California education news: What’s the latest?

Following weeks of recent violence between Israel and Palestine, the San Francisco teachers union is calling for a boycott of Israel, according to a May 19 letter from United Educators of San Francisco. The union voted in mid-May to endorse the boycott and called on President Joe Biden to cease aid to Israel.

“As public school educators in the United States of America, we have a special responsibility to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people because of the 3.8 billion dollars annually that the US government gives to Israel, thus directly using our tax dollars to fund apartheid and war crimes,” the letter reads.

The political declaration in San Francisco drew immediate and heated criticism from parents, local Jewish leaders and the national Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization.

While many teachers came out in support of the statement, other parents and teachers were disappointed in the union’s decision.

“The teachers union has failed in its most basic mission this year, opening schools and educating San Francisco’s children,” said Todd David, a district parent who is Jewish, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Instead of focusing on that, they are weighing in on an international political land dispute that experts have been unable to resolve for 70 years.”

California Assembly members passed legislation today that would strengthen a current law that allows Native American students to wear cultural items at their high school graduations.

“Despite existing protections in state law, local school officials continue to object when students wish to wear items such as eagle feathers, sashes with basket designs, basket caps or beaded medallions during graduation ceremonies,” saidAssemblyman James Ramos, D-Highland, the author of Assembly Bill 945.

In 2018 legislators passed Assembly Bill 1248, which authorized a student to wear tribal regalia or recognized objects of religious or cultural significance at graduation ceremonies.

The new bill would require the California Department of Education to convene a task force to gather information from students who were denied the right to wear traditional tribal regalia or recognized objects of religious or cultural significance at school graduation ceremonies.

The task force will develop recommendations on how to best implement the law and submit a report with its findings by April 1, 2023.

“High school graduations are times of great celebration, especially in tribal communities because tribal kids have the lowest graduation rates of all ethnic groups,” Ramos said. “Our students have a 75.8 percent graduation rate, compared to the 84.3 percent statewide rate. Eagle feathers and other symbols of Native American significance are often presented by a proud community to the student as a way to recognize a personal achievement, It is a means for the tribe not only to honor the student but to share in and express pride in the graduate’s achievement.”

The Assembly bill must still be voted on by the Senate and signed by the governor before it becomes a law.

Don’t count on an extra $8 billion that Gov. Gavin Newsom promised last month in his May revised state budget proposal would go to community colleges and K-12 districts. The unexpected gift to education would be the price that state government pays to comply with a Proposition 13-era initiative designed to limit the growth of government.

But Assembly and Senate budget leaders deftly calculated an end-run around the 1979 Gann Limit and expunged the state’s obligation from their joint budget proposal that they announced this week. There’s a good chance it may not surface in the final state budget that they negotiate with Newsom later this month.

The Gann Limit, which voters modified in1990, restricts the annual growth of government spending to the combination of population growth and the per capita growth in personal income. When state revenue exceeds that two straight years, half must be rebated to taxpayers and half to schools and community colleges.

The Gann Limit has come into play only once before, in 1987, but Newsom’s finance officials calculated that an explosion of tax receipts from the capital gains of the wealthiest taxpayers would trigger it next year. Half of the excess $16 billion would be distributed in 2021-22 as the Golden State Stimulus 2, payments of up to $1,100 for those earning up to $75,000 per year, and the other $8 billion would go to schools and community colleges in 2022-23, under Newsom’s revised May budget proposal.

But a semantical distinction apparently would apparently make a difference. By classifying the Golden State payments as tax cuts, not tax rebates, the Assembly-Senate budget would raise spending and decrease revenues. And the Legislature’s proposed budget would make other accounting changes suggested by the Legislative Analyst’s Office in an April report that would bring the state under the Gann Limit. Thus, there would be no requirement for a one-time payout to schools.

With more than $30 billion in federal and state stimulus and Covid relief coming their way, school districts can’t claim they’ll be short of cash over the next few years. But that $8 billion could provide a cushion for a slowdown in revenue or a recession, whenever that happens.

It’s not clear yet whether Newsom will contest the legality of the Legislature’s approach and what position organizations representing school districts will take.

High school students demonstrated a near-total inability to detect fake news on the internet, researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Education found in the largest study of its kind.

Rather than use a survey of students’ online media skills, the researchers devised tasks for 3,446 high school students who matched America’s student demographics. They were shown an anonymously produced video on Facebook claiming to show ballot stuffing during Democratic primary elections and were asked to determine whether it provided strong evidence of voter fraud. Less 0.1% percent were able to determine that the video actually featured footage of voter fraud in Russia.

Asked to analyze a website proclaiming to “disseminate factual reports” about climate change, 95% failed to discover the publisher’s ties to the fossil fuel industry. Instead, they were easily swayed by the website’s appearance, domain name, or the volume of information on the website, not its quality. The study was published this week in the journal Educational Researcher.

“This study is not an indictment of the students — they did what they’ve been taught to do — but the study should be troubling to anyone who cares about the future of democracy,” Joel Breakstone, the study’s lead author, said in an article on the Stanford website. “We have to train students to be better consumers of information.”

Breakstone directs the Stanford History Education Group, which created the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, which teaches students to determine inaccurate information on the internet (go here for an EdSource story about it).

On the heels of state officials calling for big investments in the early childhood arena, Head Start California is calling for lawmakers to earmark $50 million for the organization in the 2021-22 budget.

Spurred by the unprecedented state surplus, legislators and the governor have pushed to invest in programs such as transitional kindergarten, or TK, and state-subsidized child care. That’s why Head Start officials are now asking for help as TK expands and takes away some of the 4-year-olds it currently serves.

“We applaud Gov. Newsom’s commitment to increasing access to early childhood learning and care for California’s families, and we agree that a deep and permanent investment is long overdue. To ensure that Head Start can continue to serve the thousands of children and families who rely on us, as well as expand access to those who need our services, now is the time for the state to invest in Head Start,” said Christopher Maricle, executive director of Head Start California. “The $75 billion budget surplus is an unprecedented opportunity for California to provide early childhood services to more families as soon as possible.”

