On October 1, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed that California will become the first state in the nation to add COVID-19 to the list of vaccinations required for unconditional admission to the state's public, public charter, and private schools. The new mandate, unpacked in an accompanying Fact Sheet, produced instantaneous division among school leaders and parents, while sowing widespread confusion concerning enforcement provisions.

A considerable number of parents mistakenly believed that the mandate was to take effect immediately. But as the Fact Sheet made clear in its subheading: "Students will be required to be vaccinated for in person learning starting the term

following FDA full approval of the vaccine for their grade span (7-12 and k-6)." Such fears were revived when, on October 29, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the expansion of the emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to include children 5 through 11 years of age.

There is a difference, however, between 'emergency use authorization' and 'full approval', with the latter required in order for the Governor's new vaccination mandate to take effect. Moreover, if and when full FDA approval is granted, the school vaccination mandate won't take effect until the beginning of the next school term. According to California law, school terms begin on January 1 and July 1.

A substantially greater amount of confusion has arisen around the availability of a "personal beliefs" exemption from the new vaccination mandate. As the Fact Sheet explains: "Requirements established by regulation, not legislation, must be subject to exemptions 'for both medical reasons and personal beliefs.' (HSC section 120338)."

To better understand what this means, readers are encouraged to examine Sections 120335 and 120338 of the California Health and Safety Code. Section 120335 enumerates by name each of the diseases against which students must be fully vaccinated in order to gain unconditional admission to a California public or private school. To these named diseases, subsection 11 adds: "Any other disease deemed appropriate by the department, taking into consideration the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians."

This is where section 120338 comes into play. This portion of the law establishes that any additional vaccinations mandated in accordance with subsection 11 of section 120335, are permissible "...only if exemptions are allowed for both medical reasons and personal beliefs." Thus, as long as the COVID-19 vaccination mandate exists by dint of subsection 11, a personal beliefs exemption must be made available.

Will California legislators allow the personal exemption to stand? That's the million dollar question. When the Legislature reconvenes in January, law makers may do any of the following:

As a result of last week's elections, particularly in states such as Virginia and New Jersey, where parent groups coalesced around a variety of school-related issues, California legislators may become more reticent to stoke opposition to an action on which parents may have become more emboldened to weigh in. If a legislative push to remove the personal beliefs exemption is to be made, look for it to be led by State Senator Richard Pan (D. - Sacramento). It was Dr. Pan (pictured above), himself a pediatrician, who spearheaded the highly contentious but ultimately successful effort to remove any exemption other than medical from Health and Safety Code Section 120335.

Stay tuned!

Students in the nation's Catholic schools continued to outperform their public school peers in both reading and math according to results of the most recent administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term Trend (LTT). Unlike the main NAEP, which assesses students in grades 4 and 8, the LTT is administered to students ages 9, 13, and 17. A video summarizing the national results of the 2020 LTT can be viewed, here. A press release can be found, here, and data from the assessments can be studied interactively, here.

On the 2020 LTT reading assessment, 9-year-old students attending Catholic schools outscored their public school counterparts by a statistically significant scale score gap of 11 points, the same difference as was obtained on the previous administration of the LTT in 2012. In fact, the gap is essentially the same as it was in 1980. In mathematics, 9-year-old Catholic school students maintained a statistically significant seven-point scale score gap from 2012 to 2020.

Among 13-year-old students, Catholic schools pupils outscored their public school counterparts in reading by a difference of 17 scale score points in 2020, compared to a difference of 16 points in 2012. The gap in mathematics scores between Catholic school students and public school students widened from 11 scale points in 2012 to 14 scale points in 2020. Each of the gaps in reading and math was statistically significant.

The LTT assessment was not administered to 17-year-old students in 2020. Instead, the LTT will once again be administered to a national sample of 9-year-old students in 2022. Because the 2020 administration of the assessment was conducted just prior to the disruptions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, the re-administration of of the LTT will shine a powerful spotlight upon the depth and breadth of learning loss experienced by this particular group. EducationNext reports the development, here.

Sampling is currently underway for participation in the 2022 administration of the main National Assessment of Educational Progress. If your school is invited to participate as part of a national sample of private schools, only a fraction of your students will actually take the tests, which require a total of about two hours to complete. The tests are administered using tablets with keyboards that NAEP representatives bring with them. NAEP representatives will also bring routers. Thus, schools need to supply little more than students, desks or tables, chairs and a designated administrator to serve as a liaison. The administrator will also complete a questionnaire designed to furnish contextual information about the school.

