California education news: What’s the latest?

Superintendents are prioritizing summer school, more counselors, tutoring, and technology for the extra funding from Congress for Covid-19 relief.

A new survey of about 400 superintendents looked at how school districts are using new federal funding, in addition to Covid-19 mitigation efforts like air filtration and testing. The survey was conducted by the national School Superintendents Association (AASA).

As reported by NPR, these are some of the top areas of spending identified by superintendents:

• Summer school (75% of respondents);
• Additional counselors, social workers, and reading specialists (66% of respondents);
• New computers or internet devices (62% of respondents);
• Renovating buildings (57% of respondents);
• Social-emotional learning (52% of respondents);
• Tutoring (44% of respondents);
• Paying staff for longer school days or years (42% of respondents).

An organization representing suburban school districts is calling on the Legislature to make several fixes to the law regulating independent study. Superintendents are complaining that the law, Assembly Bill 130 (sections 66 to 74) is handcuffing their ability to continue serving students placed in a Covid quarantine.

In an Aug. 30 letter, lobbyists for the California Association of Suburban School Districts asked for the authority to return to distance learning short-term, via Zoom, to serve groups of students and full classes while they are in quarantine. This is a vital issue for districts, since the current law does not permit funding students as the state authorized last year through hybrid and distance learning. Districts can only be funded for in-person instruction and through independent study, which requires individual families to sign contracts, and requires a minimum of daily live instruction and contact, and extensive paperwork showing students’ progress.

The letter calls limited-term distance learning a “reasonable solution” to the problem of massive numbers of quarantined students that the Legislature didn’t anticipate when it passed the law on independent study in early July.

Other proposed changes include:

• Extending the time permitted for short-term independent study, which entails fewer accountability requirements and documentation than long-term independent study, to more than the current 15-day limit. Some students may be placed on multiple quarantines that together will exceed 15 days;
• Allowing any certified teacher in the district, not just those supervising independent study, to teach independent study courses during quarantines Because of staff shortages, districts are having difficulty filling independent study positions amid fluctuating numbers of students moving in and out of quarantine. Districts are seeking flexibility so that teachers teaching in person can switch to teaching online to quarantined students, explained Andrea Ball, who represents the suburban districts and co-wrote the letter with Jeffrey Frost .

The chancellor’s office for California’s community college system is investigating whether fake student bot accounts are enrolling in courses in an attempt to obtain financial aid, the Los Angeles Times first reported.

Valerie Lundy-Wagner, interim vice chancellor of digital innovation and infrastructure for the system, wrote in a memo this week that the system has installed technology to detect bot and fraud activity on its main online application portal. Lundy-Wagner added that about 20% of traffic on that portal has been identified as “malicious and bot-related.”

In a separate statement to EdSource, the chancellor’s office said it is “investigating suspicious activity related to potential college application and financial aid fraud,” adding that some colleges have reported that there may be “bot students” enrolled in active courses.

“We have contacted the Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General. Any financial aid fraud is unacceptable and diverts resources away from deserving students who are seeking to improve their lives through a college education,” the chancellor’s office added.

The memo doesn’t specify which financial aid awards are being targeted, but one possibility is Covid-19 relief money that the colleges are awarding to students. In total, California’s community colleges have about $1.6 billion in federal Covid-19 relief aid that is available to be awarded to students in the form of emergency grants. Some of the funds have already been distributed.

In the memo, Lundy-Wagner also said the system has created a new policy that requires local colleges to confirm whether an application that has been deemed likely to be fraud is from a real student or not within two weeks. If the college doesn’t take action, the application is automatically confirmed as fraud and the account is suspended.

“With this change, it is vital that false positives (i.e., applications marked fraudulent by the SPAM filter that are not fraudulent) are reported promptly … to avoid legitimate student accounts becoming suspended,” Lundy-Wagner said in the memo.

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley, who is currently on leave from that role, told the Times that at least six colleges have reported an unusual spike in enrollment applications involving students that could be fake.

“I’m certainly alarmed,” Oakley said. “There’s lots of unscrupulous players right now trying to access and exploit benefits, not unlike what’s happened with unemployment insurance and any number of other benefits that have been made available recently because of the pandemic.”

Los Angeles Unified has issued a new requirement for students in quarantine: classroom teachers will either live-stream lessons via Zoom from the classroom or from home if they too must be quarantined. Classrooms with a quarantined teacher will be assigned an in-person substitute teacher for any students who do not have to quarantine. The mandate was shared with all district principals on Sunday and directs administrators to implement it by Sept. 8.

In the two weeks since the state’s largest school district began the fall semester, thousands of students have either tested positive for the coronavirus or come into close contact with someone who has contracted it. Until now, teachers have lacked clarity on how to continue instructing students who must stay home for several days.

A recently-passed state law requires that students not attending in-person classes be directed toward independent study, but school districts have struggled to implement short-term independent study programs for students in quarantine. The new L.A. Unified mandate aims to provide clarity, but it has been met with pushback by the teachers’ union who has not yet voted on it.

The union representing teachers in Los Angeles Unified is calling for a Covid-19 vaccine requirement for all eligible students, the Los Angeles Times reported.

United Teachers Los Angeles proposed to the district that students should “achieve full vaccination no later than 12 weeks following the birthday in which they become eligible” while allowing for religious and medical exceptions, according to the Times. The proposal, obtained by the Times, was dated Aug. 26.

According to the Times, there is no indication yet that district leaders have agreed to that proposal.

Earlier this month, Culver City Unified in west Los Angeles announced a vaccine requirement for students, becoming possibly the first district in the state to do so.

California State University Northridge announced Tuesday that it is launching a new Global Hispanice-serving Equity Innovation Hub thanks to a partnership with Apple and the State of California.

Gov.  Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature allocated $25 million in this year’s budget for the campus to build a technology and equity center to help underrepresented Black and Latino students to pursue science, technology, engineering and math, EdSource reported.

Apple is also donating $25 million to the new hub the campus announced Tuesday.  The tech company will also provide technology, design support and programming to the hub.

