California education news: What’s the latest?

Sacramento voters will see a familiar measure on their ballots in November — to require the city to fund more youth programs.

As reported by the Sacramento Bee, similar measures were on the ballot — and lost — in Sacramento in 2016 and in 2020, but this time, instead of using money from the city’s general fund, the measure would use 40% of cannabis tax revenue.

Another big difference this time:— SacramentoMmayor Darrell Steinberg supports this measure, whereas he opposed the last one.

Several cities and counties in California have attempted to pass measures to put aside a portion of tax revenue for children or youth, with uneven results.

San Francisco officials are calling for the resignation of a school board member who made a racist comment, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.

Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton called for Ann Hsu to step down immediately, despite an apology for claiming Black and brown parents do not encourage their children to focus on or value learning.

“Yeah sure, thank you for the apology, but at the end of the day this is probably reflective of how a person really feels,” Walton said. “It’s disheartening that someone like that is in a position to make decisions for our children.”

Hsu was appointed by Mayor London Breed in March after the successful recall of three school board members. Breed commented on the controversy Wednesday, saying Hsu’s words were “wrong and hurtful,” but did not call for her resignation.

Hsu apologized on social media Tuesday, admitting the comments were “inherently biased” and perpetuated biases.

She said she was “committed to listening, learning and growing as a person.”

New research shows that students have regained the ground they lost over the pandemic over the last year, but achievement gaps have widened, and the progress students made was lower than it would have been in a typical year.

The Northwest Evaluation Association compared data from 8.3 million students nationwide on MAP Growth assessments in reading and math between the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years, and the 2015-16 and 2018-19.

Some of the findings were encouraging. NWEA found strong evidence of rebounding, particularly in math and among younger students. There was a sign of recovery among all poverty levels.

Those findings were tempered by research showing that student achievement at the end of the 2021-22 school year was still below a typical year. Students had declined 5 to 10 percentile points in math and 2-4 points in reading. Low-poverty schools will have less ground to make up and will likely recover faster.

Those hardest hit by the impacts of the pandemic have made gains, but the achievement disparities affecting Latino, Black and American Indian or Native Alaskan students have only widened since the pandemic began.

The report finds that repeated surges of COVID stressed school systems — creating staff shortages, high rates of absenteeism and school closures — thwarting hopes of a stronger year of recovery.

New federal guidance warns schools that certain disciplinary measures taken against students with disabilities could violate their right to a free, appropriate education.

The guidance released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights states says “many students with disabilities face discipline because they are not receiving the support, services, interventions, strategies, and modifications to school or district policies that they need to manage their disability-based behavior.”

The guidance adds that students with disabilities are “unnecessarily disciplined more severely than students without disabilities for the same or similar behavior.”

The sweeping guidance took aim at disciplinary practices, such as the use of restraints or seclusion, and other exclusionary practices, such as barring a student from a field trip. It also warns that disciplinary policies that may appear neutral may have the effect of discrimination. A policy requiring students not to interrupt others speaking may, for example, not be applied the same way to a student with ADHD.

The U.S. Education Department also warned against practices that shorten the length of a student’s day, such as removing a student from a classroom, sending the student home early or expelling them. The office writes that removing a student from the classroom more than 10 school days constitutes a “significant change in placement” and a “pattern of removal.” The department writes that it is necessary to convene a Section 504 team to determine if a student with disabilities needs additional services or an evaluation.

The guidance states that “many students with disabilities are subjected to discrimination based on their disability when being disciplined, such as when students with disabilities are unnecessarily disciplined more severely than students without disabilities for the same or similar behavior.”

UC Berkeley will begin enrolling for its first four-year undergraduate business program starting 2024, the university announced Tuesday.

The four-year program will replace the existing two-year program through the Haas School of Business, and was made possible by a $30 million donation from Haas alumnus Warren “Ned” Spieker and his wife, Carol Spieker. Ned Spieker is the founder and former CEO of Spieker Properties, one of the largest commercial property owners in the U.S.

In honor of Spieker, the university is naming the four-year program the Spieker Undergraduate Business Program.

In the past, undergraduates would enroll in the business program as sophomores. Starting in 2024, students can enroll directly in the Haas Business School as freshmen, which university officials said will “give them an additional two years for deeper learning, including career development, study abroad opportunities, entrepreneurship programs, capstone projects, mentorship engagements and internships.”

After three of San Francisco Unified’s seven school board members were ousted in a recall election last month and three new ones were appointed by Mayor London Breed, the district’s new board pledges to spend 50% of board meetings on topics related to student outcomes, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The board and the district’s new superintendent also promised to set specific academic performance goals by October. They have already begun working on the goals and plan to share a draft document with the public in the coming weeks, according to the Chronicle. The district anticipates the goals will be up for final approval by the school board on Oct. 25.

Some California universities and school districts are reinstating mask mandates because of the recent surge of Covid-19 cases, according to the Los Angeles Times.

UC Irvine made wearing masks on campus mandatory beginning today because Orange County moved into the “high community transmission” level, according to the school’s website, Everyone on the campus will be required to wear a mask regardless of their vaccination status. UCLA reinstated its mask mandate during the summer and extended it indefinitely, according to the Los Angeles Times.

University campuses aren’t the only ones to reinstate mask mandates. San Diego Unified students will be required to wear masks again beginning today. District officials announced in May that masking would return if the county once again had a “high level” of Covid infections.

As of July 1, national high school financial aid application completions are up 4.6% from last year, representing about 92,000 additional applications according to a report released earlier this month by the National College Attainment Network, or NCAN.

The nonprofit research organization found only 11 states had fewer completions of the Federal Application for Free Student Aid, or FAFSA this year. Other states like New Mexico and Mississippi saw gains, including California with a 6.6% increase this year compared with last year. However, Texas and Alabama saw significant increases in application completions after those states started universal FAFSA policies for the first time this academic year. The Texas completion rate increased by nearly 26%, and Alabama by about 25%.

The coronavirus pandemic caused FAFSA application completion rates to drop over the past two years, but FAFSA estimates that about 52.1% of the Class of 2022 completed the application, short of the Class of 2019 by only 1.7%.

The data is from NCAN’s Form Your Future FAFSA Tracker, which tracks competition data and is updated weekly with national, state, city, district and school level information.