Many early childhood advocates agree. More than 50 organizations, from the California Federation of Teachers to First 5 California, signed a letter to legislators. They make the case that Head Start, which now serves about 100,000 low-income children, needs more state funding to remain strong as TK expands. Because they can not easily shift their funding to serve more 0-3 year-olds, Head Start officials say this shift may destabilize the organization. 

“Without additional fiscal support that is equitable to the support provided to other parts of the mixed-delivery system,” they write, “the ability of Head Start programs to accommodate this change will be jeopardized.”

A group of parents who pushed for California public schools to reopen during the pandemic are now forming a nonprofit organization to influence state education policy, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The group, OpenSchoolsCA, is led by Megan Bacigalupi, a parent in Oakland Unified and an attorney who previously worked at the mayor’s office in New York City. Advisers include current and former local school board members and a charter school consultant and advocate, David Castillo.

More than 22,000 students in San Diego County still don’t have reliable access to high-speed internet at home, according to a survey conducted by the San Diego County Office of Education.

As reported by Voice of San Diego, county officials are rushing to try to get them connected now, because it may become less of a priority after schools reopen.

It’s unclear exactly how many students statewide still don’t have reliable internet access.

A state task force studying how to pay reparations for slavery to Black residents met for the first time Tuesday.

The task force, charged with ultimately recommending proposals for reparations to descendants of slaves and others affected by slavery, was created as part of legislation signed into law last year by Gov. Gavin Newsom and authored by Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who was in the state Assembly at the time.

“You’re here today not just to sit and answer to say was there harm, but your task is to determine the depth of the harm and the ways in which we are to repair that harm,” Weber told members of the task force on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Times. “There has been enough research for the fact that slavery still has an impact today.”

In addition to recommending how to pay reparations, the task force will also recommend ways to educate California residents about the task force’s findings, according to The Mercury News.

The form the reparations will take is not yet clear but could include cash, land or scholarships, according to The Mercury News. The task force must publish a report by June 2022.

Lecturers at the University of California have voted to authorize a possible strike as they seek more pay and better job stability.

UC-AFT, the union representing non-tenured faculty across the system, said Tuesday that 96% of its members voted to authorize the strike. The vote does not mean that the union will immediately go on strike but does mean that members of the union’s negotiation team could now decide to call a strike if UC management doesn’t satisfy the union’s concerns in negotiations.

“This vote is a testament to our unity and strength,” UC-AFT organizer Caroline Luce said in a statement. “It serves as a collective expression of our hope that there remains a possibility for progress at the negotiating table.”

The union is advocating for lecturers to receive a 3% cost-of-living pay raise and also wants UC to renew the contracts of lecturers when they expire. UC-AFT President Mia McIver said in a statement Tuesday that “thousands of phenomenal lecturers lose their jobs each year.”

Although campuses are offering a summer session, the union said the strike “would not be called before the fall quarter and likely for no longer than a week.”

Summer school classes at San Diego Unified are in high demand. About 25,000 students have signed up for summer school — about 12 times the number of a typical year, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The district has received  $450 million in federal relief funds, as well as state Covid relief dollars. It plans to expand its summer programs to all students this year using $31 million from state funds designated for learning loss.

Summer school programing will include enrichment classes such as art, music, surfing and circus arts, as well as academic classes, according to the article. The district also is partnering with 65 nonprofits to offer programs.

The district usually offers classes only to high school students who need credits and to special education students. Classes will be offered in-person and online.

Students who spent most of the 2020-21 school year in distance learning were more likely to fall behind academically and to be absent than students who spent most of the year on campus, according to a recently published Rand report.

A survey of teachers and principals found that schools that were primarily in distance learning last school year covered less curriculum, had more absenteeism and lower achievement in mathematics and English language arts.

Researchers found that schools that were fully remote during the 2020-21 school year tended to serve a higher percentage of students of color and students from low-income families.

Students who were taught remotely were absent and did not complete assignments twice as often as students who were taught on campuses full time, according to the teachers surveyed.

A third of the principals reported that they would continue to offer remote instruction to students who want it after the pandemic.

Outbreaks of a variant of Covid-19 in the U.K. have some public health experts looking into whether schoolchildren are particularly vulnerable, according to CNN.

It is extremely rare for Covid-19 to cause serious illness in children. However, since children under 12 are not yet eligible to be vaccinated against the virus, and some variants may be more contagious, it is possible some variants are infecting children more frequently than in the past. In the U.K, a variant first found in India, B.1.617.2, has caused some outbreaks, particularly among school-age children.

A group of civil rights leaders are pushing Los Angeles Unified to take steps to prevent and stop anti-Asian bullying and attacks.

In response to a rash of incidents in which students attacked or bullied other students for being Asian, the civil rights leaders are asking for the district to take a number of actions, according to LAist, including:

• Developing bystander intervention training for teachers and other staff in partnership with community organizations;
• Adopting restorative justice responses, not harsh punishments;
• Making the district’s mental health hotline accessible in Asian languages.

Most families can expect to see monthly child tax credit payments beginning July 15, but for single-parent households, as NBC reported, an overlooked aspect of the American Rescue Plan will leave them with a smaller check than married households with the same income. Now a group of Democrats led by Rep. Katie Porter of California has introduced legislation to equalize the income cap for single and two-parent households. 

“No child should receive less nutritious food or less secure housing just because their parent isn’t married,” said Porter, a single mom of three school-age kids. “There’s no discount for single parents at grocery stores, child care centers, or doctors’ offices, yet the child tax credit gives less help to single-parent families.”