“We are focused on advancing enduring change, and our newest grant commitments will further that effort by supporting problem solvers and solution seekers in communities of color nationwide,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives. “Education, economic opportunity and environmental justice are fundamental pillars to ensuring racial equity, and everyone has a role to play in this critical mission.”

Twenty-one of the CSU’s 23 campuses, including CSUN, is defined as Hispanic-serving institutions — a federal designation where at least 25% of full-time undergraduate students identify as Latino and at least half of a campus’ degree-seeking students are low-income.

The Northridge campus has been recognized nationally for its research and mentoring programs that help women and Latino students excel in STEM programs.

“I’m proud to see this public-private partnership launch in California, home to more Hispanic Serving Institutions than any state in the nation,” U.S. Senator Alex Padilla. “And there’s no better location than CSUN—at the center of Southern California’s creative and tech economy. As the first Latino to represent California in the U.S. Senate and one of the few Senators with an engineering degree, I know firsthand the importance of increasing diversity in the institutions that shape our society. The Global HSI Equity Innovation Hub is a smart investment that will increase student success and equip Latinx and other diverse student groups with the skills necessary for high-demand careers in STEM.”

The federal government announced Monday it is investigating five states’ bans on mandates requiring all students to wear masks in school. The Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education is exploring whether states’ actions discriminate against students with disabilities by keeping those with a high risk of getting Covid infections from attending schools in person.

“The Department will fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely and the rights of local educators to put in place policies that allow all students to return to the classroom full-time in-person safely this fall,”  U.S.Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

The five states under investigation are Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. The department said it is not investigating other states with bans on universal indoor masking where court rulings and other issues have stopped states from enforcing their bans. These include Arizona, Florida, Texas and Arkansas.

The department said it will explore whether states are violating federal laws that prevent discrimination against students with disabilities and which guarantee students with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate education with other students.

President Joe Biden had promised to intercede in states whose governors and legislators had prevented mask mandates in public schools. Investigating potential violations of federal protections for students with disabilities provided a strategy to do that.

The New York Times reported that education superintendents in Oklahoma and South Carolina, who have opposed their states’ bans on universal masking, issued statements supporting the federal investigations.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, also praised the federal inquiries. “Schools need to be able to help ensure the safety of all students, educators, and their families. Prohibiting mask mandates flies in the face of science, public health, and common sense,” she said in a statement.

Sixty-five students and seven staff tested positive for Covid-19 at West Contra Costa Unified during its second week of fall instruction, according to the district. That’s up from 18 cases the previous week — 14 of which were students, and four of which were staff. Though the 30,000-student district didn’t have to close any classrooms the first week, it had to close one classroom at Collins Elementary in Pinole during the second week.

West Contra Costa Unified officials pledged to announce how many Covid cases it has each week on its 21-22 Covid Dashboard.

A classroom Covid outbreak in a Marin County classroom, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday,  underscores the perils of even a brief lapse from safety measures and offers further evidence for mandatory staff vaccinations.

Half of the 24 students in a K-8 elementary school tested positive for the virus after an unnamed unvaccinated teacher removed a mask, contrary to policy, to read a story from the front of the class. That was on May 21. Two days earlier, the teacher had felt fatigue and nasal congestion but attributed the symptoms to allergies. On May 23, the test proved to be Covid.

All five students seated in the front row of desks subsequently tested positive, along with three students in the second row (one student in the row wasn’t tested) and four more students in the remaining three rows. The teacher was one of only two at the school who were not vaccinated.

After an analysis of the virus tests, the report concluded the outbreak consisted of 27 cases of the delta variant, including the  teacher. Ten other students at the school also later tested positive for the coronavirus, beside the 12 in the teacher’s class. Four of them had siblings in the infected teacher’s class and were likely exposed to the virus at home, the report said.

“The outbreak’s attack rate highlights the delta variant’s increased transmissibility and potential for rapid spread, especially in unvaccinated populations such as schoolchildren too young for vaccination,” the report concluded. It also highlights the importance of vaccinating staff who work with the same age group of students, it said.

County health officials and experts with UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz wrote the report.

The majority of online and other non-classroom-based charter schools were among the lowest-performing schools operating in San Diego County, according an analysis by Voice of San Diego and the Center for Research and Evaluation at UC San Diego Extension.

Five of the 14 schools, in which students work at home either online or with paper packets and meet periodically with teachers, scored among the 20 lowest-performing schools, while nine scored among the bottom 15 percent of 632 in San Diego County, Voice of San Diego reported. The study examined standardized test scores from 2017 to 2019 and compared the results to schools with similar poverty levels.

Non-classroom-based charter schools have drawn the attention of the Legislature, most recently as a result of the now-defunct A3 charter schools; two of its leaders pleaded guilty to defrauding the state of tens of millions of dollars in funding. This year, the Legislature extended a moratorium  on new online charter schools until 2025 while it considers reforms. However, existing non-classroom-based charter schools have grown significantly during the pandemic as parents dissatisfied with their district’s distance learning offering last year and independent study this year have sought alternatives.

Non-classroom-based charter schools can enroll students from anywhere in the county in which it’s based plus adjoining counties. Among the lowest-performing in the analysis is Cabrillo Point Academy, with 4,415 students. It is chartered by the tiny Dehesa Elementary School District, with 120 students,  which is entitled to charge millions of dollars in oversight fees.

The Voice of San Diego reported that traditional charter schools collectively performed on par with the average scores of other public schools. They included the high-performing Preuss School, a partnership with UC San Diego, and the low-performing Bella Mente Montessori Academy, whose principal said the study failed to consider that many of its students enrolled because of harmful experiences in traditional public schools.

Los Angeles Unified on Monday will launch mobile Covid-19 vaccination clinics that will visit all middle and high schools in the district. Vaccines will be available to all district employees, who have been mandated to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 15, and students ages 12 and older.

The mobile teams will visit each middle and high school campus at least twice to administer both the first and second doses of the vaccine. Any students ages 12 to 15 must have an adult present when receiving the vaccine, and students 16 and older may either have an adult present or have a signed consent form.

At least 6,500 students and about 1,000 employees have missed one or more days of class after testing positive for Covid-19 or being in close contact with someone who tested positive.

East Nicolaus High School in northern California’s Sutter County is currently in quarantine after five days of in-person classes, according to the Sacramento Bee. 

