That assumption is not always true. Until very recently, it was not required to be.

On August 29, 2023, 12-year-old Yahushua Robinson went to Canyon Lake Middle School in Lake Elsinore. The high temperature that day reached 107 degrees. According to accounts from the day, Yahushua and other students were sent outside during physical education class and ordered to run laps as punishment for not suiting up in time. Yahushua told the school staff he was not feeling well, said he could not breathe and asked for water.

He was made to keep running.

Yahushua never came home from school that day. The Riverside County Coroner determined his cause of death was a heart defect, with extreme heat and physical exertion listed as contributing factors. His mother, Janee Robinson, is herself a P.E. teacher in the same district. That same afternoon, she kept her own students inside because of the heat. She later said, “These students should not have been outside, and to think that my child died while my students were in.”

That sentence should stop every parent in their tracks.

What Yahushua’s death exposed was a gap most families had no reason to know existed. In California and across the country, most heat safety policies were written specifically for organized high school athletics: football practice, cross-country and track. A high school football coach may be legally required to follow heat protocols. A middle school P.E. teacher had no comparable legal requirement.

Yahushua was not a high school athlete. He was a 12-year-old in P.E. class, and the system had no uniform standard designed to protect him.

That is what I set out to change.

Less than two weeks after Yahushua’s death, I prepared a formal advocacy brief on behalf of his family and began building the case for legislation. As a parent and family advocate, I understood that what was missing was not medical knowledge or parental love. What was missing was a legal standard that did not leave child safety to individual judgment during dangerous heat.

State Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Central Valley Democrat, championed the cause and introduced Senate Bill 1248, with Assemblymember Akilah Weber, a doctor and Democrat representing the San Diego area, as principal co-author. The bill passed unanimously, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law in September 2024.

That law is known as Yahushua’s Law.

Here is what it does, and why every California parent needs to know about it before this summer.

 now requires every school district, county office of education, and charter school in the state to develop, adopt and implement a weather safety policy. The compliance deadline is July 1 — weeks away.

This is not guidance. It is the law.

Every policy must include clear criteria for modifying or suspending outdoor physical activities when conditions become dangerous, procedures for monitoring weather forecasts and alerts, communication plans for staff, students, and parents, access to indoor alternative activities, and staff training to recognize weather-related distress. These policies must be reviewed and updated annually, and the California Department of Education must identify schools that are not in compliance and provide technical assistance.

California now has one of the strongest and broadest student heat safety laws in the country because it covers all students across all grades in school-supervised physical activities, including P.E. class, recess and field trips.

This matters for your child specifically if they have asthma, a heart condition, sickle cell trait, obesity or a medication that affects heat tolerance. It matters if your child has an IEP or a 504 plan. It’s important because many children are too young, too scared or too overwhelmed to explain clearly and quickly when something is physically wrong.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has  that exertional heat illness in children is preventable when evidence-based protocols are followed by supervising adults. The science behind heat safety laws is not disputed. What has been missing is a requirement to act on medical guidance.

Now, California has that requirement.

But parents still have to ask whether their school is ready. If you live in California, call your district and ask: What is your weather safety policy under SB 1248, and when will staff be trained? If you do not get a clear answer, keep asking. The law says your child’s school must have this in place, and you have every right to know whether it does.

If you live elsewhere, connect with your own state lawmakers about passing similar legislation. The California law can serve as a model for other states.

Yahushua used to say, “I AM HIM.” His family carried those words into legislative hearings, conversations with lawmakers, and every act of advocacy that turned grief into law.

Every child who walks onto a school campus is someone’s Yahushua. This summer, the adults in California responsible for your children are required to follow a standard designed to bring every student home.

Make sure your school is ready to keep that promise.

In this conservative telling, America grows stronger when it is monocultural, wealthier when it goes it alone, and better when it has fewer immigrants. To make America once again “great,” we’ve been told, the country must shelter itself from the world’s economy and diverse cultures.

Many have noted that this flies in the face of the entirety of American history; our extraordinary national story is, in fact, a tale of a community reliably made stronger, richer and more dynamic through increased diversity. But if the state of present U.S. politics makes this well-established fact seem like the province of soft-hearted left-wingers, that business leaders still know that diversity — particularly linguistic and cultural — is key to their bottom line.

