California education news: What’s the latest?

Cafeteria workers, special education assistants, bus drivers and other essential workers will vote to authorize a strike against Los Angeles Unified in two weeks on behalf of SEIU Local 99. The union is pushing for increased wages, sufficient staffing and resources for each school and expanded health care benefits as it continues to negotiate its new contract with the district after its last contract expired in 2020.

The voting period for members will last between Jan. 23 and Feb. 10 and will give the bargaining team the power to declare a strike if the union and the district do not reach an agreement through the impasse process.

“A strike is the last option, SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias said in a press release. “Workers are hopeful that a fair agreement can be reached through the mediation process. However, there are major issues in LAUSD’s compensation system that are leading to severe staffing shortages for essential student services.”

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho commented on its labor negotiations at a press conference Monday, saying that the negotiations were one of the district’s top priorities during the new year. 

“We have more to put on the table, but we need the table to be populated with people willing to negotiate,” Carvalho said. “We are willing and I know our colleagues in labor are willing.”

Every middle and high school in California will get at least two doses of naloxone hydrochloride to reverse opioid overdoses, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2023-24 budget released Tuesday.

The state would increase Proposition 98 money by $3.5 million to cover the costs, with the money coming mostly from legal settlements with drug manufacturers, said Mark Ghaly, head of California’s Health and Human Services department.

“This is a small but mighty investment” to ensure all middle and high schools have access to naloxone, also known as Narcan, Ghaly said.

Opioid overdoses and deaths among young people have soared in the past five years, driven in large part by the prevalence of fentanyl. In 2021, 246 Californians under age 20 died, and hundreds more were hospitalized due to opioid overdoses, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Dozens of schools already stock naloxone on campus and have beefed up health education and drug abuse prevention in order to keep students safe. Newsom’s budget also includes an additional $79 million to provide naloxone to first responders, law enforcement, county agencies and community organizations.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s 50 times more potent than morphine, accounted for more than 80% of all drug-related deaths among young Californians in 2021.

Health educators were thrilled with the news.

“Naloxone is considered a safe and effective tool used to prevent fatalities related to opioid overdoses and poisonings, so in some ways, it’s similar to having an EpiPen, an automated external defibrillator or even a fire extinguisher on a school campus,” said Dareen Khatib, health and wellness administrator for the Orange County Department of Education. “Many districts across the state already have board policies on naloxone distribution, and the California School Nurses Organization has been a supporter of this effort.”

Students at a private Christian university in Fresno wore togas and set up tents at the campus Wednesday to protest the layoff of a popular philosophy professor at the school, according to The Fresno Bee.

Nathan Carson, a philosophy professor who also ran the Sierra Summer program at Fresno Pacific University, was laid off in October, students said. They fear both programs could be eliminated without him.

The university had planned to cut 4% of its full-time employees after low student enrollment led to a $7.4 million deficit, The Bee reported in October.

The decision to remove Carson has been appealed, and that outcome is expected Friday. Currently, 12 students are majoring in philosophy at FPU. The university enrolls about 3,000 students.

Students at the protest said André Stephens, university president, came out to speak with them, giving them hope.

“We’re very hopeful that that means he’s sympathetic to our cause, and hopefully that means that he will reverse the decision to eliminate these programs,” one student said.

California’s community schools initiative offers an opportunity to incorporate mentoring of foster and homeless students; however, training will be critical for mentoring to be effective, concluded researchers from San José State University’s Center for Collaborative Research Excellence in Education in a brief released last month.

The state’s $4 billion community schools program, which is just starting, will mesh academic improvement with community-based services focused on students’ health and development in hundreds, and eventually thousands, of low-income schools. It’s intended to support the state’s most vulnerable students, including an estimated 32,400 youths in foster care and 183,000 students experiencing homelessness, as of 2020-21.

Authors Brent Duckor, Lorri Capizzi and Lauren Reagan acknowledge that research on designing, implementing and evaluating effective mentoring programs for these youths is “scant but emerging.” But what is certain is that the social isolation of homelessness and challenges of living in foster care create challenges in succeeding in school and transitioning to college. Mentoring in school or a community center can help overcome challenges by building trusting relationships that many such students lack.

The researchers recommend that community schools identify volunteers from the community and educational staff as potential mentors, then train them to understand foster and homeless students’ unique needs. Universities could create certificate programs in mentoring for aspiring and existing teachers in evidence-based strategies. Schools could set up peer mentorships matching college students who have experienced foster care and homelessness. It could also partner with organizations like Big Brothers, Big Sisters with a proven record of effectiveness, the report said.

In addition to funding through community school grants, districts are required to address the needs of foster and homeless children in receiving supplemental funding through the local control funding formula. The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act also authorizes funding for before- and after-school mentoring and summer programs for homeless children led by qualified teachers and staff.

Conditions at San Francisco’s Marina Middle School have descended into chaos with students roaming the halls when they should be in class and violence commonplace, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Teachers, counselors and security staff who have left or are still working at the 570-student school report that recent incidents include students recording videos of themselves as they beat another student, three female students assaulting a special-education student and a student bringing an air gun to school — all without documented suspensions at the time of those incidents, the Examiner reported.

The Examiner reported that the conditions could be an unintended consequence of California’s anti-suspension mandate and reliance on restorative justice programs. But Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco, told the newspaper that restorative justice training has stopped since before the pandemic, “possibly because restorative justice trainers have been reassigned to teach in the classroom,” she said. A San Francisco Unified School District spokesperson told the Examiner that restorative justice training is available online.

A newly installed Oakland Unified school board voted Wednesday to scrap the previous board’s plan to close five elementary schools and cut grades 6,7 and 8 from a K-8 school at the end of this school year.

Brookfield, Carl B. Munck, Grass Valley, Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy and Horace Mann elementary schools will not close at the end of this school year as previously planned. Hillcrest K-8 will also continue to offer grades 6, 7 and 8.