The school has resumed remote learning for the duration of its 10-day quarantine, and students will be able to return to their classrooms on Sept. 7. During that time, students are to meet with their teachers for about four total hours of daily synchronous learning.

It is unclear how many students and staff members tested positive. In a letter posted on the school’s website, Superintendent Neil Stinson wrote that he “will be personally available to provide a Covid rapid test to any ENHS student who would like to be tested.”

California became the first state in the nation to offer parents paid family leave in 2004 but many low-income families still can’t afford to take the essential time off. That’s because you often get only 60% of your pay, which falls well below the poverty line for many.  

Helping these needy families is the idea behind Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s Assembly Bill 123, which would raise the amount of the weekly benefit. The bill, which would guarantee 90 percent of income, was approved Thursday by California’s Senate Appropriations Committee. It will next go to the full Senate.

This reform was among the core issues in the Master Plan for Early Learning and Care because experts agree that the early days of life are vital to child development. Paid family leave has a variety of benefits, from helping reduce maternal stress and infant hospitalization rates to increasing breastfeeding, research shows.

West Contra Costa Unified, which serves around 30,000 students in Richmond and surrounding communities, is considering mandating that all eligible students get vaccinated for Covid-19.

Superintendent Kenneth “Chris” Hurst told Edsource he is contacting Culver City Unified, which may have been the first district to announce such a mandate last week, to “hear about the lessons they learned.” School board members and teachers expressed interest in a vaccine mandate at West Contra Costa Unified’s school board meeting Wednesday.

In its first week back at school, the district reported 18 Covid cases — 14 were students, and four were staff. Still, the district was able to avoid having to close any classes.

West Contra Costa Unified currently offers symptomatic and response testing for all staff and students, as well as cadence screening testing once a week.

Culver City Unified, which enrolls around 7,000 students and started school Aug. 19, is giving its families until Nov. 19 to provide proof of vaccination. Families who refuse to comply will have to enroll their students in independent study.

Lake Tahoe Unified School District will postpone the start of the school year because of the Caldor Fire burning through El Dorado County.

The district serves 3,725 students in four elementary schools, one middle and one high school in South Lake Tahoe.

District leaders made the announcement today after the evacuation boundary was moved east to Echo Summit, 17 miles from South Lake Tahoe.

“With health and safety  at the forefront of all decisions, and in support of all families in our community, especially those that live in the current evacuation areas, the district postpone the start of the school year until Tuesday, Sept. 7,” stated a press release from the district.

The district had planned to reopen schools on Aug. 30.

District officials will monitor fire conditions to determine whether schools should remain closed longer.

The El Dorado County Office of Education has a Caldor Fire Resources page with a listing of details and links for Caldor Fire information and resources.

Two key higher education bills were approved Thursday by California’s Senate Appropriations Committee.

Both bills, Assembly Bill 1456 and Assembly Bill 928, were approved unanimously by the committee. They will next go to the full Senate floor for votes.

AB 1456 would make changes to the Cal Grant, the state’s main financial aid award, by simplifying the program and making it easier for some students to get grants. If the bill becomes law, there would be two Cal Grant awards: one specifically for community college students and one for students attending four-year universities.

The bill would also eliminate grade point average requirements for community college students seeking an award, and the amount of the award for those students would be adjusted each year based on inflation. For students attending California State University or the University of California, the Cal Grant would continue to cover tuition and fees.

AB 928, meanwhile, is meant to streamline the transfer process for community college students who intend to transfer to a CSU or UC. The bill would create a new committee charged with overseeing the associate degree for transfer program.

The bill would also require UC and CSU to create a joint set of general education requirements for students seeking to transfer. And it would require community colleges to place students intending to transfer on an associate degree for transfer pathway for their major, rather than leaving it up to those students to seek out the pathway on their own.

Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, and representatives from community groups and Oakland Unified held a press conference today in an effort to encourage legislators to pass Assembly Bill 100, which would  limit the amount of lead permitted in faucets sold in California.

In 2019 California began testing lead levels in the water at schools and day care centers, but Holden said many of the replacement faucets still leach lead into the water.

“Schools and child care centers are working especially hard and spending public dollars to lower lead levels in drinking water,” Holden said. “This bill would require all faucets and fixtures to leach as little lead as possible to keep kids safe and healthy.”

Lead is a neurotoxin that damages the brains and central nervous systems of young children, according to speakers. Low levels of lead in children cause IQ loss, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and impaired hearing.

The Assembly bill is currently in the Senate Appropriations Committee. A similar bill did not pass during the last legislative session, according to Holden. The bill must be passed before Sept. 10, when the legislative session ends for the year.

California education leaders on Wednesday launched CA Kids Fire Relief, a two-week statewide effort to encourage the public to offer financial and emotional support to students and school communities impacted by the wildfires raging across the state.

So far this year, 6,773 fires have devoured more than 1.6 million acres of land in California, according to Cal Fire. The fires have left hundreds of families homeless, destroyed a school in both Plumas and El Dorado counties and disrupted the beginning of the school year for thousands of students.

CA Kids Fire Relief is is a collaboration between the Small School Districts Association, the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association and the Sacramento County Office of Education.

Organizers are asking the public to contribute gift cards for food, clothing, gasoline, as well as credit card-style gift cards. Students also are encouraged to make cards and write letters of support, which will be hand-delivered to students  impacted by the fires.

“So many students throughout our state are displaced, devastated and traumatized,” said Tim Taylor, executive director of the Small School Districts Association. “We are calling on students and families who have not been affected by these tragic wildfires to help the kids.”

At the kick-off event in Sacramento Wednesday, Pioneer Union School District Principal Annette Lane was presented with a box of gift cards and support letters for the 26 transitional kindergarten to third-grade students who attended Walt Tyler Elementary, which burned to the ground in the Caldor Fire last week.

The wildfire, which began burning earlier this month in the Cosumnes River Canyon in El Dorado County, had grown to nearly 137,000 acres by this morning. It closed at total of 11 schools in six school districts.

“Our school communities throughout the state are experiencing intense and extreme challenges,” said El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools Ed Manansala. “This outpouring of coordinated support will provide a sense of care and hope for many.”