Given the way the tax credit is currently structured, single parents filing as heads of their household stop receiving the full benefit when their gross adjusted income hits $120,500 per year. The benefits don’t phase out for two-parent households until $150,000. The result is that a single parent of three making $130,000 per year gets less from the child tax credit than a two-parent household with the same number of children earning $150,000. Porter and others argue this is unfair.

California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom will launch a new 10-week summer book club starting June 7 in partnership with local libraries throughout the state, she announced Wednesday.

The First Partner’s Summer Book Club will feature 23 books for children ages 3-12 that teach children social and emotional learning tools and highlight key values such as diversity, self-love and acceptance, according to a news release from the Governor’s Office. Some of the featured books are New York Times Bestseller Eyes That Kiss in the Corner, Outside Inside and Laxmi’s Mooch.

The California State Library is funding a bookshelf of books from the First Partner’s Summer Book Club list for every library.

“Summer reading programs are crucial tools to keep our children engaged and help unlock their curiosity and passion for learning,” Newsom said. “Through these fun, free summer activities, entire families can build community connections, while children establish a solid foundation for the next academic year.”

Newsom or a special guest will go live every Monday on the Governor’s YouTube Channel for a virtual story time, reading from the books. Local libraries will also hold their own summer reading activities as part of the statewide book club.

Children who tune into the virtual story time or read a book from the club’s booklist will be awarded a First Partner’s Summer Book Club badge through their local library’s summer reading program.

The University of California Irvine will begin offering a Spanish Bilingual Authorization Program this summer to help meet the state’s increasing need for K-12 bilingual teachers. The demand for bilingual teachers has increased recently as dual language immersion programs have grown in popularity.

In K-12 dual immersion programs students are taught in both English and a second language, helping them achieve academic and bilingual proficiency while also developing sociocultural competence, according to a press release from the university.

The program, which is accredited by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, is a collaboration between the university’s School of Education and School of Humanities. Teachers in California are required to have this authorization in order to teach English learners.

As part of the program students will work with a teacher in a dual language immersion classroom at Anaheim Elementary, Capistrano Unified, Garden Grove Unified, Magnolia, Newport-Mesa Unified, Saddleback Valley Unified or Santa Ana Unified school districts.

“In the last few years, UCI has become a hub for bilingualism studies and research in Southern California,” said Julio Torres, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese and director of the minor. “We are thrilled that this includes the preparation of future teachers in dual immersion schools who will have gained the knowledge and experience to promote the development and sustainability of a bilingual student population in California.”

The number of California community college students who earned degrees or credentials and the number of students who transferred to University of California or California State University campuses increased in 2019-20, the community college system’s chancellor said Tuesday.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the chancellor overseeing California’s 116 community colleges, told the system’s Board of Governors that the number of students transferring to UC or CSU increased by 4% in 2019-20. At the same time, the number of students who received a credential increased by about 3% and the number of students who earned an Associate Degree for Transfer went up by 13%.

“We will continue to work with our partner institutions to streamline the transfer process and to improve fairness and transparency, resulting in more students who meet all the requirements of transfer successfully transitioning to four-year colleges and universities,” Pamela Haynes, president of the Board of Governors, said in a statement.

Data on transfer rates and the number of students earning degrees or credentials during the current 2020-21 academic year is not yet available. The system has experienced a steep decline in enrollment across many of its colleges due to the pandemic.

California’s state Senate is proposing that the University of California cuts its share of out-of-state and international students by almost half, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

Under the proposal, which UC leadership opposes, the system of nine undergraduate campuses would decrease the share of out-of-state incoming freshman from current levels of 19% to 10% by the 2033-34 academic year.

The reductions would happen gradually beginning in fall 2022. By doing so, it would make room for more California residents in the UC system, allowing almost 4,600 in-state students to secure spots in each freshman class 2033, the Times reported.

“It’s not about ending out-of-state students — they really add to the mix and the educational experience,” Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, told the Times. “We just have to make sure there’s enough spaces for in-state students.”

In a statement to the times, UC said it understands “the Legislature’s goal of providing more opportunities for Californians at UC” but added that the specific proposal to reduce out-of-state students “will potentially lead to unanticipated outcomes.”

American 4th-graders saw a slight dip in science scores on the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress assessment, scores released today show. Middle and high school students, however, showed no significant changes compared to the last results available from 2015 and 2009.

The science assessment is administered to a nationally representative sample of 4th, 8th and 12th grade students and measures their knowledge in three scientific domains — Physical Science, Life Science, and Earth and Space Sciences.

The pre-pandemic data shows that among 12th-grade students nationwide, only 22% scored proficient or above, and scores have changed little in the last decade. About 41% of 12th-grade students did not meet the “basic” level in science, up 1% since 2015, and 69% of Black students and 56% of Hispanic students performed below “basic.”

About 35% of 8th-grade students scored proficient or above, similar to 2015. And 36% of 4th grade students met proficiency, down from 37% in 2015.

Scores declined across 4th grade student groups, including both boys and girls, and white and Black students. At the 8th grade level, scores increased among Black and Hispanic students since 2015, narrowing the scores gap between those student groups and their white peers. But wide gaps continue to persist: 46% of white students scored proficient or higher in 2019, compared to 21% of Hispanic students and 13% of Black students.

“As we have seen so clearly during the Covid-19 crisis, science literacy matters now more than ever. Not every child will grow up to be a scientist, but every child deserves access to a high-quality science education that provides them the skills and knowledge they need to be well-informed citizens,” said Erika Shugart, executive director of the National Science Teaching Association. “Unfortunately, until we begin the serious work of addressing equity for all students and ensuring that science is a higher priority for many of our nation’s schools, starting at the elementary level, we can anticipate that lackluster NAEP scores will continue for many years to come.”

Dozens of public commenters voiced support Monday for a proposal to require students at California’s community colleges pursuing an associate degree to take a three-unit class in ethnic studies.