All participating students and schools will remain anonymous. NAEP results, which are presented both in the form of scale scores and proficiency levels, are never reported for individual students or schools, but for states, the nation, and public school districts that voluntarily participate in the NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment.

In order for private school scores to be reported as a distinct national category, at least 70 percent of sampled schools need to participate in NAEP. The closer the participation level comes to 100 percent, the greater the possibility that additional private school subgroup scores can be reported. Because the participation of private schools has declined in recent years, only scores for private schools in general, and Catholic schools as a subgroup have been reported.

It is of vital importance that as many private schools as possible participate in NAEP when asked to do so. Private schools educate a significant percentage of the public and comprise an essential component of the American educational tableau. The opportunity NAEP provides to make valid and reliable comparisons between the nation’s public and private schools affords an opportunity to demonstrate the value of a pluralistic education system. And the upcoming administration of NAEP, in particular, will furnish an opportunity to see how well private schools did, in comparison to public schools, in sustaining continuity of learning over the period of greatest pandemic-related disruption to in-person instruction.

Please respond affirmatively if your private school is invited to participate in the 2022 administration of "The Nation's Report Card!"

The November 2 webinar was directed to private school leaders whose schools are participating in the federal Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools program (EANS). During the prior week, an EdSource article penned by John Fensterwald revealed widespread dissatisfaction over delays in the CDE's implementation of the program. Mr. Thurmond (pictured above) accepted personal responsibility for the problems, telling his audience, "we regret any heartburn or difficulties you have experienced," and assuring the school leaders that, "we are in full problem-solving mode."

The U.S. Department of Education is pleased to announce that the application window for the 2022-2023 cohort of the School Ambassador Fellowship is now open. The application portal is open for application submissions through Friday, January 14, 2022.

The School Ambassador Fellowship improves educational outcomes for students by leveraging the expertise of school-based practitioners in the creation, dissemination, and evaluation of national education policy. Founded on the principles of partnership, collaboration and cooperation with school-based educators, the Fellowship seeks to:

The School Ambassador Fellowship offers two separate 9-month tracks: full-time and part-time. The full-time appointment is based at the Department of Education Headquarters in Washington, DC, and requires Fellows to relocate to the DC area for their Fellowship experience. The part-time fellowship does not require relocation and allows educators to maintain their regular school responsibilities in their home communities, while also participating in the School Ambassador Fellowship experience.

To be eligible for the School Ambassador Fellowship, participants must:

Ideal candidates for this program are educators from public, charter, independent, magnet, private schools, etc. who have made significant contributions to student learning and culture, can effectively communicate to a variety of internal and external education stakeholders, and can promote excellence in education through their collaboration and leadership capabilities.

The deadline to apply for the 2022-23 School Ambassador Fellowship is Friday, January 14, 2022 at 11:59 pm EST.

For more information and to apply, visit the School Ambassador Fellowship Website. Prospective applicants should email [email protected] with general questions about the program or eligibility to apply.

The California Department of Public Health updated its COVID-19 Testing Guidance on October 29, 2021. Among other updates, the guidance now reflects that in schools and other settings (EXCLUDING healthcare, long-term care and high-risk congregate settings), “Antigen tests are acceptable to determine both the presence or absence of active infection with SARS-CoV-2 in individuals with or without symptoms. Repeat antigen testing and/or confirmatory molecular testing should be considered in individuals who receive a negative result with an antigen test but have symptoms specific for COVID-19 (such as loss of taste and smell).” More information is available here.

Who said government employees have no sense of humor? In anticipation of Halloween, the U.S. Bureau of the Census created an online "tour through a few of America’s spooky-sounding places." Do you have any idea where Transylvania County is located? Here are a few hints: 9.2 percent of the county's population are of German ancestry; 6.1 percent of are of Irish ancestry. Median household income is $50,212. Among county residents age 25-and-older, 32.6 percent possess a Bachelor's Degree or higher. Still don't know? (With clues like that, how could you???) Find out, here.