In 2025, California nonprofit surveyed 56 Southern California businesses across a range of sizes and sectors to gauge their views on multilingualism at work. Fully 93% of them said they have bilingual staff — and 32% said that the majority of their staff are bilingual.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that bilingual staff allow them “to reach more customers,” and 70% responded that it helped them satisfy — and keep — the customers they have.

“In today’s global economy, language is not just a cultural asset — it is essential to doing business,” the report states.

Nearly one-quarter of those surveyed conduct business in Latin America, with an additional 12% calling out Mexico specifically. One-fifth said they did business in Europe and the same share reported commerce in Oceania, the area that includes Australia, New Zealand and smaller Pacific islands.

Lead author A.J. Lucas published the results as last month.

“Language, for the majority of our existence, has been seen as additional, as something that comes with who a person is, and how they represent ethnically or by place of origin,” he told me. “It’s been seen as surplus to someone’s identity, rather than being assessed, considered, and compensated … we should make it clear that if you have this added skill, you’re worth a lot more than someone who hasn’t gotten to this level of skill in learning a language.”

UNITE-LA, Lucas explained, acts as an intermediary between schools and the business world to better prepare the future workforce and “create economic opportunities for underserved youth across California.”

Those in-demand multilingual workers of the future exist in California schools today, the report notes, where 40% of the state’s K-12 students speak a non-English language at home and, among children younger than 6, that number grows to 60%.

But, as I’ve noted recently, the Trump administration is determined to force the country along an English-only path as a way of punishing immigrants and their children. This is a path that can only make the United States smaller, weaker, less prosperous and less dynamic.

It’s also a path that sets the administration at odds with the preferences of American families, regardless of their proximity to the U.S. immigration experience and/or the languages they speak at home. That is, both English-dominant families and families who speak a non-English language at home are enthusiastic about giving their children opportunities to become multilingual. 

Demand for multilingual schooling has, with dual language immersion programs growing by the thousands across states like Texas, Utah, North Carolina, California, Georgia, Delaware, New York and others. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have launched their own versions of the, a credential that recognizes students who can demonstrate proficiency in at least two languages. But efforts to grow these programs are hamstrung by the United States’ . 

We should replace the administration’s current, sustained assault on linguistic and cultural diversity on K–12 campuses with a serious effort to train enough linguistically diverse teachers to be able to meet families’ demand for multilingual learning and businesses’ need for multilingual workers. 

There are many ways for local, state and federal education leaders to do this. For instance, as the report notes, the Seal of Biliteracy is off to a good start, but is presently “more symbolic than functional in the labor market.” Employers, colleges and universities don’t yet understand its value. By contrast, has led the way in linking the seal to — and corresponding cost savings for students. Business leaders and public officials should follow their lead. 

Unlike so much else in education policy, this isn’t especially complicated. Businesses want multilingual workers. Families want their children to have access to multilingual schools. As Lucas put it in our recent conversation, “There’s this connection between our education system and what our workforce currently needs … yet it feels like that gap is persisting for some reason.” 

The views expressed here are Conor P. Williams’s alone, and do not reflect those of his employer or any other affiliated organizations.

Top Takeaways

• The top two candidates will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
• Millions of mail-in ballots have yet to be counted.
• The next governor will face major decisions about school funding and oversight.

With millions of ballots still to be counted in California, Chino Valley Unified school board President Sonja Shaw has a clear lead in the state superintendent of public instruction primary with 24.9% of the vote, followed by San Diego Unified school board President Richard Barrera with 18.9% of the vote. 

None of the other candidates have more than 10% of the vote at this point.

Although all the polling places have reported, it’s not over yet. The top two candidates moving on to the Nov. 3 general election won’t be decided until all the mail-in ballots and provisional ballots are counted. In a state with 23 million registered voters, the process could take up to 30 days, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

The late votes are likely to lean Democrat, as they have historically made up the majority of the mail-in voters in the state. This year, that might be even more true, as many Democrats held on to their ballots until a clear Democratic leader emerged in the governor’s race.

The two candidates at the front of the pack for the state superintendent of public instruction position agree that student test scores are too low and that the proposed restructuring of the California Department of Education , but they disagree about almost everything else.

, who notoriously had state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond ejected from a Chino Valley Unified , wants to end California policies prohibiting school staff from disclosing a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity. She also wants to prohibit transgender students from participating in girls’ sports.

support and to help districts recruit and retain teachers. 

