California education news: What’s the latest?

California’s Legislature will likely hold hearings on Title IX compliance across the state’s higher education segments, said Mike Fong, chair of the Assembly’s Higher Education Committee.

Specific dates for the hearings have not yet been determined, but they could be held next spring, according to Fong’s office.

Last month, a long-awaited report by a law firm described a broken system of Title IX compliance across the 23-campus California State University system, finding that sexual harassment and discrimination complaints are often ignored across the campuses.

Fong has said that he wants to address Title IX compliance at CSU but also at the University of California and the state’s system of community colleges. The hearings will focus on all three segments.

“This is something we’re going to take a closer look at,” he said.

East Oakland organization Homies Empowerment will open its first Freedom high school on Sept. 11, despite losing laptops, projectors and other equipment in a burglary, Oaklandside reported.

The organization received an outpouring of community support following the break-in, according to Oaklandside. They garnered more than $13,000 in donations to replace the stolen items and upgrade security measures.

Homies Empowerment has been planning the Freedom School for several years, according to Oaklandside. The small, free school is not affiliated with Oakland Unified or any charter group and aims to serve students who aren’t adjusting well to the large comprehensive high schools as well as youth who have been involved in gangs or in the criminal justice system.

The school also aims to fill a gap left by the absence of expulsion school Community Day, which Oakland Unified closed in 2022.

Six of the seven bus drivers for the Miller Creek School District’s bus service and a mechanic have retired, resigned or gone on medical leave in the past year, the Marin Independent Journal reported Thursday.

Despite their efforts, the district has not been able to hire replacements, the IJ reported, forcing the district to cut some of its bus routes.

Last year, the district operated five routes serving three elementary schools and one middle school, as well as a driver for preschool students and students in special education. This year, the district is contracting with an outside school bus transportation provider to offer two bus routes serving mostly Miller Creek Middle School and Mary E. Silveria and Vallecito elementary schools. The district will also have a smaller van for transporting students in special education.

National education leaders gathered at the White House to discuss keeping schools safe from cyberattacks at the Back to School Safely: Cybersecurity Summit for K-12 Schools this week.

Terry Loftus, chief information officer for the San Diego County Office of Education, joined U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, First Lady Jill Biden, and educators and representatives of private sector companies to discuss best practices and the resources available to strengthen schools’ cybersecurity. 

Under Loftus’s guidance, the San Diego County Office of Education has been a cybersecurity leader in the K-12 education community. San Diego COE was the first in the state to fully implement multi-factor authentication, which acts as an additional layer of security to prevent unauthorized users from accessing accounts. The county office is also the creator of Red Herring, a training and testing platform that enables school districts to simulate phishing attacks and train staff to identify suspicious emails and other security threats.

The United States has experienced an increase in cyberattacks targeting the nation’s schools in recent years. Sensitive personal student and employee information – including student grades, medical records, documented home issues, behavioral information, and financial information – has been stolen and publicly disclosed.  “We know that our nation’s K-12 system makes high-quality education accessible to all, and is an institution that is key to the future prosperity of the United States,” Loftus said. “Unfortunately, our K-12 sector is deeply under-resourced and outmatched when it comes to evolving and increasing cybersecurity threats.”

Loftus said K-12 school districts, charter schools, county offices of education, and state-level agencies must work together to develop and share best practices while building partnerships between the U.S. Department of Education and other state and federal partners.

Students at Modesto City Schools now have to scan in when boarding school buses, The Modesto Bee reported.

The district is using a program called Zonar Z Pass that allows parents, guardians and authorized district staff, to track students’ bus rides on a digital app, the newspaper reported. Students will be issued cards that they will scan when getting on and off buses, according to the newspaper.

It was not immediately clear how many other school districts in the state use similar software to track students on buses. The Bee reported similar systems are in place in the Twin Rivers and Clovis districts in Sacramento and Fresno counties.

The union representing teachers in the Chino Valley Unified School District has filed labor complaints with the state over recently enacted policies that require the identification of transgender students to their parents and ban gay pride flags in classrooms, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise reported.

In the complaint filed Tuesday with the California Public Employment Relations Board, the Associated Chino Teachers alleges the district failed to negotiate with the union before enacting the new rules, one of which limits protected union speech, the complaint charged.

“Unfortunately, our Board is creating headlines by focusing on things that don’t benefit students and that divide our community,” said ACT President Brenda Walker in a news release about the union’s action, The Press-Enterprise reported.

A district spokesperson said officials learned of the complaint Wednesday and were gathering more information about them, the newspaper reported.

The district, in San Bernardino County, is being investigated by the state Department of Justice for potential civil rights violations after passing the transgender identification policy, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced earlier this month. The school board president has called the investigation an “intimidation tactic.”

The debate over whether the college admissions process discriminates against Asian Americans has persisted for decades, as Higher Ed Dive reported. One of the two lawsuits that led to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against race-conscious admissions alleged that Harvard University sets a higher bar for Asian American applicants.

The National Bureau of Economic Research report found that the admissions gap between white and Asian American admission rates is actually separate and “conceptually distinct” from affirmative action. Indeed, common institutional policies, like legacy admissions favoring alumni’s family members, disproportionately hurt Asian American students, the paper found.

Researchers analyzed the test scores, grade point averages and extracurricular activities of almost 686,000 college applications from roughly 293,000 Asian American and white students. They further disaggregated Asian American student data by South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia subgroups. The data spans five admission cycles, beginning with 2015-16.

Legacy is one of the key issues. Both white and Asian American legacy applicants were more than twice as likely to be accepted than applicants without legacy status. But East Asian and Southeast Asian students were roughly three times less likely to have legacy status than white students. The likelihood for South Asian students plummeted almost six times lower than white students.

To make matters worse, Asian American applicants can not simply outperform their competition, the paper said. Even though they had higher average standardized test scores than white students, they faced worse odds of being admitted. Among students in the 99th percentile of test takers, South Asian students were 43% less likely to be accepted to a selective college than white students.

A court of appeals in San Francisco decided in favor of immigrant parents’ right to vote in the city’s school board elections.

San Francisco voters first passed a measure in 2016 allowing all parents of children living in the city to vote in school board elections, regardless of their citizenship status. Prior to that measure, only U.S. citizens could vote in school board elections, and not permanent residents, or green-card holders, immigrants with work visas, or undocumented immigrants. Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal, state and most local elections.