The Board of Governors that oversees California’s 116 community colleges held a public hearing Monday on that proposal, which could go into effect for students entering the college system in fall 2022. The board is expected to vote to approve the requirement at its July meeting.

If that happens, every student pursuing an associate degree would need to take a class in Native American studies, African American studies, Asian American studies or Latina and Latino studies.

Manuel J. Vélez, chair of the Chicano Studies program at San Diego Mesa College, wrote in a public comment submitted to the Board of Governors that ethnic studies programs “serve a fundamental and essential purpose that has become increasingly and alarmingly clear in recent years.” Vélez added that the proposal reflects a “statewide and institutional commitment to ethnic studies and to addressing the systemic and structural racism that continue to plague our country and our educational systems.”

Dolores Davison, president of the Academic Senate for Community Colleges, said the proposal is “long overdue” and called it a first step for California’s community colleges “to combat issues of systemic racism.”

Beatriz Espinoza, a student at California State University Channel Islands, also spoke in support of the change. Espinoza, who transferred from Los Angeles Mission College and is majoring in Chicano studies, said that taking ethnic studies classes “has impacted me in different positive ways.”

“I was able to learn about the injustices that have been happening to us in the past as well as contemporary things that are are currently affecting us, specifically to our underserved communities. It also has encouraged me and motivated me to be a student leader,” said Espinoza, who was formerly the president of the Associated Student Organization at Los Angeles Mission College.

No one spoke in opposition of the ethnic studies proposal.

Masks can come off for most indoor and outdoor settings as of June 15 in California, but the California Department of Public Health has not issued guidance yet on whether masks will be required in schools this summer and fall.

But with California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly stating last week that individual counties can choose to continue with their own local mask mandates after June 15, already the jockeying on the issue has begun.

California overall currently has the lowest Covid infection rate in the nation, and young children are the least likely to become infected and transit the virus. But with only children over 12 eligible for vaccinations, the potential for spreading Covid within a school remains a worry for some staff and parents vulnerable to the disease.

In its opening bargaining position with Los Angeles Unified, United Teachers Los Angeles is demanding that the district continue Covid safety protocols, including masking requirements, physical distancing, cleaning and disinfecting of school facilities, and ongoing Covid-19 testing.

On Monday, in his weekly message to the community, Superintendent Austin Beutner indirectly responded by saying, “We expect students and staff will continue to wear masks until more children have been vaccinated, just as Dr. Anthony Fauci has recently stated. But August is still three months away and we can’t predict exactly what standards health authorities will tell us are appropriate at that time.”

In some counties, parents are pressing for removing the mask mandate now. Informed Parents of California organized a rally outside of the Placer County Office of Education Monday calling for officials to lift the mandate.

Jessica Stonehocker, a mother of three children in Rocklin, told the Sacramento Bee, “I don’t believe children wearing masks for 6-1/2 hours a day, five days a week, is physically or mentally healthy. My daughter tells me that it is hard for her to concentrate at school with her mask on. She says that it is difficult to breathe, has to constantly pull it up, she gets really hot, and complains of headaches.”

Nether Rocklin, Sacramento nor the other four counties in the capital region have their own mask regulations, relying for now on the state.

Melissa Brown, a parent in West Sacramento who is undergoing treatment for a rare, incurable blood cancer, told the Bee that her 12- and 8-year-old sons will continue wearing masks in school even if schools loosen mask guidelines.

“I know they said we can be around vaccinated people, but we don’t know who is and who isn’t,” she said. “We see it more as taking care of each other than seeing it as someone telling us what to do.”

As are other superintendents who are retiring in high, if not record, numbers this year, Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Diann Kitamura is worn out from the challenges of guiding her district through a pandemic.

But few district leaders have had to deal with the series of calamities that Kitamura has faced during her 5½ years as superintendent of the 16,000-student district. If she were a military leader, her uniform would be covered with Meritorious Service Medals for the campaigns she led: the devastating Tubbs fire in 2017, followed by the Kincade fire in 2019 and the Glass fire in 2020 that destroyed more than 800 students’ and staff members’ homes.

Having reached age 62, Kitamura, a well-respected leader in Sonoma County, is calling it quits, ostensibly to care for her elderly mother. But, she acknowledged in a profile by Education Week writer Stephen Sawchuk, the frustration of dealing with changing, perplexing Covid health guidelines and the stress of parents’ irreconcilable, conflicting demands to reopen schools have gotten to her.

“For me, I don’t want to become bitter. I don’t want to become angry about the people I love and adore, with a community I adore,” she said. “It’s better for me, just knowing how much I know about the community and schools, to let someone come in and have a fresh brain about it all.”

Although she is fourth-generation born in Yuba City, Kitamura experienced the struggles of low-income English learners who comprise a third of elementary students in her district. Her mother and siblings spent World War II in an internment camp for Japanese Americans, and she was raised for a time in a resettlement camp, where, interacting with farmworkers from Mexico, she learned Spanish and spoke it fluently, along with English and Japanese. Despite being multi-lingual, she was put in a lower reading track with other non-white kids. She eventually pursued a teaching credential in agriculture at Chico State, with a commitment to raising all students’ expectations.

One of her legacies is the Integrated Wellness Center. Created in the wake of the Tubbs fire, its free counseling and social services will position the district to respond to the post-pandemic needs of students and their families this fall.

Los Angeles students will be able to attend full-day, in-person classes five days a week when the upcoming school year begins in August, according to Superintendent Austin Beutner. Middle and high school students will also change classrooms for each period during their school day. Plus, all students will have access to after-school programs from the end of the school day until 6 p.m. every evening.

It will be the first time such a schedule has been an option for the state’s largest school district since it shut down in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. The roll-out of this updated schedule, however, will depend on Covid-19 transmission and vaccination rates as the summer progresses.

“While we have some sense of what school will look like, our COVID crystal ball is not perfect. The good news is infections continue to decrease, more people are being vaccinated and health authorities tell us conditions should continue to improve,” Beutner said in a Monday morning update. “Whatever it looks like in the weeks or months ahead, we will continue to meet or exceed state and local health standards in our schools.”

