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Upcoming Webinar: Impact of the Pandemic on Bilingual Education

More resources and training for teachers, school administrators, families and communities are on our Learning Goes On website. See Spanish-language version of this edition.

In December 2020 the U.S. Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which includes the second COVID-19 emergency relief package. The CARES Act in March 2020 provided $13 billion to K-12 schools and $14 billion to institutions of higher education. The new package allocates education funds for distribution through governors, state education agencies, and institutions of higher education. The major education-related portions of the aid package include the following.

• About $54 billion for K-12 schools through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), most of which will be distributed to local education agencies (e.g., school districts) by each state’s education agency. This funding will be distributed in amounts proportional to districts' Title I funding, which is based on the proportion of students from families with limited incomes.

Three new allowable expenses for the K-12 funds were added to those enumerated in the CARES Act. Schools can now use emergency funds to improve and update facilities to reduce the spread of the virus and to improve air quality in school buildings. They also can use the funds to address student learning loss, including costs associated with administering assessments, providing individualized instruction, implementing evidence-based strategies to meet student needs, providing assistance to families to support students during distance learning, and tracking student attendance and engagement in distance learning.

• About $4 billion for governors to spend on education priorities in their states, including emergency support for school districts, colleges and universities, and other education agencies most impacted by COVID-19. This fund includes up to $2.75 billion for distribution to private schools.

• Nearly $23 billion for colleges and universities, which must distribute at least half of funds directly to students in the form of individual emergency aid.

Students and schools need far more federal support than the CARES Act and second relief package provide. President Biden has already released his $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan,” detailing what immediate COVID-19 and long-term health and economic recovery should look like.

One of President Biden’s major priorities is to re-open the majority of K-12 schools in the first 100 days of his term, including through a national program to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine, provide paid sick leave, address rampant health disparities, and ensure regular testing protocols in schools.

He also proposes to allocate $170 billion to K-12 schools and colleges, including $130 billion for safe school reopening. These funds would be used to support reduced class sizes, implement cleaning and ventilation upgrades, hire counselors and nurses, provide summer learning supports, expand community schools, prevent state cuts to pre-K programs, and address the digital divide, among other uses.

A portion of these funds also would be used for “COVID-19 Educational Equity Challenge Grants,” which will support governmental partnerships with teachers, families and others “to advance equity- and evidence-based policies to respond to COVID-related educational challenges and give all students the support they need to succeed.” For information about equity-focused resources for schools, families, and other education-focused groups, see the IDRA EAC-South website.

The proposed American Rescue Plan also includes $35 billion for colleges, including up to $1,700 for direct financial assistance to individual students and $5 billion for governors to allocate to education programs and students hardest hit by COVID-19.

President Biden’s American Rescue Plan is a COVID-19-focused supplement to the education agenda from his campaign, which includes proposals to triple Title I funding for schools that serve high concentrations of students from families with limited incomes; makes major investments in institutions of higher education particularly community colleges, minority-serving institutions, and historically Black colleges and universities; and takes steps like increasing the numbers of counselors and other health professionals in schools to tackle practices that create harmful school climates.

While his initial campaign platform lacked certain critical elements that many education equity advocates hoped for (including how to improve educational opportunities for English learners), subsequent policy statements indicate a broader education agenda that many hope will be responsive to both COVID-19 needs and the systemic inequities felt most by historically-marginalized students. To execute this agenda, President Biden nominated Dr. Miguel Cardona for U.S. Secretary of Education.

Among its other duties, the U.S. Department of Education must fulfill its obligation to protect students’ civil rights. There is much to do to implement needed reforms and reverse policies of the last four years that compromised equal access to education for millions of students, particularly students of color, LGBTQ students, English learners, immigrant students and many others.

For more information about IDRA’s federal education policy recommendations, please see our letter to the Biden-Harris transition team and our recommendations for federal COVID-19 relief funding, or contact Morgan Craven, J.D., IDRA’s National Director of Policy, Advocacy and Community Engagement at morgan.craven@idra.org.

In-person student engagement with teachers is ideal for listening, speaking and other social interactions that are critical parts of language development. But virtual platforms and limited in-person engagement caused by COVID-19 precautions hinder such engagement.

This webinar will feature a phenomenal Texas educator, Grace Delgado, executive director of multilingual services for Aldine ISD, to review programming and instructional considerations for bilingual education and serving emergent bilingual students, as well as relevant applications for virtual and remote learning.

This webinar is part of the IDRA EAC-South’s free webinar series on Equitable Practices for Online Learning.

The IDRA Valued Youth Partnership has provided leadership experiences for students across the country during the past 35 years.

During this time of social-distancing and health precautions in schools, the Valued Youth Partnership’s key component of valuing youth’s gifts and burgeoning social skills provides leadership experiences that are critical for marginalized students.

While VYP tutors cannot meet in person with their tutees, they are creating technology products that promote literacy and numeracy development of PK-1 tutees. Middle school tutors are developing videos of themselves reading IDRA Semillitas de Aprendizaje and leading literacy activities for young children in their partner elementary classrooms. 

Valued Youth Partnership program increases student’s connectedness, academic achievement, self-efficacy and self-esteem by placing students in leadership positions.

With Amazon Smile, you can shop while raising money for a cause you care about! Visit smile.amazon.com and select IDRA as your charity. Thank you for helping IDRA support teachers & families to ensure that Learning Goes On during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond!

IDRA's family leadership in education process, Education CAFE™, supports parents and caregivers to understand and influence public school policy and practice. This January, families in Texas will have various opportunities to inform legislators and staff about their priorities, needs and hopes for the education of their children, from birth through college graduation.