not hungry. Many who testified spoke to lawmakers in Spanish. Some held back tears as they talked. Two speakers did testify against the bill, citing costs and food waste.

In 2022, Colorado voters approved a ballot proposal to make breakfast and lunch free for all students regardless of family income. The program was funded by lowering a tax credit for taxpayers making more than $300,000 a year, meaning they pay more in taxes.

But many more students than the state projected are eating the subsidized school meals. That means the cost has also gone up and has led legislators to look for more funding.

HB 1274 — sponsored by two Democrats, Rep. Lorena García and Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet — would put two questions to voters this November.

The first would ask voters if the state can keep all of the revenue it collected for the program in its first full year being in effect. That’s because the state ended up collecting more than expected. Under Colorado’s TABOR law, the state must ask permission to keep the extra money, about $12.4 million, or issue refunds to taxpayers.

The second ballot question proposed in the bill would ask voters to approve new revenue to pay for the school meals by further lowering a tax credit for those same taxpayers making more than $300,000. The bill would aim to collect about $95 million in additional revenue to go towards the Healthy School Meals for All program.

Last year, the program had a $56 million shortfall that lawmakers filled from other funding sources.

Lawmakers on the House education committee advanced the bill forward in a 7-5 vote.

Even if the bill makes it all the way through the legislature and the questions make it to voters in November, and the voters approve the questions, the state wouldn’t collect the new funding until 2026. That means the state still needs to find the funds to support the program in the current year.

A report published by the Joint Budget Committee staff this week estimates that the current school year’s cost for Healthy School Meals For All is about $138 million. The state had calculated that about $115 million would come from the program’s funding of taxes on those who make more than $300,000, but new estimates show that the program may only generate about $103 million for this school year.

That would mean the state needs $35.2 million from its education fund to cover the shortfall. Some funding from that account, about $22 million, was already set to help cover the meals program, but this week’s projections show more will be needed.

One speaker, Dan Sharp, a school nutrition director in Mesa County, said in his district participation in school meals has gone up by 40% since the start of the program. The district now serves 12,000 school meals daily, he said.

Prior to the state program making meals free for all students, he said there were students who were eligible for free meals but didn’t participate because of the stigma, and would go hungry.

“We can do a lot more,” he said. Fully funding the program will be a good thing for districts, he added.

Children ‘connected to where their food comes from’

Many of those who testified also spoke in support of Colorado farmers and ranchers.

The original program as voters approved it in 2022 included grant programs that would help school districts purchase local food for the meals, and other grants to help train staff or provide stipends for food service staff.

Those grant programs were supposed to be phased in after the first year, but have been on hold because of the lack of enough funding in the program.

Key Colorado lawmakers want to keep free school meals for all students despite budget shortfall

If voters approved the two ballot questions included in the bill, there may be enough funding to roll out those grant programs.

Luke Larson, owner of a ranch and cattle operation in Fowler in southwest Colorado, sells beef under the Centennial Cuts brand name.

He said he’s benefited from a pilot program that existed before the 2022 initiative and which helped school districts purchase food from local ranchers and farmers. That pilot was due to expand under the grants that have been established by Healthy School Meals for All grants but haven’t been funded yet.

“Our family’s beef is currently being served three miles from our ranch in the Fowler schools, and 20 miles from us in the Crowley schools,” Larson said. “Children in these districts are not only receiving great tasting nutritious food but they’re importantly being connected to where their food comes from, and how it’s produced. This connection to how healthy food is produced will last a lifetime.”

Not everyone has the same priorities. One of the lawmakers who opposed the bill, GOP Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, cited state budget problems this year. She also worried about food waste.

“Not all families need free meals,” Garcia Sander said. “I don’t believe the majority of Colorado’s taxpayers will have the appetite for this this year.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Newark school nurses will get boosts in tuition reimbursements, pay under ‘historic’ new contract

2025-03-03T21:55:36+00:00

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Newark Public Schools nurses will get 4.5% annual raises, an extended workday, and higher starting salaries for certified staff under a new five-year contract approved by the Newark Board of Education last week.

Since the start of the school year, the district’s nurses, represented by the Newark Teachers Association, have highlighted the need for higher pay, more nurses, and improved working conditions after taking on more responsibility following the pandemic and its effect on student health. Some nurses have said they struggled to pay rent on their previous salary, while others reported seeing a rise in depression, asthma, and anxiety among district students that has contributed to an increase in their workload.

The district employs 86 nurses across its 64 schools, according to Paul Brubaker, Newark Public Schools’ communications director.

The new contract also includes increased tuition reimbursement and a nurse stipend, and extends the workday from six hours and 40 minutes to seven hours, aligning with teachers’ schedules under the district’s new universal school hours implemented this school year.

“Our nurses play a vital role in the health and well-being of our students every day, and this contract reflects our deep appreciation for their dedication,” Superintendent Roger León said in a press release.

The NTA spent nearly eight months negotiating the new agreement with Leòn and other district staff. Evelyn Ayum, the NTA president, called the new contract a historic win because for the first time in recent years, it acknowledges nurses’ unique skills, which include administering medication, monitoring diabetics, checking students with asthma, and supporting parents and staff.

The new agreement took effect on March 1, Ayum said.

“This contract wouldn’t have been obtained without the advocacy of nurses being at school board meetings and telling their story,” Ayum told Chalkbeat on Friday. “By [nurses] activating their activism for change, they received a new kind of respect from this contract, and they now have the groundwork for it to get better and better.”

Similar to the Newark Teachers Union contract, the five-year agreement provides 4.5% annual raises, though each nurse’s raise may be different based on which step of the salary guide they are on. All nurses will also receive a $3,000 taxable stipend that will also be used to calculate their pension contributions, Ayum said.

The new contract raises the starting salary next school year for instructional certified nurses from $65,000 to $67,000; the salary for non-instructional nurses will go from $58,500 to $60,300. By 2029, certified nurses will have a starting salary of $74,000, and the salary for non-instructional nurses will start at $66,600, according to the new contract. The increases are higher for nurses with master’s or doctoral degrees.

Tuition reimbursement also increases from $26,500 to up to $60,000 with a $600 per credit for course cap. The bump will help support uncertified nurses who are obtaining their certification, attract new nurses, and retain existing ones, Ayum said. School nurses must hold a license as a registered professional nurse in New Jersey, obtain state certification as a school nurse, and have a bachelor’s degree in either school nursing, public health, or health education.

The new five-year contract also requires nurses to attend their school’s Back-to-School night and fall and spring parent conferences as necessary, according to the nurses' contract. Nurses will be able to clear students for sports and educate parents about issues related to asthma and obesity, especially diabetes, which is rising among youth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ayum added.

The new seven-hour workday for nurses comes after the Newark Teachers Union agreement approved an extended schedule for teachers to add more time for lunch and transition time between periods. Ayum said nurses are used to staying late and helping students as needed, highlighting the importance of their work in schools.

The district’s nurses had been working without a contract since last summer, and roughly 10 nurses attended several school board meetings throughout this school year to urge Leòn and the district’s school board to approve a new agreement.

During a school board meeting in September 2024, Felecia Briggs-Herbert, a nurse at Arts High School with over 30 years of nursing experience, said some district schools are operating with only one school nurse. That falls below the National Association of School Nurses guidelines, which recommends one nurse per 750 students. For students with more complex health care needs, the organization suggests at least one nurse to 125 students.

“Nurses aren’t only relevant during a pandemic. We are essential every day as we care for our students with various medical conditions,” Briggs-Herbert said during that school board meeting. “Nurses are dealing with more and more students under the influence with no real help on top of everything else we are contending with on a daily basis.”

At the same meeting, Carol Wisneiski, a Bard High School nurse with over 17 years of experience in the public schools, said the district needs to fill its nurse vacancies. This school year, the district hired 18 new nurses but continues to hire more as needed, according to Brubaker.

Wisneiski added that nurses are essential to schools and the relationships they build with students are important when caring for them. While treating a student at Central High School, she noticed that the student looked like she was under the influence, but Wisneiski knew the student wasn’t on any substances. Wisneiski and the nurse she was working with quickly realized the student needed to go to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis, a complication of diabetes.

“Folks tend to think that a nurse is a nurse,” said Wisneiski when talking about school nurses and the specialized work they perform in schools. “I can tell you, you can’t put any nurse anywhere.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado voters may get another say in funding free school meals for all

2025-02-25T17:39:19+00:00

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Less than three years after Colorado voters approved a ballot measure to provide all students with free school meals, state lawmakers are considering asking voters for more money to keep the popular program afloat.

A bill introduced this week in the state legislature proposes putting two measures on the ballot in November that would allow the state to collect and keep more tax revenue to cover a funding shortfall for the meals program.

Colorado voters in 2022 supported a move to make breakfast and lunch free for all students regardless of family income. The program was funded by lowering a tax credit for taxpayers making more than $300,000 a year, which has meant they pay more in taxes.

But that funding hasn’t been enough. More children have been eating school meals than budget analysts expected — and more students than expected don’t qualify for federal subsidies.

In the first year the program kicked in, it fell short by $56 million. Lawmakers covered the gap. This year, the program is expected to fall short again — by $27 million, according to figures from a year ago.

Key Colorado lawmakers want to keep free school meals for all students despite budget shortfall

The solution proposed in House Bill 1274, introduced this week, would ask voters in November’s election two questions.

First, voters would be asked to approve letting the state keep the more than $26 million that the program has collected over what it expected — instead of having to issue that money back in refunds to those taxpayers who make more than $300,000.

Because of Colorado’s TABOR amendment, the state is not allowed to keep revenue that exceeds what they tell voters will be collected without explicitly asking for permission. Without that permission, the state has to return money it already collected.

Second, voters would be asked to lower the deductions that taxpayers earning more than $300,000 or more can get to $1,000, so that the state can collect more money. The bill estimates this would generate an additional $95 million each year for the school meals program.

In December, a group tasked with coming up with possible solutions to the funding shortfall presented 27 options. But about a third of those options would limit which students get the free meals, something key lawmakers have said they don’t want to do.

Two lawmakers sponsored the bill: Rep. Lorena García and Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, both Democrats from districts covering parts of Adams county. A spokesperson for Hunger Free Colorado, a nonprofit that advocated for the original program, said leaders with the group have been involved in helping draft the bill.

According to the bill text, the free school meals are “reducing stigma, improving student physical and mental health and well-being, boosting academic success, and saving families money.”

The way the state’s free school meals program was set up, school districts had to choose, or opt-in, to participate and receive state funds. All but one school district has been participating. Statewide, student participation in school meals went up about 30% after all students could get free meals.

When the program was initially proposed, advocates said that many Colorado families who didn’t qualify for free- or reduced-price meals based on the federal guidelines were still struggling financially because of the state’s high cost of living.

And although school meals are now free for any student, schools still ask families to fill out federal eligibility forms. The forms help track the levels of poverty among students, but the state also uses them to receive federal reimbursements for students who qualify for one, before then covering the rest of the cost of the meals.

School districts report that although it takes effort from school leaders to remind parents to fill out the forms, the number of parents filling out forms has not dropped. Statewide this year, 44.9% of students qualified for subsidized meals, down from 45.8% last year.

In the current school year, a family of four would need to make less than $40,560 a year for the children to qualify for free meals, by federal standards.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that all but one school district in Colorado are participating in the Healthy Meals for All program. A previous version said all school districts were participating.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey advocates urge state leaders to fix old school buildings by funding construction program

2025-02-14T11:00:01+00:00

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A coalition of more than 100 organizations representing public school advocates, parents, teachers, and community members are calling on Gov. Phil Murphy and the state legislature to invest $500 million annually to fund New Jersey’s school construction program, starting with the upcoming budget.

Dozens of speakers gathered at a virtual town hall described the experiences of students and staff forced to learn and work in old and crumbling buildings to underscore what they say is an “urgent need” for more funding for school construction projects. A Newark Public Schools teacher said numerous students at Bard High School had to be displaced because classrooms were too cold while teachers from Jersey City and Paterson explained how schools in their districts were dealing with rodents and leaky roofs.

Healthy Schools Now, a coalition of 135 organizations across New Jersey, said it hosted the virtual town hall last week to highlight how years of inadequate funding for the New Jersey Schools Development Authority has left dozens of schools across the state in dire need of repair and replacement. The SDA is responsible for fully funding school construction projects in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts in the state. It also provides grants and undertakes construction projects in regular operating districts under a cost-sharing arrangement.

Murphy will deliver his fiscal year 2026 budget address on Feb. 25 and the coalition hopes his final budget proposal will include an increase to school construction funding.

Over the last three fiscal years, New Jersey has allocated nearly $2 billion for school construction projects but those funds have already been committed to emergency projects, leaving no money for new projects, according to state Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Monmouth), who also chairs the Senate Education Committee.

“What happens outside the classroom impacts inside the classroom,” said Gopal during the town hall. “We have to make sure all of our school districts, especially our urban school districts, are up to date on everything related to HVAC, plumbing, and heating.”

There is an immediate need for an additional 8,000 seats to address overcrowding in schools across the state and more than 50 buildings need to be renovated or replaced due to age and condition just in the 31 high-poverty school districts, according to the SDA’s statewide strategic plan.

The state agency has estimated it will cost, at minimum, an additional $7 billion to address capital projects, such as school building renovations and upgrades, but that amount does not include urgently needed projects in regular operating districts. Last year’s state budget included only $50 million to fund capital maintenance projects across the state.

Some New Jersey students learn in cold classrooms, old schools

During last week’s virtual town hall, state Sen. Raj Mukherji (D-Hudson) said more funding is needed to identify and launch new school construction projects as the need to fix old schools continues to grow.

“It’s just unfair to the children who are going to be tomorrow’s leaders in our state to be educated in these types of environments and in outdated school buildings where the HVAC may not even be comfortable to learn in, let alone the state of disrepair to facilities,” Mukherji added.

Silvia Pereira, an executive vice president for the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey and an English as second language teacher at South Street School, said during the virtual meeting that a substantial investment is needed “to ensure a safe and healthy and modern learning environment for all students, their teachers, and their support staff.”

The state legislature provides funding to the SDA on a “pay-as-you-go basis” with no long-term funding to support school construction work in Newark and the 30 other high-poverty school districts.

At Bard High School, Pereira said, numerous students were relocated because classrooms had no heat and indoor temperatures were dropping to 57 degrees. The heat at Abington Avenue School is also inconsistent, Pereira said, often forcing staff and students to wear their jackets during class. Pereira also described how a teacher at Wilson Avenue School was forced to pump breast milk in her classroom bathroom with no locks on the door because there was no space available.

“While significant strides have been made in funding the school construction program, the ongoing needs in SDA districts necessitate continued and increased investment,” said Pereira during the virtual town hall.

Over the past three fiscal years, the SDA has provided roughly $18 million in funding to Newark Public Schools to address urgent repairs such as HVAC repairs or replacement, masonry, and roofing repairs, among other work. The district can direct the funds to facility improvement projects they deem most needed but ultimately, the SDA is the only one that can build new schools.

Superintendent Roger León estimated that it would take more than $2 billion to fully repair and update all of the district’s schools. Last summer, the SDA agreed to replace 13 of Newark’s oldest school buildings but the deal leaves out 20 schools that need replacement. The agency also committed to spending nearly $153 million to build a new University High School but the plan is in the early stages and needs more funding.

District officials have said that a construction bond referendum would allow them to pay for all their facilities' needs that can’t be funded through its yearly budget. But during January’s school board meeting, León said the district would not present Newark voters with a $1.2 billion bond question in April’s school board election after a poll of district stakeholders showed they would overwhelmingly vote against it, according to León last month. Instead, they would seek other options to fully repair schools but León has not shared what those options would be.

Since 2006, only eight new schools have been built in the district and one other property, which later became the Nelson Mandela Elementary School, was given to the district. Murphy’s budget address will be livestreamed on the governor’s Facebook, X, and YouTube pages.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Parents of diabetic kids urge schools to monitor blood sugar apps

2025-01-30T18:23:39+00:00

Leer en español.

This story originally appeared in KFF Health News and is republished here with permission.

Just a few years ago, children with Type 1 diabetes reported to the school nurse several times a day to get a finger pricked to check whether their blood sugar was dangerously high or low.

The introduction of the continuous glucose monitor made that unnecessary. The small device, typically attached to the arm, has a sensor under the skin that sends readings to an app on a phone or other wireless device. The app shows blood sugar levels at a glance and sounds an alarm when they move out of a normal range.

Blood sugar that’s too high could call for a dose of insulin — delivered by injection or the touch of a button on an insulin pump — to stave off potentially life-threatening complications including loss of consciousness, while a sip of juice could remedy blood sugar that’s too low, preventing problems such as dizziness and seizures.

Schools around the country say teachers listen for CGM alarms from students’ phones in the classroom. Yet many parents say that there’s no guarantee a teacher will hear an alarm in a busy classroom, and that it falls to them to ensure their child is safe when out of a teacher’s earshot by monitoring the app themselves, though they may not be able to quickly contact their child.

Parents say school nurses and administrative staff should remotely monitor CGM apps, making sure someone is paying attention even when a student is outside the classroom — such as at recess, in a noisy lunchroom, or on a field trip.

But many schools have resisted, citing staff shortages and concerns about internet reliability and technical problems with the devices.

“People at the [school] district don’t understand the illness, and they don’t understand the urgency,” said Julie Calidonio of Lutz, Florida.

Calidonio’s son Luke, 12, uses a CGM but has received little support from his school, she said. Relying on school staff to hear the alarms led to instances in which no one was nearby to intervene if his blood sugar dropped to critical levels.

“Why have this technology that is meant to prevent harms, and we are not acting on it,” she said.

Corey Dierdorff, a spokesperson for the Pasco County School District, where Luke attends school, said in a statement to KFF Health News that staff members react when they hear a student’s CGM sound an alert. Asked why the district won’t agree to have staff remotely monitor the alarms, he noted concerns about internet reliability.

Ruby Inman attends class with her diabetes support dog, Echo. Ruby’s mom, Taylor Inman, a pediatric pulmonologist, says Ruby got little help from her San Diego public school after being diagnosed at age 6 with Type 1 diabetes.

Complaints invoke Americans with Disabilities Act

In September, Calidonio filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department against the district, saying its inability to monitor the devices violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires schools to make accommodations for students with diabetes, among other conditions. She is still awaiting a decision.

The complaint comes about four years after the Connecticut U.S. attorney’s office determined that having school staffers monitor a student’s CGM was a “reasonable accommodation” under the ADA. That determination was made after four students filed complaints against four Connecticut school districts.

“We fought this fight and won this fight,” said Jonathan Chappell, one of two attorneys who filed the complaints in Connecticut. But the decision has yet to affect students outside the state, he said.

Chappell and Bonnie Roswig, an attorney and director of the nonprofit Center for Children’s Advocacy Disability Rights Project, said they have heard from parents in 40 states having trouble getting their children’s CGMs remotely monitored in school. Parents in 10 states have filed similar complaints, they said.

CGMs today are used by most of the estimated 300,000 people in the United States with Type 1 diabetes under age 20, health experts say. Also known as juvenile diabetes, it is an autoimmune disease typically diagnosed in early childhood and treated with daily insulin to help regulate blood sugar.

(CGMs are also used by those with Type 2 diabetes, a different disease tied to risk factors such as diet and exercise that affects tens of millions of people — including a growing number of children, though it is usually not diagnosed until the early teens. Most people with Type 2 diabetes do not take insulin.)

Students with diabetes or another disease or disability typically have a health care plan, developed by their doctor, that works with a school-approved plan to get the support they need. It details necessary accommodations to attend school, such as allowing a child to eat in class or ensuring staff members are trained to check blood glucose or give a shot of insulin.

For children with Type 1 diabetes, the plan usually includes monitoring CGMs several times a day and responding to alarms, Roswig said.

Lynn Nelson, president-elect of the National Association of School Nurses, said that when doctors and parents deem a student needs their CGM remotely monitored, the school is obligated under the ADA to meet that need. “It is legally required and the right thing to do.”

Nelson, who also manages school nurse programs in Washington state, said schools often must balance the students’ needs with having enough administrative staff.

“There are real workforce challenges, but that means schools have to go above and beyond for an individual student,” she said.

Henry Rodriguez, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of South Florida and a spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association, said remote monitoring can be challenging for schools. While they advocate for giving every child what they need to manage their diabetes at school, he said, schools can be limited by a lack of support staff, including nurses.

The association last year updated its policy around CGMs, stating: “School districts should remove barriers to remote monitoring by school nurses or trained school staff if this is medically necessary for the student.”

In San Diego, Taylor Inman, a pediatric pulmonologist, said her daughter, Ruby, 8, received little help from her public school after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and starting to use a CGM.

Some schools leave responsibility with parents or doctors

She said alerts from Ruby’s phone often went unheard outside the classroom, and she could not always reach someone at the school to make sure Ruby was reacting when her blood sugar levels moved into the abnormal range.

“We kept asking for the school to follow my daughter’s CGM and were told they were not allowed to,” she said.

In a 2020 memo to school nurses that remains in effect, Howard Taras, the San Diego Unified School District’s medical adviser, said that if a student’s doctor recommends remote monitoring, it should be done by their parents or doctor’s office staff.

CGM alarms can be “disruptive to the student’s education, to classmates, and to staff members with other responsibilities,” Taras wrote.

“Alarms are closely monitored, even those that occur outside of the classroom,” Susan Barndollar, the district’s executive director of nursing and wellness, said in a statement. Trained adults, including teachers and aides, listen for the alarms when in class, at recess, at gym class, or during a field trip, she said.

She said the problem with remote monitoring is that staff in the school office doing the monitoring may not know where the student is to tend to them quickly.

Inman said last year they paid $20,000 for a diabetes support dog trained to detect high or low blood sugar and later transferred Ruby to a private school that remotely tracks her CGM.

“Her blood sugar is better controlled, and she is not scared and stressed anymore and can focus on learning,” she said. “She is happy to go to school and is thriving.”

Lauren Valentine with son Leo, who has Type 1 diabetes. Along with other parents, Valentine helped persuade Virginia’s Loudoun County School District to start monitoring alarms linked via an app to students’ continuous glucose monitors.

Some schools have changed their policies. For more than a year, several parents lobbied Loudoun County Public Schools in Northern Virginia to have school nurses follow CGM alerts from their own wireless devices.

The district board approved the change, which took effect in August and affects about 100 of the district’s more than 80,000 students.

Before, Lauren Valentine would get alerts from 8-year-old son Leo’s CGM and call the school he attends in Loudoun County, not knowing if anyone was taking action. Valentine said the school nurse now tracks Leo’s blood sugar from an iPad in the clinic.

“It takes the responsibility off my son and the pressure off the teacher,” she said. “And it gives us peace of mind that the school clinic nurses know what is happening.”

KFF Health News is Healthbeat’s national reporting partner. Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

Las escuelas no están conectadas como debieran a la tecnología para afrontar la diabetes infantil

2025-01-30T18:23:32+00:00

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El artículo fue publicado originalmente en KFF Health News. Se republica con permiso.

Hace apenas unos años, los niños con diabetes tipo 1 iban a la enfermería de la escuela varias veces al día para que les pincharan un dedo y ver si su nivel de azúcar en sangre era peligrosamente alto o bajo.

La llegada del monitor continuo de glucosa (MCG) hizo que eso ya no fuera necesario. El pequeño dispositivo, que normalmente se coloca en el brazo, tiene un sensor bajo la piel que envía lecturas a una aplicación en un teléfono u otro dispositivo inalámbrico. La aplicación muestra los niveles de azúcar en sangre en un instante, y emite una alarma cuando están fuera del rango normal.

Un nivel de azúcar en sangre demasiado alto podría requerir una dosis de insulina —con una inyección o solo tocando un botón en una bomba de insulina— para evitar complicaciones potencialmente mortales, como la pérdida del conocimiento. Un sorbo de jugo podría solucionar un nivel muy bajo de azúcar en sangre, previniendo problemas como mareos y convulsiones.

En las escuelas, los maestros están atentos a las alarmas de los MCG de los teléfonos de los alumnos. Sin embargo, muchos dicen que no hay garantía de que un maestro escuche una alarma en un aula ruidosa, y que les corresponde a ellos como padres garantizar la seguridad de sus hijos, supervisando ellos mismos la aplicación, aunque no puedan ponerse en contacto rápidamente.

Los padres dicen que las enfermeras escolares y el personal administrativo deberían supervisar de forma remota las aplicaciones de MCG, asegurándose de que alguien esté atento incluso cuando el estudiante esté fuera del aula, en el recreo, en un comedor ruidoso o en una excursión.

Pero muchas escuelas se han resistido, argumentando escasez de personal y preocupación por la fiabilidad de internet y los problemas técnicos con los dispositivos.

“La gente del distrito [escolar] no entiende la enfermedad, y no entiende la urgencia”, dijo Julie Calidonio, de Lutz, Florida.

El hijo de Calidonio, Luke, de 12 años, usa un MCG, pero ha recibido poco apoyo de su escuela, según la madre: nadie escuchaba la alarma o intervenía si su nivel de azúcar en sangre bajaba a niveles críticos.

Ruby Inman asiste a clase con Echo su perro de apoyo para personas que viven con diabetes. La madre de Ruby, Taylor Inman, neumonóloga pediátrica, dijo que Ruby recibió poca ayuda de su escuela pública de San Diego después que le diagnosticaran diabetes tipo 1 a los 6 años y comenzara a usar un monitor continuo de glucosa, que activa una alarma si su nivel de azúcar en sangre es demasiado alto o bajo. La escuela no se comprometió a monitorear las alarmas a través de una aplicación, por lo que su familia adquirió el perro, que está entrenado para detectar niveles anormales de azúcar en sangre, y luego transfirió a Ruby a una escuela privada que monitorea las alarmas de forma remota.

“¿Por qué tenemos esta tecnología que está diseñada para prevenir daños y no la utilizamos?”, preguntó.

Corey Dierdorff, vocera del Distrito Escolar del condado de Pasco, donde Luke va a la escuela, dijo a KFF Health News que el personal reacciona cuando escuchan que el MCG de un estudiante emite una alerta. Cuando se le preguntó por qué el distrito no acepta que el personal supervise las alarmas de forma remota, dijo que duda de la eficacia de internet.

En septiembre, Calidonio presentó una denuncia ante el Departamento de Justicia contra el distrito, alegando que su incapacidad para supervisar los dispositivos viola la Ley de Estadounidenses con Discapacidades (ADA), que exige a las escuelas adaptarse para ayudar a los estudiantes que viven con diabetes, entre otras afecciones. Todavía está a la espera de una decisión.

La denuncia ocurrió unos cuatro años después que la fiscalía federal de Connecticut determinara que supervisar el MCG de un alumno en la escuela era una “adaptación razonable” bajo ADA. Esa determinación se tomó después que cuatro estudiantes presentaran denuncias contra cuatro distritos escolares de Connecticut.

“Luchamos y ganamos esta batalla”, dijo Jonathan Chappell, uno de los dos abogados que presentaron las denuncias en Connecticut. Pero la decisión aún no ha impactado en estudiantes en otros estados, agregó.

Chappell y Bonnie Roswig, abogada y directora de la organización sin fines de lucro Center for Children’s Advocacy Disability Rights Project, explicaron que han escuchado de padres en 40 estados que tienen problemas para que las escuelas monitoreen de manera remota los MCG de sus hijos.

Expertos en salud afirman que, en la actualidad, la mayoría de las aproximadamente 300.000 personas menores de 20 años con diabetes tipo 1 en Estados Unidos utilizan MCG. También conocida como diabetes juvenil, es una enfermedad autoinmune que suele diagnosticarse en la primera infancia y que se trata con insulina diaria para ayudar a regular el azúcar en sangre.

(Los MCG también se utilizan en casos de diabetes tipo 2, una afección diferente vinculada a factores de riesgo como la dieta y el ejercicio que afecta a millones de personas, incluyendo un número creciente de niños, aunque por lo general no se diagnostica hasta principios de la adolescencia. La mayoría de las personas con diabetes tipo 2 no utilizan insulina).

Los estudiantes que viven con diabetes, u otra afección o discapacidad, suelen tener un plan de salud desarrollado por su médico, que funciona con otro aprobado por la escuela para tener el apoyo que necesitan. Detalla adaptaciones necesarias, como permitir que un niño coma en el aula o asegurarse que el personal esté capacitado para controlar la glucosa o administrar una inyección de insulina.

Para los niños con diabetes tipo 1, el plan suele incluir monitorear los MCG varias veces al día y responder a las alarmas, indicó Roswig.

Lynn Nelson, presidenta electa de la National Association of School Nurses, dijo que cuando los médicos y los padres consideran que un estudiante necesita que su MCG sea monitoreado de forma remota, la escuela está obligada, bajo ADA, a satisfacer esa necesidad. “Es un requisito legal y es lo correcto”.

Nelson, que también gestiona programas de enfermería escolar en el estado de Washington, señaló que las escuelas a menudo deben equilibrar las necesidades de los estudiantes con la disponibilidad de personal.

“Hay verdaderos desafíos en materia de personal, pero eso significa que las escuelas tienen que hacer todo lo posible, y más, por ayudar a cada estudiante”, afirmó.

Henry Rodríguez, endocrinólogo pediátrico de la Universidad del Sur de Florida y vocero de la American Diabetes Association, dijo que este monitoreo puede ser un reto para las escuelas. Aunque abogan para que cada niño reciba lo que necesita para controlar su diabetes en la escuela, según Rodríguez, las escuelas pueden verse limitadas por la falta de personal de apoyo, incluidas enfermeras.

El año pasado, la asociación actualizó su política sobre los MCG estableciendo que “los distritos escolares deben eliminar las barreras para que las enfermeras escolares o el personal escolar capacitado monitoree los MCG de manera remota, si esto es médicamente necesario para el estudiante”.

En San Diego, Taylor Inman, neumonóloga infantil, dijo que su hija Ruby, de 8 años, recibió poca ayuda de su escuela pública después que le diagnosticaran diabetes tipo 1 y empezara a usar uno de estos dispositivos.

Contó que las alertas del teléfono de Ruby a menudo no se escuchaban fuera del aula, y que no siempre podía comunicarse con alguien para asegurarse de que Ruby reaccionaba cuando sus niveles de azúcar en sangre se volvían anormales.

“Seguimos pidiendo a la escuela que siguiera el MCG de mi hija y nos dijeron que no estaban autorizados a hacerlo”, afirmó.

Lauren Valentine con su hijo Leo, que tiene diabetes tipo 1. Junto con otros padres, Valentine ayudó a persuadir al Distrito Escolar del condado de Loudoun, en Virginia, para que comenzara a monitorear las alarmas de los monitores de glucosa de los estudiantes que viven con diabetes a través de una aplicación, para detectar niveles anormales de azúcar en sangre. “Ha sido un gran cambio para mi hijo, ya que depende completamente de los adultos para el control de su diabetes”, dijo.(Lucca Valentine)

En un memorando de 2020 enviado a las enfermeras escolares, que sigue vigente, Howard Taras, asesor médico del Distrito Escolar Unificado de San Diego, comunicó que si el médico de un estudiante recomienda el monitoreo remoto, debe hacerlo un padre o personal del consultorio del médico.

Las alarmas del MCG pueden ser “perturbadoras para la educación del estudiante, para los compañeros de clase y para los miembros del personal con otras responsabilidades”, escribió Taras.

Susan Barndollar, directora ejecutiva de enfermería y bienestar del distrito aseguró en un comunicado que el problema con la supervisión remota es que el personal de la oficina de la escuela que la realiza puede no saber dónde está el estudiante para asistirlo rápidamente.

Inman dijo que el año pasado pagaron $20.000 por un perro de apoyo para la diabetes entrenado para detectar niveles altos o bajos de azúcar en sangre y luego transfirieron a Ruby a una escuela privada que rastrea de forma remota su MCG.

“Su nivel de azúcar en sangre está mejor controlado, ya no está asustada ni estresada y puede concentrarse en aprender”, dijo Inman. “Está feliz de ir a la escuela y está progresando mucho”.

Algunas escuelas han cambiado sus políticas. Durante más de un año, varios padres presionaron a las escuelas públicas del condado de Loudoun, en el norte de Virginia, para que las enfermeras escolares siguieran las alertas del MCG desde sus propios dispositivos inalámbricos.

La junta del distrito aprobó el cambio, que entró en vigencia en agosto y afecta a cerca de 100 de los más de 80.000 estudiantes del distrito.

Antes, Lauren Valentine recibía alertas del MCG de su hijo Leo, de 8 años, y llamaba su escuela, en el condado de Loudoun, sin saber si alguien estaba tomando medidas. Valentine dijo que la enfermera del colegio ahora controla el azúcar en sangre de Leo desde un iPad en la clínica.

“Le quita la responsabilidad a mi hijo y la presión al maestro”, afirmó. “Y nos da tranquilidad que las enfermeras de la clínica escolar sepan lo que está pasando”.

Childhood vaccination rates, a rare health bright spot in struggling states, are slipping

2025-01-16T18:20:00+00:00

This story first appeared in KFF Health News and is republished here with permission.

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Jen Fisher can do only so much to keep her son safe from the types of infections that children can encounter at school. The rest, she said, is up to other students and parents in their hometown of Franklin, Tennessee.

Fisher’s son Raleigh, 12, lives with a congenital heart condition, which has left him with a weakened immune system. For his protection, Raleigh has received all the recommended vaccines for a child his age. But even with his vaccinations, a virus that might only sideline another child could sicken him and land him in the emergency room, Fisher said.

“We want everyone to be vaccinated so that illnesses like measles and things that have basically been eradicated don’t come back,” Fisher said. “Those can certainly have a very adverse effect on Raleigh.”

For much of Raleigh’s life, Fisher could take comfort in the high childhood vaccination rate in Tennessee — a public health bright spot in a conservative state with poor health outcomes and one of the shortest life expectancies in the nation.

Mississippi and West Virginia, two similarly conservative states with poor health outcomes and short life expectancies, also have some of the highest vaccination rates for kindergartners in the nation — a seeming contradiction that stems from the fact that childhood vaccination requirements don’t always align with states’ other characteristics, said James Colgrove, a Columbia University professor who studies factors that influence public health.

“The kinds of policies that states have don’t map neatly on to ‘red’ versus ‘blue’ or one region or another,” Colgrove said.

More parents opting out of vaccines for kids

Advocates, doctors, public health officials, and researchers worry such public health bright spots in some states are fading: Many states have recently reported an increase in people opting out of vaccines for their kids as Americans’ views shift.

During the 2023-24 school year, the percentage of kindergartners exempted from one or more vaccinations rose to 3.3%, the highest ever reported, with increases in 40 states and Washington, D.C., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Tennessee and Mississippi were among those with increases. Nearly all exemptions nationally were for nonmedical reasons.

Vaccine proponents worry anti-vaccine messaging could accelerate a growing “health freedom” movement that has been pushed by leaders in states such as Florida. Momentum against vaccines is likely to continue to grow with the election of Donald Trump as president and his proposed nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Pediatricians in states with high exemption rates, such as Florida and Georgia, say they’re concerned by what they see — declining immunization levels for kindergartners, which could lead to a resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles. The Florida Department of Health reported nonmedical exemption rates as high as 50% for children in some areas.

“The religious exemption is huge,” said Brandon Chatani, a pediatric infectious disease doctor in Orlando. “That has allowed for an easy way for these kids to enter schools without vaccines.”

In many states, it’s easier to get a religious exemption than a medical one, which often requires signoff from a doctor.

Over the past decade, California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York have removed religious and philosophical exemptions from school vaccination requirements. West Virginia has not had them.

Idaho, Alaska, and Utah had the highest exemption rates for the 2023-24 school year, according to the CDC. Those states allow parents or legal guardians to exempt their children for religious reasons by submitting a notarized form or a signed statement.

Florida and Georgia, with some of the lowest reported minimum vaccination rates for kindergartners, allow parents to exempt their children by submitting a form with the child’s school or day care.

Both states have reported declines in uptake of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, which is one of the most common childhood shots. In Georgia, MMR coverage for kindergartners dropped to 88.4% in the 2023-24 school year from 93.1% in 2019-20, according to the CDC. Florida dropped to 88.1% from 93.5% during the same period.

Andi Shane, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Atlanta, traces Georgia’s declining rates to families who lack access to a pediatrician. State policies on exemptions are also key, she said.

“There’s lots of data to support the fact that when personal belief exemptions are not permitted, that vaccination rates are higher,” she said.

Mississippi starts allowing religious exemptions

In December, Georgia public health officials put out an advisory saying the state had recorded significantly more whooping cough cases than in the prior year. According to CDC data, Georgia reported 280 cases in 2024 compared with 96 the year before.

Until 2023, Mississippi was one of the few states that allowed parents to opt out of vaccinating their kids only for medical reasons — and only with the approval of a doctor. That gave it among the highest vaccination rates in the nation as of the 2023-24 school year.

“It’s one of the few things Mississippi has done well,” said Anita Henderson, a pediatrician who has practiced in the southern part of the state for nearly 30 years. In terms of health, she said, childhood vaccination rates were the state’s one “shining star.”

But that changed in April 2023 when a federal judge ordered state officials to start allowing religious exemptions. The ruling has emboldened many families, Henderson said.

“We are seeing more and more skepticism, more and more vaccine hesitancy, and a lack of confidence because of this ruling,” she said.

State officials have granted more than 5,000 religious exemptions since the court order allowing them, according to the state health department. Daniel Edney, the state health officer, said most of the requests have come from “more affluent” residents in “pockets” of the state.

“Most people listen to the expert opinions of their pediatricians and family medicine doctors to stay on the vaccine schedule, because it’s what is best to protect their children,” he said.

West Virginia’s vaccine law — which hasn’t allowed nonmedical exemptions — also could soon change, Matthew Christiansen said in December before he resigned as the state’s health officer.

A bill that would have broadened exemptions made it through the legislature last year but was vetoed by outgoing Republican Gov. Jim Justice. The new governor, Republican Pat Morrisey, has been a vocal critic of vaccine mandates. And just a day after being inaugurated, he issued an executive order to propose provisions by Feb. 1 that could allow religious and conscientious exemptions.

“I want to send a message that if you have a religious belief, then we’re going to have an exception,” he said at a Tuesday press conference. “We’re not going to be the outlier.”

People asserting their personal freedoms to decline vaccines for their kids can ultimately curtail the ability of others to live full lives, Christiansen said. “Kids getting measles and mumps and polio and being paralyzed for their whole life is an impediment on personal freedom and autonomy for those kids,” he said.

Since the Covid pandemic, anti-vaccine sentiment has been growing in Tennessee. One organization, Stand for Health Freedom, drafted a letter for constituents to send to their state lawmakers calling for the resignation of the medical director of Tennessee’s Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program. The group said she demonstrated a “lack of respect for the informed consent rights” of the people.

“They feel emboldened by the idea that this presidential administration seems to feel very strongly that a lot of these issues should be taken back to the states,” said Emily Delikat, director of Tennessee Families for Vaccines, a pro-vaccine group.

Ultimately, like many effective public health interventions, vaccines are a victim of their own success, said Henderson, the Mississippi pediatrician. Most people haven’t seen outbreaks of measles or polio, so they forget how dangerous the diseases are, she said.

“It may unfortunately take a resurgence of those diseases to raise awareness to the fact that these are dangerous, these are deadly, these are preventable,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Daniel Chang and Sam Whitehead are reporters with KFF Health News, Healthbeat’s national reporting partner. Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

Climate change threatens youth mental well-being. Here’s how to help them cope.

2025-01-10T23:58:26+00:00

This story was originally published by KFF Health News and is republished here with permission.

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We’ve all read the stories and seen the images: The life-threatening heat waves. The wildfires of unprecedented ferocity. The record-breaking storms washing away entire neighborhoods. The melting glaciers, the rising sea levels, the coastal flooding.

As California wildfires stretch into the colder months, and hurricane survivors sort through the ruins left by floodwaters, let’s talk about an underreported victim of climate change: the emotional well-being of young people.

A nascent but growing body of research shows that a large proportion of adolescents and young adults, in the United States and abroad, feel anxious and worried about the impact of an unstable climate in their lives today and in the future.

Abby Rafeek, 14, is disquieted by the ravages of climate change, both near her home and far away. “It’s definitely affecting my life, because it’s causing stress thinking about the future and how, if we’re not addressing the problem now as a society, our planet is going to get worse,” says Abby, a high school student who lives in Gardena, California, a city of 58,000 about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

She says wildfires are a particular worry for her. “That’s closer to where I live, so it’s a bigger problem for me personally, and it also causes a lot of damage to the surrounding areas,” she says. “And also, the air gets messed up.”

Climate change is a serious concern for young people

In April, Abby took a survey on climate change for kids ages 12-17 during a visit to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Rammy Assaf, a pediatric emergency physician at the hospital, adapted the survey from one developed five years ago for adults. He administered his version last year to over 800 kids ages 12-17 and their caregivers. He says initial results show climate change is a serious cause of concern for the emotional security and well-being of young people.

Assaf has followed up with the kids to ask more open-ended questions, including whether they believe climate change will be solved in their lifetimes; how they feel when they read about extreme climate events; what they think about the future of the planet; and with whom they are able to discuss their concerns.

“When asked about their outlook for the future, the first words they will use are helpless, powerless, hopeless,” Assaf says. “These are very strong emotions.”

Rebuilding after Helene and Milton: Educators share experiences from previous disasters

Assaf says he would like to see questions about climate change included in mental health screenings at pediatricians’ offices and in other settings where children get medical care. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that counseling on climate change be incorporated into the clinical practice of pediatricians and into medical school curriculums, but not with specific regard to mental health screening.

Assaf says anxiety about climate change intersects with the broader mental health crisis among youth, which has been marked by a rise in depression, loneliness, and suicide over the past decade, though there are recent signs it may be improving slightly.

A 2022 Harris Poll of 1,500 U.S. teenagers found that 89% of them regularly think about the environment, “with the majority feeling more worried than hopeful.” In addition, 69% said they feared they and their families would be affected by climate change in the near future. And 82% said they expected to have to make key life decisions — including where to live and whether to have children — based on the state of the environment.

And the impact is clearly not limited to the United States. A 2021 survey of 10,000 16- to 25-year-olds across 10 countries found “59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried” about climate change.

Susan Clayton, chair of the psychology department at the College of Wooster in Ohio, says climate change anxiety may be more pronounced among younger people than adults. “Older adults didn’t grow up being as aware of climate change or thinking about it very much, so there’s still a barrier to get over to accept it’s a real thing,” says Clayton, who co-created the adult climate change survey that Assaf adapted for younger people.

By contrast, “adolescents grew up with it as a real thing,” Clayton says. “Knowing you have the bulk of your life ahead of you gives you a very different view of what your life will be like.” She adds that younger people in particular feel betrayed by their government, which they don’t think is taking the problem seriously enough, and “this feeling of betrayal is associated with greater anxiety about the climate.”

Abby believes climate change is not being addressed with sufficient resolve. “I think if we figure out how to live on Mars and explore the deep sea, we could definitely figure out how to live here in a healthy environment,” she says.

How to ease kids' anxiety about environment

If you are a parent whose children show signs of climate anxiety, you can help.

Louise Chawla, professor emerita in the environmental design program at the University of Colorado-Boulder, says the most important thing is to listen in an open-ended way. “Let there be space for kids to express their emotions. Just listen to them and let them know it’s safe to express these emotions,” says Chawla, who co-founded the nonprofit Growing Up Boulder, which works with the city’s schools to encourage kids to engage civically, including to help shape their local environment.

Chawla and others recommend family activities that reinforce a commitment to the environment. They can be as simple as walking or biking and participating in cleanup or recycling efforts. Also, encourage your children to join activities and advocacy efforts sponsored by environmental, civic, or religious organizations.

Working with others can help alleviate stress and feelings of powerlessness by reassuring kids they are not alone and that they can be proactive.

Worries about climate change should be seen as a learning opportunity that might even lead some kids to their life’s path, says Vickie Mays, professor of psychology and health policy at UCLA, who teaches a class on climate change and mental health — one of eight similar courses offered recently at UC campuses.

“We should get out of this habit of ‘everything’s a mental health problem,’” Mays says, “and understand that often a challenge, a stress, a worry can be turned into advocacy, activism, or a reach for new knowledge to change the situation.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KFF Health News is Healthbeat’s national reporting partner.

Philly schools receive $16.7 million for bathroom, roof, other repairs at 7 buildings

2024-12-10T22:27:37+00:00

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Philadelphia schools are getting nearly $17 million from the state to repair and upgrade seven aging buildings, officials announced Tuesday.

The money will pay for everything from fixing bathrooms that don’t work to patching up roofs and auditoriums. It’s part of a statewide $175 million grant program in the 2024-25 state budget for school building upkeep, said state Sen. Vincent Hughes, one of the legislators who fought for the funding.

“Tangible action and financial investments like this signal to young people that they are important,” said Mayor Cherelle Parker at an event held at West Philadelphia’s Martha Washington Elementary School, which was built in 1929. “We can’t have students, teachers and administrators going into buildings with leaking roofs and unreliable bathrooms.”

