California education news: What’s the latest?

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.”

Female and transgender students at Cal Maritime on the San Francisco Bay have complained about harassment for years, and little has been done about it, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation released today.

One woman told a Times reporter that she began to carry a knife after another cadet tried to force her to have sex. Another woman was raped and dropped out of school because she was forced to face her alleged attacker in school for months while university officials investigated.

Cal Maritime, which is part of the California State University system, has issued statements saying university officials denounce misconduct and have taken steps to address the problem, including hiring two consultants, increasing training on sexual harassment and how to report misconduct, hiring a full-time advocate for victims, hosting campus forums and opening a community center for cadets to gather and study, according to the report.

The U.S. may be the only country in the developed world that does not offer any paid maternity leave, according to a new report. Countries with half the GDP are more generous than the U.S. when it comes to offering financial support to new mothers, the report suggests.

Conducted by CommonCentsMom.com, a parenting website, the report analyzed the costs of early child care for women in 40 countries and how much time off they receive. The research used data sources from national statistics offices, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and Eurostat from 2020 and 2021. 

“We already knew that the U.S. had a zero maternity leave policy and wanted to understand just how normal that was compared to other developed countries,” said Katie Ren, the founder of CommonCentsMom.com. “The results show that America is by far the worst country for childcare in the developed world.”

The U.S. is the only country on the list to offer zero paid maternity leave. Switzerland is the second worst for maternity leave, with only 14 weeks off paid 53.9% of full wage. Israel follows closely behind, where mothers can only take 15 weeks off; however, they are paid full wages. By contrast, the best countries for family leave in this ranking are the Slovak Republic (164 weeks), Finland (161 weeks) and Hungary (160 weeks). 

California, however, has its own paid family leave program, the first in the nation. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill that will raise the amount of money that workers receive under the state’s paid family and medical leave program, a boost that supporters say will ensure lower-wage workers are not blocked from the benefit, the Los Angeles Times reported. The state will pay up to 90% in wage replacement for all new parents and those who need to take time off to care for a seriously ill relative, starting in 2025. The rate is currently set at 60%-70%.

Half of the 500 largest school districts in the United States have changed superintendents since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic or are currently transitioning leaders.

That’s according to findings in a new report released Monday by the ILO Group, a consulting firm focusing on women school leaders, The 74 reported.

Forty-seven districts have seen multiple leadership changes, according to the report, which also found that women who have left their posts have mostly been replaced by men. Of the 94 female superintendents who have left their positions, two-thirds were replaced by men, according to the report.

“The challenges women face to get the top job are not new; they’re the systems that have been in place for generations,” Julia Rafal-Baer, the firm’s managing partner, told The 74. “With all the churn in districts happening right now, one positive outcome could have been the addition of new perspectives, but instead we are seeing the opposite.”

In California, the state’s largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, saw a leadership change earlier this year. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho took over in his role in February.

Darrell Steinberg, the mayor of Sacramento, has been selected as the mediator in negotiations between the University of California and United Auto Workers, the union representing the university’s 36,000 academic workers who remain on strike.

UC and the union, unable to make progress toward an agreement, first announced last week that the two sides would enter mediation.

“It is my hope that both parties will enter this mediation with an open mind, a spirit of goodwill, and a focus on compromise. I look forward to working with the parties to secure a contract,” Steinberg said in a statement Monday.

The schedule for the mediation process is still being determined.

An overwhelming majority of West Contra Costa Unified teachers and other school workers voted last week to authorize a strike after monthslong contract talks between the district and the teachers union, United Teachers of Richmond, came to a halt.

United Teachers of Richmond has about 1,700 members and represents counselors, school psychologists, nurses, librarians, speech-language pathologists and program specialists in addition to teachers.

More than 90% of the union’s members participated in the vote last week, with 97.3% voting in favor of authorizing the strike.

West Contra Costa Unified’s negotiation team declared an impasse on Nov. 17, which means they will seek third-party mediation. If the district and the union can’t reach a settlement with the help of the mediator, they will enter the fact-finding process for a resolution. After that, if United Teachers Of Richmond’s negotiation team still doesn’t see the district moving toward a satisfactory settlement, they can call for a strike.

Freshman applications to Cal Poly Humboldt, formerly Humboldt State University, rose 86% since the Northern California college changed its name and expanded its science and technology offerings, the campus reported.