At the beginning of 2022, the district’s seven-member school board voted to close, merge or reduce classes for 11 schools over the course of two years to adapt to a 34% enrollment decline between 2000 and 2020. The decision prompted outcry, protests and a hunger strike by two educators. Closure opponents cherished the schools as essential and historic community hubs. They argued that the little-if-any cost savings the district would see from closing the schools would not outweigh the impact it would have on students and families.

Two of the four school board members who voted in favor of the closures in 2022 did not seek re-election, and another resigned before the end of her term. That led to the election of three new school board members in November, and a shift in the school board’s political balance. That’s when incumbent school board member Mike Hutchinson introduced a resolution to rescind the closures set for the end of the 2022-23 school year.

Two schools — Community Day School and Parker Elementary — had already closed at the end of the 2021-22 school year. Additionally, RISE Community Elementary was merged with New Highland Academy and La Escuelita stopped offering grades 6,7 and 8 at the end of 2021-22.

The board took up the resolution Wednesday, and newcomers Jennifer Brouhard and Valarie Bachelor voted to approve it along with incumbents Hutchinson and VanCedric Williams. Incumbents Clifford Thompson and Sam Davis voted against rescinding the closures, and newcomer Nick Resnick abstained.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, with 21 other state attorney generals, filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court today in support of the Biden Administration’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for low-income borrowers.

“The historic cancellation of federal student loan debt will ease the burden for millions of Californians weighed down by the cost of their higher education dreams,” Bonta said. “This one-time program targets borrowers most impacted by the pandemic – in keeping with federal authority to make changes to student loan payments in response to national emergencies. I applaud the Supreme Court for its swift consideration of this matter, and I urge it to allow the Department of Education to begin providing this sorely needed measure of relief.”

Under the student loan forgiveness plan, about 3.5 million Californians would see relief.

The program is currently on hold following court decisions to delay its implementation.  The Biden administration, in response, has extended the moratorium on student loan payments until 60 days after the debt relief program is implemented, the litigation is resolved, or June 30, 2023.

Bonta was joined by the attorney generals of Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

The Gateway Teachers Association, which represents teachers at the Gateway Unified School District in Redding, says trustees violated the state’s open meeting law during a school board meeting on Jan. 4 and they are threatening legal action if it happens again.

School board members had whispered conversations during an open session discussion about recruiting a new superintendent and took formal action without allowing public comment, according to a cease and desist letter from the union to the board.

The letter demands the board rescind the action taken in regard to the superintendent search that night. It also referenced the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, and insisted the board allow public comment before action is taken on any item and that it refrain from having secret communications.

“Last week’s dismissal of public comment is not only unlawful and undemocratic, but it’s a blatant sign of disrespect to the community members in the district,” stated a press release from the union. “We call on the GUSD Board of Trustees to seek formal training on how to run a meeting to ensure that members of the public have an opportunity to discuss any item of interest. “

California teachers may not have to pay for required exams again next fiscal year. The governor’s newly proposed state budget includes $24 million to waive examination fees for most tests teachers must take to earn a credential.

The funding was also approved in the 2022-23 state budget.

Fees for eligible tests are automatically waived during online registration for each test.

Eligible tests include the California Basic Educational Skills Test, the California Subject Examinations for Teachers, the California Teacher of English Learners, the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment and the California Preliminary Administrative Credential Examination. Fees also would be waived for performance assessments.

The state budget proposal also includes $3 billion for the retention and recruitment of teachers. These are the latest in a series of moves by Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators to make it easier for teacher candidates to earn teaching credentials during a nationwide teacher shortage.

Seventy-three percent of teenagers have viewed online pornography, either intentionally or by accident, and half said they’d seen videos depicting rape or other sexual violence, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report by Common Sense Media asked more than 1,300 teens nationwide about their exposure to pornography. The majority first viewed porn at age 12, although 15% said they’d seen it younger than age 10. Almost half felt that pornography offers helpful information about sex.

Still, the report found some bright spots, especially for parents, said Supreet Mann, co-author of the report. Almost half of the respondents said they’d learned about sex and pornography from a parent or caregiver, and that it had inspired them to find alternative ways to explore sexuality aside from viewing porn.

“The results were encouraging, in some ways, especially the number of teens who said they’re interested in talking to a trusted caregiver about sex. Parents should know that kids want to have these conversations, and it can help.”

While porn itself is not necessarily harmful, violent sexual images or frequent porn viewing can distort a teen’s ideas about sex, the report said. Many parents already talk to their teenagers about healthy sexual relationships, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases and other topics, but they should also include pornography. Common Sense Media offers tips for parents on how to broach the topic.

“One place to start,” Mann said, “is showing them this report.”

Under newly proposed legislation, low-income students in Mexico who live within 45 miles of California’s border would be allowed to attend a local community college without paying nonresident tuition.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 91, would allow those students to attend community college in San Diego or Imperial County. “We live in a dynamic border region where we need to educate more students to fill the jobs required for growth,” Assemblymember David Alvarez, the bill’s author, said in a statement.

The bill has the support of Southwestern College, which is located between San Diego and Tijuana. “Southwestern College is the cornerstone for affordable and accessible higher education opportunities in the South County. Expanding affordable access to low-income, binational students will make a significant contribution to our region’s binational workforce and economy,” Southwestern College Superintendent Mark Sanchez said in a statement.

The University of California, Santa Barbara canceled all classes Monday and Tuesday because of a severe storm that has caused flooding in the area and prompted evacuation orders for some parts of Santa Barbara County.

“Due to the extreme rain and weather conditions in the area, and to prioritize community safety, classes are canceled for the remainder of Monday through Tuesday. Please be safe and take good care during this challenging weather,” the campus said in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday.

UC Santa Cruz, meanwhile, held all classes remotely Monday and will do so again on Tuesday. The campus plans to decide by 3 p.m. Tuesday whether to continue remote instruction on Wednesday.

“We are continuing to prioritize our community’s safety during this severe storm and will resume in-person instruction as soon as conditions permit. We appreciate your patience and flexibility,” Chancellor Cynthia Larive said in a statement Tuesday.

Sacramento City Unified, Pajaro Valley Unified and numerous schools in Marin County, Sonoma County and San Joaquin County closed Monday due to heavy rains, downed trees, flooding and power outages.

