California education news: What’s the latest?

A UC Irvine medical school professor spent $400,000 of public funds for cameras he used for Instagram posts, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The professor, Frank P.K. Hsu,  often used “suspicious” or “unauthorized” means to make the purchases, auditors found, according to the Times. The university pays him $1.2. million a year.

Auditors also discovered that Hsu had a personal website on which he had hundreds of photos for sale, some priced at hundreds of dollars, according to the newspaper.

A UCI spokesman told the Times that Hsu had now repaid the university $404,000 and that “appropriate corrective measures” were taken.

But an ethicist said if the same unauthorized purchases had happened at a private company, the employee “almost certainly would be fired.”

“When the consequences are nothing more than, ‘Oh, you got caught so say you’re sorry and give it back, it sends the wrong message,” Michael Josephson, head of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Playa del Rey, told the Times

“The consequences should be significant enough that somebody in a similar situation would say it’s not worth it,” he said.

Los Angeles Unified is consolidating its six local districts into four regional offices as part of an effort to streamline administrative functions. It’s the first phase of administrative change as LAUSD aims to shape its central offices to better work toward the district’s new goals.

The consolidation will save the district $40 million, which will go toward its academic priorities, said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who joined the district nine months ago. He said the change won’t affect students this year. LAUSD is the second largest district in the nation, serving more than 420,000 students across Los Angeles and other neighboring cities throughout the county. 

According to Nery Paiz, president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, who spoke at Tuesday’s board meeting, the impact for school site administrators is also not yet clear.

Carvalho announced the new plan Tuesday alongside some shifting within his cabinet. Former Local District Central Superintendent Frances Baez is LAUSD’s new chief academic officer following Alison Yashimoto-Towery’s departure, and former Local District Northeast Superintendent Andres Chait is the district’s new chief operations officer. Chief of staff Pedro Salcido has also been promoted to deputy superintendent.

Chico State’s School of Education won a $13.4 million, three-year grant to provide financial aid and other incentives to students in 12 Northern California counties who want to become teachers in their communities.

The grant from the U.S. Department of Education will cover financial aid, test fees and other costs for more than 700 high school students in dual enrollment programs, undergraduates, credential candidates and master’s degree students. The grant is intended to lure students to the teaching profession, as well as help alleviate the teacher shortage in Northern California’s rural counties.

“This grant is specifically designed to (eliminate barriers to becoming a teacher) by providing financial and social support to underserved students in our region through a ‘grow your own’ program, which is designed to help students across our region stay in our region, give back to our communities, and enjoy careers dedicated to transforming students’ lives right here in the North State,” said Ben Seipel, graduate program coordinator for the university’s school of education.

The grant is available to students from Butte, Shasta, Tehama, Modoc, Siskiyou, Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Trinity, Plumas, Sutter and Yuba counties.

A $198 million bond measure in Modesto is still on track to pass, after election officials released the latest vote counts Tuesday, according to the Modesto Bee.

Measure L had  27,411 votes, or 55.5%. The measure needs 55% to pass.

Put forth by the Modesto City High School District, the measure would help pay for upgrades to classrooms, lab equipment, roof and plumbing repairs and other improvements.

The district has seven high schools serving 15,600 students. Most of the high schools are more than 50 years old and are in dire need of upgrades and modernization, supporters argued.

“Our high schools are at the heart of our community and prepare students to compete in top colleges and careers in today’s competitive global economy,” according to the district website. “To maintain high-quality instruction for local students, updates are needed to classrooms, technology and science labs so students graduate with the skills needed for competitive 21st century careers.”

The California State University board of trustees announced Wednesday that Cynthia Teniente-Matson will be the next president of San Jose State University.

Teniente-Matson is currently president of Texa A&M University-San Antonio.

“(San José State) serves as an exemplar for research and discovery with graduates impacting industries and communities throughout Silicon Valley,” said Teniente-Matson. “I am grateful for this opportunity to work alongside all of the talented and dedicated faculty, staff, administrators and friends of the university to accomplish our collective goal of providing opportunities for students to benefit from the transformative power of an SJSU education.”

Prior to her presidential tenure in Texas, Teniente-Matson served as a vice president for administration and chief financial officer of Fresno State from 2004 to 2015. She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, an MBA from the University of Alaska-Anchorage and a doctorate in educational leadership from Fresno State.

The board unanimously approved an annual salary of $474,840 for Teniente-Matson. She will be required to live in the official university residence for the president and receive a $1,000 monthly car allowance.

Teniente-Matson will begin her San Jose State tenure on Jan. 16.

A federal appeals court in St. Louis issued an injunction on Monday blocking President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan, the latest legal loss for the effort.

According to The New York Times, the three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled that the government can’t cancel debts while the court considers a lawsuit brought against the plan by six Republican-led states.

The states have argued that Biden skirted congressional authority by attempting to cancel the debts.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Monday that the Biden administration is “confident in our legal authority for the student debt relief program” and that it plans to “continue to fight these baseless lawsuits by Republican officials and special interests.”

Jim Hogeboom, the superintendent of San Rafael City Schools in Marin County, plans to retire effective June 30.

“I have been truly fortunate to be able to have a career in education that has never felt like work, but always brought me joy and made me feel like I was doing something important by helping to improve teaching and learning for all of our students,” Hogeboom said in a statement, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

Hogeboom entered a four-year contract with the district in 2019. Prior to that, he was superintendent of the nearby Novato Unified School District.