“These are impressive numbers compared to recent years,” Peggy Metzger, executive director of enrollment management. “Humboldt’s polytechnic designation and the new academic programs that are launching next fall are definitely a draw for prospective students and their families this year. We’re excited to welcome these new students to Cal Poly Humboldt.”

Transfer and master’s degree applications have also increased. Overall, applications have risen 74%.

As California’s third Cal Poly campus, Humboldt is offering nine new degree programs, including data science, applied fire science and management, cannabis studies and software engineering.

In all, 6,630 first-time college students applied for undergraduate admission.

Steven Llanusa, president of the Claremont Unified school board, resigned his post on Saturday after allegations that high school students attended a holiday party at his home that featured alcohol, partially clothed men dressed as elves and a “dirty Santa,” the Daily Bulletin reported.

Llanusa’s resignation is effective immediately. The board will decide in the next few weeks how to fill his vacancy.

The Dec. 3 holiday party was a fundraiser for the Claremont High School choir, and members of the choir performed. According to parents’ allegations, students were offered alcohol and exposed to “inappropriate behavior” among adults, the newspaper reported. Police are investigating the incident.

Claremont Educational Foundation board member Rachel Forester told the Daily Bulletin that Llanusa’s resignation was “the very best thing to happen.”

“I think (Llanusa) is a decent person and made a really poor decision that is going to cost him,” Forester said.

University of California and the union representing striking academic workers at the university announced Friday that they will enter private mediation to resolve their contract negotiations.

Seeking better pay, UC teaching assistants and student researchers have been on strike for the past four weeks, unable to reach a deal with UC negotiators. A timeline for the mediation process has not yet been determined, UC said.

On Thursday, UC negotiators told the bargaining team for United Auto Workers, the union representing 36,000 academic workers who remain on strike, that they wouldn’t be making any additional contract proposals and requested private mediation, according to the union. It was a reiteration of UC’s previous requests since before the strike to bring a third party into talks. On Friday, a majority of the union’s bargaining team voted to accept that route.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, it is likely too late to salvage the chaotic last few weeks ending the fall sessions, where many exams and classes have been canceled and grades delayed. Seven of UC’s nine undergraduate campus had finals this week. The other two, Berkeley and Merced, have finals next week.

The strike also includes postdocs and academic researchers, who have reached tentative deals with UC but have not returned to work out of solidarity with those who remain on strike.

UC said entering mediation is designed to help the two sides overcome their gridlock.

“The University is pleased that the UAW has agreed to neutral private mediation so that we may resolve our differences and end the strike that has been impacting our students, faculty, and staff,” Letitia Silas, UC’s executive director of systemwide labor relations, said in a statement.

Tarini Hardikar, a member of the union’s bargaining team, said in a statement that UC negotiators “have consistently been unprepared and unserious” during bargaining. “We feel that in order to make progress, it is time for somebody else to step in,” Hardikar added.

A professor alleges he was forced out of his position at UC San Diego because of his connections with Chinese universities, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. The university began investigating professor Xiang-Dong Fu in 2019 for allegedly violating its conflict of commitment policy.

A disciplinary panel recommended Fu be suspended for two years, but he resigned effective Dec. 5, saying he did nothing wrong, according to the newspaper. The university also recommended he be suspended from receiving funds from the National Institutes of Health for four years.

The investigation into Fu follows the 2018 China Initiative under President Donald Trump, which was intended to prevent China from stealing U.S. intellectual property. It has been criticized for unfairly targeting Chinese professors.

Fu is a professor of cellular and molecular medicine.

Homeless students are slipping through the cracks, according to the Center for Public Integrity. The center’s analysis of federal education data indicates that around 300,000 students have slipped through the cracks and not received the support they are entitled to by school districts.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act requires schools to help students with unstable housing. They are expected to refer families to health care and housing services, provide transportation and waive certain enrollment requirements. 

However, according to the Center for Public Integrity, schools tend to undercount homeless students and don’t receive sufficient federal funds to support students. Federal funds are based on federal poverty rates.

It may soon be mandatory for California schools to stock Narcan, the drug that can save the lives of people overdosing on the synthetic opioid fentanyl, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The proposal is part of legislation introduced by both Democratic and Republican state lawmakers this week that aims to increase information about the presence of fentanyl on K-12 campuses. The drug can be fatal and consumed unknowingly when it’s hidden in other drugs such as oxycodone and Adderall.