There wasn’t much excitement around the superintendent’s race until late April when outside organizations to support their preferred candidates. 

A released in early April found that none of the 10 candidates for had more than 10% of support among likely voters. About a third of the voters surveyed said they didn’t know who they would vote for in the race.

When education unions began to spend in the race, they did not coalesce behind one candidate. The California Teachers Association’s independent expenditure committee spent $5 million on the Barrera campaign. The California Federation of Teachers committee spent $200,000, and a political action committee for the California School Employees Association spent $175,000 on the campaign; while a political action committee for the Service Employees International Union spent $250,000 on the campaign. 

Hilton, Becerra lead in governor’s race

Although education has in the gubernatorial race, the next governor will face major decisions about school funding and may have to execute a plan to move oversight of the California Department of Education from the state superintendent of public instruction to a new , if the plan is approved by the Legislature.

Republican , a political commentator, and Democrat , the former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, are leading the with 27.8% and 25.4% of the votes, respectively.

The front-runners are followed by Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire investor, with 19.6% of the vote, and Republican Chad Bianco, Riverside County sheriff, with 11.3% of the vote.

The four top vote-getters emerged from a crowded field of 61 candidates all vying to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will be termed out after eight years.

Hilton has said he would change state policies that prohibit parental notification when students indicate they may be transgender and that allow transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports. He also said he will hold teachers accountable for student performance by rewarding the best and firing the worst. 

During the campaign, Becerra highlighted his efforts to expand early childhood education when he was U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. He has also said he would ensure all California communities and that college is more .

investing more money in public schools and increasing teacher pay to help recruit and retain them. He would like free education from universal preschool at age 3 to community college. He proposes paying for it by raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals.

Bianco would like to expand career technical education and high-performing charter schools. His other ideas include increasing the focus on reading, writing, math and science, increasing funding for teacher training and recruitment, promoting mental health supports and ensuring all schools have an assigned law enforcement officer.

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When Celestina Castillo filled out the ethnicity forms at her children’s school, she’d always check Latino and Native American. After all, the family is proud of both its heritages.

But because of a loophole in the state’s data collection system, checking Latino or Hispanic meant that her children’s Native American identity was not counted at all, and they would not receive the extra services they’re entitled to. When Castillo learned of this, she stopped checking the Latino box altogether

According to the arcane way California counts its 5.8 million students, students who say they are Hispanic and Native American get counted as solely Hispanic. Native American students who also identify as another race, such as Black, white or Asian, are counted as “two or more races,” not Native American.

The problem affects all multiracial students, but it’s especially pronounced among Native Americans because the majority are multiracial. It’s resulted in an undercount of Native American students by as much as 90%, advocates said.

“If someone is Black, or Asian, or white, they’re counted that way,” said Castillo, a director of a college learning center who lives in Los Angeles. “Why does it not count if someone is Native American? That’s not OK. It feels like erasure.”

More services, fewer stereotypes

Last year California schools said they had 24,822 Native American students, but the actual number may be as high as 156,000, according to an Assembly report on a new measure, , that seeks to fix the problem. If those students were identified, they’d be entitled to cultural services and other programs that could help them succeed in school.

A more accurate count could also change the public perception of Native Americans generally, according to Assemblymember James Ramos, the San Bernardino Democrat who authored the bill. Instead of being thought of as rare or even extinct, the public could see that Native Americans are everywhere, Ramos said.

“We’ll start to see the true picture of Native Americans in California,” said Ramos, a member of the Serrano/Cahuilla tribe. “Native American students should be able to stand up in the classroom and say who they are and be proud of it.”

Changes in the U.S. Census

There’s a long history of the government marginalizing Native Americans in California, particularly in schools. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, not long after , the federal government forced thousands of Native American children in California into , where they were forced to speak English and abandon their cultures.

Things started to change in 1970 when the U.S. Census Bureau started improving the way it counted Native Americans. Now, Native Americans can write in their tribal affiliation or list themselves as multiracial, and still be counted as Native American. Although Native Americans are more than any other ethnic group, the census changes resulted in a tenfold increase in the official number of Native Americans in the U.S. In 1960, Native Americans only made up .3% of the population. In 2020 they were almost 3%.

The improved census data also revealed that California has more Native Americans than any other state. More than 760,000 people in California identify as Native American, with most living in urban areas like Los Angeles.

