Category: Culture

CA legislators want to restrict Independent Study. Here’s why that’s a bad idea.

Posted on by Suki

UPDATE: The changes to the law were enacted. Our local homeschool programs have responded in a variety of ways, from struggling to comply by canceling or postponing services, to hoping that what they’re doing will be seen as compliance. And it turns out that it’s not only homeschoolers are who inconvenienced. (Who woulda thought?) Neighborhood school administrators are experiencing the nightmare of having to send students home because of Covid exposure and finding that there is no way that their school can comply with the law. So they are losing ADA funding, on top of having to run schools in the middle of a pandemic.

I am darkly amused by this quote in a CalMatters article: “I know legislators are well-intended people, but they didn’t have enough educators’ perspectives.” They got plenty of perspectives, but chose to ignore them. That’s politics!

Following is a letter I wrote in conjunction with two other local homeschooling parent/teachers, Heddi Craft and Hiranya Kliesch. Readers of this blog know that I started homeschooling when my younger child was in crisis. I continued homeschooling when my older child’s academic needs couldn’t be served in a typical school. Heddi and Hiranya, both certified teachers, have similar stories.

Here in California, the portion of education law that allows children like ours to remain public school students while also homeschooling is threatened. Faced with the news that a significant portion of California parents are considering using this part of the law to keep their children home out of fear of Covid, legislators are considering changes to the law that would force those parents to make harder decisions.

However, legislators are largely unaware of the way that the law is used for many students with special needs across our state. Some of the changes they are proposing will decimate the public schools that were created to serve these students. Here in Santa Cruz County, our students can choose from site-based, family-focused programs like Alternative Family Education or Ocean Alternative, or they can enroll in Independent Study charter schools like Oasis or Ocean Grove. Although the student numbers are small, the influence of these programs on the lives of those students is immeasurable.

Please read this letter and share it with your local legislators. For a PDF version that you can send out, please click here.

Dear Senator Laird, 

Thank you so much for meeting with us. Below, please find a summary of the points we made to you that express our concerns over the proposed changes to Independent Study (IS).

Background:

Independent Study has been around for more than 30 years. The law was originally written for students with special needs: social/emotional issues, illness, travel, or unique learning needs. Not all IS programs are charters. Many families who might not otherwise attend public school families are a part of IS programs, bringing needed funds to the districts’ district-created programs.

How is Independent Study used?

Independent study is a family affair, with parents often serving as the child’s primary instructor with the support of a certified teacher. Students have the flexibility to explore their passions with one-on-one conversations and experiences with a parent. Families rely on the flexibility of IS and appreciate the need to check in on a monthly, not daily, basis, especially in situations regarding illness, anxiety, or travel.

Concerns:

  • Our first concern is with the change to daily synchronous instruction (whether opportunity or requirement) in 51747 (e)(1-3). Requirements to have daily video or in-person check-ins with all students dilute or restrict the much more meaningful interactions already happening. AFE and Ocean Alternative offer valuable class days in addition to meeting with parents. Monthly meetings are lengthy and generate deep discussions about learning while optional class days allow students to do group activities, often in multi-age settings. In addition, students who are travelling or have health or social/emotional issues will have difficulty committing to daily check-ins if they are required.
  • Our second concern is with the requirements of detailed tracking in 51747.5 (a-d). Planning and daily schedules are unique to each child in most established IS programs, so requirements for daily tracking means making an individual lesson plan and gradebook entries for each child. Independent study is designed so that students who need more time on a topic can work as slowly as needed and those who have already mastered a topic need not waste time on work they already understand. In addition, the one-on-one aspect of independent study with parent and child means there isn’t always a paper trail for learning experiences. Teachers would have to write up unique learning plans and gradebook entries in virtually every subject for every student, significantly adding to their workload.
  • Finally, it is unfair to families who are enrolling/signing contracts for the coming year to then have the Independent Study laws rewritten with potentially impactful changes after the school year has already begun. This doesn’t give families a chance to make choices about their schooling plans in advance. These changes would negatively impact currently existing, successful and longstanding programs such as Alternative Family Education (AFE) and Ocean Alternative Education Center (OAEC) in Santa Cruz County.