The Los Angeles Police Department reported that at least seven teenagers overdosed from pills possibly containing fentanyl this year, including a 15-year-old girl who died in September, the Times reported.

In the opening week of the new legislative session, Assemblymember Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin) introduced AB 19, which would require schools in California to have at least two doses of emergency naloxone such as Narcan on campus in case of an overdose.

Patterson, a father of four who was sworn into the state Legislature on Monday, said the issue is bipartisan and he’s faced no opposition to the legislation.

But the details of the proposal — including the undetermined cost — could be tricky, the Times reported.  The legislation comes as California is facing an estimated $25-billion budget deficit, and state programs that offer Narcan are already in high demand.

The parents of a UC San Diego rower who took his own life last year have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the university and its former crew coach, claiming their son was driven to suicide by the coach’s abuses, the Associated Press reported.

Brian Lilly Jr. had confided to friends that crew coach Geoff Bond’s verbal abuses had impacted his well-being, the suit alleges.

“This guy basically squashed Brian’s self-esteem, his threat to push Brian off the team. And I don’t need to have a sports psychologist in here to tell me how damaging that was,”  Lilly’s father Brian Lilly Sr. told the AP.

Brenda and Brian Lilly Sr. filed suit against Bond and the school, alleging the coach mistreated their son largely because he challenged Bond’s decision to allow a rower to remain on the team despite allegations of sexual misconduct against the athlete. Bond left U.C. San Diego in January.

A psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles, an adolescent substance abuse facility in Orange County and a tribal outpatient center in Humboldt County are among the 54 projects to share $480.5 million in grants promoting youth mental health and wellness, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday.

The grants are part of the state’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health, a priority for Newsom and the Legislature since anxiety, depression and stress among young people has soared in recent years, due to Covid, social media, climate change, school shootings, rising college costs and other factors.

“We’re overhauling our mental health system to connect young Californians with the care and support they need,” Newsom said. “Too many Californians are struggling with mental illness and substance abuse. This funding will support critical mental health and substance use disorder treatment facilities that have committed to serving the diverse range of children and youth covered by Medi-Cal.”

The grants are part of a $2.1 billion program under the state Department of Health Care Services. Other grant programs also focus on mental health, including crisis care mobile units, behavioral health and other issues.

Among the youth mental health grantees are community health clinics, residential treatment facilities, crisis programs, school health centers and other projects.

In the wake of a student death in 2018, Davis Joint Unified agreed to change its policies, training and record-keeping related to secluding and restraining students with disabilities, the U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday.

Under the agreement between the district and the department’s Office of Civil Rights, Davis Joint Unified will improve the way it monitors students with disabilities who are placed at private schools. That includes better record-keeping of seclusion and restraint incidents, training school staff and taking other measures to ensure students are safe and families are well informed.

Secluding and restraining students is legal in California if a student is an immediate physical threat to themselves or others. It’s also legal for districts to pay for students in special education to attend private schools if the district can’t provide services the student needs. In this case, Davis Joint Unified referred a 13-year-old boy with autism to a nonpublic school in El Dorado Hills, where he collapsed after he was restrained for about an hour in November 2018. He later died at a local hospital.

“I am grateful for Davis Joint Unified School District’s commitment to take important steps to ensure that its students with disabilities are not denied a free and appropriate public education as a result of the use of restraint or seclusion whether they are placed in district schools or nonpublic school settings,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. “The tragic death of a child subjected to prolonged and repeated restraint at a school placement through this district underscores the urgency for school communities everywhere to carefully examine their restraint and seclusion practices to safeguard children in their care, in addition to their obligation to satisfy the federal civil rights laws we enforce.”

Under Assembly Bill 2657, which passed in 2018, California schools are required to report seclusion-and-restraint incidents annually to the state, including incidents that occur at private schools. The Office of Civil Rights also collects similar data.

Eighty-five percent of parents of small children want federal lawmakers to revive the expanded child tax credit to help families struggling amid rising inflation, according to a new poll from Zero To Three, an advocacy organization. 

The expansion of the child tax credit, as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, lifted many children out of poverty. However, when the credit expired at the end of 2021, nearly 4 million children slid back below the poverty line. 

