California education news: What’s the latest?

At least four more community colleges in California may soon require students and staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 this fall.

On Tuesday, the governing board for the Ventura Community College District will vote on a chancellor’s recommendation to require vaccination for any employees working on campus and any students attending in-person classes this fall. The Ventura district includes three colleges: Moorpark College, Oxnard College and Ventura College.

“This aligns with our ongoing priority to take actions that protects the health and safety of our students, employees, and community members. We support everyone at our locations to be vaccinated to help reduce the spread of COVID-19,” an agenda item outlining the proposed policy states.

The governing board overseeing College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita will vote Wednesday on a chancellor recommendation to require students and staff to either be fully vaccinated or undergo weekly Covid-19 testing. That policy is similar to requirements that have been approved by the Los Angeles Community College District and Long Beach City College.

College and law enforcement officials are concerned that some students, in order to satisfy Covid-19 vaccine mandates, will submit falsified Covid-19 vaccine cards to their colleges, the Associated Press reported.

Some students who are unwilling to get vaccinated are turning to social media, where they can buy fake Covid-19 vaccine cards.

Benjamin Mason Meier, a global health policy professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told the Associated Press that colleges need to figure out how to verify the records students are submitting.

“The United States, unlike most countries which have electronic systems in place, is basing its vaccination on a flimsy paper card,” he said. “There need to be policies in place for accountability to make sure that every student is operating in the collective interest of the entire campus.″

Many colleges and universities across the United States are requiring that students be vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to be on campuses this fall. That includes California’s two public university systems, the University of California and California State University.

Michael Uhlenkamp, a spokesman for CSU’s chancellor’s office, acknowledged to the Associated Press that, “as with anything that potentially requires a certification, there is the possibility for an individual to falsify documentation.”

In lieu of mandating that all students be vaccinated against Covid-19, some community colleges are offering cash and other incentives to students who get vaccinated.

At Allan Hancock College in Santa Barbara County, students who show proof that they are fully vaccinated can receive a $250 Visa gift card. The college plans to hand those out to students on a first-come, first-serve basis beginning Aug. 23.

Students at Long Beach City College who get fully vaccinated this month are eligible to receive a $300 voucher that can be spent at one of the college’s bookstores.

“The average age of our Long Beach City College students happens to be within the same age range that the Delta variant is affecting the unvaccinated,” Dr. Mike Muñoz, the college’s interim superintendent, said in a statement. “Because of this fact, we need to do our very best to encourage vaccines to keep our entire student body and College family safe.”

The state’s largest community college district, the Los Angeles Community College District, also incentivized students to get fully vaccinated. That district, home to nine colleges, offered cash prizes last month to students who received vaccines.

Unlike at the California State University and University of California, there is no systemwide mandate across the state’s 115 in-person community colleges for students to be vaccinated this fall. The state chancellor’s office overseeing the colleges has urged them to implement those mandates, but whether or not they do so is up to locally elected boards of trustees that govern the 73 community college districts. So far, only some colleges have opted to require students and staff to be vaccinated.

CSU and UC, meanwhile, are requiring that all students, faculty and staff who will be on campuses this fall be vaccinated against the virus unless they have a medical or religious exemption.

On July 29, Clovis Unified trustees voted to allow parents to exempt their children from wearing masks on their school campus, as opposed to requiring a doctor’s note.

Today, the Fresno County school district announced that the exemption note must now be written by a doctor, rather than a parent. The announcement came after the state public health department clarified late last week that mask exemptions must be cleared by a doctor.

Prior to today’s announcement by Clovis Unified, at least 4% of students had requested an exemption, according to the Fresno Bee. 

Those students must now have their doctors fill out the exemption form in order to have their request approved by the district. Any students who do not receive the doctor’s note by the first day of school on Aug. 16 can attend school via the district’s independent study program.

A total of 12,542 students attending Los Angeles Unified schools will begin the new school year online on Aug. 16 after the deadline to opt out of in-person learning was extended by a week. The tally is less than 3% of the district’s student population, though it is a jump from the less than 1,700 students who had signed up by July 28, two days before the original deadline.

The state’s largest school district has long offered an online, independent study program for families. It’s a learning format option that was voluntary for districts to offer pre-pandemic and has recently become a requirement for school districts in California during 2021-22 school year.

For additional information and context on the new state law on independent study programs, you can read EdSource’s story here.

A California Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit on behalf of 300 non-classroom-based charter schools serving 200,000 students, concluding the state was not obligated to pay additional funding for uncompensated students they served last year.

The issue centered on whether the non-classroom-based charter schools were entitled to the same funding basis as other public schools. Sacramento Superior Court Judge James Arguelles ruled that the Legislature had the authority to make the distinction in funding for 2020-21.

Non-classroom-based charter schools include fully online charter schools and hybrid schools that combine in-person instruction with more than 20% online learning. The latter includes The Classical Academies, with seven schools in several locations in San Diego County, which was one of several non-classroom-based charter schools, along with several parents of waitlisted and enrolled students, who filed the original lawsuit.

In the 2020-21 state budget adopted in June 2020, the Legislature froze funding to districts based on 2019-20 student attendance, recognizing difficulties districts would have tracking daily attendance in schools closed to in-person instruction. In September, lawmakers modified that to allow districts and classroom-based charter schools to document that they had enrolled and planned for more students. But they did not change the rules for non-classroom-based charter schools, based on the rationale that the state didn’t want to encourage growth in a sector that had been subject to fraud and abuse.

Thousands of students had disenrolled from traditional public schools during the early months of Covid-19 to enroll in non-classroom-based charter schools, creating waiting lists in those schools. The Classical Academies argued it had expanded its capacity on the assumption that it would be reimbursed for growth, as it had in the past.

But Arguelles wrote that the state had no contractual obligation to fund non-classroom-based charter schools on current-year average daily attendance. The Legislature has the authority to determine funding levels for public schools, he said. He also wrote that the plaintiffs had failed to show that the education of students in the schools had been “actually or effectively” affected during 2020-21.

