California education news: What’s the latest?

One in eight students across California are not completing high school, and the rate rises to 1 in 3 for students with higher needs, such as foster children, students with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, and English Language learners.

This is just one of the findings in a new series of 8 research reports from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools released today analyzing the California Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) pilot program, a 5-year state program aimed at meeting the academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs of students. 

The reports outline findings from the implementation of MTSS as it pertains to English language learners, students experiencing homelessness, foster youth, and more.

For youth experiencing homelessness, for example, the research identified practices they found promising in prioritizing the needs of this group of students. These practices included providing individualized tutoring and increased collaboration between resource agencies that schools work with. 

“Due to the complex nature of homelessness and the various ways youth are impacted, collaboration across state and local entities is needed to ensure that young people are supported in the most optimal of ways,” wrote the report authors.

Some of the recommendations include increased and coordinated mental health services, increased staffing, and access to emergency housing resources. The 8 research reports can be found at this link.

Last month, Calbright College, the state’s online-only community college, announced that it had launched its first apprenticeship partnership for nine of its students with Fresno-based Bitwise Industries.

But, on Memorial Day, Bitwise furloughed all 900 of its employees, according to the Fresno Bee,  including the Calbright apprentices.

In a statement, the College said: “Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the developments at Bitwise Industries. Calbright is in contact with and working to assist the nine graduates who had recently begun apprenticeships and are now among the 900 furloughed employees — from helping them re-enroll in another Calbright program, connecting them to alternative work-based learning opportunities, or engaging our career services team to share public wraparound services available to them—we are all hands on deck to support our students through this evolving situation.”

Bitwise Industries was supposed to provide workforce training by bridging the gap between people from underserved communities to tech companies.

Since news broke about Bitwise, Calbright officials say they haven’t heard from the company. However, they have contacted the state’s Employment Development Department and the California Department of Apprenticeship Standards to help the graduates find alternatives and additional services.

Only 25% of teacher preparation programs cover all the core elements of science-based reading instruction, and another quarter don’t cover any of them well, according to a new report by the National Council on Teacher Quality, as The 74 reported.

Evaluating almost 700 teacher training programs, the council found 40% of programs tell aspiring educators to use debunked practices, including three-cueing strategies that urge children to guess at words they don’t know rather than sound them out. These methods have been banned in some states.

The findings come against the backdrop of massing reading declines across the country. Among fourth-graders, 37% cannot read at a basic level, and proficiency rates are even lower for children of color, low-income students and those with learning differences. Still, research found that more than 70% of special education and K-2 teachers use methods not grounded in the science of reading. 

“We know that too many kids are not learning to read. Better teacher preparation aligned with the science of reading can change that,” says NCTQ President Heather Peske, as The 74 reported. “If we focus on teacher preparation, this is an upstream approach that will have downstream implications at scale.”

The country’s lack of affordable child care hurts children, costs the American economy, and pushes families to the breaking point, according to the 2023 KIDS COUNT Data Book, released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 

This year the annual report focuses on how expensive, hard-to-find child care affects parents. It also explains how low wages fuel a chronic shortage of providers. The bottom line is an appeal to policymakers at the state and national levels to enact real solutions.

The report shows that many parents cannot find childcare that fits their work schedules. In 2020–21, 13% of parents with young children had to quit, change or refuse a job because of child care. Women, it should be noted, are five to eight times more likely than men to experience employment consequences due to caregiving. 

“A good child care system is essential for kids to thrive and our economy to prosper. But our current approach fails kids, parents, and childcare workers by every measure,” said Lisa Hamilton, president and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “Without safe child care they can afford and get to, working parents face impossible choices, affecting not only their families, but their employers as well.”

California’s deepening childcare crisis is among the reasons for ranking a dismal 35 out of 50 states in terms of child well-being in the foundation’s annual report. By issue area, California ranks 43rd of all states in children’s economic well-being, 36th in education, and 14th in children’s health.

The Los Angeles Unified School District board of education voted to promote school safety measures including safe passage at its board meeting Tuesday – while members of the Police Free LAUSD coalition rallied outside in support of the measure and against policing.

Currently, the district has 27 safe passage programs that provide routes for students to travel to and from school without feeling their safety is at risk, states the resolution authored by School Board members Tanya Ortiz Franklin, Rocio Rivas and Kelly Gonez.

LAUSD has also allocated $30 million over the past two years toward community-based safety programs as part of the Black Student Achievement Plan, but about 90% of that money has not been spent, according to a coalition press release.

“Los Angeles Unified is committed to providing every student, preschool through adult, and all members of our District and school communities with a safe, healthy, welcoming and respectful learning and working environment,” states “Every School Safe: A Blueprint for Safety,” an outline of the district’s revamped safety efforts for 2023-2026.

Ensuring student safety isn’t a new idea for Los Angeles Unified.

Since May 1990, the district has discussed nearly 50 resolutions related to school safety – 13 of which took place in the past decade, the resolution states. LAUSD also adopted the School Climate Bill of Rights in 2013, an effort to promote restorative justice over punitive disciplinary measures.

Still, advocates in the coalition say there is work to be done, and they’re calling on board members to reject increases to the police budget.

In the past year, they claim students in LA Unified have been pepper sprayed by LA School Police. A 2022 report by the same organization also found that despite making up 8% of the district’s population, Black students account for a quarter of arrests, citations and diversions.

The Los Angeles Unified school board passed a resolution Tuesday that backs migrant asylum seekers and condemns the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

Immigrants make up about a third of Los Angeles’ population, and the district welcomed about 13,000 new students from international backgrounds in the 2021-2022 academic year.

“The Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of all individuals, including migrant families seeking safety and asylum in the United States, and providing them with a welcoming, compassionate, and humane school environment in which to begin rebuilding their lives,” the resolution reads.