Nearly three-fourths of those surveyed also said that Congress should not pass any more tax cuts for corporations, as part of a pending year-end spending package, until it reinstates the child tax credit. It should be noted that this finding was bipartisan, with 85% of parents who voted Democratic and 67% of parents who voted Republican agreeing with the statement.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that more than 90% of families making less than $35,000 a year used the monthly child tax credit to pay for basics such as food, clothing, shelter and utilities.

Many conservative politicians continue to oppose the benefit, however, arguing that it may discourage parents from working.

Teachers in the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District rejected a contract offer from the school district this week and asked the state to send a mediator to help the two sides come to an agreement.

The Tahoe Truckee Education Association and district could not come to an agreement on salary, health benefits, class size, time off and hours of employment.

“We have been working diligently without a salary contract this year and we’ve been proposing contract language that would provide our teachers with the support and resources our students need to continue succeeding,” said TTEA President Nik Fertitta in a news release. “We want a contract that offers a competitive salary schedule that will help attract and keep the best teachers for our students.”

Public schools in Contra Costa County saw declining enrollment for the second year in a row in last year, dropping to 169,604 — the lowest it’s been in a decade.

The county, which includes 18 school districts, saw steady enrollment increases between the 2011-12 school year and the 2019-20 school year, going from 169,394 to 178,406, according to the Contra Costa County Office of Education’s 2021-22 annual report released Tuesday. But after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down campuses, the county’s enrollment declined 3%.

Enrollment declined another 2% in 2021-22, according to the report. The state as a whole saw about the same decline last year, dropping to a two-decade low of 5,846,317 students.

The district’s largest district, West Contra Costa Unified, lost about 1,000 students in 2021-22, going from 31,027 to 30,071 — a 3% decline.

United Teachers Los Angeles is putting pressure on Los Angeles Unified for a 20% pay raise over two years, smaller class sizes and more academic and mental health support for students. The teachers union supporters rallied across the district, including in front of Los Angeles Unified’s downtown headquarters Monday, where they shouted up to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho to heed their requests. 

UTLA officials said their requests for a 20% raise across two years is fueled by their members’ burn-out worsened by the pandemic, teacher shortages and high cost of living. The union is also pushing to limit standardized testing, increase the number of nurses, librarians and counselors and reduce class sizes across the district. 

Speakers at the rallies, which included UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz and newly elected board member Rocio Rivas, focused on LAUSD’s $3.4 billion in reserves as evidence the district could afford the raises and other measures now.  The most recent contract expired in June and negotiations resumed this school year after a summer hiatus. 

“If you want to contract by the end of the year we’ve got to turn up the heat right now,” Myart-Cruz shouted to the crowd gathered in front of LAUSD’s headquarters. “We’re gonna tell Carvalho and every district official, they better come back to the table in January and be ready to rock and roll.”

District officials have voiced concern over potential difficulties as the state estimates a $25-billion deficit next year. LAUSD is currently using one-time state and federal Covid relief funds, but those funds will soon end.

As negotiations continue, LAUSD said it is working with its labor partners to move forward with their contracts.

“Los Angeles Unified continues to meet with our labor partners regularly,” the district said in a statement. “We respect and acknowledge the dedication of our employees and the need to compensate them fairly in this current economic environment. We remain dedicated to avoiding protracted negotiations to keep the focus on our students and student achievement.”

A new bill introduced Monday would exempt up to $20,000 in federal student debt relief from California state taxes.

Assemblymember Mike Fong, D-Alhambra, introduced the bill, AB 26, which aims to maximize the benefits of federal student debt relief proposed by President Joe Biden.

Biden’s plan would forgive up to $20,000 for individuals with federal student debt. The proposal, however, has stalled in the courts. Its fate will be determined by the United States Supreme Court, which last week agreed to take up the case.

“Federal student loan debt relief is a crucial piece of California’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. AB 26 ensures that Californians who qualify for federal student loan debt relief will not pay state taxes. We must do all that we can to support the millions of Californians who are working hard to get back on their feet and contribute to the economy,” Fong said in a statement.

Clovis Unified near Fresno continues to be the state’s largest non-unionized school district, in part due to stalled talks and infighting between competing employee associations, the Fresno Bee reported.