He added that he plans to relocate his family to Indiana “to begin a new chapter in our lives in a new locale,” according to the Journal.

The board of governors for California’s community college system on Monday elected Amy Costa to serve as the board president for 2023 and Hildegarde Aguinaldo to serve as vice president.

Costa, currently the board’s vice president, was previously the chief deputy director for budget at the state’s Department of Finance. She has been on the board since 2018. She will succeed Pamela Haynes as president.

“I’m honored to be selected by my colleagues,” Costa said in a statement. “I look forward to our continuing to work on behalf of our students. As we begin to feel economic headwinds, our continuing mission to ensure our decisions are centered around our students and their needs is paramount.”

Aguinaldo has been on the 17-member board since 2018 and is currently the assistant general counsel for DaVita, which provides kidney dialysis.

“As leaders, it is imperative that we meet these crucial times with the energy, inquisitiveness, collaboration, and determination to improve student success and strengthen our state,” Aguinaldo said in a statement.

A survey of California’s schools conducted by KCRA found that 70% of districts that responded to a survey have interior locks in classrooms, a safety feature that could protect students and teachers during a shooting.

Interior locks allow a teacher to lock the door without stepping into the hallway, potentially putting themselves and their students at risk. Teachers unions have asked schools to install interior locks for years, KCRA reported.

“We’ve been advocating for these type of locks back to probably 2007, 2008,” Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers union, told KCRA. “Door locks are an easy, simple — not necessarily cheap — but cost-effective way to provide that safety.”

Several large districts, including Sacramento City Unified and Stockton Unified, have been slow to install interior locks in all classrooms. At both districts, fewer than half of classrooms have them, according to the report.

Thousands of teaching assistants, researchers, tutors and other academic workers went on strike Monday at all 10 campuses of the University of California plus Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, demanding better pay and other benefits.

The strike comes amid union contracts talks with the university, according to the Los Angeles Times. Union members are asking for salary increases, better health insurance for dependents, childcare subsidies, transit passes, lower tuition for international students and improved accommodations for people with disabilities.

The strike will affect classes and research at every campus, including those conducting midterm exams.

“We are negotiating with the university around the clock and listening to all their offers,” said Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 2865, which represents almost half of the workers. “We’re going to be out here as long as it takes.”

The state announced the recipients of $1 million in planning grants aimed at streamlining the transition from K-12 schools to college and career.

The Department of General Services announced that it would be awarding $250,000 each to collaboratives in the Bay Area, Central Coast, Northern San Joaquin and Eastern Sierra regions.

The Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program is a $250 million program that boosts collaboration between local K-12 schools, higher education institutions and employers. Collaboratives must commit to creating at least two occupational pathways in health care, education, business management, engineering and computing. Each collaborative must focus on closing equity gaps.

“Statewide representation in this collaborative effort will maximize the program resources to ensure that all regions have an opportunity to enhance and streamline efforts to prepare students for meaningful careers and address equity issues,” said General Services Director Ana Lasso, in a statement.

The regions represent the four remaining areas of the state that have not received funding through previous rounds of funding announced in May and August:

• The Bay Area K-16 Collaborative includes as its partners Chabot-Las Positas Community College District, Hayward Unified School District, CSU East Bay and UC Berkeley, in addition to local employers, organizations and other stakeholders.
• The Central Coast K-16 Education includes Pajaro Valley Unified School District, Ventura County Community College District, CSU Monterey Bay and UC Santa Barbara.
• The Eastern Sierra region aims to connect a large and fragmented region with partners Columbia College, Sonora Union High School District, CSU Stanislaus and UC Merced.
• WE Will! is a new collaborative in the Northern San Joaquin Valley that brings together UC Merced, Merced College, San Joaquin Delta College, CSU Stanislaus, Modesto City Schools, Merced Union High School District, Lodi Unified School District and Le Grand Union High School.

Among those who struck out in Tuesday’s local school board elections across California was former San Francisco Giants slugger Aubrey Huff, who was routed in his effort to win a seat on the board of the Solana Beach School District in San Diego County, Sports Illustrated and other news outlets reported.

Huff, who in his retirement from baseball has tried to become something of a far-right political provocateur and commentator, lost to the board’s sitting vice president, Debra Schade, 1,505 votes to 362 in the two-person race. The district operates seven elementary schools.

Sports Illustrated pointed out that Huff’s 19.4.% of the vote was nearly as bad as his .192 batting average in his final season in the majors in 2012.

Little was known about Huff’s campaign platform. The Del Mar Times, which profiled the candidates, reported Huff could not be reached for an interview. His personal website makes no mention of his candidacy.

Citing Huff’s offensive political positions, including his unabridged support of Donald Trump, and offensive comments about women, the Giants banned Huff in 2020 from attending a 10-year reunion of the franchise’s 2010 World Series championship team. Huff  “has made multiple comments on social media that are unacceptable and run counter to the values of our organization,” a team spokesman said in a statement at the time.

Twitter also permanently banned Huff in 2021 for repeatedly tweeting false information about Covid-19 vaccines. He had also tweeted violent threats against former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

A Fresno high school has instituted a new cellphone ban in classrooms, and the school community is not happy about it, The Fresno Bee reported Thursday.

The policy’s start date at Bullard High School got pushed back several times this school year.