A federal judge in Tennessee on Friday issued a temporary injunction stopping the U.S. Department of Education from enforcing Title IX guidance that protects transgender students from discrimination, according to Politico.

Judge Charles Atchley, a Trump appointee, sided with a coalition of 20 Republican attorneys general who had sued the Department of Education, claiming that the guidance conflicts with state and local laws that restrict transgender students from using bathrooms, participating on athletic teams or engaging in other activities that match their gender identity. They also argued that the Department of Education cannot force schools to use transgender students’ preferred pronouns.

“As it currently stands, plaintiffs must choose between the threat of legal consequences — enforcement action, civil penalties, and the withholding of federal funding — or altering their state laws to ensure compliance with the guidance and avoid such adverse action,” Atchley wrote.

The Department of Education issued its new guidance on transgender students in June.

Advocates for LGBTQ youth blasted the ruling, saying it endangers students who are already vulnerable. Suicide attempts among LGBTQ people who’ve been harassed, threatened or discriminated against were twice that of LGBTQ people who hadn’t experienced that level of harm, according to research by the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth advocacy group.

“This ruling will leave marginalized youth, particularly transgender youth, open to discrimination in the places they spend most of their waking hours,” said Sam Ames, director of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project. “Nondiscrimination protections save lives. This ruling will not stand, and we will continue our work to ensure young LGBTQ people are protected in every way, in every community.”

San Francisco Art Institute, a prestigious 151-year-old fine arts college whose alumni include Annie Leibovitz, Mark Rothko and director Kathryn Bigelow, announced it would close after a proposed merger with University of San Francisco fell through.

The college, a picturesque, historic campus on Russian Hill, graduated its last class on Tuesday. It will not offer any further courses, and faculty have been dismissed. The college will continue as a nonprofit organization to maintain the school’s archives and campus, which includes a famed mural by Diego Rivera.

University of San Francisco, a Jesuit college, said the proposed merger was not financially feasible, and instead it would expand its own fine arts department, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Art Institute was a mainstay of California’s robust art and film scene. In 1880, the school screened one of the world’s first moving pictures, and in 1945, faculty member Ansel Adams created a fine arts photography department, one of the world’s first, according to the college.

“After years of planning and immeasurable sacrifice by our students, faculty, and staff, it is profoundly lamentable that we are faced now with this present outcome,” said board chair Lonnie Graham. “The board’s goal was to preserve the legacy of one of the last remaining fine arts-only institutions while advancing the course of innovative educational practices that occurs through reciprocity between the students and faculty. … (We) encourage community members to stay connected through SF Artists Alumni, an independent global SFAI art community, and is eternally grateful for our hardworking, dedicated, and exceptionally talented students, faculty, staff, and alumni.”

A community college in Oakland, Laney College, is offering free tuition, books, bus passes and more for the fall semester.

The college announced this week that students who complete either the FAFSA or the California Dream Act applications will have free tuition, free textbooks, free health fees, bus passes, lunch on campus, weekly boxes of produce, and will be able to check out free Chromebook and Wi-Fi hotspots from the library.

“Now more than ever, we must recognize that college costs that go beyond tuition represent barriers to success for so many students, whether they are working adults attending part-time or high school graduates. This Fall is about not only opportunity, but putting students in the best position possible to reach their goals with our support,” said Rudy Besikof, president of Laney College, in a news release.

Schools remain highly segregated by race, ethnicity and socioeconomics, a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds.

According to the report, more than a third of students attended a school with a population that was predominantly of the same race or ethnicity, during the 2020-21 school year.

“You have large portions of minority children not only attending essentially segregated schools, but schools that have less resources available to them,” Jackie Nowicki, the director of K-12 education at the GAO and lead author of the report, told NPR.

In addition to neighborhood segregation, the report cites “district secession,” where some schools break away from an existing district to form a new district, as one cause of school segregation.

An affluent neighborhood in Walnut Creek will not be allowed to secede from the Mt. Diablo Unified School District and form its own school district in Contra Costa County, the California State Board of Education decided, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.

Residents of the Northgate area of Mt. Diablo district had sought to break away, submitting 6,700 signatures from residents who wanted to vote on the issue in an election, which would have been the final step had the state board decided to uphold the petition. In rejecting it, the state board unanimously affirmed an earlier decision by the Contra Costa County Committee on School District Organization, the Chronicle reported.

The state went along with the county decision largely because the proposal would carve out the highest performing and least diverse schools in Mt. Diablo Unified and adversely affect the remainder of the district. The proposal was also determined to be exclusionary and to promote racial segregation. The proposed Northgate Unified School District would have been 50% white, while the remaining schools in the district would be 25% white, according to the Chronicle.

The report said that the new district would have 9% non-English speakers as opposed to 26% in the remainder of the district. It also said that the creation of a new district was an attempt to isolate Northgate High, which is both the newest and highest-performing high school in the district, from the lesser-performing high schools in Mt. Diablo Unified.

The California Highway Patrol has recommended UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry T. Yang not face charges stemming from allegations that Yang drove a car that hit a student skateboarding on the campus and failed to stop, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The student, who suffered minor injuries, identified the chancellor as the driver. But UC Santa Barbara denied this week that Yang’s car hit the student, The Times reported Wednesday. In a statement, the university cited the CHP report saying the investigating officer found no physical evidence on the chancellor’s car of damage or contact that would indicate a collision had occurred. The CHP could not substantiate the hit-and-run allegations or the cause of the collision, citing the lack of independent witnesses, physical evidence on the car, video surveillance and some inconsistencies in statements by the student, the report said.

Yang, 81, has led UC Santa Barbara since 1994, the second longest-serving chancellor in UC history. He had refused to directly speak to investigators about the May 16 incident in which a student alleged that he was struck by the front of the car and rolled across the hood, injuring his right hip and left foot, the CHP report said, according to the Times.

The California State University Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to create a systemwide policy that gives administrators the opportunity to retreat to a faculty position after they resign or retire.

The policy also allows campuses to revoke retreat rights if an administrator is under investigation for misconduct or there is a finding of misconduct against them.

The new policy also will not allow CSU to provide positive letters of reference, either verbal or written, for any current or former employee who engaged in misconduct that resulted in their firing or if they’re under investigation for misconduct.

“These new policies are important steps that will allow us to better focus on our core mission of improving the lives of Californians through the transformative power of higher education,” interim Chancellor Jolene Koester said.