Students will have the option to remain learning online, however, if they cannot or do not wish to attend school in person. Details have yet to be announced regarding how the online option will be implemented, but it will be made available to students of all grade levels, Beutner said.

Tens of thousands of international college students in California are facing new barriers and anxieties over returning to the U.S. in time for their fall semester, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Backlogs for visas requests and closed consulates are just two of many new challenges that students born and living outside of the U.S. are now struggling to navigate as they seek to return to their American universities. Even after enrollment dips during the global pandemic, California has more international students than most states. USC and the University of California systems together enroll more than 54,000 international students.

Student advocates and higher education leaders are now lobbying the Biden administration to implement more flexible rules for international students, “who bring not only their talent, but also highly coveted tuition revenue and billions of dollars to local economies,” the Times reports.

“The potential of not remedying those concerns promptly is profound, with lingering effects,” UC President Michael V. Drake and all 10 campus chancellors recently wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.

California’s newest in-person community college, Madera Community College, located north of Fresno in the Central Valley, congratulated its first class of graduates this week.

Seventy-seven students walked a socially-distanced commencement state this week at the college, which has operated classes since 1985 but broke away from being a Reedley College satellite campus last summer, becoming California’s 116th community college, the Fresno Bee reports.

The college is awarding 507 degrees and certificates this year. Largely due to the pandemic, however, only about 150 students are planning to participate in graduation events which will span two days. Each graduate could invite three guests and masks were required.

“With everything our family has dealt with, it’s a silver lining,” graduate Heaven Carranza told the Bee about her graduation. “We can have something to celebrate and look forward to.”

The board of the California State Teachers Retirement System has named Cassandra Lichnock, its chief operating officer, to be the new chief executive officer.

Lichnock will become the first female CEO of CalSTRS, the world’s largest educator-only pension fund, in which 75% of members are women. She will replace Jack Ehnes, who is retiring July 1.

Lichnock joined CalSTRS in 2008 as the human resources executive officer and has served as COO since 2013. In this role, she oversees the Audit Services, Enterprise Strategy Management, Administrative Services, Benefits & Services, Public Affairs, and Technology Services divisions.

“Cassandra’s experience and knowledge of CalSTRS operations and culture will ensure a smooth transition and continuity for our members, employees and stakeholders,” said teachers’ retirement system board Chairman Harry Keiley. “She is the right choice to continue partnering with the board, staff and executives to deliver on our mission to provide a secure retirement to California’s educators.”

More students are opting for employment over continuing their studies at San Diego community colleges, KPBS reports.

Enrollment dropped by nearly 15% between the fall 2019 and fall 2020 semesters at San Diego City College and by about 13% at Southwestern College in Chula Vista. Officials say distance learning and economic hardship during the pandemic pushed some students to pause education and seek other opportunities.

“The district itself is about 8% under-enrolled right now from our target. That’s a direct consequence of the pandemic,” Carlos Cortez, the president of the College of Continuing Education at the San Diego Community College District, told KPBS. “We have moved all of our programming online, and the online environment is not ideal for some students and certain programs.”

Both colleges report that enrollment drops fell disproportionately among underrepresented student groups, including Black and Latino students.

“Many of our community members have lost their jobs or have had their hours cut,” Mark Sanchez, president of Southwestern College said. “For them, their priority is employment rather than trying to go back to school at this point.”

San Francisco Unified high school students will get a prom this year — but the dance floor is going to look a little different.

District and city health officials on Wednesday laid out safety protocols for this year’s prom, including that there will be “no dancing in the traditional sense,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Other rules include maintaining 6 feet of distance for students who are not vaccinated, and close dancing such as cheek to cheek or slow dancing will also be prohibited. Students attending indoor dances will have to wear face masks, unless they are eating or drinking, along with their traditional prom attire.

Also at indoor proms, everyone will need to provide proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test. Buildings will be required to have open windows and doors for better air ventilation, and attendance will be capped at 200 people, including chaperones.

Roughly 39 million American families will start seeing payments land in their bank accounts in July because of the beefed-up child tax credit created by the American Rescue Plan, the Biden administration announced this week.

The Internal Revenue Service will start depositing a monthly payment of $300 per child under 6 and $250 per child 6 or older for those who qualify as of July 15. The money will be deposited directly in most families’ bank accounts on the 15th of every month for the rest of the year, without any action required. For example, as the Washington Post reported, an eligible family with two children ages 5 and 13 will receive $550 from the IRS directly to their bank accounts on or close to the 15th of every month from July to December. 

A linchpin of Biden’s economic agenda, the program is designed to combat the child poverty that has long plagued the nation but has deepened during the pandemic.

Conservatives have opposed the initiative, largely because it gives parents the same benefit whether or not they are working outside the home.

Biden has also proposed extending the increased child benefit, estimated to cost about $150 billion per year, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, through 2025 in the American Families Plan he unveiled last month.

The California State University Board of Trustees appointed Saul Jimenez-Sandoval as the new president of Fresno State University on Wednesday.

Jimenez-Sandoval is replacing former campus president, Joseph Castro, who became chancellor of the 23-campus university system in January.

“It is an honor to be chosen to lead this premier university, which opens doors of opportunities for our talented students and improves the quality of life for everyone in the Valley,” Jimenez-Sandoval said. “I look forward to working together with our dynamic faculty, committed staff, talented students and innovative community partners to increase the life-changing opportunities that a Fresno State education provides.”

Jimenez-Sandoval started at Fresno as a Spanish and Portuguese professor in 2000. He previously served as dean of the College of Arts and Humanities and as provost.

As president, the trustees approved an annual salary of $348,423 effective May 19 and a $1,000 a month auto allowance. He will be required to live in the university’s presidential residence in Fresno.

