Education Week - September 2, 2020 - 3

Water-Crisis Agreement
To Bring Spec. Ed. Help
To Students in Flint
First they were given lead-contaminated water to drink, and after that
was discovered, they had trouble getting the special education services
they needed to mitigate the learning disabilities, poor classroom performance, and increased aggression, among other problems, that come
from lead toxicity.
Now, children in Flint, Mich., have been promised the funding to address their needs. As part of a settlement in a class action, the state plans
to establish a $9 million special education fund to improve education for
children affected by the Flint water crisis.
The money, part of a $600 million settlement, will be used to
strengthen services and supports for Flint children who were harmed
by lead poisoning and to pay for improvements for special education
services to all students with disabilities in public schools in the city and
Genesee County.
The percentage of special education students in the Flint schools has
more than doubled since the water crisis began. That number could rise as
more children born during that period begin to enroll in school. Currently,
1 in 4 students in the Flint schools is eligible for special education services.
Flint families drank, bathed, and cooked in their homes with the
lead-tainted water for 17 months before the problem was discovered
and the water supply shut off. The contamination occurred when the
cash-strapped city, under the direction of a state-appointed manager,
switched its water supply from Lake Huron to cut costs.
In the federal lawsuit filed in 2016, the plaintiffs contended that the
state and schools failed to provide adequate financial and staffing resources and support to help Flint schoolchildren meet the challenges
they were faced in getting special education services.

'Wounded' Teachers Hit
Indiana Sheriff's Office
With Consitutional Suit
Preparation is a key to good teaching, but as a group of teachers maintain, they shouldn't have to endure getting shot at in the name of being
prepared.
After taking their story public last year, teachers in Indiana who were
shot at with plastic bullets as part of an active-shooter drill at their elementary school are taking it into the legal arena. They have sued the
White County sheriff's department that conducted the training, as well
as others, charging that the incident has caused long-term physical and
emotional effects.
In January 2019, the teachers from the Twin Lakes School Corp. district arrived for a voluntary professional-development session on activeshooter situations. None of them was informed of the content of the
training, which included being shot at close range, execution style, purportedly to show what could happen without preparation. The exercise
left the terrified teachers with welts and bruises and caused widespread
outrage after the Indiana State Teachers Association testified about it at
a state hearing several months later.
Several of the teachers, the complaint alleges, left the district, moved
to a different school, or retired as a direct result of the incident. One had
a permanent scar, two sought counseling, one was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, and all reported continuing anxiety and fear
around law-enforcement personnel and/or firearms.
Law-enforcement officers also were laughing or smirking at them during the exercises or otherwise appeared unconcerned about their pain
and distress, the teachers contend.
What's more, they argue that the officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights, which protect citizens from undue search and seizure, and
also fall afoul of a state law protecting people from the negligent infliction of emotional distress.
While active-shooter drills have been put on hold as schools have
largely moved to remote learning because of COVID-19, the larger conversation about which school safety measures are the most effective is
far from resolved.

Vol. 40 * Issue 3 * September 2, 2020

OPINION

4 Trump Targets History Class, School Choice

In Making His Bid for Second Term

16 Will Learning Pods

5 Deemed 'Essential Workers,'

Be Only for the Rich?

Some Teachers Told To Skip Quarantine
After COVID-19 Exposure

17 We're Teaching Digital

Citizenship All Wrong

6 Covid-19 May Drive Principals to Quit

20 The Hidden Racism of

7 Should Schools Suspend Sports?

Our School Financing System

The Debate Is Getting More Tense

8 Quality Counts: Grading the States

DEPARTMENTS
2 Briefly Stated
19 EdWeek Top School Jobs

VIDEOS

Try This at Home: Science
Experiments for All Ages
Science teacher Jonte Lee offers a series of
experiments for students from elementary
through high school to try at home, under
parental supervision, using supplies they likely
already have on hand.

www.edweek.org/go/videos-trythis

MAP

SNAPSHOTS

Where Has COVID-19 Closed
Schools? Where Are They Open?

School Districts' Reopening Plans

This national map will track each state's mandates
or recommendations on K-12 school closures and
openings related to the coronavirus.

See a working list of how over 500 of the nation's
school districts plan to reopen this fall.

www.edweek.org/go/district-snapshots

www.edweek.org/go/map-open

www.facebook.com/edweek

@EducationWeek

video.edweek.org

www.linkedin.com/company/edweek

www.edweek.org/go/instagram

FOUNDATION SUPPORT: Education Week is supported in part by grants from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
Carnegie Corporation of New York, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Charles Butt Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott
Foundatio, Field Foundation of Illinois, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Kern Family
Foundation, NEA Foundation, NewSchools Venture Fund, NoVo Foundation, Oak Foundation, Robert R.
McCormick Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Wallace Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation and William E. Simon Foundation.
ONLINE ACCESS: To claim your full online access, call customer service at (800) 445-8250. If you don't have
your own Education Week subscription, go online to edweek.org/offer and choose the subscription that meets
your needs.
EDUCATION WEEK (ISSN 0277-4232) is published 37 times per year: Weekly except 11/11, 12/16, 12/23, and
12/30/2020 and 1/27, 4/14, 5/19, 5/26, 6/23, 6/30, 7/7, 7/21, 7/28, 8/4, and 8/11/2021 by Editorial Projects in
Education Inc., offices located at 6935 Arlington Rd., Suite 100, Bethesda, MD 20814-5287; (301) 280-3100.
Subscriptions: U.S.: $129 for one year (37 issues). Canada: $197. Foreign: $237. Orders must be paid in U.S.
dollars. Periodicals postage paid at Bethesda, Md., and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send
address changes to EDUCATION WEEK, PO Box 2131, Williamsport, PA 17703. Vol. 40, Issue 3. Education Week
is a registered trademark of Editorial Projects in Education Inc. Copyright © 2020 by Editorial Projects in
Education Inc. All rights reserved.

2020 HONOREES

Nominate next year's
showcase leaders by
Sept. 15, 2020 >>
leaders.edweek.org/
nominate

EDUCATION WEEK | September 2, 2020 | www.edweek.org | 3

http://edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/go/videos-trythis http://www.edweek.org/go/district-snapshots http://www.edweek.org/go/map-open http://www.facebook.com/edweek http://www.linkedin.com/company/edweek http://video.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/go/instagram http://www.edweek.org/offer https://leaders.edweek.org/nominate/ https://leaders.edweek.org/nominate/ http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - September 2, 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - September 2, 2020