Faculty retreat has traditionally been used to provide a safety net for professors who leave a tenured position to work in a campus’ senior administration. However, the perk has also been used to hire qualified candidates for positions even if they don’t come from faculty and is typically part of presidential compensation packages.

An EdSource investigation found the use of administrative faculty retreat varies by campus, and in some cases, has allowed administrators to retreat to the faculty despite investigations, allegations of misconduct or disciplinary actions made against them.

The California State University Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to remove the name of a Nazi sympathizer from the Fresno State campus library after a monthslong process of formal requests, investigations and open forums.

The library will be referred to as the Fresno State Library or the Library and the removal of Henry Madden’s name from signage, websites and other locations will begin immediately, according to Fresno State spokesperson Lisa Bell.

A library naming task force will review the CSU naming policy, and the trustees will have to approve any name change. That could take a year or more, according to Bell.

The library was named in 1980 after Madden, the university librarian from 1949 to 1979. When he died in 1982, more than 50 boxes of his papers were sealed for 25 years as a condition of the gift, according to a task force formed to investigate Madden’s anti-Semitic views. It wasn’t until a Fresno State professor’s 2018 book, “Hitler’s American Friends,” was discussed in a history class in 2021 that the views came to light, according to the task force’s findings.

Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval formed a committee made up of professors, students and Jewish community leaders to sift through 100,000 documents and letters from Madden, and they compiled a report after five months recommending the removal of the name.

Madden wrote of a “violent” and “uncontrollable” phobia against Jewish people, and the task force did not find an instance of regret or sympathy as he grew older.

“Since Dr. Madden personally curated the materials before turning them over to the library, he was fully aware of their contents and knowingly included the disturbing letters and documents in the collection,” Jiménez-Sandoval said in a news release from Fresno State on Wednesday.

“While Dr. Madden had the opportunity later in life to reflect on those views, there is no evidence that he renounced those views. It is unfortunate that the undercurrents of his racist views remained palpable throughout his life.”

Sacramento City Unified teachers who went on strike for eight days this spring could get back pay if California’s state labor agency agrees the district engaged in bad-faith bargaining practices, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The Sacramento City Teachers Association filed a charge against the district with the California Public Employment Relations Board in May, and PERB took up the complaint on July 6.

The complaint alleges the district informed teachers that schools would be closed during the strike, but also that they would be required to report to their regular assignments. Employees who went into work from March 23 to April 3, the duration of the strike, were paid, according to the complaint.

After a one-day teacher walkout in 2019, “PERB ultimately found that the district engaged in bad-faith bargaining by giving incentives to substitute teachers to step in during the strike, and ordered the district to pay all teachers who took part in the strike at the rate the substitute teachers were paid,” according to the Bee. This precedent could lead to a teacher payout if PERB finds the district in the wrong.

The complaint also alleges the district engaged in “surface bargaining,” a strategy where one party goes through the motions of bargaining, but has no intention of coming to an agreement.

The district and union could not come to an agreement on how to add back in days that were missed during the strike, and the district is now facing a penalty of up to $47 million for falling short of the minimum number of teaching days in the state, the Bee reported.

GreatSchools, the Oakland-based website that rates K-12 public schools nationally, announced that it will not be using testing data from 2020 or 2021.

“The cancellation of standardized testing in 2020 and the partial resumption in 2021 has produced two years of nonexistent or, at best, incomplete data,” wrote Orville Jackson, vice president of data strategy at GreatSchools, in a piece for The 74.

Student participation in testing varied widely from state to state from 97% in Mississippi to 23% in California, Jackson noted. Even in states where there was high participation in testing, it has not been clear which groups are represented. GreatSchools was concerned that highest-need students, who suffered most from pandemic learning disruptions, may not be represented well or at all in the data.

2019 testing data is the most recent available on its popular if controversial school profiles for now, but the company says it plans to use 2022 testing data when it arrives. Jackson notes that GreatSchools has been incorporating more recent school data in its profiles on subjects such as school climate.

GreatSchools said it is calling on state education agencies to prioritize school climate data and also to disaggregate testing data as it arrives.

“Combining reliable and valid outcomes data — particularly data rooted in equity — and new information about climate, school practices and parent perspectives will give parents more of what they need to obtain a better picture of school quality today,” Jackson wrote.

The California State University Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that Vanya Quiñones would become the fourth president of the CSU Monterey Bay campus.

Quiñones is currently a provost and executive vice president for academic affairs a Pace University in New York. Her presidency will begin Aug. 15.

“Earning a degree from CSUMB is a transformative experience that leads to life-changing opportunities for students and their families,” Quiñones said. “I am honored by this opportunity and eager to collaborate with the talented faculty, staff, administrators, students and all members of the CSUMB community as we collectively work to provide even greater access to a high-quality education and improve the achievement of our talented and diverse students.”

Quiñones is a neurobiologist and biopsychologist. She’s spent more than 20 years teaching in the City University of New York, Hunter College. Quiñones has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in cell biology from the Univerity of Puerto Rico, and a Ph.D. in neurobiology and physiology from Rutgers University.

Quiñones will receive an annual salary of $370,000 and will be required to live in the university’s presidential residence located in Marina. She’ll also receive a $ 1,000-a-month auto allowance. Her contract also includes the ability to retreat to the faculty following her presidency with tenure in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Monterey Bay.

UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry T. Yang was the subject of a California Highway Patrol investigation into a hit-and-run that took place in a campus crosswalk and left a student with minor injuries. Citing a lack of evidence, the CHP did not recommend charges.

The CHP redacted Yang’s name from its report on the hit-and-run, but the Los Angeles Times confirmed the chancellor was the target of the investigation. Yang refused to speak with CHP during their investigation, but through his counsel, he denied ever hitting anyone with his car.

University of California Santa Barbara student Madden Cade Westland, 19, identified the chancellor as the driver and Yang’s wife as a passenger in a car that hit him while he was skateboarding through a crosswalk on May 16. Westland said he motioned to him after he fell to the ground and stood up, but the car did not stop.

CHP investigators stated in their report that they were unable to find any scuffs, dents or other physical evidence of a collision when they investigated two cars parked in Yang’s driveway. Yang’s wife stated that the chancellor had been driving to different events the day of the incident. When investigators told her that she was named as the passenger, she declined to answer any more questions.