Board Member Kelly Gonez said during the meeting that the Biden administration policies echo those of former President Donald Trump – including Title 42, which expired earlier this year.

“Our school communities have benefitted and thrived thanks to the contributions of our immigrant students,” she said, garnering the co-sponsorship of several board members.

Community activists – several of whom were LAUSD students raised by undocumented parents – further emphasized the importance of the measure and the role of education in uplifting families.

Moving forward, the district will continue operating its Immigrant Family Resource Center and partner with city and county programs that provide legal support to those seeking asylum.

With federal student loan payments set to resume later this summer, millions of borrowers could struggle to make their payments as they come due again, according to a report from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

By tracking credit records from a sample of borrowers, the bureau determined that about 20% of them, or nearly 6 million borrowers, have risk factors suggesting they could struggle when payments resume.

Ben Kaufman, the director of research and investigations at the Student Borrower Protection Center, told Inside Higher Ed that the bureau’s findings have “laid bare” that borrowers aren’t ready for the pause to be lifted. “The situation is worse than we could have imagined,” he said. “This is a four-alarm fire.”

Required payments on federal student loans have been on pause since 2020, but they are scheduled to resume either on Aug. 30 or 60 days after the Supreme Court rules on President Joe Biden’s debt forgiveness plan — whichever comes first. Biden’s debt forgiveness proposal would provide borrowers some relief by eliminating up to $20,000 in debt for qualifying individuals, but the Supreme Court could decide to rule against his plan.

Amanuel Gebru has been named the next president of Los Angeles City College.

Gebru, currently the vice president of instruction at Moorpark College in Ventura County, will take over in his new role on Aug. 1. He said in a statement that his goal is to ensure the college “is the vessel of socio-economic opportunity for our students.”

LA City College enrolls about 18,000 students and is one of nine colleges that make up the Los Angeles Community College District, the state’s largest district.

The district’s chancellor, Francisco Rodriguez, said in a statement that Gebru “has the vision, energy and leadership experience” needed to lead LA City College. “He has committed his entire career to serving diverse populations and is passionate about access and educational opportunity, advancing racial equity and increasing student achievement,” Rodriguez added.

The University of California, Irvine, has received a $50 million donation to its engineering school to create three new research institutes, campus officials announced.

With the gift from Susan and Henry Samueli, the engineering school will launch research institutes focused on health, environment and society.

The Engineering+Society Institute will feature research into how automation can improve the human experience, while research at the Engineering+Environment Institute will explore large-scale sustainable energy solutions, among other things. The Engineering+Health Institute’s research will include explorations into “information technologies that bring medical care to underserved communities,” the campus said.

“This support from Susan and Henry Samueli helps us move a massive step closer to becoming a destination for the smartest, most diverse, most passionate and most driven set of students and faculty on the planet,” said Magnus Egerstedt, the dean of UC Irvine’s engineering school, in a statement.

The Samuelis have a history of giving to UC Irvine. Their past gifts include donating $200 million to UC Irvine in 2017 to create a college of health sciences, the largest gift in the university’s history.

Henry Samueli received a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and a doctorate from UCLA. Susan Samueli received her bachelor’s from UC Berkeley. In 1991, Henry Samueli co-founded the chipmaker Broadcom, which in 2015 was sold for $37 billion to rival company Avago. The Samuelis in 2005 also purchased the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League and have owned the team since then.

San Diego Unified and the San Diego Education Association union reached an agreement that will lead to a pay increase for teachers and avert a potential strike, as reported by CBS8.

The new contract garnered 98% support from teachers in the union, who will receive both a 10% retroactive hike in pay for the past several months since their contract ended as well as a 5% raise for the coming year.

The contract also leaves doors open for future pay raise negotiations in the 2025 academic year.

In addition to salary increases, the new contract will provide teachers with full health care coverage and additional parental leave. Increasing the number of school counselors and nurses is also part of the deal.

Folsom Cordova Unified’s board this week will consider ordering a feasibility study on dividing the Sacramento County district into two separate districts, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The $72,000 study would look at the effects of splitting the district’s 34 schools along the boundary between Folsom and Rancho Cordova.

Folsom is the more affluent of the two cities, and some have complained of disparities between the cities’ schools.

“I truly believe in the educational programs that FCUSD provides, but I do think it’s starkly obvious that there is disparity of equality between Rancho and Folsom,” Ria Srivastava, a student board member, said as she spoke in favor of the study. “Whether it be facilities to staff support to even just the way the community perceives our schools, it is entirely clear that there is a lack in Rancho Cordova.”

The board and representatives from the two cities met last week to discuss the issue. The item will be on the board agenda on Thursday.

The state Department of Education is investigating Temecula Valley Unified, a Riverside County district that recently made headlines for rejecting a social studies textbook that included LGBTQ rights leader Harvey Milk, the East Bay Times reported.

Neither the district nor the Department of Education would confirm the nature or reason for the investigation.

Last month, the district board voted 3-2 to reject a textbook that included information about Milk, a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated in 1978. Board members described Milk as a “pedophile.”

Afterward, Gov. Newsom tweeted: “An offensive statement from an ignorant person. This isn’t Texas or Florida. In the Golden State, our kids have the freedom to learn. Congrats Mr. Komrosky you have our attention. Stay tuned.”

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond visited the district on June 6 and met with board members, according to the newspaper.

Fresno High School teachers, through an online petition, are demanding a long-awaited replacement fence to keep its 2,100-plus-student school safe and secure. On May 30, a parent jumped the fence surrounding the high school, which led to the Change.org petition, The Fresno Bee reported. 

