School districts across the United States are hiring additional teachers in anticipation of what will be one of the largest kindergarten classes ever as enrollment rebounds following the coronavirus pandemic.

As they await the arrival next fall of students who sat out the current school year, educators are also bracing for many students to be less prepared than usual due to lower preschool attendance rates. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-kindergarten-preschool-surge-enrollment-95d6ce871622f527f16588c68dff3371

We Need To Be Nurtured, Too': Many Teachers Say They're Reaching A Breaking Point. More...

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/19/988211478/we-need-to-be-nurtured-too-many-teachers-say-theyre-reaching-a-breaking-point

 Educators use union power to ensure safety for students, staff

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of the ways in which teaching and learning happens in and out of school buildings. For the 2020-21 year, local school districts were allowed to make decisions for their schools and communities on which learning models would be used and how. This left many local educator unions stepping in. Using the power of negotiations, many unions came to agreements with districts, making sure that the safety and health — both physical and mental — of staff and students were at the forefront of those

Early care, learning focus of research

Every child deserves access to quality early care and learning. Our new EPIC report calls for raising revenue to provide universal child care and early childhood education. https://educationminnesota.org/advocacy/Educator-Policy-Innovation-Center/EPIC-reports

When teacher and author Torrey Maldonado was in third grade, his mother brought home A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats—the beloved book about a young Black boy exploring his city in fresh snow. 

Until then, Maldonaldo—who is Black and Afro-Puerto Rican—had never seen a kid who looked like him in a book. “I thought that book was me! I thought the mother was my mom,” he says. “What made that book so precious to me is it took my neighborhood and made me see the magic in it.” https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/why-we-need-diverse-books

President-elect Joe Biden unveiled an ambitious plan on Thursday to help the nation emerge from the economic and public health wreckage that has devastated millions of lives across the country over the past ten months. He called on Congress to provide the necessary investments to help reopen schools safely, save educator jobs and attack the crippling inequities the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/biden-pledges-critical-investments-public-education-combat-covid