The Association of Clovis Educators has been trying since 2020 to represent the district’s 2,000 teachers under the umbrella of the California Teachers Association. The group has accused the district of unfair labor practices for its support of the Faculty Senate, another group of teachers that is not seeking to unionize. Meanwhile, a third group, the Independent Clovis Unified Educators, formed last year as an attempt to unionize independently of any larger union such as the California Teachers Association.

The school district, which has remained neutral in the issue, “respects its teachers’ right to have these discussions about how their voice is represented in conversations that impact their world of work,” district spokesperson Kelly Avants told the Bee via email.

Both the Association of Clovis Educators and the Independent Clovis Unified Educators are continuing to vie for teachers’ support as organization efforts enter a third year.

About 800 voters in Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County signed a petition to unseat Kenny Enney, a right-leaning school board member who has voiced anti-LGBTQ opinions in meetings and on social media, according to the Tribune.

The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District board appointed Enney in October to replace Chris Bausch, who resigned his seat on the board to serve on the City Council. Enney is serving a two-year term.

In social media posts, Enney has questioned the district’s use of “critical race theory” and criticized transgender people. He termed the transition process as “gender mutilation” and falsely said the school district had received complaints about “Furrys” (sic), the newspaper reported.

“The board could have handled this much differently,” said Carey Alvord, a supervisor of homeless and foster youth with the district who led the petition drive. “They didn’t have to appoint an extremist candidate.”

A special election to replace Enney would cost the district $493,000.

San Diego Unified is advising students and staff to change their passwords after the district received a cybersecurity threat. 

San Diego Unified has not made the nature of the cybersecurity threat clear, but told The San Diego Union-Tribune that safety and emergency mechanisms remain operational. The district is currently investigating the incident and has notified law enforcement.

The threat comes shortly after several ransomware attacks targeted California’s education sector this year. A ransomware attack hit California’s largest school district Los Angeles Unified in September, rendering some of the district’s online platforms inaccessible and resulting in the release of some personal data online. The district did not pay ransom.

Ten students were treated for suspected overdose Thursday at Van Nuys Middle School after exhibiting mild to moderate symptoms. The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to the incident, and searched the school alongside police officers to ensure all students were accounted for.

Seven of the 10 showing mild to moderate symptoms were transported to the hospital, according to the Los Angeles Times. All students are in stable condition, according Los Angeles Unified.

The fire department confirmed that the incident did not involve fentanyl but rather was suspected to be caused by cannabis. However, the investigation is still ongoing.

Instruction has continued as usual at Van Nuys Middle School, according to LAUSD, which said it requested medical assistance out of caution.

“We take the health and safety of our students very seriously,” the district wrote in a statement. “Every effort is made to ensure our students learn in a safe environment.”

The Sonoma County Office of Education has purchased a piece of property for educator housing at 3280 Juniper Ave. in Santa Rosa for $630,000.

Office of Education officials plan to ask the city to rezone the property to allow the construction of a high-density housing project that will include at least 60 rental units for teachers and other public employees.

The housing, known as Casitas de Amarosa, will be next to Amarosa Academy, an alternative education campus that serves about 45 students in seventh through 12th grades who have experienced challenges in traditional school settings, according to SCOE.

The project was initiated by Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Steven D. Herrington, who is retiring in December. It was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Incoming  Superintendent Amie R. Carteris plans to prioritize building housing for educators as a way to make Sonoma County more affordable for prospective school employees.

“Building housing that school staff can afford is essential to our mission of serving students,” Carter said. “This housing will help us realize our goal of strengthening and diversifying our educational workforce.”

Covina Valley Unified School District averted a strike Wednesday after reaching a tentative agreement with its teachers union.

Teachers had announced they would strike today if they couldn’t come to a contract agreement with the district. The biggest sticking point was a hard cap on health benefits that would disparately impact new teachers, according to the California Teachers Association. The new agreement addresses those concerns, according to the union.

“We are deeply grateful not only for the hard work of the bargaining team, but for every CUEA member who has sacrificed their time, shown up at rallies and participated in organizing actions to help achieve this settlement,” said Adam Hampton, president of the Covina Unified Education Association. “I also want to thank the many parents and community members who let us know they support Covina Valley teachers. Teachers want to be in our classrooms with our students and are grateful. We’ve been determined to have the district make things right and today’s settlement begins to do just that.”

Stanford University’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, is the focus of an investigation alleging multiple manipulated images were included in at least four neurobiology papers that he co-authored.