A teacher in a school district near Sacramento is being investigated for displaying a Nazi flag in a high school classroom, according to the Sacramento Bee.

“The Nazi flag is a long-standing symbol of hate and does not represent the culture and values of our school or our district,” San Juan Unified School District officials wrote. “A full investigation is currently underway into this incident.

“We are looking into why the teacher thought the flags were appropriate to use and ensuring both the instructor involved and others understand that this is not an acceptable way to teach any curriculum.”

EdSource won five awards in the 2020 California News Publishers Association Awards in the digital category, including First Place, In-depth Reporting, by the EdSource staff for our five-part series and videos on how families are coping with the pandemic: “Education During Covid: California Families Struggle to Learn.”

A video by reporter John Fensterwald and videographer Jennifer Molina, “How Kusema Thomas Missed Six Weeks of Distance Learning,” placed third in Coverage of the Pandemic — Profiles category. Another video, “College and Covid: Freshman Year Disrupted,” also was recognized in the “Video accompanying a series” category.

The home page of the EdSource website and design and presentation of the EdSource story “Education During Covid: California Families Struggle to Learn” also received awards.

For the full list of winners, go here.

California State University Chancellor Joseph Castro said Tuesday the 23-campus system, the largest public university in the country with 485,000 students, would examine its investment in companies associated with fossil fuels.

“Sustainability is part of everything that we do,” Castro said, during a board of trustees meeting. “CSU campuses are integrating climate and sustainability courses across all academic disciplines … and importantly, it is reflected in how we manage the CSU investments.”

Castro said the CSU’s investment advisory committee will “carefully analyze these important investments, assessing their risk factors and making a prudent, fiscally sound investment-based decision” on the direction the system should take in order to remain committed to sustainability. That committee will report on its decision in November.

If CSU decides to disinvest in companies associated with fossil fuels, it would be following other universities nationally that have done the same including Rutgers University, the University of Southern California, and the University of California system. UC divested fully from fossil fuels last year after the system sold more than $1 billion in fossil fuel assets from its pension, endowment and working capital pools last year, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner raised a dilemma in his latest weekly message to the school community that many districts, not just Los Angeles alone, will confront when this fall when they put newfound billions of dollars to use: Where will they find the teachers to hire?

“While it’s amazing that schools will have adequate funding for the first time in a generation, money alone won’t solve the problem,” he said, and cited a few examples:

• With only 56% of high school students in L.A. Unified passing Algebra I on their first try, the district wants to invest $20 to reduce the average class size in Algebra from 35 to 25 to provide more individual support. That would require 170 more teachers — about one-sixth of the 1,000 graduates from university teaching programs annually certified to teach the subject;
• Staffing every Title 1 school with a mental health counselor and adding a second to the highest-needs schools in L.A. Unified would require an additional investment of about $150 million for 1,000 more mental health counselors in addition to the 600 now working in the district. That’s also more than two-thirds of the qualified graduates each year in the state.

“For the additional school funding to have the impact we all want to see, it will require the largest effort in teacher training and development, both for new and existing teachers, in more than a generation,” Beutner said.

In his revised state budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing $3.3 billion over several years in teacher recruitment, retention and training programs. They would include $550 million in teacher residencies, $500 million in Golden State Teacher Grants to subsidize the cost of teacher credentials for aspiring teachers who agree to teach in low-income areas, and $125 million to help classified workers pursue a teaching career.

That’s a huge investment. The question is whether the state can persuade enough people to go into teaching and whether a new supply of teachers with the right credentials can come quickly enough to meet the immediate demand.

California is “quickly and persistently” on track to close a projected shortage in highly educated workers by 2030.

A new blog post from the Public Policy Institute of California reveals that large increases in access to the University of California and California State University systems for first-time freshmen and transfer students and improving graduation rates have helped to cut into a projected shortage of 1.1 million educated workers by 2030.

Enrollment of new CSU students increased 35% between fall 2010 and fall 2020. At UC, enrollment increased 21% over the same period. Furthermore, both university systems have seen improvement in student persistence and graduation rates. At CSU, six-year graduation rates for entering freshmen increased from 57% in 2015 to 62% in 2020. At UC, four-year graduation rates for in-state freshmen rose from 64% in 2015 to 71% in 2020.

Stanford University no longer plans to get rid of 11 varsity sports teams that were slated to be discontinued after the current academic year, the university announced Tuesday.

Last summer, Stanford announced it would cut those teams, saying that the university’s athletics department could not remain financially stable while supporting all 36 of its varsity sports teams. The 11 sports that were expected to be discontinued were men’s and women’s fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men’s volleyball and wrestling.

On Tuesday, Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said in a statement that the university has “new optimism based on new circumstances” on the financial feasibility of keeping those 11 sports, citing “vigorous and broad-based philanthropic interest in Stanford Athletics on the part of our alumni.”

Last week, athletes on the teams that were going to be eliminated brought two lawsuits against the university, but Stanford officials said Tuesday that discussions about keeping the 11 teams were “were already far along” before those lawsuits were filed that “we reached the conclusion we are announcing today independent of their filing.”

Vincent Rodriguez has been named the next president of Coastline College, a community college in Orange County, the college has announced.

Rodriguez, who has been the vice president of instruction at the college since 2012, will succeed Loretta Adrian as president.

“I am honored to follow President Adrian in this position of trust and responsibility in advancing the future of a welcoming college for all members of our communities,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “Coastline College embraces its dual mission of access and innovation, while we prepare for new and exciting approaches for serving students.”

Next Monday, Los Angeles Unified will begin offering Covid-19 vaccines to middle and high school students during school hours in an effort to widen access to the vaccine, according to Superintendent Austin Beutner. Parents will be able to schedule appointments using Daily Pass, a web-based tool the district uses for daily health checks.

