Governor Hochul Makes Funding For COVID-19 Testing In Schools; Mask Mandate For Schools; Possible Vaccine Mandate For School Employees

Days after being sworn in as New York’s Governor on Tuesday, August 24, 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul issued new directives for schools in New York. These include:

• Directed Department of Health to institute Universal Mask Requirement in all schools (public and private)

• Began pursuing options to mandate vaccines for school employees

• Launched COVID-19 Testing in Schools Program using $585 Million in federal funds in partnership with counties and BOCES

• Established Additional Back-to-School Testing Program in Partnership with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Rite Aid and BioReference

• Acquired Millions of Masks for Students and Educators

Masking Mandate

While masking is generally accepted by Beaconites, some parents have indicated objection in social media and on reopening planning calls with Beacon City School Districts (BCSD) Superintendent, Dr. Landahl. He delivered his first reopening presentation on August 13, 2021, and is slated to present again via video call this evening with updated or clarified guidance based on New York State’s new guidance (read the slides here).

In response to this mask mandate, Dr. Landahl provided clarification on Mask Breaks, stating: “Universal Masking is now required by the state for staff and students in schools. Mask breaks will either be outside, or when students are separated from other individuals by 6 feet and under the guidance of a staff member for a brief amount of time.” Masking outdoors is not required by New York State at this time, and BCSD is following that guidance.

According to Governor Hochul’s press release, New York State has available more than 4.3 million child-sized clothed face masks, about 10 million adult-sized clothed face masks and almost 55 million non-surgical face masks to provide to students and teachers in schools across the state.

Possible Vaccine Requirement For School Staff

Said Governor Hochul in a press release: “As Governor, my priorities are now the priorities of the people of New York - and right now that means fighting the Delta variant," she said. "My number one priority is getting children back to school and protecting the environment so they can learn safely. I am immediately directing the Department of Health to institute universal masking for anyone entering our schools, and we are launching a Back to School COVID-19 testing program to make testing for students and staff widely available and convenient. We are also working to require vaccinations for all school personnel with an option to test out weekly, and we are going to accomplish all of this by working in partnership with all levels of government."

In response to the proposed vaccine requirement, Dr. Landahl is preparing to follow through with requiring vaccinated staff to test weekly. He stated: “Governor Hochul is preparing to announce a vaccine or testing requirement for all school staff. I am hearing that this will be announced in the next few days. If it becomes law, all unvaccinated staff will be required to undergo weekly testing.” Dr. Landahl stated in his 8/13/2021 presentation that is is strongly supportive of this vaccination.

COVID-19 Testing Accessibility

According to Governor Hochul’s press release, to help ensure testing is available to students as they return to school, Governor Hochul is using $335 million in federal funds to launch a new COVID-19 Testing in Schools Program in partnership with local health departments and BOCES in New York State outside of New York City. In addition, New York City has received $251 million directly to initiate a COVID-19 Testing in Schools Program there, for a total of $585 million in federal funding in New York State to support these programs.

This is a huge development, as getting required testing for kids is time consuming, and challenging with different health insurances. Testing, at this time, is not free like the vaccine. Unless via a federal or state funded school opportunity such as this.

Governor Hochul also launched an additional back-to-school COVID-19 testing program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Rite Aid and BioReference to make testing more widely available for New York State public school students before the start of the 2021-2022 school year.

Beacon City Schools Celebrate Juneteenth 2021 With Letter To Community And Acknowledgement Of 2022 School Holiday

These 2 cuties were the winners of A Little Beacon Blog’s 1st Juneteenth Art Contest last year. They have since left the district and are enjoying homeschool with their mama, Millenial Matriarch, creator of Village Homeschool.

One day before President Biden signed Juneteenth as a federal holiday - a holiday marking independence and liberation from slavery that has been celebrated by the African American community for over 150 years but generally not taught in public or private schools for the white community to know about or be encouraged to celebrate - Beacon City School District Superintendent Dr. Matthew Landahl sent an email to district families wishing everyone a Happy Juneteenth.