“The health and safety of our students, staff and families is a top priority. … The decision to close select sites within potential flood zones and evacuation zones is made to allow families to safeguard their children as a top priority at this time,” Pajaro Valley Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez wrote in a letter to families.

In Pajaro Valley, which is in Watsonville, the district closed 11 schools at least through Tuesday. Elsewhere in Santa Cruz County, all schools in Bonny Doon Union Elementary School District are closed. Further south, all schools in Monterey Peninsula Unified School District and Pacific Grove Unified School District are also closed.

Sacramento City closed all schools for the day. In Sonoma County, all schools in Guerneville and Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified are closed. Marin County closures include Stinson, Bolinas, Lagunitas, all of Shoreline Unified, and White Hill and Manor in the Ross Valley School District.

Lodi Unified in San Joaquin County closed five schools: Dorothy Mahin, Live Oak Elementary, Middle College High, Morada Middle and Turner Academy. In addition, San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton is closed for the day.

Teachers and classified staff at Ventura Unified won 10% raises plus 2% bonuses after the school board approved a contract with its unions last week, the Ventura Star reported.

The agreement came after months of negotiations. The unions initially asked for a raise of 12.84% while the district was offering 1%. In all, the raises will cost the 15,000-student district nearly $12 million.

“I’m very happy with the agreement,” Carol Peek, president of the Ventura Education Support Professionals Association, which represents classified employees, told the Ventura Star. “It was a long, exhausting process, but I’m very grateful that it’s done.”

The pay raise, which covers about 800 teachers and 800 classified staff, is retroactive to July. Administrators, including principals, will also get 10% raises.

Clovis Community College, located in Fresno County, is starting its spring semester with a new president.

Kim E. Armstrong was appointed Jan. 3 to serve as the college’s third president. Armstrong comes from Arkansas State University Three Rivers, where she was Vice Chancellor for Student, Equity and Community Affairs, according to a news release from Clovis Community.

She earned her bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from Howard University in physiological/neuropsychology, and she serves on the Arkansas Community Colleges Diversity, Equity, Inclusion taskforce, where her initiatives have received state and regional recognitions, according to the college.

Armstrong takes over for Lori Bennett, who led the college for six years, and retired in January.

Clovis Community, formerly known as Willow International Center, is the state’s 113th community college and serves about 13,000 students annually.

Steve Perez, former interim president at San Jose State, was named interim provost at Chico State following the resignation of Debra Larson in December.

Sacramento State President Robert Nelson announced Perez’s appointment Friday. Perez, who has held numerous positions at Sacramento State, was slated to return to the campus as provost this month after his stint at San Jose State ended.

Perez initially began his career at Sacramento State in 2001 as an assistant economics professor, rising up the ladder to associate professor, professor, assistant to the president for special projects, faculty athletics representative and interim provost. He’s also served on the faculty at Washington State University and Virginia Commonwealth University. Perez holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, San Diego and his master’s and Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Davis.

Larson resigned her post at Chico State after EdSource reported that she OK’d light discipline for a biology professor who had an affair with a graduate student. Larson, 66, said she had been planning to retire anyway.

State Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), a longtime advocate for early childhood education, career and technical training and youth mental health, will take over the helm of the California State Senate’s Committee on Education.

Senate President pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins named Newman to the position on Friday.

“As chair, I plan to focus my attention on providing students with urgently needed mental health services, restoring and modernizing our school campuses, re-engaging our students in civic education, and ensuring that every California family has access to the highest-quality education possible,” Newman said.

Newman served the past two years as chair of the Senate’s Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response. Prior to being elected in 2016, Newman served as an officer in the Army and later started a nonprofit that helps veterans transition to the workforce.

In addition, State Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) will continue chairing the Senate’s budget subcommittee on education, a powerful post in determining school funding.

A Fresno Unified student and their guardian are suing the district and an ex-principal following a June incident where the ex-principal was caught on camera shoving the student. The family is seeking unspecified damages for the student’s mental and physical pain and claiming negligence by the district, according to the Fresno Bee.

Former principal Brian Volhardt also already faces a criminal charge of misdemeanor child abuse from the incident. He pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Following the June incident, the district placed Volhardt on leave and launched an investigation. It also reported the situation to the Fresno Police Department and Child Protective Services. However, the police department has since admitted to mishandling the case and delaying investigation, according to the Fresno Bee.

The lawsuit, filed in late December, accuses Volhardt of harassing and assaulting the student, who in turn suffered humiliation and distress alongside physical pain from the incident. The lawsuit also alleges that the district failed to properly report the incident.

Volhardt is scheduled for a court appearance Wednesday for a pretrial hearing. A case management conference is also scheduled for April.

In 2019, the California School Boards Association named Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi its Legislator of the Year for efforts to try to raise the base funding for TK-12. This week, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon named Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, southwest of Los Angeles, the new chair of the Assembly Education Committee.

First elected to the Assembly in 2012, Muratsuchi, 58, is entering his fifth term. He had chaired the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance, which sets the Assembly’s spending priorities for the state budget. A California deputy attorney general before running for Assembly, he served on Torrance Unified’s school board and chaired the Southern California Regional Occupation Center. Career tech remains an interest, and he will author a bill to ensure that it continues to receive regular funding, he said.

Muratsuchi takes over Assembly Ed from Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, who had announced he wasn’t running again for Assembly. Muratsuchi is expected to lead differently than O’Donnell, who critics characterized as autocratic. A high school teacher and former member of the California Teachers Association’s State Council of Education, O’Donnell was a strong opponent of charter schools.

“We regard Muratsuchi as much more reasonable than O’Donnell. We don’t regard Muratsuchi as anti-charter,” said Eric Premack, executive director of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento, which advocates for charter schools. “Muratsuchi’s experience as a former school district board member and his previous service as chair of the education budget subcommittee gives him solid understanding of many issues. We’re cautiously optimistic.”