Recommendation:
We recommend adding a tier or category to the existing programs and calling it Distance Learning (or another name) for the temporary students who would not attend classes due to the pandemic, rather than changing the Independent Study laws without accounting for the unintended consequences to unique and long-standing programs like ours.

Please see the attached recommendation for preserving the existing IS laws.

Thank you,

Compiled by:
Hiranya Kliesch, certified teacher and AFE parent 
Heddi Craft, current Ocean Alternative teacher and former OAEC parent 
Suki Wessling, former AFE and OAEC parent, current online education teacher 

Preserve Existing Independent Study Laws

The best solution is to create a new category for Distance Learning that specifically addresses the current, temporary needs of the population you are intending to serve. We request that you respect the provisions made by the original IS laws for the population they were intended to serve in the following ways. These requests were compiled by parents and teachers with extensive, pre-pandemic experience in how Independent Study (IS) programs are implemented in their communities. 

  1. Respect that Independent Study has a long history of serving a wide variety of at-risk and unusual learners. The use of IS for a wider range of students throughout the pandemic was a temporary adaptation.
  2. Understand the special needs populations that IS serves:
    • Working full-time to support their family
    • Avoiding classroom settings due to mental health needs
    • Going through gender and identity transitions
    • Medically fragile (chemotherapy, life impacting illness, addiction recovery, etc.)
    • Pregnant or parenting
    • Enrolled in Community College courses concurrently
    • Traveling for competitive sports or work in the entertainment industry
  3. Continue to allow maximum flexibility in these programs, due to the needs of families and students to schedule their learning and interactions in appropriate ways.
  4. Remove the mandate for daily meetings with staff, as this does not recognize the high value that students receive from weekly and monthly in-depth interactions. Ref: 51747 (e)(1-3)
  5. Respect teacher workload and do not increase daily tracking that will take away from the value of student-teacher interactions. Ref: 51747.5 (a-d)
  6. Respect contracts already signed by IS students at schools across the state for the 2021-22 school year.

Compiled by:
Hiranya Kliesch, certified teacher and AFE parent 
Heddi Craft, current Ocean Alternative teacher and former OAEC parent 
Suki Wessling, former AFE and OAEC parent, current online education teacher 

For more information:

An Open Letter to California Lawmakers about Restricting Educational Choice

Posted on by Suki

Dear Lawmaker,

Today as I read in CalMatters that state lawmakers have introduced an amended budget bill that would require schools to offer independent study programs, it occurred to me that Independent Study is a particularly important issue for LGBTQ+ students. I am writing to urge you to keep our at-risk students in mind when you consider how to vote on educational issues.

Although we all hope that our students would be able to attend the school of their choice, sometimes this simply isn’t possible. Especially at sensitive times such as when they first come out, when they socially transition, and when they are going through medical transitions, transgender students often choose to transfer to Independent Study (IS), either permanently or on a short-term basis.

As you may have noticed, IS programs are under fire from California lawmakers. Starting with 2019’s ill-timed AB 1505/7 bills that restricted IS charter schools right before a pandemic, continuing with AB 1316 (which thankfully didn’t reach the governor’s desk), and now with Gov. Newsom pushing further restrictions in his rewrite of Independent Study law, transgender and other at-risk students are facing the clear possibility that they will not be allowed to seek a fair, free, and appropriate education.

The fact is that in-person, full-time schooling does not work for some students, and it is directly harmful for some. And the students that are most harmed by mandatory in-person learning are those who are the most vulnerable. Even restrictions like requiring mandatory daily contact with teachers places an undue burden on students who live in remote places, who are medically fragile, or who choose to homeschool in the real world, free of the narrow restrictions imposed by computer-based learning.

