Indianapolis Public Schools will publicly post federal relief-fund spending- By Aaricka Washington, Chalkbeat

So that the public can see how Indianapolis Public Schools is using federal coronavirus relief funds, district officials plan to post online a tracker detailing how they are spending $213.5 million federal funds.

“We know folks are paying close attention to how schools are leveraging these dollars,” Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said on Tuesday. “We want to make sure that we are being as transparent as possible.”

The tracker will categorize spending within each of the three federal aid packages. It will show how much the district has spent in categories like instructional support and personal protective equipment. The tracker, which will include charts, will not break down expenditures by school.

The district plans to update the data quarterly. Viewers will be able to see the tracker on the district website later this week.

Louisiana planning $180M broadband internet expansion effort – from the Associated Press

Louisiana intends to spend $180 million over three years on grants to telecommunication firms that construct broadband internet infrastructure in underserved communities, hoping to lessen a technology gap exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

For thousands of Louisiana households and businesses, affordable high-speed internet is out of reach, making simple tasks of modern living such as internet browsing, online shopping or watching a YouTube video often impossible.

The Advocate reports the problem is particularly acute in Louisiana’s rural communities — where residents are widely dispersed and internet providers have little incentive to shell out the capital it takes to install fiber cables, the gold standard of broadband capabilities.

When the pandemic forced students into virtual classrooms, people in the rural city of Ville Platte struggled because they have some of the slowest internet speeds in the nation. Parking lots at McDonald’s and City Hall soon filled with residents in need of a hotspot.

As indoctrination task force talks K-12 education, Idaho State Board issues statement – By Becca Savransky, Idaho Statesman

Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s task force looking into indoctrination in Idaho schools met for the second time Thursday, with a focus on K-12 education.

Parents who showed support for the task force gave presentations, while the members did not hear from Idahoans opposed to the panel’s work or to the notion that indoctrination is taking place in classrooms. There also was no public testimony, but McGeachin said that won’t always be the case.

At the start, Republican Rep. Priscilla Giddings, the panel’s co-chair, presented a series of documents, which were also published online, that included lessons she said were from K-12 schools in the state, with references to ideas of equity and social justice.

The first document in the examples Giddings presented was a job posting from the Boise School District looking for a “building equity lead.” That position, according to the document, would “promote a culture of equity and inclusion for all students, families, employees and community.”

Also included in the series of documents was an article related to Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nikole Hannah Jones’ 1619 Project and implicit bias assessments. The 1619 Project was launched in August 2019 and commemorated the 400th anniversary of slaves arriving from Africa in Virginia.

Lawmakers, Newsom cut deal on state budget: Record spending on pre-K through college – By John Fensterwald, Michael Burke, Zaidee Stavely and Sydney Johnson, EdSource

Legislative leaders released a landmark state budget agreement late Friday that would add a year of school for all 4-year-olds, significantly expand Cal Grants and middle-class scholarships for college students and provide record funding for pre-K-12 schools anxious to use billions in one-time money to bounce back from a 15-month pandemic.

Both chambers of the Legislature will vote on identical $263 billion budget bills – Senate Bill 129 and Assembly Bill 129 –  on Monday, three days ahead of the start of the 2021-22 state fiscal year. The Senate will convene to consider the budget at 2 p.m and the Assembly at 3 p.m.

Still to arrive in coming days are a deal on reimbursement rates for child care providers — a sticking point between the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom – and the release of the education budget trailer bill. It will flesh out details of the agreement and is expected to spell out new requirements for remote learning and independent study for families that request it.

Newsom did not comment on the budget Friday. The chairs of the Legislature’s budget committees, Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, released highlights of the budget agreement.