Mobile vaccination teams will visit every school on a predetermined schedule that has yet to be released, Beutner said in a Monday morning update. The mobile teams will be an addition to the 19 school-based vaccination sites already open across the district where families of L.A. Unified students have been receiving Covid-19 vaccinations, many of them open since April.

The mobile teams will plan to visit every school in the district with students 12 and older at least once before the school year ends and once during the summer. In the district of nearly 650,000 students, almost half of all students are 12 years old and older.

“No other organization has such a deep relationship with that many children,” Beutner said on Monday morning. “Schools are trusted partners with the families they serve and are in almost daily contact with their students. This engagement is a critical piece of any vaccination effort. There’s no better place to provide vaccinations to schoolchildren than at their local, neighborhood school.”

Health officials are requiring that anyone under age 18 be accompanied by a family member to their vaccination appointment. Beutner announced Monday that the district will be providing L.A. Unified employees with paid time off to accompany their child as they receive their vaccines, adding that the district encourages “all employers in the Los Angeles area to do the same.”

Statewide enrollment numbers for K-12 public schools for the 2020-21 school year dropped nearly 3 percent, or 160,000 students, compared to the year before, according to Public Policy Institute of California in a report released today.

Before the pandemic the Department of Finance project a decline of about three-tenths of a percent this year. The much steeper than anticipated decline, which is most pronounced in the younger grades, may be due to parents keeping their kids out of school, enrolling them in a private school or homeschooling them.

The number of Black and Native American kindergartners declined the most, by 20 percent and 23 percent, respectively. There also were 11 percent fewer Latino and 3 percent fewer Asian American and Pacific Islander kindergartners. The demographic pattern held across grades but with smaller declines, according to the report.

Enrollment dropped unevenly across the state with enrollment in the rural counties of Mono, Inyo and Sierra counties falling more than 8 percent. Bay Area counties had enrollment drops of between 2 and 4 percent, and Los Angeles and Orange counties had drops of 3 percent.

It’s unclear if the enrollment declines are permanent or whether parents will send kids back to school when classes are fully in-person, according to the report. Migration may also have caused declines as more lower- and middle-income families move out of state.

For districts still struggling to navigate how to safely reopen campuses, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Thursday highlighted two San Diego campuses that he says can serve as an example of safe, in-person learning.

Thurmond visited Castle Park Elementary and Joseph Casillas Elementary in the Chula Vista Elementary School District. Both schools are located in areas hit hard by the pandemic. In addition to safety measures such as available rapid Covid-19 testing, the superintendent applauded the district’s plans for expanded mental health supports, which include having a school psychologist at every school site and a minimum of two days of counseling support will be provided at each of the non-charter district schools.

“Particularly our campuses on the west side have experienced a lot of loss,” said Elizabeth Gianulis, director of the district’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports, to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “We’re really trying to make sure that we provide support to kids because it’s difficult. How can you possibly focus on academics when so much is happening?”

The district is also planning to fund additional site-based social workers and counselors at 11 school campuses and to partner with community organizations to provide additional mental health support at 21 other school sites.

“These schools are a model for the state and nation in how we support students while recovering from this pandemic and preparing for a full return to in-person learning,” Thurmond said. “Through inspiring investments in school-based mental health support, comprehensive safety measures such as rapid COVID testing, and engaging instruction individualized to student needs, families should feel confident that schools like these are the safest, best places for their children.”

More students have computers at home than ever before in California, but access to high-speed internet has not improved even after a year of distance learning, according to a recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California.

The report, which bases its findings on the Census Household Pulse Survey from April 2020 to March 2021, found that 71% of California students have steady internet available for educational purposes, the same as last spring.

The disparity among who has access to the internet at home continues to fall along racial and economic lines, too. Nearly 40% of low-income students still lack reliable internet access, the report states, as well as about a third of Black and Latino students.

Also notably, the report found that fewer Asian students report having internet always available today (77%) compared with spring 2020 (84%).

There is some good news, however. Access to computers, another pillar of the digital divide, did increase over the past year. Today, about 80% of California students always have access to computer devices at home, up from 67% when schools first closed in March 2020.

The U.S. Education Department released $36 billion in aid to more than 5,000 colleges and universities Tuesday. The money, which went to schools that serve students who were the most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, comes from the latest federal coronavirus relief package, according to the U.S. News & World Report.

The money was divided among colleges based, in part, on how many students receive Pell Grants.

Half of the money will go directly to students to help them pay for living expenses, internet, child care and other expenses so they can remain in school. The other half will be used by campuses to vaccinate students and staff, fight the spread of Covid-19 and re-engage students, according to the article.

Santa Clara University President Kevin O’Brien resigned Sunday after being accused of impropriety.

The Jesuit priest allegedly had exhibited “inappropriate behaviors” that involved conversations with mostly Jesuit graduate students studying to become priests, according to the Mercury News. No other details have been given.

O’Brien was placed on leave after the allegations surfaced in March. He was asked to enroll in an outpatient program to address alcohol and other personal issues, according to a letter sent to the campus community on Wednesday.

In a his own letter to the school community O’Brien said that he was resigning because his extended absence did not serve the university well, according to the Mercury News.

Will teens have to get the Covid-19 vaccine in order to enroll in school this fall? That’s unlikely, according to experts consulted by The Mercury News.

Making the vaccine a requirement would be hard to do through the Legislature on such a short timeline. In addition, the FDA has only authorized the emergency use of the vaccine, not the general use.

Democrats in Congress introduced a bill to make an expansion of food stamps for college students permanent.

According to NPR, the push is being led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

The bill would make permanent a December law that temporarily expanded food stamps to all college students who are eligible for work study, have an expected family contribution of zero dollars, or qualify for a maximum Pell Grant on their federal financial aid form, benefiting an estimated 3 million students.

Cindy Marten, superintendent of San Diego Unified since 2013, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate today as the deputy secretary of education.

