March 2020 – Los Angeles Education Examiner

We Want To Hear Your Stories Of Teaching At Home During The Coronavirus Shutdown

The headline says it all. We’re looking for stories from parents, students and teachers about what they are doing to keep our kids on track during the Coronavirus shutdown.

I have two kids, ages 7 (1st grade) and 10 (4th grade). Even though they go to the same school, their teachers are employing different strategies to educate the kids. I’ll be writing about those experiences sometime next week.

If you’re interested in sharing your story, please drop a line to me (damien@la-edex.org) or Sara (sara@la-edex.org). If you’re interested in writing down your story, that would be great. If not, but you still have something to add that would benefit the community, we’ll figure out a way to get your story out there.

Thanks everyone, and stay safe.

Resource Links Update: Covid Safety And Education

Honestly, we do have education news in the pipeline, but it is hard to settle the nerves long enough to report.

So first: Supporting Kids’ Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

And here’s a treat for your own, or even a geeky middle schooler on up’s, academically-oriented entertainment pleasure.

Education In The Time Of Plague

The following will be updated in the sidebar to the right as a running file of information and links about SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19. All articles for the foreseeable future will also feature these links at the bottom.

Talking To Kids/Learning About Covid:

- Introductory videos: Elementary School ~ Middle School ~ High School and up
- Life, interrupted: Steph Curry & Anthony Fauci interview
- Actual science: Virology podcast, Virology MOOC, Scientific articles about Covid (and other viruses) origins and evolution, Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv (preprints are not-yet-peer-reviewed scientific studies).

Extracurricular Resources: Fun, Aid & Assistance – What To Do/What Can I Do?

Immediate And Peripheral Vigilance: LAUSD’s Schoolboard Election … Then Covid19

A running section appears in the sidebar to the right with information and links about SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19. All articles for the foreseeable future will also feature these links at the bottom.

In the meantime a primary election was held less than three weeks ago in Los Angeles County that is still being actively counted. Results continue to be updated twice-weekly with (2,101,601) ballots comprising more than 38% of the over 5.5m registered voters counted. As of March 17, 2020, there are 64K ballots left to count. A small subset of these will include yet-outstanding ballots from LAUSD schoolboard voters.

Representation on the LAUSD schoolboard matters all the more now under threat of pandemic than ever, since the unusual circumstances expose enormous issues regarding Education policy. The protective closing of classrooms forces into a limelight matters of online learning, homeschooling, equity and teaching and the role of Big Tech vs human practitioners in guiding, mentoring, instructing and raising our young.

An Updated Stack Of Links On COVID-19, LAUSD And Resources For Families

Please be wary of what you read on the internet, folks. I came across so much that is so suspect. From “public health professionals” no less, too. Following below is a list of reliable sources of information.

The last section at the bottom contains some crowd-sourced parent-lists of activities and Education-y suggestions. Other’s lists haven’t been vetted for accuracy. But they’re also less risky as they are, at least, not directives. Please take your information from public health agencies directly, not from random social media postings of folks self-titled as “pediatricians” or “epidemiologists” or “healthcare professionals”. Remember, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.

LA EdEx’s updated resource links:

Stick To The Science, Stick To The Facts, And Stick Together

… a great mantra, as important for quotidian matters as during this time of pandemic. It was invoked as the guiding light of the State’s Covid-19 task force according to Carmela Coil, head of the CA Hospital Association (@1:04:04). Our public officials have been scrabbling all day to forward practical advice and transparency amidst directives hewed from excruciating tradeoffs – earnings, childcare, learning, economic impact, public health, safety, protection.

As Mayor Garcetti says, the choices we each make to further social distancing, do matter. See an example of our actions “flatten the curve” here (@ 5:25). And an exploration of geometric growth (@ 2:34) that demonstrates its potential convincingly and explains the course of a pandemic. Empirically simulate these phenomena for yourself to comprehend more intuitively how quickly these numbers grow, and may be contained. Figure 1 below shows the progress to date of diagnosed cases in Los Angeles County.

A close up of a map

Description automatically generated — *Figure 1: Daily incidence of diagnosed Covid-19, LA County,* 1/26/20-3/16/20

Growing likewise geometrically is a vast array of resources compiled by fellow parents and District staff to aid the forced homeschooling of so many. The “Science Mom” (assisted by Math Dad) who explained Covid-19 above has initiated a daily “QuaranTime” livestream (8am PST) that will make all of us (aged 7-12+++; I am learning a lot) smarter and happier.

Explaining Coronavirus to Kids

So you’re on day two (or more for the more cautious of us) of your efforts of being a homeschooler and the kids are asking one question that you’re having trouble answering:

Daddy (gender is male because it’s my kids asking me in this parable) what actually is the Coronavirus?

Like any “good parent in the 21st century” I knew exactly what to do. I spent a half hour on YouTube to find a video that works for my kids (ages 1st and 4th grade). Here it is:

Kids a little older, middle schoolers, might get more out of this video.

And for the scientists and high schoolers, this video gives a more adult breakdown.

And Yet, There Are Collateral Benefits

It’s not what you’d wish on your worst enemy, but all the same, there are bright spots amidst the coronavirus (CV) landscape.

On a brief (auto) trip to the bakery this weekend I passed through numerous residential neighborhoods, every one of which sported people outside, recreating. On bikes, with basketballs in hand, walking dogs, planting trees, shouting socially-distanced pleasantries – it was absolutely plain as could be that people everywhere were plonked back to the future in slower, simpler pleasures like gallomph-jogging side-by-side, challenging each other in bicycling-pairs to summit a hill, corralling the kids to participate in household chores and pet-care.

Who knew that contentious traffic calming measures of late would suddenly be rendered moot, casualties of the CV pandemic that has parked us all in our neighborhoods, not somewhere else. Maybe all we’ve really been needing was relief from the tyranny of scheduled events and organized activities.

Why It Might Matter To Close Your School

It’s understandable to look at the fatality and even incidence rate of Covid-19 here in Los Angeles and think:

“Huh? Why the panic; far, far more people die of the flu annually, and we’re all healthy here. A little cold’s no big deal, most people will survive, particularly kids, and besides, I have no way to care for (or feed) the kids during the daytime.”

There are a lot of issues in there to unpack, but most importantly, the considerations surrounding school closure are not about individual risk or anyone’s personal chance of survival. At issue is a sensible, effective public health response to a local health emergency and a global pandemic.

The concern is that those who do suffer adverse effects from the novel coronavirus will need access to hospitals, hospital beds, ventilators and a sizable medical staff. With huge estimates of the ultimately infected population, if transmission happens too rapidly, the health infrastructure could be overrun and vital care unavailable when a lot of people need it.

Now That the Election Is Over, Here’s How EdEx Is Going to Move Forward

As Sara and I were working to create LAEdEx, we originally planned to launch after the March primary elections. Concerned that the website not be seen as just an election vehicle for progressive candidates, we were nevertheless compelled to report on the unfolding extreme efforts to influence, and stakes surrounding the four contested seats for the LAUSD Board of Education.

We decided to rush the rollout, without even a fully formed social media strategy and just a bare-bones design on our website. But our reporting on the enormous spending and onerous campaign literature was timely and presented in a way sufficiently different from mainstream media as to move understanding and coverage forward. While the media did a pretty good job covering who was spending money on what candidates, we are proud to have been a substantive part of that conversation.

Moving forward we’d love to have a fundraising strategy in place for the long-term that would allow us to pay for an editor or other written contributions. But for now, our plan remains simply to provide quality articles and opinion pieces to help inform and empower supporters of public education.