Lee Rosenberg, attorney for the plaintiffs, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the ruling, to his knowledge, marked the first time that the state “decided not to fund the education of every single student in the state of California, and we just thought that was immoral and unacceptable.”

He said the plaintiffs had not decided whether to appeal.

In the 2021-22 budget, the Legislature restored funding, based on actual attendance, for all districts, including non-classroom-based charter schools, but it also extended a moratorium on new classroom-based charter schools for three years.

Los Angeles Unified aired the first episode of its new talk show, “At The Table with Los Angeles Unified,” hosted by Interim Superintendent Megan K. Reilly, last week. The show aims to inform parents and students about the district’s return to in-person learning for the fall semester, which begins Aug. 16.

In a roundtable discussion setting, Reilly will invite experts to discuss and answer questions often asked by families. Each segment will be 30 minutes long. The first episode, which streamed on the district’s website, featured two medical professionals and two local superintendents who are currently employed with the district. It is unclear how often the episodes will air.

San Jose Unified is citing a new state law pushing back the start of middle and high schools for the substantial cutback in busing this year that will leave students in more than a dozen of 41 schools scrambling to make arrangements to get to school.

The new law requires middle schools to open no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m., although high schools with a zero period will be unaffected. Legislators were persuaded based on research that shows older students, who tend to go to sleep later, perform better academically with more sleep and a later start. They passed the law in 2019 with a delay to July 1, 2022 to allow districts to adjust bus schedules.

But San Jose Unified, where 2,000 of its 30,000 students took the bus before the pandemic, said the new law  prohibits the system of double runs, which enabled the buses to take middle and high school students first, then switch to elementary pickups.

“It’s been a challenging task,” Transportation Manager Corrin Reynolds told San Jose Spotlight. “We had to scrap everything we had and started from scratch.

The district is giving priority to busing middle and high school students, cutting routes to 11 elementary schools and middle and high schools with few riders. Students, as well as parents or guardians of young students will receive public transit passes through the Valley Transit Authority, and students in special education will  be unaffected, district officials said. Spotlight listed 19 schools — eight more than the district cited — that will no longer have bus routes; all but two are elementary schools.

The federal government’s pause on student loan payments has been extended through Jan. 31, 2022, the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday.

In a statement, the department said this would be “the final extension of the pause.” Federal student loan payments have been on pause since March 2020 but the moratorium was previously scheduled to be lifted after September of this year.

Miguel Cardona, the U.S. Secretary of Education, said the pause “has been a lifeline that allowed millions of Americans to focus on their families, health, and finances instead of student loans” during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“As our nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment,” Cardona added.

The Chula Vista Elementary School District board voted to nearly double substitute teacher pay, begin a marketing campaign to recruit substitutes and to hire at least one full-time substitute to work at each school site in an emergency meeting Wednesday night.

The district’s substitute teacher shortage has caused classes of students to be split up and reassigned to other classrooms for the day and principals to be pulled from their offices in order to cover classes, according to district officials. This makes it difficult to “provide instruction, supervise students and, without immediate action, poses substantial risk to the health and safety of students,” stated the agenda.

The Chula Vista Elementary School District, which has year-round school, had the first group of students begin the school year in mid-July.

In order to recruit and retain substitute teachers the board voted to temporarily increase substitute pay and to begin a marketing campaign to recruit substitutes from the community.  The board agreed to increase the daily pay rate for substitutes from $122 to $200. It also increased the pay of substitutes who work in long-term assignments — more than 30 days — from $180 to $283 a day.

District staff cited soaring substitute teacher salaries and the need to be competitive with the pay being offered in neighboring districts as the reason for the pay raises.

The board also voted to to hire one full-time substitute for each school of 500 or fewer students and two for each school with more than 500 students.

The cost will be paid from Covid-19 relief funds, according to the district.

More than a dozen U.S. school districts are offering teachers cash to get vaccinated against Covid-19, reports Education Week.

The cash incentives range from $150, offered by Anderson schools in Indiana, to $1,000, offered by Henry County schools in Georgia. Detroit schools in Michigan are offering $500 and two sick days to teachers who take the jab, according to the article

In California, Manteca schools are offering $350 to teachers who agree to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

The urgency to get teachers and students vaccinated before school begins in the fall has increased in recent weeks as Covid-19 infections and deaths have increased.

Some school districts also are offering gift cards to eligible students who are willing to get the vaccine, while others are entering students who get vaccinated into prize drawings.

In Polk County, Iowa, the county board of supervisors is offering $100 to youth groups and sports teams for each member who gets vaccinated, according to Education Week.

The Orange County Board of Education plans to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom over school mask mandates, according to the Orange County Register.

The board, claiming that masks are harmful to children, announced Tuesday that they would sue the governor. Four of the five board members voted for the lawsuit, saying the governor had abused his authority by continuing to issue health mandates under a state of emergency, according to the article.

Last month Newsom announced that both unvaccinated and vaccinated students and school staff must wear masks inside school buildings. The Centers on Disease Control and Prevention changed its stance on masking last week, also recommending that vaccinated and unvaccinated students and staff at schools wear face coverings.

In the past month, Covid cases have dramatically increased across the state and the nation. In the seven days before Aug. 2, Orange County reported an average of 626 cases a day, up from an average of 72 new cases a day reported in the week before July 2, reported the Orange County Register.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said schools need to bring students back to classrooms, with masks, in an interview with NPR this week.

In the interview, Cardona said, “That’s where students learn best. Schools are more than just places where students learn how to read and write — they’re communities. They’re like second families to our students.”

The U.S. Department of Education released a “roadmap” for returning to school, recommending that schools focus on social-emotional learning and “accelerating academic achievement.”

Los Angeles Unified School District recorded 174 cases of Covid-19 among students and 53 cases among staff in summer school, over five weeks from late June to late July.