At different points during my children’s educations, we chose to homeschool. We were so lucky to live in Santa Cruz County, where we had our choice of IS programs. My students were full-time public school students while also getting an appropriate education. Both of them are now in college, one at a UC, the other at a small private college. They had their choice of colleges that suit their needs, just as they had their choice of K-12 education that suited their needs.

I beg you to keep our at-risk students in mind when you vote on educational matters. Restricting independent study, whether it’s through a district school or a charter school, is discriminatory and wrong. So many students are saved by that time at home, and go on to happy, healthy, productive adult lives. Furthermore, allowing IS programs to offer appropriate services to homeschoolers keeps those families in the public school system, a win on both sides.

Thank you again for taking time to consider the effect of your votes on at-risk, LGBTQ+ students.

Sincerely,

Susana Wessling

Transgender support: healthcare, education, and community

Posted on by Suki

Recently, Rep. Jimmy Panetta reached out to PFLAG to suggest a listening session about issues faced by transgender people, their families, and their communities. The meeting took place in the back yard of the Diversity Center with representatives from PFLAG Santa Cruz County and the TransFamilies of Santa Cruz County,. We were graced with the fun sounds of a live band at the regular Friday midtown street party in the parking lot next door.

The goal of the meeting was not necessarily to solve any problems, but at least to gain a sympathetic ear and educate a politician about transgender concerns. Concerns that were discussed at length included three broad areas: healthcare policy, educational outreach, and continuing issues with access to support.

Healthcare policy

Andrea Damon of the TransFamilies of Santa Cruz County cited a statistic from the Kaiser Family Foundation that in 2020: 67% of workers who got their health coverage through their private employer were in self-funded plans. What this means is that instead of contracting with a health insurance company to provide insurance to employees, the business creates its own healthcare group. These groups are not necessarily covered by federal or state law governing health insurance.

If you’re thinking ahead, you already know what comes next: many of these plans do not follow mandates written to regulate health insurance, including health coverage for transgender care mandated under the ACA. Often, business owners don’t realize there is an exclusion, and willingly add trans care when confronted. However, other owners can legally refuse to cover trans care through their self-funded plan.

Most workers have no idea that their “health insurance” isn’t legally required to cover transgender care, and it’s only when they are in crisis with a transgender child that they face barriers to getting appropriate, timely care for their children.

“TransFamilies has worked with several families over the last year who were faced with coverage being denied through their self-funded plans,” Damon says. Results have been mixed; some employers willingly added coverage, while in others, TransFamilies had to “apply pressure” to the board of directors, ultimately convincing two such employers to add coverage.

Rep. Panetta made an enthusiastic request to know more about when self-funded insurance isn’t required to follow insurance laws/requirements, since this is an area under federal jurisdiction.

Educational outreach

Santa Cruz County boasts a robust LGBTQ+ educational program supported by the Diversity Center. This program, Triangle Speakers, will send a trained panel of speakers into any school for any event for free. A similar speakers program in Monterey County is provided by Rainbow Speakers and Friends.

However, access to these programs is spotty, to say the least. Rachel Morales-Warne, a parent advocate whose children attend SLV schools, said that the Triangle Speakers hasn’t been invited to the district in at least the last ten years.

All of the advocates agreed that even when intentions are good, the lack of teeth in the FAIR Education Act (CA Senate Bill 48, 2011) means that it’s up to individual teachers, schools, and districts to decide how inclusive and supportive they will be.

“As an educator, 50 years now, I find it so frustrating that schools are not following what the law says, what we expected them to be doing,” said Lynn J. Walton, retired math teacher and PFLAG SCC Executive Board member. “There are no teeth in it. A lot of teachers have good intentions, but they don’t have the tools to go to the next step. We need to train our teachers so there’s harder conversations.”