Twice Muratsuchi introduced bills, with the school boards association’s support, that would have set a goal of raising per student funding in California to the nation’s top 10 states. In 2019, he withdrew the bill after Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to continue long-term funding discussions with him, Muratsuchi said.  With record state revenues during the past two years, California may be approaching at least the national average in per student funding, adjusted for regional costs. Low-income districts receive several thousand dollars per student above the state average under the Local Control  Funding Formula.

But Muratsuchi said he recognized the 2023-24 budget will be different, with billions of dollars in cuts projected for TK-12 schools. As a result, he said he doesn’t expect expensive new programs to pass out of Assembly Ed. Instead, his focus will be on existing priorities: pandemic learning recovery; staff shortages for transitional kindergarten, tutoring or early reading, and student mental health, he said.

Rendon also announced that Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, will continue to chair the Assembly Budget, and Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, will once again chair the Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance.

Mary Jane Burke, who served 28 years as Marin County’s superintendent of schools, was praised this week as she left office, especially for her work during the pandemic to keep schools functioning, the Marin Independent Journal reported.

“Mary Jane Burke is an MVP in Marin’s pandemic response,” Dr. Matt Willis, the county’s public health officer, told the Independent Journal. He said his agency “couldn’t have hoped for a better partner.”

“Together, we were able to reopen schools soon after the lockdown, and do it safely,” he said.

Burke, 70, was first elected in 1995. Deputy Superintendent Ken Lippi told the newspaper that Burke’s partnership with public health officials during the pandemic is an extension of how she has forged relationships and collaborations throughout her seven terms in office.

“Because of that leadership, Marin’s schools, public and private, were among the very first in our state to open,” he said. “This was vitally important as we learn more about the very significant impacts of social isolation and learning loss on our children during the pandemic.”

The mastermind of the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal that rocked USC, Stanford, and other major universities was sentenced to three and half years in federal prison by a judge in Boston on Wednesday, the New York Times and other outlets reported.

William Singer, who is known as Rick, told U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel that he was ashamed of what he had done. “All my life I wanted to help kids and their families,” he said, according to the Times.

Singer, who turned government informant, was the last of nearly 50 people charged in the case to be sentenced. Zobel gave him the longest prison term of those involved, but not the six-year sentence prosecutors requested. The judge also imposed three years of supervised release and more than $10 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. Singer was also ordered to forfeit millions of dollars in assets.

“There were very real victims of this scheme,” Stephen Frank, a prosecutor, told Zobel in the packed courtroom. He cited applicants who succeeded at sports at the highest level but were passed over for admission and millions of students who had faith in the system and played by the rules.

Dozens of people were accused of participating in a scheme to get their children into elite colleges by falsifying test scores, paying off coaches and exaggerating or making up athletic achievements.

A Latino civil rights group filed a complaint against Pasadena Unified School over its decision in 2019 to close three elementary schools.

The district’s decision violates the California Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, according to the suit filed last week by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).

“PUSD failed to take into account basic racial equity when it decided to close three majority-Latino schools” said MALDEF staff attorney Erika Cervantes, in a statement. “PUSD has placed these schools last when it comes to investment in the students’ education. Latino children deserve better, and we’re holding PUSD accountable through this lawsuit for its discriminatory practices.”

At the time, the district cited declining birth rates, rising housing costs and charter schools as reasons for the district’s dwindling enrollment. The district said the closures were needed to cut costs. Enrollment has declined by over 2,700 students over the last seven years.

Pasadena Unified made the decision to close three elementary schools in the central and northwest area of the district. This disproportionally affected Latino students and the decision was made with little transparency or notice, the MADLEF said. Parents learned about the potential closures about one week before they were approved, according to the suit.

At the meeting where the board made its closures decision, Pasadena City Councilman Victor Gordo called on the board to postpone the decision and engage with the community in a “more transparent process,” according to the Pasadena Star-News.

The suit outlines the fallout of the closures, which it says became especially pronounced as students returned from remote learning. Some students were bounced between schools because the school they were directed to became overcrowded. One of the shuttered schools, Roosevelt Elementary, was designed to serve high numbers of students with disabilities, and the suit states that the receiving schools had “substandard” facilities for students with disabilities. Some students lost access to unique programs, such as dual immersion or a STEM-focused curriculum, when schools were shuttered.

MALDEF president and general counsel Thomas A. Saenz said, in a statement, the district must redo its decision on school closures.

South San Francisco Unified School District schools will be closed Thursday due to the major storm expected to hit the state today.

“According to the National Weather Service, a major storm will hit the Bay Area at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 4,” said Superintendent Shawnterra Moore. “Based on this information and out of an abundance of caution, our district is planning to cancel classes on Thursday, Jan. 5.”

The district serves the communities of Daly City, South San Francisco and San Bruno.

The storm is expected to bring heavy rain and high winds that could result in flooding and power outages that impact roads and make driving difficult, according to a press release from the district. Consequently, all extracurricular and athletic activities scheduled for today and Thursday have been canceled.

“Jan. 4 is a minimum day, and we highly encourage families to pick up their children from school as soon as possible and to be off the roads and home by 3 p.m. on that day,”  Moore said.

After school care will be available this afternoon for essential workers who are unable to take time off, but there will be no extended care services on Thursday.

Alameda County’s new superintendent, Alysse Castro, took office on Tuesday, pledging to prioritize student mental health, teacher recruitment and training and improved outcomes for the county’s most vulnerable students.

Castro, former director of court, county and continuation schools for San Francisco Unified, defeated L.K. Monroe in June, in part due to strong support from teachers unions. Monroe had held the post since 2015.

“The county superintendent holds a powerful lever to tilt public schools towards quality, equality and justice — yet few people have even heard of this tool,” Castro said at the swearing-in ceremony, which took place at the county’s juvenile justice center. “Our students — especially those furthest from opportunity — need us to use every tool to break the school-to-prison pipeline, embed systems of care in schools and guarantee an excellent teacher and an excellent school for every student in every community.”

Castro holds a bachelor’s degree and teaching credential from UC Santa Cruz and a master’s degree in educational leadership from UC Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute. She was recently named an “Alameda Local Hero” for her work as president of Alameda Family Services, a community agency.