Hundreds of families have lost their homes and thousands also have been displaced by the Dixie Fire raging in Lassen, Tehama, Shasta, Plumas and Butte counties. The fire has burned 747,091 acres by this morning, according to CalFire.

The Sacramento County Office of Education will receive the donated gift cards and distribute them to the affected school districts. Districts will distribute cards to students and families as soon as possible, according to a press release.

Gift cards and letters should be mailed to: CA Kids Fire Relief, Ashley Slovak,  C/O Sacramento County Office of Education, P.O. Box 269003 Sacramento, CA, 95826-9003.

A judge in Alameda County has ordered UC Berkeley to freeze its enrollment, though the campus says it is optimistic that it will be able to address the judge’s concerns and get the decision reversed.

Judge Brad Seligman ordered the campus to redo an environmental impact report for a new complex that will include student housing and another academic building, Berkeleyside reported. Until the university redoes that report, Seligman ordered enrollment to freeze at 2020-21 levels. The freeze will take effect in the 2022-23 school year, according to Berkeleyside.

When the campus redoes its report, it must include analysis  on how increased student enrollment at the campus has impacted noise and housing in Berkeley, Seligman ruled.

The lawsuit was filed by Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, a nonprofit activist group of Berkeley residents.

Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for UC Berkeley, told Berkeleyside that the campus is optimistic it can “file documents very soon” that will satisfy the judge’s concerns.

“It will probably take the university between six and eight months to address the requirements of the judgment with regard to the Upper Hearst project. We are confident that the court will ultimately permit us to proceed with the Upper Hearst project,” Mogulof said, referring to the planned complex for the complex on the northeast edge of campus on Hearst and La Loma Avenues.

State education and public health officials encouraged school district leaders to increase testing and vaccinations, and to make use of resources being offered by the state during a webinar today.

The  webinar, which featured State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond and Dr. Naomi Bardach, of the state’s Safe Schools for all Team, reviewed the science behind the recent spike in Covid cases and where schools could look for help.

The delta variant is causing an increase in Covid-19 cases in California, although at much lower numbers than in other states because of its early adoption of masking mandates and higher numbers of vaccinated residents, according to Darling-Hammond.

Rising infections across the state are due to the delta variant, which now makes up 90 percent of the state’s Covid cases, and is almost three times more contagious then previous strains of Covid-19.

Despite the increase in infections in recent weeks, only one school in California has had to close temporarily because of a Covid-19 outbreak since schools reopened this month, Bardach said

“We know that research validates that we must keep schools open in order to promote the mental, social- emotional and academic well-being of students,” Bardach said.

She said that research also shows that children are less likely to contract Covid at school, where there are safety measures like masking, than when they take part in activities outside of school such as weddings, funerals and play dates.

One of the trends schools have been seeing is students with symptoms of Covid coming to school while sick. Bardach said schools could minimize in-school transmission by educating families about symptoms, testing students for Covid, enforcing masking, encouraging vaccinations and good hand hygiene, and by providing good ventilation. She also encouraged school district officials to educate families about vaccines and to host school-based vaccine clinics.

The state is offering schools assistance in setting up testing and vaccination sites, and has an emergency response team that will come to school sites when there are large outbreaks. It also is offering schools test kits, technical assistance and onsite consultation for testing and outbreak mitigation.

One day after the FDA gave full approval to the Pfizer-BioTech vaccine, the State Center Community College District in the Fresno area voted to require students and employees to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination by Oct. 15, according to the Fresno Bee.

The district includes Fresno City College and other community colleges in the area.

The California Community College system is leaving the decision of whether to mandate vaccines up to each district. About half had not decided to mandate vaccines, as of Aug. 17. After the approval from the FDA, more are expected to require vaccination.

During the first week of school in Los Angeles Unified, about 6,500 students missed school because they tested positive for Covid-19 or were exposed to someone who did, according to the Los Angeles Times.

About 3,000 students tested positive either during the first week or in the days before. An additional 3,500 students had to quarantine because they had close contact with someone who tested positive. There are about 451,000 students enrolled in the district.

About 1,000 employees missed at least one day of work during the first week, because they or a close contact tested positive. About 60,000 employees were tested.

About 130 students at California State University, Chico who requested a religious exemption to the university’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate were exposed to a data breach, according to the Sacramento Bee.

The requests made by those students were posted on an anonymous message board, with names and phone numbers of many students included, the Bee reported. A commenter on the message board linked to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that had detailed explanations of students who had requested an exemption between June 10 and Aug. 7, the newspaper reported.

“Students’ medical and religious exemption requests are protected information,” Andrew Staples, spokesman for CSU Chico, said in a statement. “We are aware of the documents posted online and circulated among the media. We are investigating this incident, while also taking a number of proactive steps to protect students’ confidential information.”

The CSU system, which includes Chico and 22 other undergraduate campuses, are requiring students to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to be on campuses this fall. Students may request to be exempted from the mandate if they have a genuine medical or religious reason.

About 1,900 students and employees in the Los Angeles Unified School District tested positive for coronavirus last week, according to a parent group that has created a Covid-19 dashboard using district data.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the group Parents Supporting Teachers has calculated that there were 1,893 positive Covid-19 cases among employees and students last week, which was the first week of school. The group calculated the data by adding figures for more than 1,400 individual sites where the district reported cases, according to the Times.

The data was current as of Sunday night and district officials did not dispute the group’s findings.

“These numbers seem to represent the case totals at the time they were released late Sunday,” said Shannon Haber, spokeswoman for the district. “Test results and case details are continuously updated, and information on any dashboard should be considered a point-in-time report.”

Cheerleaders from Moreno Valley’s Valley View High School were the victims of racist taunting by Temecula students at a high school football game Friday, the Southern California News Group reported.

Valley View counselor and cheerleading coach Kenya Williams in a Facebook post Friday evening said the “racial attacks” occurred during halftime at a game at Temecula Valley High School. Valley View cheerleaders made a customary visit to the home team’s sideline, where they were “called derogatory and racial slurs, and touched unwelcomely” by Temecula Valley High students, Williams said in the post.