Even in “liberal Santa Cruz County,” the treatment of LGBTQ+ students, including bullying, intimidation, misgendering/naming, and shaming, is common. The County Office of Education’s focus on equity in the coming school year, advocates say, is unlikely to make a substantive difference in the everyday experiences of queer kids in our schools if the training and support is not applied more consistently.

Access to support

Michelle Brandt and Andrea Damon (TransFamilies) offered the statistics that underpin everything that advocates do: Kids who grow up in families that support and affirm their gender have wildly better outcomes than kids who don’t.

“Having an affirming, accepting family is the number one indicator for a young person’s mental health, so that’s a big part of what we all do,” Andrea Damon explained. “PFLAG, TransFamiies, and the Diversity Center: for the kids—through the parents but for the kids.”

But support is applied unequally and sometimes it feels like parents have to keep refighting battles that had already been fought by a previous parent.

“You get tired and think, I can’t do this anymore,” Michelle Brandt says.

Rachel Morales-Warne responded more colorfully. “In our house, pardon my language, but I’m like, We’re fuckin’ still doing this?”

Neal Savage, also a PFLAG Santa Cruz board member, pointed out that the way to reach parents in the past doesn’t suit today’s parent population. “When you start expanding the population into Latinx and any kids who are in foster care, those families and those kids aren’t getting help. The number of families that can afford to go someplace on a Tuesday night for a meeting has gotten very small, given geography, money, two jobs. The PFLAG model from 30 years ago is in some ways a middle-class luxury.”

Morales-Warne agrees. “I talk to a cousin’s friend of a cousin because I have a child, because they can’t afford to go to these meetings or they don’t feel comfortable. It’s not necessarily a safe space to live in. I think some of the biggest obstacles are education and language. Not just language as in bilingual language, but the language around what it means to be nonbinary or trans or queer or gay or pan.”

Some takeaways

Rep. Panetta’s job is federal, which informs the areas where he is able to exert influence. Listening to the advocates at the meeting, he responded, “You see the continued need for the resources that are so necessary.” He shared his memories of a powerful meeting the week before about LGBTQ+ experiences moderated by our local State Senator John Laird and hosted by the Diversity Center.

It’s clear that transgender children and adults will benefit from a more focused, united push for understanding, inclusion, and legal protection.

Resources

Taking aim at alternative ed…again

Posted on by Suki

UPDATE: I am pleased to say that AB 1316 is dead on the floor. Thanks to activists like Legislation Take Action for helping to raise awareness of this bill. However, the threat is ongoing.

This is what alternative education looks like.

It’s not news that administrators in public education are generally not fans of alternative education. I live in possibly the most alternative-friendly county in the country… and I could tell you a few stories.

But the tiny, vital community comprised of online public homeschool charters and alternative schools seems to attract more than the usual share of fear, mistrust, and derision from administrators and legislators.

California’s AB 1316 is just the latest bomb being lobbed at a tiny segment of education that our enormous, well-funded public school army has decided to obliterate. Really? Don’t you have something better to do, like make sure that all schools have adequate janitorial staff?

Distance learning in the crosshairs

Late 2019 saw the comically timed AB 1505/7 bills that restricted charter schools, especially ones that provided distance education, from expanding. Get the joke?

The pandemic hit…and what sort of services did everyone need? The punchline! Everyone needed the expertise of these schools that had successfully been providing distance learning for years to get them through shelter-in-place.

(Did the districts go to these repositories of knowledge for advice in how to implement distance learning? Why no, that would be admitting that these charters were providing a useful service. Most public schools chose to reinvent the steering wheel that homeschool educators have had a grasp on for years).

Here we go again

En garde!
This is what alternative education looks like.

Now AB 1316 wants to chip away at these programs again, providing less money per student, as if students who seek alternative educational options are second-class citizens. Separate? True, they chose to leave mainstream schools. But that doesn’t mean their education should be unequal.