“Next year we are very excited that Juneteenth will be an official BCSD school holiday on our calendar,” he stated. The Beacon City School District has been working on equity and diversity work over the year, despite the shutdown, and he let families know that the work continues this summer.

“The Beacon City School District is partnering with Dutchess BOCES to have our entire administrative team participate in Undoing Racism workshops this summer. Some of our teachers will be participants in professional development workshops on developing a more equitable curriculum in our district. There are other professional development programs that we are putting together as well.”

Dr. Landahl is known to be a communicative leader, as he ended the note with an indication that the district would be kept updated as to developments to that professional work for teachers and administration.

In true educator fashion, Dr. Landahl included resources for people to learn more about Juneteenth, which are included below:

From the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture
https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/historical-legacy-juneteenth

Watch this local news link from Houston, TX about Juneteenth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz2ke1a-WiM

An article from National Geographic about Juneteenth:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/juneteenth

An article from the History Channel:
https://www.history.com/news/what-is-juneteenth

Beacon City School District Superintendent Landahl Responds With Support To Student Community Regarding Imagery At The U.S. Capitol After The Insurrection

During the Remote Learning life of the pandemic, many kids of all ages are at home with parents or a caregiver, and were home during Wednesday’s storming of the U.S. Capitol Building, and watched the events happen in real time. Videos from inside of the Capitol from people participating in the swarming were also circulated.

Parents needed to speak with their children about events and meanings of symbols as they happened. Beacon City School’s Superintendent Matt Landahl sent an email to the community the following day, offering encouragement to parents and caregivers that the district community was there to give support.

His email statement is below:

Dear Beacon Community:

The events yesterday in our nation’s capital were disturbing, to say the least. We are open and ready today for students in-person and online. Knowing that many of our youngest students may not even be aware of the events that took place, we will emphasize safety and community today and always. Thanks again to our educators and staff for doing this every day.

Images have been widely circulated on social media and television of the confederate flag and clothing celebrating the Holocaust being brandished in our Capitol building yesterday. It has always been our practice to not allow these images in school and it was put officially into our Code of Conduct by the Board of Education last year. We want to reassure a sense of safety on that level as well because of how disturbing these images were to us all.

If you have any specific concerns for your child, please contact your child’s teacher, principal or guidance counselor. We are prepared to offer support to everyone who needs it.

I wish I could be more eloquent in times like this and words often fail me. I know our school community will continue to offer strong support for our students during what has been an incredibly challenging year. As I often say, I am inspired on a daily basis by the resilience and strength of our staff, families, and students this year. Thanks as always for your support.

Sincerely,

Matt Landahl

Beacon Superintendent Landahl remains Committed To Curriculum and Training For Undoing Racism - Prepares For Budget Cuts

During last week’s Board of Education meeting, Beacon’s Superintendent Matt Landahl presented updates on the district’s strategic plan, which he said is a work in progress, but was slowed after February 2020 when the pandemic began to hit. Every day, he said, the district works on the challenges for coordinating the Reopening, but was making moves to implement and retain actions that move toward the district’s overall goals, especially on Equity.

In mid-October 2020, the Superintendent released the district’s Equity Report Card. The mission of following equity, according to the District, is to “celebrate diversity and provide an equitable education for all students by working to eliminate race, ethnicity, class, gender identity, sexuality, and disability as predictors of student success.”

In his reporting, Dr. Landahl stated: “As part of our work, we have created an Equity Report Card for the school district. We use data regularly as part of our work as educators including this report card. Due to the hard work of our teachers, our Beacon High School graduation rate has seen significant positive progress in the past two years.”