The late May incident was the most recent example of people climbing the fence and coming on the campus, the petition for a “climb-resistant fence” said. And it’s the latest incident that has caused teachers to question Fresno Unified District’s priority on safety and their approach to handling safety concerns — issues impacting other districts in California and nationwide. 

In response to the matter, a district spokesperson told The Bee that the fence is the same height as most fences at other campuses. 

“This one-size-fits-all approach” has “clearly failed,” Peter Beck, a teacher at Fresno High who has been with Fresno Unified for 25 years, told The Bee. 

“It just always seems to be that safety is not a priority until something happens,” Beck said. “This district is more reactive than proactive at times, and to me, that doesn’t sit well.”

The Oakland Unified School District board voted Wednesday to reallocate $65 million in funds from Measure Y, a 2020 voter-approved facilities bond, in order to cover rising costs for some improvement projects in the district, Oaklandside reported.

The reallocation leaves less funding for other projects planned under the $735 million bond. District officials said labor and materials costs escalated beyond what they had anticipated due to the pandemic, wars and supply-chain issues, according to Oaklandside.

Projects at McClymonds High School, Coliseum College Prep Academy and Roosevelt Middle School received extra funding through the board’s decision, according to Oaklandside. Oakland Unified will reduce the scope of improvements planned at Melrose Leadership Academy and use money intended for Measure Y’s district-wide initiatives and contingency funds in order to do that.

District 3 Director VanCedric Williams, who represents neighborhoods in West Oakland where McClymonds is located, told the board that he expects to introduce future measures to fund additional projects at McClymonds, since the increased Measure Y funding won’t solve all of the school’s needs.

Arvin High School campus supervisor Angelo Jackson Mendiver, of Bakersfield, was indicted Thursday on several charges related to manufacturing and dealing explosive materials, KGET reported.

Mendiver, 26, allegedly worked closely with an East Bakersfield High School student to use an Instagram account to sell explosives and materials, according to KGET. On June 1, agents raided the homes of Mendiver and the student and found about 500 pounds of explosives and explosive materials at each home.

Court documents show that Mendiver allegedly messaged an “unindicted co-conspirator” about buying explosives, and instructed them on how to make a stronger explosive by showing them videos of explosives made with titanium salute.

The court documents allege Mendiver also knowingly mailed explosives that could kill or injure someone through the U.S. Postal Service, according to KGET.

Students at a Santa Rosa middle school used a Google Slides presentation to share racist and hateful comments and images with each other through their school-based email accounts, actions that threatened a student and have spurred police involvement, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported.

District Superintendent Anna Trunnell confirmed the incident at Rincon Valley Middle School after a week of silence on the matter, the newspaper reported. One student added images and text “of a threatening nature to a third-party student,” Trunnell wrote in a message to parents. It is unknown if the physical threats were shared with the student who was targeted or if there was any violence that followed the threats, Trunnell, said, according to the newspaper.

District officials were able to clearly identify those who were involved and to what extent they contributed “to the distasteful and concerning content,” because they used their school accounts, Trunnell told parents.

A Santa Rosa Police spokesperson, Lt. Christopher Mahurin, told the Press Democrat it is  “important for us to have a report (on the incident) whether it was criminal or not, in case these students commit a hate crime down the road in order to establish a pattern of behavior.”

Los Angeles school board President Jackie Goldberg read from an oversize children’s book titled “The Great Big Book of Families” and turned a public meeting into story time, her own not-so-subtle statement to critics of LGBTQ+ education, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“In real life, families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes,” she read, as the text by British author Mary Hoffman explained. Some children live with “mummy and daddy,” or just their mummy or daddy. Then, Goldberg read:  “Some children have two mommies or two daddies,” the Times reported.

The board then unanimously approved a resolution listing all the ways the nation’s second-largest school district intends to raise awareness about the LGBTQ+ community. The resolution also encourages “all schools” to incorporate lessons on the LGBTQ+ community and make use of the “Queer All Year” calendar, and hold “commemorative activities” at various points throughout the school year.

Goldberg’s reading of the resolution came after more than 100 demonstrators marched outside Saticoy Elementary in Sun Valley in protest of a gay pride assembly. Some shouted slurs at counter-protesters, and fights broke out before police quickly intervened.

School boards routinely pass feel-good resolutions, but board member Nick Melvoin said the 2023 resolution was more urgent given the protest at Saticoy.

“This resolution has seemed a bit perfunctory over the years,” he said. “We’d bring it and we’d celebrate, but we thought that it was less needed here in Los Angeles.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta demanded explanations from the Temecula Valley Unified School District Board of Education after their May 16 decision to reject the Social Studies Alive program for first through fifth grade.

The curriculum has been adopted by the Senate Board of Education and district staff, and is in keeping with the FAIR Act.

“In the Golden State, our kids have the freedom to learn — and there are consequences for denying that freedom,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is closely watching the actions of malicious actors seeking to ban books, whitewash history, and demonize the LGBTQ+ community in Temecula and across the state. If the law is violated, there will be repercussions.”

The FAIR Act, Bonta said, provides California students with a “curriculum that reflects our diverse state and nation” and that local educational agencies are required to incorporate the contributions of various communities into their curriculum.

The board has been asked to formally explain its decision and provide instructional materials and adoption policies, among other documents, by June 22.

“Restricting what our children are taught in school based on animus or ideological opposition contradicts our societal values,” Bonta said in a statement. “The Board needs to explain its decision making, and moving forward will need to ensure students have access to a wide range of ideas and perspectives.”

Proponents and opponents of LGBTQ+ rights clashed outside a Glendale Unified School District board meeting Tuesday, leading to three arrests, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The school board was in the midst of declaring June as Pride Month when the fight broke out and disrupted the meeting’s public comment period, which was cut short. Later that evening, the board unanimously approved the action item.