The San Francisco Superior Court had struck down the measure after a conservative group United States Justice Foundation and its president, James V. Lacy,  contested immigrant parents’ right to vote, arguing that it violated California’s constitution. Lacy said that allowing parents who are not U.S. citizens to vote “dilutes” the vote of U.S. citizens.

The city and county of San Francisco then appealed. Proponents of the San Francisco measure say that all parents should have a say in who runs their children’s schools, regardless of their immigration status.

“As a parent of a high school student heading back to classes next week, I am very relieved that the Court ruled in our favor,” said immigrant parent Amos Lim in a press release sent by the group Chinese for Affirmative Action. “Having a voice at the ballot box to decide the educational goals for my daughter is very important to me. I look forward to registering to vote again at the next SFUSD School Board election.”

Lacy, who filed the original lawsuit challenging the measure, said in an email, “The ruling of the Court of Appeals denigrates the integrity of elections for the San Francisco school board by devaluing citizenship as the key qualification for voting, and opens the door for further erosion of election integrity throughout the state.”

Lacy has ten days to file an appeal with the California Supreme Court. He said he may decide instead to file a federal court case against allowing non-citizens to vote.

San Francisco is not the only city to allow non-citizen parents to vote in school board elections. Oakland also passed a measure allowing parents who are not U.S. citizens to vote in school board elections in 2022. Before the pandemic, the Los Angeles Unified School District began considering the idea as well.

Chicago also allows non-citizen parents to vote in local school council elections. New York City allowed non-citizen parents to vote in school board elections from 1968 to 2003, before the city began appointing instead of electing school board members. New York City and some cities in Maryland and Vermont allow permanent residents and those authorized to work in the U.S. to vote in city elections.

The cost of child care has been rising steadily, a new report shows, and many families now spend more than the government considers affordable, as CNBC reported. Coupled with the sharply rising costs of housing and food, experts say, many families are being squeezed hard. 

Two-thirds of families, 67%, spend 20% or more of their household income on child care, according to a recent report by Care.com that surveyed 3,000 parents. That’s up from 51% in 2022.

While 79% of families expect to spend more than $9,600 per child this year, many are spending significantly more than that. On average, families spend 27% of their household income on child care. For 59% of parents surveyed, that means shelling out a whopping $18,000 a year per child, researchers found. 

It should be noted that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers 7% of income to be affordable for child care.  

“Child care is claiming a disproportionate amount of household incomes, and a decade of rising child care costs should be a wakeup call that the system as we know it completely fails the vast majority of families,” wrote Tim Allen, CEO of Care.com, in a statement.

Education leaders and policymakers aren’t doing enough to increase teacher diversity, according to a report released today by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The report, “State of the States 2023: Policies to Increase Teacher Diversity” found that seven states have set public goals for increasing diversity in their teacher workforce; 14 have passed initiatives to retain teachers of color, and only a few states offer either financial incentives or career pathways explicitly to attract teachers of color.

Research has shown having teachers of color in the classroom increases academic outcomes for all students.

“We know the importance of teachers of color for all students, and we need to put state policies in place to attract, support and retain them,” said Heather Peske, NCTQ president. “The good news is that state policymakers don’t have to start from scratch. There are many examples of states leading the way. We need more bold action to scale these efforts.” 

The report credits California for spending $350 million on its teacher residency program, a pathway teachers of color rated highly in a Rand Corp. survey. California schools primarily teach students of color — 79% — but just 39% of educators are teachers of color. 

The report recommends increased pay, better benefits, loan forgiveness and scholarships for teacher candidates, expanded teacher preparation programs at minority-serving institutions, teacher licensing reciprocity agreements, leadership pathways for teachers, teacher residencies and more supportive school administrators, to diversify the workforce.

The school board for the Murrieta Valley Unified School District this week will consider a policy to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender, The Press-Enterprise reported.

The consideration comes weeks after Chino Valley Unified’s board passed a policy to notify parents if their child asks to be identified by a different gender or a name other than their legal name, or if the child accesses a bathroom or takes part in programs that don’t align with the gender on their student records. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced he is launching a civil rights investigation into that district.

A copy of the policy approved by the Chino Valley school board is included in the agenda items for Thursday’s Murrieta Valley board meeting, according to The Press-Enterprise.

Paul Diffley, the president of the Murrieta Valley board, told The Press-Enterprise that the board won’t use Chino Valley’s policy “word for word” but said it could serve as an “interesting guide” as the Murrieta Valley board considers taking action.

The University of California admitted a record number of California resident first-year students for this fall, extending admission offers to 88,285 of them, a 3.5% increase over last year.

The increases come after this year’s state budget included a 5% increase in UC’s base funding, which Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers awarded UC with the expectation that the system of nine undergraduate campuses would enroll more California residents.

UC also admitted slightly more transfer students from California community colleges.

UC also accepted more Latino students. By admitting 33,198 Latino students, those students represented 38% of the admitted first-year students, up from 37% a year ago.

Among campuses, the biggest increase in admission offers was at UC Santa Cruz, which admitted 44% more first-year California students than it did a year ago.

Whether the higher admission numbers result in more students actually enrolling at UC won’t be known for months. Most UC campuses don’t resume classes until September, and the university system typically doesn’t announce fall enrollment data until months after that. But the system’s president, Michael Drake, said in a statement Tuesday that the latest admission data reflects UC’s “commitment to expanding opportunity.”

“We’re pleased to support thousands more Californians who wish to pursue a higher education, benefitting themselves and communities across the state,” he added.

Over the past four years, the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University and Vanguard University admitted students who had donor or alumni connections but failed to meet minimum admissions requirements, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

USC admitted eight students who did not meet admission requirements — including two who did not meet minimum math requirements and two who failed to prove they graduated from high school.

At USC, applicants with ties to alumni or donors are given a “special interest tag,” which does not “guarantee an applicant’s admission, nor does it shift an applicant to a fast-track admission process,” the university said in its reports.

“Like other highly selective universities, we use a holistic admissions approach that considers all aspects of each individual applicant’s qualifications and achievements,” Lauren Bartlett, a spokesperson for USC, said in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Federal law does not permit us to discuss individual admissions decisions.”

Meanwhile, Pepperdine University admitted fewer than 10 legacy students who didn’t meet their admission requirements in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years.

