Category: News

USDE Sends DCL to Schools Urging Gun Storage Awareness (January 26, 2024)

On January 25, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) sent a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) to school principals and district administrators across the country. The purpose of the DCL, signed by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, was “to emphasize a strategy where school principals and district administrators have a unique capacity to help save lives: encouraging safe firearms storage.” Sec. Cardona also urged school officials to “educate the whole school community about the importance of safe firearm storage” by sharing information within the community — including parents and families, parent organizations, and local officials — to help educate people about the importance of “safe firearm storage because doing so has the power to save lives.”

The DCL also included a template letter for school leaders to send to their communities.

To view the DCL, click here.

To access the USDE press release, click here.

To download the template letter for use by school officials to inform the public, click here.

Judge Rules Provision of PA Ed. Law is Unconstitutional (January 26, 2024)

A ruling by a federal judge avers that a PA law’s confidentiality provision that makes it a misdemeanor to disclose the existence of a state complaint or any information about it unless and until discipline is imposed is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. The ruling is a result of the plaintiff, a school board member who is also the parent of disabled children, seeking to publicize a misconduct allegation against the school psychologist who has worked with his sons. The parent also criticized the PA Department of Education’s (PDE) dismissal of his case.

The Educator Discipline Act is a state law that controls how PDE addresses misconduct complaints against school staff.

PDE has yet to decide whether it will appeal the ruling.

For more details on the case, visit 10 Philadelphia by clicking here.

PA Navigate Unveiled: A New Online Tool To Better Connect Pennsylvanians With Food, Housing, Childcare And More (January 23, 2024)

On January 23, 2024, PA Department of Human Services (DHS) Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh, findhelp Founder & CEO Erine Gray, and Community Action Partnership (CAP) Lancaster CEO Vanessa Philbert announced the launch of PA Navigate, an online tool that connects Pennsylvanians with community-based organizations, county and state agencies, and healthcare providers, for referrals to community resources that help them meet their most basic needs like food, shelter, transportation, and more. PA Navigate also allows individuals to refer themselves for services and facilitates greater connection and communication between healthcare providers and organizations that serve shared populations.

PA Navigate’s primary goal is to boost communication between health care and social services to improve follow-through on referrals, as well as to act as a support finder for citizens. 

A person’s overall health and wellness are influenced by far more than just their physical health. Socioeconomic, environmental, and behavioral factors shape our present and long-term health outcomes. The National Academy of Medicine estimates that social determinants of health like income, access to essential resources, education and employment, social supports, and physical environment contribute up to 90 percent of health outcomes. Despite this, health care providers and social service and community-based organizations that can help people experiencing barriers to essential needs and economic stability are not always closely linked.

PA Navigate bridges these systems through a shared platform where health care providers and social services organizations can track client referrals and better understand and assist with a client’s individual needs, helping them access services and supports. The system will also allow health care and service providers to assess an individual’s needs during a physician’s office or emergency department visit, when receiving case management services, or seeking assistance from a community-based organization, among others.

“CAP is thrilled to host the Department of Human Services and Secretary Arkoosh for the launch of PA Navigate, a platform we are looking forward to engaging with in order to positively impact individual and community outcomes around social determinants of health,” said CAP Lancaster CEO Vanessa Philbert. “We believe this platform has the opportunity to bring increased resourcing to individuals living with low incomes here in Lancaster, and we congratulate Pennsylvania for its leadership in this space.” 

The tool also will gather data that can help the Commonwealth and its partners better understand health and social services needs of Pennsylvanians and identify service gaps or opportunities for better support across the state. By looking at critical social determinants of health, including employment, child care, transportation, food security, access to health care, and housing stability, Commonwealth agencies and partners at the county and local level can help Pennsylvanians achieve better long-term health outcomes. 

PA Navigate is a collaborative effort among health information organizations (HIOs) and brings together multiple state agencies, counties, local non-profits and community organizations, health care entities, and social services providers. HIOs participating in the project include ClinicalConnect Health Information Exchange, Central PA Connect Health Information Exchange, HealthShare Exchange, and the Keystone Health Information Exchange. In September 2023, findhelp was chosen as the PA Navigate platform.  

For more information and to find resources in your community, visit pa-navigate.org.

Final Title IX Regulations to be Further Delayed (January 22, 2024)

It appears that the March deadline for the much-anticipated U.S Department of Education (USDE) final Title IX regulations banning sex-based discrimination – including sexual assault – in federally funded K-12 schools, will come and go without approval.

The USDE had set a March deadline for the regulations, but hasn’t yet cleared a key procedural hurdle, potentially pushing their release back by months.

According to K-12 Dive, the USDE has yet to transmit the revised regulations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for evaluation. This required step in the process could take up to 120 days for review. That means that May is possibly the earliest for the regulations to be released.

Source: K-12 Dive.

School Safety Plans Revealed in Raptor Data Exposure (January 21, 2024)

A company that provides a wide range of school safety software services to over 5,300 school districts nationwide left exposed approximately four million records, including detailed school incident response plans with layouts of schools or classrooms that included information on infrastructure issues like security gaps and malfunctioning cameras. Also included in the exposure by Raptor were data outlining monthly drills and detailed incidents of safety protocol violations. 

For more from K12 Dive, click here.