In response to the protests, police installed a wire barrier near the building’s entrance. Law enforcement declared an unlawful assembly soon after the fight broke out, and police said only a small number of protesters engaged in “behavior deemed unsafe.”

After arrests were made — on charges including unlawful use of pepper spray and obstructing officers — police said “additional attempts to deescalate the crowd failed.” At about 6 p.m., more police were called to the scene, and the crowd was ordered to disperse.

Earlier Tuesday, the building’s exterior was home to hundreds of protesters responding to the action item. Monday, the district released a statement and FAQ in response to anti-LGBTQ activists.

“In Glendale Unified, we are committed to providing a safe, inclusive environment where every child can learn and thrive,” the statement said.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho defended changes to the Primary Promise intervention program, expanding its focus beyond helping struggling K-2 readers to reaching older students and training more teachers.

Carvalho detailed the plan at a Tuesday board meeting after facing criticism for dismantling the flagship initiative of his predecessor, Austin Beutner, earlier this year,  the Los Angeles Times reported. Board member Nick Melvoin said that the public could not be blamed for feeling “whiplash” over a program that was first lauded but later criticized.

Administrators explained that they are simultaneously expanding services and cutting costs. Notably, the revamped approach, called the Literacy and Numeracy Intervention Model, will reach older students instead of stopping at third grade. They also acknowledged that fewer elementary schools would have intervention services but that services to students of all ages would improve.

Officials set the cost of next year’s effort at about $100 million, compared with $134 million this year and about $200 million if Beutner’s plan to reach every elementary school with Primary Promise had been carried out. The new plan will rely on training classroom instructors in the same methods as tutors.

Carvalho said he had to find some way to cut costs but meet needs. The district has about 2,100 full-time positions, including those in Primary Promise, that will no longer be funded as pandemic relief funds expire. Officials said they can make the transition without layoffs but not without any cuts. Employees may have to shift to new jobs and new schools.

The funding problem is real, Carvalho said, as the Los Angeles Times reported: “Pulling the rabbit out of the hat will not work. The rabbit is dead, and the hat is small.”

However, proponents of Primary Promise, parents and teachers who extol its successes amid the state’s deepening literacy crisis, are fighting back against the cuts. More than 1,700 signed a petition in support of the program.

“The LAUSD has plenty of programs that don’t work, so we, a coalition of parents, teachers, staff and community members, are asking the board to stop Supt. Carvalho from unilaterally dismantling this program that does in fact work, in order to enact a lesser version,” the petition says.

Tens of thousands of young children with developmental delays went without critical services early in the pandemic, a new report finds, suggesting many elementary schools are now serving students with elevated special needs, as Chalkbeat reported.

Federal officials characterized the report’s findings as “disturbing” though not unexpected, given the disruptions COVID caused to doctor’s offices, social service agencies, and child care programs.

Nationally, 77,000 fewer 3- and 4-year-olds received special education services in fall 2020, a steep 16% decline from the prior year, according to a report released by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Similarly, 63,000 fewer infants and toddlers received early intervention services during that time, a 15% drop.

Many children who missed crucial services will entire school further behind, forcing already stressed elementary educators to fill in the gaps.

“We know that there’s a very good likelihood that those children are going to show up either on the first day of preschool or on the first day of kindergarten needing more services than they otherwise would have needed,” said Katherine Neas, a deputy assistant secretary for the federal education department that oversees special education,  as Chalkbeat reported. “We really encourage states to look at what additional supports they can and should give students with disabilities.”

All Californians under 5 will be eligible for a free monthly book in English or Spanish thanks to the expansion of a partnership between California and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Currently, 30 out of 58 counties in the state participate in a program that aims to stoke a love of reading in young children. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today that it planned to expand to every county in the state by 2028, which he said in a statement will broaden “millions of young minds to a world of unlimited possibilities.”

California will be the first state to offer books in both English and Spanish, according to a release.

The California Department of Education is currently looking for school districts or nonprofit organizations interested in helping expand the program throughout the state, according to a statement.

“California students are even better positioned to access the best resources to support literacy and biliteracy,” said State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, in the statement. “Fostering interest in books and reading at the youngest ages is among the best gifts we can give our children.”

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library began in 1995 and is now active in all 50 states. Its expansion into California was made possible by a bipartisan bill authored by state Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield. and Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.

For more information on the program or to sign up, visit the California State Library website.

A cybersecurity breach at San Diego Unified was more impactful than previously known, affecting more people and more types of personal data than was originally disclosed, district officials said, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

In addition to affecting the medical information of students, as was previously known, the breach also compromised current and former employees’ social security numbers, direct deposit information, medical information and more, the district’s executive director of risk services, Dennis Monahan, told the newspaper.

San Diego Unified is the state’s second-largest school district with about 132,000 students and about 16,000 employees.

Mohanan said the district uncovered the new details in April amid an investigation into the breach. He added that San Diego Unified has since implemented new security safeguards, though he didn’t say what specific safeguards are now in place.

“SDUSD takes this incident very seriously and sincerely regrets any concern this may cause,” he said.

As part of the legislation signed by President Joe Biden to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, a firm plan was set for the resumption of federal student loan repayments that have been paused since the onset of the pandemic.

Biden announced earlier this year that payments would resume either on Aug. 30 or 60 days after the Supreme Court rules on Biden’s debt forgiveness plan — whichever comes first.

The new legislation prevents him from reneging on that plan and issuing a last-minute extension to the pause, which his administration has done several times in the past.

Some borrowers could still see some relief if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Biden’s plan to eliminate up t0 $20,000 in federal student loan debt for some individuals. That ruling is expected in July, according to The New York Times.

An agreement between school officials and union leaders has led Los Angeles Unified to extend their winter break to three weeks — resulting in a longer school year and more acceleration days, the Los Angeles Times reported.