Vanguard University, however, reportedly accepted less than 10 of these students in three of the past four academic years.

“In the most recent academic year, Vanguard University did not enroll any legacy students who were below standard requirements,” Michael J. Beals wrote in a statement to the Chronicle, noting that the school includes 68% students of color, 51% Pell Grant-eligible and 35% first generation.”

Nine San Diego Unified School District police officers are planning to sue the district, the department’s police chief and the superintendent, alleging they have faced corruption, retaliation and favoritism, CBS8 reported.

“It quickly became apparent there were now two camps within the same police department,” John Gomez, the attorney representing the officers, told CBS8.

He noted that many of the challenges faced by the officers came from an alleged personal relationship between the chief, Alfonso Contreras, and one of his subordinates.

“If you approved of the relationship between the chief and the sergeant, according to the evidence, you were afforded favoritism, better opportunities, better treatment. If you disfavored or did not support this relationship, you were subject to retaliation, intimidation and bad treatment,” Gomez said.

According to Gomez, the officers presented their allegations to Superintendent Lamont Jackson — but claimed nothing was done.

Gomez said the officers would like Contreras to be placed on administrative leave and for an investigation to take place.

“We are asking them to protect those who serve and protect our students. Not just sit back and protect those who serve the chief of police … and his club,” said Jesus Montana, one of the officers.

Meanwhile, San Diego Unified said in a statement that “the district is precluded from disclosing the details of personnel matters and does not discuss pending litigation. All allegations received by the district are taken seriously and investigated.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has launched a civil rights investigation into Chino Valley Unified, whose board passed a policy in July that requires district staff to notify parents if their child asks to be identified by a different gender, a name other than their legal name or accesses a bathroom or takes part in programs that don’t align with the gender on their official records.

The investigation follows a letter sent by Bonta to the Superintendent Norman Enfield and the board on July 20, the day of the school board vote, expressing his concern about the proposed policy. Bonta cited California Department of Education guidance warning that a district may violate the state’s antidiscrimination laws and a student’s right to privacy if they disclose that the student is transgender.  Gender identity is a protected privacy right under the California and U.S. Constitution, Bonta said in the letter.

The letter also warned that “outing” students to parents could result in emotional, mental and physical harm and subject them to discriminatory harassment. 

“Students should never fear going to school for simply being who they are,” said Bonta, in a press release Friday. “Chino Valley Unified’s forced outing policy threatens the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ students vulnerable to harassment and potential abuse from peers and family members unaccepting of their gender identity. Today’s announcement stresses our commitment to challenging school policies that target and seek to discriminate against California’s most vulnerable communities. California will not stand for violations of our students’ civil rights.”

San Jose mayor Matt Mahan held a press conference Thursday where he spoke in favor of an ordinance that would ban homeless encampments and vehicle dwellings within 150 feet of San Jose preschools, day cares and K-12 schools.

The San Jose Spotlight reports that the press conference was held at KIPP San Jose Collegiate, a public charter high school. Students from the school spoke in favor of the measure. KIPP Principal Kim Vo said addressing homelessness has been costly for the school, prompting it to hire private security.

“Many of these students standing behind me this morning … spoke out because homeless neighbors were sleeping on school grounds and in school bathrooms. They spoke out because they were finding needles on their lunch tables,” Mahan said. “Our students should not have to face the ramifications of our failure on homelessness.”

Last year Los Angeles passed a highly contest similar measure that banned encampments within 500 feet of schools.

Gene Block, who has served as UCLA’s chancellor since 2007, will step down from the position next summer, the university announced Thursday.

“Since I became chancellor 16 years ago, UCLA has been my community and my home, a source of endless inspiration, and an indelible part of who I am,” Block said. “Serving as the leader of our university has been the greatest honor of my life.”

In a news release, UCLA touted a number of accomplishments the campus achieved under Block’s leadership, including increasing student enrollment by 24%, growing research funding to $1.7 billion and ranking as the top public university in the country in the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

With Block planning to step down, that means that both UCLA and UC Berkeley will be searching for new chancellors at the same time. Carol Christ, UC Berkeley’s chancellor, announced in June that she plans to retire next summer.

A jury deciding the fate of a former San Jose State athletic trainer accused of sexually assaulting female athletes is scheduled for a fourth day of deliberations on Thursday, powering on after declaring they were deadlocked over some of the charges in a trial in U.S. District Court, the Mercury News reported.

The case involves former trainer Scott Shaw, 56,  who is facing six federal charges of violating the constitutional rights to “bodily integrity” of four women. He has pleaded not guilty. He left the university voluntarily in 2020 — some 11 years after 17 members of the women’s swim team first complained that he touched them inappropriately under their sports bras and underwear, the newspaper reported.

U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman instructed the jury to “continue your deliberations” Tuesday after a juror wrote in a note to the judge: “We are deadlocked with at least one, and quite likely more, unmovable jurors on each side (guilty vs. not guilty,). What do we do now?” according to the Mercury News. Jurors deliberated Wednesday, reviewing the testimony of an athlete who said Shaw inappropriately touched her breast.

A legal analyst who has been following the case told the newspaper the deliberations were entering “a critical state.”

“At some point, the judge, after consultation with the parties and jurors, has to decide whether to pull the plug on deliberations and declare a mistrial,” said legal analyst Steve Clark, a San Jose defense lawyer who has been following the case, “Thereafter, the jurors will be free to discuss the case, which will be very helpful to both sides in how this case moves forward.”

The parents of a student who was beaten in a classroom in March have filed a claim against the Newman-Crows Landing Unified School District in Stanislaus County claiming it didn’t protect their daughter despite years of bullying, The Modesto Bee reported.

The claim — a precursor to a lawsuit — alleges a teacher who witnessed the March 6 assault did nothing to stop it. It occurred at Westside Valley High School in Newman and was captured on video, The Bee reported.

A voice on the video, presumably the teacher, can be heard saying “Stop,” “Stop it” and “You need to stop.” The teacher is never shown in the video coming to the student’s aid. The person who took the video is heard laughing. The video later was sent out over the internet, according to The Bee’s report.

The alleged assailants were two females who were not students at the school. Modesto attorney Adam Stewart, who served the district with the legal claim Monday, said the district was negligent in supervision and did not ensure the girl’s safety, despite prior knowledge of bullying and harassment.