The graduation rate is 83%. Student enrollment had been decreasing since 2014, the first year on the Equity Report Card, at 3,060 total students. In 2018, the enrollment population started to increase, and is currently at 2,947. The number of Hispanic/Latinos students have been increasing percentage-wise within that overall decrease (839 in 2014, and 904 in 2019), while the number of Black/African American students has been decreasing year almost every year except for 2018 (595 in 2014, and 477 in 2019). The number of white students has also been decreasing year over year, with a slight bump in 2019 (1,421 in 2014, and 1,283 in 2019).

“Last year we made progress,” Dr. Landahl told the Board. “This year we are trying to figure out ways to do it in a different health and school model.” Equity Action Steps were presented, which include:

• Further implementation of Restorative Practices through Talking Circles. Kids can talk about what is on their minds.

• Work with Dr. Hunter (a professor at Buffalo State) to create Culturally Responsive Curriculum in Middle and High School ELA and Social Studies Departments to further social justice learning. That work began one month ago, Dr. Landahl stated. Dr. Hunter is working with other districts in Dutchess County as well.

• Work with Dutchess BOCES to provide Undoing Racism Workshops across several districts and to plan for long term implementation. Trying to find ways to bring Anti-Racism training to Dutchess County. Dr. Landahl explained that this has been happening in Rockland County, and he wants to bring it to Beacon. Sharing services by partnering with other districts brings the costs down, he said, but if partnering is not available, the Beacon City School District will still go forward with the model.

• Use of the Equity Report Card Data to guide future actions will continue.

Dr. Landahl next presented on the “Culture of Care” that frames a lot of programming. Planned steps include:

• Continuation of Responsive Classroom Training at the Elementary Level. The district is partnering with with 2 other districts in Dutchess County, which gives Beacon state aid to make it more affordable. Three groups of elementary teachers have participated in training.

• Continuation of Restorative Practice model at secondary level.

• Create Student Bill of Rights to include Code of Conduct in all classrooms. “The rights of students are tucked into laws and codes of conducts all over all of the materials we use,” Dr. Landahl said. “We want to make something our students are involved in, and can use. For students at all levels within the district.” Dr. Landahl credited the Diversity Committee on having worked on this a few weeks ago, and they hope to have it done by February.

• Trauma Informed Support Training for administrators and mental health professionals. “Training has started,” Dr. Landahl confirmed, “and that is looking to be expanded, especially for everything students are going through right now.”

Beacon City School District Budget - Preparing For “Beyond Drastic Cut"

As for the budget, Dr. Landahl pressed on the need to prepare now for a drastic budget cut if there is no federal stimulus aid to New York State, which would prompt the state to cut funding. “We are possibly looking at beyond drastic cut from the state. When Governor Cuomo talks about the state cut in aid, that's about $4 million for Beacon. The money's not there, or so he says. We do have a good amount of funds in our Unrestricted Funds balance, but that is not enough to carry us over the next several years. We for sure will be preparing for a budget that is tough next year. If there is federal stimulus that comes to help New York State and other states, that would really help our process as well, but we should really prepare for all contingencies with that. It will be a year where communication, transparency and involvement of people is even more important.”

Fiscal Action Steps Include:

• Implement Audit Committee on a bi-monthly basis, which is an increase from years before.

• Use surveys and Town Halls to gather input on budget. Increase ways to work directly with students to hear feedback from them. Currently, the administration is debating on if the surveys will be self-created, or if an outside firm will be used.

• Develop process and timeline for 2021 Capital Project. Can do a Capital Project for $15 million that will not impact taxes.

Beacon Board Of Education + Superintendent Landahl Issued Letter In Support Of Black Lives In June With A Lone Vote Against It - Action Taken Since Then

During the beginning of the nation-wide and local protests in Beacon and the Hudson Valley of Black, white and people of color Marching for Black lives to matter, the Beacon Board of Education (BOE) voted on and issued a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement at a June 17, 2020 meeting.