The Los Angeles Times reported the numbers, which show that a small percentage of the 44,000 students and staff who participated in in-person summer school were affected. Students and staff were tested weekly.

It appears that most students and staff who tested positive were infected off campus. A total of 12 people may have been infected at summer school. Cases appear to have increased among students and staff as the cases in the community increased overall.

The district did not find cause for alarm from the data and continues to assure families that schools are doing their best to keep students and staff safe this fall.

A new report released Tuesday argues that a new system should be created to erase the boundaries between high school and college by restructuring education for grades 11 through 14.

Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit focused on education and the workforce, argues that the country should have a new institution that is neither high school or college and is designed to meet the needs of young people to help them prepare for careers.

“As we work to broaden college access and expand workforce opportunity, we can’t be hidebound by traditional thinking on the high school-to-college-to-career transition. Instead, we should recognize that young people today need a multiplicity of pathways from education into careers—not just the options created more than a century ago,” said Joel Vargas, a lead author of the report and vice president of the organization, in a news release. “This paper offers provocative ideas about how we can design and scale new pathways to social and economic mobility for every young person by teaching students about the worlds of college and work much earlier in their educational journeys.”

Jobs for the Future reimagines the American system mirroring something similar to that of the Swiss and German models of education that combine traditional in-school learning with vocational workplace training.

The organization recommends using incentives to encourage both K-12 and higher education to change governing and staffing structures. It also recommends supporting and expanding current dual-enrollment options that already exist between local high schools and community colleges.

Editor’s Note:  Joel Vargas is one of 13 members of EdSource’s board of directors, who have no influence or oversight of content.

Between 30% and 40% of young people said their mental health deteriorated during the pandemic, according to a sweeping new report on student wellness by the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

Students who are Black, Latino, indigenous or low-income suffered more adverse effects, and the longer a student was learning remotely from home, the more their mental health suffered, according to the report.

“The Covid-19 pandemic upended daily life for every family and school across the United States, but its impacts were not universal. The inequities that cut across classrooms and communities have contributed to broad disparities in the losses, trauma, and isolation that many students and educators have endured,” researchers wrote. “In addition, the converging social events of 2020–21, including protests for racial justice, a contentious presidential election, and a riot at the Capitol, have challenged young people to make sense of a turbulent era that few adults may yet fully understand.”

Researchers reviewed hundreds of studies and consulted a panel of experts to reach conclusions on how schools should respond to the student mental health crisis. More mental health services at school, more awareness of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact, and more partnerships with community mental health agencies are among the researchers’ suggestions.

The report is part of a series on how the pandemic affected students and schools in the U.S. A previous report examined the academic impact. The next report will look at the impact on students with disabilities.

The U.S. Department of Education awarded 29 grants totaling $10 million to colleges and universities, including tribal colleges, to support the preparation of Native American teachers and administrators.

The program is meant to address the significant gap in the number of qualified Native American educators teaching Native American students, according to a press release from the Department of Education.

“Representation matters. All students deserve the opportunity to be taught by educators who are diverse and who reflect their backgrounds and experiences — and we know that far too few Native American students have the chance to engage with Native American teachers in their schools and as education leaders and mentors in their communities. That must change,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “I am heartened that this program will help to create a more diverse educator workforce for students across the country and support efforts to recruit and retain more talented Native American teachers and administrators for our schools.”

Tzicatl Community Development Corporation, Claremont Graduate University and Blue Lake Rancheria in California all received grants of at least $300,000 each.

The funds can be used to increase the number of qualified teachers who are Native American, provide training and support for them or to implement two-year induction programs to improve retention of Native American teachers, principals and school leaders.

Indiana University’s mandate that students be vaccinated against Covid-19 before the fall semester was upheld Monday by a federal appeals court.

A Chicago-based appeals court upheld a decision made last month by a district court in Indiana, which rejected the argument that the university should not be able to require vaccines while they are approved for emergency use.  The case was filed on behalf of eight students.

“People who do not want to be vaccinated may go elsewhere,” Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote in the decision, according to the Indianapolis Star.

The lawyer for the students, James Bopp, is still planning to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, the Associated Press reported.

California’s two public university systems, University of California and California State University, are both requiring students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to access campus facilities this fall.

Dozens of students and staff at two school districts in Contra Costa County are quarantining after being exposed to students infected with Covid-19, according to the Bay Area News Group.

Dana Eaton, superintendent of Brentwood Union School District, said that 55 students and two staff members came into contact with 13 elementary school students who had Covid-19. The schools have been open since July 28.

Eaton said none of the 13 students were initially infected with the virus on campus, something that was determined through contact tracing, the Bay Area News Group reported.

“Currently there have been 205 positive cases in Brentwood over the last 14 days, so it is to be expected that the schools will have cases,” Eaton said. “Our goal is to follow the California Department of Public Health Safety Guidance to prevent the spread of positive cases at school.”

Additionally, at three high schools in the Liberty Union High School District, nine students and one staff member were reported as having Covid-19. Superintendent Eric Volta told the Bay Area News Group that he’s not yet sure how many students and staff are quarantining as a result.

If your local school board meetings are becoming more uncivil and politicized, you’re not alone. They appear part of a national trend.

“Board meetings, far from being quiet, by-the-books affairs, have turned into to ground zero of the nation’s political and cultural debates,” writes Education Week writer Stephen Sawchuk in an analysis.

Local disagreements on masking mandates, school reopenings and ethnic studies content have taken on the tenor and rhetoric of national partisan divides. That’s not unique to 2021 — there were tensions over loyalty oaths against Communism during the 1950s, dress codes in the 1960s and the adoption of Common Core standards in some districts a decade ago, Sawchuk observed. But the influence of social media and a decline of  local newspapers, with a loss of schools coverage, are changing the public’s perceptions of local schools, education analyists told Sawchuk.  Research by University of Pennsylvania political science professor Daniel Hopkins indicates that people have turned to national media sources that align with their own views and interests.