The investment comes at a time when the district has embarked on a facilities planning process that officials warn could result in the closing of some school buildings, including those that are costly to maintain and under-enrolled — a description that fits Martha Washington, located on 44th street near Lancaster Avenue.

Current enrollment at Martha Washington is just over 200 students, in a building that takes up most of a city block.

Philadelphia’s share of the grant, $16.7 million, will fund eight renovation projects in seven schools, including Martha Washington. Several of the school’s 17 bathrooms are nonfunctioning, said Principal Lakeisha Patrick.

“This is an old building, but a gem in West Philadelphia,” she said, adding that staff and students “deserve a nice environment.”

But the $16.7 million represents a small fraction of the need in Philly: some estimates have put the total cost to repair and upgrade schools anywhere from $5 billion to nearly $10 billion.

State and local governments jointly fund schools’ operating costs along with the federal government. But state aid for capital expenditures like school construction and repair is a separate matter.

The state has a program called PlanCon designed to help school districts fix and modernize school buildings, Hughes said. But funding halted for that program in 2015, even though schools all over the state need help to meet 21st century needs, Hughes said. He described a visit he took with a colleague to a rural school in western Pennsylvania a few years ago that was built during Reconstruction, but is still in use.

“We went into the sub basement, and the backup generator was literally a car engine,” he said.

Students’ lack of access to working, clean, well-stocked bathrooms was also a key issue in Monday’s City Council hearing. Oz Hill, the district’s interim deputy superintendent of operations, told council members the district has eight plumbers servicing over 2,000 school bathrooms.

Other grants will go to bathroom renovations at George W. Childs, window replacements at James G. Blaine, and roof replacements at Cayuga and Francis Hopkinson elementary schools. Edison High School will get nearly $900,000 to upgrade the ventilation system in the culinary section of its career and technical education program.

Nearly half the amount, $8.3 million, will be used to repair the auditorium and the roof at Overbrook High.

In an interview after the event, Hughes acknowledged that the district is in the process of reevaluating its building needs on a path to rightsizing and efficiency. The state facilities grants program “in some respects is a bridge” to the more permanent plan, he said.

School officials on Monday held a virtual public meeting to emphasize the work it is doing to maximize the environmental safety of each school building.

Victoria Flemming, executive director of the district’s office of environmental management and services, and other officials explained how each school building is inspected twice a year, with every room and surface examined for hazards such as friable or loose asbestos, mold, and lead in paint and drinking water.

These inspections comply with the mandates of the federal Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, known as AHERA, Fleming said. They came up when Philadelphia had to close three schools in early 2023 due to damaged asbestos.

Room-by-room inspection reports for 297 school buildings, some of which run to hundreds of pages, are available for the public to access both online and in paper copies at school offices.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Key Colorado lawmakers want to keep free school meals for all students despite budget shortfall

2024-12-06T23:41:27+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers on a key legislative committee want to continue offering free school meals to all students, even though the cost of the popular new program is higher than initially expected.

During a hearing of the state’s Joint Budget Committee on Tuesday, several lawmakers came out against cost-cutting proposals that would eliminate universal free meals for students in some grades or school districts.

Sen. Jeff Bridges, the committee’s chairperson, said, “Making sure that kids aren’t hungry when they’re trying to learn is a core service [of schools], and it’s one that we as a state need to fund.”

Rep. Shannon Bird, the committee’s vice chair, agreed, adding, “I’m not in favor of anything that shifts financial responsibility for feeding kids to local school districts.”

Colorado’s universal school meals program launched last school year after voters approved funding in 2022 that reduced state income tax deductions for households earning $300,000 or more. The measure raised more than $100 million for the Healthy School Meals for All program, but there was still a $56 million shortfall last year. The legislature found the money to close that gap last year and this year, but is still seeking long-term solutions.

An advisory group report released this week offered 27 possible options. About one-third of the options would involve limiting eligibility to certain students or schools, for example, by removing high schoolers from the program or covering lunch but not breakfast. But a host of education and advocacy organizations consulted by the advisory group were “resoundingly” opposed to these types of restrictions, the report said

They believe “universal meals should be maintained as originally legislated; it is too soon to cut a program that has just begun,” the report said.

Other budget-balancing options in the report mostly revolve around bringing in more tax revenue to support the program or using existing federal or state dollars to augment current funding.

The Joint Budget Committee expressed particular interest in a move that was mentioned in the advisory report but was not officially one of the 27 options: asking voters next November if the state can keep the tax revenue it collected above what it initially asked voters for in 2022. In the first year of the program, that amounted to $26 million. A state law known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, requires excess funding to be returned unless voters explicitly allow the state to keep it.

Committee members also briefly discussed potential legislation that would decouple state tax deduction rules used to fund universal school meals from federal tax deduction rules. If they don’t cut that tie, funding for the meals program could plummet after the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires at the end of 2025.

While the Joint Budget Committee was clearly opposed to any budget solution that would feed fewer kids free school meals, they did seem willing to limit grant programs that were originally intended to roll out with the free meal offerings. The grants, which mostly are on hold now, would have helped districts buy Colorado-grown food, provide stipends for kitchen employees, and pay for training or equipment. The committee plays a major role in crafting the state budget each year, with the full legislature approving it. The meals program is part of the state budget.

Bridges said lawmakers won’t make a final decision on the grant programs until spring, when they get closer to finalizing the state budget. Still, he said, “I do think that it’s pretty clear where the committee is on that question, which is no on the grants, yes on the [meals].”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Whooping cough and food insecurity levels are on the rise in New York

2024-12-04T21:54:34+00:00

This story was originally published by Healthbeat.
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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Here’s what you need to know about New York public health this week.

Whooping cough is spreading in New York and nationally

Whooping cough (pertussis) cases have surged in New York and nationally, returning to pre-pandemic levels. New York has reported 2,337 cases this year, compared to 687 last year. Nationally, there has been almost a fivefold increase in infections this year compared to last.

This bacterial infection causes runny/stuffy nose, sneezing, fever, and intense and sometimes uncontrollable coughing fits. Newborns are especially at high risk — the name “whooping” cough comes from the sound babies make between coughing fits. Among infants under 2 months who contract whooping cough, about half require hospitalization, and 1 out of 100 die. This is why vaccination of pregnant women and close contacts is critical to protecting newborns before they can receive their own vaccines.

One reason whooping cough may resurge is that vaccine protection wanes over time. New vaccines are being developed to provide more durable protection, but they aren’t yet on the market. Currently, there are two types of combination vaccines (meaning they protect against multiple things) available:

DTap
Tdap

These vaccines protect against whooping cough, tetanus (the “T” in the name), and diphtheria (the “D/d” in the name). Children younger than 7 years receive DTaP, while older children and adults receive Tdap.

Whooping cough vaccine guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The CDC recommends that everyone be vaccinated against whooping cough.

For people who are pregnant, getting a shot of Tdap during the 27th-36th week of pregnancy is crucial to boost the baby’s immunity, helping protect them from whooping cough when they are most vulnerable to it. Tdap vaccination during pregnancy protects 9 in 10 babies from being hospitalized with whooping cough.
Babies, young children, preteens, and teens can follow vaccination schedules for their initial DTap and Tdap shots and boosters.
It’s a good idea for adults who have never received Tdap to get it — it can be given anytime.

When we see whooping cough increase, our response as a community is mainly aimed at protecting babies through vaccination and ensuring those around babies are vaccinated.

Hunger and food insecurity are on the rise in New York

Last week, while most gathered to share Thanksgiving meals, many faced a very different reality. Food insecurity, meaning someone doesn’t have enough to eat at least some of the time, affects 1.9 million New Yorkers. This is up 76% since 2021, with 1 in 6 households with children lacking enough to eat, and is higher than the 55% increase seen nationwide.

Food insufficiency in New York state and New York City metropolitan area, 2021 vs 2024.

During 2021-23, 1.2 million people in New York City (14% of the population) lived in food-insecure households. New York City’s rates are highest in the Bronx, where 1 in 5 residents and 1 in 3 children experience food insecurity.

To combat food insecurity, food assistance programs provide free or reduced-cost food. There are three main ways to access food assistance in New York:

From THE CITY: How to get help paying for food and groceries in NYC

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program): A federal program that issues EBT cards for purchasing food.
- About 35% of New Yorkers qualify for SNAP, but only 75% of eligible New York City residents are enrolled. There’s a lot of room for improvement.
- See the New York SNAP website for eligibility criteria.
Free or reduced-price meals for children in school.
- New York City public schools offer free meals to all students during the school year. Learn more here.
- Many schools outside New York City also offer free or reduced-price meals — eligibility details are available here.
Food banks, pantries, and soup kitchens. These organizations offer free or low-cost food across New York.
- Use the Food Help NYC tool or call 311 to find nearby locations, or view a list of food assistance providers across the state here.

If you’re not food-insecure and want to help:

Donate food: Drop off items at supermarket collection points, send them via online shops, or donate money to food banks.
Volunteer: Help sort, pack, cook, serve meals, or assist with home deliveries.

To find ways to get involved, reach out to your local food bank or soup kitchen.

New York is still in a drought while fires die down

While recent rain in New York helped wildfire suppression and improved air quality, much of the state is still under drought warning. New York City’s reservoir is still below 20% of historical standards.

Data and figure from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation

During the drought, New Yorkers are urged to conserve water:

Shorten showers: Save 5–7 gallons a minute.
Turn off faucets: While shaving, brushing teeth, or doing dishes (faucets use 2–3 gallons a minute).
Fix leaks: A slow drip wastes 15–20 gallons daily.
Report fire hydrant leaks: Call 311.

More tips are available here.

Dry conditions have increased wildfire risks in New York. The Jennings fire, which burned 5,304 acres along the New York-New Jersey border in November, is fully contained. Thank you to all the firefighting professionals and volunteers who responded.

Freezing temperatures in New York City trigger Code Blue warnings

A Code Blue Weather Emergency notice is issued when the temperature drops below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit or less) between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. No one will be denied shelter in New York City during a Code Blue. Should you see a vulnerable person out in the cold, call 311, and an outreach team will be dispatched to offer assistance. We expect more frequent Code Blue warnings to be issued now that temperatures have dropped this season.

Bottom line

You’re all caught up on this week’s New York public health news. See you next week!

Love,

Your Local Epidemiologist

Dr. Marisa Donnelly, a senior epidemiologist with wastewater monitoring company Biobot Analytics, has worked in applied public health for over a decade, specializing in infectious diseases and emerging public health threats. She holds a PhD in epidemiology and has led multiple outbreak investigations, including at the California Department of Public Health and as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Marisa has conducted research in Peru, focusing on dengue and Zika viruses and the mosquitoes that spread them. She is Healthbeat’s contributing epidemiologist for New York in partnership with Your Local Epidemiologist, a Healthbeat supporter. She lives in New York City. Marisa can be reached at mdonnelly@healthbeat.org.

¿Almuerzo para 200 personas? Estos estudiantes de una escuela charter en Colorado los hacen todos los días.

2024-11-21T21:24:20+00:00

Read in English.

Brayden, Sabrina, y Rachel rasparon las pieles chamuscadas de los chiles poblanos, exprimieron las semillas y dejaron caer la carne resbaladiza del chile en un tazón de acero inoxidable.

“¡Chicos! ¿Por qué estamos dejando tantas semillas allí”? dijo Sabrina, de 16 años, entre risas y con algo de exasperación.

“Dios mío, siguen apareciendo”, dijo Brayden, también de 16 años. “Las limpio y aparecen ocho más”.

Eran casi las 9 a.m. de un martes, y los tres trabajaban con sus compañeros para preparar pozole en su primera clase del día en la escuela STEAD, una escuela charter en Commerce City, al noreste de Denver. En poco más de dos horas, la fragante sopa mexicana de maíz, pollo, chiles y tomates sería la estrella de la línea de almuerzo de su preparatoria. Uvas, rodajas de naranja y una barra de ensaladas eran los actores secundarios.

Kai, un estudiante de tercer año en la escuela STEAD, corta los chiles para el pozole.

La sesión de preparación durante las mañanas ocurre cuatro días a la semana en STEAD, una escuela enfocada en agricultura y ciencias, donde quizás escuches el canto de un gallo en tu camino hacia la entrada principal. Los estudiantes de dos clases de “equipo de alimentos” ayudan a preparar comidas caseras para más de 200 estudiantes y maestros todos los días, excepto los miércoles, que es medio día. Bajo la dirección de Dain Holland, el encargado de la granja y los alimentos de la escuela, preparan platos como boloñesa de bisonte, pollo al sésamo con naranja, hamburguesas y sándwiches vietnamitas de bánh mì, todos los cuales cumplen con las directrices federales de nutrición escolar.

STEAD, que matricula a más de 400 estudiantes, no es la única escuela en Colorado con un programa de almuerzos impulsado por los estudiantes. Compass Montessori, una escuela charter en el condado de Jefferson donde algunos miembros del personal de STEAD trabajaron anteriormente, ha tenido un sistema similar desde hace tiempo.

En STEAD, la iniciativa de almuerzo surgió en parte por necesidad. Cuando la escuela abrió en el 2021, un distrito vecino proporcionaba los almuerzos —”algo así como tu comida estándar de recalentar y servir”, dijo Holland. Pero después de dos años, el distrito decidió terminar su contrato con STEAD.

Fue entonces cuando Holland, quien trabajó anteriormente como chef en restaurantes como el exclusivo Barolo Grill de Denver y dirigió un programa de servicios de alimentos en una universidad de California, decidió lanzar una operación de almuerzo dirigida por los estudiantes.

“Hay un montón de niños aquí que muestran interés en la cocina”, dijo. “Tenemos estas hermosas y nuevas cocinas, así que bien podrían ser utilizadas”.

Holland dijo que la mayoría de los estudiantes toman una clase introductoria de cocina antes de inscribirse en la clase conocida en ingles como “food crew”, aunque hace excepciones si los estudiantes tienen experiencia en la cocina en casa o en un trabajo. “Food crew” enfatiza las precauciones de seguridad alimentaria, incluyendo mantener los platos a la temperatura adecuada y evitar la contaminación cruzada.

El día del almuerzo de pozole, alrededor de una docena de estudiantes trabajaron en estaciones alrededor de la cocina, picando verduras para la sopa o para la barra de ensaladas de la escuela. Hunter, un estudiante de último año que es asistente de enseñanza para la clase, asó los chiles poblanos en una estufa a gas de seis quemadores y ayudó a preparar el pollo crudo para hornearlo. Holland, que llevaba un delantal marrón con marcadores y un bolígrafo sujetados al bolsillo, ofreció asistencia y consejos de cocina mientras se movía por la cocina.

Hunter, un estudiante de último año que es asistente de enseñanza para la clase, asó los chiles poblanos para el pozole.

“Todo lo que se hace en una cocina comercial normal, ellos lo están haciendo aquí”, dijo. “Se trata casi como un trabajo, como un turno en un restaurante. Tengo una gran lista de preparativos todos los días”.

Riley, un estudiante de 17 años que picaba cuidadosamente una cebolla amarilla, dijo que se enamoró de la cocina porque siempre hay alguien en la cocina en su casa, generalmente su papá o su abuela. Ya ha sido admitido en el programa de artes culinarias de la Universidad Colorado Mesa en Grand Junction para el próximo año.

“El sueño es ser un chef personal”, dijo.

No todos los estudiantes del “food crew” desean una carrera en la cocina. Algunos simplemente disfrutan de la naturaleza práctica y relajada de la clase o cocinan como pasatiempo.

Admire, un estudiante de tercer año que a menudo prepara sopas y platos de pollo con su madre, dijo que está considerando una carrera en música o arquitectura. Pero disfruta de la clase de preparación de alimentos porque cocinar para toda la escuela implica un nivel diferente de responsabilidad, comentó.

Los estudiantes de la escuela charter STEAD en Commerce City toman los platos de pozole que les pasa Dain Holland, el encargado de la granja y los alimentos de la escuela.

Brayden, un estudiante de tercer año que trabajó con Sabrina y Rachel quitando las semillas de los pimientos, dijo que la cocina es su opción de carrera número tres, por si no le resulta el juego profesional de billar o el negocio de bienes raíces.

Como varios otros estudiantes en la clase, dijo que la pizza es su almuerzo favorito para preparar. Hizo una broma sobre la superioridad de su clase en ese aspecto.

“En la otra clase, hacen la masa muy delgada y como que no hay salsa ni nada, y nosotros, la hacemos bien gruesa, con queso, salsa, todo”, dijo. “Así que, somos la clase preferida para los días de pizza”.

Traducción por Jackie Ramirez

Ann Schimke es reportera senior de Chalkbeat y cubre temas relacionados con la niñez temprana y la alfabetización temprana. Para comunicarte con Ann, envíale un email a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Tennessee K-12 school building costs escalate amid competing political priorities for education

2024-11-21T01:12:56+00:00

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Tennessee needs to spend about $9.8 billion on repairs, upgrades, or construction to keep its K-12 public school buildings safe and conducive to learning, according to a new state report.

That’s an average of about $6,557 per student over five years, to complement the minimum of $7,075 that Tennessee spends annually per pupil to cover the cost of their education.

And while Tennessee’s nearly 1,700 traditional school campuses are generally in good or excellent condition, the report says more than half of the state’s 95 counties need to prioritize at least one costly capital project for their students, whether it’s building a new school, adding classroom space to an existing campus, or making upgrades across a district — things like new roofs, plumbing, and heating and cooling systems.

The findings, published Wednesday by the education research arm of the state comptroller’s office, aren’t surprising. They’re consistent with previous assessments of the state’s public infrastructure needs, including the most recent inventory conducted in 2022, which ranked education behind transportation and utilities as Tennessee’s costliest needs.

But the latest review by the comptroller’s office, which was requested by House Education Committee Chairman Mark White of Memphis, comes amid competing priorities for educating Tennessee students.

With rising construction costs, momentum has been building among state lawmakers to identify a new revenue source to help local governments and taxpayers shoulder the costs of school maintenance and construction. Those needs escalated in September when flooding from Hurricane Helene caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to roads, bridges, utilities, and schools in northeast Tennessee.

But the GOP-controlled legislature, which is responsible for passing an annual state budget, is facing pressure from Republican Gov. Bill Lee to create a statewide school voucher program. Lee’s Education Freedom Act would give tens of millions of dollars in public funding annually to families who want to send their children to private schools.

Lee’s latest private school voucher bill includes proposed new money for public school infrastructure, an attempt to gain support from public school advocates. In addition to giving a one-time bonus of $2,000 for Tennessee’s public school teachers, the bill would redirect 80% of tax revenues from Tennessee’s sports betting industry toward school building needs, especially for emergencies and the nearly 40 rural counties designated as distressed or at risk.

Meanwhile, state economists’ project declining or stagnant revenues next fiscal year, because Lee’s administration pushed through a $1.9 billion tax cut for businesses this spring.

Building needs are acute in Memphis and Nashville

In its separate infrastructure report released in January, the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations identified 18 school buildings, including 11 in Nashville, that are in poor condition.

This week’s comptroller’s report said it would cost $2.3 billion just to upgrade schools from poor or fair condition to good or excellent condition.

The needs are acute in Memphis, which has some of the state’s oldest school buildings. Leaders there are struggling under the weight of a long list of maintenance and construction projects.

While no buildings in Memphis-Shelby County Schools are rated in poor condition, 45 are considered in fair condition. That means they are structurally sound but require maintenance or repairs to meet building code or functional upgrades to improve their use.

In addition, the Memphis district is trying to build two new high schools in Frayser and Cordova, but the $385 million price tag for both projects may put at least one of them in jeopardy.

“We can’t afford two new high schools right now,” school board member Amber Huett-Garcia said Tuesday night during a workshop where Superintendent Marie Feagins fielded questions about their status.

Huett-Garcia said the district is operating in a “fiscally constrained environment” that recently required leaders to reallocate $94 million for operational expenses that originally was intended for school maintenance.

“Our buildings are worsening,” she added, “and so my fear is that we end up with two half-built high schools.”

District seeks a new funding source for infrastructure

Whether it’s air conditioning problems in the summer, heating issues in the winter, or water fountains and intercom systems that don’t work in any season, Memphis school leaders say a new long-term funding source is imperative for addressing those needs.

Next month, the board is expected to include state infrastructure funding among its legislative priorities ahead of the Tennessee General Assembly session that begins Jan. 14 in Nashville.

To help defray school building costs, the board wants lawmakers to look into redirecting revenues from sales, use, and excise taxes; lottery revenue; or proceeds from the sale and use of state lands.

Feagins said Tuesday that her administration recently completed a yearlong, districtwide building assessment, which will be used for prioritizing all future capital projects.

Tennessee doesn’t set aside revenue for school facilities, as five neighbors do

The state already provides some funding for K-12 capital projects, including facility funding for charter schools, infrastructure stipends for fast-growing districts, and grants to improve building security and energy efficiency.

White, the Memphis lawmaker who asked for the comptroller’s review, also requested a rundown of how other states help local governments pay for school building projects.

Analysts cited three main ways: appropriations, financing assistance, and dedicated revenues.

“Tennessee leverages appropriations and financing assistance but does not specifically dedicate revenues to K-12 capital expenditures,” the report said.

Possible revenue sources include sales and use taxes; tax levies on the purchase of alcohol, nicotine products, and marijuana; as well as proceeds from lotteries or use taxes on timber logging, oil and gas extraction, and public land sales.

According to the Education Commission of the States, 19 states dedicate revenues for school-related capital projects. Five of those states — Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia — border Tennessee.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Public Schools taps Planned Parenthood to teach sex ed, health care to students with disabilities

2024-11-20T20:19:03+00:00

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Students with disabilities at American History High School are learning about sexuality, healthy relationships, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity among other health-related topics through a partnership between Newark Public Schools and Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey.

The nonprofit organization, which provides sexual and reproductive health care and education across the country, is offering eight sex education workshops to students ages 18 to 21 in the transition program at American History. Parents do not have to provide consent for their children to participate in the workshops, according to Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director.

The transition program teaches students with disabilities life skills and provides support as they leave the school system and head to the workforce and life outside school. Last month, the Newark school board approved a “memorandum of understanding” with Planned Parenthood, a formalized partnership that allows the organization to provide workshops on the introduction to sexuality, self-advocacy, puberty, self-esteem, and consent, among other topics at no cost to the district this school year.

Planned Parenthood’s staff “has the education, certification, training, and work experience in this area so as to be able to provide the services responsibly,” wrote Brubaker in an email to Chalkbeat on Wednesday.

With students having more access to information and social media than ever before, it’s vital to provide a basic education on sexuality and health care rights, said Jessica Preleski, senior director of education services at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey. For students with disabilities, it’s important to offer that education in a way they can understand and that allows them to ask questions, Preleski added.

“We really let people know that people with disabilities also have changing bodies,” Preleski said. “They have relationships and they even have sex. We try to simplify the presentations a little more and provide visuals so the understanding is there.”

Typically, Planned Parenthood’s workshops are for middle and high school students. At the middle school level, students learn about reproductive anatomy and hygiene and when they get into high school, those conversations also cover sex.

“We always say, it’s not a one-time conversation,” Preleski said.

At American History, the 45 students in the transition program will learn about a range of topics, including the difference between sex, gender, and identity as well as 20 options to prevent pregnancy, including abstinence, hormonal & barrier methods, and lifestyle choices. Last school year, the organization also provided workshops to American History students in the transition program, Preleski said. Every year, Planned Parenthood also provides high school and transition program students at New Jersey Regional Day, a district school for students with disabilities, with their sex and health-related education workshops.

But before Planned Parenthood enters any classroom, they speak with school and district leaders to learn more about the type of instruction their students may need. The school’s administration also notifies parents of the program and topics that will be covered. Planned Parenthood met with team leaders at American History to understand what instruction works for their students and what information they need.

“Why were we requested? What is it about healthy relationships that students need to know?” Preleski said. “Did something happen? Do they have questions about consent?”

From there, school districts receive a copy of the lesson plan in which Planned Parenthood lays out its objectives and connects them with state learning standards, Preleski added.

Each lesson is 40 minutes long and interactive to ensure students are engaged, learning, and feeling safe. For students with disabilities at American History, the organization takes a different approach by providing more visuals with their lessons, printing out photos and placing them in front of students, and repeating things more frequently to support their understanding.

During the workshops, students can also ask questions anonymously by writing them down on index cards. At home, students can also use Planned Parenthood’s sexual health chatbot called Roo. The AI chatbot answers questions backed by professional health educators from the organization, Preleski said.

Sex ed lessons cover internet safety, consent, self-esteem

Planned Parenthood provides workshops to help parents and teachers understand health-related topics and support them in answering student questions. Planned Parenthood also attended the district’s Parent University program, where district parents, community leaders, and staff discuss a wide range of topics related to youth and schools. Last school year, the organization provided an overview for parents to navigate conversations about sex and also provided training to teachers during professional development days about creating safe spaces for students and handling tough questions.

“Sex ed has changed so much from when I got it. It used to be more prevention-based, and now, it’s also about internet safety, consent, and self-esteem,” Preleski said “It can be really hard and daunting but we want to provide the resources and help guide those conversations.”

During training, teachers have also raised questions about referring students to Planned Parenthood health centers and pregnancy options through safe haven laws in New Jersey. Under New Jersey’s Safe Haven Infant Protection Act, the state allows any individual to safely surrender an infant, legally and anonymously at any hospital, police station, fire station, ambulance, first aid, or rescue squad.

New Jersey laws also require schools to provide human sexuality instruction but each district is responsible for creating its own curriculum, provided they comply with learning standards set by the state’s department of education. The state’s Comprehensive Health and Physical Education portion of New Jersey Student Learning Standards requires sex education programs to provide a “comprehensive range of high-quality information” in schools but also mandates that curricula stress abstinence as the most reliable means of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

The state also has several laws that allow minors to either receive certain services without prior parental consent or authorize them to consent for specific health care services, including some preventive services, according to the New Jersey chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. In particular, state laws cover care for pregnant minors, STD care, HIV treatment, treatment for drug or alcohol use or dependency, outpatient mental health treatment, and services related to sexual assault. Young adults 18 and older are allowed to consent for their health care, but their rights may be limited if they are cognitively impaired and unable to give informed consent, according to the NJAAP.

As part of its partnership with Newark Public Schools, Planned Parenthood also provides a student internship program called Teen LINKS. The organization recruits and trains high school students to teach their peers about sex through school events or formal classroom visits. Students at Science Park and East Side High Schools and BRICK Gateway Academy are part of the Teen Links program.

“Sex ed isn’t just for youth, it’s for everyone,” Preleski said. “We’re constantly learning about issues and really enforcing that informed decisions really promotes safer decisions.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Lunch for 200 people? These Colorado charter school students do it every day.

2024-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

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Brayden, Sabrina, and Rachel scraped the charred skins off poblano peppers, squished out the seeds, and dropped the slippery pepper flesh into a stainless steel bowl.

“Guys! Why are we leaving so many seeds in there?” 16-year-old Sabrina said, half laughing, half exasperated.

“Oh my God, they just keep appearing,” said Brayden, also 16. “I clean it off and eight more show up.”

It was almost 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, and the three worked with classmates to make posole in their first class of the day at STEAD School, a charter school in Commerce City northeast of Denver. In just over two hours, the fragrant Mexican soup of hominy, chicken, peppers, and tomatillos would be the star of their high school’s lunch line. Grapes, orange wedges, and a salad bar were the supporting actors.

Kai, a junior at STEAD School, cuts peppers for posole on a recent day.

The morning meal prep session happens four days a week at STEAD, an agriculture and science-focused school where you might hear a rooster crow on your way to the main entrance. Students in two “food crew” classes help prepare scratch-cooked meals for more than 200 students and teachers every day but Wednesday, which is a half day. Under the direction of Dain Holland, the school’s farm and food manager, they make entrees like bison bolognese, sesame orange chicken, cheeseburgers, and Vietnamese bánh mì sandwiches, all of which adhere to federal school nutrition guidelines.

STEAD, which enrolls more than 400 students, isn’t the only school in Colorado with a student-powered lunch program. Compass Montessori, a charter school in Jefferson County where some STEAD staff previously worked, has long had a similar set up.

At STEAD, the lunch initiative came about partly out of necessity. When the school opened in 2021, a neighboring district provided lunches — “kind of your standard reheat-and-serve” fare, Holland said. But after two years, the district decided to discontinue its contract with STEAD.

That’s when Holland, who previously worked as a chef at restaurants like Denver’s upscale Barolo Grill and led a food service program at a California university, decided to launch a student-run lunch operation.

“There’s a ton of kids here that show interest in culinary,” he said. “We have these beautiful, brand new kitchens, so it might as well be used.”

Holland said most students take an introductory culinary class before enrolling in the food crew class, though he makes exceptions if students have cooking experience at home or at a job. Food crew emphasizes food safety precautions, including keeping dishes at the proper temperature and avoiding cross-contamination.

The day of the posole lunch, about a dozen students worked at stations around the kitchen, chopping vegetables for the soup or the school’s salad bar. Hunter, a senior who’s a teaching assistant for the class, charred poblano peppers on a six-burner gas stove and helped prepare raw chicken to be baked. Holland, who wore a brown apron with markers and a pen clipped to the pocket, offered assistance and cooking tips as he circulated.

Hunter, a teaching assistant for the "food crew" class, roasts poblano peppers that will end up in posole.

“Anything you do in a normal commercial kitchen, they’re all doing here,” he said. “It is treated almost like a job, like a shift at a restaurant. I have a big prep list every day.”

Riley, a 17-year-old senior who carefully chopped a yellow onion, said he fell in love with cooking because someone is always in the kitchen at his house, usually his dad or grandma. He’s already been admitted to the culinary arts program at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction for next year.

“The dream is to be a personal chef,” he said.

Not every food crew student wants a career in cooking though. Some simply like the relaxed hands-on nature of the class or enjoy cooking as a pastime.

Admire, a junior who often makes soups and chicken dishes with his mother, said he’s considering a career in music or architecture. But he enjoys the food prep class because cooking for the whole school involves a different level of responsibility, he said.

Students at STEAD School in Commerce City pick up bowls of posole from Dain Holland, the school's farm and food manager, in the orange shirt.

Brayden, a junior who worked with Sabrina and Rachel de-seeding peppers, said cooking is his third-line career option, if professional pool-playing or real estate don’t work out.

Like several other students in the class, he said pizza is a favorite lunch to make. He joked about his class’s superiority on that front.

“In the other class, they make the crust really thin and like, there’s no sauce and stuff, and then us, we make it really thick, cheese, sauce, everything,” he said. “So, we are the preferred class for pizza days.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Philly schools get state grant to plant more trees

2024-11-12T21:43:12+00:00

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Lauryn Lawson, 10, a fifth grader at Logan Elementary School in Northwest Philadelphia, likes trees and plants. So does her classmate Lawrence Butler, 11. They both take every opportunity they can to go outside and help tend the small raised bed vegetable garden on the school’s front lawn.

For one thing, planting and harvesting peppers and other vegetables “is more fun than being in the classroom,” Lawrence explained.

He also likes learning about what he eats and how they grow, like “broccoli, carrots, and lettuce,” he said.

On Tuesday, Lawrence, Lauryn, and other students were front and center with important city and state officials to highlight a half-million dollar grant to the Philadelphia school district for the planting and tending of trees on its property.

The $500,000 to the school district is part of $79.4 million in state grants to organizations and government entities that will help fund 307 environmental and recreational activities in 57 of the Commonwealth’s 67 counties. Philadelphia is receiving $5 million of that money for 17 projects.

The district’s grant will pay for the planting and upkeep of 600 trees on 30 school campuses, most of which are located in what is described as areas where it is important to focus on “environmental justice” due to poverty and other conditions that impact the quality of life. The money will also fund community engagement activities around the issue of conservation.

“We’re working to bring trails and parks close to people,” said Cindy Adams Dunn, the state secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, at the ceremony Tuesday to highlight the grant. “We try to make a difference in communities.”

The goal of her department and of the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro, she said, is a park within 10 minutes of every state resident.

Philadelphia has a 10-year strategy to protect its tree canopy called the Philly Tree Plan. As one of the largest landowners in the city, the district is a big part of that initiative. The grant also involves several partners, including the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Trust for Public Land, and the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

Parks and Recreation commissioner Sue Slawson recalled how she grew up in a part of West Philadelphia where some streets had trees, and others did not. This grant will allow her department to “educate youth on the importance of natural land,” she said.

Logan Elementary School, named after its Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood, is in a mostly rowhouse, low-income community where trees are often few and far between. The school is across wide and busy Lindley Ave. from Wakefield Park, one of the smaller pockets in Philadelphia’s extensive Fairmount Park network, the largest urban park in the country.

“We’re prioritizing tree planting in areas that need it the most,” said Matt Rader, president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. State Sen. Art Haywood told the students that investing in trees at their school is testimony to their importance. “This investment of trees in your neighborhood shows that Black or white, rich or poor, we all have dignity,” he said.

Logan is also on the district’s list to get its asphalt playground updated and improved, a project in which the district is cooperating with outside partners, One is the Trust for Public Land, which is helping with Logan’s playground. Work will start in the spring and the new playground should be ready in two years, said the Trust’s Owen Franklin.

In her remarks, Dunn noted that the initiative will also help Philadelphia prepare for the country’s 250th anniversary celebration in 2026.

The Commonwealth and the country are divided, she said, not just by politics, but by access to green spaces, open sky and the great outdoors.

“The one place we can all come together is parks and trails,” she said. “Those are the places where we can reknit society and rebuild a united Pennsylvania. It gives me some hope.”

After the speeches, Lauryn and Lawrence and several other students helped officials plant a new tree on school grounds.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Too little recess, too many movies: NYC parents fume as screen time replaces outdoor play

2024-11-07T20:48:28+00:00

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Chandler Patton Miranda, a Brooklyn mom, pulled her son from his neighborhood elementary school this year. The last straw: The school kept its youngest kids indoors for recess as the older ones took the state English tests last spring.

Teachers told her son’s kindergarten class at P.S. 139 they were “too loud,” and they didn’t want to disrupt the testing conditions for the students in grades 3-5, Miranda said. Instead of playing outside, her son watched part of the Disney movie, “Wish.”

“They want kids to be docile and quiet. It’s a lack of creativity and a lack of prioritization of kids’ physical well-being,” Miranda said.

Now, they’ve traded their six-block walk to the Ditmas Park school for a six-stop subway ride to P.S. 456, the Elizabeth Jennings School for Bold Explorers, a progressive school that opened this year in Downtown Brooklyn. The kids there go outside everyday.

A growing number of New York City parents are frustrated by how frequently their kids spend recess indoors, often watching movies. Schools are not required to list or report their recess policies, much to the dismay of many parents, who want more information on how much outdoor time or play their children get during the school day. Many are concerned that it’s an equity issue: Kids who get less outdoor recess tend to be those in poor urban areas, studies have shown.

P.S. 456, which is open to students across Brooklyn and gives priority to students from low-income families, offers “forest school,” where kids go to Prospect Park once a week to explore nature and bring findings back to the classroom for further investigations, Miranda said. The school works closely with the Brooklyn New School, known for its emphasis on progressive project-based learning over test prep. Similar to that school, P.S. 456 students will add swim lessons and bike-riding classes as it phases in higher grades.

“The values at 456 align with what we value: being outside, being a good citizen, learning through play,” said Miranda, an education professor whose research focuses on the experiences of recently arrived immigrant youth in New York City schools. “I think there’s a pervasive ideology that recess is a waste of time at many other schools.”

As an education expert, Miranda knows the research showing that daily recess brings an array of physical, social, and academic benefits. She’s seen how a lack of recess is often a bigger problem in low-income areas than more affluent ones. Being active at recess is particularly crucial in New York City as childhood obesity significantly increased during the COVID pandemic. Black, Hispanic, and foreign-born students also have seen higher rates of childhood obesity than the 27% citywide average.

The Education Department’s wellness policy “strongly recommends” that elementary schools offer at least 20 minutes of recess for all students “on all or most days during the school year.” (It doesn’t include any recommendations for middle or high school.) Kids should go outside in the cold unless there is snow, ice, or a wind chill factor below 0 degrees, the policy states. It lists precautions to take in the heat, including limiting playtime during peak sun hours and making sure children stay hydrated.

The Education Department encourages all schools to come up with recess plans to “maximize this time for health and well-being,” spokesperson Chyann Tull wrote in an email.

“Active students are engaged students, and recess plays an important role, especially in grades K-5,” Tull said.

At least one state is taking action to codify recess: A new law in California began requiring schools this year to provide at least 30 minutes of recess during regular instructional days, unless there is a physical threat to the safety of a student or their peers. The legislation followed a study that found students in larger schools and those with more students from low-income families had less access to daily recess than their counterparts in smaller and more affluent schools.

Parents outraged school time spent watching Disney movies

The first two days of school this year for her Brooklyn fifth grader included 40 minutes of watching a Disney or Pixar movie, Vivian Lee said at a recent public meeting.

“The teachers are loving, engaged, and very skilled,” Lee told the members of the Panel for Educational Policy, a board that sets policy for the nation’s largest school system. “But since she entered the school two years ago, I’ve become very concerned about the increasing frequency with which she has come home describing the Disney or Pixar movie that she watched during indoor recess or lunch.”

Lee went on to list some of the movies her daughter’s school has played during the school day: “Ralph Wrecks the Internet,” “The Lion King, “Luca,” “Kung Fu Panda 4” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”

“Parents should at least be asked if this is okay with them,” Lee said, adding that parents emailed their school suggestions for other options, like puzzles or indoor sports, but were told there wasn’t enough staffing or time to set up and clean up.

Her concerns echoed those of Miranda, who complained to her son’s school about the movie-watching during the state tests in April. Miranda had suggested to teachers taking walks around the neighborhood to get some movement during the day, and things were “slightly” better a few weeks later during the state math tests, she said. While kids were still not allowed to go outside for recess, most teachers did some neighborhood walks, and the school seemed to let students out into the yard toward the end of the day, she said.

But that change took effort from parents to apply some pressure. Miranda had started a petition for families at P.S. 139 over their concerns about lack of outdoor recess during state testing, garnering more than 50 responses. (She dropped the petition after speaking out at a local Community Education Committee meeting where the superintendent told her that testing was always going to be prioritized over recess in District 22, Miranda said.)

P.S. 139’s principal did not immediately respond for comment.

Parents left in dark about how much time kids spend outside

Harlem mom, educator, and fitness instructor Elisa Capers is also hoping to shine a light on the issue. She launched a petition last year calling for lunch and recess to be extended beyond the average of 20 minutes, garnering more than 450 signatures. As kids are increasingly reliant on cellphones and other devices, Capers is concerned that kids are not getting enough exercise, and she’s worried about the rising numbers of children who are obese.

Capers works as a consultant in schools — including charters and parochial schools — across the five boroughs and has seen kids getting as little as 10 minutes, if at all. Parents and teachers have been telling her that schools often throw on YouTube videos when kids can’t go out for recess, and she’s also heard of recess being taken away from kids because of behavior.

Many parents, she said, don’t realize how little time their children spend playing outside.

“Recess is necessary,” Capers said. “Especially because kids are in front of screens so much, they need time outside … It works hand-in-hand with children wanting to be in school.”

Miranda couldn’t be happier that she switched her son, who is doing another year of kindergarten — something her previous school would not permit — to a school that elevates time spent outdoors.

The philosophy at P.S. 456 is there’s no bad weather, just bad clothing choices.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Extended-stay hotels offer relief from homelessness, but can lead to health problems for kids

2024-10-15T22:15:49+00:00

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As principal of Dunaire Elementary School, Sean Deas has seen firsthand the struggles faced by children living in extended-stay hotels. About 10% of students at his school, just east of Atlanta, live in one.

The children, Deas said, often have been exposed to violence on hotel properties, exhibit aggression or anxiety from living in a crowded single room, and face food insecurity because some hotel rooms don’t have kitchens.

“Social trauma is the biggest challenge” when students first arrive, Deas said. “We hear a lot about sleep problems.” To meet students’ needs, Deas developed a schoolwide program featuring counselors, a food pantry, and special protocols for handling those who may fall asleep in class.

“Beyond the teaching, there’s a social part,” he said. “We have to find ways to support the families as well.”

Extended-stay hotels are often a last resort for low-income families trying to find housing. Nationally, more than 100,000 students lived in extended-stay hotels in 2022, according to the Department of Education, though officials say that is likely an undercount. Children living in hotels are considered homeless under federal law, and in some Atlanta-area counties about 40% of homeless students live in this kind of housing, according to local officials.

And with rising rents and evictions, and decreased access to federal public housing, the use of extended-stay hotels as a long-term option is becoming more frequent. Like other forms of homelessness, hotel living can lead to — or exacerbate — physical and mental health problems for children, say advocates for families and researchers who study homelessness.

In the Atlanta area, inspections of extended-stay hotels have revealed ventilation issues, insect infestations, mold, and other health threats. Children living there also can experience or witness crime and gun violence. The increasing use of extended-stay hotels is a warning sign, observers said, a reflection of the lack of sufficient affordable housing policy in the United States.

And the crisis is having “lifelong consequences,” said Sarah Saadian of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “The only way that we can really address that shortage is if there are significant federal resources at scale. Build more housing and bridge the gap between rents and wages.”

Often, evictions force families into hotels — and can keep them trapped there. Many landlords refuse to rent to people with evictions in their credit history, even if the tenant isn’t responsible for the displacement, said Joy Monroe, founder and CEO of the Single Parent Alliance & Resource Center, a nonprofit group in metro Atlanta that has helped hundreds of families move from hotels to apartments or rental homes.

Black women and other women of color, often with kids, are evicted at much higher rates and are more likely to find themselves living in extended-stay hotels, advocates say.

Some residents are also families fleeing domestic violence, they say.

Hotels offer immediate relief, but host other problems

Hotels often don’t require security deposits, application fees, or background checks, thus providing immediate relief for families seeking shelter. While there are higher-end options, the average rate for an economy-class extended-stay room was $56.68 a night during the first three months of 2024, according to the Highland Group, a research firm that focuses on the hotel sector — which works out to more than $1,700 a month.

And while the rooms offer respite from other forms of homelessness — like sleeping in a car or in a tent — a hotel “is no place to raise children,” said Michael Bryant, CEO of New Life Community Alliance, which helps families in South Dekalb, a part of metro Atlanta, move from hotels to homes.

Children living in hotels are often behind on vaccinations, and they may end up in the emergency room because of delays in care, said Gary Kirkilas, a pediatrician in Phoenix who helps children, teens, and families who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. About 75% of children with unstable housing whom he sees have at least one developmental delay, and others experience significant emotional and behavioral issues.

Tanazia Scott, who has bounced between two extended-stay hotels for several months, said her three children “feel depressed and upset” over hotel life.

An eviction sent Kassandra Norman, 58, and her two daughters into a months-long journey of staying in Atlanta-area hotels. For three months, they slept in a car outside a convenience store. “It’s hard to do homework in a car and in the hotel,” said 19-year-old Kazuri Taylor, Norman’s younger daughter.

Three people who recently stayed at Haven Hotel in Stone Mountain, Georgia, hold rolls of toilet paper given to them by community volunteers. The hotel charges residents $1 per roll, they say.

Some hotels prohibit kids from playing outside in their parking lots, leading to additional stress, advocates say. That was the reason Yvonne Thomas, 45, and her family were evicted from an extended-stay hotel in DeKalb County, she said: “They put us out for nothing.”

And there are other problems. More than a dozen students at Dunaire Elementary live on an extended-stay property called Haven Hotel. In August, DeKalb County’s code enforcement division said the hotel had “not maintained minimum life safety standards.” Roaches and spiders live in rooms and breezeways, according to state health inspection reports. Residents say they have been charged $1 for a roll of toilet paper.

The hotel’s owner and manager could not be reached for comment after multiple attempts.

“No one is talking about these families,” said Sue Sullivan, a community advocate and a volunteer with the Motel to Home coalition in Atlanta, who brings toys, bookbags, food, and toiletries on her hotel visits.

A February public health inspection at another DeKalb County hotel found several rooms with poor ventilation, insect infestation, and mold, among other potential health threats. In May, two people were fatally shot there.

Children who witness violence can develop anxiety, depression, and other disorders, said Charles Moore, director of the Urban Health Initiative at Emory University School of Medicine. “They can feel emotional aftershocks,” said Moore, who has visited Atlanta-area hotels.

Advocates are finding creative solutions

Closing such hotels, however, can hurt families, given the shortage of affordable housing, the absence of national federal renter protections, and a dearth of places to go, said Terri Lewinson, an associate professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Extended-stay hotels do “offer a low-barrier option for families who have no other options,” she said.

To alleviate the housing problem, county officials and nonprofit organizations around the country have been creatively filling the gap. In the Seattle area, for example, King County officials purchased hotels and converted them into affordable housing, said Mark Skinner of the Highland Group.

In metro Atlanta, SPARC and the local United Way’s Motel to Home offer funding to help people transition into an apartment.