The investigation was announced soon after The Daily, the university student newspaper, reported the allegations, which have been raised repeatedly over several years and most recently highlighted by Elizabeth Bik, a biologist who also investigates science misconduct.

The university’s Board of Trustees, which Tessier-Lavigne is a member of, is overseeing the investigation, but a Stanford spokeswoman confirmed that he “will not be involved in the Board of Trustees’ oversight of the review,” according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In 2015, Tessier-Lavigne submitted corrections to Science, where two of the papers in question were published. Science, however, did not publish them “due to an error on our part,” the Chronicle confirmed.

The timeline for the investigation remains unclear.

Small children living in poor neighborhoods are more likely to be exposed to air pollution, which can harm their cognitive development, according to a study published Wednesday, as the Washington Post reported.  Increased exposure to airborne toxins during infancy, this research suggests, can reduce reading and math abilities and cause children to fall behind at school. While there are certainly other issues that affect school readiness, the study found that exposure to air pollutants accounted for a third of the impact compared with other factors.

It has long been established that poor communities are more often exposed to pollution than affluent communities, but this study, published in Science Advances, delves deeper into the impacts, exploring the intersection of class issues on early-childhood cognitive development, through the lens of air quality. In the study, researchers show the ways cognitive gaps are formed as early as 6 months and may be entrenched by age 2, long before children start school, said lead researcher Geoffrey Wodtke, associate director of the University of Chicago’s Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility.

“The study is showing that children born into high-poverty neighborhoods are more likely to be exposed to many neurotoxic air pollutants, and that those differences in turn are linked with inequalities in early-childhood development, specifically reading and math abilities measured around the time of school entry,” Wodtke told the Washington Post.

Free laundry for students and lifetime health benefits for qualifying workers are among the proposals the Fresno Teachers Association is bringing to the table in contract negotiations with the Fresno Unified School district.

The Fresno Bee reported that the union is attempting to “change the system” itself. “Everything is really built around this idea of: How can we reimagine education? How can we do something different?” union President Manuel Bonilla told the newspaper. “How can we make sure that we’re valuing everybody in our system?”

Among the ideas are opening school parking lots overnight to homeless families of district children with paid security and purchasing hygiene products for students needing them, the Bee reported.

The proposal also asks that the district reset lifetime benefit qualification for employees hired before March 16, 2020, who work for FUSD for at least 20 years, and employees hired between March 17 and Aug. 1, 2023, who work at least 25 years.

The 26-page document proposes as much as a 7.26% raise plus 100% district-paid health care, up from the current 95/5 employer- to employee-covered ratio.

Not everyone is embracing the union’s progressive proposals in the negotiations.

“This is all throwing crap against the wall,” said outgoing trustee Terry Slatic, who’s been skeptical of FTA’s proposed investments for homeless students. “So that when they concede that we’re not going to give it to them,” he said, he expects FTA to push for demands in other areas.

A 10-month-old boy accidentally ingested fentanyl at a San Francisco playground Tuesday and was saved only when paramedics gave him the overdose-reversing medication Narcan, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The child’s father gave the newspaper a gut-wrenching account of the ordeal.

“I’m frankly ignorant to the fentanyl problem,” Ivan Matkovic said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I’m just a dad that something bad happened to. I just wanted to let people know that along with coyotes and RSV and COVID, this is another thing to add to your checklist of things that you’re looking out for because we weren’t.”

The child was at a playground in the city’s Marina District with his nanny. He was playing in a grassy area with leaves, where it is believed he came across the drug, ingested it, and went into cardiac arrest. He was treated at a hospital for more than six hours, where testing confirmed the drug was in his system, the newspaper reported.

University of California Health has developed a video education series to help health care providers screen and provide care to patients with post-Covid symptoms. The need for this care is expected to increase as about 1 in 5 Covid patients are affected by long Covid or post-acute sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection.

“In California alone, there may be 2 million long-Covid patients, and it’s likely that the impact from this condition may increase already existing health inequities,” said Anne Foster, University of California Health’s vice president and chief clinical strategy officer.

The video education series brings together the knowledge of 12 academic health professionals across the UC system, including faculty and clinicians from UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego and UCSF. The content is available in individual video lectures or as a no-cost continuing medical education course.