It’s unclear how this will play out, Sawchuk said, and whether it will discourage incumbent school board members to run again and prompt narrow-interest candidates to run for the job. “But it will almost certainly complicate board members’ and superintendents’ jobs this fall,” Sawchuk wrote. “They’ll need to balance conceptual debates over race and equity with the tangible responsibilities of spending significant amounts of federal cash and adjusting yet again to a rise in Covid-19 cases.”

Sawchuk noted that Ballotpedia has identified 55 attempted recalls targeting 140 school board members this year — a significant increase. In California, according to Ballotpedia, these include efforts in Benicia Unified, Fremont Union High School District, Chico Unified, Lucia Mar Unified, Mount Diablo Unified, and San Francisco Unified. All of the efforts reflect frustration over decisions on when to reopen schools during the pandemic.

Parents will have the option to exempt their children from wearing masks when students return to school this year, Clovis Unified trustees voted Thursday. Parents or staff can request the exemption at their local school if they believe the mask would harm a student medically, or if students are hearing impaired or experiencing other relevant mental health issues.

The move comes amid both rising Covid-19 cases as well as ongoing pushback against requirements such as mask-wearing in Republic strongholds across the state.

But now, district trustees worry that some parents might lie in order to send their kids back to school without a mask.

Eleven of the nation’s leading education researchers who evaluated a dozen studies of student performance during the pandemic have concluded that students “lagged pre-pandemic expectations by an amount roughly equivalent to several months of learning in a typical year.” Their report, issued last week by the Seattle-based Center on Reinventing Public Education, corroborated the loss of learning documented in end-of-school test results released by the consulting firm McKinsey and the assessment organization NWEA.

While the impact was generally greater in math than in reading, reading fluency and literacy skill in the early grades were negatively impacted substantially, the report said. Low-income students were more adversely affected than wealthier families, and Black and Hispanic students were more affected than white students. Impact on Asian-American students varied across studies, the report said.

But the center’s report cautioned that extensive data was scarce, in part because Covid disrupted regular testing. Compounding the problem, larger proportions of low-income, Black and Hispanic students didn’t participate in the tests. As a result, the pandemic’s already noticeable negative impact on those students may be understated.

Also missing, the researchers said, was a lack of data on high school achievement, progress on subjects beyond math and reading, differences by gender and a lack of information on English learners, students with disabilities, homeless and foster children.

A critical but unanswered question, the researchers said, is whether the lags in achievement for most students will be “transitory, persistent, or — in the worst case scenario — compounding.” The latter would occur if the gaps in skills affect the rate of future growth in achievement, they said.

To prevent that, they recommended that “educators and policymakers should be especially focused on ensuring students have intensive support, as soon as possible, in math and early literacy.”

The researchers included Julian Betts of UC San Diego, Andrew Ho of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Susanna Loeb of Annenberg Institute at Brown University. Professor Martin West of Harvard University and Robin Lake, executive director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, co-chaired the effort, which will include an analysis on the social and emotional effects of the pandemic.

Former non-white Coronado athletes say a racist incident where the Coronado High School basketball team threw tortillas at players at an opposing team with more Latino students isn’t a surprise and matches many of their own experiences at the the majority-white and wealthy school.

According to the Voice of San Diego, several former athletes said they don’t feel welcome on campus at their alma mater. They said they support efforts to hold those involved accountable, including implementing racial sensitivity training for administrators and school staff.

“Students were more abrasive towards me as a Black woman,” said Imani Ware, who played soccer at Coronado. “I was different than their Coronado community.”

Back in 2015, Jasmine Goodson, who identifies as a biracial Black and Costa Rican student, wrote an open letter in her school’s newspaper condemning the school’s lack of action around racism that she experienced.

“Being a person of color at a predominately white school, in all aspects, is hard, not just because of discrimination, but because you will automatically feel different,” she wrote. “You will be set to a certain standard of beauty that requires you to ‘tame’ your hair, have a slimmer nose, or thinner lips, all of which I have been teased about.”

Regardless of their vaccination status, staff and students in Los Angeles Unified will be required to participate in weekly Covid-19 testing this school year, Superintendent Megan K. Reilly said a letter to parents on Thursday.

Previously, the district planned to required coronavirus testing only for staff and students who are unvaccinated.

The shift in policy comes as Covid-19 rates and the Delta variant continue to rise in Los Angeles County and beyond. While students have the option to participate in remote learning in Los Angeles Unified this fall, state and district leaders are urging families to return to in-person instruction after a troubling year of distance learning that left many students unaccounted for.

“We are closely monitoring evolving health conditions and adapting our response in preparation for our full return to in-person learning on August 16,” Reilly said in the letter. Baseline testing for students returning to campus begins Aug. 2, she added.

Following the lead of Gov. Gavin Newsom for state employees, San Jose Unified announced Wednesday all staff must be vaccinated for Covid-19 for the return to school next month, or agree to be tested twice weekly.

San Jose Unified will also mandate that students and staff wear masks not only inside of school buildings, as required under current state public health regulations, but also outside on school grounds.

At Los Angeles Unified, the largest school district in the state, students and employees who have not received a Covid-19 vaccine will be required to test for the coronavirus on a weekly basis during the school year until further notice. Fully vaccinated students and employees will not be required to undergo Covid-19 testing. Both testing and vaccination sites will remain available for L.A. Unified students, employees, and their families, according to a district reference guide for families.

“With that being said, we are in constant communication, with the Department of Public Health,” said Dr. Smita Malhotra, the district’s medical director. “And as things change, as certain policies change, we will be updating our students and staff and families accordingly. Again, it’s a fluid situation but unvaccinated students and employees will be tested weekly.” Regardless of vaccination status, everyone on school grounds will be required to wear a mask at all times except when eating.

On Monday, Newsom announced that health care workers and state employees must prove they have been vaccinated or undergo weekly testing, starting in August. On Tuesday, California State University Chancellor Joseph Castro announced the same policy for students, faculty and other employees of the 23-campus system.