Marten will help Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona manage the U.S. Department of Education and implement President Joe Biden’s extensive education agenda.

Before serving as superintendent of San Diego Unified, Marten had been a teacher for 17 years, as well as principal of San Diego’s Central Elementary School.

“I am grateful for today’s confirmation of Cindy Marten as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education,” said Cardona in a statement. “As superintendent of the second-largest school district in California and one of the longest serving urban school leaders in America, Cindy remained committed to San Diego when the pandemic hit, finding ways to provide technology to thousands of students and provide more than 20 million free meals to students in need.

“Cindy also partnered with the local public university to stand up testing at all San Diego Unified School District campuses to curb the spread of the disease and protect students, staff, and the community,” he said. “Our top priority at the Department of Education is to reopen America’s schools for in-person learning, support students’ social, emotional, and academic needs, and address inequities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. I am thrilled that Cindy has accepted this challenge and I look forward to working with her as she continues to serve our nation’s students as deputy secretary.”

Marten will be the second Californian in a quarter century to be deputy secretary of education. From 1996 to 2000, Marshall (Mike) Smith, the former dean of the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, occupied that position in the Clinton Administration when Richard Riley was education secretary.

Christopher Edley, a noted law professor and former dean of  UC Berkeley School of Law will, become the interim dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education for two years, starting  July 1.

Although his appointment marks the first time that the 129-year-old graduate school has named a dean without an academic or research background in education, Edley has long been an activist in promoting funding equity and racial equality for K-12 and undergraduate education. He is the co-founder and president emeritus of the Berkeley-based Opportunity Institute, whose mission is “to eradicate poverty and racial inequality to build ladders of success for the next generation.”

The current dean, Prudence Carter, who is stepping down at the end of a five-year term, noted Edley’s influence on setting the dialogue on local and national educational issues.

“Dean Edley’s professional journey speaks for itself. I cannot think of anyone more qualified to serve,” she said in a statement. “As a scholar, he has a deep grasp of the national and state educational landscapes, having chaired a number of major federal commissions and serving as co-founder of the Opportunity Institute.”

“In this American moment, there is more energetic attention to inequality and racial justice than we’ve seen in 50 years. Nothing is more central to those challenges than education,” Edley said. “A great school of education at a great public university will play a critical leadership role and produce ideas that matter.”

(Note: Edley will be interviewed in this week’s EdSource podcast, This Week In California Education.)

San Francisco Unified teachers made a surprise offer over the weekend to let high school seniors  return to school before school ends. An analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle of the details shows the agreement provides  little for students but a lot for the coffers of the school district — about $12 million by barely complying with requirements for additional state funding.

According to Chronicle staff writer Jill Tucker, students in the Class of ’21 who  choose to return:

• Will receive “in-person supervision” but not instruction;
• Will attend only one of two schools sites — for many, not their own high school;
• May be returning for only one day;
• Will be part of a cohort of two teachers or staff supervising them through activities that might include “end of high school conversations” or “college and career exploration.”

The offer by United Educators of San Francisco appears to satisfy the minimum requirements that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature set in March to make schools eligible for $2 billion in one-time state funding. School districts and charter schools had to offer in-school instruction for all students in grades K-6 and at least one grade in middle to high school. The Legislature didn’t set any minimal time or instructional requirements to get the money, so one day or one hour a week technically could qualify a district for full funding.

San Francisco Unified started bringing back elementary grades in early April and then opened sites for middle and high school students only to  English learners, those in public housing, foster youth, special education students and those who have struggled in distance learning — what the law defined as students with highest needs.

Districts will be docked 1 percent of the money they’re entitled to for every instructional day after April 1 that they’re late in complying (not counting spring break). After May 15, they’ll forfeit all of the money if they don’t meet the requirements.

San Francisco will appear to qualify for the lion’s share  by allowing high school seniors back within the next week.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who sponsored the financial incentives legislation, told the Chronicle he didn’t know if San Francisco Unified would meet the law’s demands but, “It definitely doesn’t meet the spirit of the law.”

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of its Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adolescents age 12 to 15 today, according to the New York Times.

Authorization is given for the vaccines after clinical trials are completed on thousands of people to determine their safety and effectiveness. The emergency use authorization allows the vaccines to be distributed during public health emergencies despite not having full approval.

Pfizer and BioNTech enrolled 2,260 children ages 12 to 15 in a clinical trial that included a placebo group and a group that received the vaccination, according to the New York Times. There were 18 cases of symptomatic coronavirus in the placebo group and none in the vaccinated group.

Next the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel will meet and decide whether to recommend the use of the vaccine in adolescents. If the committee recommends the vaccines, immunizations can begin immediately, according to the Times.

Pfizer-BioNTech also plans to apply for emergency authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine to be used in children ages 2 to 11 in September.

Attendance patterns continue to emerge at Los Angeles Unified, where students began attending their classes in-person nearly one month ago. In a Monday morning broadcast, Superintendent Austin Beutner shared that low-income students attend in-person classes at lower rates than students who live with families who have higher median household incomes.

Beutner said that three cities in Southeast Los Angeles — Bell, Cudahy, and Maywood — where the median household income is $44,000, have an 18.2% attendance rate, the lowest among the district’s elementary students. In sharp contrast, West Los Angeles, with median incomes of over $115,000, has a 68.5% attendance rate.

In high schools, however, the opposite is occurring. Students in low-income communities are attending at higher rates than their higher-income peers. The Watts and Green Meadows neighborhoods in South Los Angeles have a 27.2% attendance rate while the higher-income Glassell Park and Los Feliz communities in Northeast Los Angeles have a 3.9% attendance rate.

“Looking ahead, further progress in vaccinations and continued reduction in the spread of the virus should allow for all-day, in-person instruction at all schools when the new school year starts,” Beutner said. He added that the district expects more than 70% of students to return to in-person attendance for the upcoming school year, with many of them being the district’s “highest-needs students.”