In DeKalb County, where Dunaire Elementary School is located, more than a third of the 1,300 homeless students live in hotels, according to Commissioner Ted Terry.

“I hope we can rescue the children,” he said. “It’s not a safe environment for them.”

Advocates who seek to help people living in hotels propose the construction of more affordable housing and stronger protections for renters against eviction. The federal government has failed to invest in repairs needed to maintain current public housing units, and 25-year-old legislation effectively prohibits the construction of new public housing.

It’s also “extremely fast, easy, and cheap” to evict tenants in Georgia, said Taylor Shelton, an associate professor of geosciences at Georgia State University, whose research focuses on social inequalities and urban spaces. “The playing field is tilted heavily toward landlords.”

Under such circumstances, the cycle of poverty is difficult to break, said Jamie Rush, a senior staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Most parents would want their kids in a safe, stable home,” Rush said. “You can’t budget your way out of poverty.”

Andy Miller and Renuka Rayasam are reporters with KFF Health News, Healthbeat’s national reporting partner.

Trump leads, and his party follows, on vaccine skepticism

2024-10-07T20:09:42+00:00

This story first appeared in KFF Health News and is republished with permission.

More than four years ago, former President Donald Trump’s administration accelerated the development and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. The project, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, likely saved millions of lives. But a substantial number of Republican voters now identify as vaccine skeptics — and Trump rarely mentions what’s considered one of the great public health accomplishments in recent memory.

“The Republicans don’t want to claim it,” Trump told an interviewer in late September.

Instead, on at least 17 occasions this year, Trump has promised to cut funding to schools that mandate vaccines. Campaign spokespeople have previously said that pledge would apply only to schools with COVID mandates. But speeches reviewed by KFF Health News included no such distinction — raising the possibility Trump would also target vaccination rules for common, potentially lethal childhood diseases like polio and measles.

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on this article.

Trump has presided over a landslide shift in his party’s views on vaccines, reflected this campaign season in false claims by Republican candidates during the primaries and puzzling conspiracies from prominent conservative voices. Republicans increasingly express worry about the risks of vaccines. A September 2023 poll from Politico and Morning Consult showed a narrow majority of those voters cared more about the risks than the benefits of getting inoculated.

A surge in anti-vaccine policy in statehouses has followed the rhetoric. Boston University political scientist Matt Motta, who tracks public health policy, said preliminary data shows that states enacted at least 42 anti-vaccine bills in 2023 — nearly a ninefold surge since 2019.

In some states, it has the look of a crusade: The 2024 Texas GOP platform, for example, proposes a ban on mRNA technology, the innovation behind some COVID-19 vaccines that scientists believe could have significant applications for cancer care.

Last month, Trump made an appeal to anti-vaccine voters by landing the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptics — and appointing him to his transition team. In a recent tour with former Fox News broadcaster Tucker Carlson, Kennedy said he was “going to be deeply involved in helping to choose the people who run FDA, NIH, and CDC.”

Trump’s outreach can be more discreet: He recently met with a delegation of vaccine-skeptical activists — including one group pushing an end to mandates and certain types of vaccines — at his New Jersey golf club; the discussion was publicized by the conservative blog Gateway Pundit.

Vaccine hesitancy is up, as are measles cases

Trump has options in advancing anti-vaccine goals as president, such as by sowing further doubt and undermining the federal government’s ability to make vaccine recommendations. He has promised to appoint Kennedy, along with “top experts,” to a panel exploring chronic diseases, some of which Kennedy’s nonprofit has linked to inoculations. “Nobody’s done more” to advocate for “the health of our families and our children,” Trump declared at a rally accepting Kennedy’s endorsement.

Still, it’s hard to tell how Trump’s most frequently made proposal — defunding schools that mandate vaccinations — would translate into action, said Judith Winston, former general counsel of the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration.

Currently, the federal Department of Education lacks the power to turn off public school funding all at once, she said — meaning a second Trump administration would have to take away money program by program.

And the legal basis for such a move isn’t clear. “I am unaware of any federal law that mandates school districts either provide or not provide a vaccine,” Winston said, adding it would probably require congressional action.

All 50 states have a vaccine requirement tied to school attendance.

Trump’s outreach to anti-vaccine constituencies comes as vaccine hesitancy increases and preventable disease surges. This summer, Oregon experienced its worst outbreak of measles since 1991.

The situation could get worse, said Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: In the 1990s, during a time when vaccine skepticism also proliferated, the U.S. saw thousands of measles cases. According to the CDC, we haven’t yet returned to those bad old days — but the number of measles cases recorded this year is already quadruple that of last year.

“It was highly disruptive,” he said. “Many children who had measles ended up with hearing problems or cognitive problems that were lifelong. A small number died in this country.”

Worldwide, the disease killed over 100,000 in 2022, mostly among children under age 5, according to the World Health Organization.

COVID vaccine mandates fueled Republican skepticism

Polling shows a substantial minority of Americans, concentrated in the Republican Party, hold vaccine-skeptical positions, said Harvard professor and health politics expert Robert Blendon. And skepticism about COVID vaccines is blossoming into suspicion of vaccines generally among that group, he said. “It follows from this rebellion against the COVID vaccine mandates.”

Vaccine opposition has divided the GOP. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made opposition to vaccines a core part of his ill-fated campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. In states such as Wyoming and Missouri, pitched primary campaigns centered on anti-vaccine themes this year.

A volunteer vaccinates an Indianapolis high school student at a pop-up clinic in 2021. The rapid development and deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine was hailed at the time as a major public health achievement but also sparked backlash.

Bob Onder, a physician and Republican candidate for Congress in Missouri, was accused in Facebook ads placed by his top opponent of taking millions from pharmaceutical companies to test vaccines. “He profited from our pain,” one ad said. “You suffered the consequences.”

Onder “has never done COVID vaccine research” and opposes COVID vaccine mandates, his campaign manager, Charley Lovett, told KFF Health News. (Lovett said Onder “conducted” one study sponsored by AstraZeneca on preventing COVID in high-risk patients using monoclonal antibodies, not vaccines.)

Onder won the Republican primary, but his vaccine-disparaging opponent still scored just over 37% of the vote.

Anti-vaccine candidates typically become anti-vaccine policymakers. The impact can be seen in Texas, where vaccine politics were once a bipartisan matter. According to researchers, from 2009 to 2019, legislators there passed 19 pro-vaccine bills, such as a measure allowing pharmacists to administer immunizations.

But that consensus began to shift toward the end of the decade. Small groups, often nurtured on Facebook, made their influence felt. One such group, Texans for Vaccine Choice, spurred testimony before the state legislature in 2021 and targeted pro-immunization legislators, some of whom fell in their GOP primaries.

Misinformation has fueled the anti-vaccine turn in Texas, alongside traditional conservative attitudes about individual autonomy, said Summer Wise, a former executive committee member of the state’s Republican Party — particularly misconceptions about the use of fetal cells in vaccine development; falsified research about a link between vaccines and autism; and conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist who has championed vaccination.

“Politicians see vaccines as an easy foil to propagate fear among the electorate, which can then be leveraged and directed to control a voting bloc,” Wise said.

In addition to calling for a ban on mRNA technology, the Texas GOP’s 2024 platform features a laundry list of policies that could undermine vaccination, including allowing medical residents and physicians the ability to opt out of administering shots for religious reasons. It also calls for enshrining a patient’s ability to opt out of vaccine mandates in the state’s Bill of Rights.

Project 2025 would limit CDC’s future pandemic role

Nationally, anti-immunization policies could take an aggressive turn under a second Trump administration.

Roger Severino, formerly head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights and now with the Heritage Foundation, penned the health agency section of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led initiative to plan for a Republican administration.

Among other ideas, the document proposes clipping CDC authority to issue vaccine or quarantine guidance of a “prescriptive” nature, targeted at schools or elsewhere.

A spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation noted Severino has said the agency’s credibility has been hurt, and it has a burden to explain “all the vaccines on the schedule being taken in combination.”

The proposal misunderstands CDC’s history and powers, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University. The agency “rarely if ever” makes binding recommendations, he said.

“When the next pandemic hits, we will look to CDC to offer guidance based on the best-known evidence,” he said. “We don’t want a disempowered agency in a public health emergency.”

Some Republican intellectuals have spun dystopian visions surrounding vaccines. Take “Dawn’s Early Light,” a yet-to-be-published book by Heritage president Kevin Roberts. The tome — which earned a glowing foreword by Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance — reserves especially sharp words for vaccines.

In one section of the book, Roberts imagines that the federal government would somehow use alleged new capabilities to “deplatform drivers” of cars for “failing to follow the latest vaccine mandate.”

“Yet another powerful tool of social control falls into place,” he wrote.

Darius Tahir is a reporter for KFF Health News, a national reporting partner for Healthbeat. Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

Kids like free school meals. States are trying to reel in the costs.

2024-10-03T11:50:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

A few years ago, so few high schoolers ate breakfast in Vermont’s Essex Westford School District that the cafeteria looked like “a ghost town” in the morning, recalls Scott Fay, the director of child nutrition.

But now that breakfast is free for all students, kids are packing the cafeteria to talk, munch on fresh cranberry-orange bread, and finish homework before the first bell.

“It’s really amazing to see that transition,” said Fay, who helped lobby for the Vermont law that expanded free meals. That’s “what real equity looks like in our cafeterias,” he said. “It’s all these kids coming together in the morning, eating.”

Fresh-baked breakfast bread has been a hit with students in the Essex Westford School District.

The number of kids eating breakfast and lunch has jumped in the eight states that now have universal free school meals. The policy has attracted extra attention since Vice President Kamala Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who helped bring universal free school meals to his state, as her running mate.

Proponents say that rise in participation is a success story because it means fewer kids are hungry at school and that families have more money to spend on groceries at home. But it’s also brought some logistical challenges and — perhaps more importantly — higher-than-expected costs. That’s raising concerns in some states about the long-term sustainability of these programs. In their first year of operation, universal free school meal programs came in over budget in at least six of the eight states that offer them.

And there may be a limit to how far universal meals can expand. There’s a federal bill in Congress, but so far the policy has passed only in Democratic-controlled legislatures. Republican-led states have generally opposed universal meals due to concerns about cost and parental responsibility.

“The Legislature has added $20-30 million in property tax pressure to pay for school meals for all students, including those from affluent families,” Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott said in a statement last year when he allowed the bill to pass into law without his signature. “This will be paid for by all Vermonters, including those with low incomes.”

Why universal meal programs cost more than expected

The main reason several states’ programs are over budget is that more kids ate breakfast and lunch than expected. Most of the kids who are new to eating for free would have paid full price in the past, and now states are picking up their tab.

Some states had a more sophisticated method for devising a budget, while others used estimates from the pandemic — when the federal government paid for all students to eat for free. That didn’t turn out to be great predictors of demand because so many kids were absent during that time. On top of that, the cost of food is high, and federal reimbursement rates for meals aren’t keeping up.

“Anytime you are trying something new and bold like this — and this is bold and big — it’s going to take awhile to really get the modeling down of how much things cost,” said Alexis Bylander, who oversees child nutrition programs and policy for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center. “We’re learning a lot from these states that are implementing first.”

Related: Quesadillas, fajitas, tacos: Parents helped create 15 new recipes this Colorado district is trying this year

When Michigan launched its program last school year, for example, the state budgeted $160 million, but needed an extra $30 million to cover the actual costs. This school year, the state budgeted $200 million.

New Mexico’s program ended up costing twice as much as the $20 million budgeted by state lawmakers. State education officials, who said they knew that estimate was too low, expect to spend $49 million this year.

Colorado’s program cost $162 million last school year. State lawmakers had to dip into state reserves to add $56 million after an unexpected shortfall.

Vermont lawmakers, meanwhile, allocated $29 million for the first year of their program, but the state needed less: only $24 million.

State officials say they are doing a lot to rein in costs, including signing up more schools for the federal program that reimburses for meals at the highest rate. That program recently expanded which schools are eligible. Colorado hired a consultant to help districts figure out steps they could take to get the most federal money possible, and formed an advisory group that’s working to lower state costs.

No state is looking to get rid of universal free school meals due to higher costs. But some officials are expressing worries about their fiscal impact.

Vermont's Essex Westford School District has been able to provide students a greater variety of fresh and locally sourced foods under the expanded school meals program.

Minnesota Sen. Zach Duckworth, a Republican who voted in favor of the law, told Minnesota Public Radio last month he worried about whether the state could afford its program long-term without a new revenue source. The state initially thought it would need around $200 million a year for universal meals, but costs came in around $40 million higher.

If the state can’t keep that up, he said, school districts may have to “pinch pennies” to fund their own programs.

Diane Golzynski, the deputy superintendent who oversees child nutrition for the Michigan Department of Education, worries that right now universal meals aren’t guaranteed in state law. That means they’re vulnerable to the annual budgeting process that could “rip this rug out from underneath the feet of our families,” she said.

Earlier this year in Vermont, where the program did not go over budget, the governor proposed repealing universal free school meals to save the state $20 million as part of a bid to curb an expected property tax hike. But that idea didn’t go anywhere.

Schools see many benefits from universal free meals

Breakfast and lunch participation has continued to rise in several of the states that offer free meals to all students. That trend is especially notable because many other states were not able to sustain their pandemic-era participation rates and saw big drops when the national free meals provision ended.

When California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont rolled out universal free meals during the 2022-23 school year, they saw increases in the average number of kids eating breakfast each day ranging from 8% to 13%. Students eating lunch went up by 4% to 7%, according to data compiled by the Food Research & Action Center.

States that launched universal meals more recently have seen similar upticks. New Mexico, for example, saw a 4% increase in kids eating breakfast and lunch last school year, state education officials said.

Related: Food for thought: Museum exhibit highlights Philly’s crucial role in the history of school lunch

The increase in breakfast consumption is an especially big deal, educators and state officials say, because it can set kids up for success for the rest of their school day. Now, more schools put grab-and-go kiosks in the hallway, allow kids to eat breakfast in the classroom, or serve a “second chance” breakfast later in the morning.

“Breakfast and learning are so closely tied,” said Deanne Kelleher, Michigan’s director of health and nutrition services.

Her state has seen the biggest increase in breakfast consumption among middle schoolers, who often have an early start time but are too sleepy to eat before school.

Some research has found that universal free school meals can boost students’ test scores and attendance rates. It also can decrease stigma and bullying in the lunchroom.

Some schools have faced challenges stemming from serving more students, such as longer lines and kids not having enough time to eat. Some schools are considering longer lunch periods or limiting how many kids line up at once.

And though more kids eating for free can throw off the state budget, it generally means that at the district level, schools are taking in more money. That often means they can afford to cook more from scratch and offer more options to kids.

April Liles, the director of food services for Waltham Public Schools in Massachusetts, was able to use her extra funds to hire a part-time dietician who helps adapt meals for kids with gluten allergies or who need a vegetarian meal. Her high schools now offer 15 options for lunch each day — from a panini to a grilled veggie burger to a taco bar — to help guarantee kids can find something that meets their needs.

Rosie Krueger, Vermont’s director of child nutrition programs, said now that districts in her state have guaranteed revenue coming in and aren’t chasing after unpaid meal debt, they’re able to put higher food quality standards in their contracts. Instead of asking: “What is the bare minimum that you can offer for the lowest possible price?” she sees schools include requirements for more fruits, vegetables, and locally sourced food.

Universal free school meal programs have allowed many schools to offer more fruits, vegetables, and locally sourced food. Colorado's Jefferson Junior/Senior High School recently set out apples for students.

In the Essex Westford School District, Fay’s school nutrition budget typically ran a deficit of $70,000 to $100,000 before Vermont launched universal meals. Now he can afford to buy local beef to make homemade meatballs. Kids liked them so much that the kitchen staff got sore hands from all the scooping. With the extra funds, Fay was able to buy a $25,000 machine that could shape those meatballs more quickly.

The programs can also help families trust schools more. Fay found that when the district stopped calling families asking for unpaid meal debt, that school principals were able to get through to those families more easily to talk about things like their child’s behavior or a support they could offer.

“The more phone calls we made collectively, made them less and less apt to pick up the phone when the school called,” Fay said. “It was driving a wedge between the district and some of those families who needed us the most.”

Will more states offer free school meals to all?

Proponents for universal free school meals, like Bylander, say they don’t think the higher-than-expected price tags have deterred supporters or created new opposition to the policy.

“The people that really balked or were upset about the policy costing more than expected probably weren’t the people who strongly supported it to begin with,” she said.

Still, efforts to create a permanent universal free school meals program at the national level haven’t gone anywhere. And while former President Donald Trump approved the pandemic program that temporarily made school meals free for all, it’s unlikely he would support that again.

Other efforts to make pandemic-era policies that expanded the social safety net permanent have been polarizing.

When federal officials created a permanent Summer EBT program, for example, some Republican-led states said they didn’t want to pay the administrative costs or that their families didn’t need the extra food assistance.

Opponents often say the state shouldn’t cover the cost of feeding kids whose families can afford to pay and that limited state funds could be better spent elsewhere. Proponents counter that many families who do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals also struggle to afford food. This school year, a family of four that makes over $58,000 didn’t qualify for any school meal aid.

Some Republican-led states have taken steps toward expanding free school meals without making them universal. In South Carolina, Republican State Sen. Katrina Shealy was able to convince her colleagues to make previously reduced-price meals free, since it had a much smaller price tag than the universal program she initially wanted.

In South Dakota, House Rep. Kadyn Wittman, one of 11 Democrats in the state legislature, introduced a bill to make all school meals free, but that swiftly died in committee.

“I got my ass handed to me,” she said.

So she went back to the drawing board and built a coalition of school staffers and other advocates who lobbied lawmakers to support a different bill to make reduced-price meals free. That came with a price tag of around $630,000. But the bill still failed.

“I don’t think it was the price tag,” Wittman said. “There is still this belief that we should not be ‘raising other people’s kids.’”

Wittman is trying again. She plans to highlight the origins of the school lunch program — one of which was making sure kids were well-fed and healthy enough to defend the country in times of war — and how this financial investment could pay dividends later for academic achievement and attendance.

“How do you eat an elephant?” she said. “One bite at a time.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

109 degrees on the first day of school? In some districts, extreme heat is changing the school calendar.

2024-09-11T10:05:00+00:00

This story about excessive heat in schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s climate change and education newsletter.

With five children aged 11 to 24, Cyd Detiege has sent her kids to Palm Springs Unified School District in Southern California for nearly two decades.

“It’s gotten hotter,” she said, noting record-breaking temperatures in the desert city, which hit an all-time high of 124 degrees this July. The first day of school in Palm Springs this year was August 7, when temperatures reached 109 degrees. Since around 2019, Detiege says she’s contacted district officials, spoken at meetings, and posted on local Facebook pages with one goal: moving the first day of school to after Labor Day.

Across the U.S., climate change is influencing discussions about how, and when, kids are educated. School districts, teachers, parents, students, and experts are all considering how extreme heat is transforming education, and what changes need to happen for schools to adapt to extreme heat. In some places, this now includes reshaping what “back-to-school” means, as districts attempt to schedule the academic year around extreme heat.

America’s schools are vastly underprepared for extreme heat: An estimated 36,000 public schools don’t have adequate HVAC systems, and the combined costs of upgrading or installing necessary HVAC systems by 2025 is estimated at $4.4 billion nationally, according to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. Even school districts with air conditioning may be exposing kids to excessive heat, allowing kids to play on hot outdoor blacktops without adequate shade for recess and lunchtime.

As districts work through the lengthy process of financing and planning these infrastructure upgrades, some hope that pushing back the first day of school could reduce school closures and other effects of extreme heat on students.

The impacts of heat on students’ health and learning is well-documented; studies have found that without air conditioning, every 1 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature during a school year reduces the year’s learning by 1%. Unexpected school closures can leave parents scrambling for child care, and in some cases might send students to homes that are also hot and un-air conditioned.

Summers are getting longer, not just hotter

Since the early 1970s, demand for cooling during the back-to-school season has increased by an average of 32%, according to an analysis of 231 locations by the nonprofit Climate Central.

“It’s not just that we get extreme weather. It’s that our summers are literally longer,” said Joellen Russell, Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair of Integrative Science at the University of Arizona and member of Science Moms, a nonpartisan group of climate scientists who are also moms.

Most school districts are left on their own to plot out their state-dictated minimum days of instruction onto a calendar, while planning for holiday breaks and end-of-year testing, and balancing input from parents, teachers, and students.

In Palm Springs Unified School District, this calculation has landed students with a start date in the first week of August for the past several years, according to Joan Boiko, the district’s coordinator for communications and community outreach. This allows for a three-week winter break and a two-week spring break, and allows high schoolers to finish exams before winter break.

“While it is certainly warm here in the desert in August, it is typically just as hot in early September,” wrote Boiko in an email. Detiege, meanwhile, said she remains “very disappointed” in the calendar.

A woman and children cross a hot, shimmering street as the temperature reaches 119 degrees on July 5, 2024, in Palm Springs, California. The official temperature at the airport reached 124 degrees that day.

The neighboring Desert Sands Unified School District made a different decision. According to Jordan Aquino, assistant superintendent for business services at the district, planning for this school year included looking into what weeks are typically hottest. As a result, the district moved its first day back from the third to fourth week of August, pushing the last day of school further into June.

The two California desert districts have air conditioning, so students are primarily affected by heat on their way to and from school, at recess, during P.E., and at lunchtime. But in other regions of the country, districts are grappling with a need for air conditioning that didn’t exist when school buildings were first constructed. Nationwide, an estimated 41% of districts need to update or replace HVAC systems in at least half of their schools, according to a 2020 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

In recent years, the lack of adequate HVAC systems has led to school closures and early dismissals as classrooms become too hot for students. School district leaders hope that proactively planning the school year around extreme heat will reduce some of these unexpected closures.

Pushing back start dates can mitigate heat — up to a point

Carrie A. Olson taught in classrooms without air conditioning for three decades in Denver Public Schools. When the weather got warm, she’d leave her classroom windows open overnight, allowing cool air to flow in. But this tactic is less effective with the climate change-driven rise in nighttime temperatures.

Denver has repeatedly asked voters to approve bond measures to install air conditioning in dozens of schools, a process that has taken years and still is not complete. Voters in 2020 approved a measure that covered air conditioning at 24 schools.

“But it still wasn’t everybody, and that rollover from when the bond was passed to when everything would be implemented was time-consuming,” said Olson, who has a doctorate in curriculum and instruction and now serves as president of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education.

Pushing back the first day of school by a week seemed like an interim solution, so the district did just that starting in the 2021-22 school year.

“At that time, it seemed like things were cooling off in mid- to late-August, and a week later would really help,” Olson said. A total of 29 schools are still without air conditioning in the district, and another bond measure is going before voters this fall.

Related: Teaching among the ashes: ‘It’s not just your home that’s burned, it’s everyone’s’

In Milwaukee, where only about one-fourth of public school classrooms have air conditioning, the district took a similar approach this year. Previously, Milwaukee’s high schools and most middle schools started in August and most elementary schools started in September. But when the district surveyed employees, parents, and students about the academic calendar last year, the biggest concern was air conditioning.

Students at West Shores High School in Salton City, California, walk through a courtyard between classes.

Moving all students to a September start date “would put the district in the best position to avoid excessive heat days during the upcoming school year,” said Milwaukee Public Schools Chief Human Resources Officer Adria Maddaleni during a December 2023 meeting. The change seems to have staved off some unexpected cancellations for the district, at least this school year: Heat indexes rose above 100 degrees in Milwaukee during the last week of August, forcing some private schools that were already in session to cancel classes.

“The reality is that it’s an OK solution, but it’s not perfect, because there are many school districts where you could get 100-degree days in November,” said V. Kelly Turner, associate director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles, who also leads the new Center of Excellence for Heat Resilient Communities. “But the other thing is that the heat season isn’t just shifting, it’s getting longer.”

That brings up questions of how adjusting school calendars might affect summer break and students who don’t have air conditioning at home, said Turner. For example, for a student without air conditioning at home, spending a longer portion of the hottest days of summer at home would just mean staying in a hot home or apartment.

In Philadelphia, heat also came up as one of the biggest topics of discussion when the district planned the 2023-24 and 2024-25 calendars, with survey responses from parents, students, teachers and others showing a preference for a post-Labor Day start date. “Beginning school after Labor Day avoids possible school closures due to excessive heat,” according to a document prepared for a February 2023 school board meeting. The board voted that month to start 2023-24 after Labor Day, but to begin the 2024-25 school year in August due to scheduling limitations. The district now aims to start after Labor Day “whenever possible,” while also working to expand cooling systems, according to the board meeting document.

Student teacher Shaina Patel (right) teaches English in a classroom at Fremont High School next to a fan often used to keep the classroom cooler on Friday, May 17, 2013, in Oakland, California. Fremont High School is scheduled to be a zero net energy school but projects have not yet started due to lack of receiving bond money.

The School District of Philadelphia has made gains in cooling its aging buildings, including through a donation from Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts that added air conditioning units to 10 schools this year. But 63 schools still lack adequate cooling and close early when weather is expected to reach 85 degrees by noon, according to Monique Braxton, deputy chief of communications for the district.

Philadelphia dismissed schools early in 2023 and 2024 due to heat during the first week of school. Last year, 73 schools received early dismissal during the entire first week of school after Labor Day, and this year, the 63 remaining schools without adequate cooling dismissed early on Aug. 27 and Aug. 28.

Many schools need air conditioning, infrastructure upgrades

Experts on heat and schools say scheduling academic calendars around extreme heat comes with limitations. In much of the country, August typically experiences hotter days than June, but pushing back the first day of school still risks pushing the school year further into June, which also experiences temperatures high enough to cancel school. And with temperatures projected to keep getting higher on both ends of the academic calendar, relying on scheduling alone to address extreme heat would be a constant shuffle.

“I think that the degree that you would need to push back the school year will become greater and greater every year, unless we figure out how to adapt the structures that kids are learning in, and make the investments in updating this older infrastructure, because temperatures will continue to increase,” said Lindsey Burghardt, chief science officer at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

The University of Arizona’s Russell called the strategy a “temporary stopgap” to extreme heat.

Related: Extreme heat is making schools hotter — and learning harder

Federal money is available now for HVAC upgrades; the Inflation Reduction Act included a provision that will reimburse schools that install heat pumps and other clean energy technologies, according to Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Undauntedk12, an organization focused on supporting schools’ transition to clean energy. Some districts also used federal COVID relief aid to improve HVAC systems, according to Liz Cohen, policy director at FutureEd, although she said it’s hard to know for sure how many districts used the funds for those upgrades due to different reporting requirements in each state.

In Denver, Olson said the board hasn’t considered pushing the start date back even further into August or September.

“Just thinking about the shift in our climate across our planet, shifting the calendar isn’t going to be as helpful as it was three years ago when we passed this,” said Olson. “The solution is going to be to get more heat mitigation strategies and air conditioning in our schools with an eye toward sustainability.”

School lunches will still be free in Colorado this year, while lawmakers study funding options

2024-08-21T20:49:30+00:00

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Colorado is still offering free school meals this school year, even though the program has ended up costing more than state officials predicted.

While an advisory group tries to come up with long-term solutions that may mean changes in future school years, state lawmakers decided to continue funding the program in the short term, so the program won’t change for this school year.

Below are answers to some common questions people have about the program. If you have others, email us at co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Are school meals free for all students this year again?

Yes, in districts that choose to participate in the state’s free school meals program. Districts have to sign up with the state. Last year, a majority of the districts in the state participated. This year, districts have until Sept. 16 to tell the state they’re opting in, so the state doesn’t yet know whether all districts, or fewer, will participate this year.

Large school districts including Denver, Jeffco, and Douglas County have indicated on their websites that they are offering free meals to all students again this school year.

Why is my child’s school telling me to fill out a form to see if I qualify for free or reduced-price lunch?

The state program kicks in money only after schools and districts have already received reimbursements from the federal government for the meals of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. So identifying students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals helps your school get money from the federal government first, helping state dollars go further.

There are other benefits as well. The state and districts sometimes allocate certain resources to schools based on how many students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, because it’s used as a measure of poverty.

And families who are identified as qualifying for those subsidized meals can become eligible for other benefits such as discounts on other school fees or other assistance.

Why your child’s school really wants you to apply for free lunch

Didn’t I hear that the state went over budget on these meals last year?

Yes. The program as it was approved by voters in 2022 is funded because the state got rid of a tax credit that used to save tax-filers money. By not allowing certain tax deductions for families who make more than $300,000, the state was able to collect new revenue to pay for the school meals.

But the state miscalculated how many students were going to eat free school meals. Since many more students than expected ate school meals, the cost of the program was higher than expected.

Lawmakers last year used other state money to cover the shortfall, and also budgeted extra money to cover the program for this school year, while they figure out if changes will be made.

Is there still a chance the free school meal program will change?

Yes, but any changes would likely be for the next school year, 2025-26. The state has hired a consultant that is working with the new Healthy School Meals for All Technical Advisory Group. The group is tasked with identifying how to maximize the amount of money that comes in from federal reimbursements first, and how to reduce the cost of the program. It will develop options for lawmakers on how to make the program sustainable.

One organization that helped create the program in 2022 has considered the idea of a ballot measure, for example, to ask voters for more help to fund the program.

The advisory group began meeting in July and will have an update for lawmakers in September, with its final report and recommendations due in December.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit families get free dental services, books, advice at back-to-school event

2024-08-09T21:30:55+00:00

On one end of a school gym, buckets of pink and blue glue lined a glitter-covered slime-making table. As some families made slime, the sound of dribbling basketballs echoed through the room from kids and adults playing basketball at the other end of the gym.

The Detroit Parent Network’s free annual Young Inventors event at University Preparatory Academy in Detroit on Wednesday also provided health and dental checkups, health care access, and opportunities to get involved in education and childcare policy advocacy.

DPN Senior Director for Programming and Impact Remy Sirls said the event was meant to give caregivers and children something fun to do while increasing access to resources.

“We want to equip parents with information, educate them about maybe some things that they might not know about, and empower them with the resources to be able to do what it is they want to do,” Sirls said. “How do they adapt that to their life? So not telling people at all what they should be doing or how to do that, but giving you just access to the resources.”

Students normally present creative projects at the event, but attendants participated in other activities this year.

DPN introduced new activities such as a “passport to literacy” that kids could get stamped at every station to receive a prize.

Families could also trade books at a “take a book, give a book” station that offered new books for various reading levels.

Children could also submit their ballot in two mock elections: Cookie Monster versus Elmo for president, and Android versus iPhone.

Jessica Walk and her 2-year old daughter came out because they were looking for a fun way to get out into the community. They especially enjoyed the slime-making table.

Cousins Alakai and Abel McClain helped DPN set up the event. Alakai, a youth volunteer with DPN entering 10th grade, helped Abel set up the craft table. Abel, an incoming sixth grader at Lincoln Middle School, was also a fan of the slime table.

DPN Program Manager Toyja Bridges, who has helped run the program each year, especially likes watching families do experiments and fun activities with their kids.

“It’s good quality family time,” Bridges said. “It’s amazing. I just love to see people come together.”

DPN, which has hosted the event twice before, is a parent engagement organization that helps parents advocate for their children and create change in their schools and community.

Alex Klaus is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@gmail.com.

Encuentra eventos gratis de vacunación cercanos

2024-08-09T18:47:03+00:00

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Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación dos veces al mes.

¿Necesitan tus hijos nuevas vacunas antes de regresar a la escuela?

El estado de Colorado está ofreciendo eventos móviles y gratuitos de vacunación este mes.

Heather Roth, jefa de la oficina de vacunación en el departamento de salud, dijo que la meta del estado es que por lo menos el 95 por ciento de los estudiantes en una escuela tengan todas las vacunas necesarias. Eso ayuda a detener el contagio de enfermedades prevenibles.

En Colorado, para entrar a kindergarten es necesario tener cinco vacunas—cada una administrada en varias dosis. Las vacunas protegen contra nueve enfermedades, incluyendo la poliomielitis, el sarampión, la varicela y la tosferina, comúnmente conocida como la tos convulsa.

Roth dijo que la vacuna MMR (también conocida como triple vírica), la cual protege contra el sarampión, las paperas y la rubeola, ha formado parte central de una reciente campaña con mensajes de texto, correo electrónico y tarjetas postales para recordarles a los padres que pongan a sus niños al día con las vacunas.

A nivel estatal, el 93.7 por ciento de los estudiantes entre preescolar y el 12º grado recibieron la vacuna MMR el año pasado, una porcentaje menor en comparación con el 95.1 por ciento durante el año escolar 2020-21.

“Nuestras tasas entre la población en edad de kindergarten en Colorado han sido más bajas de lo que nos gustaría que fueran históricamente”, dijo.

En Colorado, a los padres se les permite que consigan una excepción de vacunación por creencias religiosas o personales.

Una base de datos del estado creada por el Departamento de Salud Público y Medioambiente de Colorado permite que los usuarios hagan búsquedas sobre las tasas de vacunación y excepciones en centros de cuidados infantiles, escuelas, colegios comunitarios y universidades alrededor del estado. Además, examina las tendencias a lo largo del tiempo.

Funcionarios estatales de salud dicen que la base de datos puede ayudar a que los padres tomen decisiones informadas sobre a qué escuelas o guarderías enviar a sus hijos.

Puedes usar la pestaña en la esquina superior derecha para traducir el sitio web al español, pero la base de datos está disponible solo en inglés. Haz clic en “K-12″ para ver escuelas y “PK” para ver los centros preescolares y de cuidados infantiles que operan con una licencia estatal. Luego usa el menú desplegable para encontrar la escuela de tu hijo.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Ann Schimke es una reportera principal en Chalkbeat, cubriendo temas sobre la primera infancia y lectoescritura temprana. Comunícate con Ann por mensaje electrónico a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school vaccination rates are public. Here’s how to find them.

2024-08-08T20:53:22+00:00

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Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

How many kindergartners are vaccinated against measles at your son’s school? How many are vaccinated against whooping cough at your daughter’s child care center?

These are the kinds of questions parents can answer quickly using a state database created by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The database lets users search vaccination and exemption rates for child care centers, schools, and colleges statewide, and look at trends over time.

State health officials say the database can help parents make informed decisions about where to send their children to school or child care.

Heather Roth, immunization branch chief for the health department, said the state’s goal is for at least 95% of students in a school to have all required vaccinations. In Colorado, kindergarten entry requires five immunizations — each administered in multiple doses. They protect against nine illnesses, including polio, measles, chicken pox, and pertussis — commonly called whooping cough.

Roth said the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, has been the focus of a recent text, email, and postcard campaign reminding parents to get their children up to date on that shot.

Statewide, 93.7% of students in pre-K-12 had the MMR vaccine last year, down from 95.1% in 2020-21.

“Our rates among our kindergarten age population in Colorado have been lower than what we’d like them to be historically,” she said.

After reminder efforts in April and June, more than 12,000 children got the MMR vaccine.

MMR vaccination rates vary widely by school, with some at 100% and others below 70%. In Colorado, parents are allowed to seek an exemption from vaccinations because of religious or personal beliefs, though schools with low vaccination rates don’t necessarily have large numbers of students with exemptions. Instead, families may be behind on required vaccinations or schools haven’t followed up to collect vaccination paperwork.

Roth said measles is highly contagious and noted the virus can hang in the air for two hours after an infected person has left the room. Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 but has cropped up again. Currently there’s a measles outbreak in Oregon, one of more than a dozen outbreaks around the country in 2024.

In addition to the school-by-school search function, the state’s vaccination database provides a color-coded map showing vaccination rates by school district. A dozen school districts that have relatively low vaccination rates, most small and rural, show up as red or orange.

Another nine show up as purple because they submitted no vaccination data last year. They include Bethune, Cotopaxi, Estes Park, Frenchman, Hi-Plains, Karval, Lone Star, Springfield, and Salida. Users searching for vaccination rates for these districts will instead see data from a previous year, usually 2022-23.

Families can find medical providers with free or low-cost childhood vaccinations using the state’s Vaccines For Children map. The state provides additional vaccination information, including resources about flu and COVID vaccines, on its Get Vaccinated page.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Extreme heat is making schools hotter — and learning harder

2024-07-30T22:19:03+00:00

This story was originally published by The 19th and is republished under a Creative Commons license. Sign up for The 19th’s newsletter here.

Angela Girol has been teaching fourth grade in Pittsburgh for over two decades. Over the years she’s noticed a change at her school: It’s getting hotter.

Some days temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in her classroom, which, like many on the East Coast, isn’t air-conditioned. When it’s hot, she said, kids don’t eat, or drink enough water. “They end up in the nurse’s office, because they’re dizzy, they have a headache, their stomach hurts — all because of heat and dehydration,” she said.

To cope with the heat, her students are now allowed to keep water on their desks, but that presents its own challenges. “They’re constantly filling up water bottles, so I have to give them breaks during the day for that. And then everyone has to go to the bathroom all the time,” she said. “I’m losing instruction time.”

The effect extreme heat is having on schools and child care is starting to get the attention of policymakers and researchers. Last week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, published a report on the issue. In April, so did the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit policy organization.

“The average school building in the U.S. was built nearly 50 years ago,” said policy analyst Allie Schneider, co-author of the Center for American Progress report. “Schools and child care centers were built in areas that maybe 30 or 15 years ago didn’t require access to air-conditioning, or at least for a good portion of the year. Now we’re seeing that becoming a more pressing concern.” Students are also on campus during the hottest parts of the day. “It’s something that is really important not just to their physical health, but their learning outcomes,” she said.

Last April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its own report detailing some of the effects heat has on kids. It notes that children have a harder time thermo-regulating and take longer to produce sweat, making them more vulnerable than adults to heat exhaustion and heat illness.

Kids don’t necessarily listen to their body’s cues about heat, and might need an adult to remind them to drink water or not play outside. Kevin Toolan, a sixth-grade teacher in Long Island, New York, said having to constantly monitor heat safety distracts him from being able to teach. “The mindset is shifting to safety rather than instruction,” he said. “Those children don’t know how to handle it.” To keep the classroom cool, he’ll turn the lights off, but kids fall asleep. “They are lethargic,” he said.

To protect kids, schools have canceled classes because temperatures have gotten too high. Warmer temperatures also lead to more kids being absent from school, especially low-income students. And heat makes it harder to learn. One study from 2020 tracked the scores of students from schools without air-conditioning who took the PSAT exam at least twice. It found that increases in the average outdoor temperature corresponded with students making smaller gains on their retakes.

Both Toolan and Girol said that cooling options like keeping doors and windows open to promote cross ventilation are gone, thanks to the clampdowns in school security after 9/11 — and worsened by the threat of school shootings. Students and teachers are trapped in their overheating classrooms. “Teachers report leaving with migraines or signs of heat exhaustion,” said Toolan. “At 100 degrees, it is very uncomfortable. Your clothes are stuck to you.”

The Center for American Progress report joins a call by other advocacy groups to create federal guidance that schools and child care centers could adopt “to ensure that children are not forced to learn, play and exercise in dangerously hot conditions,” Schneider said. Some states already have standards in place, but they vary. In California, child care facilities are required to keep temperatures between 68 and 85 degrees. In Maryland, the recommendation is between 74 and 82 degrees. A few states, like Florida, require schools to reduce outdoor activity on high-heat days. Schneider says federal guidance would help all school districts use the latest scientific evidence to set protective standards.

Related: How can you learn if you just fainted? Why high-poverty school districts used COVID aid on buildings

In June, 23 health and education advocacy organizations signed a letter making a similar request of the Department of Education, asking for better guidance and coordination to protect kids. Some of their recommendations included publishing a plan that schools could adopt for dealing with high temperatures; encouraging states to direct more resources to providing air-conditioning in schools; and providing school districts with information on heat hazards.

“We know that school infrastructure is being overwhelmed by extreme heat, and that without a better system to advise schools on the types of practices they should be implementing, it’s going to be a little bit of the Wild West of actions being taken,” said Grace Wickerson, health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists.

A longer term solution is upgrading school infrastructure, but the need for air conditioning is overwhelming. According to the Center for American Progress report, 36,000 schools nationwide don’t have adequate HVAC systems. By 2025, it estimates that installing or upgrading HVAC or other cooling systems will cost around $4.4 billion.

Some state or local governments are trying to address the heat issue. In June, the New York State Legislature passed a bill now awaiting the governor’s signature that would require school staff to take measures like closing blinds or turning off lights when temperatures reach 82 degrees inside a classroom. At 88 degrees, classes would be canceled. A bill introduced last year and currently before the California State Assembly would require schools to create extreme heat action plans that could include mandating hydration and rest breaks, or moving recess to cooler parts of the day.

Some teachers have been galvanized to take action, too. As president of the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers, Toolan was part of an effort to secure $80 million for infrastructure upgrades through a bond vote. Over half will go to HVAC systems for some 500 classrooms in his district.

And Girol is running for a state representative seat in Pennsylvania, where a main plank in her platform is to fully fund public schools in order to pay for things like air conditioning. She was recently endorsed by the Climate Cabinet, a federal political action committee. “Part of the reason climate is so important to me is because of this issue,” she said. “I see how it’s negatively affecting my students.”

Retrasos en los EBT de verano han dejado a familias esperando para recibir beneficios cruciales de comida

2024-07-23T23:48:48+00:00

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Millones de niños en seis estados que son elegibles para los beneficios de comida de verano respaldados por el gobierno federal no los recibirán hasta justo antes de que empiece la escuela. Y en Delaware, Montana, y Nevada, medio millón de niños no los recibirán hasta que empiece el nuevo año escolar.

El EBT de verano, también conocido como SUN Bucks, brinda a las familias con bajos recursos $120 por cada niño en edad escolar para comprar alimentos durante el verano. Es un ejemplo inusual de un programa de la época de la pandemia que el congreso hizo permanente, y la mayoría de los estados lo están ofreciendo por primera vez este año.

Pero el programa ha sido perjudicado por retrasos y problemas para lanzarlo. Algunos estados han identificado cientos de miles de niños más que son elegibles para el EBT de verano de lo que esperaban en un principio. Esto ha acentuado la necesidad generalizada de asistencia alimenticia y reforzará el impacto del programa. Pero también es complicado poner en marcha el programa. Estos problemas han dejado a familias que inicialmente se les había dicho que la ayuda llegaría antes luchando para llegar a fin de mes.

Muchos estados y escuelas hicieron tan poco para promocionar el EBT de verano que las familias no tienen ni idea de cuándo o cómo recibirán sus beneficios.

“Esto daña a familias que contaban con que el beneficio sea depositado para una fecha determinada, y ahora tienen que esperar varias semanas o meses,” dijo Kelsey Boone, que monitorea el lanzamiento del EBT de verano para la organización sin ánimo de lucro Centro de Investigación y Acción Alimentaria.

Sin embargo, muchos estados pudieron iniciar sus programas a tiempo. Los funcionarios dicen que la ayuda que ha llegado a las familias está marcando una diferencia, especialmente cuando los precios de los alimentos siguen estando altos. Las familias tienen cuatro meses para gastar los beneficios, incluso si llegan retrasados.

Ha habido “una respuesta muy numerosa a este programa,” dijo Boone. “Realmente muestra lo mucho que tantas familias necesitan este programa.”

Los tres niños de Felina Romero desayunan y almuerzan gratis en la escuela. Pero durante el verano, los beneficios de comida se acaban a mediados de mes. El cereal y el jugo que ella consigue del banco de alimentos generalmente duran sólo unos días.

La mamá de Colorado había planeado usar su EBT de verano para comprar agua embotellada y snacks para ayudar a que sus niños estén saciados.

Pero tras semanas de llamadas a la línea de ayuda de su estado — “Se ha retrasado, se ha retrasado,” oía que le decían repetidamente — Romero recientemente se enteró que hay familias que no recibirán sus beneficios hasta agosto, cuando muchas escuelas ya retoman sus clases.

“Si nos lo hubieran dado durante el verano,” ella dijo, “nos habría ayudado tanto.”

El EBT de verano se originó en la ayuda durante la pandemia

Los defensores de la lucha contra el hambre por mucho tiempo han considerado el verano una de las épocas más difíciles para llegar a los niños.

Muchas escuelas sirven comidas gratuitas en el verano. Pero a los padres les cuesta llegar a ellas, porque están muy lejos o están abiertas sólo durante horas laborales. Las familias que dependen de los bancos de alimentos dicen que a menudo no encuentran los productos básicos que sus niños necesitan, como leche. Y frecuentemente, la comida está casi vencida.

El EBT de verano permite a las familias hacer las compras por cuenta propia — y forma parte de una tendencia de la época de la pandemia para proporcionar a las familias ayuda más directa.

“Los padres y sus familias son los únicos que saben que es lo mejor para ellos y para sus hijos — lo que realmente van a comer, lo que son capaces de comer,” dijo Hope Lane-Gaven, que dirige políticas de nutrición y los programas para la Asociación de Bancos de Comida de Ohio, el cual está ayudando a pasar la voz acerca del EBT de verano. “La mayor parte de los bancos de comida no pueden adaptar una caja a un niño que no consume gluten.”