San Jose Unified spokeswoman Jennifer Maddox told the Mercury News that 90% of the district’s teachers have been vaccinated. The district chose twice weekly surveillance testing to enable quarantining for those who test positive as quickly as possible. Surveillance tests will be available but not required for students, she said.

She said the district hopes the new policy will encourage others to agree to vaccinations.

California schools will receive more than $74 million in federal money to serve homeless students, the U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday.

The money is part of the American Rescue Plan’s Homeless Children and Youth program, an $800 million fund to help youth who’ve experienced homelessness during the pandemic. The Department of Education distributed the first $200 million in April and the remaining $600 million on Wednesday. California’s total portion is $98 million, more than any other state.

Schools can use the money to improve the way they identify homeless students, as well as provide them services such as transportation to school, counseling, housing vouchers, school supplies and other amenities.

“Even before the coronavirus pandemic highlighted and exacerbated inequities in America’s education system, students experiencing homelessness faced numerous challenges as they strove to learn and achieve in school each day,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “Amid Covid-19 and the transition to remote and hybrid learning, for so many students, these challenges intensified. As a nation, we must do everything we can to ensure that all students — including students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity — are able to access an excellent education.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom took two of his children out of a summer school program they were enrolled in because it did not require face masks, reported the Associated Press Tuesday.

Newsom and his wife were not aware the summer camp would not require face coverings indoors, a violation of state policy, according to the governor’s office. The coupled missed an email from the summer camp saying face coverings would not be mandated, according to the article.

Two of the couple’s four children began attending the summer camp Monday, but were pulled out after the Newsoms saw children at the school indoors without masks.

The state mandates that students and staff wear masks indoors while at school.

The Centers for Disease Control changed course Tuesday and recommended that even vaccinated people wear masks indoors in areas with “substantial” or “high”  transmission rates.

Forty-six of the state’s counties are in this range, according to CDC data.

California already mandates that students and staff wear masks inside.

The Centers for Disease Control also recommended that vaccinated and unvaccinated people wear masks if they are living in households with people who are immunocompromised or who are at risk for severe illness if they are exposed to Covid-19.

The CDC made the decision to change its guidance — which had only asked unvaccinated people to remain masked — after Covid-19 cases increased 300 percent nationally between June 19 and July 23.

“The delta variant is more than two times as transmissible as the original strains circulating at the start of the pandemic and is causing large, rapid increases in infections, which could compromise the capacity of some local and regional health care systems to provide medical care for the communities they serve,” according to the Centers for Disease Control.

CalSTRS on Monday reported a one-year 27% return on investments for the year ending June 30, quadruple the target 7% annual return that the pension fund serving California teachers and administrators builds into investment assumptions.

The gains were fueled by a 42% gain in publicly traded stocks, which make up half of CalSTRS’ investment portfolio, and a 52% gain in private equities, which comprise 12% of the total.

“We’ve built our portfolio for long-term performance, but this year’s results were nothing short of spectacular,” said Chief Investment Officer Christopher J. Ailman. “These are record-breaking numbers — the highest returns we’ve seen since the late 1980s.”

The $63 billion increase in value raised the level of assets to $309 billion, 25% above a year ago and double what it was a decade ago, according to a news release.

CalSTRS, the nation’s second-largest public employee pension system, serving 975,000 members, is still recovering from a precarious financial position — a combination of increased pension benefits granted by the Legislature two decades ago plus plummeting stock market and real estate values during the Great Recession. In 2009, the value of assets fell to $118 billion.

That led to legislation in 2012 laying out a series of increases that more than doubled annual pension contributions by school districts, which was needed to achieve full funding by 2046. CalSTRS has not yet recalibrated the impact of this year’s record return on its ability to meet long-term obligations. A year ago, assets had reached 67% of full funding.

By comparison, CalPERS, which covers state employees and classified school workers, such as teacher’s aides and bus drivers, recorded a 21% rate of return for the year ending June 30. That increase raised its asset value from 71% to 82% of full funding.

Schools across the United States will need to “work twice as hard” to convince some families to return their children to school in the fall, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona told The 74 in an interview.

Cardona said that level of effort will be necessary to rebuild trust with those families after a school year of mostly distance learning and delays to reopening in-person classrooms, The 74 reported.

He said he’s confident “everyone wants to return back to school and that schools are doing their best to get students back in,” but added that “in some places it wasn’t quick enough for some families.”

“What we have to ensure is that we’re following the guidelines to make sure that our schools are safe and that we’re engaging our students and families in ways that we haven’t in the past,” Cardona said.

The sole advocate for ethnic studies has dropped out of a forum on the subject organized by the Orange County Board of Education one day ahead of the 3-hour event Tuesday evening event, leaving only critics and skeptics as panelists.

Theresa Montaño, a professor of Chicana/Chicano Studies professor at Cal State Northridge, said in a press release that an unbalanced panel would not lead to an open dialogue. “Not a single person on this panel is a dedicated expert in, nor in my judgement thoroughly knowledgeable about, Ethnic Studies curriculum. In fact, my research reveals that all the panelists are vehemently opposed to Ethnic Studies and have made their positions on the topic clear,” she said in a statement.

Montaño is co-author two years ago of the first draft of the state’s model ethnic studies curriculum, which was substantially rewritten over four drafts before the State Board of Education passed it in March. She and the other writers of the original draft complained that the adopted version watered down the content and have disavowed it. She is a proponent of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

“I’m disappointed we’re hearing the day before that she’s not going to participate. I think the credentials of the other panelists speak for themselves,” Tim Shaw, a trustee on the board, told the Voice of Orange County.

The forum, the first of two on ethnic studies and on critical race theory, a much-debated approach of viewing racism ingrained in law and government institutions, will run from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Panelists will include:

• Richard Sander, a law professor at UCLA, affirmative action critic and a Democrat
• Maimon Schwarzschild, a law professor at the University of San Diego & contributor to the Federalist Society
• Walter H. Myers III , a part time instructor in the Master of Arts in Science & Religion program at Biola University and a registered Republican
• Brandy Shufutinsky, a core team member at the Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies and a Democrat.