If the agreement is ratified this week, the next two years will include three additional days of instruction, and LAUSD’s school year will span Aug. 14, 2023 to June 11, 2024. The winter break will begin Dec. 18 and end on Jan. 8.

During the winter break, the district will offer students three days of optional learning — another effort to reduce the learning gap that widened during the Covid pandemic.

“In all decisions, student learning and the well-being of students, families and employees are the District’s top priorities,” read a statement issued by the district. “We are confident that this agreement supports our north star — ensuring every child in the District has the instruction and support needed to graduate ready for the world.”

After two years, the district will have to once again negotiate with the SEIU Local 99 and United Teachers Los Angeles unions.

Sacramento City Unified and the city of Sacramento have settled lawsuits totaling more than $52 million related to sexual abuse at an elementary school after-school program a decade ago, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The city will pay an estimated 60% of the payout, and the school district will pay the rest.

“These children are going to be living with what has been imprinted into their hard drive, into their brain, the mistrust of adults and the violation that they didn’t even know could happen,” victims’ attorney Roger Dreyer told the Bee.

After-school aide Joshua Rolando Vasquez was convicted of abusing children as young as 7 at Mark Twain Elementary School’s after-school program. He is currently serving a 150-year-to-life prison sentence.

Since the incidents came to light in 2020, the school district has expanded its sexual abuse and mandated reporter staff training, tightened protocols for when staff can be alone with students, and hired a consultant to review the district’s student safety policies.

“The district offers its deepest sympathy to the victims of these despicable crimes and will continue to support their well-being as possible,” the district said in a statement.

Stockton Unified’s board of trustees announced last week that it hired Michelle Rodriguez, the popular superintendent at Pajaro Valley Unified, to take over the district’s top job, the Stockton Record reported.

Rodriguez was selected from a pool of 25 applicants following a three-month search. She’s been the superintendent at Parajo Valley in Santa Cruz County.

“She comes with budget experience and consistency, which is something that was important to us when making the decision,” board President AngelAnn Flores told the Record. “We were looking for somebody who was willing to invest in longevity into our district.”

In 2021, Pajaro Valley’s board fired and then days later rehired Rodriguez, following a community uproar. That same year, the Association of California School Administrators named her superintendent of the year for that region.

“Together, we have built a district committed to excellence, resilience and growth,” Rodriguez said of her tenure in Pajaro Valley. “I know that the imprints of our shared successes will guide me as I advocate for over 36,000 students daily in SUSD.”

The majority conservative Temecula Valley School board voted to leave 11,397 students without a textbook next year because the supplemental material to the textbook included gay rights activist Harvey Milk, KABC Los Angeles reported.

The curriculum was meant to replace outdated textbooks, and had already been vetted by 47 Temecula Valley teachers who taught the material in 18 elementary schools as part of a pilot program throughout the year, according to KABC. It was also approved by the California Department of Education.

The decision left many in the community stunned. Board Member Allison Barclay, who voted to approve the curriculum, said that none of the families of the 1,300 students who learned from the curriculum during the pilot program voiced any complaints. All 18 schools that were part of the pilot sent surveys to parents to solicit input, but less than a dozen cared to answer it.

The new curriculum would have allowed the district to replace books that are no longer in print. The two school board members who voted in favor of the curriculum warned that failing to approve it puts the district in violation of the Williams Act, which requires students to have equal access to school materials, according to KABC.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, on Thursday, sent a message to county and district superintendents and charter administrators warning that any attempt to ban books from classrooms or libraries will face investigation by the state’s attorney general, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The warning comes amid a nationwide rise in book bans, according to free speech organization Pen America. In California last year, the American Library Association recorded 87 challenged book titles, the subject matters of which mostly centered around LBGTQ issues.

Newsom, in his letter alongside State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Attorney General Rob Bonta, told school leaders that anyone who attempt to remove certain instructional materials will be asked to explain their decision-making process to Bonta’s office, the Bee reported. The letter highlighted constitutional precedent and case law that Bonta’s office says bars the banning of books and mandates that school administrators protect academic freedom and freedom of speech, according to the Bee.

A state grant for workers who lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic and enrolled in a college class will likely end by June 15, CalMatters reported.

The Golden State Education and Training Grant Program was created in 2021 to help workers laid off because of the economic consequences of Covid. But now the college grant program is itself slated to be cut due to California’s current budget woes.

Seeking ways to plug the state’s estimated $31.5 billion budget hole, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed in May to completely scupper the relief grant program in the 2023-24 budget year, which starts July 1. That would return an estimated $480 million to the state. Lawmakers in both the state Senate and Assembly have signaled they accept the governor’s proposal.

Eligible workers must submit the application for the grant by June 15, a spokesperson for the California Student Aid Commission told CalMatters. If workers affected by the pandemic aren’t currently in a college program, they must be enrolled by June 30 to take advantage of the grant, the spokesperson said.

An elementary school in North Hollywood that’s already dealing with parental protests over an upcoming Pride assembly is facing more turmoil after a transgender teacher’s pride flag was burned on campus, the Los Angeles Times reported. The teacher was removed from school because of concerns for their safety.

On May 22, the full-time teacher at Saticoy Elementary, discovered a pride flag that had been displayed in a flower pot was burned and the pot had been broken, the Times reported, citing police sources. Police are investigating the incident as an act of vandalism.

The teacher at first stayed at the school but was later moved, the Times reported. Conservative parents have been using an Instagram account to rail against the school’s Pride assembly scheduled for Friday.

The account recently showed photos of the teacher before and after they transitioned, the Times reported, accompanied by comments critical of the educator.