Fresno Unified School District will expand outdoor Wi-Fi access at 94 of its school campuses, the school board approved earlier this summer. 

The move will provide students as well as staff and campus visitors with internet access in more areas across the school campuses, specifically in outdoor spaces that students use during lunch and after school, district spokesperson Nikki Henry said via email. 

“This gives students access to online educational resources across their daily journey on campus,” Henry said. 

Pacific OnSource, located in Simi Valley, will install the equipment to support the outdoor wireless access, which is expected to be available by the middle of the school year.

The $205,000 costs are a part of the 2023-24 school year budget — a $2.3 billion spending plant that prioritized students’ social-emotional and physical health, campus safety, and facility improvements, The Fresno Bee reported. 

The teachers’ union in Temecula Valley Unified, students and parents are suing the district’s board of trustees for banning the teaching of “Critical Race Theory and other similar frameworks.”

The group that filed the lawsuit says the resolution has “chilled many teachers into silence” on many different topics, from LGBTQ history to the history of civil rights.

“As a teacher, my role is to introduce my students to a broad range of viewpoints so they can learn to think critically and form their own opinions about the world,” said Dawn Sibby, teacher at Temecula Valley High School, in a release announcing the lawsuit. “This ban has created a climate of fear in our classrooms, and it is preventing my students from learning about the history and diversity of our nation. I’m proud to be a plaintiff in this case to fight for my students, who deserve an education not censored by Board members’ ideological beliefs.”

The students, parents and educators are represented by the nonprofit organization Public Counsel and the law firm Ballard Spahr LLP. They also have the support of the statewide union, California Teachers Association.

According to the Los Angeles Times, “if the suit overturns the ban, it could have a broad effect in California, where a small number of districts, including Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified, have passed similar bans or restricted instruction on race.”

District officials were not available to comment to the Times.

Los Angeles Unified School District board member George McKenna will join Jackie Goldberg in not running for re-election, the Los Angeles Times reported.

McKenna plans to serve out the remainder of his term through 2024.

“I am and will always be an educator,” McKenna said in an interview with the Los Angeles Sentinel, where he announced his decision, adding that he’s been “able to make a difference in some ways, and not as much as I would like in others.”

In 1979, McKenna began his decade as the principal of Washington Preparatory High School. His work there inspired a movie, in which he was portrayed by Denzel Washington.

He later became Inglewood Unified’s superintendent and took on various leadership roles in the Compton and Pasadena school districts.

McKenna grew up in a segregated New Orleans and is the only Black member of the school board. During his tenure on the LAUSD board, he has supported Black student achievement, but also backed school policing.

“Jackie Goldberg and George McKenna are pillars in the Los Angeles Unified community,” LAUSD Supertinendent Alberto Carvalho said Tuesday in the LA Times article. “Their commitment, achievements and impact could never be captured in a single statement as their work has transcended what we often expect from public servants. Both are trailblazers on educational and social issues not only in our community, but across the entire nation.”

Many school districts are still scrambling to fill teacher positions, just days or weeks before the new school year begins.

Oakland Unified was still searching for almost 100 teachers, especially bilingual and special education teachers, on July 25, according to The Oaklandside. Oakland Unified starts school Aug. 7.

According to NBC Bay Area, both Alum Rock Union School District and Franklin-McKinley School District in San Jose are still searching for teachers, as well.

NBC reports that there were more than 10,000 teacher vacancies across the state at the end of the 2022 school year, according to the California Commision on Teacher Credentialing.

Fewer students enrolled this year in San Diego Unified’s summer enrichment program, something district officials said was done intentionally so they could offer more programming to those who did enroll, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

About 8,000 students enrolled, down from 23,500 last year and 13,700 the year before, according to the Union-Tribune. About 71% of those enrolled are what the district considers “priority” students, according to the Union-Tribune. Those include low-income students, homeless students, foster youth, English learners and disabled students.

The district intentionally enrolled fewer students so that it could provide more hours of programming for them, Tobie Pace, the district’s senior director of extended learning opportunities, told the news outlet.

In the past, the district offered a number of part-time programs during the summer that lasted only a few hours over just a few days each week. This year, the district offered full-time programs — nine hours per day, five days each week.

“The actual numbers are overall lower than what we’ve had the previous two years. However, the … hours of programming are larger than we’ve ever had,” Pace told the Union-Tribune.

Sonora Union High School District has settled a lawsuit with a former female student-athlete and agreed to pay $3.5 million after the former student sued the district, saying she was sexually abused by former varsity basketball coach Amy Emerald, according to The Union Democrat.

Emerald, who formerly went by Amy Santos, was arrested in 2019 after the former student reported to the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office that she had been abused. The Union Democrat did not identify the former student, keeping with the newspaper’s policy to not identify sexual abuse victims without their consent.

Emerald was sentenced in 2020 to two years and eight months in state prison as part of a plea deal.

The latest settlement was part of a lawsuit brought by the former student. The settlement was reached during the fourth day of a jury trial that had been expected to last two weeks, according to The Union Democrat.

Ed Pelfrey, the district’s superintendent, said in a statement that the district was “pleased a resolution could be reached.”

After four decades of public service in multiple roles, Jackie Goldberg, the current president of the Los Angeles Unified School Board, announced she will retire upon completing her term in December 2024.

“It’s been the honor of my life to advocate for children. I got into this work, starting with teaching, because I wanted the best educational experience for teachers and students everywhere. LAUSD is filled with the most astounding, remarkable, inspiring kids, and they are taught and supported by teachers and staff who fight hard every day for them,” Goldberg said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, the hard truth is that there isn’t enough money for our kids. When I first started teaching in the late 1960s, California was one of the top states in the country in per-student spending. Today, we’re 33rd in the nation. Our students deserve better. As a state, we must do better. We must commit ourselves to long-term solutions to get them what they need.”

Goldberg started her career as an educator in the late 1960s and helped develop a new, effective reading program that launched her school’s scores from being the lowest in the state to being on par with the California average in three years. She has also continuously advocated for equity and pushed for resources.

As a City Council member, she brought funding to afterschool programs and saw the district through earthquakes and years of economic development.

Goldberg also chaired the Education Committee as a member of the state Assembly, overseeing statewide education budgets and working to combat overcrowding through a series of bond measures.