As some of the Valley View cheerleaders walked towards the snack bar, they were “met by monkey noises,” Williams said.

“In all my years coaching, I have never experienced such levels of disrespect and hate from an opposing school/team,” Williams wrote.

Temecula Valley High Principal Allen Williams promised a prompt investigation into the incident and “swift and appropriate action,” Southern California News Group reported.

The news outlet said this is the latest racially driven incident at Temecula Valley High. In 2019, a Black student was targeted with racist graffiti on two separate occasions.

An American Civil Liberties Union report published Tuesday found that school police disportiotiantely arrest and cite Black students, Latino boys and students with disabilities.

The report, “No Police In Schools,” analyzed school police data from the U.S. Department of Education’s 2017-18 Civil Rights Data Collection, the “Stops” dataset from the 2019 California Racial and Identify Profiling Act, and data from Stockton Unified School District on police in schools. The report calls for schools to drop assigned law enforcement officers and not to create their own police departments or reserve forces. They should not coordinate with outside law enforcement agencies to station officers on school campuses, the report recommends.

“School police contribute to the criminalization of tens of thousands of California students,” the report said.

The ACLU found that Black student arrest rates are 7.4 times higher in schools with assigned law enforcement than in schools without; Latino student arrest rates are 6.9 times higher. Students with disabilities arrest rates are 4.6 times higher in schools with assigned law enforcement than in schools without.

In schools with their own police departments, Black students are three times more likely to be referred to law enforcement compared to white students. Also, though Black girls make up only 6% of California’s female student population, they make up 18% of female student arrests. Latino boys account for 28% of California’s student population, but 44% of student arrests. Students with disabilities make up 11% of California’s students but 26% of student arrests, the report said.

“To achieve justice for our youth and to provide them with the education they deserve, we must reevaluate the entire system: reimagining safety without police and school hardening measures, reinvesting in the positive supports that actually help our students, and fundamentally changing the culture of our schools,” the report said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed three new members to serve on the board of governors for California’s system of 116 community colleges.

Newsom appointed the following individuals to begin terms on the board:

• Joshua Elizondo, the Associated Students President at Santa Monica College since 2021 and student trustee on the governing board of that college from 2020 to 2021
• Irma L. Olguin Jr., co-founder and chief executive officer of Bitwise Industries, a company based in Fresno that trains tech workers
• Roy A. Shahbazian, Academic Senate president and math professor at the Rancho Santiago Community College District

Daisy Gonzales, acting chancellor of the community college system, said in a statement that the system is “pleased to welcome” each of the new board members.

“Our Board members represent the diversity of our state and they bring a combination of experience, perspectives and insight that will be of great value to our system and the lives of our students, their families and communities,” she added.

The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was granted full approval Monday from the Food and Drug Administration for people 16 and older, making it the first vaccine against the virus to get such approval.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement Monday that the full approval “confirms that the Pfizer vaccine meets a rigorous, scientific standard for safety and efficacy” and encouraged California residents to get vaccinated.

“With Covid-19 cases rising across the nation due to the Delta variant, I encourage all Californians to trust the science and protect themselves and their community by getting vaccinated,” he said.

Previously, the Pfizer vaccine was approved for emergency use. The decision to give it full approval is likely to prompt more community college districts in California to require students or staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 this fall. While the state’s public universities and several community colleges already planned to mandate vaccinations, many community college districts have not yet done so and some said they were waiting for full approval.

The North Orange County Community College District, which operates two colleges, is one of those districts. Chancellor Cheryl Marshall said in a memo to district employees earlier this summer that Covid-19 vaccines would not be mandatory until one received full FDA approval.

The governing board for Palomar College in San Diego County also approved a resolution in July to require all employees to be vaccinated once at least one vaccine was fully approved.

Responding to allegations of irresponsible conduct, the board in California that licenses doctors warned last week that physicians face disciplinary action if they grant children exemptions from wearing masks in school “without conducting an appropriate prior exam and without a finding of a legitimate medical reason” for  an exemption.

The Medical Board of California issued a one-sentence statement on Aug. 18. It also encouraged the members of the public to file a formal complaint with the board if they “if they feel that a physician is granting mask exemptions inappropriately.”

The statement, along with a strongly worded press release from the California Medical Association regarding “reports of rogue physicians selling bogus mask exemptions,” coincided with a TV news story that former colleagues of Dr. Michael Huang had charged the Roseville private physician with selling mask exemptions for students in the Eureka Union School District in Roseville. The wavier included an exemption from wearing face shields reserved for students who cannot wear masks.

Huang denied the charges while telling station KTXL Fox 40 in Sacramento, “If I’m the only physician writing exemptions, that means all the other physicians in this state, in my area — in many other areas also in the state — basically gave up on their patients.”

Huang said he was fired last year from Sutter Independent Physicians because he refused to wear a mask because of his own challenges with asthma. The CEO of Huang’s former practice declined to discuss the reasons Huang was let go.

Without referring to Huang or any specific physician, California Medical Association President Peter N. Bretan, Jr., said in a statement, “It strains credulity to think that a single physician would have dozens or hundreds of patients with valid medical claims for such an exemption. Unfortunately, we know there are bad actors who are willing to operate outside the accepted standards of care in order to turn a personal profit. This needs to stop.”

In the latest case of a Red State Republican governor at war with school districts over masks, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey threatened last week to withhold federal Covid relief funding from school districts that impose mask mandates. They would be ineligible for $163 million in federal American Rescue Program funding— about $1,800 per student, according to KQED.

Phoenix Union High School District is among the districts that have adopted a mask requirement. Superintendent Chad Gestson tweeted, “Today, I am worried about our children. But as for those in our care in PXU, we will continue to prioritize their health, safety, and wellness.”

Ducey announced a separate $10 million grant program  for income-eligible families affected by their district’s mask mandates or other Covid-19 measures. Families can use up to $7,000 for child care, transportation, tutoring, and tuition to a private school.

Restoration crews methodically removed soot from the walls and desks of classrooms at Lower Lake Elementary and Lower Lake High campuses today in preparation for the return of students on Monday.