Administrators stressed that the goal of the policy is to reduce distractions in the classroom. But some students questioned whether an ulterior motive behind the policy had to do with a racist photo taken in the high school’s weight room in May, which sparked student walkouts and demands for accountability, The Bee reported.

Hundreds of replies flooded the comment section of Bullard’s announcement ban on Instagram, The Bee reported. “So basically you won’t listen to your student body, parents or alumni about an issue that concerns everyone?” one commenter posted. “Let’s see how long this lasts,” another wrote. “You are worried about phones instead let’s focus more on our child’s education and their well-being with all the school threats. This is ridiculous. I’m a parent and am not for this at all.”

The policy became a talking point for candidates as well in the hotly contested race for the Bullard-area seat on Fresno Unified’s school board in Tuesday’s election, the Bee reported.

Los Angeles Unified school board incumbent Kelly Gonez is in a tight race with high school teacher Marvin Rodriguez for Board District 6 as votes continue to get counted. The tight race comes as a surprise after Gonez received major endorsements from both United Teachers Los Angeles and pro-charter groups, which typically find themselves on opposite sides of the district’s school board races. 

Rodriguez raised just $11,000, in comparison to the $500,000 raised by Gonez, in an effort to take the seat, which covers much of the San Fernando Valley. Gonez, the current school board president, had initially come close to winning the election during the primary, missing the 50% cutoff by 2 points. Currently, Gonez is ahead with just over 50% of the vote as of Wednesday. Rodriguez follows just 298 votes behind.

In District 2, which has garnered the most attention during the campaign season, candidates Maria Brenes and Rocio Rivas are neck and neck as they push to take over termed-out board member Monica Garcia’s seat. Brenes, director of community organization InnerCity Struggle and Rivas, a senior aide for school board member Jackie Goldberg, have garnered nearly 51% and just over 49% of votes, respectively, as of Wednesday.

This election season has largely focused on candidates’ positions on charter schools as well as on their goals for addressing the impact of the pandemic on learning and well-being, particularly for Black and Latino students.

Early election results put incumbents Demetrio Gonzales-Hoy and Leslie Reckler in the lead for the two West Contra Costa Unified school board seats up for re-election this year.

Contra Costa County’s unofficial election night report shows Gonzales-Hoy with 70% of the vote over Area 4 challenger Olivia Liou, and Leslie Reckler with 63% of the vote over Area 5 challenger Patricio Dujan. The district, which serves the cities of Richmond, El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole, San Pablo and surrounding areas, has a total of five school board seats.

Of the five board members, three are backed by the local teachers union, the United Teachers of Richmond. Though Reckler was endorsed by the union when she ran for theboard in 2020, the United Teachers of Richmond endorsed her challenger this year.

Oakland parents who are not U.S. citizens could get the right to vote in school board elections, if a ballot measure passes.

Measure S would give parents and guardians who have children living in Oakland the right to vote for school board directors, even if they are not U.S. citizens. Non-citizens include legal permanent residents or green-card holders, immigrants with visas to study or work in the U.S., asylum-seekers and undocumented immigrants.

The measure is currently winning, with 59% of votes. Alameda County is reporting that all ballots cast on Election Day and mail-in ballots received prior to Election Day have been counted. However, thousands of mail-in ballots have likely yet to be received and counted.

San Francisco passed a similar measure in 2016, though few non-citizens have actually cast ballots in elections since then. Earlier this year, however, a San Francisco Superior Court judge declared San Francisco’s measure unconstitutional.

Several other municipalities across the country allow noncitizens to vote in school or city elections, including Chicago, New York City and several cities in Maryland and Vermont. Before the pandemic, the Los Angeles Unified School District began considering the idea as well. To be eligible to vote in federal elections, California state elections and in most other local elections, one must be a U.S. citizen.

Advocates for non-citizen voting say it would give more parents a say in their children’s education. Many parents and guardians in Oakland Unified School District may not be U.S. citizens. More than half of Oakland Unified’s students speak a language other than English at home, but since school districts cannot track students’ or families’ immigration status by law, it is not clear how many of those students’ parents are U.S. citizens.

A bond measure that will generate $5.3 billion to renovate facilities on the nine campuses in the Los Angeles Community College District was leading with 60% Wednesday morning.

Most of the funds will be used to update technology in classrooms, upgrade athletic fields and improve infrastructure such as sewer lines, outdoor lighting and sidewalks, reported the Los Angeles Times. About $1.4 billion would go toward renovating buildings.

Property owners will be assessed up to $25 for each $100,000 of their property’s assessed value over the next 40 years, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Bond measures that would finance teacher housing, as well as school repairs, are likely to win in the high-cost communities of Santa Cruz, San Diego and San Jose.

The bond issues are part of a statewide trend to build affordable housing for school staff who are struggling to pay for housing in an increasingly expensive state. District officials are increasingly seeing housing as a way to give their district a competitive edge when vying for and retaining teachers during California’s ongoing teacher shortage.

Measure S, which authorizes Alum Rock Elementary School District in San Jose to spend $71.5 million to repair and update schools and provide employee housing, seems to be a sure winner with 70.4% of voters saying yes. Almost 84% of the precincts in the district’s boundaries had been counted by Wednesday morning.

The bond measure allows the school district to spend Measure J general obligation bonds, approved in 2012, that went unused, according to the ballot measure.

Measure U in San Diego County is more uncertain. Although the measure had 63% voter approval by Wednesday morning, only 29% of the votes had been counted by that time. The bond measure would provide the district with $3.2 billion to repair and update schools, as well as to build 500 units of employee housing.