In 1994, she made history as the first openly lesbian city councilmember in Los Angeles’ history and passed legislation that extended domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples.

“I’ll miss all of this — the students, and the people who care for them — more than I can say.”

Efforts to eliminate legacy admissions in the state’s private universities are ramping up, as state Assemblymember Phil Ting aims to revamp efforts to deny state financial aid to campuses that favor alumni or donors’ children, the Los Angeles Times reported.

About 14.4% of the University of Southern California’s 2022 admitted class had either alumni or donor connections. Roughly 13.8% of Stanford’s admitted class and 13.1% of Santa Clara’s admitted class fell into that same bracket.

By comparison, more than 70 private colleges and universities in California do not consider alumni or donor connections, including Caltech and Pomona College.

“This is about educational access,” Ting, chair of the powerful Assembly Budget Committee, told the LA Times. “We grow up thinking that merit gets us into Stanford or Harvard or any of these elite institutions; that it’s really about having the best grades. But what you see is that there’s a very big back door for people who can just write the check. We shouldn’t be subsidizing or condoning that kind of behavior.”

The San Diego Unified School District will expand PrimeTime, its after-school programs for elementary and middle school, this coming academic year, reports KPBS.

Eight additional schools will offer the service — making 125 with the PrimeTime program — and more students will be allowed to attend the individual sites. The district is using a new state grant to fund the program.

“With the additional Extended Learning Opportunities Program grant, it gives us the opportunity to expand the program and serve as many students as we can possibly serve,” Christiane Trout-McPhee, manager of PrimeTime and licensed child care programs for San Diego Unified, told KPBS.

For some individual campuses, the addition of PrimeTime means more programs to house, as several already have licensed care run by outside organizations that parents pay for.

PrimeTime is a free program, and some students are given priority including those who were enrolled the previous year, students growing up in single-parent or military households and those in need of additional academic support.

Because of the grant money available this year, the district is hoping that most students who need it will have access. The main limitation, Trout-McPhee told KPBS, is a lack of staff.

“We are working with our PrimeTime partner organizations to help increase the staff, to provide the support to our students and absorb the students from the waitlist,” Trout-McPhee told KPBS. “So it is a gradual increase because there’s a lot of training that happens and we want to be sure that the staff that are working with our students are very interested in wanting to work with students.”

A state Superior Court judge in Butte County has thrown out a libel suit suspended Chico State Professor David Stachura brought against a colleague who revealed at a public forum in December that Stachura allegedly threatened gun violence on campus.

Judge Stephen E. Bensen ruled that biology lecturer Betsey Tamietti’s revelations “were a matter of public interest” in a tentative ruling he first issued late Tuesday and later made final.

Tamietti said at a Dec. 12 campus-wide forum that Stachura told her in late 2021 that he might shoot up the biology department, saying ‘“If I wanted you guys dead, you’d be dead. I am a doer. If I do go on a shooting spree, maybe I’ll pass your office. I am not sure.’”

Stachura has repeatedly claimed in legal papers and in testimony in a related restraining order case that Tamietti is lying and that he made no such threats. Stachura’s attorney, Kasra Parsad did not respond to a message seeking comment on the ruling.

“Although sometimes determining whether speech is a matter of public interest can be nebulous, that is not the case here,” Benson wrote in the ruling. “Obviously, matters concerning school safety are a public issue and have been a public issue for years. Clearly, this was a matter of public interest as far as those associated with (Chico State) were concerned.”

The ruling does not affect Stachuta’s estranged wife, Miranda King, who he has also sued for libel. King wrote in an application for a domestic violence restraining order in 2021 in the midst of the couple’s ongoing divorce that Stachura told her he had bought weapons and ammunition in 2020 with the intention of killing two colleagues who cooperated in a campus investigation that found he had a prohibited sexual affair with a student.

Stachura contends King – who made the statements to a judge in writing under the penalty of perjury – is lying.

In a court filing King’s lawyer, Michael J. Farley wrote that King did not libel Stachura because her statements were true, that they were made in the defense of others, and were protected speech under the First Amendment and other legal grounds. Farley did not respond to a message.

“The University is pleased the court found the lawsuit against Betsey Tamietti to be without merit,” Chico State spokesman Andrew Staples said. “She, along with other employees involved in this matter who have shared their experiences, continues to have our support.”

Stachura was suspended indefinitely after EdSource reported in December that he allegedly threatened to kill the two colleagues who cooperated in the investigation of his affair with the student. He denied the affair. When the matter became public, it roiled the campus of 13,000, with faculty and students blasting the university’s decision to keep the security threat secret. Provost Debra Larson, who approved light punishment of Stachura for the affair, resigned. Students and faculty have demanded increased security and other changes.

Documents filed by Tamietti’s lawyers in the libel case show the university began a new personnel investigation in March into whether Stachura “engaged in dishonesty” during the previous of investigation of his affair with the student, as well as sexual harassment and retaliation against the professors who cooperated in to the 2020 investigation.

A different judge is expected to rule in the workplace violence restraining order case no later than early October.

Teens in multicultural environments struggle academically and socially if they don’t receive consistent and positive messages at school, home and among their peers about cultures that are not their own, according to a UC Davis study published Wednesday.

UC Davis surveyed more than 700 teens at public schools in the Southwestern U.S. to find that even though the respondents attended ethnically diverse schools which taught about multiple cultures, they didn’t always get the same messages from their friends and families. That mixed messaging affected their academic engagement and their goals for higher education, according to the study.

“Youth need to successfully interact with and be socially connected to people from diverse backgrounds, it’s important to be full partakers in this fabric of society and appreciate cultural traditions that are not their own,” said Maciel M. Hernandez, assistant professor of human ecology and lead author of the study.

Occidental College in Los Angeles is one of the latest private universities to end the practice of legacy admissions — where prospective students’ family ties to university alumni are considered in their application — following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to remove race from college admission decisions, the Associated Press reported.

Critics have decried legacy admissions as reverse affirmative action: studies have shown that the practice mostly benefits white and wealthy applicants. Without the counterbalance of affirmative action, opponents say legacy admissions are no longer defensible, according to the Associated Press.

Occidental College President Harry J. Elam Jr. said in a campus message that the decision ensures “we are removing any potential barriers to access and opportunity.”