The event will be streamed live on YouTube.

Schools can use their American Rescue Plan funds to improve air quality in classrooms, the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday.

Schools can use their federal funds to upgrade ventilation systems, purchase filters and fans, make repairs, conduct inspections and tests, and take other steps to improve air quality as students return to in-person classes. According to the Centers for Disease Control, indoor air ventilation can curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The U.S. Department of Education, in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control, also released guidelines for improving air quality in schools.

“Protecting our schools and communities from the spread of Covid-19 is the first step in bringing more students back to in-person learning and reemerging from this crisis even stronger than we were before,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “With the American Rescue Plan, schools and districts now have access to unprecedented resources that will enable them to ensure proper ventilation and maintain healthy learning and working environments.”

Federal regulators from the Food and Drug Administration have requested that Pfizer and Moderna increase the number of children in their testing trials, signaling a potential delay in the availability of Covid-19 vaccines for children under the age of 12, according to the Washington Post. Some experts and government officials have signaled that a coronavirus vaccine for children might become available by early fall, but the timeline remains unclear.

The federal agency made the request to determine if myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, might be more common among younger children who receive the vaccine. The condition is more likely to develop in adolescents who have received a coronavirus vaccine, though it remains rare and the risk is low.

Moderna’s original trials included 7,000 children, and Pfizer’s original trial size was 4,500 children. Both trials included children ages 6 months to 12 years. It is unclear how many more children will be joining the trials.

Children with long-term symptoms of Covid-19 may be eligible for special education services and other classroom accommodations, according to federal guidelines released Monday.

In its announcement, the U.S. Department of Education said that schools must provide extra services for children who are experiencing fatigue, dizziness, difficulty concentrating or other symptoms for at least four weeks after they were initially infected with the coronavirus. Colleges and universities also must provide accommodations for students with long-term Covid.

Although the condition is rare, children can experience long-term Covid symptoms even if they were initially asymptomatic.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Justice have also issued guidelines on long-term Covid as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“Today’s resource is part of the Office of Civil Rights’ and Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services’ sustained efforts to affirmatively advance equity, civil rights, and equal opportunity for students,” according to the Department of Education.

Teachers and school staff are not included in a new state policy announced Monday requiring all state employees and health care workers to either show proof of full vaccination or be tested at least once a week.

Teachers and school staff are not state employees, Gov. Gavin Newsom clarified at Monday’s news conference in Oakland, and, thus, the state will not require them to show proof of vaccination. However, state officials are encouraging all employers, both in the private and public sectors, to adopt a similar vaccination verification policy.

The Centers for Disease Control encourages K-12 administrators to keep documentation of students’ and workers’ Covid-19 vaccination status in order to inform prevention strategies. The California Department of Public Health alluded to the CDC’s recommendation in its July 12 guidance on Covid-19 safety for K-12 schools.

Californians are divided on whether vaccinated students and teachers should be required to wear masks in the classroom, according to a new poll.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters by the Inside California Politics/Emerson College statewide poll found that 45% of respondents said vaccinated students and teachers should be required to wear masks in the classroom, while 40% said no, and 15% of respondents were unsure or had no opinion. The results were reported by KTLA 5 and other stations for whom the survey was done.

Earlier this month, the California Department of Public Health issued regulations requiring masks for all students and staff inside school buildings this fall, although it has left enforcement up to local districts.

The survey found a similar split on whether the Covid vaccine should be mandated for middle school and high school students over the age of 12: 52% in favor and 49% opposed. The federal Food and Drug Administration has granted Emergency Use Authorization of the vaccine while it continues a review for formal authorization.

Voters were similarly split on resuming a statewide indoor mask mandate, with 49% backing the requirement, 39% opposed and 12% unsure.

With the vote on recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom six weeks away, 43% respondents said they would vote to recall Newsom, and 48% say they would vote to keep him in office with 9% undecided.

The poll was taken from July 19-21 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%.

If they haven’t done so already, school districts will have until July 31 to post on their websites the form that parents or guardians can fill out if they want to change a high school student’s grade or grades from last year to a pass or no pass grade.

Parents of high school students have the right to request the grade change for courses they took in 2020-21 under Assembly Bill 104, authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzales, D-San Diego, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on July 1. It took effect right away, as “urgency” legislation.

Some districts already agreed to offer pass or no pass, as they did in the spring of 2020, following the initial disruption of school due to Covid-19. In districts that didn’t, parents should be alert for the form. Under the new law, they will have only 15 calendar days after a district posts the request form to send it to their district. After that, it will be too late.

Last week, the California Department of Education published the application, which most districts are expected to adopt.

Gonzalez said the bill was necessary in order not to punish students for the impact of a pandemic. “Kids who struggled with distance learning during the pandemic shouldn’t be penalized for falling behind during such a difficult year,” she said in a statement. The law also enables parents to meet with their child’s principal and teacher to discuss the option of repeating the year — a choice that many districts will discourage as harmful to a student — and waives graduation prerequisites for 2020-21 in those districts where course requirements exceed the state minimum.

AB 104 also requires that California State University accept pass or no pass grades on a student’s transcript for courses taken in 2020–21 and requests the University of California and private colleges to accept pass or no pass. A list of CSU and private universities that have agreed to do so can be found here.

The California State Comptroller estimates that the California State Lottery will generate $244 per student for 2020-21 — a record amount but also a reminder how little the lottery contributes as a portion of the total for TK-12 funding. In 2019-20, it was $191 per student.

This year, the state is estimating per-student funding from the lottery will drop to $228 per student, according to an analysis by School Services of California, a school consulting firm. That will represent about 1.1% of the estimated $21,152 of total funding per student from state, federal and local sources in 2021-22.