Measure K and Measure L, which collectively will provide Santa Cruz City Schools with $371 million in revenue to update and repair its schools and to build affordable rental housing for school staff, have garnered 62% and 66% of the vote respectively. But with only a quarter of the ballots tallied, it’s too early to know their fate. The bond is expected to build 80 units of affordable housing for school staff.

General obligation bonds are issued by school districts and community colleges to finance construction costs. Because taxpayers pay for the project, school districts don’t have to use district funds and can even generate revenue from rents that can be used for whatever the school board decides. They must pass with at least 55% percent of the vote.

Teachers in Covina-Valley Unified, yet to reach a deal on a new contract, rallied outside the district’s headquarters on Monday as they seek better pay, health care and smaller class sizes, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

The union representing educators in the San Gabriel Valley district is preparing to strike if it doesn’t soon reach a deal with the district, according to the Tribune.

“Covina Valley teachers are counting on the school district to make this right,” union President Adam Hampton told the Tribune. “It’s irresponsible to educators, to students and to this community for the district to unnecessarily force teachers into a strike.”

Michele Doll, assistant superintendent of personnel services for the district, said in a statement that it is “disheartening” that the union is considering a strike. “It is the students in Covina-Valley who will suffer the most should a strike occur,” Doll added.

San Francisco Unified on Monday declared a state of emergency over a payroll issue that has affected thousands of teachers and staff, with many of them missing paychecks or experiencing errors with benefits like sick time and health care coverage.

The district has made efforts over the past months to fix the payroll problem, but it remains unresolved. In declaring the emergency, the district said it is launching a command center with 60 staff members that will focus on resolving the problem.

“This is an emergency situation that requires extraordinary measures,” Superintendent Matt Wayne said in a statement. “Declaring a state of payroll emergency means we will be doing things differently so that we can do right by our educators and staff. We understand the challenges and disruptions these issues have caused.”

State financial crisis consultants have intervened in the fiscal woes of Ojai Unified, which has been impacted by declining enrollment, budgeting errors, inflation and an impasse with the teachers union, the VC Star reported.

The small district in Ventura County has seen enrollment drop by almost half since 2000, according to the report. As revenues fell, district leaders planned to cut $3 million from the budget but then backed off the plan, in hopes that state Covid funding would make up the budget shortfall. The funding was not enough, however, and the district dipped further into its reserves, triggering an audit from the county, according to the report.

Meanwhile, talks with the teachers and classified staff unions have stalled.

“There are a lot of credibility issues that are having us question the validity of what is being told to us,” Richard Byrd, interim president of the Ojai Federation of Teachers, said. “The trust in the community has been very damaged. Teachers are feeling it.”

The district board held a special meeting last week to discuss the issues.

Opponents turned out last week at an Orange County Board of Education meeting where a trustee has proposed a policy banning “communist indoctrination,” eliminating police, critical race theory and other topics from the classroom, Voice of OC reported.

“(The proposed policy) denies the humanity and existence of many communities that call Orange County home, and it breeds hate and promotes bigoted thinking in our students,” Uyen Hoang, executive director of Viet Rainbow of OC, a local LGBTQ grassroots organization, said at Wednesday’s meeting. “(It’s) racist and backwards.”

The proposal comes from trustee Ken Williams, who said he did not intend the policy to be divisive.

“A lot of this specifically in here is, is just to create the concept that we are all the same, that regardless of our race, or gender or sexual identity, we’re all the same,” he said.

The proposal would apply to schools under the jurisdiction of the county Office of Education, such as the juvenile hall school, not the county’s 28 school districts. The board has not yet scheduled a vote on the proposal.

Chronic absenteeism at Los Angeles Unified School district has dropped to 29%, down from 34% this time last year, as the district continued to push efforts to bring students back to school. But Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the district still has a long way to go to regain its pre-pandemic levels. The district had a chronic absenteeism rate of just over 12% during the 2017-18 school year.

Average daily attendance is now at 92%, up from nearly 91% this time last year. Before the pandemic, the attendance rate was at 96%.

“It’s not enough,” Carvalho said of the current attendance rate at a news conference Friday. ”[It] still leaves out that child who may be taking care of other children in his or her home. It still leaves out that kid who may be facing food insecurity or housing insecurity.”

Officials announced the uptick in attendance as the district embarked on its second major student outreach day Friday. It is sending staff members to make home visits with 7,000 students with spotty attendance across the district as part of its recovery efforts. 

LAUSD has put emphasis on attendance this year to get students back on track following a tumultuous period during the pandemic. Home visits have been part of the district’s efforts to combat chronic absenteeism for years, but the district is ramping those up now.

On Friday, those conducting the home visits were equipped with more information about the students they visited, including previous attendance rates and performance in school. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joined Carvalho at a visit in Exposition Park to the home of Graciela Gonzalez, whose 11th grade son, Ronaldino, attends Manual Arts High School but has been chronically absent.

“It’s just been excuses,” Gonzalez said in Spanish about her son’s lack of attendance. “Hopefully with this visit he understands the importance.”

District officials gave Ronaldino, who was home in his room, a ride to school after the morning visit.