“This was not a hit-and-run,” the university said in a statement to the Times. “The Chancellor and his wife were surprised to learn of the allegations and they have always maintained that their vehicle did not collide with anyone.”

Yang, 81, has served as chancellor since 1994, making him the second-longest serving chancellor in UC history.

More than 60% of teachers said their students ended the 2020-21 school year behind where they would be ordinarily — with impacts especially pronounced for younger students, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

The report was based on a survey of 2,862 K-12 teachers nationwide, and examined the impact of pandemic-related learning loss and trauma on students as well as teachers. While some students excelled during distance learning, the report found, many suffered academic and emotional setbacks that will take years to overcome.

More mental health services for students as well as teachers, smaller class sizes, dedicated staff for communicating with families and better accountability for attendance are among the report’s recommendations, based on a survey of teachers and parents.

The report was part of a series by the GAO examining the impact of Covid, as required by the federal CARES Act.

The San Jose Unified school board unanimously voted to extend more than two dozen contracts with San Jose Police Department officers until June 2023, contradicting the board’s 2021 decision to cut ties with the department, the Bay Area News Group reported.

Board President Carla Collins called the recent decision an “alternative” to having full-time officers on all campuses. The officers will only have short-term contracts, and it’s up to principals and school staff to use the officers, according to the Bay Area News Group.

This isn’t the first time since June 2021 that San Jose Unified has extended the use of police officers on campus. Dozens of short-term, limited contracts have been approved for officers, and officers’ oversight of schools has been broadened under a new agreement between the district and Police Department in December, according to the news group.

The California State Board of Education on Wednesday will consider a proposal by families in the wealthy Northgate neighborhood of Walnut Creek to secede from Mt. Diablo Unified and form a new, smaller district, the Bay Area News Group reports.

Efforts by Northgate families to split from the 30,000 student Mt. Diablo Unified have been underway for more than a decade. Organizers in 2017 said the movement was an attempt to create a district about a tenth of the size, which would allow for less bureaucracy and more accountability. Others see the proposal as an attempt by mostly wealthy, white families to segregate from a more diverse district. The Contra Costa County Board of Education voted against the secession proposal in 2017, citing in part that it would discriminate against Latino students at Mt. Diablo Unified, according to the Bay Area News Group.

The proposal before the State Board of Education is an appeal to the county board’s 2017 decision, and the petitioners themselves don’t expect it to pass, the news organization reported. The California Department of Education recommends the state board disapprove the petition.

Children who were rescued from captivity at their parents’ home in Riverside in 2018 were later placed in foster homes where they were abused, according to a document released Friday and reported on by the Los Angeles Times.

The children, members of the Turpin family, were  “frustrated, unheard, stifled” and “failed” by Riverside County’s social services system, the report, done by an independent law firm hired to investigate the matter, found.

Some of the younger Turpin children — who ranged in age from 2 to 29 at the time — were placed under the care of foster parents who were later charged with child abuse, according to the report. The older children “experienced periods of housing instability and food insecurity as they transitioned to independence,” The Times reported.

David and Louise Turpin were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in 2019 for the torture, abuse and imprisonment of their children. When the children were found in their Perris home, they were severely malnourished, and some showed signs of cognitive impairment and nerve damage, the newspaper reported.

The parents of an Aptos High School student sued the Pajaro Valley Unified School District last week, claiming that the district’s removal of school police officers was a contributing factor to the death of their son, according to Lookout Santa Cruz.

Last August, the son died after he was stabbed by a classmate on campus. The incident occurred about one year after the district — like many in California — reduced or eliminated campus police in the wake of the George Floyd protests. According to the lawsuit, the district failed to address safety concerns and rising violence on campuses.

A month after the boy’s death, the district board agreed to spend $1.19 million to bring back school resource officers at Aptos and Watsonville high schools, pairing them with mental health professionals, according to Good Times newspaper.

The district did not comment on the lawsuit because it had not yet seen the suit, Lookout Santa Cruz reported.

A panel of federal judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments this week about whether the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is legal.

It’s the latest in a long series of back-and-forth hearings and court rulings on the program, which offers temporary protection from deportation and permission to work for about 650,000 young people who came to the U.S. as children.

The Obama administration began DACA in 2012 after Congress failed multiple times to pass more comprehensive immigration reform. The Trump administration ordered the program to stop. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the Trump administration’s decision to stop the program was “arbitrary and capricious.” But the Supreme Court did not rule on whether the program was legal in the first place.

Texas and eight other states filed a lawsuit, arguing that DACA was unlawful, because former President Barack Obama did not have the authority to enact such a policy, and last year, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sided with them, and ordered the immigration agency to stop approving new applications.

The Biden administration appealed, and the case is now before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. According to Politico, the federal judges in New Orleans “appeared unconvinced by the Justice Department’s arguments” that DACA is legal.

After the court rules on the case in the coming months, it will almost certainly move on to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A sales tax measure that would provide more subsidized child care and preschool for low income children in Alameda County was upheld by the Alameda County Superior Court Thursday.

Measure C was passed by 64% of voters in March 2020, but was contested in court. Plaintiffs argued that California law requires a 66% vote for local governments to raise taxes for a specific purpose, like child care. Local officials have argued that only a simple majority is needed if a tax measure was put on the ballot by voters, and not by the local government.

The measure added a half percent sales tax on local purchases — 50 cents for every $100 — to raise an estimated $30 million a year for pediatric health care and an estimated $120 million a year for improving child care workers’ wages and increasing the number of subsidized child care and preschool slots for low-income children. The tax is being collected but is not being spent, while the case goes through the courts.

Plaintiffs have a 60-day window to appeal the decision.

First 5 Alameda County and the Alameda County Early Care and Education Program estimate that 4,000 to 5,000 more children would be able to enroll in subsidized child care or preschool if the measure passes, and 12,000 children who currently receive preschool subsidies from the state would receive additional money to cover more of their enrollment costs. An estimated 3,300 teachers and assistant teachers would receive classes, coaching and higher compensation.

“As the named administrator of Measure C’s child care funds, First 5 Alameda County stands ready to move the initiative forward,” said Kristin Spanos, Chief Executive Officer of First 5 Alameda County in a statement. “As a society, we have failed to fully fund early care and education (ECE) for decades to the detriment of providers, the workforce, and families. The pandemic has made the challenges even more acute and worsened inequities that have harmed low-income and families of color for too long. These public resources are needed now more than ever to support and strengthen our county’s early childhood system, particularly with an equity lens. First 5 is proud to partner with the early care and education field and community in support of children and families.”