Can someone please explain what the policy makers at the U.S. Department of Education were thinking when they set the eligibility requirements for participation in the American Recovery Plan - Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools program? ARP-EANS is a federal emergency assistance program for which Congress appropriated $2.75 billion "...to provide services or assistance to non-public schools that enroll a significant percentage of students from low-income families" and which are most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the American Recovery Plan was enacted, lawmakers failed to specify what constitutes a "significant percentage of students from low-income families," leaving that determination to the U.S. Department of Education (ED), the federal agency tasked with enforcement of ARP-EANS. After inviting public comment on the matter, ED established 40 percent as the default minimum percentage of low-income students a private school must enroll in order to become eligible for participation in the program. States were afforded the opportunity to propose alternate percentages in their respective ARP-EANS applications, but only those honing to ED's 40 percent low-income enrollment threshold were assured of gaining approval.

How on earth did ED attempt to justify a 40 percent figure? In its apparent desire to identify a non-arbitrary threshold level, here's what the policy makers came up with:

Really? For one, schools in which low-income students account for less than 40 percent of total enrollment are not foreclosed from participation in Title I. For another Title I doesn't permit private schools to operate schoolwide programs. And the actual recipients of Title I services need not be low-income students. Whereas the amount of Title I funding available to a school (whether public or private) is determined by the number of low-income students it enrolls, receipt of services is determined solely on the basis of academic need. If context is important, the Title I comparison is patently inapt.

One wonders whether it ever occurred to the decision makers at ED that private schools are subject to economic constraints with which public schools need not contend. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that a public school can accommodate a significantly greater number of low-income students because the existence of the public school is not contingent upon the payment of tuition (supplemented in most instances by significant fundraising). For a private school to sustain itself with an enrollment profile in which 40 percent of its student body hail from low-income households, the school must either be remarkably well resourced (in much the same manner as ivy league universities with massive endowments are able to offer free enrollment to low-income students), or engage in Herculean fundraising efforts.

Unless, of course, private school tuition is subsidized by the state, whether in the form of a school voucher program, education tax credits, or education savings accounts. In setting a default low-income student threshold of 40 percent, ED has favored private schools located in states that have adopted school choice programs. Perhaps that is why Florida, a state with an education savings account program, two school voucher programs, and two tax-credit scholarship programs, each of which supports enrollment in private schools, was able to accept the 40 percent threshold without supplicating for a reduced, alternate figure.

California, a state in which no comparable subsidization exists, has requested an alternate low-income student threshold of 20 percent. That figure wasn't just pulled out of a hat. It was the aggregated average low-income student enrollment percentage among schools that qualified for participation in the Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools program enacted as part of the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 (the predecessor to ARP-EANS). Even if the feds approve California's requested 20 percent low-income threshold, fewer than 10 percent of the state's private schools will likely be eligible to participate in ARP-EANS.

There's likely to be one additional unanticipated outcome from ED's 40 percent low-income threshold. In many states, ED's attempt to limit participation in ARP-EANS to those private schools with the highest concentrations of low-income students will, ironically, end up channeling ARP-EANS benefits to non-qualifying schools.

Here's the logic behind that pretzel logic. The fewer the number of private schools eligible for participation in ARP-EANS, the greater the per-school allocation of funds. Projecting from the "sample" of California private schools that participated in the CRSSA EANS program (which did not require participating schools to meet a low-income student enrollment threshold), the per-pupil allocation for qualifying ARP-EANS schools (with low-income student enrollment of at least 20 percent) would be in excess of $3,600. A school with an enrollment of 250 could thus anticipate an allocation of $720,000. With such substantial amounts of funding available, and given the limitations governing the permissible uses of those funds, most participating schools will be unable to utilize anywhere close to their full respective allocations.

The kicker is that all unspent ARP-EANS funds will revert to the Governor's Education Emergency Relief fund (GEER). When that happens, governors will enjoy considerably greater flexibility with respect to both the permissible uses of funds and eligibility for receipt of benefits. In California and New York, private school leaders have received indications that any EANS funds reverting to control by their respective governors will continue to be used for the exclusive benefit of private schools. Thus, the more the U.S. Department of Education attempts to restrict ARP-EANS funding to private schools enrolling the highest percentages of low-income students, the greater the amount of funding that's likely to become available to assist other than low-income students. Which strikes me as a significant paradox.

Ron Reynolds

The next edition of the CAPSO Midweek E-Mailer will be published on December 15, 2021.