“We’re in an atmosphere especially here in the United States with school shootings where, no, I don’t feel safe,” a teacher from Saticoy who requested anonymity told The Times. “I don’t think any of our teachers feel safe. And a lot of parents don’t feel safe about their children either.”

Exhaustive studies show that adolescent rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm and suicide have skyrocketed in the U.S. since social media became ubiquitous, as Scientific American reports. In fact, in the U.S., suicide is now the leading cause of death for people aged 13 to 14 and the second-leading cause of death for those aged 15 to 24.

In October 2021 the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a “national state of emergency in children’s mental health,” stating that the COVID pandemic had intensified an already existing crisis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a similar warning in 2022, after the agency found that nearly half of high school students reported feeling persistently “sad or hopeless” during the previous year. 

Yet the role social media plays has been widely debated. Some researchers, including Jean Twenge of San Diego State University and Jonathan Haidt of New York University, have sounded the alarm, arguing that social media provides the most plausible explanation for problems such as enhanced teen loneliness.

Other researchers have been more muted. In 2019 Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Social Media Lab at Stanford University, and his colleagues completed a meta-analysis of 226 scientific papers dating back to 2006 (the year Facebook became available to the public).

They concluded that social media use was associated with a slight increase in depression and anxiety but also commensurate improvements in feelings of belonging and connectedness. “At that time, I thought of them as small effects that could balance each other out,” Hancock says. 

Since then, he has grown more concerned.  Hancock still believes that, for most people most of the time, the effects of social media are minor. He says that sleep, diet, exercise and social support, on the whole, impact psychological health more than social media use. Nevertheless, he notes, social media can be “psychologically very detrimental” when it’s used in negative ways—for instance, to cyberstalk former romantic partners.

“You see this with a lot of other addictive behaviors like gambling, for example,” Hancock says, as Scientific American reports. “Many people can gamble, and it’s not a problem. But for a certain subset, it’s really problematic.”

Math teachers who believe women no longer face discrimination tend to be biased against girls’ ability in math, according to an experiment conducted with over 400 math teachers across the United States, as The 74 reported. The findings were published in a peer-reviewed article that appeared in April 2023 in the International Journal of STEM Education.

In this experiment, teachers were asked to evaluate a set of student solutions to math problems. The teachers didn’t know that gender and race specific names, such as Tanisha and Connor, had been randomly assigned to the solutions. The idea was to see if the teachers had any unconscious biases, as The 74 reported.

After the teachers evaluated the student solutions, they were asked questions about their beliefs and experiences. Teachers who believe that society has achieved gender equality tended to rate a student’s ability higher when they saw a male name than when they saw a female name for the same work.

The Clovis Unified School District has reached a tentative agreement on a contract with the union representing psychologists and mental health support providers in the district, according to The Fresno Bee.

The contract, if ratified, would be the first union contract for certificated employees in the history of the district, which is also the largest district in the state without a teachers union.

The psychologists and mental health support providers would get raises of almost 14% under the deal.

“This should really serve as an example and as a challenge to the rest of our certificated employees,” said Kristin Heimerdinger, a teacher in the district and a spokesperson for the union.

San Diego Unified and the unions representing teachers and paraeducators in the district have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Under the agreement, teachers would get 10% raises retroactive to July 2022. On top of that, the teachers will get another 5% raise next year.

Other benefits included in the deal include doubling paid maternity leave to six weeks and permitting more teachers to be paid for work they do during after-school activities. Smaller class sizes are also part of the deal: Transitional kindergarten classes would have a maximum of 24 students, and kindergarten through third-grade classes would not have more than 29 students.

“We were able to have a very ambitious platform and achieve almost everything in that platform,” Kyle Weinberg, the union president, told the Union-Tribune. A ratification vote by union members will begin Thursday.

Lamont Jackson, the district’s superintendent, told the Union-Tribune that the deal “is the culmination of a common goal to provide the best educational experience possible for students, teachers and staff.”

The Common App, the application that 1 million students use to apply to college each year, is making it possible for colleges to block a “race box,” the box a student checks to indicate their race or ethnicity.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to bar affirmative action soon. Common App said in a statement that the new option will help colleges comply “with whatever legal standard the Supreme Court will set in regards to race in admissions.”

Supreme Court justices mentioned the phrase “checking the box” during oral arguments last October.

The Common App will allow colleges to block a student’s information beginning Aug. 1. The Common App is used by over 1,000 colleges and universities.

The New York Times notes that the nonprofit organization’s move is one of the first concrete examples of how admissions could transform in the wake of a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. Legal experts told the Times that masking the race boxes on the Common App could protect colleges from liability, in the wake of a ban on race-conscious admissions practices.

After three years of declines, enrollment in California’s colleges ticked up by 2% since last spring, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

The increase was due in large part to a 7% increase in California’s community college enrollment. The increase is not enough to catch up to prepandemic numbers: there were 898,598 community college students in the state this spring compared to 1.1 million in spring 2019.

This increase in community college numbers parallels a national increase of 0.5%. The National Student Clearinghouse attributes this to growing numbers of freshmen (12.8%) and dual enrolled high school students (8%).

After three years of slight gains, enrollment at public four-year universities in California dipped 1.6% over the last year. That puts it at 736,811 students, or 1,189 students fewer than Spring 2019 levels. Enrollment at private nonprofit universities dipped 4.4% to its lowest levels in the last four years to 280,364 students.

Nationally, enrollment in four-year universities dipped, but at lower rates than the past few years. Public university enrolled dipped 0.5% and private nonprofits dipped 0.2%. The National Student Clearinghouse sees this as a sign that pandemic-era declines are leveling off.

More than a thousand members of the Fresno Teachers Association rallied Wednesday evening vowing to strike if the union and the Fresno Unified School District fail to reach a new contract by Sept. 29, the Fresno Bee reported. 