Black principals and other school administrators told Cap Radio that racism is all too common on campuses, and districts and school boards need to work harder to combat it.

Several high-ranking school administrators in the Sacramento area have resigned in recent years, citing persistent harassment and bias, according to the Sacramento NAACP and the Black Parallel School Board, a community group.

“To be quite honest, we have three cases in the NAACP of African American women, all vice principals, who if they haven’t resigned they’re out on mental health leave because of the way they’re treated, the harassment, the racism within the school districts,” Betty Williams of the Sacramento NAACP told Cap Radio. “It appears to be a trend for Black women and for them to ask for help within the school district and they hear crickets. … I’m sick about it and disappointed.”

Sacramento City Unified said it was looking into the issue and that it’s committed to keeping campuses free from harassment and racism.

An oversight committee is looking into whether San Francisco Unified improperly spent bond money set aside for school upgrades to fight a lawsuit related to its plans to cover a historic mural depicting images of slavery and brutality against Native Americans, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The district spent $525,000 from Proposition A money, a 2016 bond intended to raise money for classroom modernization and other facility improvements. In a letter to the oversight board in March, the district’s attorney said that the expense was justifiable because the mural causes “psychological harm to students” and is part of a school facility, the newspaper reported.  The 90-year-old mural is located at Washington High School.

The chair of the oversight committee, Rex Ridgeway, said he wants the district to return the money.

“They’ve been using this as a slush fund, as far as I’m concerned,” Ridgeway told the newspaper.

Less than 40 miles away from Highland Park, Illinois, where seven people were killed in a shooting at a July 4 parade, Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday addressed the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly, where she pledged to fight for more reasonable gun laws.

The July 4 shooting occurred while “our nation is still mourning the loss of those 19 babies and their two teachers in Uvalde,” Harris said, which was “the most recent reminder of the risks that our children and our educators face every day.”

“Teachers should not have to practice barricading a classroom; teachers should not have to know how to treat a gunshot wound,” Harris said.

Harris also commended educators for their hard work during the pandemic, as well as the National Education Association’s political organizing throughout its history.  She and President Joe Biden are “determined to fight for a future where a teacher’s wage can provide for a family,” Harris said, as well as a future where “you never again have to spend your own money on school supplies to meet your students’ needs” and “where our teachers can educate our children with the resources, with the safety and the respect that you deserve.”

“We are clear: When we do that, we can be sure that every child can reach their God-given potential,” Harris said.

Harris also took jabs at Republican lawmakers in her address for refusing ” to keep assault weapons off our streets and out of our classrooms,” noting that they “fought against raising (educator) pay” as well as voted against extending the child tax credit.

“I think that these extremist so-called ‘leaders’ need to attend a civics lesson,” Harris said. “I actually think it would benefit us all if they sat in your classroom for a few days to remember how a democracy works, to remember what freedom stands for, and to remember what jobs they were elected to do.”

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that L.A. Unified does not have the authority to require students to be vaccinated to attend school, that only the state does, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

But the ruling has no immediate effect at the district, since it postponed its mandate until at least July 2023, which is in line with the state’s own vaccine mandate pause, according to the Los Angeles Times. LAUSD was among several districts that had initially planned on enforcing vaccine mandates prior to the state’s but rolled the deadlines back since a large number of students had not confirmed their vaccination status in time.

A San Diego County Superior Court judge struck down San Diego Unified’s student vaccine mandate in December using similar reasoning, the Times reported.

A recent report from California’s school finance watchdog, the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team, called out several weak financial practices that put the San Dieguito Union High School District at risk of fiscal insolvency, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Tuesday.

The San Dieguito Union High School District serves about 12,700 students at 10 middle and high schools in Northwest San Diego County.

The Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team pointed out a lack of checks and balances on the district’s budget and payroll, according to the Union-Tribune. FCMAT also urged against having one person control the district’s entire financial process.

FCMAT CEO Michael Fine told the Union-Tribune that San Dieguito Union High School’s issues, though significant, can be “addressed fairly easily.”

President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on school districts and states to invest American Rescue Plan funds in programs to make up for lost learning time, and announced federal initiatives to help them do so.

During his 2022 State of the Union address, Biden called on Americans to volunteer as tutors and mentors to help address the impact of missed instruction during the pandemic. To facilitate that, the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday launched the National Partnership for Student Success — a program that seeks to recruit 250,000 adult volunteers over the next three years to serve as tutors and mentors in schools.

The Department of Education also launched a new campaign Tuesday through the national Best Practices Clearinghouse, which will highlight successful evidence-based programs by states and schools to support learning recovery and student mental health. The department is calling on education leaders to nominate work through the clearinghouse that could serve as a model for other states and schools.

The department also updated the interactive map on the Best Practices Clearinghouse, where families can access information about state and local plans for American Rescue Plan funds.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who work in schools must undergo training in adolescent mental health and brain development and meet stricter standards for transparency, under a new contract approved this week by the county Board of Supervisors.

The contract, which affects deputies assigned to schools in Los Angeles County, comes in the wake of reports that deputies in Lancaster had disproportionate contacts with Black students, who were more likely to be searched and cited by deputies. Black students accounted for 60% of deputies’ contacts, even though they make up only 20% of the overall student body, the Office of Inspector General found.

The new contract also requires that deputies assigned to schools not administer school discipline, such as detentions, suspensions and expulsions. They also must undergo extensive training in trauma-informed practices, social-emotional development, youth mental health, de-escalation tactics and other measures intended to help students who might be experiencing a crisis.

Related to transparency and accountability, deputies must report data about contacts with students every quarter, and turn over body camera footage with 10 days of a request.

Activities in the Lancaster area, including a group called Cancel the Contract: Antelope Valley, had lobbied for the changes.

“The unanimous support for the motion today is a victory,” said Waunette Cullors, a trustee for Keppel School District, and Beth Cayetano, a high school teacher in the Antelope Valley. “It reflects the urgency of addressing the dangers of armed deputies on our campuses, especially for Black and disabled students, and it demonstrates the effectiveness of our growing advocacy, and momentum for our work to build thriving school communities. It’s a win for our community, teachers, and most importantly, our students.”