“By educating, equipping and empowering more providers in the battle against the very real impact of long COVID/PASC, we are helping expand access to care for this condition,” said Foster.

Covina Valley Unified School District teachers have formally announced they will go on strike Thursday if they can’t come to a contract agreement with the district today, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

The district’s teachers are asking for better pay and are opposed to a plan to put a hard cap on health benefits. District officials have said the cap on benefits is needed to keep the district fiscally sound, according to the article.

Covina Unified Education Association members overwhelmingly authorized the strike, with 96% voting yes, according to the California Teachers Association.

The strike would impact 13,000 students in Los Angeles County.

Child poverty rates have crept back up since the expanded child tax credit expired, as The 19th reports, leaving many families struggling with food insecurity amid rising inflation.

More than 36 million families received the credit last year and the child poverty rate fell nearly in half, as the Los Angeles Times noted. Families often used the money to cover essentials such as groceries, rent, utility bills and child care.

After the payments expired last December, however, nearly 4 million children fell below the poverty line, research shows.  

“We basically saw an erosion of the gains that were made under the monthly child tax credit payments in 2021,” said Allison Bovell-Ammon, the director of policy and communications at Children’s Health Watch.

Conservative politicians have opposed the child benefit, however, arguing that it discourages parents from working.

California State Treasure Fiona Ma and Alameda County Superintendent of Schools L.K. Monroe will host more than 400 Alameda County families Tuesday in Hayward to enroll them in the California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program, or CalKIDS college savings account program.

Administered by the state’s ScholarShare Investment Board, CalKIDS provides accounts with $500 to $1,500 seed deposits for all low-income children in first through 12th grade. Enrollment is automatic, with eligibility based on the Local Control Funding Formula. Children born after July 1, 2022 are also eligible for up to $100.

Ma, Monroe and CalKIDS representatives will register families at the event, which is being held at the Alameda County Office Of Education main office, 313 West Winton Avenue, Hayward, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. Parents and caregivers can reserve their spot at the event at Anyone interested in attending this Town Hall may reserve their spot at www.acoe.org/calkids or www.acoe.org/register. The Office of Education will provide dinner for attendees and raffle off Golden State Warriors gear.

Weeks before final exams, hundreds of faculty members across the University of California announced they would not cross picket lines — by teaching or submitting grades — to show support for 48,000 graduate students and other instructors who’ve been on strike since Nov. 14.

“As long as this strike lasts, faculty across the system will be exercising their right to honor the picket line by refusing to conduct university labor up to and including submission of grades — labor that would not be possible without the labor of all other academic workers as well as university staff,” according to the announcement.

The instructors, who are represented by the United Auto Workers, are asking for higher salaries, better benefits and other improvements in working conditions. The strike, the country’s largest-ever such action on college campuses, is affecting all 10 UC campuses and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

Bellflower Unified’s board of education hired Ben Drati, the current superintendent of Santa Monica-Malibu Unified, to take over the district’s top administrative position beginning Jan. 1, the Press-Telegram reported.

Drati replaces Tracy McSparren, whom the board placed on leave in June amid a state audit accusing the district of mishandling its finances.

Drati signed a three-year contract with the district and will earn $295,000 a year.

“I am delighted to join the Bellflower community as your next superintendent,” Drati said. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve as steward over the most important job in the U.S., aside from parenting, and that is the education of our children. Where our children go is where we will go as a country and nation, so I take this responsibility with great care and I can’t wait to get started and to meet everyone.”

Candidates Kelly Gonez and Rocio Rivas won the two seats up for election to the Los Angeles Unified school board, reflecting a growing influence from the teachers union on the board. Gonez won reelection to her district 6 seat, following a closer than expected race against teacher Marvin Rodriguez. Rivas, a senior aide for school board member Jackie Goldberg, follows termed out school board member Monica Garcia in district 2 after a run against InnerCity Struggle director Maria Brenes.

Currently, Gonez has just over 51% of the vote, in comparison to Rodriguez’s nearly 49%, and Rivas has more than 52% of the vote in comparison to Brenes’ nearly 48%. Brenes conceded Wednesday, while Rodriguez is waiting for all the votes to get counted.

Along with the rest of the seven-member school board, the two newly elected board members will tackle learning loss and declining enrollment, both issues exacerbated by the pandemic. Enrollment has continued to drop, impacting school funding, which depends on both enrollment and attendance. The pandemic has spotlighted disparities in learning throughout the district, particularly for Black and Latino students.