For years, the lottery has contributed between 1% and 2% of school revenue. That’s less than most Californians have been led to assume; over the years, the lottery pitched contributions to education as part of its marketing strategy.

Californians passed the lottery in 1984. In an analysis two years ago, the Legislative Analyst’s Office noted that the proceeds spent on prizes have eaten a bigger portion of revenue at education’s expense. While distributions to education have risen, the percent of lottery sales revenue to education dropped from about a third in 2009-10 to less than a quarter in 2017-18. By contrast, the portion going to prizes increased from about half to slightly less than two-thirds.  In 2017-18, K-12 received $216 per student from total lottery revenue for education of $1.4 billion.

Of the money going to education, about 77% goes to TK-12, 15% to community colleges and the rest divided between the University of California and California State University.

About 30% of the money for TK-12 is apportioned to districts for instructional materials, which they now can spend on computers; districts have flexibility to spend the rest.

In its analysis, the LAO noted that 44 states and Washington, D.C., run lotteries; 29 states returned a greater percentage of revenue to beneficiaries, which included schools in some states.

Oakland Undivided, a partnership of nonprofits, the City of Oakland and Oakland Unified, has achieved an initial target to close the digital divide: 98% of Oakland’s low-income public school children will start the school year with a computer and working internet at home, compared with 12% before the pandemic. The nonprofit raised $13 million to distribute 25,000 Chromebooks and internet hotspots, it said.

But, with the resumption of in-person instruction next month, the organization will shift to the next stage, not close up shop, the news site Oaklandside reported.

“This is a great first step, but we have a lot more to do,” Oakland Unified Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said.

The next steps include maintaining an inventory of laptops for all schools to have laptops on hand and providing tech support for families.

Through Sydewayz Cafe, an Oakland information technology business, the parent advocacy group The Oakland REACH has offered tech support to hundreds of families in its virtual family hub. In the fall, it will give students and families more intensive training in technology, Executive Director Lakisha Young told Oaklandside.

That will be critical as a third of The Oakland REACH parents polled said they hadn’t decided whether to return to school or pursue a remote learning independent study option that Oakland Unified and other districts must offer as an option, Young said.

Young said the next phase should be to replace hot spots with more reliable and powerful broadband through the city. “Hotspots are not connectivity, they’re back-up connectivity. If we’re going to set folks up, they have to have broadband. Without that, there will keep being a deficit around technology.”

OakWifi, a city initiative, is providing free Wifi in parts of the city through fiber optic cables, lying next to city transit lines, that can reach homes and businesses within a radius of 1,200 feet. The next phase is to extend Wi-Fi to more neighborhoods though interconnected wireless nodes at schools and city facilities.

Two California parent groups filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday following updated guidelines from state health officials to have students wear face masks at school when they return in person this fall.

Let Them Breathe and Reopen California Schools filed the lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court against the governor, along with State Public Health Officer Dr. Tomas Aragón, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly and Dr. Naomi Bardach, an advisor to the state on school pandemic safety, according to the Mercury News.

The complaint alleges that the state masking rules for all students regardless of vaccination status is not based on scientific research and can impede education.

All K-12 students and adults in K-12 school settings are required to wear masks indoors when students are present. But it’s up to local schools or districts to determine how to handle students who refuse to comply with the mask rules. The school guidance from the California Department of Public Health also aligns with recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

“A return to a normal school year is crucial to the mental and physical health recovery for students across California who have endured months of isolation,” said Jonathan Zachreson, founder of Reopen California Schools, an advocacy organization of nearly 16,000 California public school parents.

California will soon offer free annual passes to 19 state parks for fourth-grade students and their families.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 148 Thursday, establishing the California State Park Adventure Pass program. The program is scheduled to begin by Sept. 21.

“Nature is a public good and a crucial public health tool,” said First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who championed the program. “For adults and children alike, quality time in nature is good for our hearts, minds, and bodies, No state is better positioned than California to leverage the great outdoors to augment our communities’ health and well-being — especially for youth in underserved communities.”

The federal government has the Every Kid Outdoors Program, which allows families with fourth graders free access to federal parks.

Earlier this month Newsom signed legislation approving $5.6 million to fund the parks program, as well as an additional $3 million to establish the State Library Park Pass, which allows individuals to check out a day-use state park pass from a library for free.

Seven Stanford University students tested positive for the coronavirus this week, despite being vaccinated.

The Bay Area private university announced Thursday in an email to students that the infected students were symptomatic. However, it didn’t offer details about whether the cases were connected or part of an outbreak, according to The Mercury News. 

Stanford recommends that everyone wear face coverings in indoor spaces, despite most physical distancing and masking requirements being lifted for fully vaccinated people. The university also requires face coverings in campus spaces that are open to the public, such as the Stanford Bookstore. According to the university, students who have submitted proof of vaccination are no longer required to get tested weekly. Nearly 90% of people visiting the campus regularly are vaccinated.

Dozens of parents protested outside the Clovis Unified district board meeting Wednesday night demanding that district trustees not adhere to state-mandated mask requirements, according to the Fresno Bee.

Board members called for the state to allow local officials to decide whether masks should be required in their schools, according to the article.

New Covid-19 cases are increasing in the central San Joaquin Valley. More than 100 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 Wednesday, a two-month high, according to the newspaper.

Stockton Unified’s school board is to blame for the constant turnover of superintendents in the school district, according to a grand jury report released Wednesday.

The 2020-21 San Joaquin County Grand Jury launched an investigation into the school district after it received numerous complaints from members of the public and reviewed media accounts of conflicts within the district, according to a press release from the grand jury.

The district has had 14 superintendents — interim and permanent — in the last 30 years, according to the Stockton Record. The average tenure has been 19 months. The district has had three superintendents in the last year, according to the newspaper.

The constant change in leadership at the district has made it impossible to increase student achievement in the district, according to the grand jury. It also has made it possible for board members to act inappropriately and to sometimes exceed the limits of their authority, according to the report.