El EBT de la pandemia, que fue lanzado cuando las escuelas estaban cerradas, ayudó a establecer el trabajo preliminar. Los estados notaron que a las familias les gustaba el programa, y ayudaba a que las agencias establecieran nuevos sistemas que ahora están ajustando para el EBT de verano.

Treinta y siete estados se inscribieron para poner en marcha el EBT de verano este año, mientras que los otros 13 estados optaron por no hacerlo. Algunos gobernadores republicanos se opusieron a proporcionar a las familias más asistencia gubernamental. Otros estados dijeron que no tenían ni los fondos ni la capacidad de poner en pie un nuevo programa en un par de meses.

Por qué los beneficios del EBT de verano están llegando tarde

Se suponía que los estados que decidieron participar debían empezar a distribuir los beneficios cuando la mayor parte de las escuelas terminaban las clases y empezaban las vacaciones de verano. Pero muchos estados señalaron complicaciones que hicieron que los beneficios no se distribuyeran a tiempo.

En Montana, un contratista externo desistió a último momento. En Nevada, la legislatura no aprobó la financiación para los costos administrativos hasta junio. En Pennsylvania e Illinois, los funcionarios dijeron que se necesitó tiempo para desarrollar nuevos sistemas, y que los beneficios se distribuirán más temprano el año que viene.

Colorado tuvo que contratar a un equipo nuevo e identificar a niños que automáticamente cumplían con los requisitos para el EBT de verano debido a su participación en otros programas, como el Programa de Asistencia Nutricional Suplementaria y el programa de comidas escolares gratuitas y a precio reducido.

Colorado terminó identificando a 550.000 niños que cumplían con los requisitos para el EBT de verano — unos sorprendentes 190.000 más de los que el estado había calculado inicialmente.

Un ejemplo de la tarjeta del EBT de verano que las familias de Colorado recibirán por correo.

Fue un “problema muy afortunado,” dijo Laura Kriebel, que supervisa el programa para la Oficina de Seguridad Económica de Colorado, pero también un “gran esfuerzo.”

Por ejemplo, el estado tuvo que trabajar con las escuelas para obtener domicilios actualizados y llevar a cabo chequeos de datos para asegurarse de que no enviaran beneficios duplicados.

También tuvo que establecer un proceso de aplicación para las familias que no cumplían los requisitos automáticamente por medio de otros programas. Esto representó un gran cambio con respecto a la EBT de la pandemia, la cual no tenía una aplicación.

El estado empezó a enviar cartas la semana pasada informando a las familias si cumplían los requisitos. Las tarjetas de beneficios podrían llegar a fin de mes. Pero es posible que las familias tal vez no las reciban hasta mediados de agosto, cuando muchos estudiantes ya habrán vuelto a la escuela.

“Me doy cuenta de lo difícil que es la pregunta de Colorado de: ¿A dónde están mis beneficios?” dijo Kriebel. “Pero solo estamos intentando ser considerados ya que el primer año del programa tiene muchos desafíos para distribuir los beneficios correctamente.”

Cómo algunos estados han puesto en marcha el de EBT de verano correctamente

Carolina del Norte es uno de alrededor doce estados que ha exitosamente distribuido beneficios a principios del verano. El estado identificó unos 266.000 niños elegibles adicionales, sin embargo distribuyó los beneficios a mediados de junio.

Madhu Vulimiri, subdirectora del Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos de Carolina del Norte, atribuye la capacidad del estado a cumplir los plazos a la “comunicación constante” entre el estado y el emisor de beneficios. Fallos en la comunicación contribuyeron a retrasos en otros ámbitos.

Las relaciones establecidas durante el EBT de la pandemia con la agencia de educación de Carolina del Norte y la Banda del Este de Indios Cherokee ayudaron a que los datos de los estudiantes llegaran rápidamente a los Servicios de Salud y Humanos.

Y fundamentalmente, Carolina del Norte dio el paso adicional de identificar a familias que probablemente cumplirían los requisitos pero necesitaban llenar papeles. Luego, el estado les envió invitaciones para aplicar por mensaje de texto, email, y por teléfono en junio — algo que otros estados no hicieron.

“Hemos visto una buena respuesta” dijo Vulimiri. “Dado que es el primer año, nosotros queríamos asegurarnos de que se corriera la voz e intentar minimizar las chances de haber salteado a alguien.”

En Arizona, la planificación inicial ayudó al estado a proporcionar beneficios para aquellas familias que automáticamente cumplían los requisitos mediante el Programa de Asistencia Nutricional Suplementaria (SNAP, por sus siglas en inglés) u otros programas a comienzos de junio. Para los niños que necesitaban una nueva tarjeta, el estado también decidió agrupar los beneficios por familia, lo cual aceleró los tiempos de envío.

“Si se demora demasiado tiempo, antes de que te des cuenta, el verano llega y nadie se compromete a llevar a cabo el programa,” dijo Ernest Baca, un administrador adjunto del Departamento de Seguridad Económica de Arizona.

Ahora, una gran meta es asegurarse que las familias sepan que sólo tienen 122 días para gastar los beneficios de EBT de verano una vez que los reciben — un plazo más corto que otros tipos de ayuda alimenticia.

Eso es especialmente importante después de que cientos de millones de dólares en ayuda del EBT de la pandemia se vencieron sin ser gastados, según datos recopilados por el especialista en educación David Rubel. Frecuentemente esto fue porque las familias nunca habían recibido sus tarjetas, o habían tenido problemas para utilizarlas.

Para evitar esa situación, Colorado estableció un sistema para ver cuales familias todavía tienen que gastar su ayuda y enviará recordatorios antes de que se venza el EBT de verano, dijo Kriebel.

En el futuro, funcionarios del país entero dicen que sus estados proyectan emitir los beneficios antes. El Departamento de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos anunció recientemente que otorgaría $100 millones en subvenciones para ayudar a los estados y a las naciones tribales a modernizar sus sistemas tecnológicos para que el EBT de verano funcione de manera más eficaz.

Las familias que aún esperan sus beneficios dicen que tienen la esperanza que los estados puedan hacerlo mejor en el futuro.

Esto incluye a Stephanie Hall en Nuevo México. Su estado no tiene previsto enviar los beneficios de EBT de verano hasta principios de agosto — justo antes de que la mayor parte de los niños de Nuevo México vuelvan a la escuela. La ayuda hubiera sido especialmente útil para comprar snacks para su hija de 15 años, que es pre-diabética y necesita comer cada varias horas para regular su nivel de azúcar en la sangre.

“En realidad estoy luchando para mantener a mi familia,” dijo Hall. “Nos decepcionaron.”

Kalyn Belsha es reportera nacional de educación basada en Chicago. Puede ponerse en contacto con ella enviando un correo electrónico al: kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Flavia Melia Franco

Former Newark educators rehired to consult on career and technical education programs, facilities

2024-07-23T10:00:00+00:00

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The Newark Board of Education rehired two consultants to review its buildings and help implement new career and technical education programs as district officials work to address their aging facilities.

Former Newark educators, Mary Bennett and Raymond Lindgren, were hired to help audit district buildings, consult on new career and technical education programs, and support ongoing school construction projects. The school board approved the $192,000 contract during its June meeting. The contract also tasks the consultants with providing support to finish construction at the Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design.

Bennett, who was first hired in 2019 and is also a State Board of Education member, said the work to update New Jersey’s oldest school buildings is needed to support student learning and expand career and technical education programs.

“We have some of the oldest, still functioning buildings in place, and so trying to keep those in the best possible condition for children and teachers is an ongoing challenge,” she said.

For years, district leaders have sounded the alarm about Newark’s declining buildings. Many lack central air conditioning and heating systems, while others need complete upgrades. In 2016, the state’s Schools Development Authority promised to fix more than 100 buildings but the SDA only approved 11 for repairs. And since 2006, only eight new schools have been built while one other property was given to the district by the state and then used for a school.

Superintendent Roger León, who was appointed to the role in 2018, has been clear about his plans to expand the district and update buildings, but the state’s SDA is responsible for funding construction projects in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts in the state. Last year, León estimated that it would take more than $2 billion to fully repair and update all schools.

Bennett and Lindgren were hired to consult for the district four days a week for the 2024-25 school year at a cost of $96,000 each, according to the contract. Bennett said she’s visited Newark schools and many need new paint, upgraded water infiltration systems, and asbestos removal, among other needs. Lindgren, a former Newark educator and vice chairperson of the Newark Public Schools historical preservation committee, did not respond to calls from Chalkbeat.

While the SDA pays for construction projects, it doesn’t have the necessary funds to cover all of Newark’s construction needs. The legislature provides funding to the SDA on a “pay-as-you-go basis” with no long-term funding to support their work.

“No matter what we do, we can’t get it all done as expeditiously as people would like it to be done,” Bennett said.

Last school year, Newark students experienced a heatwave that left school buildings without central air conditioning feeling hot and muggy. Installing window units in classrooms can provide temporary relief in some school buildings, but others require new wiring to power those air conditioners, Bennett said.

Part of her work as a facilities consultant is to take stock of the district’s building needs and help find solutions. Over the past 18 months, Bennett said she helped schools purchase new furniture by using COVID relief dollars. In total, the Newark district received more than $287 million from three relief packages approved by Congress in 2020.

“Many schools that could never have afforded the furniture upgrades out of their regular operating budget are looking at lots of new furniture,” she said.

Similarly, her work in implementing new career and technical education programs also requires Bennett to think about the amenities students may need for a specific program.

Bennett, a former Newark principal, program director, and educational consultant for Seton Hall University, has also supported the district’s project to open the new Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design in the East Ward. Construction for that school has been delayed for the last three years, but Bennett said its opening is important so students can learn about trade jobs such as plumbing and electricity. Lindgren leads the School of Architecture and Interior Design project.

“Young people need to realize that the fields of electricity and masonry and carpentry and plumbing, along with engineering and architectural design, they’re not going away,” Bennett added.

The project was delayed last year because of a state stop-work order after workers filed state complaints over unfair wages. Bennett said the district is working to overcome the labor challenges with the developer to open the school by September 2025.

The SDA also promised to replace 13 of Newark’s oldest school buildings, but the deal leaves out 20 others needing repairs, said León during last month’s board meeting. The agency is also planning to rebuild University High School and demolish Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School, built in 1895.

“When you look at the scope of projects, of building facilities, that are going to house more than 1,000 students, you need to make sure that everybody is on board and we’re all pulling in the same direction,” Bennett said.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Summer EBT delays have left families waiting weeks or months for crucial food benefits

2024-07-17T18:23:17+00:00

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Millions of children in six states won’t get federally backed summer food benefits they’re eligible for until just before school starts. And in Delaware, Montana, and Nevada, half a million kids won’t get them until the new school year begins.

Summer EBT, also known as SUN Bucks, provides low-income families with $120 per school-age child to buy groceries over the summer. It’s a rare example of a pandemic-era program that Congress made permanent, and most states are offering it for the first time this year.

But delays and start-up challenges have dogged the program. Some states have identified hundreds of thousands more children who are eligible for Summer EBT than they initially expected. That’s underscored the widespread need for food assistance and will bolster the program’s impact. But it’s also complicated getting the program off the ground. Such problems have left families who were initially told the aid would arrive sooner scrambling to make ends meet.

Many states and schools did so little to publicize Summer EBT that families have no idea when or how their benefits will arrive.

“This hurts families who were counting on the benefit to be deposited by a certain date, and now they have to wait several weeks or months,” said Kelsey Boone, who’s monitoring the Summer EBT rollout for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center.

Still, many states did manage to get their programs up and running on time. Officials there say the aid that’s reached families is making a difference, especially at a time when food prices remain high. Families will have four months to spend the benefits, even if it arrives late.

There’s been “a very massive response to this program,” Boone said. “It really just shows how much this program is needed by so many families.”

Felina Romero’s three kids eat breakfast and lunch for free at school. But during the summer, her food benefits often run out mid-month. The cereal and juice she gets from food pantries often last just a few days.

The Colorado mom had planned to use Summer EBT to buy bottled water and snacks to help her kids stay full.

But after weeks of calls to her state’s helpline — “It’s delayed, it’s delayed,” she kept hearing — Romero recently found out that families may not get their benefits until August, when many schools are back in session.

“If they would have gave us that during the summer,” she said, “it would have helped us so much.”

Summer EBT has roots in pandemic aid

Anti-hunger advocates have long considered summer one of the toughest times to reach children.

Many schools serve free summer meals. But parents often struggle to get to them, either because they’re far away or open only during work hours. Families who rely on food banks say they often can’t find staples their kids need, like milk. And often, the food is nearly expired.

Summer EBT allows families to shop for themselves — part of a pandemic-era trend to provide families with more direct aid.

“Only parents and families know what’s best for themselves and their children — what they’re actually going to eat, what they’re capable of eating,” said Hope Lane-Gavin, who directs nutrition policy and programs for the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, which is helping get the word out about Summer EBT. “Most food pantries can’t really tailor a box to a gluten-free kid.”

Pandemic EBT, which launched when schools were closed, helped lay the groundwork. States found that families liked that program, and it helped agencies set up new systems they’re now tweaking for Summer EBT.

Thirty-seven states signed up to run Summer EBT this year, while the other 13 opted out. Some Republican governors objected to providing families with more government assistance. Other states said they didn’t have the funds or capacity to stand up a new program in a few months’ time.

Why Summer EBT benefits are arriving late

States that chose to participate were supposed to start distributing benefits around the time that most schools let out for summer break. But many states reported a number of complications that led to benefits not going out on time.

In Montana, a third-party contractor backed out at the last minute. In Nevada, the legislature didn’t approve funding for administrative costs until June. In Pennsylvania and Illinois, officials said it took time to develop new systems, and benefits will go out earlier next year.

Colorado had to hire a new team and identify kids who automatically qualified for Summer EBT through their participation in other programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the free and reduced-price school meal program.

Colorado ended up identifying 550,000 children who qualified for Summer EBT — a whopping 190,000 more than the state initially estimated.

An example of the Summer EBT card that Colorado families will get in the mail.

It was a “very happy problem,” said Laura Kriebel, who’s overseeing the program for the Colorado Office of Economic Security, but also a “pretty big lift.”

For example, the state had to work with schools to get up-to-date mailing addresses and run data checks to make sure it didn’t mail out duplicate benefits.

It also had to set up an application process for families who didn’t automatically qualify through other programs. That represented a big change from Pandemic EBT, which had no application.

The state started sending out letters to let families know if they were eligible last week. Benefit cards could arrive later this month. But families may not get them until later in August, when many students are already back in school.

“I realize how tough it is to get the question mark from Colorado of: Where are my benefits?” Kriebel said. “But we are just trying to be thoughtful about this since this first program year does have a lot of challenges with getting the benefits out the door accurately.”

How some states rolled out Summer EBT smoothly

North Carolina is one of around a dozen states that successfully distributed benefits earlier in the summer. The state identified an additional 266,000 eligible children, but still got benefits out in mid-June.

Madhu Vulimiri, a deputy director at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, attributes the state’s ability to stick to its timeline to the “constant communication” between the state and its benefits issuer. Communication breakdowns contributed to delays elsewhere.

Relationships built through Pandemic EBT with North Carolina’s education agency and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians helped get student data to Health and Human Services quickly.

And crucially, North Carolina took the extra step of identifying families that would likely qualify but needed to fill out paperwork. Then the state sent them invitations to apply via text, email, and phone in June — something other states did not do.

“We’ve been seeing a good response to that,” Vulimiri said. “Given that it’s the first year, we wanted to make sure we got the word out and tried to minimize the chance that we might miss somebody.”

In Arizona, early planning helped the state get benefits to families that automatically qualified through SNAP or another program in early June. For kids that needed a new card, the state also decided to group benefits by family unit, which sped up mailing times.

“If you wait too long, before you know it, the summer is here and no one is committed to doing the program,” said Ernest Baca, a deputy administrator in Arizona’s Department of Economic Security.

One big goal now is to make sure families know they have only 122 days to spend Summer EBT benefits once they receive them — a shorter timeline than other forms of food aid.

That’s especially important after hundreds of millions of dollars in Pandemic EBT aid expired without being spent, according to data compiled by education consultant David Rubel. Often that was because families never got their cards, or had trouble using them.

To head that off, Colorado set up a system to see which families have yet to spend their aid and will send out reminders before Summer EBT expires, Kriebel said.

Going forward, officials across the country say their states plan to issue benefits earlier. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced it would award $100 million in grants to help states and tribal nations make updates to their technology systems to run Summer EBT more smoothly.

Families still waiting for their benefits say they hope states can do better in the future.

That includes Stephanie Hall in New Mexico. Her state isn’t planning to send out Summer EBT benefits until early August — just before most New Mexico kids go back to school. The aid would have been especially useful for buying snacks for her 15-year-old daughter, who is pre-diabetic and needs to eat every few hours to regulate her blood sugar levels.

“I’m actually fighting to sustain my family,” Hall said. “They let us down.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

NJ will pay $153 million to demolish elementary school, replace a high school in Newark

2024-07-16T14:23:43+00:00

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The state agency responsible for funding school construction projects in Newark will spend nearly $153 million to build a new South Ward high school and relocate a nearby elementary school.

But the Schools Development Authority says the project is in its early stages of development and it’s unclear when the plans will begin as building designs, construction proposals, and timelines have yet to be completed.

The plans call for the construction of a new University High School and the relocation of Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School students to the existing high school building, according to state and district plans.

They also call for the demolition of Hawthorne Avenue Elementary, one of the district’s oldest buildings, which sits a block away from the existing University High School.

The new high school will be located on the SDA-owned site on Hawthorne Avenue and Demarest Street where the community-run Hawthorne Avenue farm partially occupies the land, according to the SDA’s project charter. Since 2012, the SDA has leased the land to the Greater Newark Conservancy, which manages the 3-acre farm on Hawthorne Avenue after previous plans to build a new school did not occur.

It’s unclear if the farm will remain on the property and at what point of the project Hawthorne Avenue Elementary students will be relocated.

“We can’t take government money and build a school,” Superintendent Roger León said in June. “Now, there are other entities that can do that, but schools like public schools, like this one, we’re not allowed to do that.”

The state’s Schools Development Authority is responsible for paying for construction projects in Newark Public Schools and 30 other high-poverty districts due to a 1985 state Supreme Court decision in Abbott v. Burke. District officials have long raised concerns about Newark’s aging buildings and shuttered schools under state control.

When León took the helm in 2018, he made a plan to expand the district and reclaim former public school buildings while stopping the expansion of charter schools in Newark. Charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded schools, make up one of the district’s largest expenses in the upcoming budget and have been at the center of district lawsuits and appeals to stop their expansion.

University High School was built in 1956 with an addition added in 1970, according to district records. In September 2023, the school enrolled 447 ninth to 12th grade students, according to state fall data. The new high school building is set to be a 190,000-square-foot facility with plans to accommodate 920 students, according to the state’s project plans.

The district’s long-range facilities plan deems the University High School building in need of repairs to its infrastructure, HVAC system, and facade, among other repairs. It also assesses its replacement costs at around $33 million. Hawthorne Avenue was built in 1895 and is home to 570 students in grades pre-K to 8th grade, according to a state memo.

Through the SDA’s 2022 capital plan, Newark was approved for two school projects, including the new University High School project, to address district overcrowding, based on 2019-2021 enrollment numbers, according to Edye Maier, the SDA’s director of communications. Since 2006, the state has built eight new schools for Newark, and one other property, which later became the Nelson Mandela Elementary School, was given to the district.

In 2022, the SDA granted the district two new pre-K through eighth grade schools, along with 14 other projects across the state to address high-priority needs and overcrowding. One of those schools is the recently opened Nelson Mandela Elementary School, housed in the former University Heights Charter School building, which welcomed 134 pre-K-3rd grade students in September 2023, according to fall state enrollment data.

The charter school closed in 2022 after it struggled to improve students’ academic performance, faced declining enrollment, and had an unstable leadership team.

Instead of a second pre-K to eighth grade school, the district negotiated with the state to move forward with the construction of a new University High School building.

The SDA is also replacing 13 of Newark’s oldest school buildings but León said the deal leaves out 20 schools. Overall, the state agency estimated that more than $7 billion is needed to address current construction needs in the 31 high-poverty districts. The state legislature provides funding to the SDA on a “pay as you go basis” with no long-term funding to support their work.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

State promises to replace 13 Newark schools as district mulls bond for other projects

2024-07-11T21:34:43+00:00

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The state has agreed to fund several new facilities to take the place of some of Newark’s oldest school buildings — but the deal still leaves out 20 schools that need to be replaced, district officials say.

Through the state’s Schools Development Authority, New Jersey will pay to replace 13 school buildings built before 1920, said Superintendent Roger León during June’s board meeting.

But leaders of Newark Public Schools have identified 33 schools that need replacing and dozens more that need renovations. The state identified Newark’s need to replace its aging buildings but more funding is needed to move forward with the plans, according to Edye Maier, the SDA’s director of communications.

District leaders say they will ask the community for help in choosing the 13 schools but they must first submit district-wide facilities needs, cost assessments, and other project proposals to the state before the SDA secures funding from the legislature. Due to the New Jersey Supreme Court’s 1985 decision in Abbott v. Burke, the development authority is obligated to pay for construction projects in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts.

Newark’s public schools are among the oldest in the state. Many Newark schools lack central air conditioning and heating systems, while more modern ones need building renovations and upgrades to boilers, roofs, among other needs. Last year, León estimated that it would take more than $2 billion to fully repair and update all schools.

Since 2006, only eight new schools have been built in the district; one other property was given to the district by the state and then used for a school. And since 2016, district officials have asked the SDA to fix more than 100 buildings, but the authority has only approved 11 for repairs.

The legislature provides funding to the SDA on a “pay as you go basis” with no long-term funding to support their work.

With a state promise to help tackle Newark’s facilities needs, the district is also weighing whether to present a bond referendum to city voters next year to cover all school construction projects.

“We will decide, we meaning this community, will decide what are those 13 schools,” León said in June. “Now remember, the state is paying for those 13 schools, that’s good. But that does leave the other 50 plus schools that need help.”

State funding falls short of school facilities needs

Newark Public Schools enrolls roughly 42,000 pre-K-12 students in its 63 schools. Its buildings have been crumbling for decades, and state officials have been slow to address the needs. Since the state’s SDA was established over two decades ago, more than $760 million has been spent on renovation projects in Newark, the most of any school district in New Jersey.

Over the past three fiscal years, the SDA has provided approximately $6 million in funding to Newark Public Schools to address building upgrades — totaling $18 million — such as HVAC repairs or replacement, masonry, and roofing repairs, among other work. The district can direct the funds to facility improvement projects they deem most needed and identify and manage the work funded by the SDA, Maier said.

The SDA is currently working on repairs at Branch Brook School — formerly known as ECC North and set to reopen this fall — as well as Cleveland School, Technology, and University High Schools, according to Maier, the SDA’s director of communications. Last year, the state gave the district the former University Heights Charter School building to open the Nelson Mandela Elementary School. The agency is also working to build a new University High School.

In 2022, the SDA completed structural repairs at Shabazz High School and basement water infiltration at Roberto Clemente Elementary School. The price tag was more than $3.5 million. The state also rebuilt schools such as Science Park High School in 2006, Speedway Avenue Elementary School in 2010, and Elliot Street Elementary School in 2016.

District officials have said that a construction bond referendum would allow them to pay for all their facilities needs that can’t be funded through its $1.5 billion spending plan for the upcoming school year. For the 2024-25 school year, 82.3% of the district’s budget will come from state aid, 9.3% from city taxes, 7.7% from an excess fund balance, and 0.7% coming from other local and federal aid.

During June’s Newark school board meeting, members approved a resolution to submit an updated long-range facilities plan, cost analysis, and district-wide building needs assessments to the state. SDA officials will review the district’s facilities needs — such as which buildings need air conditioning and other renovations — as they wait for the legislature to provide additional funding for projects, León said during June’s meeting.

The resolution in June also allowed the board to take “initial steps” to authorize the board’s attorneys to preserve the chance to propose construction projects “to the voters via a bond referendum at a school district election.” There was no mention of placing a bond referendum in upcoming elections.

District leaders have stressed that state funds cover only a fraction of Newark’s facilities needs. And Newark’s relatively small tax base makes it harder for the district to rely on local property values and local funding to help pay for facilities projects.

The state allocated a record high $1.25 billion in aid for Newark for next school year but the district has historically been one of the most underfunded in New Jersey based on the state’s school funding formula. And state aid provided through the formula is not meant to pay for school construction or renovation projects.

Under New Jersey law, a local school board must give the city clerk and the county board of elections no less than a 60-day notice, in writing, of its intention to hold a special election. It may place construction proposals on the ballot during its annual school election in April for Newark.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Vaping: These Colorado schools will get Juul lawsuit settlement money for education and prevention

2024-07-09T20:44:33+00:00

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Twenty-one Colorado school districts, seven charter schools, one cooperative education services board, and one youth residential treatment center have been awarded $11.4 million in funding over the next three years for vaping education and prevention programs.

The money comes from a $31.7 million settlement between the state of Colorado and e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc. Colorado sued Juul in 2020, alleging that it targeted youth with deceptive marketing and played down the health risks of vaping. In settling the lawsuit, Juul did not admit any wrongdoing.

Colorado is poised to spend the bulk of the settlement money on a $20 million grant program aimed at improving children’s mental health. But the state is also giving smaller grants directly to school districts, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced the recipients of the smaller grants in a press release Tuesday. The school district and school recipients are:

Alamosa School District: $244,968

Atlas Preparatory School in Colorado Springs: $85,000

Aurora Public Schools: $140,267

AXL Academy in Aurora: $238,000

Bennett School District: $218,547

Center School District: $198,098

Chavez-Huerta Preparatory Academy in Pueblo: $46,940

Colorado Military Academy in Colorado Springs: $117,471

Dolores County School District: $45,681

Downtown Denver Expeditionary School in Denver: $78,000

DSST Public Schools in Denver and Aurora: $114,000

Eagle County School District: $213,353

Elizabeth School District: $130,217

Fountain-Fort Carson School District: $131,009

Gunnison Watershed School District: $74,534

Harrison School District: $253,405

Lake County School District: $87,543

Mancos School District: $54,300

Mapleton Public Schools: $36,681

Montrose County School District: $100,000

New Legacy Charter School in Aurora: $71,624

North Park School District: $187,545

Pueblo County School District 70: $127,657

San Luis Valley BOCES: $273,870

School District 49: $126,961

Sierra Grande School District: $100,985

Southern Peaks Regional Treatment Center in Cañon City: $36,181

Steamboat Springs School District: $125,635

Strasburg School District: $91,500

Summit School District: $50,000

Twelve nonprofit organizations and government entities were awarded a total of $6 million. Those recipients are:

21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Juvenile Diversion Lighthouse Program: $224,010 for a vaping education program for youth in Mesa County, with a focus on rural communities
Boys & Girls Clubs in Colorado, Inc.: $855,979 for community engagement and youth substance use prevention and peer-led programs at 50 clubs across Colorado
Broomfield Public Health and Environment: $202,184 for nicotine replacement therapy and peer support programs to help young people quit vaping, with a focus on LGBTQ+ youth
Denver Department of Public Health and Environment: $541,158 for nicotine replacement therapy, community engagement, and trauma-informed counseling for youth
Mountain Youth: $500,000 for vaping prevention education, media campaigns, cessation programs, and youth-led initiatives in the Eagle River Valley
Jefferson County Public Health: $400,000 for vaping education and cessation services for youth
Partners of Delta, Montrose & Ouray: $297,161 for mentors who will support middle and high school students with behavioral issues through school-based programs
Partners for Youth: $335,487 for an initiative to connect youth in Routt County with trusted adults and engage them in positive activities to prevent substance use
Rocky Mountain Center for Health, Promotion and Education: $800,000 for a program that will train adults to build strong connections with youth in school, family, and community settings
Servicios de La Raza: $950,000 to deploy a bilingual vaping-cessation program for Latino youth
University of Colorado/Colorado School of Public Health UpRISE: $544,018 to expand a youth-led social justice movement for tobacco control
Youth Healthcare Alliance: $350,000 for a program in which school-based health centers will participate in an alternative-to-discipline initiative for youth who are caught vaping

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

New rules for free and reduced-price meals in New Jersey expand eligibility to 60,000 more students

2024-07-09T18:41:23+00:00

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When New Jersey’s 1.4 million K-12 students return for the new public school year in September, 60,000 more of them will qualify for free or reduced-price meals as a new state law kicks in, representing a new front in the state’s efforts to curb food insecurity.

The Working Class Families Anti-Hunger Act, signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy in January, raised the upper limit on household income that triggers help with meals at school to 224% of the federal poverty line, from the previous 200% for New Jersey students.

The new limit means students from a family of four will qualify for school meals if the family has an annual income of less than $69,888, based on the federal poverty line for 2024.

The new limit will boost the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price breakfast and/or lunch at school to about 510,000, from 450,000 in the 2023-24 school year. The new total represents more than a third of the public school students in the state and marks the state’s latest effort to top up federal assistance for school meals.

It also aims to help stem what has been a sharp drop-off in the number of New Jersey students receiving help, after pandemic-era policies that had increased access to all students nationwide, ended in 2022.

Access to healthy meals expands under new rules

In the 2022-23 school year, some 340,000 New Jersey students had free or reduced-price breakfast at school on an average day, according to the Food Research and Action Center, a national advocacy group. About 628,000 had free or reduced-price lunch at school during that period.

“All students deserve access to healthy meals and this legislation provides a clear path for those in need,” said former Assistant Agriculture Secretary Joe Atchison III, whose office oversees the school lunch programs. “Having nutritious food available at school each day allows children to perform better academically as well as during extra-curricular activities.”

The expansion of eligibility will cost $30 million in the first year, and an estimated $7 million a year to maintain, state officials said.

The expansion falls short of the ultimate goal of many advocates: universal access to school lunch. New Jersey lags eight states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont — that provide free school meals to all students.

Still, the change puts New Jersey near the top of states in their access requirements. Only Oregon is higher, providing free school meals for students whose households make less than 300% of the poverty line.

End of waivers meant fewer students received meals

“The new poverty threshold is a great way to make sure that kids have access to the meals that they need,” said Crystal FitzSimons, who leads work on nutrition programs in school-age children at the Food Research and Action Center. “The way that New Jersey has approached it is very exciting.”

She said the federal eligibility standard leaves a lot of families excluded from help with school meals, and raising the qualifying standard to 224% of the poverty line is a good way to help poor families, especially in a state like New Jersey with a high cost of living.

Like other states, New Jersey saw a big decline in the number of students getting free meals at school in the 2022-23 school year as the ending of federal pandemic policies drove down the number of free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches, according to data from FRAC. Nationally, millions of children lost access to the free school meals that were available beginning in the spring of 2020 through the 2021–2022 school year, FRAC said.

“The end of the pandemic-era waivers that allowed schools to offer meals to all children at no charge had an immediate impact on school meal participation during the 2022–2023 school year,” it said.

In New Jersey, the number of students receiving free lunches dropped by almost half during the last school year compared with 2021-22, while those receiving a free breakfast declined by about 65% in 2022-23, the data shows.

Summer food programs try to offset need

But fewer students are eligible for free food when school is out during the summer. Eligibility for summer meals is based on the federal Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program that feeds children from families with incomes under 185% of the poverty line. That will mean kids from New Jersey families with incomes of more than the federal limit won’t qualify for food assistance over the summer break, even if they qualify when the new school year starts.

State Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, a Middlesex Democrat, has made tackling hunger and food insecurity a priority in his legislative tenure, and said the disparity needs to be addressed.

“The new school meal program that begins in September is New Jersey law and will cover kids from families who earn up to 224%,” said Chris Aikin, Coughlin’s spokesman. “So those kids from families between 185% and 224% will be eligible for breakfast/lunch in school during the year, but will not be eligible for summer EBT.”

In four South Jersey counties, the summer shortfall is offset by a feeding program operated by the Food Bank of South Jersey, the national advocacy group No Kid Hungry, and Hello Fresh, a maker of meal kits.

The Food Bank of South Jersey is currently feeding about 170,000 people a month, up from 125,000 in 2022. Greg Loder, the food bank’s director of marketing and advocacy, attributed the increase to higher costs for groceries, mortgages, medical costs and a host of other household expenses that have been driven higher by inflation. More people are now turning to food banks and pantries to make ends meet because “rent eats first,” food-aid officials say.

Need for summer food assistance higher than expected

In late June, about 75 families waited in their cars in the parking lot of Delsea Regional High School in Franklinville, Gloucester County, to collect boxes of pre-packed meals, plus cook-at-home meal kits donated by Hello Fresh.

The number of clients was higher than expected at the start of the summer, according to the organizers, and is consistent with region-wide demand this year and last that is even higher than it was at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among them was Jenna Johnson, 31, who came to collect food for herself and her two children, ages 18 months and 11 years. She hadn’t previously sought help with food but turned to the food bank because a pandemic-related federal benefit recently ended.

“I did get the assistance, and I just lost it, so this is the perfect time for this,” said Johnson, who used to be a bus aide for special-needs children at the school but is now a stay-at-home mom.

Margaret Caldwell, 65, of Malaga was waiting in line for a kit that supplies ingredients for a meal, with recipes in English and Spanish. She cares for her two grandsons, ages 12 and 8, while her son, a single father, goes out to work. Without the donated food, the boys wouldn’t go hungry, but they wouldn’t have as good a diet, she said.

Caldwell said she’s thankful for the food bank and doesn’t have any qualms about asking for help. “I’ve worked all my life, I’m retired now, and you gotta do what you gotta do,” she said.

Jon Hurdle, a freelance writer who regularly reports on water and other environmental issues, is part of the NJ Spotlight News COVID-19 reporting team. This story was first published on NJ Spotlight News, a content partner of Chalkbeat Newark.

COVID aid funded big repairs at high-poverty schools. Will that give academics a boost too?

2024-07-01T10:00:00+00:00

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When the air conditioning broke in a Terrebonne Parish school, it sometimes got so hot that kids fainted or had asthma attacks, and the school had to call an ambulance.

More often, the school sent kids home early. In the best-case scenario, students packed into classrooms with working AC or relocated to the gym or cafeteria to escape the southeast Louisiana heat.

So when the school district got its final federal COVID relief package in 2021, school officials made fixing the AC a top priority. Nearly $23 million — more than 40% of the district’s aid allotment — went to replace the most dire HVAC systems in seven schools.

“It gives us the confidence that we’re not going to have to cancel school, the kids are not going to get sick,” Superintendent Bubba Orgeron said. “When it’s either too hot or too cold … kids are focused on that instead of learning.”

Handed billions of dollars with few strings attached, thousands of school leaders made a similar calculation that year. Across 21 states with publicly available data, schools on average planned to spend 18% of their third and largest COVID aid package on facilities, a Chalkbeat analysis found. That’s nearly as much as they were required to spend on academic recovery.

In Mississippi, schools put nearly 40% of their final aid package toward buildings. In South Dakota, it was more than half.

As the nation takes stock of its return on this massive one-time investment, many school leaders stand behind their decision to go big on facilities, and say this will pay dividends for academics and student engagement. A growing body of research suggests a child’s learning environment affects their test scores and attendance.

But recent research points to a potentially troubling trend: High-poverty districts, like Terrebonne Parish, were more likely to budget a greater share of their final aid package for facilities and operations, especially costly projects like new construction and building repairs. That left them less to spend on academic recovery — even though they educate the kids who’ve had the most academic ground to make up.

Those patterns speak to how the pandemic and months of school closures collided with decades of deferred maintenance and underinvestment in school facilities. Those same high-poverty districts were especially in need of major building upgrades, a 2023 Urban Institute report found.

If districts felt like they had to use this money to fix school buildings even in the face of “a massive learning loss challenge,” said Christopher Brooks, an education researcher who analyzed how thousands of districts planned to spend their third relief package, “I think that’s really telling.”

Why schools spent COVID aid on facilities

U.S. schools got a total of $190 billion in federal pandemic aid. The American Rescue Plan, the last and largest package, provided $123 billion to K-12 schools, and required them to put 20% toward academic interventions for kids.

Federal officials said that money was meant to help reopen schools and make up for interrupted learning. But local leaders had broad discretion to decide what that looked like.

Some schools used the money to hire social workers, expand summer school, and stand up new tutoring programs. But other school leaders gravitated toward improving facilities, worried they could not maintain added staff or programs once the “fiscal cliff” arrived and the aid ran out.

Some politicians and school finance experts encouraged schools to spend pandemic aid on one-time costs. That argument resonated with certain state and local officials.

Amaya Hayden works in the library at Valley High School, part of the New Kensington-Arnold School District. The district spent some of its federal COVID aid on new furniture.

“South Dakotans are practical people,” Mary Stadick Smith, a state education agency spokesperson, wrote in an email explaining why schools there budgeted roughly $183 million to repair buildings and improve air quality. “School leaders made investments that they believed would provide sustained benefits to students and positively impact their schools for the long term — without imperiling budgets with unsustainable spending.”

The lack of guardrails led to some questionable spending on things like relaxation rooms with massage chairs and football fields. But many districts used their biggest pandemic aid package for more pressing facility needs.

A Chalkbeat review of 7,000 district spending plans compiled by the company Burbio, for example, found that more than 3,300 planned to spend some of the aid on HVAC or air filtration. Hundreds of districts budgeted more than half of their final aid package on air quality improvements.

The need was widespread: More than a third of all public schools had HVAC systems requiring repairs when the pandemic hit, a 2020 Government Accountability Office report estimated. Terrebonne Parish’s ACs were so old, for example, that maintenance workers struggled to find replacement parts.

“Everything was hanging on by duct tape,” Orgeron said.

Federal officials pushed schools early on to improve ventilation, and have continued to endorse that spending.

When Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was asked in late May if he thought spending on facilities had taken away from the priorities he laid out earlier this year — tutoring, summer school, and attendance — he said no.

“We are seeing that the dollars were used on what they were supposed to be,” he told Chalkbeat at an Education Writers Association event. Improving air quality so kids could return to in-person learning was part of that equation, he added.

New student desks purchased with pandemic aid have helped facilitate classroom conversations in the New Kensington-Arnold School District.

To some school leaders, investing a lot in certain highly touted academic recovery strategies, such as intensive tutoring, felt risky because they saw other districts struggle to get it right.

But they trusted building repairs would pay off.

Arkansas’ Decatur School District considered hiring tutors with its last COVID aid package. But a committee of staff, students, and parents ultimately decided against it because schools wouldn’t be able to afford their salaries after the money ran out.

The rural district serves 570 students, nearly 80% of whom come from low-income families. It spent almost 70% of its biggest aid package on facilities, including air conditioning, ventilation, windows, and doors.

“Do you want to spend it on technology that’s obsolete in two or three years, or do you want to spend it on staff who, once the money sunsets, you have to let that staff go?” Superintendent Steven Watkins said. “We took that money and looked at the long-term goals.”

High-poverty school districts spent big on buildings

Across Arkansas, higher-poverty districts like Decatur spent COVID aid on facilities more frequently than wealthier districts. They also spent a bigger share of the aid on building needs.

High-poverty districts spent more often and more extensively on facilities in North Carolina and Delaware, too, a Chalkbeat analysis found. Bella DiMarco, a policy analyst at FutureEd, found similar patterns in Mississippi. There, at least 20 districts spent more than 70% of their final aid package on facilities.

Still, it’s hard to draw broader conclusions, since many states don’t make enough data publicly available to analyze patterns.

Some states where districts spent a lot of COVID relief on facilities — such as South Dakota and Mississippi — provide no state money at all to support school infrastructure. In poorer communities, the local tax base may not generate enough money to pay for extensive repairs or new construction.

Climate change has heightened some infrastructure needs. Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish, which borders the Gulf of Mexico, maxed out borrowing to rebuild schools destroyed by increasingly strong hurricanes and to raise up schools on pillars as coastal flooding risks rise.

As a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brooks analyzed how nearly 3,000 school districts planned to spend their final COVID aid package. The sample isn’t nationally representative, but those districts educate 1 in 3 public school students.

The average district planned to spend just over a quarter of its final aid package on facilities and operations. High-poverty districts, smaller districts, and rural districts were more likely to budget a bigger share for facilities.

Spending big on facilities isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Brooks said, but it could exacerbate learning gaps. Pandemic aid helped high-poverty districts make strides in reading and math, recent research found, but those students are still behind their more affluent peers.

The concern is that “higher-wealth districts with more spending on academic learning interventions” may be able “to recover their learning at higher rates,” Brooks said. “Whereas districts that needed this money to meet their infrastructure needs they were never going to meet otherwise — they’re just going to fall farther behind.”

Sara Haas works with Carl Sabol, a ninth grader in the New Kensington-Arnold School District. The district used COVID relief money to improve classroom air ventilation.

One school district’s big bet on its buildings

In Pennsylvania’s New Kensington-Arnold School District, school leaders thought improving their buildings could boost student engagement.

The suburban Pittsburgh district, where nearly every student is from a low-income family, spent nearly 80% of its largest COVID aid package on facilities — essentially every dollar the district was legally allowed to.

Much of that went toward replacing classroom air handlers, which cycle in fresh air. Before those upgrades, Superintendent Chris Sefcheck said, teachers often turned off their lights hoping to pep up sluggish students.

The district also bought new classroom furniture and renovated a planetarium that had been out of use for 30 years. Now it’s an air-conditioned “brain space” where students collaborate on projects and teachers gather for training.

Chris Sefcheck, superintendent of the New Kensington-Arnold School District, has seen how the newly renovated planetarium has spurred student and teacher collaboration.

Eighth grade English language arts teacher Erika Felack-Bucci is glad she no longer has to kick her noisy air vent to “fix” it. She likes her new furniture, too. With high-top tables, no one hides in the back of the room, while movable desks encourage more classroom conversations.

She hopes the improvements send students the message that what happens at school matters.

“For a long time, that was ignored,” she said. “To see that people are putting money into it, and that there is value in this building and what we’re doing, I think is really important for our kids.”

Districts that spent big on facilities say they haven’t neglected academic needs.

Decatur, Arkansas, for example, pulled struggling students out of class for extra help and directed teachers to focus on early elementary schoolers who did not learn certain foundational skills. Terrebonne Parish is relying on small-group instruction time with teachers. Last year, schools also reworked their schedules to give younger kids an extra hour of reading instruction to focus on missing skills.

And New Kensington-Arnold schools used COVID aid to hire three extra school counselors and boost after-school programming.

Still, Felack-Bucci wishes the district had done more to help “the kids that really disappeared during the pandemic.”

Valley High School's new cafeteria, funded in part by COVID relief dollars, has become a place where students like to gather.

Early on, many students tried to learn from phones with cracked screens or had no device at all. When the district ran a hybrid schedule in the fall of 2020, many kids never attended remote classes.

That shows up in Felack-Bucci’s eighth grade classroom. When her class read the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” last year, students needed two weeks to master finding prepositions — twice as long as usual. Many kids couldn’t identify the verb in a sentence.

“There are a lot of skills gaps between the kids,” Felack-Bucci said. “The kids who participated the whole time, they’re great. But the kids who didn’t, they’re much farther behind.”

At one point there was talk of launching an intensive summer program for kids who were most behind. But the district had trouble staffing the program, and it never materialized.

But classrooms are cooler, the new furniture is a hit, and kids are hanging out in the new cafeteria.

Chalkbeat’s Mia Hollie and Kae Petrin contributed data analysis.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey lawmakers push for more electric school buses under proposed bill

2024-06-14T18:20:13+00:00

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New Jersey is inching toward getting more electric school buses on the road, replacing its sizable fleet of fossil-fueled vehicles that have adverse environmental and health impacts for children.

Several school districts and private bus companies are already taking advantage of state and federal grants to speed the transition to electric school buses. A bill moving through the state legislature also aims to make it easier for schools to rent or buy electric school buses outside of a grant program.

The bill, A-1677, which advanced out of the Assembly Education Committee last week, would extend terms for lease and purchase contracts for electric school buses to last the service life of the bus. The New Jersey School Boards Association would also help local districts obtain electric school buses by working as a government aggregator.

“If we get more electric school buses in the system, taking advantage of this technology, we’re going to drive down the costs for moving kids around. We’re going to do it in a safe and healthy way, too. And it’s going to benefit the environment,” said Pam Frank, chief executive officer of ChargEVC, an electric vehicle advocacy group.

There are currently some two dozen electric school buses on the road in the Garden State, according to Environment New Jersey and the state chapter of the Sierra Club. About 150 more are on order, said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, an advocacy group. These zero-emission vehicles represent a small fraction of the more than 21,700 registered school buses in New Jersey, more than 99% of which run on fossil fuels, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Fossil-fueled vehicles are the largest single source of emissions contributing to climate change, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Transportation accounts for up to 40% of climate pollutants, so cutting emissions from cars, buses, and trucks is considered critical to reaching the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20% of 2006 levels by mid-century.

Emissions from diesel-powered buses affect student health

In recent years, policymakers, school officials, and environmental activists have focused on replacing the state’s fleet of diesel-powered buses with electric ones. Diesel buses emit harmful pollutants that contribute to climate change and are harmful for young passengers.