Of the 9 Board members, one person voted against it: then Board President Anthony White, as first reported by Jeff Simms at the Highlands Current. At that meeting, Anthony stated: “that while he recognizes the district has work to do, he felt ‘the statement does not acknowledge the work that the district has already engaged in to address inequities,’” according to the article.

At the BOE’s July 1st re-organizational meeting, Anthony stepped aside as the President, a position he won re-election for a month prior. Former Vice President Meredith Heur was elected President, and Elissa Betterbid, a board member since 2018, was elected to succeed Meredith. Also at that meeting, Board member Michael Rutkoske resigned.

The Board Of Education’s Letter In Support Of Black Lives

The letter has been republished in full here for easy reading. Also find it here for original link. Signed by an 8-1 majority vote, the letter was authored by Board member James Case-Leal, who resigned this week “in order to open an additional space for John Galloway Jr. and Jasmine Johnson, two well-qualified candidates of color, to both be appointed,” according to his resignation letter.

June 17, 2020

Dear Beacon City School District Community:

The BCSD Board of Education adopted this statement at this evening's meeting.

We the Board of Education for the Beacon City School District are deeply moved by the protests and major shifts in the national conversation around race and racism in our public institutions in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and all other victims of institutional violence and discrimination.

We want to take this moment to reiterate our collective commitment to equity in our schools while also recognizing that we still have much to learn and change in order to fully address racism in our own institutions. We recognize that our schools have not always succeeded at this and apologize to those we have failed to serve.

We thank the many members of our community for their work helping to push this to the forefront of our attention. It is an emergency that we plan to address with the utmost urgency

We are scheduling a workshop on June 22 to discuss these issues and develop strategies in the near and long term to ensure that our schools live up to the promise of providing an exemplary education to ALL students. We welcome any input from our communities about how we can best accomplish this goal.

We stand in solidarity. Black Lives Matter.

Beacon’s Superintendent Matthew Landahl’s Response

After the meeting, Beacon’s Superintendent Matthew Landahl issued a statement to the Beacon community via his blog. This email was issued during the summer graduation of Beacon’s 2020 senrior class, and early days of how the district would reopen (has since reopened, and is one of the only districts to attempt the Hybrid in-person learning model).

The full letter from Dr. Landahl is below:

Dear Beacon City School District Community:

I wanted to take a moment to share a summary of my comments at the Board of Education meeting last night.

We Americans have all been witness again to the horror of racism in this country and its deadly impact on Black Americans. As the Superintendent of the Beacon City School District, I will work to put every ounce of my leadership efforts to fulfill the Board of Education’s goal to eliminate race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and disability as a predictor of student success and to create a stronger Culture of Care for all of our students.

This is hard, tough work and actions are more important than words. There is much work to be done in our community, our country, and our school district to achieve these goals. I especially have much work to do as a leader.

Yesterday morning, I stood on the BHS athletic field and watched and clapped for many of our seniors as they walked across the stage. It was a profound moment because it was amazing to see their families celebrate their achievement but it also brought home to me once again how much we miss being with all of our students, especially now during such a challenging time in our country.

Our first action is to work to reopen our schools when it can be done in a safe and healthy manner. The reopening work needs to focus on the health of our students and staff but also needs to focus on establishing an even stronger Culture of Care for our students and community, so we can all feel welcomed, included, empowered, and engaged. I look forward to future conversations and actions and to work with the community on making us all stronger.

Matt Landahl

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When the Board of Education’s letter was adopted, Dr. Landahl issued a list of “restorative practices” that the district could do, according to reporting by Jeff Simms of the Highlands Current.

• Working with the Mediation Center of Dutchess County to create either socially distanced or virtual “talking circles” for students and possibly parents to discuss race and other issues.

• Adding students to the Equity Leadership Teams at district schools.

• Issuing an equity report card by July 31 with statistics on the demographics of students, administration and staff.

• Adjusting curriculum to make it “more affirming” and “more reflective of diversity” and social-justice issues.