A family won a $45 million judgment against Santa Monica-Malibu Unified after suing the district for alleged physical abuse against its autistic twins. The family alleged that a teacher’s aide used hand sanitizer to inflict pain, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Teacher’s aide Galit Gottlieb has been employed with the district since 2016 as a paraeducator. The district told the Times it had not received any other complaints against her outside of that of the twins’ family.

The school district is deciding whether it will appeal the verdict or the size of the judgment, which is equivalent to nearly a quarter of the district’s general fund, according to the Times. 

The district has not indicated whether it is still employing Gottlieb. 

As enrollment rates continue to decline, Los Angeles Unified is looking to recruit early. A partnership with L.A. County-USC Medical Center is targeting newborns as the district looks toward future students. 

At the hospital, families will receive congratulations letters from the district along with instructions on how to enroll, information on support services and a bit of swag to get parents excited about their child’s educational journey and to encourage them to attend LAUSD.

The district is aiming to enroll 100 babies each month and will soon expand the initiative to other hospitals.

The move comes as LAUSD continues to struggle with a steep decline in enrollment exacerbated by the pandemic. The district enrolls 422,000 students, down from its peak two decades ago at 700,000. It’s the latest step among district efforts to address enrollment as the district subsequently deals with enrollment’s impact on funding.

Plans to expand a prestigious private high school in San Francisco are being opposed by residents in the exclusive lower Pacific Heights neighborhood who claim “crowds of exuberant teenagers” would overrun the area, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.

An appeal to block the project at 3150 California Street is set to go before the city Planning Commission next week, potentially jeopardizing San Francisco University High School’s proposal to erect a three-story, 48,000-square-foot building atop a parking lot that now houses a tiny strip mall, the newspaper reported. The school aims to build science labs classrooms and a basketball gym on the site.

But neighbors in a nearby condo building are pushing back, claiming at students will disrupt the area.

“All day long, students would be coming and going,” said Michele Stratton, president of the 3110 California Street Owners’ Association, a group of five condominium owners who live next door to the planned campus expansion, and who are leading the opposition and want major concessions, including moving the entrance of the new facility.

“This would avoid some of the disruption to the residential portion of California Street by crowds of exuberant teenagers,” another neighbor, Richard Stratton wrote in a letter to the Planning Department.

Parents in the southern Marin County city of Corte Madera are asking the county to redraw local school district boundaries so they can switch districts, the Marin Independent Journal reported.

They want to leave the Reed Union School District and join the Larkspur-Corte Madera District. They filed a petition last week with county Superintendent Mary Jane Burke. It came as the two districts are negotiating a new interdistrict transfer agreement to allow students to attend their district of choice. A similar agreement expired on June 30.

Some students who live in the Reed district but are within walking distance of Larkspur-Corte Madera now have to travel farther by car to get to school, the newspaper reported.  School officials told the newspaper that they have two negotiating sessions scheduled for later this month.

The State Board of Education took the next step Wednesday toward establishing a network of community schools by approving $58 million in contracts for eight county offices of education that will support the schools.

The Regional Technical Assistance Centers will work with the Alameda County Office of Education, the lead county office, and the UCLA Center for Community Schooling, the student advocacy group Californians for Justice and the National Education Association to help the community coordinate services and share best practices.

Community schools are campuses that create partnerships with families, teachers, social service nonprofits and government agencies to serve the full health and academic needs of students. The state has appropriated $4 billion to plan, open and sustain community schools for up to seven years. In January, the state board approved $649 million for 268 school districts and county offices for two-year planning grants and five-year implementation grants for the first round of hundreds of community schools. The next round of funding will be in 2023.

“Every school must be a joyful, healthy, instructionally supportive learning environment for children,” said state board President Linda Darling-Hammond. “The board’s action moves California one step closer to achieving schools that enable all students to thrive and succeed.”

County offices in Shasta, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Monterey, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino counties will serve as the regional assistance centers.

Sacramento State President Robert S. Nelsen plans to retire in July.

Nelsen, who came to the university seven years ago from Texas, brought the university, long considered a commuter school, a sense of community. During his tenure, he oversaw the expansion of the university including the building of new residence halls, parking garages and classroom buildings.

“When I came here, I said that this was such a great university, even I couldn’t screw it up,” said Nelsen in a video message to the community.  “You proved me right. We didn’t screw it up. We got stronger and better. We have the Tschannen Science Complex, we are going to have a new engineering building, the Student Union has an additional 77,000 square feet. The WELL has been expanded, especially for mental health. And, we can’t forget the arts. The art sculpture lab is just about to begin to be built.”

The university also has doubled the number of scholarships given to its students and improved graduation rates by 187% since Nelsen became president.

California State University interim Chancellor Jolene Koester said Nelsen is “a brilliant, compassionate, and student-focused leader who has successfully guided Sacramento State through a period of remarkable growth and transformation.”

Nelsen, 70, was president of University of Texas-Pan American from 2010 to 2014, and special adviser to the University of Texas system executive vice chancellor from 2014-15. He plans to return to Texas.

“Retirement is not easy,” he said in the video. “I’m not looking forward to July. But, change is good. We need new blood. We need new ideas. These are times when we must move forward. Remember, we are On the Rise, and we must continue to rise.”

Nelsen is known for being accessible to students. He often walks across campus greeting students with the Sacramento State Hornets salute —raised pinkies and a resounding “stingers up.” During speeches, he has been known to become emotional and choke up when talking about a student’s struggles and achievements.

The video message was no different. This time, with his wife, Jody, by his side he raised his pinkies, “Sac State is No. 1. Stingers Up.”