With President Joe Biden signing a $1.7 trillion federal spending bill before the New Year, the maximum Pell Grant will increase by $500 to $7,395 this year. The Pell Grant is a federal financial aid award available to college students from low- and middle-income families.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said increasing the maximum award amount by $500 “will help more students access college or career training,” noting that it’s the largest increase in 10 years. He also said the increase is the first step toward doubling the maximum award amount by 2029.

The increased award amount will be available to students beginning in the 2023-24 academic year.

Law enforcement officials in Ventura County have decided against filing charges after investigating more than 100 cases of possible sexual abuse at a private boarding school in Ojai, the Ventura County Star reported.

Sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors in Ventura County came to that decision after combing through a 91-page report on the Thacher School’s handling of sexual abuse, the Star reported. The school last year released the report, which documented many allegations of sexual abuse over a period of decades, including that a teacher raped a 16-year-old student and that a headmaster inappropriately touched students, according to The New York Times.

According to the Times, officials said there were two main obstacles that prevented them from bringing charges: the statute of limitations and the school’s decision to hire a private law firm to investigate the allegations rather than immediately filing reports to the county sheriff’s office.

“Our inability to bring charges should not be seen as endorsing what happened over the years at Thacher,” Deputy District Attorney Brent Nibecker said, according to the Star. “Numerous children were victimized. Adults entrusted with their care violated that trust.”

CalSTRS, the pension fund for teachers and school administrators, recorded its first loss, for the year ending June 30, after a year with a record gain and a string of positive returns since the Great Recession. It was only minus 1.3%, dropping its portfolio to $301.6 billion.

But next year could be a lot worse for all of the big public pension funds, Politico reported Thursday in an article that focused on three states with Democratic governors “who have touted their records as fiscal stewards as they angle for a bigger role on a national stage.” They are Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Phil Murphy of New Jersey.

Pension funds in all three states are underfunded, and a recession, which many on Wall Street are predicting, could set back a timetable for recovery and eventually lead to higher employer contributions by school districts to both CalSTRS and CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund. The latter serves county, state and local employees, including classified workers, such as classroom aides and bus drivers in schools.

CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost acknowledged a difficult year is coming in a statement to Politico, stating she sees “a challenging road ahead as major economies around the world continue to slow and market volatility grows. We understand these low-returning environments can put pressure on our employer partners and local government budgets.”

CalPERS reported a loss of 6.2% in value. Both it and CalSTRS rely on an annual return of 7% on investment to meet current and future obligations to employees.

Since 2013, school districts’ pension contributions have more than doubled, from 8.3% of a teacher’s salary to 19.1% in 2020-21 to put the retirement system on track for full funding in 2046.

For the past two years, Newsom used budget surpluses to chip away a CalSTRS’ unfunded obligations and also twice applied $1.15 billion from the general fund to reduce districts’ immediate payments.

But with forecasts pointing to a substantial drop in state revenues, more state subsidies are unlikely in 2022-23, adding pressure on superintendents and school boards to balance their budgets. They’ll know more soon; Newsom will release the 2023-24 budget by Jan. 10.

Sacramento City Unified may require face masks indoors if Sacramento County Covid-19 levels are still high when students return from winter break on Jan. 9.

The district’s board policy requires students, staff and visitors to wear face masks if Covid levels are at the high level, as determined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Parents will receive an email on Jan. 6 to inform them if masks will be required, according to the district website.

Sacramento City Unified staff working at district facilities during the winter break are required to wear face masks indoors until the county returns to the medium or low level, according to the district.

California withdrew the requirement that schools mandate masking after March 11, but school districts and local county health officers in high-transmission areas can still require it.

Sacramento City Unified officials are asking students and staff to take at-home Covid tests provided by the district before returning to school after the break.

Noted economist Eric Hanushek has determined a dollar value in lost lifelong earnings and states’ economic growth as a result of the drop in learning during the pandemic. In California, it is huge, more than a trillion dollars, according to state-by-state data released on Tuesday.

Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, calculated that, depending on which state they live in, students will face a lifetime loss in earnings of 2% to 9%. The loss in states’ GDP from a workforce with lower skills will be 0.6% to 2.9% each year for the remainder of the century compared with pre-pandemic learning expectations.

Since the economic growth of a state is greatly tied to the quality of its labor force, the pandemic’s legacy will be a future workforce less prepared to contribute to economic growth, Hanushek wrote.

California did better than the national average on the latest results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tests representative groups of students in fourth and eighth grades on English language arts and math. Based on pre-pandemic 2019, California students as a whole experienced no loss in eighth grade reading, compared with a significant 3-point drop nationwide, and a decline of 6 points in math, compared with a record loss of 8 points nationally.

Therefore, California’s projected loss of 1.4% in GDP will be smaller than three-quarters of other states. But because its economy is so large, the loss, as measured by current dollar value, will be $1.28 trillion through the end of the century, Hanushek estimated.

The real impact of learning losses will not happen until the current cohort graduates from high school. Like high blood pressure, the real impact of learning losses won’t be noticed until it is too late, Hanushek wrote.  “If we do not act quickly and decisively, these losses to individuals and to the state will be permanent.”

Francisco Rodriguez, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, will serve on the transition team for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

Bass was elected Mayor in November, and her transition team will provide counsel during the first 100 days of her term. As chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, Rodriguez oversees the nine campuses of largest community college district in the state.

“As Mayor Bass focuses on pressing issues and policies to address during her first 100 days, I believe Chancellor Rodriguez will bring insight and solutions to many concerns,” David Vela, president of the district’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “Since he understands the educational needs of the region, he will be a great asset by providing key counsel to the transition team.”

Parents and community members at Sanger Unified in Fresno County are frustrated by the district’s lack of Spanish language services at board meetings, The Fresno Bee reported.

About 70% of the district’s students are Latino, and the primary language in many of their households is Spanish. But at Sanger Unified board meetings, interpreters are not provided unless requested at least 48 hours in advance and there are also no simultaneous translation devices used at the meetings.

“I don’t understand anything,” Justina Rosales, a mother of six students in the district, said in Spanish to The Bee.