San Rafael High School officials are looking into an October incident in which a Black security guard knocked food from a student who had directed a racial slur toward him, leading to the school to place the security guard on leave amid a student outcry on his behalf, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

More than 1,000 students have signed a petition asking that the school reinstate the security guard, Royce Hughes, whom they said is a beloved figure on campus and was unfairly punished. The school’s Black Student Union organized the petition drive.

“Mr. Hughes has been a constant figure that we’ve grown to rely on, as well as the entire SR community,” the head of the Black Student Union, junior Marguerite Walden-Kaufman, wrote in the petition, noting that he’s one of the few Black staff members at the school. The students are also asking that the student who directed the slur undergo restorative justice and that the school do more to promote racial awareness and sensitivity on campus.

Principal Joe Dominguez said he was open to that.

“After many conversations with student and staff leaders, I believe we can provide more education and accountability around racist and hateful language,” Dominguez told the newspaper. “I’m grateful to have met with our Black Student Union this week, and they want to work together and find an expert to help our students and staff learn and address several issues.”

Pleasanton voters approved Measure I, a $395 million bond that will help pay for school facility improvements in the East Bay district, the Pleasanton Weekly reported.

Measure I passed with 57.18% of the vote. It needed 55% to win.

“We are both extremely grateful and humbled by these results,” Bill Butler, co-chair of the Yes on I campaign, told the Weekly. “We want to express our heartfelt thanks to the voters, our volunteers and the team we were able to assemble to advocate on behalf of the ‘Yes on I’ campaign. It was an honor of a lifetime to be aligned in supporting our teachers and students here in Pleasanton.”

The money will help pay for gym and theater projects at Amador Valley and Foothill high schools, new classrooms at Vintage Hills Elementary, and other projects. A previous school bond in 2020, Measure M, failed.

Long Beach Unified and the city’s Department of Health and Human Services announced they are launching a childhood experiences survey, the first in the city’s history, according to the Press-Telegram.

Beginning this month, the survey will be sent to parents and guardians of students currently enrolled in kindergarten. The purpose of the survey will be for officials to better understand the challenges facing families with young children, according to the newspaper.

The survey’s findings will then inform new strategies related to children and family services in Long Beach.

“Having access to data specific to Long Beach will build more equitable and culturally inclusive support systems for all young children and families in our city,” Kelly Colopy, director of the city’s health department, said in a statement.

Adrian Palazuelos abruptly left his post as superintendent of Sonoma Valley Unified after reaching a “separation agreement” with the district’s board, The Press Democrat reported.

“The board has reached a separation agreement with Dr. Palazuelos,” Trustee Anne Ching said following a closed session meeting of the board, according to the Press Democrat.

One of the trustees who voted against the agreement, John Kelly, cited a payout to Palazuelos as well as a “a nondisparagement agreement” that was included in the deal.

“The presence of a payout to Adrian Palazuelos was the primary reason I voted against the contract,” Kelly told the Press Democrat. “I also voted against the contract because it includes a nondisparagement agreement clause, which I think limits the public’s ability to learn about Adrian Palazuelos’ behavior and my ability to comment on the same.”

Students at San Ramon Valley High School in Danville had warned administrators about a teacher’s inappropriate behavior prior to his arrest for molestation, the Mercury News reported.

A public records request by the newspaper found that several students had complained about biology teacher Nicholas Moseby, 41, who also coached the cheerleading squads. In one incident, Moseby allegedly whispered to two freshmen girls, “You are lucky you guys are hot,” the newspaper reported.

Moseby, a first-year teacher, was arrested in September and charged with child molestation, multiple counts of lewd acts upon a child, and sending a lewd video to a girl. He is currently being held at Contra Costa County jail.

Prior to his arrest, district officials transferred Moseby to a nearby middle school.

“San Ramon Valley administrators knew about inappropriate sexual abuse in the classroom because female students made several written complaints against him,” the victims’ attorney Jason Runckel, told the Mercury News. “The San Ramon Valley High School administrators ignored the complaints.”

District spokesperson Tammy Herley said the district is investigating the matter.

“Following this situation and as part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we are reviewing with all administration and staff the critical importance of prompt and proper responses to a student’s concerns,” Herley wrote in an email to the newspaper.