The nursing programs of Cal Poly Humboldt and the College of the Redwoods will move into a new health education hub housed in a warehouse on California State University property in Arcata in about three years, according to an article on the KRCR website.

There also will be learning opportunities for respiratory therapists, radiology techs, psychiatric techs, scrub techs and others, said state Sen. Mike McGuire.

“This hub will become the most modern learning lab between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oregon border,” he told KRCR.

One of the main goals of the project is to increase the number of health care workers on the North Coast, which has had an acute shortage of these professionals.

The state is investing $10 million in the project.

San Francisco Unified is launching a task force in an effort to improve its high schools. The task force will include six students, nine educators, five parents and six community members.

The High School Task Force will gather information from the community about what it wants from its schools, complete a summary of what the high schools currently provide in terms of offerings and student outcomes. It will also make recommendations to Superintendent Matt Wayne on ways to improve policies, practices and programs for better student outcomes.

“Launching this task force is an exciting moment for our school district,” Wayne said. “Those who are on the High School Task Force represent a community that is passionate about what our high schools offer and how they deliver on student outcomes. Their voices and abilities to connect with our larger community will be essential to how we shape policies, practices and programs for better student outcomes.”

The first meeting of the task force will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the SFUSD Innovation Lab, Room 13, 727 Golden Gate Ave. Although the meetings are working sessions for the task force, they are open to the public.

Students and staff at Santa Cruz High School were briefly ordered to shelter in place Monday following what the school described as a “nonspecific threat” made against the school in an Instagram post on Saturday, according to the East Bay Times.

Police have since detained a male juvenile who is a resident of Santa Cruz County, the East Bay Times reported. Police said the boy is not a student at the school but allege he was responsible for the threat. Police also said it was unrelated to false reports of an active shooter at the school last week.

“The juvenile is in police custody,” police spokesperson Joyce Blaschke said in a statement, according to the East Bay Times. “There was never a credible threat to any Santa Cruz City Schools.”

The Escondido Union School District in San Diego County has received a $16 million donation from MacKenzie Scott, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Superintendent Luis Rankins-Ibarra told the Union-Tribune that the donation was a welcome surprise.

“We are humbled by this recognition and the trust placed in us with this extraordinary gift, which was very much unexpected,” Rankins-Ibarra said at a recent news conference. “We are committed to a very measured, strategic approach for these funds so that we have a long-lasting impact on students.”

Scott is now the single largest donor in the district’s history. Since her divorce settlement with Jeff Bezos, she has given away more than $12 billion, according to The New York Times. Many of those donations have been to schools and colleges, including several in California.

Races for two seats on the Los Angeles Unified school board have drawn millions in donations from unions and those who support charter schools, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In the race to replace longtime District 2 school board member Monica Garcia, Rocio Rivas is facing Maria Brenes, director of a nonprofit called InnerCity Struggle. Rivas, an aide to another school board member, won the backing of the teachers’ union, while much of Brenes’ support comes from pro-charter donors. About 20% of the district’s students attend charter schools.

The District 6 race features longtime teacher Marvin Rodriguez vying to unseat incumbent Kelly Gonez, the school board president. Gonez is the overwhelming favorite, with major endorsements from unions and other elected officials. She’s raised more than $500,000, while Rodriguez has raised just over $10,000.

If voters in San Diego pass Measure U next week, San Diego Unified would be able to build 500 units of housing for teachers and other district employees, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The $3.2 billion bond would include $226 million for the district to build workforce housing on the current site of its headquarters. The rest of the money would go toward school site upgrades and new construction in the state’s second-largest school district.

“That’s an important component of the bond measure — to be able to attract and retain the staff we need to run our schools,” Lee Dulgeroff, chief facilities, planning and construction officer for San Diego Unified, told the Union-Tribune.

The average teacher annual salary in San Diego Unified is about $88,000, while the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego is $2,200. The district’s housing project would be open to classified staff as well as teachers.

A Black student in Torrance was reportedly sent a clip of girls yelling an anti-Black slur. The video, filmed five years ago, included several students from South High School. The students crowded around the camera to say a harshly derogatory word for Black people, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In an email to parents Wednesday, Principal Jim Evans told families that the school is working to support and address the safety concerns of the student who was sent the video. He said school officials had met with some of the students in the video over the past few weeks. They felt deeply remorseful for their actions, he wrote in the email.

“We will continue to work with all of our students to teach that respectful behavior means that collectively we will not tolerate hate, discrimination or racism in any form,” Evans wrote to parents, according to the Times.

Legislation introduced Wednesday to the Los Angeles City Council would study the potential expansion of the city’s “matching funds” program to Los Angeles Unified school board candidates. According to LAist, expansion of the match program could likely appear as a ballot measure in the 2024 elections.

If expanded, that would mean that school board candidates would receive $6 from the city for every matchable dollar raised, allowing candidates to not depend so heavily on unions and charter school advocates to fund campaigns.

This move comes as the L.A. City Council evaluates its system in light of a recent scandal in which council members were recorded attempting to influence redistricting maps and making racist remarks last year. The City Council is already looking toward redrawing its districts, including those of LAUSD school board members.

As President Joe Biden moves ahead with his student-loan forgiveness program, the U.S. Department of Education issued a public service announcement Thursday warning borrowers to be aware of scammers “with promises to help you obtain student loan forgiveness, reduce your student loan debt, consolidate your student loans, or eliminate your student loans completely.”