Bill Beren, transportation committee chair at the state Sierra Club chapter, said these pollutants can lead to asthma and other respiratory conditions. Asthma is a leading cause of chronic absenteeism, which is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year.

Improving health outcomes also means improving education outcomes, O’Malley said. One study of 1,941 school districts that received funding under the 2012-2016 School Bus Rebate Programs found that districts that replaced the oldest and highest-polluting buses saw significantly greater improvements in average test scores compared with other districts.

New Jersey launched a grant program to encourage and monitor the transition to electric school buses. The grant program includes up to $45 million over three years to replace diesel school buses with battery-powered school buses, depending on funding availability. Applications were due in May for the first $15 million.

The DEP aims to select an equal number of sites from the northern, central, and southern regions of the state for the new buses. In each year of funding, at least half of the selected districts or school bus contractors must operate within a community that has a high percentage of residents who are low-income, identify as a minority, or have limited English proficiency.

The grant program is open to school districts that own their buses and school bus contractors that provide busing services to schools. Contractors must apply in conjunction with a specific school or district.

Assessing the electric school bus pilot program

O’Malley said the program will be important to guiding the future of electric school buses in New Jersey. Momentum from the pilot program and other ongoing initiatives will show districts that electric school buses will benefit them in the long run, he said.

New Jersey has no mandate or statewide goal specifically for switching to an electric fleet of buses, but that could change after the pilot program ends, O’Malley said. He pointed to New York as a model for what New Jersey’s electric school bus program could look like. New York announced plans to transition to a 100% zero-emission electric school bus fleet by 2035.

Beren of the Sierra Club said speeding up the state grant approval process would help get more buses on the road. One holdup has been delays in installing charging stations, which have prevented some buses from being used for up to a year, he said. Beren is now advising districts to order their charging stations as soon as they’re authorized to purchase an electric school bus.

New Jersey has also received federal grants for electric school buses through the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, which aims to provide $5 billion over five years to replace existing school buses with clean ones.

At the end of May, the EPA announced an additional 11 New Jersey school districts will benefit from over $12 million in rebates that will provide nearly 70 clean school buses in the third round of funding.

“Protecting our kids by delivering more funding for clean school buses in New Jersey is not only protective of public health, but also another leap forward in the fight against climate change by reducing harmful diesel emissions,” said EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia in a statement. “Every child should be able to open their school bus window and take a deep breath of fresh air, whether on the bus or at the bus stop.”

Brick Township, Haddonfield, Jackson, Summit, and Toms River Regional are among the school districts set to receive rebate funding in the most recent round.

New Jersey has received a total of 201 grants for electric school buses, 76 of which have been canceled by recipients, said Beren. If federal grant awardees withdraw for any reason, the EPA may award returned funds to applicants on the waitlist for the same funding opportunity or use the funds for other clean school bus funding opportunities.

High costs come with switch to electric fleets

Without grant funding, switching to an electric fleet can be costly for school districts. Electric school buses have higher upfront costs than diesel buses, even though they can lead to savings in the long run.

A study from the University of Delaware found that districts whose electric school buses discharge their batteries into the electrical grid when not in use and who get paid for the service could save millions over a bus’s lifespan.

Extending the time frame over which school districts can use electric buses will help them maximize their savings. Beren said extending the time frame of electric school buses leases and purchase contracts to the service life of the bus is the biggest improvement outlined in the bill that is moving through the legislature.

“Anything that reduces the red tape involved is a benefit,” Beren said.

Under state law, fossil-fueled buses may be used by districts for 10 years. Some manufacturers estimate their electric school buses will last longer, with lifespans of up to 15 years.

“Gas and the rising cost of gas really impacts our school budgets. We know that electric school buses, to buy them outright, is a significant expense, so allowing these contracting, leasing opportunities creates an opportunity for our schools,” said Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, a Camden Democrat who’s a sponsor of the bill and the chair of the Assembly Education Committee.

Hannah Gross covers education and child welfare for NJ Spotlight News via a partnership with Report for America. She covers the full spectrum of education and children’s services in New Jersey and looks especially through the lens of equity and opportunity. This story was first published on NJ Spotlight News, a content partner of Chalkbeat Newark.

Fewer Colorado youth feel sad, hopeless, suicidal, health survey finds

2024-06-13T22:40:41+00:00

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Fewer Colorado youth felt consistently sad or hopeless and fewer considered suicide last year compared with 2021, a large statewide health survey found.

The results from the Healthy Kids Colorado survey represent a bright spot after unprecedented levels of teen anxiety and depression surfaced during the pandemic. The situation was dire enough that state lawmakers took swift action, creating a program in 2021 to provide free counseling sessions to children and youth. Many school districts also launched free counseling programs and hired additional social workers, counselors, and psychologists.

Leaders at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which publishes the survey results, were pleased with the survey findings released Wednesday.

“There have been dramatic changes in the right direction around indicators of mental health, suicide risk, and substance use,” said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, the department’s executive director, in a press release. “We’re hopeful this is an indication of state and community investments in prevention programming and protective factors paying off.”

The 2023 Healthy Kids findings on youth mental health are among the most notable of the survey results. In some cases they improved to well beyond pre-pandemic levels.

For example, 26% of high-schoolers reported persistent feelings of hopelessness or sadness in the 2023 survey, down from 40% in 2021 and 35% in 2019. In addition, 11% of high schoolers seriously considered suicide, down from 17% in 2021. Middle schoolers also saw drops in both categories.

Among both middle and high school students, 58% reported their stress level was manageable most days — an improvement for high school students compared with 2021, but the same for middle schoolers.

Alcohol use, vaping fell for high schoolers

In addition to positive trends on youth mental health for both middle and high school students, the survey revealed that fewer high school students are vaping, drinking alcohol, or using prescription pain medication without a prescription or differently than prescribed compared with 2021. Marijuana use held steady.

For middle schoolers, alcohol use was up in 2023, with many more reporting that they had ever taken a drink — 24% compared with 11% in 2021 — and more reporting they’d consumed alcohol in the previous month — 7% compared with 4% in 2021.

Middle school rates of vaping and using marijuana didn’t change in 2023 compared to 2021, but the survey found that more students in that age group had tried cigarettes — 7% compared to 4% in 2021.

While bullying overall didn’t increase in 2023 compared with 2021, LGBTQ students reported significantly higher rates of bullying than other students. For example, 29% of gay and lesbian high school students reported being bullied during the previous year, compared with 12% of students generally. Gay and lesbian students also reported higher rates of sadness and hopelessness, and that they’d seriously considered suicide.

More efforts to improve youth mental health are on the way in Colorado.

In May, the state announced a program that will train young adults ages 18 to 24 to connect youth with mental health support. This month, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced a new youth mental health grant program funded with millions from a lawsuit settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc.

The Healthy Kids survey has been given under various names since 1991. It has occasionally sparked backlash over concerns about data privacy or because some critics say the questions are too explicit.

Public health officials emphasize the survey is voluntary for students and provides key information about how pre-teens and teens are faring when it comes to physical, sexual, and mental health.

More than 120,000 students completed the survey in 2023 — the most ever.

State officials added several new questions to the 2023 survey, including about feeling safe at school, nightly sleep hours, use of psychedelic drugs, body image, and eating disorders.

One of the new questions revealed that nearly a quarter of high-schoolers and middle schoolers reported trying to lose weight or maintain their weight in unhealthy ways during the previous month — for example, by using diet pills, skipping meals, or vomiting.

Another new question revealed that large proportions of students worry about their physical appearance all or most of the time — 39% for high schoolers and 32% for middle schoolers.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

How do teens get into activism? New book shows they can take many paths to fight for change

2024-06-05T17:30:00+00:00

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Sonali Kohli has always liked young adult novels.

They’re fun to read. They don’t shy away from serious, or even traumatic, subjects. And they are deeply rooted in hope.

So when the California-based journalist set out to write “Don’t Wait,” her new nonfiction book out this week, she sought to capture that same sense of “realistic hope” as she shared the true stories of three young women of color fighting for change in America.

Each activist takes on an issue important to her life.

Nalleli Cobo protests the urban oil fields that sicken her and other kids in the Los Angeles neighborhood she grew up in. The campaign she launches with her mother, People Not Pozos, eventually helps shut down the oil well across from her childhood home.

When Kahlila Williams faints from dehydration at her school’s picnic, a school police officer asks if she’s having a drug overdose. The encounter spurs Williams to advocate for the removal of school police from Los Angeles Unified schools. Her work helps persuade the school board to cut the school police department’s budget and reinvest the money to hire counselors, school climate coaches, and other staff to support Black students.

Sonia Patel Banker, meanwhile, grows up in San Francisco with access to arts classes at school and private choir lessons. But when she finds out many California students don’t have access to arts education, despite a state law saying schools are supposed to provide that, she reaches out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California to work on their funding campaign. Her advocacy helps lead to a successful voter referendum that now requires the state to give schools extra funding for arts education.

Kohli hopes young people who read the book will be able to learn from the three girls and their different approaches to activism.

“I want people to just be able to say they learned something from it, and that it helped them engage in their community in any way — big or small,” Kohli said.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

“Don’t Wait” comes from a speech Kahlila gives to her school board. Why did you choose that as your title?

Part of writing for teens, and writing about these young women, is that I wanted to highlight their voices as much as possible. When I heard Kahlila say it at the school board meeting, I thought: This so deeply embodies what she did. She didn’t wait.

[For] adult activists, you work toward something your whole life and there are setbacks, and you keep going. But when you’re doing activism as a young person, or say in high school, you have four years, right? So there is an urgency.

It also embodies the book’s message to young people: You don’t have to wait until something horrible happens to you or someone you love. You don’t have to wait until you’re an adult. You have agency now. And if you want to effect change in your community, you can do that.

You talked with youth about what they wanted to see in a book like this. What did they share with you?

My audience was always very clear to me. I was writing to teenagers.

Some of it was: We want to see people from our community who are doing this work. [They also] wanted to see advice.

Kids wanted to know: How do you get involved in activism? If you want to change something at school, how do you do that? Is a petition around dress codes enough? What else can I do? What does activism look like? How do I know who to trust?

How did you land on the three movements you focused on in the book?

I wanted to focus on movements where the people who I was following were rooted in California, because that’s the state that I’m from.

Californians, especially Californians in the big liberal cities, see ourselves as these bastions of equity. The reality is inequity is absolutely present. And it’s insidious. So, in the place that we consider the most liberal, the most welcoming, where are the problems, and how are people fighting them here? And how can that be useful to other people around the country?

Defunding school police — that’s a movement that’s really relevant. Environmental justice was very important for me to include in the book, and environmental racism, more specifically, because a lot of the narratives we read and hear about environmental justice work tend to be focused on white folks. Arts education is something that people don’t think about as much when they think about activism, but the reality is, art is so vital to our lives.

It also depended on having a mix of young women who are doing this work, and who are doing different kinds of work, and had different paths to their work.

Sonia says she feels like arts education is being treated like a second-tier social justice issue. What did she want people to know about the value of arts education?

Where that comes up in the book is when it’s being left off of a petition, that is [called] “Counselors, Not Cops and Arts, Not Arrests.” And the ACLU attorney wants to take off the “Arts Not Arrests” part. But arts and arrests are really connected.

In her new book "Don't Wait," Sonali Kohli chronicles how Sonia Patel Banker joined an ACLU campaign to fight for expanded access to arts education in California.

When you provide students more access to education outside of what is required of them, you offer students the option to develop passion, to explore different kinds of activities, to have a safe place to work, to feel joy, to express their emotions in a healthy way. I think giving that weight is important.

Think about how much we all turned to art, in all of its forms, during the pandemic. In our darkest times, art is vital. And it has great impacts for children to have access to it.

In the book, there’s a moment where Kahlila wonders: What do I do with this bullhorn? And there’s another moment where Sonia is like, should I just email the ACLU? Why was it important to include these moments where the girls are not sure how to get started?

A lot of the narratives we hear about youth activism are very savior-y. Every generation tells the generation below them — it happened to Gen Z, and now it’s going to happen to Gen Alpha — You’re the ones who are going to save us, I’m so excited for what you’re going to do. And it’s really not fair. Lionizing kids in this way also takes away their humanity.

Internal conflict and being a little bit unsure of how to proceed is a really relatable feeling. And it’s something that a lot of kids go through. I don’t like what’s happening around me. And I do want to do something, but like, I’m not Malala. I’m not a Parkland youth.

We hear a lot about the experiences of activists who have one huge catalytic event. And then they’re activists, and that’s it, and they’re going for it, they’re out in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

But the reality is, to get to that point there’s a lot of little things. There’s being nervous, there’s not knowing what to do with a bullhorn, there’s feeling awkward, there’s missing class. Hopefully, if somebody is reading this, and they’re like: I feel really awkward going to a protest, I don’t really know anyone, they can think about Kahlila and how she dealt with it.

Activism can be disruptive to the girls’ lives. Nalleli had to change schools. Kahlila has trouble sleeping. Why did you want to show some of the mental and physical challenges of activism, alongside their victories?

I wanted a book that’s rooted in hope, but also reality. There’s a lot that’s positive about how engaging in activism impacts you as a person [and] your mental health.

There are also moments where it can be really hard. And I wanted people to see that that is something that these girls experienced, and how they dealt with it. [That] it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to step back. It’s okay for your activism to look different than other people’s based on what your needs are.

What role did school play in the girls’ activism?

For some of them, their activism was deeply rooted in their community [and] their school. Kahlila was trying to get police off of her campus. For some of them, it was about the home, and the home being safe. Part of Nalleli’s work also is about getting oil wells away from schools. Sonia sought out this work outside of her school, and realized that she had access to so much art, in and out of school, and others didn’t.

But I do think that school-based movement work is a very large part of student activism. Organizations like Students Deserve, which Kahlila is a part of, are deeply rooted in school and also in corrective data-gathering.

Kohli's book documents how student activist Kahlila Williams (wearing mask) advocated to remove police from Los Angeles schools and reinvest the savings in academic and mental health support.

Before I started the book, I was covering [Los Angeles Unified School District] and there were reports from Students Deserve at a bunch of different schools of school police pepper spraying kids on and right off of campus. LA’s school police department is subject to public records laws. So we asked them to tell us how many instances they’d had of pepper spray in the last year [or so], and they told me none!

And I said: Okay, well, what about this day? I have a video. And this day, at this time? And that existed because [of] these students, who started their activism in their schools, and then met as a collective, [and] realized that this was happening at multiple places. And then, all of a sudden, [the school police department said]: Oh, yeah! Actually, we do have reports of that.

Each of the girls is a leader in her activism work. But they also turn to adults for support. What would be helpful for teachers, parents, and mentors to keep in mind about the different ways they can support young people in their activism?

These girls each have a question, or they have an experience, or they have a problem. And they seek out adults to support them. The support tends to be along the lines of: Here’s how you can find the information you need for yourself. And here are some things that people do to address these problems.

In Nalleli’s case, her mom is the most grassroots of organizers. Her mother and other mothers were calling authorities to come and get the air quality checked [where they lived] because their children were having extreme health effects [from a nearby oil-drilling site]. And then that became a passion for Nalleli, also, as a child, to speak up for herself.

I think that agency is really important, and creating scaffolding and support so that young people can have that agency.

[That can mean] arming kids with the skills to do their own research and fact-check, and not putting down their sources of information, but rather empowering them to get more.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado to spend $20 million of Juul settlement on grant program to improve youth mental health

2024-06-04T20:56:27+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Colorado will spend $20 million of a $31.7 million lawsuit settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc. on a grant program aimed at improving youth mental health, state Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Tuesday.

The program will prioritize collaborations between school districts and community organizations. The aim is to address children’s mental health so they don’t turn to vaping as a way to cope.

“When you think about a challenge like youth vaping, you can think about addressing the symptom — the fact that people are vaping — or the underlying cause,” Weiser said in an interview after the announcement. “We’ve chosen to address the underlying cause.

“We know that because of mental health issues, people turn to substances like vaping. That’s why we’re going to the source to ask: How do we build better connections?”

The “how” will be up to the school districts, which will be invited to apply for grants later this year. The long lead time is intentional; Weiser said the goal is for districts to collaborate with one another and with local community organizations to come up with programs that help develop young people’s connections to trusted adults and to one another. Several Colorado foundations have offered to help facilitate those collaborations over the next six months.

“We do not want to prescribe what you need to do,” Weiser told a room full of educators at a Colorado Education Initiative summer conference, where he made the announcement. “We want to offer a broad opportunity around holistic youth mental health and leave it to you to think about what collaboration, what partnership, what strategies make sense in your community.”

Colorado sued Juul in 2020, alleging that it targeted youth with deceptive marketing and played down the health risks of vaping. The state was one of several that settled with the company. Juul did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.

Thirty percent of Colorado high school students reported having vaped at least once, according to the most recent data from the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, which is administered every other year. Sixteen percent of students said they’d vaped in the last 30 days.

The $20 million grant program is the largest of three programs that Colorado is spending the Juul settlement money on. The others are a $6 million grant program aimed at nonprofit organizations and government agencies, and an $11.4 million grant program for school districts to address the youth vaping crisis. Those grant programs are already underway, and Weiser said the recipients will be announced soon.

Weiser said he sees the $20 million program as especially impactful because of the power of collaboration. “Schools are free to work with whoever in their community is serving young people,” he said. “In some communities, it might be a Boys and Girls Club. In other communities, it might be a library teaching kids to read.”

Grant applicants whose school districts serve a combined 23,000 students or more will be eligible for a $2.5 million grant over a three-year period, Weiser said. Applicants whose districts serve between 7,500 and 23,000 students will be eligible for $1.75 million over three years, and districts that serve fewer than 7,500 students will be eligible for $750,000.

Late last year, Colorado led a coalition of 42 attorneys general nationwide that sued Meta in a similar lawsuit alleging that its social media platforms, including Instagram, used deceptive practices to harm children and teens and addict them to social media.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

LISTEN: Students grade cafeteria food at NYC schools’ test kitchen — and in real cafeterias, too

2024-05-15T10:00:00+00:00

Welcome to P.S. Weekly’s food episode, where students are the critics.

High schoolers in the Bronx sound off on the “soggy” grilled cheese sandwiches served in their cafeteria (on “Vegan Friday,” no less). Students discuss having microwave access during lunch. And we join Manhattan fourth graders as they trek to Queens to visit the test kitchen for NYC school cafeterias — winning the invite after one of their classmates wrote a letter complaining when the roasted chicken was removed from the menu because of budget cuts.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Be sure to drop a review in your app or shoot an email to PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. Tell us what you learned today or what you’re still wondering. We just might read your comment on a future episode.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. Listen for new episodes Wednesdays this spring.

Read the full episode transcript below

HOST (Sanaa): Welcome to PS Weekly… The sound of the New York City School System. P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat New York.

I’m your host this week, Sanaa Stokes. I’m an 11th grader at The Professional Performing Arts School in Midtown Manhattan, where some of New York’s best eats are located… And speaking of eats, in just a moment, we’ll hear a lot more about food in New York City schools.

HOST (Sanaa): But first, the Chalkbeat Bulletin….

Julian: I’m Julian Shen-Berro, a reporter from Chalkbeat. Here’s a recap of the week’s biggest education stories:

Schools Chancellor David Banks testified at a Congressional hearing focused on antisemitism in K-12 schools. It was the same committee that grilled several college presidents. Banks told members of Congress that New York City schools have seen “unacceptable incidents of antisemitism,” but that schools have responded to troubling incidents with both education and discipline.

NYC officials are looking to virtual learning to help meet a new mandate limiting class size to no more than 25 students. Virtual learning could potentially help campuses that are tight on space, as students could learn from home–AFTER school and on weekends. Schools have until 2028 to meet the new classroom caps.

And as childhood hunger rises, New York City is launching a program for schools to donate leftover food directly to families in need or to food pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens.

To stay up to date on local education news throughout the week, go to chalkbeat.org/newsletters and sign up for the New York Daily Roundup.

HOST (Sanaa): Thanks, Chalkbeat! Now, LETTUCE get into it!

HOST (Sanaa): When kids are hungry, it’s hard to do well in school. For years, New York City schools had a program providing free meals to students who qualified based on financial need, but that gave school food a stigma. Some kids who needed it most, didn’t want to eat it. And there were tens of thousands of kids whose families earned just above the cutoff — but paying full price for school lunch was still a hardship.

All of that changed in 2017, when the city made school meals COMPLETELY free for the million children in public schools. And while that was essential in making sure that all students can eat during the school day, the challenge of food inequity didn’t end there…

Today’s episode is all about FOOD. With our first story, here’s P.S. Weekly reporter Ava Stryker-Robbins.

Segment A1: Test Kitchen

NARR (Ava): Fourth grader Elsa Hammerman is a big fan of the food in the cafeteria of her Washington Heights, Manhattan, school. So when her favorite chicken dish disappeared earlier this spring — a result of budget cuts — Elsa … wrote a letter.

Elsa: Dear Mr. Tricarico, I’m a fourth grader who goes to P.S. I 187.

NARR (Ava): Christopher Tricarico is the senior executive director of Food and Nutrition Services, responsible for all New York City school cafeterias.

Elsa: Me and my friends’ favorite school lunch is the roasted chicken. We hate to see it leave the menu so we were hoping maybe to bring it back next month. It’s okay if not . I understand you may lose money, but please consider it. Sincerely, Elsa Hammerman

NARR (Ava): She sent the letter. Life went on. Then…

Elsa: One day my principal came into our classroom and she asked to talk to me in the hall. At first I was scared because I thought I was in trouble. But then she told me that he wanted to speak to me and my class. So he came to our school with his team and we got to tell him what we like about the foods and what we don’t like

NARR (Ava): And…

Elsa: A few days after we did get the chicken back and it was never better. I was super happy and I was like bouncing off of my friend’s shoulders and she was like, ‘calm down, calm down.’ But everyone was super excited to see that it was back.

NARR (Ava): Elsa wasn’t the only one who complained about the cuts. After outcry from students across the five boroughs, city officials agreed to reinstate popular menu items like French toast sticks, bean and cheese burritos, and chicken dumplings. Schools Chancellor David Banks said feedback from students like Elsa was a key reason for the reversal.

Chancellor David C. Banks NEWS CLIP:: “Once we made some adjustments and pulled back on some menu items, we heard from the kids loud and clear. They were not happy about that …. And I encourage every young person to continue to speak up about the changes that they hope to see in their schools "

NARR (Ava): But that wasn’t the end of the story for Elsa and her classmates.

Christopher Tricarico: We visited the school to meet with her and her class and they had such a great way of explaining what they saw on the menu, what was taken from the menu, and what was being added back to the menu.

NARR (Ava): Christopher Tricarico, the guy in charge of food.

Christopher Tricarico: So we were able to fit her in here so her whole class could see that their voice, their concern, and their advocacy for school food, was really important.

NARR (Ava): Here — The DOE’s School. Food. Test Kitchen.

Alex: Yeah, so what are we, what are we doing here today?

Ava: So we’re going to a DOE test kitchen facility

NARR (Ava): A few weeks ago, Chalkbeat reporter Alex Zimmerman and I got to tag along with Elsa and her classmates on their visit.

Alex: And we’re in Hunter’s Point, Queens. We’re in a giant building that looks kind of like a warehouse that has, like, these huge loading dock doors out front.

NARR (Ava): This is where dishes become official menu items for the city’s hundreds of cafeterias. They have to win approval from the only critics who matter… STUDENTS.

AMBIENT: Sound of students

NARR (Ava): When we arrive, about two dozen 4th graders are settling into rows of desks. In what looks like a classroom, complete with a Smartboard at the front. But behind an inconspicuous door that could easily be mistaken for a closet is an industrial kitchen humming with the same equipment school cafeterias have on hand. The food staff have been busy assembling trays of new menu items that are ready to be shuttled out to the student testers. It kind of feels like the set of a television show.

Chantal: Welcome to taste testing, all right? So, today, it’s your turn, however, before we actually start taste testing, I want to play a game, just to see if you guys…

NARR (Ava): This is Chantal Hewlett, the Student Taste Testing Supervisor. ChantalChantelle got her start in school food 20 years ago as a cafeteria manager and now hosts student groups at the test kitchen. She looks for feedback on everything from flavor to how hard it is to open the packaging.

Chantal: Right, and like I said before, today it’s all about you. If you don’t like something, it’s okay. Let us know now. So we can fix it. Because again, we take your comments and we share them with the company. Okay? They don’t want to hear what the adults have to say.

MUSIC

NARR (Ava): Today’s task: students will taste and rate four food items: an egg and cheese sandwich, a cheesy pasta dish called manicotti, hummus, and a barbecue chicken slider.

NARR (Ava): Here’s the process. Students eat the dish in silence. Once they develop an opinion, they hold up a card called a plicker — basically a fancy bar code. If they hold the card rightside up, it means they liked the dish. Holding it sidewise means they didn’t like it. Then, ChantalChantelle stands at the front of the room and scans all of the codes at once with her phone, which generates an instant tally of how many children approve of what they just ate.

NARR (Ava): Then, on worksheets, students write down what they do or don’t like about the dish.

NARR (Ava): First up: Egg and cheese sandwich.

Chantal: So we’re going to get started with number one, right? We also have ketchup. If anyone wants ketchup with their eggs, that’s fine. All right. And I’m going to tell the adults, please don’t tell the students what to write at all. I’ll be leading the comments later….

NARR (Ava): It looks like a dinner roll stuffed with scrambled egg and melted cheese inside. Alex watches kids in the front of the room while I’m in the back as they chew and ponder and hold up their cards and write their comments. They’re taking their jobs VERY seriously. Then, eventually, they’re allowed to talk.

Student 1: So I thought the egg, like after you taste it, I have to say it’s a little unflavorful, but it felt a little dry for some reason. And also the packet was really wet. So like when I first took out, like I had to like, dry off because I don’t like eating wet food

Student 3: So I really like the meal. Usually eggs give me headaches, so the way that the egg was cooked, didn’t like give me a headache. I did recommend maybe like the size be a bit bigger, but because I know you guys get like other things too, but like for a bit more protein in the morning, maybe just like a bigger size.

Chantal: These are great comments. This is why we do the taste testing…

NARR (Ava): Despite the student critiques, the egg sandwich is an overall hit. Out of 22 student votes, only four said they didn’t like it.

NARR (Ava): In a given year, between 1,500 and 2,000 students from different grade levels and neighborhoods cycle through the test kitchen. School principals typically volunteer their schools — and visits to the test kitchen are so popular that there’s a waiting list to get in.

NARR (Ava): But at the test kitchen, not every item is a hit.

Chantal: We’ve had a burger, a veggie burger. Actually, this is a perfect one that the students didn’t like.

NARR (Ava): Chantal again.

Chantal: When we got it, It was falling apart. It wasn’t shaped properly. You know, the cooking method wasn’t correct. The students thought it needed more flavor. And so we told the company, these are their comments and actually the company just sent us back the reformulated products. So they fixed it.

NARR (Ava): The negative feedback from students can be just as important as the rave reviews.

Chantal: They want to make sure that whatever they cook and serve, the kids actually eat it as opposed to putting it in the garbage.

NARR (Ava): Taste testing is crucial these days as schools implement big menu changes. Christopher Tricarico explains.

Christopher: I think the move now is to continue to expose children to more culturally diverse meals, but also healthier meals coming up with plant powered Fridays and Meatless Mondays, these are examples of providing options for students. We need to be able to meet them where they want to be but we also want to make sure we’re serving healthy and nutritious and delicious meals.

NARR (Ava): And have you been receiving positive feedback from students in schools based off of these shows?

Christopher: We get all kinds of feedback. But it’s my team’s job to take that feedback and really address things at the school level. One of the things I love is that when kids are in school and they like or dislike something that they’re eating, they talk to the kitchen staff. That’s some of the best feedback we get at the school level.

NARR (Ava): About 150 to 200 students from schools across the city typically try each item. And before the Education Department greenlights it for school menus, roughly 75% of those who try it have to like it.

NARR (Ava): On the day we visit, the school food staff have a feeling one item in particular is going to be a tough sell: The manicotti — basically tubes of pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese and topped with tomato sauce and a dusting of parmesan.

Chantal: So try new things. Don’t just say, ‘you know what, oh, the white thing in the middle, I don’t like it…

NARR (Ava): With 11 students voting against, the manicotti is the only item that a majority of these fourth graders do not approve.

NARR (Ava): Some students refuse to even try it. It turns out that these fourth graders really do not like ricotta.

Instructor: Cheese in the middle with the cheese on top?

STUDENT 3: The cheese in the middle. Parmesan is the best but that cheese in the middle… [laughter]

Instructor: Didn’t do it for you… OK what about you right here?

NARR (Ava): The student testers are tough critics —the chicken sliders and hummus don’t fare much better.

Luke: The un-breaded chicken slider, it got a 53%.

NARR (Ava): That’s Luke McGeown, senior menu specialist.

Luke: And then the hummus got a 63%. So in our standard, that’s usually failing.

Luke: But again, each class is different, each child is different. So tomorrow, when we have a school from the Bronx, they could pass these products with flying colors. It just depends.

Luke: This was a pretty great group. Actually, sometimes kids don’t listen so much. And sometimes they’re not very responsive and wanting to give us results back and their thoughts on it … so they were a very lively bunch so they were helpful with that kind of stuff so I thought it was really good day.

NARR (Ava): After the taste testing, students have the option of eating chicken tenders for lunch if they’re still hungry. As students munch on them, I’m curious to hear what they have to say about the whole experience.

NARR (Ava): What do you like most about being here?

Sadie (student): That you get to try new things that you haven’t had before and some of the things you’ve had before just in a different way. I feel really nice that they’re thinking about us. I just want to say thank you to them for letting us go here

Athena (student): Right now, I think it’s wonderful seeing the back story and how it was. I didn’t really like school lunch before. I always wanted home lunch, but now I think school lunch is better.

NARR (Ava): Some students are grateful to Elsa.

Athena: I just want to again thank Elsa for bringing us here because she’s the cause of this whole trip

Benson (student): This is a very good experience to be tasting foods for the New York City public schools. And I really appreciate the letter that she made. And maybe I’ll make a letter, too.

Alex: What would your letter say?

Benson 2: To bring fried chicken to the menu.

NARR (Ava): Before reporting this story, I had no idea that there was a process where the DOE listened to students’ voices and opinions about food. I find it exciting that officials are really listening to what students have to say on a micro and macro level — and it’s sweet to know that 4th graders still write letters.

HOST (Sanaa): That was PS Weekly Reporter, Ava Stryker-Robbins … Next up, we leave the school food test kitchen and head to a real one… after a short break.

MIDROLL: We hope you’re enjoying listening to P.S. Weekly as much as we enjoy making it! We spend a lot of time after school planning each episode, setting up, and conducting interviews, cutting the tape, writing scripts. It’s a long process, and totally worth it. But here’s the thing: We don’t have a bunch of money or millions of followers. So we’re counting on you, loyal listener, to help us get the word out! So take a few seconds, and send this link wherever you’re listening to three friends so they, too, can enjoy P.S. weekly. Thanks for your support!

Segment A2: Food

HOST (Sanaa): So: what do students think about the school lunches these days in a real cafeteria? Our reporter Jose Santana has the story.

NARR (Jose): It’s Plant Powered Friday Friday and I’m at the Bronx Latin High School cafeteria during their lunch period. The menu posted in the cafeteria says there should be a vegan kidney bean rajma, vegan cucumber salad, and vegan flatbread. But today, I see only one option on student trays and it’s not vegan: grilled cheese. And the students were not happy about the lunch that was served…

Justin (student): I’m not gonna lie, they’re kinda bad, and particularly the grilled cheese, uh, the cheese isn’t really that melted, I’ll just say that. It isn’t really grilled, you know.

Lambryann (student): Yeah, um, it’s very nasty. Like, it’s so soggy. The quality is not qualiting.

Joseph (student): We got a grilled cheese joint. Feel me? Um, it’s not the best, but it ain’t the worst. Give it a 5.7 out of 10.

Marcus (student): I say this is like a good 6 out of 10. 6 out of 10? Yeah, that’s solid.

NARR (Jose): So typically, do they only have one option? Like in terms of variety?

Justin: Yeah, I mean sometimes they’ll have two at most but mostly it’s pretty bad and we don’t really have a lot of options like they’ve been literally having mozzarella sticks for like two weeks straight. Like we only been having mozzarella sticks. We haven’t had a variety of choices. So it’s been kind of bad.

Jose: Like mozzarella sticks every day?

Justin: Every single day.

Jose: That’s crazy.

Franklin: I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s been the same thing every day, every week. I haven’t seen no change. I know there’s a chart over there, but that chart, The chart is not relating to what’s being given out. Cause they be giving the same thing every day, every week, the same food. I’m tired of the mozzarella sticks and the dumplings. It’s the same thing.

Lambryann: We just been getting mozzarella sticks with that nasty (expletive) marinara sauce and cold, hard peanut butter and jelly.

Jose: Okay, so I don’t know if you guys know but the mayor is forcing schools to make every Friday vegan food. What do you guys think about that?

Ethan (student): Me personally, I don’t like vegan food. feel like they should give us a option of like, like different like, like stations of vegan and then non vegan.

Justin: My thoughts about it is, if you want to promote health, that’s cool, but also give the kids what they like as well, you know?

Joseph: I love my vegans, but come on now, get some meat on the menu.

Jose: Have you noticed like any other students react certain ways with like the food or any, like, stories or experiences?

Justin: I mean, absolutely. I’ve seen, uh, I’ve seen people literally complain and ask the lunch ladies here, like, what’s the problem? I’ve seen people, um, literally just grab a tray, maybe take an apple or something, and then just throw the food out cause they only want one thing and you can’t get one thing without getting the other. So, it’s just a total waste of food.

Joseph: Yeah. I ain’t gonna lie. They’d be picking up the food and throwing it out cause that [expletive] is [expletive]. They be like, playing around with it, turning it into a piece of, throwing it at each other.

Lambryann: I done witnessed people go on line and then like come like literally to the end of the line, open their food, see what it is, and just go straight to the garbage because it looks so unappetizing.

Jose: So how does that affect you, like, coming to school, you’re expecting lunch, and then you’re disappointed?

Lambryann: It affects me because, when you’re really hungry, like, you know, you can feel physical pain or like a headache, especially that you’re in school all day. You need energy, and like, food, which is fuel for your body. And like, when you come here, you think, oh, at least a decent breakfast or a decent lunch. No, everybody’s just starving.

Franklin: And I feel like it’s really affecting us and how we do in class for real. Cause, you know what you eat really makes you what you are.

Joseph: School on an empty stomach is not valid, bro, at all. Feel me?

Jose: So what do you think could be improved, if anything?

Justin: I think what could be improved is maybe give like more of like an option type choice like maybe um, not only grilled cheese, but there’s so many other things you could do like maybe rice and like just other options. You don’t have to just have things that people don’t really like and enjoy.

Danny: Everything could be improved, you know, like nothing’s perfect, you know. The food is just like straight like mid, you know. Could be worse, could be better.

Lambryann: If they just, like, spent more time cooking the food, than just warming it up, and put more effort into making the food, it would actually be good. Like, it’d just be looking like they just slapped a piece of bread on a plate and called it a day, you know?

NARR (Jose): We reached out to an Assistant Principal of the Bronx Latin High School, Ms. Anna Nelson, to ask why the menu didn’t match what the students are actually offered for lunch. And she had this to say…

Ms. Nelson: So, what I have learned from the past is that the DOE has a menu, and that when schools are ordering, some of the menu options might not be available, and they’re given alternative options to order. And so even if it’s on the DOE menu, when they go into place to order, it might basically be like, we’re all out of this item, like, they have a limited number of whatever the item is. And so our school has to substitute it with another item.

NARR (Jose): Thank you to Lambryann Acevedo, Joseph Cruz, Ethan Leon, Franklyn Lora, Marcus Maisonet, Danny Martinez, and Justin Rivera for speaking with P.S. Weekly.

HOST (Sanaa): Once again, that was Jose Santana.

HOST (Sanaa): So far, we’ve focused on school cafeteria food, but a lot of students across the city bring their lunch to school. For our final story today, reporter Santana Roach looks into an equity issue that impacts those students: Microwaves.

Segment B: Microwaves

HOST (Sanaa): Heating things up for P.S. Weekly, here’s Santana…

NARR Santana: Do you have access to a microwave at your school?

Student 1: Well, not really…

Adjanae (Student): When I bring my cup of noodles and I’m not allowed to use a microwave, it aggravates me.

STUDENT 1: You can maybe ask a teacher permission for it and they might be like, yeah, you can use it like, because it’s really close to them.

NARR Santana: So what is it like to not have access to a microwave?

STUDENT 2: It was not too long ago, and I brung noodles. And I asked like 3 teachers and they wouldn’t let me use it. And I started crying and I called my mom.

NARR (Santana): I’m here at my school Frederick Douglass Academy II, talking to students about a very specific dilemma that I can relate to… See, I don’t always want to eat the school lunch and not to scrutinize it, but the combinations are sometimes–questionable… I started to think about having my mom’s home-cooked meals for lunch.

NARR (Santana): But to do that, I need a microwave. And many schools in the city don’t have a microwave available for student use.

NARR (Santana): So, this may come as a surprise to some of you listening to this show, but we students often resort to asking our teachers or counselors to heat our food. We have to go to their office and bother them while they’re working to make the request. And some students are more comfortable doing that than others.

NARR (Santana): It’s a nuisance for both teachers, and for students.

Mr. Afriyie: I know many students. Have come to me during lunchtime, or found others looking to heat food up. And they find their way. I think there, there’s access definitely in the building to microwaves.

NARR (Santana): This is my principal, Osei Owusu-Afriyie. Even HE has had to experience this annoying dance.

NARR (Santana): A simple solution would be to give the students access to their own microwave.

NARR (Santana): So, why don’t students have access to a communal microwave?

Mr. Afriyie: Having a microwave down in the cafeteria has never been an official request from students. Um, so I think possibly that it’s not something that we have like deeply explored about how to make that work.

NARR (Santana): So, perhaps this issue of microwave access is simply an issue students haven’t brought up.

NARR (Santana): Students at Beacon High School also had a similar problem… And guess what… their PTA donated their students a microwave a few years ago.

Kelli: Yes, the Beacon PTA purchased a microwave for students -- maybe 2 years ago. It was placed in the cafeteria for student use.

NARR (Santana): This is Kelli Henry, Beacon’s PTA Co-Vice President.

NARR (Santana): I spoke with my fellow PS Weekly producer Bernie Carmona, who happens to be a student at Beacon–and occasionally in need of a microwave.

Santana: A couple of weeks ago I asked you to investigate to see whether or not there was a microwave in your cafeteria.

Bernie: I went to the cafeteria all the way in the back all the way in the corner, that’s where the microwave is.

Santana: So Bernie, how great is it to have a microwave? Because you know, my school doesn’t have free access to a microwave.

Bernie: Yeah, I know that like kids from other schools don’t have access to these microwaves. I think it’s very convenient for me. Mainly because I have left overs from home sometimes. And I think just bringing that to school and having the access to go to the cafeteria and it being there for me to use whenever I want. Having free access to a microwave will definitely come with managing and creating new rules for students that want to use the microwave.

NARR (Santana): I went back to Mr. Afriyie, to tell him about the Beacon students and their PTA-bought microwave, to see what he thought and whether he would consider providing one for our school.

Mr. Afriyie: So we would have to figure out like, how we would actually acquire one. And then we’d also have to discuss some of the safety protocols. Right? If it’s not used properly, it can cause some significant damage or injury or whatnot. So we have to have to look into all of that as well as protocols around how to clean it, and maintain it? Who brings it out? That it’s being used and maintained in a way that everyone can have a consistent and quality access to it. If that is something that our student council wants us to pursue, then we would look into see how we could make that work.

NARR (Santana): Huh, it’s interesting that the only reason why we haven’t had a microwave–is because we haven’t thought to officially ask– even though we have been directly asking teachers to use theirs.

NARR (Santana): Perhaps this sounds like a trivial issue. But students–especially students with dietary needs–might need access to a working microwave.

NARR (Santana): I plan to continue advocating for a microwave to be placed in my school, and I hope some of you who face similar issues take action and speak up about them too …it might be easier than you thought.

HOST (Sanaa): Thanks for listening to this episode. I’d say my fellow reporters ate. Students: we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences related to school food. Have a story to share? Email us at pseekly@chalkbeat.org.

And P.S.: We’re back next Wednesday with an episode about mental health that you don’t want to miss.

Preview P.S Weekly episode 8 CLIP:

Derry: “It was like because of her like fear or anxiety, or like her trauma, like because of it, it’s holding me back from having possibly a better experience, and so she never allowed us to take that leap of faith, for that reason, it just made me very angry throughout the years where I wasn’t able to properly get help.”

HOST: Until then… class dismissed!

CREDITS

HOST (Sanaa): PS Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation, The Summerfield Foundation, FJC, and Hindenburg Systems.

This episode was hosted by me, Sanaa Stokes.

Producers for this episode were: Ava Stryker-Robbins, Jose Santana, AND Santana Roach, with reporting help from Chalkbeat reporter Alex Zimmerman.

Our marketing lead this week was Sabrina DuQuesnay.

Our executive producer for the show is JoAnn DeLuna.

Santana: Executive editors include Amy Zimmer AND Taylor McGraw.

Additional production and reporting support was provided by Sabrina DuQuesnay, Mira Gordon, and our friends at Chalkbeat.

Special thanks to our interns Miriam Galicia and Makenna Turner and our friends at chalkbeat.

A big shout out to our mentors!

Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

And the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only: Erica Huang.

Thanks for tuning in! See you next time!

After a child’s death, California weighs rules for physical education during extreme weather

2024-05-15T09:07:00+00:00

LAKE ELSINORE, California — Yahushua Robinson was an energetic boy who jumped and danced his way through life. Then, a physical education teacher instructed the 12-year-old to run outside on a day when the temperature climbed to 107 degrees.

“We lose loved ones all the time, but he was taken in a horrific way,” his mother, Janee Robinson, said from the family’s Inland Empire home, about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles. “I would never want nobody to go through what I’m going through.”

The day her son died, Robinson, who teaches physical education, kept her elementary school students inside, and she had hoped her children’s teachers would do the same.

The Riverside County Coroner’s Bureau ruled that Yahushua died on Aug. 29 of a heart defect, with heat and physical exertion as contributing factors. His death at Canyon Lake Middle School came on the second day of an excessive heat warning, when people were advised to avoid strenuous activities and limit their time outdoors.

Yahushua’s family is supporting a bill in California that would require the state Department of Education to create guidelines that govern physical activity at public schools during extreme weather, including setting threshold temperatures for when it’s too hot or too cold for students to exercise or play sports outside. If the measure becomes law, the guidelines will have to be in place by Jan. 1, 2026.

Many states have adopted protocols to protect student athletes from extreme heat during practices. But the California bill is broader and would require educators to consider all students throughout the school day and in any extreme weather, whether they’re doing jumping jacks in fourth period or playing tag during recess. It’s unclear if the bill will clear a critical committee vote scheduled for May 16.

“Yahushua’s story, it’s very touching. It’s very moving. I think it could have been prevented had we had the right safeguards in place,” said state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Bakersfield Democrat and one of the bill’s authors. “Climate change is impacting everyone, but it’s especially impacting vulnerable communities, especially our children.”

Last year marked the planet’s warmest on record, and extreme weather is becoming more frequent and severe, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Even though most heat deaths and illnesses are preventable, about 1,220 people in the United States are killed by extreme heat every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Young children are especially susceptible to heat illness because their bodies have more trouble regulating temperature, and they rely on adults to protect them from overheating. A person can go from feeling dizzy or experiencing a headache to passing out, having a seizure, or going into a coma, said Chad Vercio, a physician and the division chief of general pediatrics at Loma Linda University Health.

“It can be a really dangerous thing,” Vercio said of heat illness. “It is something that we should take seriously and figure out what we can do to avoid that.”

It’s unclear how many children have died at school from heat exposure. Eric Robinson, 15, had been sitting in his sports medicine class learning about heatstroke when his sister arrived at his high school unexpectedly the day their brother died.

“They said, ‘OK, go home, Eric. Go home early.’ I walked to the car and my sister’s crying. I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t believe that my little brother’s gone. That I won’t be able to see him again. And he’d always bugged me, and I would say, ‘Leave me alone.’”

That morning, Eric had done Yahushua’s hair and loaned him his hat and chain necklace to wear to school.

Yahushua Robinson’s friends sent cards, drawings, and messages after the 12-year-old died last August with heat and physical exertion as contributing factors.

As temperatures climbed into the 90s that morning, a physical education teacher instructed Yahushua to run on the blacktop. His friends told the family that the sixth grader had repeatedly asked the teacher for water but was denied, his parents said.

The school district has refused to release video footage to the family showing the moment Yahushua collapsed on the blacktop. He died later that day at the hospital.