Ramos’ bill would allow Native American students to write in the name of their tribe on school forms and identify as Native American plus another race, if applicable. The hope is to give a more comprehensive, more nuanced view of California’s Native American student population, allowing them to get extra services regardless of their biracial identity. So far, the bill has no opposition.

‘We’re in the modern world, too’

Shannon Rivers, who works on education issues for the Los Angeles-based California Native Vote Project, said an accurate count of Native Americans is essential to dispel stereotypes and bring public awareness to issues affecting Native American communities.

“In the eyes of many Americans, there’s still this image of Native American people from the past, from the 1800s,” said Rivers, who is a member of the Akimel Oʼodham tribe in Arizona. “That history is important, but we’re in the modern world, too. We’re doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists, educators.”

He’s hopeful that Ramos’ bill will improve conditions generally for Native American students in California schools. With more accurate student counts, schools could get more to provide extra services, such as tutoring, to Native American children. More schools could host events and curriculum centered on Native American history and culture.

When Ramos was growing up in San Bernardino, he remembers staring at the ethnicity form at school and not knowing what bubble to fill. His mother was Native American but she was labeled “white” on her birth certificate. His father, also Native American, was labeled “Hispanic.”

“Were we white or Latino? I didn’t know. We had to accept whatever the school told us we were,” Ramos said. “I’d go home and ask, ‘Are we Caucasian?’ That started a whole other conversation. It was confusing.”

Castillo, a descendent of the Tohono O’odham tribe in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, said that as a child, she thought everyone was Native American. But when she started school she realized that very few people identified as she did, and worse, it was stigmatized.

Years later, she saw her own children singled out as oddities. One day her son, who had long hair, was dressed for a Native American dance and another child pointed and said, “Look, mom, it’s an Indian!”

“My son felt like a dinosaur or a unicorn, like we didn’t exist,” Castillo said.

By leaving the ethnicity question blank on school forms, Castillo knew it meant her children would not receive extra services they’re entitled to, either at the charter school they attend or through Los Angeles Unified.

“That angered me,” Castillo said. “I’m hoping that this bill will help make Native students visible to local and state education policy makers.”

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When a patient at Los Angeles General Medical Center experienced a medical emergency, Brandon Maldonado grabbed an intercom and called a “code blue” to bring immediate help from emergency hospital staff. 

The Bravo Medical Magnet High School senior had trained for such emergencies through Los Angeles Unified’s patient care pathway — one of several career education programs a new study found improves students’ college readiness.

“That experience stuck with me because it taught me how to stay calm under pressure, and I didn’t panic,” Brandon said. “I knew what to do.”

A new  from research institute SRI International found promising results for students in Los Angeles Unified who completed career and technical education pathways — especially those that combine academics with workplace experience. These students not only graduated at higher rates, but were also more likely to complete college preparatory curriculum and enroll in college than their peers. 

California has significantly expanded career and technical education in recent years, with a combined  in funding each year and an additional  approved for new CTE school facilities in 2025. 

Miya Warner, lead author of the report, said the findings puncture the longstanding perception that career and technical education is mostly geared toward students who have no plans to go to college. 

“The findings combat some of those lingering stereotypes around CTE and who it’s for,” Warner said.

In the state’s largest school district, with more than 165,000 LAUSD high school students as of the 2021-2022 school year, the investments in career tech programs appear to provide students a leg up after they graduate from high school. These programs include 265 traditional CTE pathways and 72 Linked Learning pathways — which combine technical training with college preparatory coursework — across 15 industry sectors. 

Nearly two-thirds of students took at least one CTE course, but the report found higher positive outcomes among about a fifth of all students who completed a full CTE or Linked Learning pathway. 

“The more the word can get out about the value of completion versus just a one-off course, the more that all the staff at the school can support students in meeting that goal,” Warner said. “I visited schools where counselors are putting seniors into the first year of a CTE sequence, and they can’t complete it.”

At Bravo Medical Magnet High, students begin taking medical prerequisite courses as sophomores before choosing a pathway in sports medicine or patient care. Brandon, now a senior, has gained hands-on experience in the ophthalmology department, the volunteer center and the infusion clinic at Los Angeles General Medical Center, which partners with the magnet school. 

“I wanted to get real-world experience and get an overview of different departments; that way I can know which field I want to go into,” Brandon said. “’The value of getting the early exposure stage is you’re not just thrown out there. The (program) gives you the basic skill of how to respond.” 