I can’t begin to explain why people who say they are educators want to restrict a mode of education that works for some children.

Could it be that it often works for our high achiever kids who have had it with mainstream high school and take their high test scores elsewhere?

Could it be that parents of kids with special needs, including families that want to retain their linguistic heritage or families who don’t want their kids bullied because of how they look or talk, are voting with their feet?

Who uses these alternatives, anyway?

This is hardly an exhaustive list, but here are examples of the many families I have known, or families served by friends of mine who teach for these organizations:

  • Smart, focused students who need more than their local high schools will offer
  • Black and brown kids whose parents want them to grow up with a healthy self-image
  • Kids with mental health challenges for whom home is the place where they can heal
  • Kids with life-threatening allergies for whom in-person school is simply not viable
  • Kids who are top competitors in their field—athletics, chess, dance, etc.
  • Kids who need to work to support their families
  • Children of certified public school teachers whose parents know what public school can be like and choose to stay home

Let’s focus on the real problems

weaving
This is what alternative education looks like.

Yes, all schools should be “held accountable.” But what does that mean? These schools do not provide “drop the kids off and ignore them” service. If parents consistently rate the distance education that they are overseeing highly, and there is no reason to think that money is being embezzled or spent on bonbons for administrators, that should be accountability enough.

There are a lot of real problems with public education. And despite the (I admit) rather angry tone of this piece (supporters of alternative ed are just, frankly, tired of this), I am a huge supporter of public education. I believe that all children should be educated, for free, for the benefit of all of our society.

But again, I must repeat:

Not all schools serve all children equally well.

Children who need alternatives should get them—for free.

Stop blaming alternatives for lagging mainstream school enrollment. The public school system owns that problem 100%.

For more information:

As we progress, let’s not regress

Posted on by Suki

I walked up to the front door of my health club and waited. The owner opened the door and beckoned me in; he was not armed with a touchless thermometer.

“You can just walk in now,” he said.

“Well, that makes your job easier,” I replied.

“Yours, too!” he said. “Just scan your card and you’re good to go.”

Here’s the thing: I always knew that getting my temperature taken was jive. The CDC concluded pretty early on that temperature is not a reliable indicator of infection with Covid-19. All that work to take people’s temperature achieved nothing as far as health was concerned; not a single feverish person had arrived at our club in the last year.

So I’m happy enough that we don’t have to do it anymore. However, something positive came with the useless waste of time and batteries: people started to get to know each other.

Making connections

Before Covid, I didn’t know the owner of my club by sight, and certainly had never had a conversation with him. But as club membership dwindled and we were forced to exercise outside (fine for me, since I swim), club employees left, too. Soon it was usually the owner who checked people in, and we got to chatting.

In the past, I was happy to see the front desk manned by one of the more personable employees, but often the young person at the desk was more interested in their phone than the club members. The forced interaction at the club’s front door came from something horrible, but created something meaningful.

Let’s identify the changes we like

Photo Courtesy of Never.Edit

As I write, the world at large is gripped—in some places—with a worse situation than ever. The loss of life is tragic. But in coastal California, it really feels like things are getting back to normal. Cars full of kids head to school in the morning. Neighbors who had been out and about during the work day are disappearing back into their jobs.

These changes are part of a return to normal life, but they don’t have to be a return to the parts of that pre-pandemic life that weren’t so great.

Families are spending more time together than they did in their busy, pre-pandemic lives. (And they’re mostly happy about that!)

Adults are rediscovering passions or pursuing new ones.

Some kids have found that distance or hybrid learning actually works better for them.

…and try to make them stick

There’s no reason why we have to go back to “normal.” Normal, well…. normal sucked. The traffic. The overly busy families. The poor being evicted from their homes. The sterile interactions with people in our community. The people whose job it is to connect with you looking at their phones…

Let’s make sure to identify those things in our lives that have improved, and remember that as life gets back to normal, we can make them part of our new normal.

Now available