The grand jury is recommending that the school board publicly commit to change, adhere to standards of governance and provide transparency and accountability to the public.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California’s historic $6 billion broadband bill into law on Tuesday, securing a future for one of the country’s largest investments into internet infrastructure.

“As we work to build California back stronger than before, the state is committed to addressing the challenges laid bare by the pandemic, including the digital divide holding back too many communities in a state renowned for its pioneering technology and innovation economy,” Newsom said on Tuesday from Traver Joint Elementary in Tulare County, where many rural districts struggled to connect students to the internet during distance learning.

Like many schools serving low-income students this past year, Traver Joint Elementary distributed Wi-Fi hotspots so students could access distance learning programs during the pandemic. But even hotspots could be a weak solution in areas that don’t receive strong cell service or in households where multiple people are using the service.

The broadband package includes the following:

• $3.25 billion to build, operate and maintain an open access, state-owned middle mile network;
• $2 billion to set up last-mile broadband connections that will connect homes and businesses with local networks;
• $750 million for a loan loss reserve fund so local governments and nonprofits can secure financing for broadband;
• Creation of a broadband czar position at the California Department of Technology.

“This $6 billion investment will make broadband more accessible than ever before, expanding opportunity across the spectrum for students, families and businesses — from enhanced educational supports to job opportunities to health care and other essential services,” Newsom said.

The Long Beach Unified School District’s Board of Education has elected a new board president.

The board unanimously approved board member Juan Benitez to serve as the president for the upcoming school year, the Long Beach Post reported.

Last year, board member Megan Kerr tried to nominate Benitez as president for this past school year, but that attempt failed. The rest of the board was criticized for not supporting Benitez at the time, including by Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia and State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, the Post reported.

Following the vote to elect him president on Monday, Benitez thanked outgoing board president Diana Craighead “for serving as president of our board during an extremely challenging year. You took some punches, you handled them always with grace and I think honored our district in your service. I want to thank my colleagues for your vote of confidence.”

The San Diego Community College District has now raised more than $2 million to date for its San Diego Promise program, which pays for two years of tuition for eligible students.

The district raised more than $600,000 in the fiscal year ending on June 30 and has now raised over $2 million since the program’s inception in 2016, the district said in a press release.

“All students deserve access to higher education, regardless of their financial situation, and these generous donations will help even more students participate in the San Diego Promise, including veterans, former foster youth, and adult learners returning to school,” Carlos O. Turner Cortez, chancellor of the district, said in a statement. “Fundraising momentum is growing and will continue to grow as more of our region’s residents learn about the impacts this program is having on our community.”

Donations to the program go directly to students. In addition to tuition assistance, the district over the past year also used the money to provide laptops and other supplies to students as they mostly attended  classes from home, district spokesperson Leslie Stump told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond is inviting California teenagers to meet with him virtually at 3 p.m. Wednesday to discuss vaccinations and their concerns about returning to school in the fall.

Part of supporting the physical and emotional needs of students is allowing them to be heard, according to a press release announcing the event.

The event will be moderated by Rana Banankhah, incoming student member of the California Board of Education. There also will be a recorded message from players with the Golden State Warriors basketball team.

The event will be broadcast live on Facebookand Instagram.

A graduate this year of the San Dieguito Union High School District is suing the district for negligence, claiming it failed to protect her from abuse and harassment from another student since middle school that included hacking into the district computer to alter her high school grades.

“It messed with my self-esteem,” Haley Dinsmore told the San Diego Union-Tribune. said. “It made me question my whole life.”

In legal filings, the San Dieguito district denied responsibility or liability, the newspaper reported. But last month the district sued the California-based company that provided its student information system, Aeries Software. The Union-Tribute said the lawsuit alleges Aeries failed to keep students’ information secure and the district seeks to recover any judgments or settlements the district may incur from litigation against it.

Dinsmore may not have been the only student affected by a data breach. Two families filed a class-action lawsuit in May 2020 against Aeries for a data breach that coincides with the timeline of the hacking alleged in Dinsmore’s lawsuit, the Union-Tribune said. According to a court filing, Aeries said that 166 school district databases were exposed to unauthorized access by an individual beginning in November 2019, but the company did not tell school districts about the breach until April 2020.

Dinsmore said the harassment started in middle school when she declined a request for a date by a minor identified only as John Roe in the lawsuit. The boy retaliated by taking over her Instagram account, hacking into her family’s computer, and sending death threats, according to a lawsuit Dinsmore and her parents filed last year against the boy and his parents. When the two were in high school, the lawsuit alleges that John Roe hacked into that school’s student information system and lowered Dinsmore’s grades from A’s to B’s.

Days later, San Dieguito Union High filed a police report and Roe was arrested. Months later, a data breach in San Dieguito became the subject of a class-action lawsuit, the Union-Tribune said.

Indiana University’s requirement that students be vaccinated against Covid-19 was upheld Monday by a federal judge.

The ruling appears to be the first that upholds a university’s coronavirus vaccination mandate, according to The New York Times.

Eight students sued the university, with their lawyer arguing that the requirement violated their constitutional rights and claimed that the university couldn’t require vaccination while the existing vaccines are approved under an emergency use authorization.

The lawyer, James Bopp Jr., said he planned to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, the Times reported.

“The Fourteenth Amendment permits Indiana University to pursue a reasonable and due process of vaccination in the legitimate interest of public health for its students, faculty and staff,” Judge Damon R. Leichty of the U.S. District Court for Northern Indiana said in Monday’s ruling, according to the Times.

Last week, the University of California finalized its own requirement that students, faculty and staff be vaccinated against Covid-19 regardless of whether one of the vaccines receives full approval from the Food and Drug Administration before the fall terms begin at those campuses.

The state’s other public university system, California State University, is planning to wait for full FDA approval before its own requirement goes into effect. The California Community Colleges system urged faculty, students and staff to be vaccinated but left to the system’s 73 districts to decide whether to require vaccines before they can return to campuses in the fall.