This week, A Little Beacon Blog reached out to Dr. Landahl for comment about what has been done since declaring those directives, as well as to curriculum with Thanksgiving approaching. His full response is below:

“We worked with Dutchess Mediation, teachers, administrators, and groups of students from BHS and Rombout in a talking circle format this summer. They developed a plan to continue talking circle format this school year with more students and staff to discuss COVID-19, racial injustice, and finding more ways to be heard and involved in school. This work will be ongoing and continue throughout the school year. Dutchess Mediation also provides us with support and training in implementing restorative practices in our secondary schools as well and that will continue this year as well. In addition to this, we had an additional group of 25 elementary teachers from Beacon get trained in the Responsive Classroom model this year which helps teachers develop strategies on community and relationship building in the classroom.

”Working with Dutchess BOCES, we are working with Dr. Jevon Hunter from SUNY Buffalo to focus on curriculum development. He will work with ELA and social studies teachers at Rombout and Beacon High School to create a more diverse curriculum and to create projects that focus on social justice issues. He will also work with teachers to audit the overall curriculum later in the school year.

”We hit a technical snag with our equity report card this summer and we hope to have it up on the website very soon in the next week or two.

”Our school equity leadership teams will be incorporating some student representatives as they begin their work this year.”

Beacon City School District Superintendent (Grandfather To His Kids), Dr. Matt Landahl's Father Passes

On September 1, 2020, in between sending out correspondence to the Beacon school community about how the Beacon City School District will be opening an unprecedented hybrid learning program during the time of the pandemic, Beacon City School District Superintendent Matt Landahl shared via his Twitter that his father passed away.

Dr. Landahl, who prefers to be called Matt, has young children in the Beacon City School District, and is wearing both hats as a father and an educator. He stated in his message: “Rest in Power Paul Landahl. What an amazing dad, grandpa, and man! I feel so blessed to call him dad and can't believe he is gone. Our last conversation was about how he was so good at striking the balance between family and work. What a lovely man!”

Beacon's Superintendent Encourages Everyone To Take 2020 Census - Explains Benefits

It’s Census 2020 time, which is an opportunity for the City of Beacon and the Beacon City School District to benefit from new financial opportunities and incentives. Beacon’s Superintendent, Dr. Matthew Landahl, published on his Superintendent’s Blog a message encouraging people to participate in the Census.

The Census begins on April 1, 2020, and every household in the country can participate in it. “An accurate count is critical as the results will be used to determine funding for a range of programs, including many that our students and our school districts rely upon. Unfortunately, many households did not participate in the 2010 Census and that number is expected to increase this year,” said Dr. Landahl in his blog post.

”Some households are concerned that their responses will be shared with other government agencies,” he continued. “This is not the case and respondents should know that their participation can only benefit them, their families, and their communities.”

To learn more about the process and how it benefits public schools, visit this link.

Beacon's Superintendent Hosts Listening/Discussion Sessions For 2020/2021 Budget Planning

The Beacon City School District is preparing for the 2020/2021 budget and potentially a new Capital Project, according to the Superintendent’s Blog by Dr. Matthew Landahl, who is hosting different listening/discussing sessions with different stakeholder groups as he has done in previous years.

Meetings will be held with school PTOs, student groups from grades 5-12 in all of Beacon’s buildings, and meetings with faculty and staff. “Listening to the BCSD community is the most important thing I do as we make plans for the future,” said Dr. Landahl.

The schedule for the PTO meetings the Superintendent will be attending:

• Rombout Middle School Wednesday, February 5 at 6:30 pm

• Glenham Elementary Thursday, February 6 at 3:30 pm

• JV Forrestal Elementary Tuesday, February 11 at 4 pm

• Beacon High School Wednesday, February 12 at 7 pm

• Sargent Elementary Thursday, February 20 at 7 pm (this may change slightly, we will update if it does)

• South Ave. Elementary Tuesday, March 10 at 6 pm