The announcement comes despite a  hold that a federal appeals court placed on loan forgiveness last week in response to an emergency motion brought by attorneys for several Republican governors hoping to eventually derail the program. Applications for loan forgiveness remain open even with the hold in place.

The department’s Office of Inspector General made the announcement, which states that “dishonest companies, fraudsters, and cybercriminals are targeting student loan borrowers. They’re sending unsolicited texts, emails, or calls with promises to help you obtain student loan forgiveness, reduce your student loan debt, consolidate your student loans, or eliminate your student loans completely. You may also see their ads pop up on social media. Don’t fall for it — these are likely scammers coming after your money, your personal information, or both.”

The department is telling borrowers to obtain information about the plan only from the U.S. Department of Education Federal Student Aid office.

Any encounters with scammers should be immediately reported to the OIG’s fraud outline, department officials said in the public service announcement.

The private Simi Valley school founded by the artist formally known as Kanye West abruptly closed Thursday in the aftermath of the rapper’s recent spate of antisemitic remarks, KTLA TV and other news outlets reported,

The school, Donda Academy,  is closed  “for the remainder of the 2022-23 school year effective immediately,” parents were told by email late Wednesday, according to news outlets. The decision was made “at the direction of our founder,” the email stated.

The unaccredited Christian school requires parents to sign nondisclosure agreements before students join. It has about 100 students, with half attending on scholarships funded by the artist, now known as Ye, and others, Insider reported. Students wear uniforms made by the rapper’s brand, Yeezy, and other high-end designers. The school’s basketball team has recruited some of the top high school players from around the U.S.

Earlier this month, Ye tweeted he intends to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” an apparent reference to the U.S. defense readiness condition scale known as DEFCON. The French athletic wear company Adidas ended its relationship with Ye’s companies on Wednesday amid global outrage.

His comments have spurred other outbursts of antisemitism. Last weekend, white supremacists were photographed on a highway overpass in Los Angeles with a sign that read  “Kanye is right about Jews” while doing the Nazi salute.

A new report by the National College Attainment Network found that the average Pell Grant recipient could only afford to attend a quarter of the public four-year colleges in the U.S. in 2019-20. Pell Grant students who attend these schools generally needed an additional $2,627 annually to cover the cost of attendance.

Fewer than half of Pell Grant recipients could afford to attend U.S. community colleges that year. Community college students needed about $907 more to meet their college costs.

NCAN classifies a college or university as affordable if the total cost of attendance, plus $300, is less or equal to a student’s income, including financial aid and family contributions, according to Higher Ed Dive.

Washington, Kentucky and New Mexico had the highest rate of affordable institutions.

Cal State Fullerton won’t be sending student teachers to Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District next spring. The university’s leadership halted placement of student teachers in the district, in part because of a decision by the district school board to ban the teaching of critical race theory at the school.

“The placement of student teachers in Placentia Yorba Linda Unified School District (PYLUSD), at this time, would place us in conflict with our goals to prepare teacher candidates with pedagogical approaches rooted in diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, race and gender theories, cultural linguistic studies, social emotional well-being, and tenets of critical race theory,” said a statement from the university sent to the district last week.

Critical race theory is typically taught at the university level and is not part of the voluntary state model curriculum for K-12 schools, although it is taught in some districts that have adopted an alternative curriculum. It examines how laws, regulations and government practices have perpetuated racial injustice. Critical race theory is often confused with culturally relevant teaching.

Feedback from teacher candidates who said mentor teachers couldn’t tell them whether they could teach curriculum related to ethnic and cultural differences — areas aligned with state standards for teacher preparation — led to scaled-back placements for fall of 2022, according to an article on the university website.

The college had six student teachers in the district at the time of the decision to withdraw all student teachers, down from the usual 70 to 80 that generally are placed there.

The lack of clarity around what could be taught in the district, accompanied by the school board’s resolution banning critical race theory in April, and continued discussions as to whether ethnic studies could be taught and cultural celebrations could be held, led the College of Education to pause placements for the rest of the 2022-23 academic year, according the university’s website.

The College of Education will continue its partnership with the school district if district leaders make it clear that student teachers can create lessons aligned with state standards, according to the statement.

In a statement posted on the district website, Superintendent Michael D. Matthews said that the district values diversity and promotes equity and equality — all values that were outlined in the board’s resolution banning the teaching of critical race theory.

“While we respect the university’s right to make this determination, we are disappointed by their decision to pause the placement of new student teachers in our district,” he said. “We value our partnership with CSUF, and we look forward to continuing the discussion about renewing their placement of student teachers in PYLUSD, and about our continued commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and culturally relevant and inclusive teaching practices.”

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District was ordered by a jury to pay $45 million to the family of autistic twins who were physically abused by an aide at a Malibu elementary school in the district, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.

A lawsuit filed in 2019 alleged that Galit Gottlieb, an employee at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School, physically restrained and abused the two second graders. A Los Angeles Superior Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, who included and Charles and Nadine Wong and their two sons, according to the newspaper.

“District administrators failed the twins by allowing them to be abused for months despite clear warnings they were being harmed,” the family’s attorney, David German, said in a statement, according to the Daily Press. “Even now, they refuse to acknowledge the extent of the harm their employee caused. Fortunately, the jury saw through their continued attempt to cover up what occurred.”