One of the district’s trustees, Va Her, told the Bee that he hadn’t previously heard of those concerns but said he supports the idea of having Spanish translators at meetings.

“The reality is, we live in a very diverse community,” he said. “If that is of a concern, then we, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, should be able to provide that and make sure it’s readily available, whether it’s used or not.”

Academic workers at the University of California have voted to ratify new contracts, ending a six-week strike that greatly disrupted the ten-campus system at the end of its fall term.

Two separate bargaining units represented by United Auto Workers each approved the contracts, which were tentatively agreed to last week. UAW 2865 — which represents teaching assistants, tutors, graders and readers — voted 11,386 to 7,097 in favor of the contracts. The vote for SRU-UAW, which represents student researchers, was 10,057 to 4,640.

With the the contracts approved, the workers will return next month after the system’s winter break ends.

Under the new contract, starting pay for teaching assistants will increase from $23,000 to $34,000 by October 2024. For graduate student researchers, the minimum pay by that point will be $34,564.50.

“The dramatic improvements to our salaries and working conditions are the result of tens of thousands of workers striking together in unity,” Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 2865, said in a statement. “These agreements redefine what is possible in terms of how universities support their workers, who are the backbone of their research and education enterprise.”

Letitia Silas, UC’s executive director of systemwide labor relations, said in a statement that the contract ratification “demonstrates yet again the University’s strong commitment to providing every one of our hardworking employees with competitive compensation and benefit packages that honor their many contributions to our institution, to our community, and to the state of California.”

Gov. Newsom reappointed Linda Darling-Hammond, 70, to a second term on the state board of education, where she has served as president since 2019.

Darling-Hammond, professor emeritus at Stanford, is founder and president of the Learning Policy Institute. Her work in the education field has focused on equity, teaching and social-emotional learning, among other topics. A former public school teacher, Darling-Hammond has served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future and advised on education policy for the Obama and Biden administrations.

Newsom also reappointed Jose Francisco Escobedo, 62, to the state board. A former superintendent of Chula Vista Elementary School District, Escobedo is the executive director of the National Center for Urban School Transformation. Newsom first appointed him to the board in 2021.

Both appointments require State Senate confirmation and come with $100-per-day compensation.

School districts in Yuba City and Amador County will begin education and training programs for students and staff following racist incidents this fall involving their respective football teams, the Associated Press reported.

“There are vital messages about race, discrimination and systemic changes that are necessary to help us turn important corners toward equity, respect and compassion, critical for our schools today,” said Lee McPeak, principal of River Valley High in Yuba City.

At River Valley, a TikTok video showed football players conducting a mock slave auction. Those involved were suspended and the team forfeited the remainder of its season. At Amador High, football players created a group chat called “Kill the Blacks,” resulting in Superintendent Torie Gibson canceling the football season and putting the coach, athletic director and principal on leave.

“We canceled the football season, and we did it for all the right reasons because the behavior is not acceptable,” Gibson told AP. “However, football is an extracurricular activity. It is not a given. It is not a right. It is strictly extra.”

The University of California is awarding $80 million in research grants across California to combat climate change.

State lawmakers have set aside for the university system $185 million to support climate change research.

Researchers from California institutions of higher education can apply for the awards, with the goal of creating real-world solutions to tackle the existential threat of climate change, according to the university.

“This is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” said University President Michael V. Drake. “The climate crisis is the preeminent challenge of our time, and as such it requires bold, innovative and scalable solutions to meet the challenge. I want to thank the governor and the Legislature for placing their trust in us with these funds, and for helping our researchers continue to lead the way in the fight against climate change. For California’s researchers and community partners, this is our moment.”

Requests for proposal have been issued in two funding categories: Climate Action Seed Grants, with awards of between $500,000 and $2 million, and Climate Action Matching Grants, which will fund projects of between $2 million and $10 million. Letters of intent are due Jan. 17.

Both grant programs will provide up to two years of funding. Seed grants will support smaller, more targeted projects while matching grants will support large projects.

Applicants can apply using the University of California Office of the President Research Grants Program Office SmartSimple grants management system. For more information on the climate action funding, go here.

Forty-eight educators from the Los Angeles area have been selected to receive up to $20,000 to expand educational efforts at their schools as part of the Champions Educate Here program.

The program is sponsored by the Football Playoff Foundation, the LA84 Foundation and the Play Equity Fund as part of the festivities around the National Football Championship at SoFi stadium in Inglewood on Jan. 9.

The Champions Educate Here program was established to shine the spotlight on the national championship game, on the work of educators and to provide funding and support for programs aimed at nurturing the academic, mental health and social-emotional needs of students through sport, play and movement, according to the Los Angles Sports and Entertainment Commission.

The game will culminate a weekend of activities, including the Extra Yard for Teachers Summit, that offer teachers up to four hours of professional development either virtually or by in-person from 1 to 5 p.m. Jan. 7 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  In-person attendance is free, but virtual attendance is $25.

“I have worked with the College Playoff Foundation for the past four years as they committed $250,000 in funds for schools in Paradise after the Camp fire,” said Tim Taylor, executive director of the Small School District’s Association. “They are committed to supporting K-12 teachers, and the entire weekend will raise $250 million for the local economy and hundreds of thousands of dollars for local schools in LA.”

Los Angeles Unified saw thousands attend its efforts to catch up students over winter break during its first day of optional learning Monday. According to the district, 60,000 of the more than 72,000 students who signed up for the effort participated in the first of four additional learning days occurring over both winter and spring break.

Still, attendance varied at the 304 schools from across the district that hosted students. Schools like Bright Elementary in Exposition Park saw a significant gap between signups and actual attendance. Bright Elementary had 106 students attend of the 450 who signed up. 

The situation left targeted student population coordinator Karina Alvarez with two students in her kindergarten class out of the 19 she expected. Despite the low attendance, she said she still felt it went well.

“Because we were well prepared and we had 106 students, I thought it went very smoothly, but it was a drastic difference from what we were expecting in terms of outcome,” Alvarez said.

The district is planning to analyze the results of the first two optional learning days as it prepares for the remaining days to take place in April during spring break.