Melissa Valdez, a Lake Elsinore Unified School District spokesperson, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Schoolyards can reach dangerously high temperatures on hot days, with asphalt sizzling up to 145 degrees, according to findings by researchers at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Some school districts, such as San Diego Unified and Santa Ana Unified, have hot weather plans or guidelines that call for limiting physical activity and providing water to kids. But there are no statewide standards that K-12 schools must implement to protect students from heat illness.

Under the bill, the California Department of Education must set temperature thresholds requiring schools to modify students’ physical activities during extreme weather, such as heat waves, wildfires, excessive rain, and flooding. Schools would also be required to come up with plans for alternative indoor activities, and staff must be trained to recognize and respond to weather-related distress.

California has had heat rules on the books for outdoor workers since 2005, but it was a latecomer to protecting student athletes, according to the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, which is named after a Minnesota Vikings football player who died from heatstroke in 2001. By comparison, Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, this spring signed a law preventing cities and counties from creating their own heat protections for outdoor workers, has the best protections for student athletes, according to the institute.

Douglas Casa, a professor of kinesiology and the chief executive officer of the institute, said state regulations can establish consistency about how to respond to heat distress and save lives.

“The problem is that each high school doesn’t have a cardiologist and doesn’t have a thermal physiologist and doesn’t have a sickling expert,” Casa said of the medical specialties for heat illness.

In 2022, California released an Extreme Action Heat Plan that recommended state agencies “explore implementation of indoor and outdoor heat exposure rules for schools,” but neither the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, nor lawmakers have adopted standards.

Lawmakers last year failed to pass legislation that would have required schools to implement a heat plan and replace hot surfaces, such as cement and rubber, with lower-heat surfaces, such as grass and cool pavement. That bill, which drew opposition from school administrators, stalled in committee, in part over cost concerns.

Eric Robinson remembers his son Yahushua Robinson, 12, who died in August after a physical education instructor told him to run outside on the blacktop during the sweltering heat.

Naj Alikhan, a spokesperson for the Association of California School Administrators, said the new bill takes a different approach and would not require structural and physical changes to schools. The association has not taken a position on the measure, and no other organization has registered opposition.

The Robinson family said children’s lives ought to outweigh any costs that might come with preparing schools to deal with the growing threat of extreme weather. Yahushua’s death, they say, could save others.

“I really miss him. I cry every day,” said Yahushua’s father, Eric Robinson. “There’s no one day that go by that I don’t cry about my boy.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

NYC schools could lose 400 nurses as federal relief funds expire

2024-05-14T00:39:41+00:00

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New York City public schools could lose hundreds of nurses next year, as the city faces the expiration of billions of dollars in one-time federal COVID relief funds.

For years, many education programs have been propped up by the federal funds, including $65 million that supported roughly 400 contracted nurses, some of whom provide care at buildings that previously lacked a school nurse. But as that money dries up later this year, the future of those nurses and other school programs funded by the federal dollars remains uncertain.

Last month, officials announced the city’s Education Department would see its budget shrink by 2.4%, or $808 million, in the next fiscal year — largely spurred by the expiring federal funds. With the disappearance of the relief money, Mayor Eric Adams’ latest budget proposal allocated more than $500 million in city and state funds to preserve some of the programs it funded, including hundreds of social workers, staffers in homeless shelters, and preschool for 3-year-olds. Others, however, remain at risk.

Currently, every public school has a nurse or school-based health center, according to city officials. If a school nurse calls out sick or is otherwise unavailable, then a contracted nurse is deployed to that school to provide coverage.

“We’re grateful to the stimulus funding that has allowed us to ensure every school has a school nurse on site, and we will continue to advocate for and prioritize this need through the budget process,” said Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department.

Prior to the pandemic, at least 137 schools serving roughly 70,000 students did not have a school nurse, according to Advocates for Children, an organization that works on behalf of low-income families.

Without a school nurse in the building, kids with particular health needs like those with asthma or diabetes are at a higher risk of experiencing complications, said Anna MacEwan, a former school nurse who previously worked at a K-12 campus in downtown Brooklyn. It also shifts further responsibilities onto teachers, she added.

“You have to have a nurse in the building … to manage all the things that come up,” MacEwan said.

Nurses also provide families with additional peace of mind, said Noelia Gomez, an after-school program director with Good Shepherd Services, a nonprofit organization that supports children and families.

“Having nurses gives families a safeguard,” she said. “Somebody that they can trust — that’s going to care for their child like they would at home.”

She noted her program serves more than 500 students at P.S. 246 in the Bronx, each of whom may at some point need medical attention or support.

“It’s a very scary thought,” Gomez said. “What happens if the nurse isn’t there?”

With the mayor’s proposed budget still subject to negotiations with the City Council, advocates and local lawmakers are continuing to push for funding for initiatives that have relied on the federal dollars. The city must finalize its budget by July 1.

Council members will discuss the city’s Education Department budget at an Education Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools can now donate cafeteria food to fight hunger and reduce waste. Here’s how.

2024-05-10T19:30:40+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department recently launched a program allowing schools to donate unused packaged food to local food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters — an effort nearly two years in the making.

After a small group of schools piloted a food donation program, officials trained roughly 400 school food managers, supervisors, and directors earlier this year on how to set up their own programs, Chalkbeat has learned.

Every school will have the opportunity to opt into the effort, officials said. The Office of Food and Nutrition Services will help schools set up the procedures and equipment for donating untouched food, while a school’s administration will facilitate the donation to school community members or local pantries.

The program is gearing up at a critical moment, as pandemic-era family benefits dry up and childhood hunger is a growing concern. New York City has seen a 100% increase in the number of visits to food pantries by children and their families from pre-pandemic levels and 1 in 5 children don’t always know where their next meal will come from, according to food rescue group City Harvest.

Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams plans to reduce funding by about 56% for an emergency food program that works with about 500 community kitchens and food pantries citywide.

The school-based food donation program was “informed by conversations with several food pantries and best practices from existing school-based food pantries and ad hoc student-led food donation programs,” said Jenna Lyle, an Education Department spokesperson.

Since the program is just getting started, officials do not yet have data on participating schools, but said they plan to track how many opt into it.

Students, advocates, and elected officials have long tried to push the nation’s largest school system — which serves roughly 880,000 meals a day — to come up with a plan to divert food waste from landfills and into the hands of hungry New Yorkers. A Department of Sanitation study found that more than 40,000 tons of trash from New York City’s school buildings can be recycled, composted, or reused.

“There’s so much food being wasted,” said Eila Gandhi, a student at East Side Middle school.

Through the Middle School Leadership Council in Manhattan’s District 2, Eila has been working with Zoya Baulin, another East Side student, and Anya Bravin, from the Clinton School, on advocating for leftover packaged food from schools to go to homeless shelters and other anti-hunger organizations. But they kept hitting roadblocks, finding complicated rules and strict guidelines for donating the food and for shelters accepting the food.

They were happy to hear about the Education Department’s new program and are in touch with their principals about how their schools might participate.

“We feel like it could help so many different groups of people,” Anya said. “It can help people who have food insecurity. It could help schools get rid of this food. It can help homeless shelters to not have to feed so many people from their own money, and it could also help the environment.”

The Education Department’s food service team has been working to reduce excess food or leftovers whenever possible, said Lyle. “We applaud our students who are advocating for their communities and looking to support their local organizations and shelters.”

Rachel Sabella, director of No Kid Hungry New York, was encouraged to hear about the food donation program — especially now. Her advocacy organization recently polled public school families and found that nearly 9 in 10 reported that food prices were rising faster than their incomes.

“We look forward to learning more about this program expansion and the ways it can relieve the difficult choices too many families are forced to make between food, rent, and other necessities,” Sabella said in a statement.

Here’s what schools should know about participating in the program.

What’s the first step a school can take to participate in the program?

A school needs to set up what’s called a “share table,” where students can discard unopened packaged food or whole pieces of fruit from their trays, letting their peers pick up the food if they’d like.

Because of federal school food reimbursement regulations for meals — which are free for all New York City public school students — kids cannot, for instance, just take a cookie or an apple, but instead must take a complete meal with a protein and other food items. Because of that, many kids often end up tossing a lot of untouched food.

Several schools already have share tables set up in their cafeterias as a way to reduce food waste. (Education Department officials said they are in the process of collecting data on which schools have share tables.)

What food items are eligible for donation?

Only food from share tables can be donated.

The food must be non-perishable or unspoiled and must be donated within 36 hours of being served.

Where will the food donations go?

School leaders have two options:

They can donate the food directly to their school community, with school leaders selecting students and families to participate, according to a January presentation given to schools. “[This] enables students and families in need, access to food right in their own schools,” the presentation stated. “This program will help to make balanced, nutritious meals a reality.”
They can partner with an established local community food pantry or program that serves New Yorkers in need. The school can work with an organization to determine the food pick-up or delivery system.

Who will run the program at a school?

Principals must identify a “designee” to oversee the program. The designee can be a school staffer or a school community volunteer, such as a parent or guardian.

Students may volunteer to assist and support the program under that person’s guidance.

How will the food get from a cafeteria to families or organizations?

After each meal, whoever is running the program will evaluate food items left on the cafeteria’s share table. They — or student volunteers— will then place all eligible food items in a designated refrigerator or milk chest.

Each shelf must then be labeled with the date the items were placed there. And at the end of the last meal served (some schools serve breakfast, lunch, and after-school snacks), the person overseeing the program must complete a “daily food donation receipt,” submitted to an assigned kitchen staff member.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

School lunch time is too short. Colorado lawmakers’ solution? A task force to make recommendations.

2024-04-12T17:48:16+00:00

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Anyelin Ortega told Colorado lawmakers recently that the lunch line at her high school can be 25 minutes long, often leaving the 17-year-old only five minutes to finish her food.

“It is very disrespectful and demanding for any person to be rushed from eating,” said Ortega, who attends a Denver charter school. “After lunch, I have found myself feeling very anxious and irritated from the lack of energy from having an empty stomach.”

Ortega was among the students and advocates who testified in favor of a bill that would create a “time-to-eat” task force to evaluate topics including how much time the state’s school districts are giving students to eat lunch and whether students have recess before or afterward.

Colorado does not mandate schools set aside a certain number of minutes for lunch. Those decisions are left to school districts or individual schools.

The task force would examine the outcomes associated with those decisions, such as students’ academic performance, their behavior, and how much food is wasted because students can’t finish their lunches. The task force would write a report with recommendations for school districts to adopt policies “that allow for increased time to eat,” the bill says.

“It breaks my heart when I see students repeatedly pick up their tray and shovel a few more bites into their mouths as they hold (it) over a trash can and throw away half of their food,” Shannon Thompson of the Colorado School Nutrition Association told lawmakers at a hearing last week. “As a registered dietitian, I work in school nutrition to feed kids, not trash cans.”

Rep. Jenny Willford, a Northglenn Democrat, said House Bill 1301 is based on her personal experience as a parent. When her son started in elementary school, Willford said he was having behavior issues after lunch. She said she worked with the school to figure out the root cause: Her son would play hard at recess but then not have enough time to eat lunch.

“You can’t learn when your tummy is hungry,” Willford said.

House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican, said she agreed to co-sponsor the bill because she had a similar experience with her own children.

In addition to hungry students and wasted food, Pugliese pointed out another problem with short lunch periods: wasted money. Colorado voters approved a measure in 2022 making school meals free for all students, and this is the first year it’s in place. But more students are eating than expected, and the state is having to shore up the program with extra funding.

“From a fiscally conservative perspective, we don’t want to be investing money in food that’s being thrown away,” Pugliese said.

Cade Nelson, a sophomore at Legend High School in Parker, told lawmakers that he supports the free meals program. But he said it’s caused the lunch lines at his school to grow.

“The free lunch essentially does not matter because I’ve seen people run out of time to eat,” Nelson said. “If we had more time to eat, I think everybody would be much happier.”

The bill passed the House Education Committee last Thursday on a 10-1 vote. Most of the pushback and hesitation was not related to the task force but to a separate grant program in the bill meant to promote more physical activity and play during the school day.

An association of Colorado physical education teachers had concerns that the grant program could supplant P.E. teachers. But the committee approved an amendment requiring schools to have a P.E. teacher on staff in order to apply for the grant funding.

Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Parker Republican, was the only lawmaker to suggest scrapping the time-to-eat task force in favor of a mandate that school districts lengthen lunch times.

“Why not do a mandate?” Hartsook said. “They need more time to eat, they need more time to play. Duh. We all know that. So why are we waiting?”

But Willford said school scheduling is a tricky balance that must take into account the amount of instructional time required by the state. She said she worried a mandate would cause problems.

“If we move straight to a mandate, it becomes a bit of an unfunded mandate for local school districts,” Willford said. “My hope is that the task force comes back with a number of unique models of how we can implement longer periods for school lunch that is reflective of the diversity of schools we have across our state.”

Hartsook voted yes on the bill. The sole no vote was from Republican Rep. Don Wilson.

The bill says the task force would make its recommendations by Feb. 1, 2025. Task force members would include students, parents, educators, school board members, teachers union representatives, and representatives from community organizations.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Is ‘Baby Olivia’ headed to a school near you? Bills would allow fetal development video screenings.

2024-03-28T16:03:14+00:00

This story was originally published by The 19th and is republished under a Creative Commons license. Sign up for The 19th’s newsletter here.

Aftyn Behn hoped that this would be the year the Tennessee legislature was free of bills related to the anti-abortion movement. Since it is now illegal to terminate pregnancies in the state, the Democrat figured her Republican counterparts in the Tennessee House would concentrate their efforts on causes other than restricting reproductive rights.

But she was mistaken: The House on March 18 passed the “Baby Olivia Act,” which gives public schools the greenlight to screen a fetal development video produced by a controversial anti-abortion group. A few days later, the bill made it out of the Tennessee Senate Education committee, which has recommended that the Senate pass it as well.

“I’ve been in the trenches fighting against anti-abortion legislation and policy for a long time, and I really just thought this year that they could just let it go,” Behn said. “And it just continues to get worse. They’re just trying to find little holes where they can move forward with their anti-abortion legislation, and it happens to be in curriculum that would be adopted across the state.”

Tennessee is one of several states — including North Dakota, Iowa, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri — that has introduced or advanced legislation permitting public schools to screen “Meet Baby Olivia,” a three-minute computer-generated video first released in 2021 that critics call misleading and manipulative. North Dakota passed legislation allowing schools to show the video last year, but West Virginia’s “Baby Olivia” bill failed to pass before the legislative session there ended this month.

The video was created by the organization Live Action, which objects to abortion for any reason and has captured secret footage at abortion clinics while advocating for Planned Parenthood to be defunded. The organization, founded by anti-abortion activist Lila Rose, wants students nationwide to watch “Meet Baby Olivia” in school. The bills that have advanced in various states would require schools ranging from elementary to high school to show the fetal development video or one like it.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which includes over 60,000 members, has raised concerns about the video, noting that it calculates gestational age two weeks earlier than standard and depicts fetal development as more advanced than it is. Critics say the video also misrepresents when a fetal heartbeat can be detected and how early one can survive outside the womb. Some conservative medical groups, meanwhile, have endorsed it.

Since most states do not require medically accurate comprehensive sex ed, exposing students to misinformation about human reproduction is concerning because youth may not have access to materials that counter it. Experts told The 19th this is especially concerning paired with widespread book bans across the country.

Anti-abortion activists Lila Rose (left) and Kristan Hawkins pose for a portrait on the Supreme Court steps in Washington, D.C., in 2014.

“‘Baby Olivia’ is a medically accurate, animated glimpse of human life in the womb,” Rose said in a statement to The 19th. “Every student in our nation deserves access to best-in-class education on human development. It is tragic that basic facts about human biology are so controversial for abortion supporters in 2024.”

She added that the video aims to educate viewers in a straightforward way. “Every fact in the video has been exhaustively sourced and corroborated and is similar to what you would find in an embryology textbook,” she said.

Mazie Stilwell, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa, disagrees. The Iowa House in late February passed legislation that would allow public schools to show “Baby Olivia.” Stillwell said that the video reflects the beliefs of Live Action rather than evidence-based science. “For the major medical organizations to all be firmly against this propaganda tells you everything you need to know,” Stillwell said. “This video very intentionally misleads the audience by using a dating structure that contradicts what is used in medical practice. They talked about weeks from fertilization rather than the way that pregnancy is actually calculated, which is from the last menstrual period.”

Stillwell said the video sensationalizes gestures, such as hand clasping or thumb sucking, that fetuses make. The point, she said, is to manipulate and appeal to a young audience. As “Meet Baby Olivia” has drawn widespread criticism, states including Iowa and Tennessee have amended their legislation so that schools are not required to show that video specifically but any fetal development video like it. The change in legislative wording, however, does not actually prohibit public schools from showing the Live Action video. That means schools will likely choose that video to show, as “Baby Olivia” is the most prominent fetal development video of its kind, critics say.

Behn tried unsuccessfully to amend the Tennessee legislation to bar schools from showing the Live Action video. In Iowa, legislators amended the bill to remove specific reference to “Baby Olivia,” but it still requires schools to show a computer-generated fetal development video, state Rep. Molly Buck said.

“In removing the specific reference to Live Action’s ‘Baby Olivia,’ what the bill sponsor did was put in the requirement that this computer-generated video depict the humanity of the unborn child,” Stillwell said. “Now that phrase is not defined anywhere. There’s no indication of how to measure the humanity. So, by our reading of the bill, the problem remains that the only piece of curriculum that could actually meet this prescriptive requirement from the state remains Live Action’s ‘Baby Olivia’ video.”

Such legislation, Stillwell said, constitutes an effort to put anti-choice propaganda in schools.

Educators have pushed back against “Baby Olivia” legislation, in part because they object to politicians mandating curriculum, arguing that is the domain of state boards of education or similar entities. The Iowa State Education Association has said that it opposes “the politicization of any curriculum.” Moreover, Iowa education code prohibits requiring exact instructional methodologies or materials to achieve curriculum goals.

Buck, who has taught elementary school in Iowa for 28 years, said that it is troublesome when legislators implement laws outlining exactly what must be taught in classrooms.

“Schools tend to stick to the letter of the law,” she said. “A danger of prescribing very specific curriculum in the legislature is that it starts to scare school districts about, ‘Well, can we step outside of that at all? Can we teach more than that?’”

Plus, Iowa does not require schools to offer comprehensive sex ed, so students may not learn anything about human reproduction beyond what they see in “Baby Olivia,” Buck said.

“When we talk about indoctrination of kids, we have to be mindful of both sides,” she said. “We don’t want the ‘liberal left’ indoctrinating our kids, and we don’t want the right side indoctrinating our kids either. So our kids need factual health information, not fictional.”

Heather Corinna, author of “S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College,” said that the silver lining may be that many young people get their information about sex through digital means, making them likely to stumble across online resources that counter any factual inaccuracies about reproduction they come across in class.

“Young people know the internet exists,” said Corinna, founder and director of Scarleteen, a sex education support organization and website. “We have millions of young people that come to Scarleteen all the time, and coming to fact check [what] they heard in sex ed is a common reason.”

Sex ed has been terrible for years, but students aren’t stupid, Corinna said. Many of them expect it to be rooted in propaganda, which Corinna considers “Baby Olivia” to be. “That’s what it is,” they said. “It’s produced like political propaganda.”

Corinna, who once worked in an abortion clinic, takes issue with how Live Action stages fetal development and describes fetuses. “They say they can recognize lullabies and stories,” they said. “No one can do a test on someone in utero to find out if they recognize something; that’s not a thing. It’s sheer projection.”

Sarah Dean, an English teacher at a public charter school in the Nashville area, objects to the video and to the fact that the sponsor of the Tennessee bill, state Rep. Gino Bulso, is a lawyer, not an educator. She pointed out that Bulso has sponsored legislation that supports censorship in schools and targets transgender students, gender-affirming care and drag performers, among other controversial policies. Bulso also sponsored the bill to expel three Democrats for protesting gun violence after a school shooting in Nashville last year. A representative for Bulso told The 19th he was not available for an interview.

Dean characterized his pattern of legislation as a systematic effort to promote a specific ideology and discriminate against individuals “who don’t fit within that,” she said.

The Baby Olivia Act, Dean continued, devalues the expertise of teaching professionals. “We don’t do that to other professionals,” she said. “But when it comes to teachers, people think, ‘Well, I went to school, so I must know.’ But there’s a lot more pedagogy that goes into teaching and being an educator, so it’s somewhat like arrogance and also just out of touch, impractical, for these people to be making bills about education because they don’t honestly know what the impact is going to be for students and for teachers.”

The goal of “Baby Olivia,” Behn said, is to emotionally manipulate young people who are or may fall pregnant into ruling out abortion. Since Tennessee has a number of health care gaps — including a lack of access to reproductive health care, high rates of parental mortality, and a large number of crisis pregnancy centers, Behn said, she considers the undertones of the video to be “nefarious.” In addition to “Baby Olivia,” Tennessee also recently introduced legislation that would make it a crime for an adult to help a minor obtain an abortion without parental consent. Given the state’s political climate, Behn is particularly concerned about youth in the state’s rural areas who may not only lack resources but also have information gaps about pregnancy and reproduction.

“The intention of this video is to show any kids who might be pregnant in the school system that the fetus is living and breathing, and that they’re better off keeping the baby,” Behn said.

But Corinna is not convinced that anti-abortion materials keep people from ending unwanted pregnancies. If they have the opportunity to do so, they typically terminate their pregnancies anyway, Corinna said, because they’re in an unhealthy romantic relationship, financially ill-equipped to raise a child, or have a medical issue, among myriad other reasons.

“More times than not, in my experience, that person, if they need an abortion, they still go have one. They just feel awful about it,” Corinna said. “What keeps people from having abortions is an inability to go get one.”

How the anti-vaccine movement pits parental rights against public health

2024-03-12T20:59:32+00:00

This story originally appeared on KFF Health News and is republished with permission.

Gayle Borne has fostered more than 300 children in Springfield, Tennessee. She’s cared for kids who have rarely seen a doctor — kids so neglected that they cannot speak. Such children are now even more vulnerable because of a law Tennessee passed last year that requires the direct consent of birth parents or legal guardians for every routine childhood vaccination. Foster parents, social workers, and other caregivers cannot provide permission.

In January, Borne took a foster baby, born extremely premature at just over 2 pounds, to her first doctor’s appointment. The health providers said that without the consent of the child’s mother, they couldn’t vaccinate her against diseases like pneumonia, hepatitis B, and polio. The mother hasn’t been located, so a social worker is now seeking a court order to permit immunizations. “We are just waiting,” Borne said. “Our hands are tied.”

Tennessee’s law has also stymied grandmothers and other caregivers who accompany children to routine appointments when parents are at work, in drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinics, or otherwise unavailable. The law claims to “give parents back the right to make medical decisions for their children.”

Framed in the rhetoric of choice and consent, it is one of more than a dozen recent and pending pieces of legislation nationwide that pit parental freedom against community and children’s health. In actuality, they create obstacles to vaccination, the foundation of pediatric care.

Such policies have another effect. They seed doubt about vaccine safety in a climate rife with medical misinformation. The trend has exploded as politicians and social media influencers make false claims about risks, despite studies showing otherwise.

Doctors traditionally give caregivers vaccine information and get their permission before delivering more than a dozen childhood immunizations that defend against measles, polio, and other debilitating diseases.

But now, Tennessee’s law demands that birth parents attend routine appointments and sign consent forms for every vaccine given over two or more years. “The forms could have a chilling effect,” said Jason Yaun, a Memphis pediatrician and past president of the Tennessee chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“People who promote parental rights on vaccines tend to downplay the rights of children,” said Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy researcher at the University of California Law-San Francisco.

Drop in routine vaccination rates

Misinformation coupled with a parental rights movement that shifts decision-making away from public health expertise has contributed to the lowest childhood vaccine rates in a decade.

This year, legislators in Arizona, Iowa, and West Virginia have introduced related consent bills. A “Parents’ Bill of Rights” amendment in Oklahoma seeks to ensure that parents know they can exempt their children from school vaccine mandates along with lessons on sex education and AIDS. In Florida, the medical skeptic leading the state’s health department recently defied guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by telling parents they could send unvaccinated children to a school during a measles outbreak.

Last year, Mississippi began allowing exemptions from school vaccine requirements for religious reasons because of a lawsuit funded by the Informed Consent Action Network, which is listed as a leading source of anti-vaccine disinformation by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. A post on ICAN’s website said it “could not be more proud” in Mississippi to “restore the right of every parent in this country to have his or her convictions respected and not trampled by the government.”

Even if some bills fail, Reiss fears, the revived parental rights movement may eventually abolish policies that require routine immunizations to attend school. At a recent campaign rally, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said, “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.”

The movement dates to the wake of the 1918 influenza pandemic, when some parents pushed back against progressive reforms that required school attendance and prohibited child labor. Since then, tensions between state measures and parental freedom have occasionally flared over a variety of issues. Vaccines became a prominent one in 2021, as the movement found common ground with people skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines.

“The parental rights movement didn’t start with vaccines,” Reiss said, “but the anti-vaccine movement has allied themselves with it and has expanded their reach by riding on its coattails.”

When lawmakers silence health experts

In Tennessee, anti-vaccine activists and libertarian-leaning organizations railed against the state’s health department in 2021 when it recommended COVID vaccines to minors, following CDC guidance. Gary Humble, executive director of the conservative group Tennessee Stands, asked legislators to blast the health department for advising masks and vaccination, suggesting the department “could be dissolved and reconstituted at your pleasure.”

Backlash also followed a notice sent to doctors from Michelle Fiscus, then the state’s immunization director. She reminded them that they didn’t need parental permission to vaccinate consenting adolescents 14 or older, according to a decades-old state rule called the Mature Minor Doctrine.

In the weeks that followed, state legislators threatened to defund the health department and pressured it into scaling back COVID vaccine promotion, as revealed by The Tennessean. Fiscus was abruptly fired. “Today I became the 25th of 64 state and territorial immunization program directors to leave their position during this pandemic,” she wrote in a statement. “That’s nearly 40% of us.” Tennessee’s COVID death rate climbed to one of the nation’s highest by mid-2022.

By the time two state legislators introduced a bill to reverse the Mature Minor Doctrine, the health department was silent on the proposal. Despite obstacles for foster children who would require a court order for routine immunizations, Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services was silent, too.

Notably, the legislator who introduced the bill, Republican Rep. John Ragan, was among those simultaneously overseeing a review of the agency that would determine its leadership and budget for the coming years. “Children belong to their families, not the state,” said Ragan as he presented the bill at a state hearing in April 2023.

Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson spoke out against the bill. It “doesn’t take into account people and children who are neglected,” he told Ragan. “We are legislating from a point of privilege and not recognizing the people who are not privileged in this way.”

Rather than address such concerns, Ragan referenced a Supreme Court ruling in favor of parental rights in 2000. Specifically, judges determined that a mother had legal authority to decide who could visit her daughters. Yet the Supreme Court has also done the opposite. For instance, it sided against a legal guardian who removed her child from school to proselytize for the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Still, Ragan swiftly won the majority vote. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, signed the bill in May, making it effective immediately. Deborah Lowen, then the deputy commissioner of child health at the Department of Children’s Services, was flooded with calls from doctors who now face jailtime and fines for vaccinating minors without adequate consent. “I was and remain very disheartened,” she said.

A right to health

Yaun, the Memphis pediatrician, said he was shaken as he declined to administer a first series of vaccines to an infant accompanied by a social worker. “That child is going into a situation where they are around other children and adults,” he said, “where they could be exposed to something we failed to protect them from.”

“We have had numerous angry grandparents in our waiting room who take kids to appointments because the parents are at work or down on their luck,” said Hunter Butler, a pediatrician in Springfield, Tennessee. “I once called a rehabilitation facility to find a mom and get her on the phone to get verbal consent to vaccinate her baby,” he said. “And it’s unclear if that was OK.”

Childhood immunization rates have dropped for three consecutive years in Tennessee. Nationwide, downward trends in measles vaccination led the CDC to estimate that a quarter million kindergartners are at risk of the highly contagious disease.

Communities with low vaccination rates are vulnerable as measles surges internationally. Confirmed measles cases in 2023 were almost double those in 2022 — a year in which the World Health Organization estimates that more than 136,000 people died from the disease globally. When travelers infected abroad land in communities with low childhood vaccination rates, the highly contagious virus can spread swiftly among unvaccinated people, as well as babies too young to be vaccinated and people with weakened immune systems.

“There’s a freedom piece on the other side of this argument,” said Caitlin Gilmet, communications director at the vaccine advocacy group SAFE Communities Coalition and Action Fund. “You should have the right to protect your family from preventable diseases.”

In late January, Gilmet and other child health advocates gathered in a room at the Tennessee Statehouse in Nashville, offering a free breakfast of fried chicken biscuits. They handed out flyers as legislators and their aides drifted in to eat. One pamphlet described the toll of a 2018-19 measles outbreak in Washington state that sickened 72 people, most of whom were unvaccinated, costing $76,000 in medical care, $2.3 million for the public health response, and an estimated $1 million in economic losses due to illness, quarantine, and caregiving.

Barb Dentz, an advocate with the grassroots group Tennessee Families for Vaccines, repeated that most of the state’s constituents support strong policies in favor of immunizations. Indeed, seven in 10 U.S. adults maintained that public schools should require vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella, in a Pew Research Center poll last year. But numbers have been dropping.

“Protecting kids should be such a no-brainer,” Dentz told Republican Rep. Sam Whitson, later that morning in his office. Whitson agreed and reflected on an explosion of anti-vaccine misinformation. “Dr. Google and Facebook have been such a challenge,” he said. “Fighting ignorance has become a full-time job.”

Whitson was among a minority of Republicans who voted against Tennessee’s vaccine amendment last year. “The parental rights thing has really taken hold,” he said, “and it can be used for and against us.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Cómo la muerte de un amigo hizo que adolescentes de Colorado se volvieran activistas contra las sobredosis

2024-03-05T15:30:41+00:00

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Gavinn McKinney amaba las zapatillas Nike, los fuegos artificiales y el sushi. Estudiaba Potawatomi, uno de los idiomas de sus ancestros nativos americanos. Le encantaba cargar a su sobrina y oler su aroma de bebé. En su cumpleaños número 15, el adolescente de Durango, Colorado, pasó una tarde fría de diciembre cortando leña para ayudar a vecinos que no podían pagar para tener calefacción en sus hogares.

McKinney casi llegó a su cumpleaños 16. Murió a causa de envenenamiento por fentanilo en casa de un amigo en diciembre de 2021. Sus amigos dicen que era la primera vez que probaba drogas duras.

A su servicio fue tanta gente que algunos tuvieron que quedarse fuera de la funeraria.

Ahora, sus compañeros están tratando de cimentar el legado de su amigo en una ley estatal. Recientemente testificaron ante legisladores estatales en apoyo a un proyecto de ley que ayudaron a redactar para asegurar que los estudiantes puedan llevar naloxona consigo en todo momento sin miedo a que sea confiscada o a ser sancionados.

Los distritos escolares tienden a tener políticas estrictas sobre medicamentos. Sin un permiso especial, los estudiantes de Colorado ni siquiera pueden llevar sus propias medicinas de emergencia, como un inhalador, y no se les permite compartirlas con otros.

“Nos dimos cuenta de que realmente podríamos lograr un cambio si nos esforzábamos de corazón”, dijo Niko Peterson, estudiante de último año en Animas High School en Durango y uno de los amigos de McKinney que ayudó a escribir el proyecto de ley. “Ser proactivo en lugar no hacer nada va a ser la mejor solución posible”.

Algunos distritos escolares o condados en California, Maryland y en otros lugares tienen reglas que permiten expresamente a los estudiantes de secundaria llevar naloxona. Pero Jon Woodruff, abogado gerente en la Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association, dijo que no estaba al tanto de ninguna ley estatal como la que está considerando Colorado. La organización de Woodruff, que tiene su sede en Washington, DC, investiga y redacta borradores de proyectos legislativos sobre el uso de drogas.

La naloxona es un antagonista de los opioides que puede revertir una sobredosis. Disponible sin receta como un aerosol nasal, se la considera una protagonista clave en el freno a la epidemia de sobredosis por su uso en emergencias, pero solo una herramienta en una estrategia de prevención. (La gente a menudo se refiere a la naloxona como “Narcan”, uno de los nombres de marca más reconocibles, similar a lo que pasa con los pañuelos desechables, a los que, independientemente de su marca, se los llama “Kleenex”.)

El año pasado, la administración Biden respaldó una campaña publicitaria que alentaba a los jóvenes a llevar consigo el medicamento de emergencia.

Las leyes de acceso a la naloxona en la mayoría de los estados protegen a los buenos samaritanos, incluidos los jóvenes, de la responsabilidad si dañan accidentalmente a alguien mientras administran naloxona.

Pero sin políticas escolares que la permitan explícitamente, la capacidad de los estudiantes para llevar naloxona a clase queda en un área gris.

En 2022, Ryan Christoff trabajaba en Centaurus High School en Lafayette, Colorado, adonde también estudiaba una de sus hijas. En septiembre de ese año, sus compañeros de trabajo le confiscaron la naloxona a una compañera de clase de su hija.

“Ella no tenía nada más que el Narcan consigo, y se lo quitaron”, dijo Christoff, quien le había proporcionado el Narcan confiscado a esa estudiante y a muchos otros después que su hija casi muriera por envenenamiento por fentanilo. “Deberíamos querer que cada estudiante lo lleve consigo”.

Randy Barber, vocero del Distrito Escolar del Valle de Boulder, dijo que el incidente “fue un caso aislado y desde entonces hemos trabajado para asegurarnos de que las enfermeras estén alertas”. El distrito ahora anima a todos a considerar llevar naloxona, dijo.

Zoe Ramsey, estudiante de último año de secundaria de Durango, Colorado, testificó ante legisladores estatales en febrero sobre un proyecto de ley para aclarar que los estudiantes pueden portar naloxona, un medicamento que puede revertir las sobredosis de opioides.

La devastación de una comunidad se transforma en acción

En Durango, la muerte de McKinney golpeó duro a la comunidad.

Los amigos y familiares del joven dijeron que no consumía drogas duras. La única sustancia a la que era “adicto” era la salsa picante Tapatío, incluso llevaba un poco en el bolsillo a los juegos de los Rockies.

Después de la muerte de McKinney, la gente comenzó a hacerse tatuajes de la frase por la que era conocido, que estaba estampada en su sudadera favorita: “El amor es la cura”. Incluso algunos de sus profesores se la tatuaron.

Pero fueron los compañeros de clase, junto con sus amigos de otra escuela secundaria de la ciudad, quienes convirtieron su pérdida en un movimiento político. “Estamos haciendo que las cosas sucedan en su nombre”, dijo Peterson.

La tasa de mortalidad por envenenamiento a causa del fentanilo ha aumentado en los últimos años, con más de 1,500 niños y adolescentes en el país muertos el mismo año que McKinney.

La mayoría de los jóvenes que mueren por sobredosis no tienen antecedentes conocidos de consumo de opioides, y muchos de ellos probablemente pensaron que estaban tomando opioides recetados como OxyContin o Percocet, no las píldoras falsas recetadas que contienen cada vez más una dosis letal de fentanilo.

“Lo más probable es que el grupo más grande de adolescentes que están muriendo sean realmente adolescentes que están experimentando, en lugar de adolescentes que tienen un trastorno de uso de opioides de larga data”, observó Joseph Friedman, investigador de uso de sustancias en UCLA, a quien le gustaría ver que las escuelas proporcionen una educación precisa sobre drogas falsificadas, como con el plan de estudios Safety First de Stanford.

Permitir a los estudiantes llevar un medicamento de bajo riesgo que salva vidas es, en muchos aspectos, lo mínimo que las escuelas pueden hacer, dijo Friedman.

“Yo argumentaría que lo que las escuelas deberían estar haciendo es identificar a los adolescentes de alto riesgo y darles el Narcan para llevarlo a casa y enseñarles por qué es importante”, dijo Friedman.

En un artículo en The New England Journal of Medicine, Friedman identificó a Colorado como un área crítica para las muertes por sobredosis en adolescentes de secundaria, con una tasa de mortalidad de más del doble que la del país de 2020 a 2022.

“Cada vez más, el fentanilo se vende en forma de píldoras, y esto está sucediendo en gran medida en el Oeste”, dijo Friedman. “Creo que la crisis de sobredosis en adolescentes es un resultado directo de eso”.

Gavinn McKinney murió por envenenamiento con fentanilo en la casa de un amigo en diciembre de 2021. McKinney era parte del Clan del Trueno de la Nación Ciudadana Potawatomi. También tenía herencia Kickapoo y Assiniboine.

Si los legisladores de Colorado aprueban el proyecto de ley, “creo que es un paso realmente importante”, dijo Ju Nyeong Park, profesor asistente de medicina en la Universidad Brown, quien dirige un grupo de investigación centrado en cómo prevenir las sobredosis. “Espero que la Legislatura de Colorado lo haga y que también otros estados sigan el ejemplo”.

Park dijo que los programas integrales para analizar drogas en busca de contaminantes peligrosos, un mejor acceso a tratamientos basados en evidencia para adolescentes que desarrollan un trastorno por uso de sustancias, y la promoción de herramientas de reducción de daños también son importantes.

“Por ejemplo, hay una línea directa nacional llamada Never Use Alone (Nunca Uses Solo) a la que cualquiera puede llamar de manera anónima para ser supervisado de forma remota en caso de emergencia”, dijo.

Tomando el asunto en sus propias manos

Muchos distritos escolares de Colorado están capacitando al personal en cómo administrar naloxona y la tienen en las instalaciones escolares a través de un programa que les permite adquirirla del estado a poco o ningún costo.

Pero para Peterson y otros estudiantes de secundaria del área, fue claro que tener naloxona en la escuela no era suficiente, especialmente en lugares rurales. “Los profesores que están capacitados para usar Narcan no van a estar en las fiestas en donde los estudiantes consumen drogas”, dijo.

Y no es suficiente esperar que los adolescentes la tengan en casa.

“No va a ser útil si está en la casa de alguien a 20 minutos fuera de la ciudad. Será útil si está en su mochila siempre”, dijo Zoe Ramsey, otra amiga de McKinney y estudiante de último año en Animas High School.

Pero estudiantes del área, y administradores escolares, no estaban seguros: ¿Los estudiantes podrían meterse en problemas por llevar el antagonista de opioides en sus mochilas, o por dárselo a amigos? ¿Podría una escuela o distrito ser considerado responsable si algo saliera mal?

“Nos informaron que estaba en contra de las reglas llevar naloxona, y especialmente distribuirla”, dijo Ilias “Leo” Stritikus, quien se graduó de Durango High School el año pasado.

Ilias, junto con Ramsey y Peterson, ayudaron a formar el grupo Students Against Overdose. Juntos, convencieron a Animas, que es una escuela autónoma, y al distrito escolar cercano, de cambiar las normas. Ahora, con el permiso de los padres, y después de recibir capacitación sobre cómo administrarla, los estudiantes pueden llevar naloxona en las instalaciones escolares.

Karla Sluis, vocera del Distrito Escolar 9-R de Durango, dijo que al menos 45 estudiantes han completado la capacitación. Los distritos escolares en otras partes del país también han determinado que es importante clarificar sobre la capacidad de los estudiantes para llevar naloxona.

“Queremos ser parte de salvar vidas”, dijo Smita Malhotra, directora médica principal del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles en California.

El condado de Los Ángeles tuvo uno de los recuentos de muertes por sobredosis en adolescentes más altos que cualquier otro condado del país: de 2020 a 2022, murieron 111 adolescentes de 14 a 18 años.

Uno de ellos fue un joven de 15 años que murió en un baño de su escuela por envenenamiento por fentanilo. Desde entonces, el distrito de Malhotra ha actualizado su política sobre naloxona para permitir que los estudiantes la lleven y la administren.

“Todos los estudiantes pueden llevar naloxona en nuestros campus escolares sin enfrentar ninguna disciplina”, dijo Malhotra. Agregó que el distrito también está fortaleciendo el apoyo entre pares y organizando sesiones educativas para familias y estudiantes.

Las Escuelas Públicas del Condado de Montgomery en Maryland tomaron un enfoque similar. El personal escolar tuvo que administrar naloxona 18 veces durante el transcurso de un año escolar, y cinco estudiantes murieron a lo largo de un semestre.

Cuando el distrito organizó foros comunitarios sobre el tema, Patricia Kapunan, la oficial médica del distrito, dijo: “Los estudiantes fueron muy elocuentes sobre querer acceso a la naloxona. Es muy poco probable que un estudiante lleve algo en su mochila que piense que podría causarle problemas”.

Entonces, también, clarificó su política. Mientras tanto, los medios de comunicación locales informaron que estudiantes de secundaria encontraron a un joven desmayado, con los labios morados, en el baño de un McDonald’s enfrente de su escuela, y usaron Narcan para revivirlo. Fue durante el almuerzo en un día de escuela.

“Narcan no es nuestro camino para salir de la crisis de uso de opioides”, dijo Kapunan. “Pero fue crítico usarlo primero. Como conocer el número 911″. Ahora, con el apoyo del distrito y del departamento de salud del condado, los estudiantes están capacitando a otros estudiantes sobre cómo administrar naloxona. Jackson Taylor, uno de los estudiantes entrenadores, estimó que, un sábado reciente, capacitaron a unos 200 en el transcurso de tres horas.

“Fue increíble, un paso hacia la solución del problema”, dijo Taylor.

Cada aprendiz se fue con dos dosis de naloxona.

Esta historia fue producida por KFF Health News, una redacción nacional enfocada en el tratamiento en profundidad de temas de salud, que es uno de los principales programas de KFF, la fuente independiente de investigación de políticas de salud, encuestas y periodismo. KFF Health News edita California Healthline, un servicio editorialmente independiente de la California Health Care Foundation.

How a friend’s death turned Colorado teens into anti-overdose activists

2024-03-04T21:38:08+00:00

Leer en español.

This story was produced by KFF Health News and is republished with permission.

Gavinn McKinney loved Nike shoes, fireworks, and sushi. He was studying Potawatomi, one of the languages of his Native American heritage. He loved holding his niece and smelling her baby smell. On his 15th birthday, the Durango, Colorado, teen spent a cold December afternoon chopping wood to help neighbors who couldn’t afford to heat their homes.

McKinney almost made it to his 16th birthday. He died of fentanyl poisoning at a friend’s house in December 2021. His friends say it was the first time he tried hard drugs. The memorial service was so packed people had to stand outside the funeral home.

Now, his peers are trying to cement their friend’s legacy in state law. They recently testified to state lawmakers in support of a bill they helped write to ensure students can carry naloxone with them at all times without fear of discipline or confiscation. School districts tend to have strict medication policies. Without special permission, Colorado students can’t even carry their own emergency medications, such as an inhaler, and they are not allowed to share them with others.

“We realized we could actually make a change if we put our hearts to it,” said Niko Peterson, a senior at Animas High School in Durango and one of McKinney’s friends who helped write the bill. “Being proactive versus being reactive is going to be the best possible solution.”

Individual school districts or counties in California, Maryland, and elsewhere have rules expressly allowing high school students to carry naloxone. But Jon Woodruff, managing attorney at the Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association, said he wasn’t aware of any statewide law such as the one Colorado is considering. Woodruff’s Washington, D.C.-based organization researches and drafts legislation on substance use.

Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that can halt an overdose. Available over the counter as a nasal spray, it is considered the fire extinguisher of the opioid epidemic, for use in an emergency, but just one tool in a prevention strategy. (People often refer to it as “Narcan,” one of the more recognizable brand names, similar to how tissues, regardless of brand, are often called “Kleenex.”)

The Biden administration last year backed an ad campaign encouraging young people to carry the emergency medication.

Most states’ naloxone access laws protect do-gooders, including youth, from liability if they accidentally harm someone while administering naloxone. But without school policies explicitly allowing it, the students’ ability to bring naloxone to class falls into a gray area.

Ryan Christoff said that in September 2022, fellow staff at Centaurus High School in Lafayette, Colorado, where he worked and which one of his daughters attended at the time, confiscated naloxone from one of her classmates.

“She didn’t have anything on her other than the Narcan, and they took it away from her,” said Christoff, who had provided the confiscated Narcan to that student and many others after his daughter nearly died from fentanyl poisoning. “We should want every student to carry it.”

Boulder Valley School District spokesperson Randy Barber said the incident “was a one-off and we’ve done some work since to make sure nurses are aware.” The district now encourages everyone to consider carrying naloxone, he said.

Zoe Ramsey, a high school senior from Durango, Colorado, testified before state lawmakers in February about a bill to clarify that students may carry naloxone, a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses.

Community’s devastation turns to action

In Durango, McKinney’s death hit the community hard. McKinney’s friends and family said he didn’t do hard drugs. The substance he was hooked on was Tapatío hot sauce — he even brought some in his pocket to a Rockies game.

After McKinney died, people started getting tattoos of the phrase he was known for, which was emblazoned on his favorite sweatshirt: “Love is the cure.” Even a few of his teachers got them. But it was classmates, along with their friends at another high school in town, who turned his loss into a political movement.