A law passed in 2019 that requires a later start for high schools and middle schools in California goes into effect today.

The law requires high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. and middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m.

The law was the first of its kind to pass in the nation, according to the Associated Press. It’s based on science that shows adolescents have a later release of the sleep hormone melatonin, and therefore stay up later than other ages. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

Lawmakers in New Jersey and Massachusetts are considering similar proposals.

Both the Biden administration and the California Department of Public Health are calling on child care and preschool providers to help increase the number of young children who get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Covid-19 vaccines were recently approved for use in children 6 months to 4 years old for the first time.

“As trusted messengers, staff of ECE programs and schools play a vital role in spreading the good news that COVID-19 vaccination is available for our youngest children,” wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a letter, according to The Hill.

The California Department of Public Health has also reached out to early childhood education providers, asking them to encourage parents to vaccinate their children, share information about the vaccines, and host free Covid-19 vaccination events.

With no fanfare outside of a press release, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $307.9 billion state budget Thursday that includes a record $128 billion for TK-12 schools and community colleges.

He did so on the final day before the new fiscal year on July 1 and only five days after he and legislative leaders completed negotiations. Over the last 24 hours, the Legislature plowed through no fewer than 29 budget trailer bills that flesh out the budget details and, as in the past, adopt policies without going through a hearing process.

For most Californians, the big news is the cash refunds, ostensibly to offset the high cost of gasoline, from $200 to $1,050, to taxpayers. For school districts and charter schools, it’s the $9.2 billion increase – 13.7% –  in the Local Control Funding Formula, the general fund that districts will use to meet basic expenses, cover  inflationary costs and create incentives and raises to retain staff and lure new hires to fill growing vacancies. They will also have a $7.9 billion grant to spend on Covid recovery, which, among many permitted uses,  could be spent on tutors, a high priority of parents but in short supply.

For parents of elementary school-aged children, there will be billions to add three hours of after-school activities and summer school; for even younger children, the first phase-in of transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds.

For college students, there are plans, contingent on funding in 2024, to expand the Cal Grant, the state’s main financial aid program, for an additional 150,000 students eligible for aid starting in 2024-25.

For more details on the education budget, go here.

Beside Newsom at the signing were the Legislature’s key negotiators: Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, Senate Budget Committee Chair Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, Assembly Budget Chair Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood.

The California State University system has reached tentative agreements with two labor unions for contracts that could be made final next month, university officials announced Thursday.

The deals are with the California State University Employees Union and the Statewide University Police Association, according to the statement. Terms of each deal were not immediately released.

The Employees Union represents roughly 16,000 support staff covering academics and operations of the CSU, including information technology, health care, clerical, administrative and academic support, campus operations, grounds and custodial services.

The police union represents the police officers, corporals and sergeants of the CSU police system.

University trustees are expected to vote on the contracts in July.

Voters in San Francisco may be asked in November if $60 million in excess city property tax revenue should be transferred to the local school district for student and community programs.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a public hearing on the proposed shift Wednesday drew both support and criticism. If approved by the city Board of Supervisors, the Student Success Fund ballot initiative, which would amend the city charter, would wind up on the November ballot.

If voters were to back the would-be ballot measure, the fund would support school and community programs to improve academic achievement or provide social-emotional services to students, the newspaper reported.

“We are failing a shocking number of students,” said Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who co-authored the measure, citing subpar literacy rates at schools across the district. “It is a shame and it is a disgrace, and every adult should be doing something about it.”

But Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, told supervisors that the plan could make city workers vulnerable to job losses if there is an economic downturn. During the Great Recession, she said, “city workers paid a hefty price and people went out the door.”

Supervisors are expected to vote in July on whether to put the plan on the November ballot.

The state’s Cradle-to-Career Data System hasn’t flipped a switch yet, but a national nonprofit that advocates for state education data systems and has been a past critic of California’s laggard efforts is now lavishing praise on California in a just-released case study.

“Today, California stands at the precipice of education data excellence,” proclaims the Washington, D.C.-based Data Quality Campaign in a report subtitled “How California’s P–20W Cradle-to-Career Data System Could Take the State from Last to First.”

When it’s fully running in several years, the Cradle-to-Career information system will link data from across the early childhood, K–12, postsecondary and workforce sectors. The report credits the systematic and transparent way the state laid the groundwork for the system, lining up the involvement and the support of the Legislature, researchers, key figures of participating agencies, and, through outreach and open meetings, the public.

The contrast with five years ago was stark, it said. Although not mentioned by name, former Gov. Jerry Brown limited education data collection to what was required by federal and state law for accountability purposes. Picking up on his direction, the report said, “state agency leaders came to see data as an unhelpful or even punitive measure.”

That changed with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who made collecting early childhood through college and workplace data “an integral part of his education and workforce goals and a priority of his administration.”

In passing an enabling law in 2019, the Legislature helped shaped the system by suggesting topics it wanted the system to address, such as the impact of early education on student success and achievement; the long-term effect of state intervention programs and targeted resource allocations in primary education; and how prepared high school pupils are to succeed in college.

State leaders and data advocates elsewhere could learn from California’s strategies, it said: These include:

• Embrace transparency.
• Increase opportunities for access through public engagement.
• Look for champions.
• Build from clear goals and address specific needs.

Paige Kowalski was the primary author of the report.

Child Care Providers United (CCPU), the union which represents 40,000 child care providers in California, has reached an agreement with Governor Newsom to provide funding for urgent health care needs and as well as develop a strategy for retirement planning as part of the new state budget. 

Many child care providers, a workforce dominated by women of color who often survive on poverty wages, are cheering this as a historic move. The state will set aside $100 million in a trust to meet ongoing health needs.

“Providers stood together and stood strong in our demand that the state address gaps in providers’ access to health insurance; as a result, this agreement will place $100 million in ongoing funds in a trust to help providers access and afford health insurance as well as fund startup costs,” said Patricia Moran, a child care provider in San Jose and member of CCPU’s Joint Labor-Management Committees (JLMCs) for Health Care and Retirement. “Having lost a dear friend and sister child care provider last year because she could not access insurance and lost precious time while cancer advanced in her body, I am overwhelmed with emotion as we celebrate this life-saving victory for thousands of providers.”