The crews are cleaning up after the Cache fire, which ignited in Clearlake — two miles away — on Wednesday, causing the evacuation of 1,700 students and staff. The fire had burned 75 acres by Thursday night and is 40% contained.

The schools are part of the Konocti Unified School District in Lake County, 70 miles north of Santa Rosa. The district serves 3,600 students.

All the students at the two schools were evacuated within 25 minutes of buses arriving at the campuses, said Assistant Superintendent Chris Schoeneman. Most were taken to a nearby school to be reunited with their parents, others were taken directly home by bus.

“Oh my though was it chaotic!” said Schoeneman in an email. “As smooth as the outcome above sounds the combination of staff and students herding toward buses, loud speakers giving directions, bus radios down due to the transmitter power going out, fire crews and law enforcement arriving on scene, a spot fire blowing up next to the elementary parking lot and parents — oh boy — panicking and hysterical parents forcing their way in past roadblocks, clogging streets and exits, and giving divisive information to kids on cell phones.”

To make matters even more confusing, windy conditions brought sprays of water and retardant from helicopters fighting the fire down on the evacuating students and staff, Schoenman said.

“That is what an emergency situation looks like,” he said. “We snap to and follow our processes and practices for evacuation, but no drill can replicate the actual emergency incident and while our emergency teams, staff, and leadership looked calm and in control, there is definitely an amazing amount of courage, perseverance, and professionalism that sees everyone through this.”

There was no structural damage to any schools, said said Konocti Unified Superintendent Becky Salato, in a Facebook message to families Thursday.

The schools and a few others in the district will be disinfected, have their carpets deep cleaned and heating and air conditioning filters changed before students return, she said. Power was being restored to the area on Friday.

Los Angeles Unified is using Covid-19 relief funding to open 31 new “expanded” transitional kindergarten classrooms. During the spring, the state’s largest school district voted to provide free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds by the 2024-25 school year. The state later passed a $2.7 billion universal transitional kindergarten plan to be phased in over the course of five years. The goal is to enroll all of California’s 4-year-olds in transitional kindergarten programs by the 2025-26 school year.

The new L.A. Unified classrooms are opening ahead of the state expansion. There are currently 3 million children under the age of 5 in the state, and only 37% of them are enrolled in transitional kindergarten and the state’s subsidized preschool program.

Nearly 1 in 5 babies in America live in poverty. That’s one of the stark takeaways from a new report from Zero to Three, a national nonprofit organization. 

Babies need stability to thrive, but for families living in poverty, food, clothing, and housing are often hard to come by. Though public assistance can help families, few families who could benefit from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1996, actually receive the kind of help they most need, the report says. This national research digs into the impacts of economic assistance policies as the TANF program, which turns 25 amid the rampant economic disruptions of the pandemic, that have shined a light on systemic inequities.  

“Supporting the financial stability of families with babies is critical for strong early development and essential for recovery from the economic and social trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic,” says the report. “As TANF turns 25 years old, now is the time to re-evaluate how states are using its funds and its role in ensuring families with limited financial resources receive the basic assistance needed for their babies to thrive.”

Other key findings include that TANF funds sometimes reach only a small fraction of eligible families. The proportion differs by state — from 2.7 percent in Idaho to 88.2 percent in the District of Columbia — and reflects the methods states use to distribute TANF funds.

Most states dole out less than one-quarter of the funds for cash assistance. Other forms of assistance include child care and preschool as well as spending for administrative costs. However, for the 1 in 5 families with babies living in poverty that receive benefits, the amount of assistance received is often insufficient to lift them out of poverty. 

TANF assistance also tends to be lower in states with the highest Black population, which the report suggests is in line with persistent elements of sexism and racism within the system.

Another key issue is that less than half of states exempt single parents with infants from work requirements. This can be a deal-breaker for low-income mothers trying to juggle inconsistent work schedules with hard-to-find child care for their babies. 

The California Supreme Court wasted little time denying a petition from the Orange County Board of Education today that asked the court to overturn the state’s mask mandate. The board had filed the petition only eight days before the court ruled, according to the Voice of OC.

The state mask mandate requires students and school staff to wear face coverings while inside buildings, even if they have been vaccinated.

The board’s petition argued that the mask mandate has no “sound medical or scientific basis.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics disagree. The organizations have recommended that vaccinated and unvaccinated people wear masks at school to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The Sly Park Environmental Education Center in El Dorado County has been an important part of the education of middle school students in the Sacramento region for over 50 years.

Tuesday it survived the flames of the Caldor fire raging nearby. El Dorado County officials evacuated the staff from the facility on Monday and are hoping winds don’t reverse and imperil the facility again, according to the Sacramento Bee.

About 8,000 students attend the education center every year to learn about the environment. Some stay for the day and others camp there for several nights. The center is run by the Sacramento County Office of Education in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service.

The facility has been closed since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, but school district officials had hoped to resume visits there soon, according to the Sacramento Bee.

The California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has launched an advertising campaign that thanks parents for working with educators to implement safety measures such as masking and hand sanitizing in schools.

The television, radio, print and online  advertisements will run in every media market in the state.

The ads were recorded at Redlands High School in Redlands with area teachers and feature the Redlands High School Marching Band.

The ads celebrate the commitment to keep everyone safe and to make every school a safe place to learn, said CTA President E. Toby Boyd in a press release.

Extensive news coverage of local and state policies, and dissatisfaction with education, drove increased interest, and to a lesser extent, activism in California during the pandemic, a survey released on Thursday found. Republicans, Blacks and Latinos were more dissatisfied with the quality of education during Covid than Democrats, whites and Asian voters, according to the results of PACE/USC Rossier Poll.

“Our findings also suggest that there are voters who do not trust their local school boards to respond to their needs and that voters are becoming more engaged due to dissatisfaction with board decisions,” the poll authors concluded. “In particular, Black voters and low-income voters were most likely to report dissatisfaction and feel less valued by their local boards.”

Unhappiness with education decisions primarily motivated voters earning less than $35,000 to become involved in actions, such as attending board meetings. However, wealthy voters — those making more than $150,000 — were more satisfied with education decisions during Covid and were twice as likely to contact officials to express their views than those making less than $35,000.