Cal Poly Humboldt suffered little damage and no injuries as a result of a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck the region early Tuesday morning, and expects to reopen Wednesday, campus officials said.

The 8,116-student campus in Arcata closed Tuesday to everyone but essential staff as crews inspected buildings for damage and hazardous conditions. Power to most of Humboldt County, including the campus, remained off Tuesday afternoon.

“Obviously, there are people in our community and parts of the region that are more deeply affected by the earthquake,” said campus spokesman Grant Scott-Goforth. “(Our) campus has been very fortunate not to report any damage or injuries.”

The powerful earthquake struck at 2:34 a.m. near Ferndale, about 30 miles southwest of Arcata, resulting in at least two deaths, 11 injuries and widespread damage, according to the Times-Standard newspaper in Eureka.

Cal Poly Humboldt senior Joy Mehn said she was jolted awake by the roar of the quake and the crashing of pictures falling off her apartment wall.

“It was really scary,” said Mehn, a political science major. “Now there’s no power. Everything is closed. There’s no heat. It’s cold. We’re all layered up.”

Her friend Nicole Hoffman, also a senior, said that she and her neighbors gathered outside just after the quake struck and considered fleeing to higher ground in case of a tsunami. A tsunami never materialized, but aftershocks continued throughout the morning.

“I’ve never been in an earthquake this intense,” said Hoffman, an elementary education major. “It was scary, but we’re OK.”

High school students who were in distance learning last year were more likely to feel lonely and depressed, a study found, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The UC Davis survey of 1,177 high school freshmen, sophomores and juniors found that students who attended school online felt more negatively about school and were more likely to feel lonely and sad than their peers who attended face-to-face classes. The survey was conducted from May through June 2021.

Drew Cingel, one of the UC Davis researchers behind the study, told The Bee that while he wasn’t surprised that those students were more likely to feel lonely or sad, he was surprised by how drastic the differences were.

“To find that adolescents and online schooling scored worse on almost every variable we measured across a wide array of variables — across feelings about school, sense of connection, media use, mental health … That was really surprising to us,” Cingel said.

Adrian Palazuelos, the former Sonoma Valley Unified superintendent who abruptly left that position last month, has joined the Sonoma County Office of Education as a deputy superintendent, according to The Press Democrat.

Palazuelos left his post as Sonoma Valley Unified’s superintendent in November following a “separation agreement” with that district’s board. He held that position for 18 months.

In his new role, Palazuelos will be under contract for six months, or until the end of the school year, The Press Democrat reported. “I am deeply honored and humbled for the opportunity to join Superintendent Carter and the leadership at the county office of education. In my new role, I look forward to supporting our school districts and the students they serve throughout Sonoma County,” he said in a statement.

Persistent staffing shortages may complicate the state’s new initiative to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Under the state’s new Expanded Learning Opportunities program, school districts can add three hours to the school day, extend the school year a month and take other measures to help students catch up academically and improve their overall well-being. The program requires districts to prioritize students who are low-income, English learners or in foster care.

“It’s about time. I’m glad the state is stepping up here. It’s beyond welcome and it’s just the first step,” San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen told the Chronicle. “The fact is more kids were failing than succeeding in public school prior to the pandemic, the situation is much worse now.”

But many districts, including San Francisco Unified, have been stymied by staffing shortages and are considering partnering with community groups to provide tutoring, activities and other aspects of the new program.

“The most high leverage interventions typically are people-intensive, so if you can’t hire new staff … then you’re constrained in what you can do,” Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, said.

Students and others criticized the Sanger Unified school board last week over a new policy that would allow teachers and principals to bar LGBTQ pride flags, the Fresno Bee reported.

More than a dozen people spoke out against the policy at a board meeting last week, saying that it does not create a safe and welcoming environment for LGBTQ students. A Fresno City Council member, Luis Chavez, has also opposed the new policy, calling it a “targeted ban” affecting LGBTQ students.

The policy, updated in September, allows teachers and principals to use their “professional judgment” in deciding what banners, posters, flags and other items to post in classrooms. Deputy Superintendent Eduardo Martinez said the policy is intended to create a “content-oriented environment” in classrooms, the Bee reported.

“When you’re providing instruction, there has to be that restraint as educators, to not allow my personal beliefs, my personal religion, to be infused into that instruction,” Martinez told the Bee.

The University of California reached a tentative labor deal on Friday with 36,000 academic workers, which if approved by members will end a strike that has lasted one month and disrupted the 10-campus system at the end of its fall term. The agreement gives increased pay and better benefits to teaching assistants and graduate student researchers.

“This is a positive step forward for the University and for our students, and I am grateful for the progress we have made together,” Michael Drake, UC’s systemwide president, said in a statement. “Our Academic Student Employees and Graduate Student Researchers are central to our academic enterprise and make incredible contributions to the University’s mission of research and education. These agreements will place our graduate student employees among the best supported in public higher education.”

The agreement will be voted on next week by the union’s members.

The contract would include raises of up to 66%, or $13,000 in annual pay at some campuses, said Tarini Hardikar, a member of the union’s bargaining team, in a statement. “In addition to incredible wage increases, the tentative agreements also include expanded benefits for parent workers, greater rights for international workers, protections against bullying and harassment, improvements to accessibility, workplace protections, and sustainable transit benefits.”

The strike initially involved 48,000 workers. UC reached agreements in late November with postdocs and academic researchers.

As the remaining 36,000 workers approached a fifth week on strike, UC and the union agreed on Dec. 9 to enter mediation. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg was chosen as that mediator and helped the two sides resolve their outstanding issues.

Steinberg said in a statement Friday that the two sides “reached a principled solution” and “deserve enormous credit for what they did to transform graduate education in the world’s most dynamic university system.”

“The union fought hard to ensure that the university’s graduate students make a living wage at every campus community. They and the University achieved a new national standard for members,” he added.

Hundreds of Great Oak High School students in Temecula walked out of their classes this morning in protest of a resolution banning the teaching of critical race theory, recently passed by the Temecula Valley Unified school board, according to the Press-Enterprise.