The agreement will also fund a study of retirement benefits, as many providers can’t afford to retire, research shows. The budget also extends the current waiver on family fees for the state’s subsidized childcare. 

However, many early education and care experts are disappointed that the rates the state pays providers did not get bumped up, despite rising inflation, as part of this budget cycle.

“The Governor has given lip service to both the impacts of inflation on Californians and the important work of caregivers in our state,” said Kristin Schumacher, senior policy analyst for the California Budget and Policy Center, a nonprofit research organization. “But that sentiment didn’t extend to subsidized child care and preschool providers who are offering vital care for children despite being reimbursed with outdated and inadequate payment rates. These outdated payment rates make it really difficult for providers to offer early educators professional wages, keep pace with the rising minimum wage, and afford rising prices for food and supplies. Providers and families suffer when subsidized child care is limited in their communities because of policymakers’ lack of investment.”

After the legislature ratifies the budget and the Governor signs it, the agreement will go before CCPU member providers for a ratification vote.

Universal preschool might become available to all California 3- and 4-year-olds if a new bill eventually gets signed into law.

Introduced by state Sen. Connie M. Leyva,D-Chino, Senate Bill 976  would remove requirements that students be low-income to enroll in free state preschool and allow community child care providers such as in-home day cares to tap into state funds. The bill passed out of the Assembly Human Services Committee Tuesday.

Transitional kindergarten, a bridge between preschool and kindergarten, will also be available to all 4-year-olds by 2025-2026. But Levya believes that working families would prefer more flexible hours and services than the TK-12 system can provide.

“As the mom of twin daughters—and now both of them with small children of their own—I know firsthand the importance of early care and education,” Leyva said.  “It is so important that we offer flexibility and options for working families with children who would benefit from transitional kindergarten but are unable to access those services because of their own work or other day-to-day responsibilities.  With a mixed delivery system—as advanced in SB 976—parents with young children would have the needed flexibility for care, such as early drop-off, late pick-up, weekend care, or year-round care, as well as, help to protect the stability of jobs for teachers at community-based providers, which employ primarily women of color.”

Proponents of the bill view it as a way to bolster the state’s beleaguered early childhood care sector, which has been hard hit during the pandemic.

“If the state intends to preserve a mixed delivery system so that families have options to meet their needs, it must provide resources to ensure that the whole system can participate in planning, pay their professionals on par with their peers and that the roll-out is equitable,” said Stacy Hae Lim Lee, senior managing director for early childhood at Children Now, an advocacy organization. “As it stands, without the elements included in SB 976, we will further destabilize the early learning landscape and children and families will lose options.”

Critics of the bill, while supporting early childhood education in general, point out that 4-year-olds will already have access to TK, which will free up many spots in the state’s subsidized preschool program for younger children.

“I do not believe we need more funding going to 4-year-olds,” said Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit organization that runs many Bay Area child care centers. “With universal TK, all 4-year-olds will be served, so we should target new resources to serve younger children, especially low-income children. TK not only represents a historic expansion for 4-year-olds, (but) it allows current funding that serves low-income 4-year-olds in Head Start and State Preschool to serve them when they are younger. This will help meet an urgent need for families, which is infant-toddler child care.”

Some experts also believe that expanded transitional kindergarten will offer a high-quality early childhood program that can not easily be matched.

“The bill fundamentally changes California’s plan to put publicly supported preschool for 4-year-olds in TK,” said Deborah Stipek, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and an early education expert. “I can see many advantages to supporting the community-based child care programs, as are described in the bill. But there are also many downsides. It would be much more expensive and very difficult (and costly) to do quality control. TK teachers need a teaching credential — ultimately I hope a P-3 credential. We wouldn’t be able to require that level of teacher preparation in community settings.”

Anxiety over inflation impacts everyone but women may feel it more acutely, as Marketwatch reported. A combination of factors, including a gender imbalance in household duties and pandemic-induced financial insecurity driven by rising childcare costs, are impacting women’s mental wellbeing and, in turn, the children they care for.

“There is a clear link between people experiencing financial stress and having poor mental health,” said Dr. Natasha Bhuyan, a family physician at One Medical based in Phoenix, Ariz., as Marketwatch reported. Bhuyan works with lower-income communities and among her clients, mental health is a key issue, she said.

The deepening mental health crisis may be caused by many factors, she added, including social isolation and work pressure. Financial insecurity, triggered by 40-year-high inflation, is also fueling more tension.

“I’ve had patients who feel angry, depressed, anxious, or fearful about their finances,” Bhuyan said. “It’s often triggered when they have to pay their rent, when they get a bill, when they are thinking about their groceries, when they are thinking about gas prices, or even when they open and look at their bank account.”

The consumer price index rose 8.6% on the year in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but workers’ wages have not kept pace. They have risen by just 5.2% over the past year. Groceries are also more expensive now.

Inflation-induced anxiety has the potential to affect all people, but because women do most of the grocery shopping for their households, they are more likely to perceive prices to be higher, according to a research paper published last year by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal. 

President Joe Biden told reporters last week that he is close to making an announcement on student loan forgiveness and that another extension on federal student loan repayment is “on the table.”

For months, the Biden administration has been teasing the announcement of a student loan forgiveness plan, sparking speculation that has ignited political fights between Democrats and Republicans, and within the Democratic Party.

The Washington Post, in May, reported that Biden plans to cancel $10,000 in student debt for people who earned less than $150,000 the previous year, citing anonymous White House insiders. On the campaign trail, Biden pledged to cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person.

Biden also told reporters last week at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware that the extended moratorium on student loan repayment that’s been in place since March 2020 beyond its current end date of Aug. 31, is “all on the table right now.”

Cheryl James-Ward, superintendent of the 13,000-student San Dieguito Union High School District in north San Diego County, was fired Sunday following controversial comments she made about Asian students, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The district’s four-member board voted unanimously to terminate James-Ward’s contract effective Aug. 15, according to the Union-Tribune. James-Ward’s attorney told the Union-Tribune that she plans to sue the district since she believes board members made the decision out of retaliation for filing a harassment claim against trustee Michael Allman earlier in the year.

James-Ward has apologized for her comment, which was made at a board workshop in April on diversity, equity and inclusion. She said Asian students got better grades than other student groups because they are from wealthy families who recently emigrated from China.