Parents especially became engaged and active in decision-making during the pandemic; 27% more reported contacting local education officials and attending local board meetings, while 22% more reported donating to campaigns or organizations on education issues; 21% more attended rallies. Here again, the wealthiest parents were more likely to become involved.

By a margin of 54% to 32%, more Democrat than Republican voters expressed the view that school boards generally managed school effectively during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic confidence in school board management was significantly higher among voters of both parties.

Better understanding voter dissatisfaction with policy decisions affecting students will be important during the coming year, as school boards decide how to spend an “unprecedented” amount of state and federal funds, the authors suggested.

Tulchin Research conducted the survey of 2,000 registered California voters, with an oversampling of 500 parents with children under 18 living at home, in May 2021. The authors of this report were Julie Marsh, an education professor at the USC Rosier School of Education, Jacob Alonso, a Ph.D. student at the Rossier School of Education and Eupha Jeanne Daramola, a doctoral candidate at the education school.

Some school districts in the state have already had to quarantine whole classes of students just days after opening, due to some students testing positive for Covid-19.

In the first week of class, Oakland Unified quarantined two classrooms of students, after three or more people in each class tested positive, indicating the virus might be spreading at school. Fresno Unified quarantined 10 classrooms, after students in those classes tested positive for Covid-19. According to the Fresno Bee, the district chose to quarantine whole classes, because they had not yet trained all staff on “modified quarantine,” a new policy from the California Department of Health that allows students who had close contact with someone with Covid-19 to continue to come to school, as long as they test twice a week.

Students who are quarantined do independent study from home until the quarantine period is over.

In San Diego and Oakland, parent groups are advocating for more tests and masking policies to protect against Covid-19 in schools.

Oakland parents and teachers are petitioning the school board to provide Covid-19 testing at every school in the district at least once a week and to allow students who signed up for independent study to be able to return to their previous school when they return to in-person classes.

The San Diego group, San Diegans for Safe Schools, publicized a letter calling for the district to require masks outdoors, physical distancing during lunch when students have their masks off, and expanding Covid-19 testing to every school at least once a week, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Planned power outages across Northern California are further complicating the beginning of the school year.

Currently, schools in portions of Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Colusa, Contra Costa, Glenn, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Napa, Plumas, Solano, Sonoma, Trinity, Alameda, Sierra and Yuba counties are impacted by the planned power outages. It is unclear how many schools are impacted.

Last night PG&E began shutting off power to 51,000 structures in 18 counties to reduce the danger of fire caused by a combination of dry vegetation from drought conditions and dry offshore winds, according to a news release.

“I really think it’s another layer of issues for schools,” said Tim Taylor, executive director of the Small School District Association of California. “There are already so many issues with Covid.”

Closing schools at the beginning of the school year for planned power outages also is disruptive to students who are trying to get into the routine of going to school, Taylor said.

Butte, Tehama, Lassen and Plumas counties are also currently being threatened by the Dixie fire, which  burned down one school and consumed over 635,000 acres by this morning.

The Caldor Fire continues to advance through El Dorado County, forcing the closure of more schools.

By this morning the wildfire had closed a total of 11 schools in the Camino Union School District, Gold Oak Union School District, Indian Diggings School District, Pioneer Union School District, Pollock Pines Elementary School District and Silver Fork School District.

The wildfire, which began burning Sunday in the Cosumnes River Canyon, had grown to 53,772 acres by 7 a.m. this morning.

Walt Tyler Elementary School in Grizzly Flats burned to the ground Monday. The school, which is part of the Pioneer Union School District, served 26 students in transitional kindergarten to third grade. It’s unclear how many other structures have been lost.

The proposed expansion of TK, or transitional kindergarten, might deepen existing inequities, a new Center for the Study of Child Care Employment data brief warns, unless steps are taken to build new pathways from the child care workforce into the public school system. 

Since current policy proposals to gradually expand TK to all of the state’s 4-year-olds would create approximately 8,000 to 11,000 new teaching jobs amid a statewide staffing shortage, the center’s experts are recommending that the TK credential, a multiple subject teaching credential with 24 units of early childhood education, be made more accessible to early childhood teachers. 

Spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and many lawmakers, the $2.7 billion universal TK program is slated to be gradually phased in over the next five years, until it includes all the state’s 4-year-olds by the 2025-26 school year. Currently, TK serves about 100,000 children, primarily those who turn 5 between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2. 

“The concept of TK as a universal program holds promise. Transitional kindergarten represents a step toward  early care and education being recognized as a universal public good, available to all, regardless of family income,” says the report. “However, current TK implementation proposals erect barriers for diverse, experienced, and prepared early educators to access these jobs.”

Preschool teachers and child care workers, a field dominated by women of color, currently earn 38% less than their colleagues in the K-8 system, research shows. It’s a key reason why 17% of early childhood educators live in poverty in California. That’s almost 7 times the poverty rate for the state’s K-8 teachers. 

The data brief shows that the early childhood workforce is equipped to take on TK teaching because 49% of early childhood teachers have a bachelor’s degree, and at least 37% of child care center teachers already meet or exceed the requirement for TK teachers to complete 24 college units in ECE. 

Equity is also a key concern because 70% of early childhood teachers are people of color, compared to 39% of TK-12 teachers, according to the report. In a state in which 76% of children under 4 are children of color, experts say it’s important that teachers represent the diversity of the classroom. 

“The current design requires attention because it’s excluding a racially diverse workforce that is already experienced and has the qualifications to teach four-year-olds,” said Ashley Williams, senior policy analyst at CSCCE. “We need pathways to ensure early educators can access the credentials the new system calls for.“ 

This cohort of experienced early educators is well prepared to meet the demand for TK teachers as long as the expansion doesn’t leave them behind, the brief suggests. It also recommends that TK expands as part of a mixed delivery system that includes child care centers and preschools as well as the public school system.

Los Angeles Unified reports that 3,255 students tested positive for Covid-19 in the two weeks before the beginning of school Monday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The district has 450,000 students expected to attend in-person instruction this school year. The infection rate is .8 percent of the student population. Infections among staff were smaller — .6 percent.