The resolution was passed by a conservative majority of school board members elected in November.

Sienna Andrade, a senior and student body co-president, told the Press-Enterprise that the resolution censored history and isn’t needed as critical race theory isn’t taught in the schools.

The new board members – Joseph Komrosky, Danny Gonzalez and Jen Wiersma – were all supported in their elections by the conservative Inland Empire Family PAC, which has ties to the 412 Church Temecula Valley, according to the article.

Students also protested at the school board meeting when the resolution was being considered and walked out of classes at Temecula Valley High School the day after the meeting.

On this topic from EdSource:

• Conservatives are waging a war for control over California school boards
• California school board races don’t see red wave

Teacher aides at San Francisco Unified will receive one-time bonuses to encourage them to stay with the district. The city will divide $3 million among the district’s 1,600 teacher aides, which will equate to just under $2,000 a person, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

At Wednesday’s district announcement, district officials applauded its teachers aides for being an integral part of San Francisco Unified, noting that the bonus and encouragement to stay comes amid a widespread shortage of teachers and aides.

“Working families rely on the help from paraprofessional educators who take the extra step to ensure a well-rounded and quality education for SFUSD students,” Supervisor Ahsha Safaí said in a statement, according to the Chronicle. “This funding will help to recognize and retain our hardworking paraprofessional educators and encourage them to stay with SFUSD.”

Funds will be distributed in the spring.

The Temecula Valley Unified school board banned the teaching of critical race theory in district schools after a heated board meeting Tuesday. Members of the conservative majority board voted 3-2 in favor of the ban, according to The Press-Enterprise.

Critical race theory, often taught at the college level, examines the role of institutions in racism throughout history.

Temecula Valley Unified joins other districts across the country that have pushed to prevent such topics from being taught in the classroom.That’s included Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified in Orange County, which banned it in April.

The Bassett Unified School District in La Puente, Los Angeles County, has agreed to pay seven victims of sexual abuse by a former school janitor $1.75 million to settle a lawsuit, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported Thursday.

The Torch Middle School students were between 10 and 12 years old when the abuses occurred between 2014 and 2017, the newspaper reported. The former janitor, Michael Anthony Barry, lured the students, all girls, to the janitorial office at the school by offering them candy and chips. The students sued the district in 2018.

“It’s been a long, long road for them,” said attorney Michael Carrillo, who represented the students and their families. He said he hopes the settlement will bring this terrible chapter in the girls’ lives to a close.

The district settled the suit Tuesday. It did not admit fault in the settlement, according to the Tribune.

Barry pleaded no contest on Nov. 8, 2018, to five felony counts of lewd act upon a child, five misdemeanor counts of child molesting and one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the Tribune reported. He is eligible for parole in August 2026, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He will have to register as a sex offender if he is paroled.

The mother of a 15-year-old girl who died of an overdose in a bathroom at Bernstein High School in Hollywood announced a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District on Wednesday, alleging school officials knew there was a problem with drug use at the campus but took no action, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported.

Melanie Ramos was found dead on a bathroom floor at the school on the night of Sept. 13, hours after the family claims that school officials realized she was missing. Authorities said the girl ingested a pill she thought was Percocet but was believed to be laced with fentanyl, the newspaper reported.

L.A. Unified declined to comment on the suit.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called for more to be done to ensure schools are safe against gun violence today, the 10th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 26 children and adults dead and two injured.

“In the decade since that horrific day in Newtown, a movement in the name of lives shattered by gun violence was born. Today, we recommit to fight another day in honor of everyone who has been hurt by gun violence, particularly those 20 precious children and six educators whose lives were heinously and brutally taken,” she said in a joint statement with Abbey Clements, a survivor of the attack and co-founder of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence.

The United States has had 2,032 school shootings since 1970, with 193 incidents of gunfire on school campuses during the 2021-22 school year, according to the statement. There have been 948 school shootings since the Sandy Hook tragedy in December 2012.

“We all know the facts: School-based violence is almost always planned ahead of time,” the statement continued. “There are, in many cases, warning signs, where educators, school staff, law enforcement or others might have intervened. And too often, shooters have access to weapons of war and high-capacity magazines that military experts and veterans will tell you have no place in the civilian world.

“Even responsible gun owners agree: We can, and we must, continue to do more to prevent these unspeakable tragedies, including passing an assault weapons ban and continuing to strengthen ‘red flag,’ background check and safe storage laws nationwide.”

The union representing custodians, cafeteria workers, special education assistants and other essential employees in the Los Angeles Unified School District has announced plans to hold a strike authorization vote in January. SEIU Local 99, which represents nearly 30,000 workers, is pushing for a wage increase, expanded health care benefits and sufficient staffing and resources to keep schools clean. 

The union has been negotiating its contract with the district since 2020 — the year its contract expired — though negotiations were halted for a period amid the pandemic’s peak. According to the union’s executive director, Max Arias, this round of negotiations has differed from previous ones in that the district has been unwilling to engage with the proposals this time.

“Students cannot wait for clean, safe and supportive schools; your families cannot wait for living wages and health care and basic respect,” Arias shouted to a rally gathered Tuesday in front of LAUSD headquarters. “We won’t wait anymore. We don’t want any more empty promises.”

The union is still in its initial steps as it looks toward a possible strike. It has yet to declare an impasse, an important step in the process before stopping work. But if a strike authorization vote passes, it can start the process for the union to move forward with one, providing an important possible pressure point.

LAUSD said the district is continuing to negotiate with the union.

“We are committed to compensating our employees fairly in this current economic environment, while also preserving our ability to provide services to our students in a sustainable manner that promotes lasting student achievement,” the district wrote in a statement.

SEIU Local 99 member Kelly Rodriguez, who works as an early education assistant at Toluca Lake Early Education Center, said it’s been difficult to watch the negotiations stall. She said it’s caused her and other members to feel disrespected by the district.

“You start to look at the things that you never looked at before,” Rodriguez said. “Now I’m looking at my dollar amount. Well, is it really worth me doing this? I used to come into this job and love what I did. But man, I’m getting treated like this.”