Ben Drati, superintendent of the district, said in a statement to the newspaper that the ruling was “not justified.”

“We are working with our legal team to explore options to respond to what we believe to be a verdict that was not justified by the evidence presented,” Drati said.

Hundreds of students at Ventura High walked out of class on Monday to protest in support of their teachers, who are seeking more pay in contract negotiations with the district, the Ventura County Star reported.

“We want to protest for our teachers’ pay. We wanna give love to them,” Mateo Navarro, a senior who helped organize the protest, told the newspaper.

The principal of the school, Marissa Cervantes, said the school was “supporting students in exercising their First Amendment rights and ensuring their safety.”

The union representing teachers in the Ventura Unified School District has been bargaining for months with the district. But those negotiations have not had significant progress, with union officials saying the district’s offer doesn’t match the rising cost of living in Ventura. Negotiations will resume Nov. 9.

Hundreds of students at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles staged a walk-out Thursday after two students were stabbed on campus earlier in the week, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Many of the students said they don’t feel safe on campus, and asked administrators to increase mental health services and security measures such as metal detectors and drugs and weapons searches, the newspaper reported.

The stabbings occurred Wednesday during a fight between students at 3:30 p.m. Two students were hospitalized and quickly released. The incident follows a spate of violence on other school campuses in Los Angeles, including a Sept. 22 stabbing at Grant High School.

Some students said they’d feel safer if there were police on campus. But not all thought police would solve the problem.

“I don’t think we would need a school police officer if the administration was taking more care of the students’ mental health and just figuring out what’s going on with the students,” student Marina Wells told the Times.

Police in Marin County arrested a student Thursday after he got in a physical altercation with a teacher, the Marin Independent Journal reported.

The fight, which was captured on video, occurred at 11:30 a.m. Thursday in a hallway Redwood High School in Larkspur. Another adult on campus broke up the fight. Afterwards, school staff “peacefully engaged the student” and called the police, according to the newspaper.

No weapons were involved, and staff did not know the cause of the fight. There were no threats beforehand and no other students were involved, staff said. Principal Barnaby Payne sent a letter to parents about the incident, asking them to monitor their children’s social media use for misinformation.

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the President Joe Biden’s imminent plans to cancel federal student loan debt.

The 11th hour move comes after 22 million borrowers have applied for the debt cancellation program announced in August. The administration had stated that the program could go into effect early next week.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted an administrative stay on Friday evening. The Washington Post reports that borrowers will have to wait until a panel of conservative judges rule in the case being argued by Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina — a coalition of Republican-led states. On Thursday, a federal district judge in Missouri dismissed the lawsuit for lack of standing.

On Thursday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied a separate request in Wisconsin to stop the debt cancellation program.

Biden, campaigning for the upcoming midterm elections, spoke out against the suits in a speech at Delaware State University, a historically Black university.

“Republican members of Congress and Republican governors are doing everything they can to deny this relief, even to their own constituents,” he said.

Jurors found former UCLA gynecologist Dr. James Heaps guilty on five counts Thursday following accusations that he sexually abusing female patients while working at the university. 

Heaps, 65, was found guilty of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person, following assaults between 2013 and 2017, according to the Los Angeles Times. On other charges, he was found not guilty of seven, and a mistrial was declared by the judge regarding the other nine because the jury could not reach verdicts on them.

The trial comes as hundreds have stepped forward, accusing him of sexual abuse during his 35-year career in connection with UCLA. The University of California system is paying $700 million to settle lawsuits against Heaps and the university filed by women who accused him of sexual abuse.

Heaps is currently facing up to 28 years in prison and is awaiting sentencing scheduled for Nov. 17.

Six Republican-led states are looking to appeal the dismissal of a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan. 

The states asked Thursday night that the federal appeals court reconsider it, hours after a U.S. district judge in St. Louis ruled that the courts did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because the states lacked standing. The states also asked for an injunction to prevent the debt relief from moving forward until the appeals process ends.

Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina argue that moving forward with the student debt relief would cause them economic injury by causing them to lose tax revenue and incur other losses from federal student loans that state-related entities manage, own or invest in, according to Politico.

The appeal request comes just as Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an appeal from a Wisconsin taxpayers group attempting to stop the debt relief program. 

Applications for student debt forgiveness launched Monday and will remain open through December 2023. Individuals earning under $125,000 and households earning less than $250,000, qualify for up to $20,000 of relief.

Two months into the school year, West Contra Costa Unified is still struggling to fill around 60 teacher vacancies amid a nationwide shortage.

At a school board meeting Wednesday, West Contra Costa’s interim associate superintendent of human resources, Sylvia Greenwood, said there were 18 teacher vacancies at the district’s elementary schools, the equivalent of 15.6 full-time teacher vacancies at middle schools and high schools, and 26 special education teacher vacancies. Some of the vacant positions are not full time, so they were counted as a fraction of a full-time position.

Prior to the pandemic, the district employed 1,454 teachers in the 2018-19 school year, according to Ed-Data.

The district is using both long-term and short-term substitutes to fill the vacancies, as well as contractors and subcontractors for the special education positions. Greenwood said the district is continuing to recruit teachers and is currently onboarding several new ones.

The district will also be receiving 27 teachers in December from the Philippines through the Teach USA program.

In addition to the teacher vacancies, the district is also short hundreds of school workers such as custodians, counselors, librarians, speech pathologists, secretaries, tutors and classroom aides.