Los Angeles, which is testing all students and staff weekly regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, has one of the most aggressive school-based testing programs in the nation, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Walt Tyler Elementary School in Grizzly Flats burned to the ground today in the Caldor fire that is blazing through El Dorado County, reports the Sacramento Bee.

The school, which is part of the Pioneer Union School District, serves 26 students in transitional kindergarten to third grade.

Seven other schools in the county were closed today because of the fire, which grew to 6,500 acres by Monday afternoon. The fire began burning Sunday in the Cosumnes River Canyon and now is threatening the communities of Omo Ranch and Grizzly Flat, according to Cal Fire. It’s unclear how many structures were lost overnight, because firefighters have not been able to safely access the area.

Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in El Dorado County this afternoon.

Students were forced Monday to wait up to an hour to get into Los Angeles Unified schools on the district’s first day of classes because of problems with the district’s health screening system, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The district is using an online health screening system, called “Daily Pass,” that failed to keep up with demand Monday, according to the Times. As a result, many students and their parents waited up to an hour or more to get into their campuses. The students need to report via the platform that they are symptom-free in order to receive a pass to enter campus.

Interim Supt. Megan Reilly told the Times that she expects the system will “get better and better” as time goes on this school year.

“The district has been working with the vendor and fixing the problem throughout the day to speed it up,” Reilly said.

The district has also launched a Covid-19 dashboard that will provide the public with information about Covid-19 cases in schools.

The problems with the health screening software didn’t stop many from being excited about their first day back in school for the 2021-22 school year.

“Ultimately, my daughter texted me and said she would wear four masks at school if they asked her to so she can be on campus with her teachers and classmates and friends,” Jana Fain, a parent, told the Times.

Following weeks of controversies over the district’s plans to enforce California’s mask mandate in schools, Clovis Unified School District had a smooth first day of school on Monday, a spokesperson for the district told the Fresno Bee.

For weeks leading up to the beginning of the school year, some parents protested and asked the district not to enforce a state mandate that students and staff in K-12 schools need to wear masks while indoors.

Kelly Avants, a spokesperson for the district, told the Fresno Bee that while the district was prepared for the possibility of confrontations on the first day of school, there were no such incidents.

“There were a few conversations, I know, but (Monday) was, by and large, free of conflict,” Avants said. “I was impressed with how the rules were being followed.”

The Caldor fire blazing through El Dorado County has forced the closure of six schools in three school districts, according to the El Dorado County Office of Education. The schools are located in areas that were evacuated this morning before school began.

As a precaution, Camino Union School District will close its two schools at noon. At the Gold Oak Union School District, the 2021-22 school year has yet to begin for students, but staff are leaving campus, said Dina Gentry, spokeswoman for the El Dorado County Office of Education .

“The safety of our schools, students and staff is paramount. The El Dorado County Office of Education is working with our community partners to provide critical support to our schools and team members,” said Ed Manansala, El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools.

The Caldor fire has grown from 700 to 6,500 acres since Monday afternoon. The fire began burning Sunday in the Cosumnes River Canyon and now is threatening the communities of Omo Ranch and Grizzly Flat, according to Cal Fire. It’s unclear how many structures were lost overnight, because firefighters have not been able to safely access the area.

An executive order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom today allows retired school staff to return to school campuses to help fill staffing shortages without waiting 180 days after their retirement, as has previously been required.

The governor also waived the requirement that the school board vote to exempt retired workers from the 180-day requirement and that teachers submit the board resolution to the California Teachers Retirement System.

The state’s schools have struggled with teacher shortages for years, especially in the areas of special education, math, science and bilingual education, but the problem has worsened since the pandemic began.

The executive order allows retired staff to assist schools impacted by an increased number of Covid-19 cases attributed to the delta variant, according to a press release from the Governor’s Office.

A copy of the Governor’s executive order can be found here.

A father who attacked a teacher last week in a dispute over a mask requirement, sending him to the emergency room, has been banned from the premises of Sutter Creek Elementary School in rural Amador County Unified School District. The Sutter Creek Police Department is investigating the incident but has not filed charges to date.

The confrontation on Aug. 12 occurred when the unidentified father argued with the school principal about the state mandate that his daughter wear a mask. When he returned that day to speak with the principal again, a male teacher intervened, leading to a physical confrontation that sent the teacher to the hospital. “The teacher was bleeding,” Superintendent Torie Gibson told KCRA 3. “He had some lacerations on his face, some bruising on his face, and a pretty good knot on the back of his head.”

Mirroring the California Department of Public Health  policy, the Amador County Public Schools Board of Trustees voted to mandate masks for all students with exceptions only for those with medical reasons.

Aaron Tang, a professor of law at the UC Davis, told the Washington Post that parents like those in Amador Unified who argue that masking requirements infringe on liberty and interfere with a quality education would likely lose a lawsuit if they filed one based on the state Constitution and verdicts in recent recent high-profile cases, Tang said.

Many parents in Clovis and the Fresno area hoping to get a doctor’s letter exempting their children from wearing masks in school will likely find themselves out of luck.

The Fresno Madera Medical Society urged local physicians Friday to follow the position of the Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is that nearly all  school-age children can and should wear a mask in school.

The medical society’s guidance was in response to events in Clovis Unified, where the school board in late July voted to allow parents to determine whether to exempt their children from the mask mandate for health or mental health reasons. School officials reversed that action last week after the California Department of Public Health notified the district that only a physician can authorize an exception.

The medical society indicated most parents should expect their request will be denied, including for some medical conditions.

“Not every cognitive disability or lung disease will qualify for an exemption. Neither asthma nor ADHD, very common pediatric diagnoses, would qualify for medical exemptions,” the guidance stated. “This may be a difficult conversation, so you should be prepared for some resistance.”

Children with impaired hearing would qualify for a mask exemption, the  guidelines stated.

Dr. Alan Birnbaum, former president of the medical society, told the Fresno Bee, “When a parent comes in requesting an exemption for masking for their student, by and large we think this is not a good idea and needs to be avoided, but it needs to be handled effectively, it needs to be handled empathetically.”

Several parents speaking at a school board meeting last week threatened to remove their children from the district over the mask mandate, noting they had tried without success to get a doctor’s exemption.