Connecticut’s Wesleyan University announced last week that it would end the practice, and several others, including Johns Hopkins University in Maryland have ended it in recent years.

The U.S. Education Department is investigating Harvard’s legacy admissions practices after a civil rights group filed a complaint alleging the practice gives white students an unfair advantage.

The First District Court of Appeal heard oral arguments today about whether or not immigrant parents who are not U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in school board elections in San Francisco.

San Francisco voters passed a ballot measure in November 2016 that allows parents and guardians of children living in the city to vote in school board elections, even if they are not U.S. citizens. The law applies to permanent residents, or green-card holders, immigrants with visas that allow them to work in the U.S., and undocumented immigrants. People who are not U.S. citizens are not eligible to vote in federal elections, California state elections and in most other local elections.

A lawsuit challenging the measure was filed in 2021 by the conservative group United States Justice Foundation and its president, James V. Lacy, and a court found the measure to be unconstitutional. Lacy argued that allowing parents who are not U.S. citizens to vote “dilutes” the vote of U.S. citizens.

Now, the city of San Francisco has appealed.

Proponents of the San Francisco measure say that all parents should have a say in who runs their children’s schools, regardless of their immigration status.

“Allowing immigrant parents to vote in school board elections is not only permissible, but beneficial to our communities,” said City Attorney David Chiu in a press release. “Giving all parents a voice in the direction of our schools leads to better outcomes for our students.”

The same group that filed the lawsuit against San Francisco has also sued the city of Oakland, which passed a similar measure in 2022.

Before the pandemic, the Los Angeles Unified School District began considering the idea as well. Chicago allows noncitizen parents to vote in local school council elections. New York City and some cities in Maryland and Vermont allow permanent residents and those authorized to work in the U.S. to vote in city elections. Non-citizen parents in New York City could also vote in school board elections from 1968 to 2003, when the city began appointing instead of electing school board members.

A ruling is expected within 90 days.

Two former employees of the Patterson Joint Unified School District in Stanislaus County are the subjects of an FBI investigation, The Tracy Press reported.

The FBI raided the homes of former Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services Jeffrey Menge and Information Technology Director Eric Drabert in May, the newspaper reported.

Items seized from Menge’s home included a 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia valued at $159,300, a 2010 Audi R8 Quattro valued at $73,200, and more than $30,000 in cash, The Press reported, citing federal records. Items seized from Drabert’s home included electronics valued at $1,756.50.

Patterson Joint Unified Superintendent Reyes Gauna told the newspaper that his administration is fully cooperating with the probe. Gauna said that once the investigation is concluded he intends to call a community meeting that will allow “people to be able to ask questions (and) I’ll give everyone a timeline for what happened.”

San Francisco is gaining momentum in efforts to build housing dedicated to teachers with the announcement that $32 million has been allocated for two more educator projects, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The housing will be built in the Mission and Hayes Valley neighborhoods.

The funding will help finance a 63-unit development at 2205 Mission St. and a 75-unit project at 750 Golden Gate Ave, the newspaper reported. In addition to classroom teachers, the housing will be open to paraeducators and early education providers within the San Francisco Unified School District and the San Francisco Community College District, the Chronicle reported.

“San Francisco has been building thousands of new affordable homes and we need to keep pushing for more, including for our educators,” the newspaper reported San Francisco Mayor London Breed as saying. “Having our educators be a part of our community instead of having to drive long distances makes our whole public education system stronger.”

Jannelle Kubinec, WestEd’s chief administrative officer, will take the reins of the non-profit education research organization in October after the retirement of long-time CEO Glen Harvey.

Kubinec has held leadership positions at WestEd for the past 12 years, helping to guide the state through the redesign of its K-12 funding formula and serving as the manager of a team of researchers and policy experts that developed the California Master Plan for Early Learning and Care, according to a press release from WestEd. 

“We believe that Jannelle will provide exactly the leadership necessary to help WestEd and its partners and clients navigate the complex environment currently surrounding education and human development,” said Ken Coll, WestEd board chairman. “She will help WestEd maintain our laser-like focus on equity and excellence, as we continue to conduct and apply rigorous research to address the wide range of challenges in education and human development in order to reduce opportunity gaps and help build communities where all can thrive.”

Kubinec, who has been the organization’s chief administrative officer for four years, was selected following a national search.

Kubinec is a member of the EdSource board of directors.

The California Legislature has removed one hurdle for community colleges that want to build student housing – the state architectural review.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 358, or the Community College Housing Act, last week. It exempts community colleges from the requirement that they have architectural plans for student housing approved by the Department of General Services’ Division of State Architect. Faculty housing is already exempt from review from the Division of State Architect.

“I am thrilled that Governor Newsom has signed the California Community College Housing Act,” said Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay. “Housing insecurity is a worsening and pervasive problem across our campuses. This bill will help boost the housing supply at our community colleges, providing much-needed housing to thousands of students across the state.”

This bill will become law on Jan. 1, 2024.

Seventeen organizations encompassing a cross-section of California education interests added a postscript to an exhausting four-year effort to pass a revised math curriculum framework by signing a statement endorsing it and pledging their support in implementing it. 

“As the Mathematics Framework begins implementation throughout the state, we stand ready to assist with the process of ensuring teachers are well-versed with the successful strategies and resources for teaching California’s rigorous mathematics standards to improve student opportunities and outcomes,” said the statement, which the State Board of Education released this week.

The signers included the three largest school management organizations, representing school boards, county superintendents and school administrators; the California Teachers Association; the two largest school districts – Los Angeles and San Diego; and several statewide student advocacy groups – among them Californians for Justice, Californians Together and Children Now.

The success in implementing the framework, focusing on teacher training, will rely on a cross-sector of organizations working together, but also will depend on funding from the Legislature in next year’s budget and coordination by the California Department of Education. The department has not yet announced a plan. 

Shereen Walter has been named the president of the California State PTA for a two-year term.

Walter, a resident of Orange County and the mother of three, has been a PTA volunteer at the local, regional and state levels for more than 20 years, according to a press release from the PTA. Her roles have included terms in state leadership positions, including as the vice president for health and community concerns, the director of legislation and the president-elect.

The California PTA is the largest volunteer-led child advocacy association in the state.

Walter has a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of California, Irvine, is a small business owner and the president of a local non-profit youth baseball club.