“We’re making things happen on behalf of him,” Peterson said.

The mortality rate has spiked in recent years, with more than 1,500 other children and teens in the U.S. dying of fentanyl poisoning the same year as McKinney. Most youth who die of overdoses have no known history of taking opioids, and many of them likely thought they were taking prescription opioids like OxyContin or Percocet — not the fake prescription pills that increasingly carry a lethal dose of fentanyl.

“Most likely the largest group of teens that are dying are really teens that are experimenting, as opposed to teens that have a long-standing opioid use disorder,” said Joseph Friedman, a substance use researcher at UCLA who would like to see schools provide accurate drug education about counterfeit pills, such as with Stanford’s Safety First curriculum.

Allowing students to carry a low-risk, lifesaving drug with them is in many ways the minimum schools can do, he said.

“I would argue that what the schools should be doing is identifying high-risk teens and giving them the Narcan to take home with them and teaching them why it matters,” Friedman said.

Writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, Friedman identified Colorado as a hot spot for high school-aged adolescent overdose deaths, with a mortality rate more than double that of the nation from 2020 to 2022.

“Increasingly, fentanyl is being sold in pill form, and it’s happening to the largest degree in the West,” said Friedman. “I think that the teen overdose crisis is a direct result of that.”

Gavinn McKinney died of fentanyl poisoning at a friend’s house in December 2021. McKinney was part of the Thunder Clan of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. He also had Kickapoo and Assiniboine heritage.

If Colorado lawmakers approve the bill, “I think that’s a really important step,” said Ju Nyeong Park, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University, who leads a research group focused on how to prevent overdoses. “I hope that the Colorado Legislature does and that other states follow as well.”

Park said comprehensive programs to test drugs for dangerous contaminants, better access to evidence-based treatment for adolescents who develop a substance use disorder, and promotion of harm reduction tools are also important. “For example, there is a national hotline called Never Use Alone that anyone can call anonymously to be supervised remotely in case of an emergency,” she said.

Taking matters into their own hands

Many Colorado school districts are training staff how to administer naloxone and are stocking it on school grounds through a program that allows them to acquire it from the state at little to no cost. But it was clear to Peterson and other area high schoolers that having naloxone at school isn’t enough, especially in rural places.

“The teachers who are trained to use Narcan will not be at the parties where the students will be using the drugs,” he said.

And it isn’t enough to expect teens to keep it at home.

“It’s not going to be helpful if it’s in somebody’s house 20 minutes outside of town. It’s going to be helpful if it’s in their backpack always,” said Zoe Ramsey, another of McKinney’s friends and a senior at Animas High School.

“We were informed it was against the rules to carry naloxone, and especially to distribute it,” said Ilias “Leo” Stritikus, who graduated from Durango High School last year.

But students in the area, and their school administrators, were uncertain: Could students get in trouble for carrying the opioid antagonist in their backpacks, or if they distributed it to friends? And could a school or district be held liable if something went wrong?

He, along with Ramsey and Peterson, helped form the group Students Against Overdose. Together, they convinced Animas, which is a charter school, and the surrounding school district, to change policies. Now, with parental permission, and after going through training on how to administer it, students may carry naloxone on school grounds.

Durango School District 9-R spokesperson Karla Sluis said at least 45 students have completed the training.

School districts in other parts of the nation have also determined it’s important to clarify students’ ability to carry naloxone.

“We want to be a part of saving lives,” said Smita Malhotra, chief medical director for Los Angeles Unified School District in California.

Gavinn McKinney’s mother, whose name is being withheld because they are part of a state confidentiality program for survivors of domestic violence, at the Colorado state Capitol for a hearing in February on a bill to clarify that students in the state may carry naloxone, a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses.

Los Angeles County had one of the nation’s highest adolescent overdose death tallies of any U.S. county: From 2020 to 2022, 111 teens ages 14 to 18 died. One of them was a 15-year-old who died in a school bathroom of fentanyl poisoning. Malhotra’s district has since updated its policy on naloxone to permit students to carry and administer it.

“All students can carry naloxone in our school campuses without facing any discipline,” Malhotra said. She said the district is also doubling down on peer support and hosting educational sessions for families and students.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland took a similar approach. School staff had to administer naloxone 18 times over the course of a school year, and five students died over the course of about one semester.

When the district held community forums on the issue, Patricia Kapunan, the district’s medical officer, said, “Students were very vocal about wanting access to naloxone. A student is very unlikely to carry something in their backpack which they think they might get in trouble for.”

So it, too, clarified its policy. While that was underway, local news reported that high school students found a teen passed out, with purple lips, in the bathroom of a McDonald’s down the street from their school, and used Narcan to revive them. It was during lunch on a school day.

“We can’t Narcan our way out of the opioid use crisis,” said Kapunan. “But it was critical to do it first. Just like knowing 911.”

Now, with the support of the district and county health department, students are training other students how to administer naloxone. Jackson Taylor, one of the student trainers, estimated they trained about 200 students over the course of three hours on a recent Saturday.

“It felt amazing, this footstep toward fixing the issue,” Taylor said.

Each trainee left with two doses of naloxone.

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Newark Public Schools to get electric school buses through federal grant of nearly $3 million

2024-03-04T20:51:19+00:00

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Newark Public Schools is one of five New Jersey districts slated to receive electric buses through a federal grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Through the agency’s Clean School Bus Program, Newark, the state’s largest school district, will get six electric buses to service some of the city’s roughly 126 routes to public schools. Bloomfield Township, Elizabeth, Lakewood Township, and Union City will also receive funding through the $19 million award.

The new funding comes after the Newark Board of Education announced an increase in student transportation costs included in its $1.3 billion budget in 2023. Federal, state, and local leaders say the new grant will help provide cleaner air and reduce health risks in communities, especially for children with respiratory problems like asthma.

“There is still a lot of work to make Newark the most environmentally friendly and equitable city it can be,” Carlos Vega, public information officer for the EPA, said last week in response to emailed questions from Chalkbeat.

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in New Jersey, making up 37% of all emissions, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. In Newark, residents often experience air quality levels higher in pollutants than other areas throughout the state and country. The city is home to several major roads and is near major highways, the Newark-Elizabeth Marine Port, factories, and an international airport that contribute to unhealthy air quality levels, according to the EPA.

One in every four children in Newark suffers from asthma — three times the state average — and asthma is a leading cause of students missing school, according to an EPA study monitoring air quality in the area. In 2019, Superintendent Roger León named asthma as one of four health issues that hinder student achievement.

The $19 million grant will be awarded to the private transportation company Van-Con, Inc., which will purchase and distribute the electric buses. These buses produce lower tailpipe emissions compared with traditional school buses that run and emit more pollutants, according to the EPA.

Newark will receive $2,667,222 to cover the costs of six electric buses and $180,000 for bus charger installation costs. The district will receive the buses within the next year and Van-Con must provide semi-annual reports to the EPA for all school districts awarded in New Jersey.

In 2023, the Newark Board of Education said it spent just over $7 million on a contract with 20 transportation companies to service 126 routes to schools. That year, the district also launched a monthly NJ Transit bus pass program to provide free rides for high school students.

In late January, New Jersey Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced the launch of the Electric School Bus Grant Program providing up to $45 million in funding over three years to replace diesel school buses with battery-electric school buses, and to install associated charging infrastructure across the state. School districts can apply for this funding until May 17.

In total, the federal government is providing more than $1 billion to fund electric buses across 280 school districts nationwide.

In Illinois, Chicago Public Schools is expected to get $20 million to buy 50 electric school buses and Detroit Public Schools nearly $6 million to buy 15 electric buses. In Colorado, Aurora Public Schools received $2 million to buy seven new electric school buses.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Empty display cases, hungry kids, disrupted production: NYC’s cafeteria cuts send shockwaves

2024-02-06T18:57:31+00:00

The effects of New York City’s recent school food budget cuts are already rippling through city cafeterias and beyond, even threatening jobs at the manufacturer of the chicken dumplings pulled from February’s menu.

A $60 million November cut to the Education Department’s school foods division forced the agency to chop a number of popular items, including cookies, bean and cheese burritos, and roasted chicken, Chalkbeat first reported last month. Middle and high schools with cafeterias that resemble food courts lost chicken tenders, French fries, burritos, and grab-and-go salads – items that were previously available on most days.

New York City’s school system runs the largest daily food program in the country outside the military. It serves approximately 880,000 daily “free, nutritious, and delicious meals,” according to Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle, who downplayed the impact of the menu changes. She said the agency “will continue to work to prioritize student choice wherever possible.”

But the cuts were felt immediately by many students.

Alec Lopez, a 17-year-old senior at Urban Assembly Bronx Academy of Letters in the South Bronx, went to the cafeteria last week to grab the chicken tenders and French fries she usually takes only to discover that they weren’t available.

“I didn’t eat anything. I was like, ‘Ooh maybe I should get a salad,’ but they cut that out too,” she said. “For the rest of the day, we’re tired, we’re hungry, energy levels are so down and it makes everyone feel like crap.”

A container with veggie nuggets at Bronx Academy of Letters on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024 in Bronx, New York.

Previously full display cases sat empty, and the slim offerings on shelves contained meager portions, said David Garcia-Rosen, the dean at Bronx Letters.

“I’ve never seen that all school year,” he said, adding that some of the containers held what appeared to be just a handful of veggie nuggets.

At Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology in Hell’s Kitchen, the recent menu cuts exacerbated long-standing issues with broken cafeteria equipment and food shortages. Parents and school officials have tried in vain for years to get busted display cases fixed, said Diane Tinsley, a parent of a senior and Parent Association president at Urban Assembly Gateway.

On a recent Friday afternoon, multiple broken display cases sat empty and unstocked, while only one was filled with hot food for a building with five schools and more than 2,000 students.

“I come in and it just looks like a desert,” Tinsley said. “This is child abuse.”

Food manufacturers feeling pain, too

The effects of the cuts are also spreading beyond school cafeterias. The city’s decision to yank major menu items midyear sent shockwaves through food manufacturers.

“We’re all just kind of frustrated and befuddled,” said Kirk Jaudes, chief operating officer of International Food Solutions, the company that produces the chicken dumplings for city schools. The company first found out about the change when a staffer noticed that the dumplings were missing from the Education Department’s February menu, he added. An Education Department spokesperson said vendors were notified on Dec. 19 and Dec. 22 of the changes.

International Food Solutions produces the dumplings exclusively for the city Education Department from a factory in Long Island that can churn out somewhere in the ballpark of 2 million servings a month, at a cost of around $1 a serving, Jaudes estimated.

But the Education Department’s abrupt decision to pull the plug is upending the company’s operations, Jaudes said, taking a bite out of revenue, slowing production, and forcing the company to consider layoffs.

“You could potentially have students in the New York City Department of Education whose parents are going to lose their jobs,” he said. The company, moreover, is still stuck with about $350,000 in leftover inventory that it can’t sell anywhere else because the product is reserved exclusively for New York City schools. Company officials are trying to work out a deal to distribute it in city schools, but said they haven’t gotten anywhere.

“Unless there’s major policy changes, we won’t be doing business with New York City” any more, Jaudes said. “We can’t take that risk.”

An Education Department spokesperson noted that the agency asked all vendors whose items were removed from the February menu for a “voluntary price reduction,” and that International Food Solutions declined. But Jaudes said his company had already agreed to the price suggested by the Education Department before this school year, and had even offered an additional discount, also before the start of the school year, on top of that.

“We didn’t have any margin to provide further cost reductions,” he said. The Education Department spokesperson said nine vendors offered price reductions, which are currently being reviewed by city officials to see if any items can be added back to the menu.

The dumplings are, by many accounts, one of the most popular items served in schools.

At one Manhattan elementary school, 31 out of 46 fourth- and fifth- grade students surveyed last week by the school’s principal said dumplings were the best lunch meal, the administrator said.

And in a recent Reddit thread about the school menu cuts, the top comment reads, in part: “I work in the schools. The dumplings are popular and most kids eat them.”

Reasons for budget cut raise questions

The circumstances surrounding the school food budget cut are still somewhat murky. The $60 million cut to school foods was part of a larger $550 million budgetary blow to the Education Department that Mayor Eric Adams said was prompted by increased spending on the wave of migrants who have arrived in the city over the past year-and-a-half.

But budget documents appear to suggest that the cut to school foods from the city’s budget was going to be offset by federal food revenues that “exceed budgeted amount.” Administration officials told the City Council that the cut to city school food funds wouldn’t affect the division’s overall operating budget because it would be offset by federal money, according to a council source.

“It’s mystifying why schools are seeing these removals of menu items,” the council source added.

An Education Department spokesperson confirmed that the city is indeed replacing the missing city money with federal funds, and said the overall $580 million budget for school foods is still higher than what the city spent last year. Costs are up this year because of increased participation compared to last year and increases in unspecified “other areas,” according to the spokesperson. Labor contracts prevent the Education Department from laying off workers, “which meant a reduction in food options,” the spokesperson added.

Some observers worry that the cuts could have long-term implications for the city’s school food program.

The number of city students eating lunch on an average day, while higher than last year, is still down significantly from the 2019-20 school year, according to city data.

If even fewer students eat lunch because of the menu changes, that could lead to lower reimbursement from the federal government, which in turn can lead to cuts that further diminish the quality of the food, in what Jaudes called “a never-ending cycle to the bottom.”

The Education Department spokesperson said, “The current menu still provided high demand items, a decrease in meal participation is not expected.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Cookies, chicken tenders, dumplings: NYC cost-cutting axes faves from February school menu

2024-01-24T20:00:23+00:00

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Mayor Eric Adams’ school budget cuts will soon hit New York City students square in the stomach.

A $60 million November cut to the city’s school foods budget is forcing the Education Department to thin out next month’s school cafeteria menu by removing a host of pricier items, including student favorites like cookies, chicken dumplings, and bean and cheese burritos, according to an email from a school food official obtained by Chalkbeat.

Additionally, at the growing number of middle and high schools with cafeterias that resemble food courts (part of an initiative expanded by Adams to improve the lunchroom experience), students will no longer get chicken tenders, grab-and-go salads, and French fries – items that are currently offered multiple days a week as options for kids who don’t want that day’s main course.

Other items that will be taken out of rotation in February include roasted chicken thighs and legs as well as guacamole and salsa, the message said. Breakfast meal kits, French toast sticks, bagel sticks, ciabatta bread, and sweet potato oatmeal muffins will also be scratched.

In a recent meeting with parent leaders, Chris Tricarico, the Education Department’s head of school foods, acknowledged that the menus would be impacted by the budget cuts, but promised “minimal changes.”

But to many parents and kids, the cuts feel anything but bite-sized.

“To me, that’s like 75% of the menu,” said Jose Santana, a 17-year-old senior at Dr. Richard Izquierdo Charter School in the Bronx, which offers the same menu as district schools. French fries were “definitely one of my favorites,” he said. “For that to be gone is huge.”

Without the chicken tenders, fries, and grab-and-go salads, the remaining daily backup options at high schools with food courts are pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, and hummus and crackers, according to the February menu. There will also still be a daily salad bar, but Santana said he doesn’t see many students use it.

“At least the pizza is still there,” he said.

Clarissa Kunizaki, a 15-year-old sophomore at Brooklyn Technical High School, was similarly shocked to hear the list of menu items getting chopped.

“The chicken thighs and legs were the best option for lunch in my opinion, since the other hot meals usually do not taste great,” she said. The bean and cheese burritos were also “pretty good and very popular among other students,” she added.

Menu cuts come after school food investment

Adams and schools Chancellor David Banks pledged $50 million a little over a year ago to turn 80 more school cafeterias into food courts – a change advocates have contended can increase the number of students who eat. More than 100 school buildings serving 140,000 students now have an enhanced cafeteria, according to the Education Department’s school kitchens dashboard.

Adams has made school food a major priority, launching an initiative to serve vegan offerings on Fridays and a recent program to bring professional chefs into schools to help develop new recipes.

But with the variety in the food court lunchrooms getting significantly diminished next month, some students wondered whether more teens would turn to other options.

“I see every day a good group of students that just don’t eat school lunch,” Santana said. “I wonder if this budget cut will cause students to spend more money” outside schools at nearby bodegas or delis.

“I personally don’t want to waste five to 10 dollars every day,” he added.

Liz Accles, the executive director of Community Food Advocates, a nonprofit that led the charge to expand the city’s cafeteria enhancement program, said in an email she’s “hopeful that the funds will be restored … given the unprecedented commitments that the Mayor and Chancellor have made in creating an innovative and leading edge school meals program.”

An Education Department spokesperson said items that don’t appear on the February menu may still be added back in subsequent months.

“Our school food team has worked diligently to respond to budget reductions without sacrificing nutritional standards and with a continued focus on student choice,” said spokesperson Jenna Lyle. “Daily options, including a salad bar, continue to be available, and our young people continue to benefit from enhanced cafeterias, halal certified kitchens, plant-powered Fridays and other school food programs.”

Students and parents concerned about more school food waste

At many high schools and even some middle schools, students are allowed to leave campus for lunch and buy food at local eateries.

But for younger students, there’s no option to leave school – it’s either eat what’s on the school menu, or bring food from home.

Ana, a 6-year-old student at P.S. 289 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said she’s “going to be sad” if the cookies disappear from her school menu.

“They took things off the menu that I really enjoy,” said Mia Ueoka, a 9-year-old fourth grader at P.S. 295 in Brooklyn. “My favorite thing on the menu was the cheese and bean burrito and the chicken thighs. I actually felt like I could get protein from it.”

Ueoka’s dad, Elton Dodson, worried the changes could exacerbate equity issues, “with more affluent parents able to pack lunches to compensate for this policy atrocity.”

News that the chicken dumplings are falling victim to the budget cuts also hit hard for some students and adults.

Jake Jacobs, a middle school art teacher in the Bronx, allows students to eat lunch in his classroom, and gets a first-hand look at what they like and what they don’t based on what ends up in his trash can.

“They throw the vast majority of it away,” he said. But the dumplings were one bright spot. “They get double portions and they’re fighting over them,” he said.

The $60 million cut to school foods was part of a total of roughly $550 million chopped from the Education Department budget in Adams’ November budget. Adams ordered all city agencies to trim their budgets by 5% as part of what he described as a bleak fiscal situation driven by increased spending on services for migrants and asylum seekers.

But Adams significantly revised that financial forecast in January. He reversed $10 million of the November cuts to the Education Department, but still announced $100 million in new cuts set to take effect next fiscal year. Additional cuts to the police, fire, and sanitation departments were put on hold.

Officials have emphasized that they have done everything possible to keep the cuts from directly affecting services. But several parents said the cuts to the school menus would have an immediate impact on their kids.

“Our schools have already seen after-school programs decimated, arts programs eliminated,” said Dodson, the parent at P.S. 295. “Now they won’t have adequate fuel for the day.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Nearly 10 million children won’t get summer food benefits as states opt out of new federal program

2024-01-10T21:02:51+00:00

Across rural North Dakota, many school districts struggle to staff summer meal programs, and families might live 20 miles from the nearest meal site.

So state officials eagerly got on board when they learned the federal government was launching a permanent summer program that gives low-income families $120 for each of their school-aged children. Families can use the money, which comes loaded on a prepaid card, to buy their own food and cook at home.

“In North Dakota, the summer food service program doesn’t meet the needs of a lot of the students,” said Linda Schloer, who directs child nutrition for the state’s Department of Public Instruction. “For a modest effort both financially and personnel-wise, it just makes sense that we would do whatever we can to try to get the program going as soon as possible.”

States had to tell the federal government by Jan. 1 if they planned to run a Summer EBT program in 2024. As of Wednesday, 35 states said they would. Together they are expected to reach more than 20 million school-aged children — a rare example of a pandemic-era assistance program sticking around after the end of the public health emergency.

But another 9.5 million students who would have been eligible will likely go without after their states declined to participate this year. Some states cited cost and administrative burden, while in others governors balked at accepting federal money.

South Dakota, which serves a similar student population as its neighbor to the north, is among those opting out.

“Federal money often comes with strings attached, and more of it is often not a good thing,” Ian Fury, the chief of communications for Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, wrote in an email. He cited low unemployment, the administrative burden of running the program, and South Dakota’s “robust existing food programs.”

That news came as a disappointment to school leaders like Louie Krogman, the superintendent of the White River School District in South Dakota.

The district serves around 400 students, most of whom are Native American and come from low-income families. The district runs a summer meal program in June, but families are on their own until school starts seven weeks later.

“We do have some families that would have definitely benefited from that additional EBT money,” Krogman said.

Timeline and cost keeps some states from offering Summer EBT this year

Summer EBT will work a little differently depending on the state, but generally states will identify which families qualify for the $120 or more in benefits and either mail out EBT cards for the summer, or load the value onto existing benefit cards. Then families can use that money to buy food at their local grocery store.

The newly permanent program will run similarly to the Pandemic Summer EBT program that operated for the previous three summers, as well as a federal pilot program that tested the concept over the last decade. A 2016 review of that program found that offering these summer benefits reduced child food insecurity and helped kids eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.

The extra money is coming at a much-needed time, said Kelsey Boone of the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit that advocates for anti-hunger policies, including Summer EBT.

“In the last year, a lot of the boosts to SNAP benefits ended,” Boone said, referring to the temporary pandemic-era increases to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which ended last spring. Summer EBT “can help offset those cuts,” she said, “especially at a time when food prices are so high.”

In declining to participate, Georgia and Nebraska pointed to their states’ existing summer food programs, while Mississippi said it did not have the funding or staff capacity to run the program. During the pandemic, the federal government covered the full cost of the benefits and running the Summer EBT program, but now states have to split the administrative costs.

Texas said it wasn’t feasible to participate because the final rules and guidance for the program came just days before states had to tell the federal government if they’d be opting in. The state also needs additional funding from the state legislature to run the program, a spokesperson for the state’s health and human services department wrote in an email.

Vermont, too, said the state is working to secure funding and put the necessary IT systems in place. “The goal is to be able to offer this important summer nutrition benefit for eligible children starting in the summer of 2025,” a spokesperson for Vermont’s Department for Children and Families wrote in an email.

Still, in several Republican-led states, the program seemed to get caught in a longstanding political debate over whether the government should provide more publicly funded benefits to families — a debate that’s also raged over whether states should provide free school meals to all students.

Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, for example, issued a statement saying her state opposed participating in Summer EBT because the program didn’t have tight enough restrictions on what foods families could buy and it would cost the state $2.2 million to run — though Iowa students were in line to receive around $29 million in food benefits and the program follows the same nutrition requirements as SNAP.

“Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families,” Reynolds said. “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”

In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt cited concerns about the program not being “fully vetted.” He also said that it would help relatively few children — though an estimated 403,000 school-aged children would qualify for food benefits in his state.

Three of Oklahoma’s largest Native American tribes are stepping in to run Summer EBT programs on their reservations, an effort that could reach at least 50,000 children.

Florida said it opted out of participating because it already had summer food programs and didn’t want to follow additional federal rules.

“We anticipate that our state’s full approach to serving children will continue to be successful this year without any additional federal programs that inherently always come with some federal strings attached,” Miguel Nevarez, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Children and Families wrote in an email.

But Sky Beard, the Florida director for No Kid Hungry, an initiative of the nonprofit Share Our Strength that advocated for Summer EBT, sees a big need for the additional summer benefits.

Her organization conducted a poll last year that found around a quarter of parents of school-aged children worried their households wouldn’t have enough to eat.

“There are summer meal sites available throughout the state, but there are real challenges with families accessing those,” she said. Existing programs “just don’t reach all children that participate in school meal programs over the school year.”

Some Republican-led states are embracing the program. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for example, issued an enthusiastic statement about her state’s participation in the anti-hunger program.

“We are leveraging every resource at our disposal to fight this crisis, and Summer EBT promises to be an important new tool to give Arkansas children the food and nutrition they need,” she said.

For now, many states are already working to get Summer EBT up and running by the time school lets out in a few months.

In North Dakota, Schloer is focused on making sure the state has up-to-date addresses for eligible students so families can get their EBT cards in the mail.

The state is preparing to send out lots of emails and texts to families, too, to make sure they know about the new program, and whether they might need to fill out some paperwork to get their benefits.

“If we can get a message on that smartphone and from a reliable source, we’re hoping that they will read it,” Schloer said. Schools, too, can play a part by making sure families know: “It’s legitimate, please pay attention!”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Newark parents have long complained about school lunches. This coalition is looking to change that.

2023-11-14T21:45:26+00:00

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School gardens, culturally diverse foods, and options that reflect not only dietary restrictions but also students’ preferences: These are just a few of the things the Coalition for Healthy Food in Newark Schools hopes to see in the near future.

Now, thanks to a $3.8 million grant from Novo Nordisk, a health care and pharmaceutical company, these changes might be possible.

According to a press release announcing the coalition’s launch, the program’s first year will likely include the planting of more school gardens, further funding for partnerships with local farmers, and in-school nutrition education, among many other initiatives.

The coalition will use the funding across three years with the first year serving as a baseline assessment to test the greatest needs.

Newark families have long complained about school meals, citing processed and unhealthy lunches. This is a step towards changing that.

The coalition, which officially launched on Oct. 26, is headed by the Greater Newark Conservancy, alongside partners Common Market, FoodCorps N,J., Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, R.W.J. Barnabas Health, United Way of Greater Newark, and the Urban Agriculture Cooperative.

The conservancy has worked to promote environmental, social, and racial justice in the Newark community since 1987, putting on family events centered around nutrition education, leading community garden initiatives, and between July and October, welcoming the Newark community to their expansive farm stand.

Over the course of its community work, the conservancy found that families were generally unhappy with the meals being served to children in Newark’s public schools.

In recent years, Newark’s school breakfast and lunch programs have been met with mixed reactions. While families have complained of processed, unhealthy meals, the N.J. Department of Agriculture has praised Newark’s meal services on several occasions.

In a September press release, the N.J. Department of Agriculture food and nutrition division director Rose Chamberlain said, “The Newark Public School District sets an excellent example of how a high-quality school lunch program can work.”

But in October 2021, just days before the N.J. Department of Agriculture gave similar praise to Newark’s food programs, parents complained of “horrible” lunch options for their children, most notably through an online petition.

The coalition is hopeful that some of the parents’ demands can now be met.

Between August and October of this year, the coalition surveyed a 100-person sample of community members, students, school staff, and food providers in order to assess the issues most pressing in Newark’s school cafeterias.

The survey showed that access to “from-scratch” food in students’ lunches was the most requested change. Survey respondents took issue with the frequency at which students are served heavily processed meals.

Other common complaints included a lack of meals reflecting students’ cultures, insufficient nutritional education, and inaccessibility of green space or gardens.

Natasha Dyer, executive director of the Greater Newark Conservancy, said that over the next three years, the coalition will spend about half of the Novo Nordisk funding fortifying existing programs and the other half on piloting new initiatives.

For now, Dyer said, the coalition’s work will take place in a select number of schools: Hawthorne Avenue, Avon Avenue, Mt. Vernon, Lincoln, McKinley Elementary, Thirteenth Avenue, Harriet Tubman, and Peshine Avenue.

“Luckily, our funding partner is allowing us the flexibility to adjust our plans as we go. Our goal in the first year is to assess our programming and figure out what works with the hope of leveraging policy in the district as a whole,” said Dyer.

Sarah O’Leary, the Greater Newark Conservancy’s director of youth and family education, said her personal hope is that the coalition’s work will get more students excited about health and nutrition.

O’Leary said that when children are given the opportunity to try healthy food they do not normally eat, they often discover they like it. She said that cafeteria “taste tests” of seasonal vegetables are particularly fun for students who may not have access to certain foods at home.

“For example, kids love spaghetti squash! Then they go home and tell their parents about it and that can lead to healthier meals even outside of school,” O’Leary said.

Community gardens have a similar effect, said O’Leary. Being surrounded by plants and green space, along with understanding the value of nutritious local produce, can be important for a student’s development.

“It’s exciting for kids to eat something they grew,” O’Leary said. “Getting to use tools and get their hands dirty to actually grow their own food is the best marketing for nutritious eating.”

Samantha Lauten is a fall reporting intern for Chalkbeat Newark covering public education in the city. Get in touch with Samantha at slauten@chalkbeat.org or reach the bureau newsroom at newark.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Circle City Prep celebrates opening of new cafeteria with scratch kitchen and culinary lab

2023-11-10T20:21:12+00:00

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Jonnah Davidson walked into his school’s new cafeteria on Wednesday thoroughly impressed.

The new Circle City Prep cafeteria — known in school as “C3″ — is part of a $1.5 million investment the school made with the help of philanthropic donors to provide a new scratch kitchen with an on-site chef and a new learning laboratory space for the school’s after-school culinary club.

The project also included an overhaul of what students get to eat for lunch. Last year, the school began to transition from prepackaged, reheated food, like warmed-up pizzas, to fresh produce and meals made at the school. Students can choose fresh kale salads, something from the produce bar, and other options.

It’s a big deal for Circle City Prep, a school on the far east side, where family income levels qualify nearly every student for free or reduced-price lunch and many residents struggle with access to grocery stores and fresh food. The school and its community partners hope the new cafeteria and food lab will not only help students discover new food options, but also be open to the community as it addresses food insecurity as a whole.

The cafeteria space, with its sleek new seating, opened to students for the first time last month. During the construction, students were eating food in classrooms.

“This year, it feels like everything’s just new,” said Davidson, a sixth-grader. “I actually went into the kitchen one time and helped make a pizza. I feel like there’s more options.”

The project drew on assistance from the Patachou Foundation, a local nonprofit that works to address hunger. The group helped ensure the project complied with federal regulations for the National School Lunch Program, which covers the cost of lunch for students from low-income families.

Circle City is one of the foundation’s first “PataSchool” sites, where the group supports a transition from prepackaged meals to fresh food prepared on-site.

“Food insecurity is not just about scarcity. It’s a profound issue of justice,” Matthew Feltrop, executive director of the PataSchool program at the Patachou Foundation, said in remarks at the school celebration on Wednesday. “Merely providing food to prevent starvation perpetuates the cycle of poverty, and the real challenge is to break the cycles through innovative approaches and sustainable strategies.”

At Circle City Prep, the foundation’s in-kind aid includes help with recipes, training for kitchen staff, and help with operating the school cafeteria, Feltrop said.

The foundation is also helping Adelante Schools at Emma Donnan, a charter school in the Indianapolis Public Schools Innovation Network, for the first time this year.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Meet Harry and Lucy, NYC’s tween wheelchair racers

2023-10-27T20:26:12+00:00

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Harry Houng-Lee has his eye on 2030. That’s when the 11-year-old will be old enough to race in the New York City marathon.

Harry’s family would often wake up early and watch the professional wheelchair racers in the marathon so he could see his own possibilities as an athlete.

Just before the pandemic, the Upper East Sider joined the Rising New York Road Runners Wheelchair Training Program, a free year-round program for New York City kids with disabilities ages 6 to 21. In less than four years, Harry has become a decorated racer, winning four gold medals at the 2023 Move United USA Junior Nationals. He set personal records in all five events.

He practices frequently in Central Park, and loves the feeling of the wind in his hair as he whooshes around, clocking in at about 20 mph when going downhill, he estimated.

“I get to go fast,” Harry said. “Wheelchair racing is a cool sport.”

In a city where accessibility is a constant challenge, the Road Runners’ wheelchair training program focuses on removing barriers. Working with the JDJ Foundation, the program provides custom-fitted racing chairs for the children — which cost upwards of $5,000 — and it also covers transportation costs to the weekly practices as well as the races.

For Harry, being part of the group has opened new doors as his confidence in the sport has grown. Besides traveling the country to national competitions, the sixth grader recently joined the track team at East Side Middle School. He is the only wheelchair racer at his school.

Harry felt fortunate that East Side, his local middle school, was fully accessible — and that it had a track team. He wasn’t able to attend his zoned elementary school, P.S. 198, because the multi-story building had no elevator. Instead, he had to travel to the Upper West Side to P.S. 333, The Manhattan School for Children.

Fewer than 1 in 3 New York City public schools are fully accessible to students with physical disabilities, according to a recent report from Advocates for Children, an organization dedicated to helping the city’s most vulnerable students. The group has been pushing for $1.25 billion to address major gaps in building accessibility in the city’s five-year capital plan, which is expected to be released on Nov. 1. (That funding would allow about half of the city’s schools to be fully accessible, according to the report.)

When Harry started at East Side Middle School, he never doubted that he’d join the track team. He’s well aware of “Tatyana’s law,” federal legislation passed a decade ago ensuring equal access to school sports for students with disabilities.

His mom, Jasmine Tay, reached out to the school about Harry joining the team, and said they were very “encouraging.” Still, she told them not to worry about the cross country season in the fall, since the team trains and competes off-road. She suggested that Harry could wait until track season.

But the school’s gym teacher insisted they could make accommodations, taking the more advanced runners on the road in Central Park so Harry could join, Tay said. They also changed the training routes so the team no longer used stairs.

“Harry was so thrilled, and I was so happy with the effort made for inclusion and just the attitude of the coach to make it work — not only changing the route, but also recognizing where Harry would be faster versus slower than the runners and building that into team drills,” Tay said.

“It was proper inclusion,” she said, “and I was surprised it was that easy — sad, I know.”

The joys of being part of a team

In practices, Harry enjoys zipping by his new school teammates on downhills and straightaways, though he’s not as fast uphill.

But he still enjoys spending time with his teammates he’s known for years from the Rising Road Runners wheelchair program, like Lucy Shannon, 12, from Hamilton Heights.

Lucy also learned about the sport when watching the professional wheelchair racers in the New York City marathon. And on Nov. 2, she’ll get a taste of crossing the marathon’s famed finish line in Central Park along with about 1,000 other kids in a 400-meter dash TCS Run with Champions, earning a medal at the end.

Lucy, too, had five first place finishes in Nationals in the summer.

While she enjoys the competition, that’s not the main draw of the program for her.

“It feels inspiring when I’m racing,” said Lucy, who is home-schooled. “I’m meeting so many new friends on my team.”

That team camaraderie is a big part of the program, said Marissa Muñoz, senior vice president of community impact at Rising at New York Road Runners. There are three coaches for the program, which had about 20 kids participating last year.

“I think it’s a pretty rare thing to have this extracurricular for these young athletes,” Muñoz said.

It’s among three programs run by Rising New York Road Runners where their coaches directly work with kids. The organization mainly works with schools where its free curriculum and professional development is used by school coaches who work with about 60,000 kids across the five boroughs.

Many of the kids in the wheelchair racing program, like Harry, stay with the program for years. Muñoz hopes more children will join the program and continue to build bonds.

“We’re just looking forward to continuing to work with them and grow over the years,” she said. “We want to see them reach their goals.”

For Harry, being around his cheering teammates gives him a boost.

“It makes me feel encouraged and happy,” he said.

And after Harry’s first marathon in 2030, he’s angling to go to the Paralympics in 2032, in Brisbane, Australia, where the Aussie-born tween hopes to represent Team Australia.

Correction: The national competition is called Move United Nationals, not Adaptive Sports USA Nationals, as an earlier version of this story stated.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

N.J. doesn’t have long-term plans to fund school construction in Newark. Who will pay for it?

2023-10-20T10:00:00+00:00

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During the first week of school, temperatures soared into the 90s causing sweltering heat in some of Newark’s oldest buildings with no air conditioners and faulty water fountains.

Parents packed frozen water bottles for their children to cool off during the day while others wondered why some classrooms in New Jersey’s largest school system were unprepared to deal with high temperatures.

“No air conditioner in these schools is crazy,” wrote Jacquetta Thomas last month in a Facebook group after her grandson stained his polo shirt with blood due to a nosebleed caused by the heat. A handful of parents responded to Thomas’ post with their own concerns about hot classrooms and deteriorating conditions in city schools.

But this wasn’t the first time that Newark students dealt with uncomfortable conditions in city classrooms.

Newark’s public school buildings are among the oldest in the state, and Superintendent Roger León estimated last month that it would take more than $2 billion to fully repair and update them. The state is responsible for funding school construction projects in high-poverty districts like Newark, but a judge in a long-standing legal case said the state has not created a long-term financing plan to support the work.

In Newark’s school budget this year, 86.3% of the district’s funding comes from $1.2 billion in state aid, but that money can only fund school operations and education costs. Over the years, state officials have poured money into these projects on a “pay as you go” basis, leaving no room for long-term funding. And in comparison to wealthier school districts in the state, districts like Newark have a smaller property tax base, which limits their ability to bond for school construction projects to supplement the cost.

Now, the state, through the Schools Development Authority, is obligated to fully fund these projects in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts, including East Orange, Elizabeth, and Paterson. That mandate was a result of a series of landmark decisions dating back to 1985 in the New Jersey Supreme Court case Abbott v. Burke. Those decisions ultimately helped establish the SDA. (The districts often are referred to as SDA districts.)

Formerly known as Abbott districts, the Schools Development Authority’s 31 high-poverty urban school districts are among the poorest in the United States.

In 2008, the state allocated $3.9 billion in funds to the SDA, of which $2.9 billion went to high-poverty districts. That was the largest, and most recent, cash infusion to SDA before Gov. Phil Murphy unlocked nearly $2 billion over the last two budget cycles resulting in 19 new construction projects, and hundreds of building repair projects for districts across New Jersey included in the SDA’s 2022 strategic plan.

But in March, a report submitted by the judge to the New Jersey Supreme Court said the state isn’t doing enough to prove that it will keep funding the SDA and school construction projects. Now, it’s up to Murphy’s administration and state legislature to find a way to fund them.

“There’s an enormous amount of need, and the state is just putting in a fraction of the money that [schools] need,” said Danielle Farrie, research director at Education Law Center.

State delivered nine new schools in Newark since 2006

Newark Public Schools is home to just over 39,000 students across its 63 schools. Its buildings have been crumbling for decades, and state officials have been slow to address the needs.

Dozens of those schools need new mortar and bricks, boilers, and roofs, among other needs. Over the years, parents and advocates have pressured the district to make classrooms more comfortable by installing central air conditioning systems and updating deteriorating buildings. In 2016, the district asked the state to fix more than 100 school buildings but only 11 projects were approved.

Since the state’s Schools Development Authority was established over two decades ago, more than $760 million has been spent on renovation projects in Newark, the most of any school district in New Jersey. But only nine new school projects have been finished, including Science Park High School, rebuilt in 2006, Speedway Avenue Elementary School, rebuilt in 2010, and Elliot Street Elementary School in 2016, which was the first new school built in the East Ward in 104 years.

In 2022, the SDA granted the district two new prekindergarten through eighth grade schools, along with 14 other projects across the state to address high-priority needs and overcrowding. One of those schools is the recently opened Nelson Mandela Elementary School, housed in the former University Heights Charter School building. The SDA purchased the building after the state shut down the school in 2022.

A second elementary school was promised for Newark, but district and SDA officials agreed to move forward with the construction of a new University High School building instead, said SDA spokesperson Edye Maier. The project, which is in the planning stage, is meant to alleviate overcrowding as school officials project the district’s enrollment will continue to grow as the city’s population increases.

The SDA is also working on eight other projects across all SDA districts, which consist of underground vault repairs and demolition, roof replacements, masonry repairs, and stucco repairs and replacement, according to an SDA report released during its October meeting. In Newark, Technology and University high schools, along with Cleveland and Salome Ureña elementary schools, are slated for those repairs, which are valued at roughly $7 million.

In 2022, the SDA also completed structural repairs at Shabazz High School and basement water infiltration at Roberto Clemente Elementary School. The price tag was more than $3.5 million.

The projects are part of Murphy’s cash infusion to the SDA after it authorized almost $1.85 billion for school construction and capital maintenance projects for SDA districts during the 2022 and 2023 state budget cycles. In 2021, $75 million was allocated to districts for capital maintenance and infrastructure projects. Newark received roughly $6.5 million as part of that allocation.

Yet, the funds cover a fraction of facilities improvements in SDA districts. Newark Public Schools is slated to receive more funds for school construction projects as part of the state’s 2024 budget after Murphy allocated another $75 million to the SDA. Those funds have not been disbursed yet, Maier said.

The district is also working on a new assessment of school building repairs and new schools to update its needs since 2016, León has said.

School construction funding up to the state, for now

Newark hasn’t raised its property taxes in the last three years, but school officials have warned that will be an exception rather than the norm moving forward. In recent school board meetings, León has hinted at asking taxpayers to foot the bill for school construction projects.

Through a weighted student formula created under the School Funding Reform Act, New Jersey determines how much aid to send to districts to support education and programming costs across its schools. Newark saw an increase in state aid this year, but it remains $27.7 million short of the budget recommended under the formula, said Valerie Wilson, the district’s school business administrator, during March’s budget hearing.

But state aid calculated under the formula is not meant to pay for school construction or renovation projects.

“You can’t reallocate funding away from staffing and day-to-day operations of a district to fund the facilities needs that are as severe as Newark has right now,” said Farrie from the Education Law Center.

In 2021, the Education Law Center went back to the courts to compel the state to meet its constitutional obligation to fund SDA projects. The court appointed retired Judge Thomas Miller as a special master to write an analysis of the construction projects in those districts.

In his 87-page report, Miller wrote that there is a significant remaining need in the SDA school districts but no long-term plan to fund construction projects.

“The state Supreme Court has clearly said that this is not something that school districts should be funding,” Farrie said. “Newark cannot budget its way out of this hole that SDA has created.”

Last month, in a virtual conversation with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, León said he would need to meet with city and state officials “to really figure out how to grapple and attack” the needs before presenting a bond to city residents. But that solution might not be feasible in Newark.

Wealthier school districts, which have a strong property tax base, often can support a bond for school construction projects, but a city with a smaller property tax base, like Newark, might not have that option.

Newark Public Schools’ operations are supplemented by $138.3 million from local property taxes, or 10.3% of the district’s 2023-24 budget. That number has remained the same for the last three years because Newark taxpayers haven’t seen an increase in their property taxes.

So far, there has been no mention of a bond on the November ballot.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Millions of kids are newly eligible for free school meals — but many will likely miss out

2023-10-11T17:37:22+00:00

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Dylan Beitz’s ears perked up when federal officials announced last month that a new rule would allow more schools to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students.

That rule would cover Jefferson County schools, the district in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle where Beitz oversees child nutrition. Before the change, the district fell just below the federal cutoff for offering free meals to all 8,400 of its students as part of a national program meant to help high-poverty schools.

Under the new rule, which takes effect later this month, Jefferson County could go from offering free meals in seven schools to all 16. Beitz knew that could save the district time and labor — no more mailing bills for unpaid meal debt — and give families extra money to spend on other expenses.

“I think it’s something that we want to go to,” Beitz said. But first, the district has to see if it can afford to “bite that bullet” if there are out-of-pocket costs: “We’ve really got to look and see what the financial repercussions are.”

Beitz isn’t the only one crunching the numbers. Recent headlines proclaimed the new rule would grant millions of students access to free school meals. And there’s research indicating that universal free meals may provide academic and other advantages for students. Yet federal officials and school nutrition experts say many kids who could benefit will actually miss out.

That’s because without additional funding from Congress that’s probably not on the horizon, districts that want to participate must weigh the costs and benefits of providing more free meals against other priorities.

“Unless they have additional resources, or the state is able to provide additional resources, a lot of the newly eligible schools will find it difficult financially to implement that,” said Crystal FitzSimons, who oversees school nutrition work for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center, which advocated for the new cutoff.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school meal programs, said it’s up to districts to opt in and the agency knows not all newly eligible districts will do so.

What is the community eligibility provision?

This federal program allows schools or districts that meet certain criteria to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of family income. Elsewhere, schools have to collect paperwork from families to determine if they qualify for free or reduced-priced meals. Other students pay full price.

What is changing?

Under a new rule, individual schools or entire districts can participate in the community eligibility provision if at least 25% of students meet certain criteria. These could include participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly known as SNAP — or Medicaid, lacking stable housing, or living in foster care. Under the previous rule, schools or districts had to enroll at least 40% of students who met those criteria.

The change affects a federal program known as the community eligibility provision that allows schools to provide free meals to all students regardless of family income. It has shot up in popularity in recent years, as schools got used to providing free meals to all kids under a temporary pandemic-era policy, and didn’t want to go back to charging them when that expired.

Under a previous rule for that program, individual schools or entire districts could offer free meals to all kids if at least 40% of students met certain criteria that showed they were from low-income backgrounds. The new rule lowers that to 25% of students. Around 3,000 school districts serving some 5 million students are newly eligible, federal officials said. That represents around 10% of all public school students in the U.S.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack touted the change as an important step toward fulfilling the Biden administration’s pledge that it would expand access to free school meals to millions more children in the coming years.

In feedback collected by federal officials, some school staff said the lower threshold would help their districts that didn’t qualify under the old cutoff, “but they know students in their communities experience widespread food insecurity.”

Still, many districts that are newly eligible may choose not to participate because they’d rather spend money on things like classroom activities or staff salaries.

Before the rule change, schools and districts that were just above the old 40% threshold often didn’t participate because it was hard to break even under the formula the federal government uses to reimburse schools for the free meals they serve.