The union represents over 4,000 teachers, nurses, social workers and other professionals, according to the Bee. 

The contract negotiations between the two started in November ahead of the contract ending on June 30. 

FTA’s proposals request a 7.26% pay raise, 100% district-paid healthcare and multimillion dollar investments for students, such as free laundry service and free clothes and school supplies for students in need. 

“Systemic changes in this district have only happened when educators have taken collective action,” FTA president Manuel Bonilla said during the rally that shut down N Street in downtown Fresno. 

Other Fresno-area districts have rallied this week as well, including educators frustrated by contract negotiations with the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Office and the Parlier Unified School District.

Outraged conservative parents at an L.A. elementary school say they plan to keep their children home on the school’s Pride Day to protest the school teaching students about gay parents, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A group of parents at the North Hollywood kindergarten-through-5th-grade Saticoy Elementary School launched an Instagram page about a week ago calling out the school’s administration and urging other parents to keep their children home on June 2, the day the school plans to hold its Gay Pride and Rainbow Day assembly, the newspaper reported.

“Keep your kids home and innocent,” the group posted, according to the Times. “It is time to say stop grooming our children.”

In a statement, the Los Angeles Unified School District said it remains committed to “creating a safe and inclusive learning environment that embraces the diversity of the communities we serve,” The Times reported. “As part of our engagement with school communities, our schools regularly discuss the diversity of the families that we serve and the importance of inclusion.”

The San Bernardino City Unified School District broke ground on a $45 million resource center Wednesday,  which officials described as a place where families will find not only assistance with enrollment and registration, but also a wide range of services to help students, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported.

Superintendent Mauricio Arellano said at a ceremony that the center “will be a symbol of unity, a symbol of empowerment for San Bernardino. It will be a place where families will find not only assistance with enrollment and registration but also a wide range of services aimed at nurturing and supporting the holistic development of our students,” the Press-Enterprise reproted. “We’re talking about taking care of the whole child as a community.”

Construction is expected to conclude in December of next year, the newspaper reported.

Two juvenile halls in Los Angeles County were found to be “unsuitable for housing youth” after a vote Tuesday of California’s Board of State and Community Corrections.

Staff has 60 days from May 24 to move youth currently housed at the Barry J. Nidorf facility in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights. According to reporting by the L.A. Times, the county Probation Department plans to reopen Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, which shuttered in 2019, to house all of the impacted youth.

The vote was unprecedented but not entirely unexpected.

“We have stayed in this process much longer than I’m comfortable with,” board Chair Linda Penner wrote in a news release. “I’m concerned with the youth who are there right now, and we really must address that. The time has come to take this extraordinary move.”

Since 2021, the Board of State and Community Corrections has found Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and Central Juvenile Hall, two out of three juvenile halls in the county, “unsuitable for the confinement of minors,” with problems ranging from insufficient staffing to youth being confined for too long in their rooms to lack of proper training on the use-of-force policy.

Most recently, the state board received a corrective plan from L.A. County on March 14. The plan, however, “does not provide enough detail about the specific plans that will be relied upon to correct the items of noncompliance and does not provide a reasonable timeframe for resolution,” according to a letter from the board to the L.A. County Probation Department’s interim chief, Karen Fletcher. Fletcher became interim chief last month after the previous department chief, Adolfo Gonzales, was fired.

In late April, the board conducted inspections and found “that no significant items of noncompliance had been corrected,” according to the news release. The findings from that inspection were followed by a unanimous vote to shut down the two juvenile halls.

California will be about $30 billion shy of the money it needs to afford its proposed multiyear budget, the Legislative Analyst’s Office announced Tuesday.

It’s “plausible” the state will have enough money for the governor’s May budget revision in the short term, but by 2024-25 expenses will probably outstrip revenue.

“Our analysis suggests that level of revenue is very unlikely — there is less than a one‑in‑six chance the state can afford the May Revision spending level across the five‑year period,” according to the LAO. “This means that, if the Legislature adopts the Governor’s May Revision proposals, the state very likely will face more budget problems over the next few years.”

The Legislature will vote on a final budget by June 15.

No cuts are anticipated in the governor’s proposed budget for education, H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said Wednesday. The governor’s proposed budget takes into account potential revenue shortfalls, he said.

“The report’s uncertain outlook for the coming years underscores the importance of the principles reflected in this year’s May Revision,” Palmer said. “First, sustain and protect core programs. Second, don’t compound the risks that we know exist with higher spending that may not be sustainable. And third, maintain the state’s substantial reserves as an essential insurance policy against further fiscal uncertainty.”

After centuries of men eclipsing women in the halls of academia, in a world that has long favored male authority, men are now much less likely to earn a degree than women, new research suggests. 

In California, 56% of undergraduates at the state’s public universities and community colleges are women, as are 54% of undergraduates at nonprofit colleges and 63% at for-profit colleges, according to a new analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California. The growing college gender gap has sharp consequences for men’s economic prospects, many experts say, particularly those from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. 

Based on current rates of enrollment and graduation, 36% of women in California will earn a bachelor’s degree by the time they are in their early to mid-20s, compared with only 24% of men. This imbalance is the consequence of gender differences that start well before college, this research suggests.

Female students have stronger high school records and are more likely to be prepared for college than male students. Other recent studies find that gender differences can start as early as grade school, with male students falling behind in English and math test scores in grades three to eight. This may lead to boys dropping out of school early.

Clearly, the implications of the growing equity gap for young men are significant, considering the link between college completion and economic mobility. Richard Reeves’ new book, “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters and What to Do About It” also examines many facets of this correlation moving forward, if a new gender inequity does indeed emerge.