The comment drew outrage from several Asian parents and community members who said it implied that all Asian students are Chinese and wealthy, according to the Union-Tribune.

Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee was announced Monday as interim president of Sonoma State University to replace Judy Sakaki, who is resigning July 31. Lee will begin his presidency on Aug. 1.

Lee previously worked nearly 30 years at Sacramento State where he served as a vice president for administration and business affairs, an interim provost, and as vice president for academic affairs before retiring in 2018.

“Throughout his decades of service to Sacramento State, Dr. Lee has a demonstrated history of collaboration and innovation leading to improved levels of student achievement,” said Jolene Koester, interim chancellor of the Cal State system. “He has served as a faculty member and led two divisions within the university, and these experiences give him unique and thorough insight into the operations of a university campus.”

Lee’s salary will be the same as Sakaki who received $324,052 and $60,000 for housing.  Lee’s appointment is expected to be approved at the July CSU trustee meeting,

“Sonoma State offers world-class educational opportunities to the North Bay,” said Lee. “As the first member of my family to earn a college degree, I understand the profound impact it can make on the life of a student and their family. I look forward to working with SSU’s dedicated faculty, staff, administrators and student leaders to offer transformative opportunities to the students of the North Bay.”

Lee earned a bachelor’s degree in literature from Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan, a master’s degree in international commerce, and a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Kentucky.

Sakaki’s resignation followed faculty criticism for how she handled sexual harassment allegations by a former university administrator against her husband, Patrick McCallum.

In another decision this month broadening the right of religious expression in public schools, the Supreme Court Monday sided with a high school football coach who lost his job for conducting prayers at midfield after games.

Writing for the conservative majority in a 6-3 ruling, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that coach Joseph Kennedy’s protection under the First Amendment to pray at school didn’t violate the First Amendment’s ban prohibiting government from establishing or showing preference to a religion.

Since 1968, the First Amendment standard had been the “Lemon Test,” which the Supreme Court established in its 8-1 decision in Lemon v. Kurtman. It instructed courts to decide whether a reasonable observer could conclude that a government’s action might appear to endorse religion.

Although Gorsuch wrote that his opinion did not overrule the test, the three justices who dissented said that nonetheless was the effect.

“This Court consistently has recognized that school officials leading prayer is constitutionally impermissible. Official-led prayer strikes at the core of our constitutional protections for the religious liberty of students and their parents … The Court now charts a different path,” he wrote.

Kennedy, a part-time coach at Bremerton High School in Washington State for seven years, had prayed after games, in the locker room or alone on the field. Later his players and eventually some members of the other teams joined him. He stopped his prayers in September 2015, after the school district expressed disapproval.

But one month later, he notified the district he would resume, and, after the game, spectators ran on the field to join him and players, along with a TV news crew. The district suspended him and did not renew his job after the season.

Last week, the same 6-3 majority overturned Maine’s law forbidding financial support for private religious schools as a First Amendment violation. It ruled in Carson v. Makin that the state’s tuition program, enabling families in towns without their own high schools to attend non-secular private high schools,  must include the option to choose religious high schools.

A state audit found that officials at Bellflower Unified School District, a 10,000-student district north of Long Beach, misled the public and the school board about the district’s finances while not providing adequate resources to students during the pandemic, the Press-Telegram reported.

Among other things, the audit found that the district amassed an $83 million reserve while not providing needed services and resources to students, especially those with disabilities.

Superintendent Tracy McSparren acknowledged that the audit showed “some areas” for improvement, but defended the district’s overall performance.

“Despite that, the auditor’s review determined no apparent board conflict of interest or unethical or wasteful actions,” McSparren wrote in an email to the newspaper, “and affirmed that the District included educational partners in developing plans.”

“Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness,” a two-hour documentary focusing on youth suicide, depression and other aspects of the mental health crisis, airs tonight at 9 p.m. on public television.

Produced by Ken Burns, the documentary takes a close look at what it’s like to live with mental health challenges from the perspective of young people, parents, teachers and others. The film was aired this weekend at the White House, where First Lady Jill Biden praised the filmmakers’ compassionate approach.

“It’s impossible not to be moved by the pain that these young people and their families share,” she said, according to The 74. “But there was so much hope there, too. Because they had all found a way from that darkness towards the light.”

The film is part of an ongoing public health campaign called Well Beings, designed to bring attention to mental health issues.

On the heels of a Supreme Court opinion Friday overturning the right to an abortion, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state leaders held a press conference where they championed a vision of California as a sanctuary state for those seeking abortion and reproductive care.

During the press conference Friday, Gov. Newsom signed into law AB 1666, which seeks to protect those seeking abortion out of state or those who provide aid or provide them with services from civil actions.

“We will not aid, we will not abet in their efforts to be punitive, to fine and create fear for those that seek that support,” Newsom said. “We are proud to provide it — and we do.”

Shannon Olivieri Hovis, the director of NARAL Pro-Choice California, championed a raft of state legislation from this legislative session — 16 bills in all — that will not only cement reproductive access in California but for those seeking abortion from other states. That includes the 13 states that have trigger bans on abortion that will go into effect immediately now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned.

“We are addressing our provider shortages,” she said. “We are addressing our access deserts. We are ensuring that people have the practical, logistical and financial support to get here. We are strengthening our provider network. We are doing all of the things that we need to do, and we are guaranteeing that they have privacy in their records and that they are not at risk of legal repercussions, providers or patients, in the state of California based on these hostile bans that we’re going to see move forward.”

One of those bills, SCA-10, will allow voters this November to enshrine the right to reproductive freedom, including abortion and contraceptives, in the California Constitution.

Newsom noted that the legal underpinning of the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade also call into question other constitutional rights, such as consensual sex acts, same-sex marriage and interracial marriage. Newsom said that he’s concerned that Republican lawmakers could pass a law that would nullify the work that California is doing to support reproductive rights.

“I’m very worried about it,” Newsom said. “If people don’t wake up, we could be living in that reality. Pay attention to what the hell is going on.”

Jodi Hicks, the president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, called attention to how this decision will acutely affect a younger generation. Young people outside of California seeking abortion will now be faced with the daunting prospect of having to travel outside of the state and navigate a new health care system, she said. She said young Californians who leave the state to attend college in the 26 states expected to ban or severely restrictions abortion.

“Where our students are going to college, and what rights do they have when they go there?” she asked.