“I can’t think of anything more important than advocating for the health, safety, and education of all of our children,” Walter said in the release. “We know that when families and schools work together, all children benefit. I look forward to leading this organization which is dedicated to championing the rights and needs of children and families in California.”

Walter was previously a member of the EdSource board of directors.

Top college leaders in California wrote to the state’s Congressional delegation to express concerns over spending cuts proposed by House Republicans in their latest spending bill.

The officials representing University of California, California State University and California’s community colleges said they were especially concerned with cuts to financial aid programs including Federal Work-Study and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. They asked the state’s Congressional delegation to reject the cuts.

Those financial programs “work together with Pell Grants to provide low-income students with a manageable balance of grants and experiential work opportunities to help pay for college,” they wrote in their letter.

“These programs were created as an incentive for institutions to partner with the federal government to support qualified low-income, first-generation students attending college,” they added.

Children from families with income in the top 1% are more likely to be admitted to Ivy League and other elite colleges, including Stanford, according to a new study.

That’s true even when controlling for standardized test scores. According to the study, children from families in the top 1% were 34% more likely to be admitted than the average applicant with the same test score.

The study is based on an analysis of college attendance from 1999-2015, the parental income of those students and standardized test scores from 2001-2015. In addition to the eight Ivy League universities, the analysis considered Stanford, Duke, M.I.T. and the University of Chicago.

The study, published just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down the consideration of race in admissions, states that those colleges “perpetuate privilege across generations” by admitting students from high-income families at disproportionate rates.

Seven bachelor’s degrees proposed by California community colleges have been flagged by the California State University as duplicating programs offered by CSU campuses, according to a report presented Monday to the community college system’s board of governors. That could put those programs at risk of being approved.

Under Assembly Bill 927, the community college system can approve up to 30 bachelor’s degrees annually, across two cycles each year. In the latest cycle, the system received applications for 29 different programs and 14 of them advanced to intersegmental review, a process during which the degrees are reviewed by CSU, the University of California and the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. As part of the review progress, those university systems can flag proposed programs as duplicating programs that they offer.

In the latest cycle, CSU flagged the following seven programs as having duplication concerns:

• Sustainable Architecture at College of the Canyons
• Biomanufacturing at Los Angeles Mission College
• Applied Cybersecurity and Network Operations at Moorpark College
• Stem Cell and Gene Technologies at Pasadena City College
• Performance and Production of Electronic Popular Music at Rio Hondo College
• Public Safety Management at San Diego Miramar College
• Cloud Computing at Santa Monica College

CSU raising concerns about those programs doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t ultimately be approved. Earlier this year, CSU said it had duplication concerns about a degree in applied fire management being offered at Feather River College, but that program was ultimately approved anyway.

In the report provided to the board of governors, the chancellor’s office said it is currently working with CSU “to collect the details regarding the duplication concerns.” If necessary, the chancellor’s office will then convene CSU and the colleges seeking the bachelor’s degree programs “to collaborate and establish a written agreement that addresses the objections.”

A report to the board listed seven other programs that had been approved in May. They were not flagged by CSU as having duplication concerns. Those programs are:

• Dental Hygiene at Cerritos College
• Dental Hygiene at Fresno City College
• Respiratory Care at Hartnell College
• Respiratory Therapy at Los Angeles Valley College
• Dental Hygiene Administration at Taft College,
• Automotive Career Education at Ventura College
• Aviation Maintenance Technology: Avionics at West Los Angeles College,

Of the 6,000 child care centers that tested their lead level, a quarter have higher levels than the California state limit, reported iNewsource.

Meanwhile, a thousand more have not yet tested despite the Jan. 1, 2023 deadline required by a 2018 bill.

Data provided to iNewsource from the Environmental Working Group specifically found that about 7,800 facilities have not been tested. Those facilities alone look after about 400,000 children. That number excludes about 28,000 family child care homes.

The facilities with more than 5-parts-per-billion – the state’s lead limit – will have to stop using the affected fountains and faucets, while providing another potable water supply.

Chromebooks that schools have become increasingly reliant on aren’t built to last – each containing a predetermined software “death date.” Thousands have already gone out of date leaving schools without laptops, reported the Mercury News.

This summer, 13 Chromebook models are slated to expire, with 51 more coming up next year.

“They’re designed to be disposable,” Sam Berg, Oakland Unified’s computer science coordinator and designer of the district’s tech repair internship, told the Mercury News. “It’s like planned obsolescence.”

In the next five years alone, the Oakland Unified School District anticipates 40,000 of its Chromebooks will expire.

Chromebooks’ popularity in schools soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the California Public Interest Research Group reported that sales went up by more than 300% by the end of 2020. By the following March, more than 90% of American school districts reportedly provided learning devices to students.

Google, however, says their “death dates” are important for laptops to have updated software – including security upgrades.

“These updates depend on many device-specific non-Google hardware and software providers that work with Google to provide the highest level of security and stability support,” Peter Du, communications manager for ChromeOS, told the Mercury News. “For this reason, older Chrome devices cannot receive updates indefinitely to enable new OS and browser features.”

Temecula Unified will again consider adopting an elementary social studies curriculum that its rejected twice before, the Southern California News Group reported.

The school board will hold a special meeting Friday night on the proposed curriculum. The current proposal by board president Joseph Komrosky is to use the curriculum without the online student resources that it comes with, which conservative school board members had a problem with since it mentioned LGBTQ civil rights leader Harvey Milk. The proposal also pushes back a fourth-grade unit in the curriculum toward the end of the school year, according to the Southern California News Group.

Komrosky disparaged Milk as a “pedophile” as his reason for not wanting to include mention of him in social studies curriculum, repeating a homophobic myth.

Governor Gavin Newsom vowed Wednesday to send the rejected social studies textbooks to Temecula Valley Unified and to bill the district $1.6 million for the cost, plus an additional $1.5 million fine.

“The three political activists on the school board have yet again proven they are more interested in breaking the law than doing their jobs of educating students — so the state will do their job for them,” Newsom said in a press release.

State Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond was heckled and forcibly removed from a Chino Valley Unified School Board meeting Thursday after speaking in opposition to a proposed district policy that would force schools to inform parents if their child identifies as transgender, KTVU reported.