Social media has positive and negative impacts on girls, but teachers, parents, legislators and other adults must do more to protect youth from the downsides, according to a report released today by California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

The report, “Shared Experiences: How social media affects the well-being and empowerment of girls and young women,” details the latest research and recommendations for how young people can reap the benefits of social media but minimize the harm. The report was produced by California Partners Project, a gender equity advocacy group Siebel Newsom co-founded.

Among the recommendations:

• Better media literacy for all young people.
• Improved online safeguards, such as privacy controls, and industry bans on selling minors’ personal information.
• Greater investment in STEM education and careers for girls, especially those of color.
• More research into the impact of social media on young people.

The report also has suggestions for parents, including encouraging children to talk about their experiences on social media and how it makes them feel; limiting children’s time on social media; limiting their own time on social media; using safety settings; promoting real-life social connections; and encouraging positive uses of social media, such as artistic expression and connecting with friends and family.

As California ramps up its expansion of universal transitional kindergarten, new research suggests it must focus more on high-quality teaching.

“High-quality preschool instruction can make a difference for students,” said Alix Gallagher, the lead researcher of the Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) brief. “But only high-quality preschool instruction results in persistent positive gains.  California has taken important steps to address facilities and staffing but needs to shift its focus to ensure high quality, developmentally appropriate instruction for its youngest learners if it is to meet its goals for improving student learning and achievement.”

Based on dozens of interviews with district leaders and national experts on early childhood education, the research brief, “California’s Major Investment in Universal Transitional Kindergarten: What Districts Need to Fulfill Its Promise,” suggests that districts have focused their rollout of universal transitional kindergarten on the things the state has mandated, such as finding classrooms that meet facilities guidelines and hiring enough staff. But it says greater emphasis must be placed on the need for quality, not just access, when it comes to early childhood education. Developmentally appropriate play-based instruction, family engagement and transparency to the public are among the cornerstones outlined. 

The CSU Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that Leroy M. Morishita will be interim president at Cal State LA, Vice Adm. Michael J. Dumont will be interim president at CSU Maritime Academy, Sylvia Alva will be interim president at Cal State Fullerton, and Susan E. Borrego will be interim president at Stanislaus State University.

Morishita will receive an annual salary of $496,213 starting July 31, Dumont will receive an annual salary of $370,241 starting July 7, Alva will receive an annual salary of $476,223 starting Aug. 1, and Borrego will receive an annual salary of $370,319 and a monthly housing allowance of $4,166.67 starting Aug. 2.

All four interim presidents will hold the positions until the trustees hire and announce permanent replacements.

The United States surgeon general issued a public warning about the risks of social media to youth, as the New York Times reported, urging a push to grapple with the potential “harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”

In a 19-page advisory, Dr. Vivek Murthy noted, “There are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”

The report included recommendations to help families curate children’s social media use. It suggested that families keep mealtimes and in-person gatherings free of devices.

Murthy also called on tech companies to enforce minimum age limits and to create default settings for children with high safety and privacy standards. And he urged the government to create age-appropriate health and safety standards.

Adolescents “are not just smaller adults,” Murthy said in an interview with the Times. “They’re in a different phase of development, and they’re in a critical phase of brain development.”

Survey results from Pew Research have found that up to 95% of teens reported using at least one social media platform, while more than one-third said they used social media “almost constantly.” As social media use has risen, so have self-reports and clinical diagnoses among adolescents of anxiety and depression, along with emergency room visits for self-harm and suicidal ideation.

Murthy’s push for caution joins a growing body of calls for action regarding youth and social media. The American Psychological Association issued its first-ever social media guidance recently, recommending that parents closely monitor teens’ usage.

The surgeon general’s advisory noted that social media platforms have “extreme, inappropriate and harmful content,” including content that “can normalize” self-harm, eating disorders and other self-destructive behavior. Cyberbullying is rampant.

Sonoma State, Chico State and Sacramento State universities will all see new presidents this year.

The CSU Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that Stephen Perez will serve as the new president of Chico State, J. Luke Wood will lead Sacramento State, and Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee has been appointed as the new president of Sonoma State.

Perez is currently Chico State’s interim provost and vice president of academic affairs. He’s replacing Gayle Hutchinson, who is retiring at the end of June. His presidency starts on July 1.

Perez’s annual salary will be $454,757 and he will receive an annual housing allowance of $50,000 and a $ 1,000-a-month auto allowance. Chico State doesn’t have an official home for university presidents.

Wood is currently vice president for student affairs and campus diversity and chief diversity officer at San Diego University. He is replacing Robert S. Nelsen, who is retiring on July 15. Wood will assume the presidency on July 16.

Wood’s annual salary will be $476,225. He will also receive an annual housing allowance of $60,000 and a $1,000-a-month auto allowance.

Lee has been interim president of Sonoma State since August. Previously he worked in multiple leadership positions at Sacramento State.

Stock Unified’s board of trustees has narrowed its list of superintendent candidates to five and will interview those finalists this weekend, according to The Stockton Record.

The candidates on Friday and Saturday will face questions from the board as well as from 21 community leaders, according to the newspaper.

AngelAnn Flores, the president of the board, told The Record that the board is looking for a superintendent who understands budgeting and hiring practices. Earlier this year, the San Joaquin County Office of Education said the district is deficit spending and expressed “serious” concerns over its budgeting.

“Somebody who understands that rebuilding means making tough decisions,” Flores said.

The medical information of some students at San Diego Unified was compromised in a cybersecurity breach last fall, district officials told families this month, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The district did not respond to questions from the Union-Tribune about how many students had their information compromised. The breach happened on Oct. 25 and families were notified in December. Staff and students in the district have since been issued new passwords to access the district’s network.

The district is currently conducting an investigation and plans to notify affected students as it identifies them, a spokesperson told the Union-Tribune.