That American Academy of Pediatrics noting that “children constitute a low proportion of” COVID-19 “cases and are far less likely than adults to experience serious illness,” has recommended reopening schools for in-person classes. Recognizing that this poses serious challenges for schools—especially given their budgetary limitations—a new article in JAMA Pediatrics offers school leaders practical advice in implementing that guidance. It suggests districts “establish a COVID-19 task force” and a “command center” of “data analysts and health experts” in partnership with local health agencies. The article recognizes that even though much of the threat to keeping infection rates low lies outside school, public schools can help to mitigate spread outside as well as inside schools by providing COVID-19 prevention educational materials and training for families and staff, training staff on screening for COVID-19 symptoms, and face coverings for families that cannot afford them. Recommendations also are offered for reducing in-school risk including fixed cohorts of students and teachers, multilevel screening for students and staff, and a 3-pronged testing approach in collaboration with local hospitals.
When researchers explored teachers’ “job demands and resources, occupational burnout, and turnover intentions,” they found “teachers’ emotional exhaustion and depersonalization from the work is a function of lack of job control, lack of collegial relationships within the program, and children’s behaviors that they perceived to be challenging.” The researchers suggest their findings “can be used to inform leadership development, teacher professional development, and workforce compensation policy to foster greater organizational health, to improve teacher well-being, and to promote teacher retention.”
Researchers examining “the child, household, and community characteristics that predict ECE [Early Care and Education] participation for Latino infants and toddlers living in low-income households” report “the use of nonparental care for infants and toddlers in low-income Hispanic households depends largely on whether the child lives in a single- or two-parent household, how many parents are employed, and the number of hours parents work.”
Using “a resiliency framework to provide a national portrait of the strengths and resources of low-income Black and Hispanic/Latino boys served by Head Start,” researchers found that “although low-income boys of color are a vulnerable subgroup, Black and Hispanic/Latino boys experience and exhibit a range of strengths during the Head Start year.” They suggest “Head Start boys of color have access to environments that support their resilience, but there are some areas in which better supports could be provided.”
This study examined “how modeling from both teacher education faculty and clinical educators influenced elementary education teacher candidates’ development of technology integration knowledge and use of technology while teaching.” Researchers found “Teacher education faculty primarily modeled technology integration with higher-order thinking skills such as rigorous practice activities and project-based learning, whereas the clinical educators modeled technology integration through lower-level activities such as educational review games and showing videos.”
Researchers investigating “the relation between Dual Language Learners’ (N = 90) vocabulary and grammar comprehension and word learning processes in preschool (aged 3‐through‐5 years)” found “stronger predictive associations within each language than across languages.” They report “structural sensitivity theory suggests exposure to two languages heightens awareness of parameters along which languages vary and provides a framework for interpreting complex associations within and across languages. Knowledge from one language may influence learning in both.”