The school board ultimately voted to approve the policy, which mirrors failed Assembly Bill 1314. The California Legislative LGBTQ+ caucus described legislation that aims to “out” transgender and non-binary students against their will as putting children in potentially life threatening danger, and subjecting them to trauma and violence.

Thurmond, via Twitter, said he was invited by students to join them as they spoke out against the policy. When he was done speaking, he said, the board present verbally attacked him and instructed the police to remove him.

“I don’t mind being thrown out of a board meeting by extremists, I can take the heat, it’s part of the job,” Thurmond said. “What I can’t accept is the mistreatment of vulnerable students whose privacy is being taken away.”

In what could be described as anti-trans hate speech, conservative board president Sonja Shaw accused Thurmond of “proposing things that pervert children,” after he made his comments and before calling security to remove him from the meeting.

Chino Valley Unified has had a revolving door of ultra-conservative school board members who have opposed state laws protecting transgender students rights. In 2021, the board attempted to ban transgender students from using restrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender identity, but failed after the California Attorney General’s Office warned that the proposal violated state education code and it was prepared to litigate.

Chino Hills school board members over the years have been members of the Calvary Chapel of Chino Hills, which has been behind many of the efforts to do away with protections for transgender students.

At least 59 people across the country were arrested or charged over disruptions at local school board meetings in an 18-month period in 2021 and 2022, the investigative news outlet ProPublica reported.

The meetings have become polarized battlegrounds over COVID-19 safety measures, LGBTQ+ student rights, “obscene” library books, and attempts to teach children about systemic racism in America, ProPublica reported, and on dozens of occasions, tensions escalated into not just shouting matches and threats but also arrests and criminal charges.

Nearly 90 incidents in 30 states were found going back to the spring of 2021. At least 59 people were arrested or charged over an 18-month period, from May 2021 to November 2022. Prosecutors dismissed the vast majority of the cases, most of them involving charges of trespassing, resisting an officer, or disrupting a public meeting. Almost all of the incidents were in suburban districts, and nearly every participant was white, ProPublica found.

The routine painting of a Fresno high school is causing concern over how – or if – student murals of two civil rights icons will be protected, The Fresno Bee reported.

The murals at Edison High – designed by a local artist but painted by students – depict the poet and writer Maya Angelou and César Chávez, the famed farmworker labor leader.

The concerns follow the painting over of another student mural at Fresno’s McLane High School last year, the Bee reported. That mural contained the words “Rise Together” and symbolized, unity, community, kindness, and togetherness, the Bee reported. School officials have not disclosed why it was removed.

The school board seemingly struck a compromise over the Edison murals last month, voting to move ahead with repainting the school, while vowing not to paint over the murals. The board also promised to gather feedback from students, as well as the mural’s designer, Still, the Bee reported, trustees also discussed moving the murals inside of the school, which would mean painting over the existing murals and then repainting them on an inside wall.

“We’re just afraid we’re going to come back in August, and everything’s going to be gone,” teacher Lauren Lawless told the newspaper.

In K-12 classrooms, more than 60% of teachers surveyed use ChatGPT to benefit student learning, and 84% of those teachers reported positive classroom impacts, according to a report from Impact Research released Tuesday by the Walton Family Foundation.

Teachers use ChatGPT in various ways, such as planning lessons and generating instructional materials.

Researchers surveyed 1,000 teachers, 1,002 students, 802 voters and 906 parents nationwide for the study.

“Teachers are using every tool available to support planning and instruction, freeing up time and energy to meet the unique needs of each student,” said Romy Drucker, director of the Education Program at the Walton Family Foundation in a press release. “Their leadership and commitment to problem solving is inspiring.” 

Parents also largely agreed that schools should allow ChatGPT to be used in the classroom. Of the 906 parents surveyed, almost two-thirds said schools should allow ChatGPT for assignments, and 28% of those parents say that the use of ChatGPT should be encouraged.

Students have more reservations about the use of ChatGPT in the classroom. The report shows that 35% of students surveyed believed ChatGPT positively affected learning in the classroom, compared to the 54% of teachers.

In the wake of allegations of misconduct in his research lab, Marc Tessier-Lavigne is stepping down as the president of Stanford University just as the university released the highly anticipated results of an investigation conducted by the board of trustees.

That investigation found that while Tessier-Lavigne didn’t personally engage in misconduct, fraud or falsification of scientific data, he “failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record.”

In a written statement, Tessier-Lavigne focused on the investigation’s findings that he didn’t personally engage in any scientific wrongdoing. “Although the report clearly refutes the allegations of fraud and misconduct that were made against me, for the good of the University, I have made the decision to step down as President effective August 31,” he wrote.

He did, however, admit that mistakes were made on his watch: “The Panel’s report identified some areas where I should have done better, and I accept the report’s conclusions. Specifically, the report discusses steps I took to address issues that arose with some publications. I agree that in some instances I should have been more diligent when seeking corrections, and I regret that I was not. The Panel’s review also identified instances of manipulation of research data by others in my lab. Although I was unaware of these issues, I want to be clear that I take responsibility for the work of my lab members.”

Tessier-Lavigne will remain on the faculty, he wrote, adding that he looks forward to continuing his scientific research on brain development and neurodegeneration.

As summer approached, writer Meg St-Esprit changed her email signature. “Please note I may be slower to respond to email in the months of June, July and August due to the United States’s inability to provide affordable childcare for working mothers,” she wrote. Her message went viral, as Yahoo Life reported.

“I jotted it off in a fit of pique, it hit a nerve,” says St-Esprit, a mother of four whose freelance writing clients include Yahoo Life. “Anything more scripted wouldn’t have landed the same. It was pure emotion.”

St-Esprit’s summer child care struggle is relatable to many American families. As of 2022, 65% of married couples with children had both parents employed, and 67.9% of mothers of young children (and 94.4% of fathers) participate in the workforce. 

During the school year, six hours a day of school eases the child care tug-of-war for many (over 90% of American children are enrolled in free public school), but free summer programs are scant. During the summer, families are left to fend for themselves, and it’s often mothers who must bridge that gap — to the tune of $300,000 in missed lifetime earnings.

“Despite the fact that the majority of moms work outside the home for pay and have breadwinning roles in their families, there is this default assumption that the average worker is a man with a wife at home,” says Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Moms First, as Yahoo Life reported. “That’s who work is built for and it’s never more obvious than in the summer months when we see moms just getting crushed trying to do it all.”