Last school year, two-thirds of schools that served 40% to 50% of students who met the low-income criteria used the community eligibility provision, a 50-state survey conducted by FitzSimons’ organization found. The take-up rate rose as more students were identified as being from low-income families.

That financial calculus is unlikely to change anytime soon. In its most recent budget, the Biden administration proposed raising the federal reimbursement for school meals in a way that would help districts that serve lower shares of students from low-income families provide free meals to all. But Congress would have to agree — and Republican leaders have previously opposed additional spending to make meals free for kids who don’t already qualify.

To decide if the free-meals-for-all route makes financial sense, newly eligible districts should look at whether they’d save money by reducing administrative work, and if there would be “any financial improvements because of economies of scale and increases in breakfast and lunch participation,” FitzSimons said.

Eliminating meal debt, and the need to collect it, could also be a reason to opt in, she said.

School officials want more aid from federal government

The community eligibility provision is different from the temporary universal free school meal programs that all schools were permitted to run during the pandemic, and the permanent state-run programs that eight states adopted after Congress failed to pass a national universal meals program.

Those programs generally offer free meals to all public school students in the state regardless of income, and require additional state spending.

Federal officials and school nutrition experts expect many districts in those eight states will take advantage of the rule change because it will cut down on paperwork and allow for more federal funding. More districts in states that help pay for the cost of participating in the federal program, such as New York and Oregon, may opt in, too.

Districts that want to make this change mid-year will have to work with state education officials to seek a waiver from the federal government. Some, like New York, have already opened an application process.

Kate Dorr, who oversees food services for 16 districts in central New York, is planning to apply to bring on the last three schools in her area that do not yet serve free meals to all students.

She knows it will help many families. Last year, meal debt in her districts spiked from zero to $150,000. Dorr had many painful conversations with families who struggled to afford food, but no longer qualified for free meals.

But without the New York state subsidy, providing free meals to all students would be hard to afford, she said. That’s why she wants federal officials and lawmakers to do more to support school nutrition programs like hers.

“I really feel for states that don’t have this kind of supplemental funding,” Dorr said. “This change from 40% to 25% just feels like way too little, when so much more is needed.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

How an abandoned Brooklyn lot will become a future hub for student learning and urban agriculture

2023-10-10T21:15:58+00:00

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After a decade-long effort, the city will transform a once abandoned lot into a communal gardening and learning space for students and local residents in Brooklyn’s Bergen Beach.

The city broke ground on the 2.2-acre garden last year, and construction is now underway, said District 22 Superintendent Julia Bove, who has been working on the garden’s development for about as long as she’s been a superintendent. The concept came about after Carol Pino, a parent coordinator at P.S. 312, raised concerns about a nearby garbage-strewn lot, which was owned by the city’s Education Department.

“The community saw it as an eyesore,” Bove said. “We decided to make something that would be not only fitting for the students in the community but the adults in the community and the community at large.”

The distinction in scale is a key part of the project, and the community focus will set this “learning” garden apart from a typical school garden, officials said.

Having access to gardens or green spaces — from indoor windowsill gardens to outdoor vegetable beds — has become increasingly popular at New York City schools. Nearly 70% of public school buildings have access to such green spaces, with more than 1,200 schools reporting having a garden in the 2021-22 school year, according to the city’s Education Department.

But the ambitions for the Bergen Beach lot stretch beyond just an individual school, or even the district as a whole, officials said. Plans for the completed garden include a greenhouse, a fruit orchard, an outdoor classroom, a pollinator garden, a composting area, and a central space for farmer’s markets and other community events.

“Learning gardens are uniquely centered in communities, whereas school gardens tend to be insular to a particular school,” said Qiana Mickie, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture.

The effort represents a step forward in urban agriculture and a potential model for other communities across the five boroughs, Mickie said. Though a handful of other learning gardens exist across the city, this is one of the first instances of the city taking an underutilized neighborhood lot and transforming it into a community hub for learning and urban agriculture, she added.

“It’s a really good example of how we can reimagine what farm-to-school is in New York City,” Mickie said.

And the benefits extend beyond just the classroom, she added.

“It becomes a place of resiliency,” Mickie said. “There are some natural co-benefits that come with a learning garden: flood mitigation, stormwater mitigation, access to growing, places for respite and healing.”

Those qualities could be especially important as New York City faces the effects of climate change. P.S. 312, the nearby Bergen Beach school where the effort to build a learning garden originated, was forced to evacuate after severe rainfall and flooding recently caused a smoking boiler.

(The school reopened shortly after the storm, and the “vast majority” of water issues across city schools were “minor, requiring only mopping,” according to Education Department officials.)

A rendering of what the planned learning garden near P.S. 312 in Brooklyn will look like.

Brooklyn gets back to its agricultural roots

The project has been a community venture from the outset, according to Bove, who remembers begging local elected officials for funding years ago — a request that was met with generosity, she said. In 2020, local elected officials allocated $9 million in funds to the project, according to the city’s Education Department.

With a planned opening in September of 2024, the new garden aims to offer south Brooklyn students a hands-on learning experience. It comes as Mayor Eric Adams has made healthy living a key issue in his plans for the city’s students and residents — and as NYC has received both federal and state grants to expand investments in equitable and locally grown school foods.

The Bergen Beach project also harkens back to New York City’s urban agricultural roots, Mickie said.

“Our five boroughs, historically, were farms or gardens. There was even windowsill growing for folks that lived in apartments,” she said. “But over the years, we’ve gotten disconnected to that, and what happens with students is they start to not know the cycle of their food.”

The learning garden hopes to change that. Students working in the garden will have ownership over plots of land, giving them opportunities to determine what is grown, officials said.

Students will be involved from Day 1, helping to seed the garden and care for the plants, Bove said. Early work, such as planting trees in the orchard, will also give way to future opportunities for students, like apple-picking field trips.

“The students can form a committee and say ‘We’d like to grow snap peas,’ and then learn all about the care and the cultivation of snap peas,” Bove said. “Maybe another school wants to grow tomatoes and spinach. Whatever it is, the idea is that student voices will be heard.”

The goal is to create a space for students from not just nearby schools, but surrounding districts, as well as others outside of school communities.

“We really did not want it to just be a school’s backyard,” Bove said, noting the garden will include local community partners by design.

Residents at a nearby retirement home, for example, could come in on weekends to help maintain the crops while classes aren’t in session, she added.

“Local residents are not only assisting to sustain it during the times that students aren’t there, but that they too can eat the fruits and the vegetables and give back to a community that they have lived in for their whole lives,” Bove said.

And once open, the learning garden can serve as a model for other boroughs and communities seeking to build communal green spaces that students can take advantage of, officials said.

“I see it as one thing that’s really great for a school community and a neighborhood community,” Mickie said. “But it will also become a part of a larger cohesive network — growing the green spaces in New York City.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

From hip hop to ‘Top Chef’: How two NYC after-school programs teach students about healthy eating

2023-10-06T19:00:00+00:00

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Kevin, a sixth grader at P.S. 146 in Queens who hopes to one day work as a doctor, said he’s always tried to study nutrition.

But it wasn’t until he participated in the Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S., or Healthy Eating and Living in Schools, after-school program last year that he found an engaging way to learn about it at school.

The program, developed in partnership between Columbia University neurologist Olajide Williams and hip hop artist Doug E. Fresh, relies on music to help teach students about healthy eating.

Though the music seemed “old” in style to 11-year-old Kevin, the lessons still resonated. He remembers the theme song particularly well.

“It was different from classical teaching,” said Kevin. (Chalkbeat is using his first name only for privacy reasons.) “It had more of a fun approach than just sitting there staring at a blackboard.”

What Kevin participated in was one of two after-school healthy eating programs that are being studied as part of a partnership between the after-school provider New York Edge and Columbia University. About 300 students across 20 school sites were provided with either the Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S. program, or NY Edge’s Food Explorers program, with their nutritional choices tracked over the course of 10 or more weeks.

Through the partnership, researchers aim to learn if the educational interventions from these programs can help kids make healthier choices, particularly at chain restaurants.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has also prioritized establishing healthier eating habits among the city’s young people. Since the start of 2022, the city has committed $1 million to integrating food education into schools in coursework, after-school programs, and more, according to a recent report.

Most recently, the city started its “Chefs in Schools” initiative, partnering with Wellness in the Schools to develop plant-based, culturally relevant recipes and train New York City public school chefs.

“These meals will provide more than just nutrition,” Adams said at a Tuesday press conference. “They will expose our children to flavorful and healthy eating — because food has to taste good. No one wants to eat boring food.”

Nearly 40% of NYC public school children were overweight or had obesity, with childhood obesity disproportionately impacting Black and Latino students, according to 2019 data from the city’s Health Department. Childhood obesity also increased during the COVID pandemic, studies have found.

To address the situation, researchers aren’t necessarily trying to stop kids from eating at fast food chains, for instance, but to help them make better choices.

Nationwide, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires chain restaurants to post nutritional information about their menus. But Williams, who is the vice dean of community health at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said research has found those listings tend to inform the decisions of educated and more affluent individuals at higher rates.

Meanwhile, people who come from lower-income backgrounds or marginalized communities tend to have their purchases driven by other factors, like cost.

“There was even a paradoxical effect where sometimes folks in these lower income communities deliberately purchased the highest calorie items as a way to maximize caloric intake per dollar,” Williams said.

The focus on teaching students to navigate settings like chain restaurants is especially important as many kids in the programs live in “food swamps,” or areas with few healthy food options, Williams said.

“We’d love to have community gardens everywhere. I’d love everyone to get home and have a cooked meal,” he added. “But the reality is many people live in food swamps. They’re going to patronize food swamps, and it’s about how we get them to make better decisions within those swamps — within those limited choices.”

Getting creative in teaching kids about healthy eating

Williams believes that combining music and learning in the H.E.A.L.S program can help change eating choices.

“We all learn our ABCs through music, for example,” he said. “Our studies have shown that leveraging music creates not just immersion, but greater retention, greater learning, and a greater ability to influence behavioral change.”

Meanwhile, the Food Explorers program, which operates at New York Edge’s more than 120 school sites, targets different aspects around healthy eating.

It teaches students foundational nutrition facts, develops practical skills like using kitchen appliances, offers exposure to different cultural cuisines, and expands environmental wellness and agricultural knowledge, said Rachael Gazdick, CEO of New York Edge.

The program also incorporates fun and immersive learning experiences, like simulating the kinds of cooking competitions that students might see on shows like “Chopped” or “Top Chef.”

Gazdick recounted one such session she attended, where students prepared a vegetable pasta dish.

“I expected it to taste terrible, to be honest,” she said. “But they were so serious about it, and so good at preparing it. It was just phenomenal.”

The partnership is a critical step forward in understanding the impacts of each program, Gazdick added.

“Kids can’t perform in the classroom if they’re not feeling healthy, well nourished, and sleeping well,” she said. “All of those things tie into academic performance and overall joy in life.”

Studying kids’ food choices

How or whether students changed their dietary habits over the course of the two after-school programs was observed in two ways, Williams said. First, students were able to choose between different food options at the school sites, with options ranging from apples to Ring Dings. Nutritional information about the offered foods was posted clearly to simulate the menus they might encounter at chain restaurants.

Second, through a partnership with Applebee’s, students received vouchers for free meals.

Researchers tracked what students chose in each instance, though students weren’t aware their orders were being studied.

An initial pilot showed success in influencing student behavior, Williams said. Over the course of the programs, students generally chose more and more foods that had lower caloric intakes and higher nutritional values. Results of the broader study are expected to be finalized by the end of this year.

Students have also taken what they’ve learned in the programs and used it to teach their families, Gazdick added.

“You remember 100% of what you teach, but you only remember a certain percentage of what you hear,” she said. “Students continuing to cook, and take things home, and sharing it all with their parents is another level of this that is critical.”

Kevin, the sixth grader who participated in the program last year, said he’s been able to put the lessons into practice. He finds himself checking nutrition facts more often, sometimes finding sugar in products he didn’t expect, like milk.

“To be in the health field, you need to learn about the basic fundamentals about how to eat healthy,” he said. “I paid close attention, so maybe it can help me in the future with med school and other stuff.”

As for his trips to Applebee’s, Kevin said the program opened his eyes to the vast range in nutrition across different meals.

“Like the mac and cheese,” he said, “I felt that had too much sodium in it, so I chose more proper stuff.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

After flubbing flood response, NYC education officials send guidance for a drizzle

2023-10-06T17:52:53+00:00

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After New York City’s Education Department flubbed its response to last week’s historic flooding, the agency appears to be on a course correction — and possibly overcompensating for its recent errors.

In advance of about a quarter-inch to an inch of rain expected Friday, officials sent two emails to principals with detailed guidance on how to respond.

“Our expectation is that this rain will not substantially disrupt the regular school day,” a Thursday night email stated, “but we want to be prepared for any potential impact in our most flood prone schools and on afterschool or weekend programming across the city.”

They sent no such information to principals last week before six inches of rain inundated some parts of the city.

Officials sent a second email Friday afternoon with a “brief weather update” for the weekend, and letting principals know they had discretion on how to handle school-based activities since there would be no system-wide decision.

Schools Chancellor David Banks this week admitted there was communication breakdown in how the city handled its response as floodwaters rose. He promised an investigation into what went wrong.

Banks and Mayor Eric Adams mentioned during a storm-related press conference that schools should shelter in place. But that message was never directly communicated to schools, several principals told Chalkbeat.

Banks promised earlier this week: “We can do better, and I think we will certainly be working to do better next time.”

Mayor Eric Adams also posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the city was preparing for heavy rains Friday night and into Saturday.

New Yorkers: periods of heavy rain and potential flooding are forecast late tonight into tomorrow.

We've activated the City's Flash Flood Emergency Plan, proactively staging resources and teams.

You can do your part: https://t.co/bRysa5CObE pic.twitter.com/73nBOjFeiN
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) October 6, 2023

Some principals thought the email sent to school leaders on Thursday night was overkill, much like when a new mayor, after bungling his first blizzard, reacts to a forecast of snow flurries by salting the roads in advance.

Below is the Thursday night letter that went out to principals.

From: Chief Operating Officer <ChiefOperatingOfficer@schools.nyc.gov>

Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2023 11:05 PM

Subject: < Please Read> Weather Update for October 6 and 7

Dear Principals,

We are writing to share some important information regarding the weather over the next two days.

The National Weather Service has reported that New York City will experience two weather systems that will affect the area with periods of heavy rain and potential flash flooding Friday morning through Saturday evening; at this point, roughly 0.25-1 inches of rain is expected.

Our expectation is that this rain will not substantially disrupt the regular school day, but we want to be prepared for any potential impact in our most flood prone schools and on afterschool or weekend programming across the city. Some guidance is below:

Facilities: School buildings that are prone to flooding/power outages have been identified and will be contacted by the Division of School Facilities; Custodial Engineers (CEs) will receive guidance about the management and sustainability of the building should issues arise. Please connect with your Director of School Facilities (DDF) and your CE about the status of your building. If your building experiences flooding, power outages, or other disruptions to the operations, your DDF, CE, or designated member of your school community can reach out to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at eoc@schools.nyc.govto report the issue. The EOC will contact NYCPS operations and other partner agencies to rectify the issue.
Transportation: While heavy rain may lead to delays, yellow buses are expected to run as usual. Please work with your transportation coordinators on any yellow bus stop changes or changes to drop off and pick up areas. For the latest updates on public transportation, usehttps://new.MTA.info.
Pickup: In anticipation of parents being delayed due to the weather, encourage your teachers to maintain open lines of communication with parents. Teachers should have emergency contact lists for all of their students. Please designate and assign adult staff to an indoor area where students can wait safely if their parents are late for pick-up.
Afterschool and weekend programming: At this point, we are not making any systemwide decisions about afterschool or weekend programming; decisions about whether programming should continue should be made at the site level. We expect outdoor activities will need to be moved indoors.
Building Response Team/General Response Protocols: As noted above, work with your CE to assess building conditions; if necessary, activate your Building Response Team, and invoke the appropriate General Response Protocol.

Feel free to use this information to communicate with your school communities, and please continue to monitor your email for any updates – if circumstances change, we will follow up with another email update tomorrow. As always, please keep your superintendent informed of challenges or needs your school may face during adverse weather conditions.

The safety and well-being of students and staff is essential during inclement weather. We thank you in advance for being proactive, prepared, and flexible in responding to challenging weather conditions, and for everything you do to support your school communities.

Thank you,

Emma Vadehra

Chief Operating Officer/Deputy Chancellor for Operations and Finance

Danika Rux, Ed.D.

Deputy Chancellor for School Leadership

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Más escuelas tienen el medicamento para revertir sobredosis, pero otras se preocupan por el estigma

2023-10-03T22:41:16+00:00

Read in English.

El año pasado, una estudiante se desmayó al salir de uno de los baños de Central High School en Pueblo, Colorado. Cuando Jessica Foster, la enfermera supervisora del distrito escolar, oyó a los angustiados amigos de la joven mencionar drogas, supo que tenía que actuar con rapidez.

Los socorristas estaban a solo cuatro minutos de distancia. “Pero aún así, cuatro minutos, si no están respirando en absoluto, son cuatro minutos demasiado largos”, dijo Foster.

Foster contó que consiguió una dosis de naloxona, un medicamento que puede revertir rápidamente una sobredosis de opioides, y se la administró a la estudiante. La niña revivió.

A 45 millas de distancia, en Colorado Springs, los funcionarios de Mitchell High School no tenían naloxona a mano cuando un estudiante de 15 años sufrió una sobredosis en clase, en diciembre de 2021, tras inhalar una pastilla de fentanilo en un baño de la escuela. Ese estudiante murió.

Desde entonces, el distrito escolar de Colorado Springs se ha unido a Pueblo y a docenas de otros distritos en el estado para suministrar a las escuelas intermedias y secundarias la medicación que salva vidas, a menudo conocida como Narcan, uno de sus nombres comerciales. Desde la promulgación de una ley estatal en 2019, Colorado cuenta con un programa que permite a las escuelas obtener el medicamento, normalmente en forma de aerosol nasal, de forma gratuita o a un costo reducido.

Sin embargo, no todas las escuelas están de acuerdo con esta idea. Aunque más distritos se han unido desde el año pasado, sólo alrededor de un tercio de los distritos de Colorado se habían inscrito en el programa de distribución estatal al inicio de este año escolar. Y en la docena de condados con las tasas de mortalidad por sobredosis de drogas más altas del estado, muchos distritos escolares no se habían inscrito debido al persistente estigma en torno a la necesidad de tener una medicación para revertir sobredosis.

La Administración de Salud Mental y Abuso de Sustancias federal (SAMHSA, por sus siglas en inglés) recomienda que las escuelas, incluidas las primarias, tengan naloxona disponible, ante el aumento de las sobredosis mortales de opioides, especialmente de la potente droga fentanilo. Y 33 estados tienen leyes que permiten expresamente a los centros escolares o a sus empleados llevar, almacenar o administrar naloxona, según Jon Woodruff, abogado director de la Legislative Analysis and public Policy Association (LAPPA), que realiza un seguimiento de las políticas sobre naloxona en todo el país.

Entre ellos, alrededor de nueve requieren que al menos algunos centros de enseñanza primaria y secundaria, de kinder a doceavo grado (K-12) almacenen naloxona en el lugar, incluido Illinois, cuya norma entrará en vigencia en enero. Algunos estados, como Maine, también requieren que las escuelas públicas ofrezcan formación a los estudiantes sobre cómo administrar naloxona en forma de aerosol nasal.

Rhode Island exige que todos los centros K-12, tanto públicos como privados, dispongan de naloxona. Joseph Wendelken, vocero del Departamento de Salud de Rhode Island, dijo que en los últimos cuatro años se administró naloxona nueve veces a jóvenes de 10 a 18 años en establecimientos educativos.

A principios de septiembre, el medicamento también empezó a venderse sin receta en todo el país, aunque el precio de $45 por envase de dos dosis preocupa a algunos especialistas en adicciones, que temen que esté fuera del alcance de quienes más lo necesitan.

Pero el medicamento todavía no está tan generalizado públicamente como los desfibriladores externos automáticos o los extintores de incendios. Kate King, presidenta de la National Associaction of School Nurses, afirmó que la reticencia a tenerlo en las escuelas puede deberse a que los funcionarios se resisten a prestar un servicio médico, o al costo que supone reabastecerse de naloxona y formar al personal para que la utilice. Pero el principal obstáculo que ha escuchado es que los centros temen ser estigmatizados como una “mala escuela” que tiene un problema de drogas, o como una escuela que tolera las malas decisiones.

“Los distritos escolares son muy cuidadosos con su imagen”, señaló Yunuen Cisneros, directora de inclusión y alcance comunitario de la Public Education & Business Coalition, que sirve a la mayoría de los distritos escolares del estado. “Muchos de ellos no quieren sumarse a este programa, porque aceptarlo es aceptar un problema de drogadicción”.

Esa es la forma equivocada de verlo, dijo King. “Hay que equipararlo a nuestro stock de albuterol para los ataques de asma, o a nuestro stock de epinefrina para el shock anafiláctico (reacción alérgica grave)”, apuntó.

Enfermera supervisora, Jessica Foster, del Distrito Escolar 60 en Pueblo, muestra paquetes de Narcan y Klaxxado. Foster ha presionado para que almacenar Narcan en todas las escuelas del distrito.

Funcionarios de salud de Colorado no pudieron precisar con qué frecuencia se había utilizado la naloxona en los centros escolares del estado. En lo que va de año, al menos 15 jóvenes de entre 10 y 18 años han muerto por sobredosis de fentanilo, pero no necesariamente en las escuelas. Y en 2022 murieron 34 en ese grupo de edad, según el Departamento de Salud Pública y Medio Ambiente del estado. Una de las víctimas fue José Hernández, de 13 años, quien murió en su casa, en agosto de 2022, por una sobredosis de fentanilo, pocos días después de comenzar el octavo grado en Aurora Hills Middle School. Su abuela encontró su cuerpo una madrugada, sobre el lavabo del baño.

Con la llegada de este nuevo año escolar, más escuelas de Colorado tienen suministros de naloxona disponibles para los estudiantes. El año pasado, los legisladores estatales asignaron $19,7 millones en ayuda federal al Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund, un fondo al que pueden acceder, entre otros, distritos escolares, cárceles, socorristas y organizaciones de servicios comunitarios.

“Es la mayor cantidad que hemos tenido”, señaló Andrés Guerrero, gerente del programa de prevención de sobredosis del departamento de salud del estado.

Según datos facilitados por el departamento de salud de Colorado, 65 distritos escolares estaban inscritos en el programa estatal para recibir naloxona a bajo precio o gratis al inicio del curso escolar. Otros 16 se habían puesto en contacto con el estado para solicitar información, pero a mediados de agosto aún no habían finalizado los pedidos. Los 97 distritos escolares restantes no disponían de naloxona en sus centros o la habían adquirido en otros lugares.

Guerrero explicó que los distritos deciden a quién capacitar para administrar el medicamento. “En algunos casos, son sólo las enfermeras escolares. En otros, son las enfermeras escolares y los profesores”, dijo. “Y, a veces, también los estudiantes”.

En Durango High School, la muerte en 2021 de un estudiante de secundaria impulsó a los alumnos a reclamar el derecho a llevar naloxona al colegio con permiso de los padres —y a administrarla en caso necesario— sin temor a ser castigados.

Hizo falta organizar una protesta durante una reunión del consejo escolar para conseguir el permiso, contó Hays Stritikus, que se graduó esta primavera de Durango. Ahora participa en la redacción de una ley que permitiría expresamente a los estudiantes de todo el estado llevar y distribuir Narcan en los centros escolares.

“El objetivo es un mundo en el que el Narcan no sea necesario”, comentó. “Pero lamentablemente no es en donde vivimos”.

Algunos expertos en salud no están de acuerdo en que todas las escuelas deban almacenar naloxona. Lauren Cipriano, economista de la salud de la Western University en Canadá, ha estudiado la efectividad de la naloxona en los centros de secundaria de ese país. Aunque se han producido intoxicaciones por opioides en escuelas, dijo, las secundarias suelen ser entornos de muy bajo riesgo.

En 2021, un estudiante de Mitchell High School en Colorado Springs, Colorado, sufrió una sobredosis en clase luego de inhalar una pastilla de fentanilo en un baño de la escuela.

Las estrategias más eficaces para combatir la epidemia de opioides son los centros de intercambio de agujas, los lugares de consumo supervisado de drogas y el tratamiento asistido con medicación que reduce el síndrome de abstinencia o atenúa el “viaje”, agregó Cipriano. Pero estos métodos pueden resultar caros en comparación con la distribución de naloxona.

“Cuando el estado crea un gran programa gratuito como éste, parece que está haciendo algo respecto a la epidemia de opioides”, señaló. “Es barato y parece que estás haciendo algo, y eso es oro en política”.

Las escuelas públicas de Denver, el mayor distrito escolar de Colorado, comenzaron a almacenar naloxona en 2022, indicó Jade Williamson, gerente del programa de escuelas saludables del distrito.

“Sabemos que algunos de los estudiantes están a la vanguardia de estos temas antes que las generaciones mayores”, afirmó Williamson. “Saber dónde encontrarlo, y acceder al medicamento cuando sea necesario a través de estos adultos que se han preparado, ya sea una enfermera de la escuela o un administrador, creo que les proporciona una cierta sensación de alivio”.

Los siete distritos más grandes del estado, con más de 25,000 estudiantes cada uno, participan en el programa estatal. En cambio, según un análisis de KFF Health News, sólo el 21% de los distritos con hasta 1,200 alumnos se han inscrito en el programa, a pesar que muchos de esos pequeños distritos se encuentran en zonas con tasas de mortalidad por sobredosis de drogas superiores al promedio estatal.

Algunos distritos escolares han encontrado una forma de obtener naloxona al margen del programa estatal. Esto incluye el Distrito Escolar 60 de Pueblo, donde la enfermera supervisora Foster administró naloxona a una estudiante el año pasado.

El distrito escolar de Pueblo obtiene la naloxona gratis de una organización local sin fines de lucro llamada Southern Colorado Harm Reduction Association. Foster dijo que intentó inscribirse en el programa estatal, pero encontró dificultades. Así que decidió seguir con lo que ya funcionaba.

Jessica Foster, enfermera supervisora para el Distrito Escolar de Pueblo, en Colorado, posa en Central High School. El año pasado, Foster administró Narcan a una estudiante que se desmayó fuera de uno de los baños de la escuela.

El distrito escolar RE-1 del condado de Moffat, en Craig, Colorado, obtiene la naloxona de un centro local de tratamiento de adicciones, según Myranda Lyons, enfermera del distrito. Lyons contó que capacita al personal de la escuela sobre cómo administrarla cuando les enseña RCP (reanimación cardiopulmonar).

Christopher deKay, superintendente del Distrito Escolar Ignacio 11Jt, dijo que su personal de recursos escolares ya llevan naloxona, pero que el distrito también se inscribió en el programa estatal, para que las escuelas puedan almacenar el medicamento en la enfermería en caso de que el personal de recursos no se encuentre cerca.

“Es como todo, como capacitar en seguridad contra incendios. Nunca sabes lo que va a pasar en tu escuela”, señaló deKay. “Si ocurre lo impensable, queremos ser capaces de responder de la mejor manera posible”.

Esta historia se produjo con la colaboración de El Comercio de Colorado.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

More Colorado schools stock drug overdose reversal meds, but others worry about stigma

2023-10-03T22:40:41+00:00

Leer en español.

Last year, a student fell unconscious after walking out of a bathroom at Central High School in Pueblo, Colorado. When Jessica Foster, the school district’s lead nurse, heard the girl’s distraught friends mention drugs, she knew she had to act fast.

Emergency responders were just four minutes away. “But still four minutes — if they are completely not breathing — it’s four minutes too long,” Foster said.

Foster said she got a dose of naloxone, a medication that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose, and gave it to the student. The girl revived.

Forty-five miles away in Colorado Springs, Mitchell High School officials didn’t have naloxone on hand when a 15-year-old student overdosed in class in December 2021 after snorting a fentanyl-laced pill in a school bathroom. That student died.

Colorado Springs’ school district has since joined Pueblo and dozens of other districts in the state in supplying middle and high schools with the lifesaving medication, often known by one of its brand names, Narcan. Since passage of a 2019 state law, Colorado has had a program that allows schools to obtain the medicine, typically in nasal spray form, free or at a reduced cost.

Not all schools are on board with the idea, though. Though more districts have signed on since last year, only about a third of Colorado districts had enrolled in the state’s giveaway program at the start of this school year. And within the dozen counties with the highest drug overdose death rates in the state, many school districts had not signed up in the face of ongoing stigma around the need for the overdose reversal medication.

The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration recommends that schools, including elementary schools, keep naloxone on hand as fatal opioid overdoses rise, particularly from the potent drug fentanyl. And 33 states have laws that expressly allow schools or school employees to carry, store, or administer naloxone, according to Jon Woodruff, managing attorney at the Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association, which tracks naloxone policies across the country.

Among those, about nine states require at least some K-12 schools to store naloxone on site, including Illinois, whose requirement goes into effect in January. Some states, such as Maine, also require that public schools offer training to students in how to administer naloxone in nasal spray form.

Rhode Island requires all K-12 schools, both public and private, to stock naloxone. Joseph Wendelken, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Department of Health, said that in the past four years, naloxone was administered nine times to people ages 10 to 18 in educational settings.

In early September, the medication also became available over the counter nationally, though the $45 price tag per two-dose package has some addiction specialists worried it will be out of reach for those who need it most.

But the medicine still isn’t as publicly widespread as automated external defibrillators or fire extinguishers. Kate King, president of the National Association of School Nurses, said reluctance to stock it in schools can stem from officials being afraid to provide a medical service or the ongoing cost of resupplying the naloxone and training people to use it. But the main hang-up she’s heard is that schools are afraid they’ll be stigmatized as a “bad school” that has a drug problem or as a school that condones bad choices.

“School districts are very careful regarding their image,” said Yunuen Cisneros, community outreach and inclusion manager at the Public Education & Business Coalition, which serves most of the state’s school districts. “Many of them don’t want to accept this program, because to accept it is to accept a drug addiction problem.”

That’s the wrong way to think about it, King said. “We really equate it to our stock albuterol for asthma attacks, our stock epinephrine for anaphylactic reactions,” she said.

Jessica Foster, Pueblo School District 60’s nurse supervisor, holds packets of Narcan and Kloxxado. Foster has pushed to get Narcan in all the district’s schools.

Colorado health officials could not say how often naloxone had been used on school grounds in the state. So far this year, at least 15 children ages 10 to 18 have died of fentanyl overdoses but not necessarily in schools. And in 2022, 34 children in that age group died, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment. That included 13-year-old José Hernández, who died in August 2022 from a fentanyl overdose at home just days after starting eighth grade at Aurora Hills Middle School. His grandmother found his body over the bathroom sink in the early morning.

With the arrival of this new school year, supplies of naloxone are on hand for kids in more Colorado schools. Last year, state lawmakers appropriated $19.7 million in federal aid to the Naloxone Bulk Purchase Fund, which is accessible to school districts, jails, first responders, and community service organizations, among others.

“It’s the most we’ve ever had,” said Andrés Guerrero, manager of the state health department’s overdose prevention program.

According to data provided by Colorado’s health department, 65 school districts were enrolled in the state program to receive naloxone at low or no cost at the start of the school year. Another 16 had reached out to the state for information but hadn’t finalized orders as of mid-August. The remaining 97 school districts either didn’t stock naloxone at their schools or sourced it from elsewhere.

Guerrero said the districts decide whom to train to administer the medicine. “In some cases, it’s just the school nurses. In some cases, it’s school nurses and the teachers,” he said. “And in some cases, we have the students as well.”

In Durango, the 2021 death of a high schooler galvanized students to push for the right to carry naloxone with them to school with parental permission — and to administer it if need be — without fear of punishment.

It took picketing outside a school board meeting to get permission, said Hays Stritikus, who graduated this spring from Durango High School. He’s now involved in drafting legislation that would expressly allow students across the state to carry and distribute Narcan on school grounds.

“The ultimate goal is a world where Narcan is not necessary,” he said. “But that’s just not where we live.”

Some health experts disagree that all schools should stock naloxone. Lauren Cipriano, a health economist at Western University in Canada, has studied the cost-effectiveness of naloxone in secondary schools there. While opioid poisonings have occurred on school grounds, she said, high schools tend to be really low-risk settings.

In 2021, a student at Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, overdosed in class after snorting a fentanyl-laced pill in a school bathroom.

More effective strategies for combating the opioid epidemic are needle exchange sites, supervised drug consumption sites, and medication-assisted treatment that reduces cravings or mutes highs, Cipriano said. But those approaches can be expensive compared with naloxone distribution.

“When the state makes a big, free program like this, it looks like they’re doing something about the opioid epidemic,” she said. “It’s cheap and it looks like you’re doing something, and that’s, like, political gold.”

Denver Public Schools, the largest school district in Colorado, started stocking naloxone in 2022, said Jade Williamson, manager of the district’s healthy schools program.

“We know some of the students are on the forefront of these things before older generations,” Williamson said. “To know where to find it, and to access it when needed through these adults who’ve trained, whether that’s a school nurse or a school administrator, I think it brings them some sense of relief.”

The state’s seven largest districts, with more than 25,000 students each, all participate in the state program. By contrast, a KFF Health News analysis found, only 21% of districts with up to 1,200 students have signed up for it — even though many of those small districts are in areas with drug overdose death rates higher than the state average.

Some school districts figured out a path to getting naloxone outside of the state program. That includes Pueblo School District 60, where lead nurse Foster gave naloxone to a student last year.

The Pueblo school district gets naloxone at no cost from a local nonprofit called the Southern Colorado Harm Reduction Association. Foster said she tried signing up for the state program but encountered difficulties. So she decided to stick with what was already working.

Jessica Foster, pictured at Pueblo’s Central High School, is the nurse supervisor for Pueblo School District 60. Last year, Foster administered Narcan to a student who had fallen unconscious in the hallway outside a school bathroom.

Moffat County School District RE-1 in Craig, Colorado, gets its naloxone from a local addiction treatment center, according to district nurse Myranda Lyons. She said she trains school staffers on how to administer it when she teaches them CPR.

Christopher deKay, superintendent of Ignacio School District 11Jt, said its school resource officers already carry naloxone, but that the district enrolled in the state program, too, so that schools could stock the medication in the nursing office in case a resource officer isn’t around.

“It’s like everything — like training for fire safety. You don’t know what’s going to happen in your school,” said deKay. “If the unthinkable happens, we want to be able to respond in the best way possible.”

This story was produced with reporting assistance from El Comercio de Colorado.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Torrential downpour floods 150 NYC schools, throws commutes into disarray

2023-09-29T17:36:02+00:00

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Torrential rainfall sowed chaos for many New York City schools Friday morning, flooding 150 school buildings and throwing commutes into disarray for thousands of students and staff.

Mayor Eric Adams announced a shelter-in-place order for schools around noon. An Education Department spokesperson said it would lift with dismissal.

“If you are at work or school, shelter in place for now. Some of our subways are flooded and it is extremely difficult to move around the city,” Adams said at a media briefing on the storm.

The downpour, which dumped 5 inches in some parts of New York City by early Friday morning, affected service on every subway line, delayed dozens of school buses, and prompted both Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul to issue a state of emergency. Friday’s attendance rate of 77% was significantly down from about 90% the day before.

Schools Chancellor David Banks said a total of 150 school buildings took on water Friday morning, and that one school, Brooklyn’s P.S. 312, was forced to evacuate because of a smoking boiler. Another Brooklyn school, I.S. 228 sent out a message asking parents to pick up students early, but Banks said the communication was premature.

The extreme weather led some parents and educators to question whether the city should have canceled in-person classes. Banks reassured families that schools were prepared to handle the storm.

“We have folks in our schools trained annually to prepare for days just like this,” Banks said, noting that schools were activating Building Response Teams in response to flooding. “While this was a tough day in terms of the rain, our kids are not in danger,” he added.

Many parents and educators reported that the rainwater had seeped into school buildings, flooding cafeterias and basements and leaking in through roofs, forcing students to move classrooms. On some campuses, children were soaked on their commutes to school, school staff reported.

“Some schools are being flooded from the basement up, and some are being flooded from the rooftop down,” said Paullette Healy, a parent leader in Brooklyn who said she’d heard from nine schools that experienced flooding. Several classrooms had to evacuate students, she added.

At P.S. 84 in Williamsburg, the school kitchen flooded, “which is a problem for our cafeteria workers and our kids,” said parent Jessamyn Lee. Fortunately, the custodial staff, she said, seemed to be able to “get the water intrusion under control.”

Meanwhile, at one Manhattan high school, rainwater leaking through a faulty roof forced students to move classrooms, complicating efforts to make up testing that had already been postponed because of tech glitches last week, according to a teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“My school is doing the best they can,” the teacher wrote. “This is just weather and issues out of our control and I feel for the kids.”

Principals received dismissal guidance shortly before 2 p.m., suggesting they make sure that staff and students were aware of alternate exit routes in case of flooding and that they communicate alternative exits to families. Most schools dismiss between 2:20 p.m. and 2:50 p.m.

Public School Athletic League activities were canceled, and principals could decide whether to hold Saturday programs, according to the email.

Concerns about commutes home from school

Meanwhile, for the hundreds of thousands of students and staff trying to get to school Friday morning, the commute was messy and in some cases harrowing.

“The street leading up to my school is completely flooded,” said Leah Ali, a student at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan. “As cars drive past, water reaches their headlights, and waves of water crash over students trying to make it inside.”

Alan Sun, a senior at The Bronx High School of Science, said the school has been affected by the storm. “The ceilings have been leaking water and the cafeteria is flooded,” he wrote in a text message. “Lunch is now being served in the auditorium.” Sun opted to eat in the hallway instead, as the auditorium was too crowded.

This is the corner of my school’s block.

Cafeteria and basement classrooms are flooded with this water. Families literally have to wade through toxic water to drop off their kids and pick them up.

Why does @NYCMayor never plan for emergencies that affect schools??? https://t.co/trhjCjFrsu
— Sarah Allen (@Mssarahmssarah) September 29, 2023

Morning disruptions on nearly every subway line left many students wondering how they’d safely get home.

“With train service suspensions, track fires, and stations flooded, commuting back home to Queens is a serious concern for me,” Ali had said in the morning.

At dismissal, she was still trying to figure out how to get home since her trains were delayed.

“I might be waiting at the station for a while,” she said. “Unfortunately, my school is a 15-minute walk away from the station, and buses aren’t working at the moment, so I’ll be taking an Uber there.”

Sun, who commutes to Bronx Science by subway, also said he was worried about the trek back to Flushing, Queens, at the end of the day. “I’m hoping the flooding in the subway stations won’t be too bad,” he wrote.

In her guidance to principals sent at the end of the day, Deputy Chancellor of School Leadership Danika Rux wrote, “Please ensure that your students who use public transportation have secured routes home.”

State and transportation officials said that getting the subways back up and running was a top priority, but that MTA buses were in operation and that the agency would deploy extra buses as a backup in case train service wasn’t restored by dismissal time.

The disruptions also affected students traveling by road.

The city’s Office of Pupil Transportation reported roughly 140 weather-related school bus delays as of 1 p.m. Friday afternoon.

Major roadways including FDR Drive were closed Friday morning, adding to concerns about disrupted afternoon commutes.

Banks said that the Education Department dispatched school buses early for the afternoon pickup, so they would be ready by dismissal time. School buses sit high enough off the ground that they are less likely to get stalled by roadway flooding, he said.

Mayor Adams defends NYC’s response

The city’s Education Department first addressed the weather conditions late Thursday night in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, advising that schools would remain open Friday and suggesting that families and educators leave extra time for their commutes, take major roads, and not enter flooded subway stations.

No systemwide emails had gone out to teachers or parents as of 1 p.m. on Friday.

Several parents and educators said Friday that the city should have closed school buildings on Friday and pivoted to remote learning, similar to snow days, or at the very least improved communication about the risks.

“It’s quite a lapse in safety and concern when our phones send us messages about life threatening flooding and not to travel,” said the Manhattan teacher. “New York City is unprepared for major flooding as a result of climate change and this is more of the same examples we’re seeing.”

Adams defended the decision to keep schools open.

“This was the right call. Our children are safe in schools,” he said. “There is a big inconvenience when you close the schools.”

Climate change fears prompt worries for school infrastructure

The intensity of the flooding caught some parents by surprise. Avery Cole, whose 5-year-old daughter attends P.S. 11, said she wasn’t aware that the weather was going to be so severe until her phone started blaring with emergency alerts after she dropped her child off.

She also received a message from the school pleading for volunteers to help dry and disinfect its ground-floor classrooms “to prevent mold and save as much furniture as possible.”

Cole said she worries that school buildings aren’t prepared for more intense storms and wildfire smoke stoked by climate change.

“These storms are going to be more dramatic and frequent and schools are bearing the brunt of it,” she said.

Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, was blunt about the increasing threat of climate change to New York City.

“This changing weather pattern is the result of climate change,” he said, “and the sad reality is our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

COVID guidance for NYC schools: Here’s what you need to know for this year

2023-09-12T18:55:36+00:00

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COVID has not disappeared from New York City, but the map showing the daily number of cases among students and staffers across schools has.

The Education Department scrapped the map on Monday.

Officials confirmed that schools are no longer reporting cases, though they said the Health Department would continue to closely monitor cases among school-aged children.

The map had been updated as recently as Monday morning. Three students and nine staffers had tested positive for Covid on Sept. 10, according to the data posted then. But after a reporter inquired about the data, the map was taken down after two years of daily updates.

The move comes amid an uptick in COVID cases across the five boroughs. The city saw a 25% increase from the previous week in the number of patients hospitalized with COVID, reaching 619 on Tuesday, according to a tracker created by the news site THE CITY using state data. There were about 87 cases per 100,000 people, according to New York City’s daily average of the last seven days from the Health Department.

The Education Department has sent out little information to families this year about COVID protocols in schools, but has guidance available on its website.

The department’s guidance remains consistent with latest recommendations from the city’s Health Department, the state, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Education Department officials said.

“COVID remains top of mind for many families,” schools Chancellor David Banks told reporters last week. “So we encourage families to stay up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccines. We’re also closely monitoring upticks and ensuring that schools are prepared for an increase in respiratory illnesses in the community.”

Here’s what you need to know about the approach to COVID in schools this year.

What if a student or school staffer tests positive for COVID?

The rules remain the same as last year.

First, if someone tests positive, they should isolate to help prevent spreading the virus to others.

Quarantine should last five days, with the day of the positive test considered Day 0. The student or staffer can return to school on Day 6 if they have no symptoms or the symptoms are improving and they have been fever-free without medication for 24 hours. They must continue to wear a mask indoors until Day 10 following the start of the symptoms or when they tested positive.

The teachers union also has guidance for educators around COVID-related absences.

Do students and staffers still have to mask if they’ve been exposed to someone with COVID?

Yes, according to city guidance. They should wear masks for 10 days when they are not able to separate from others, including at home.

Can I still get an at-home test kit?

Schools will no longer regularly send at-home COVID test kits in students’ backpacks, as they did last year. But they will have kits for those who request them, Education Department officials said.

Many schools might have a stockpile of kits from the past school year. Though the expiration date listed on the box might be past due, it’s possible the tests are still good. You can check the expiration date here by using the lot number on the box. The Food and Drug Administration has extended the expiration dates of a number of test kits, sometimes by up to two years.

Are parent-teacher conferences in person again?

No, under the recent teachers union contract, schools will hold parent-teacher conferences remotely. They may, however, be held in person upon request by parents or caregivers.

Other parent engagement activities, including grade conferences, can also be conducted remotely.

What’s happening with ventilation at schools?

The city is in the midst of its third round of purchasing replacement filters for the air purifiers it bought at the height of the pandemic, Education Department officials said. At that time, each classroom was outfitted with two air purifiers, though questions remain as to whether the city got the best bang for its buck on the purifiers it purchased.

Officials said they have taken multiple steps to improve ventilation in schools, including equipping HVAC systems with MERV-13 filters as well as window air conditioners with MERV-13 filters. They’ve also trained maintenance staff to use anemometers and carbon dioxide readers to check air quality within rooms, and continue to ensure that building ventilation is working as originally designed, they said.

“We have ensured that all ventilation systems are in good working order,” Banks said. “And our custodial engineers are prepared to troubleshoot any ventilation concerns.”

Are COVID vaccines required?

Vaccines are not required, but they are recommended. As of November 2022, 53% of students were fully vaccinated, according to public data.

“Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccines, along with other proven prevention tools — like masking, testing, and staying home when sick — continue to be our best defense against COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses,” Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said last month in response to the rise of another new variant.

The FDA approved a new round of COVID boosters this week. Anyone 5 years old and up can receive a single dose of the shot, whether or not they’ve been previously vaccinated. Those under the age of 5 can receive the updated vaccine as well, and have different options depending on whether they get it from Pfizer or Moderna.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.