Ben Gertner, director of Linked Learning at LAUSD, said the district has raised CTE pathway completion rates from about 18% to nearly 25% between 2022 and 2025 and increased the number of Linked Learning pathways from 43 to 100. 

“We want to ensure that we focus on developing school-site capacity,” Gertner said. “We also help schools to balance competing priorities, increase graduation rate and college and career readiness.”

Access is a key hurdle for students trying to start and complete CTE pathways. The report found that students with the highest and lowest academic performance took fewer CTE courses than students in the middle, suggesting that AP classes or credit recovery can create scheduling conflicts. Although incoming freshmen had access to an average of nine pathways, many did not learn about them early enough to enroll. 

Warner emphasized that starting a CTE program early helps students build transferable skills, professional networks and gain hands-on experience.

One theater pathway student interested in becoming a lawyer, she said, gained confidence in communication and collaboration skills. Another student in patient care realized a healthcare career was not the right fit for him.

“How much better to figure that out in high school than wait, going into debt in a program that turns out is not actually a good fit for you,” Warner said. “It’s better to have those experiences early.”

Linked Learning shows better outcomes

The report found stronger outcomes for students in Linked Learning pathways, which combine work-based training and academic instruction, than in traditional CTE pathways, which offer standalone technical skills courses. 

High school graduates who completed a certified Linked Learning pathway were about 16% more likely to finish college preparatory courses and 24% more likely to enroll in college than those who did not take any CTE courses. 

“In the Linked Learning pathways, we saw a little bit more integration of those work-based learning experiences into the curriculum,” Warner said, adding that students are also more engaged with experiences in real workplaces. 

Karen Benavides, a senior in the patient care pathway at Bravo Medical Magnet High, recalled stepping in to help in the surgical intensive care unit during a hospital staff shortage. 

“I got to help a patient, help the nurses. I took phone calls, and it was just a very immersive experience,” Karen said. “I didn’t stop for a second, and I really liked the rush.”

Karen, who plans to become a physician assistant, said she has become more confident communicating with peers, teachers and patients, especially with those who may be uncooperative. 

“I also feel like it’s helped improve my teamwork and being able to think critically, go through situations and see what the best course of action is,” Karen said. 

About half of the students in certified Linked Learning pathways completed their programs, while about a quarter completed traditional CTE pathways, according to the report. Students at a “higher-need” middle school also had greater access to Linked Learning pathways but fewer traditional CTE options than students at “lower-need” schools.

Suzanne Bogue, a teacher in the patient care pathway at Bravo Medical Magnet High, said strong teacher collaboration distinguishes Linked Learning from traditional CTE.  

“The junior year teachers and the senior year teachers, we all work together and help each other target the students that might need a little more support,” Bogue said. 

Schools can opt into Linked Learning with a 75% faculty vote in favor of onboarding at LAUSD, which has “led to more of a sense of commitment to the Linked Learning approach,” Gertner said. 

Brandon said he plans to attend UC Riverside to study biology and hopes to become an anesthesiologist after shadowing one through the program.  

“One of the valuable skills I’ve learned is teamwork,” Brandon said. “It just gives you that exposure to being able to talk to people you’ve never really talked to before.”

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Students attending Compton Unified School District and Modesto City Schools are improving in reading faster than students in demographically similar districts amid what a team of researchers has identified as a national “reading recession.” District leaders and researchers credit years of sustained academic reforms and data-driven intervention systems.

“We’re feeling really comfortable with what we’ve built for literacy development. Now we’re like, ‘Okay, now what can we learn from that experience to make gains in mathematics as well?’ ” said Vanessa Buitrago, Modesto City superintendent.

The findings come from the , a database released Wednesday by researchers at Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth that compares reading and math test scores across more than 5,000 school districts in 38 states, including more than 500 districts in California.

Researchers said the project is intended to make “local recovery efforts — both successful and unsuccessful — more visible,” highlighting both successful and struggling districts. To allow comparisons across states, the team aligned state test scores with results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a nationwide exam given every two years.

The nationwide reading recession began around 2013, according to researchers, and worsened in many school districts following the pandemic. But some districts, including Modesto City Schools and Compton Unified School District in California, have bucked the trend and were among the “districts on the rise” identified by the Education Scorecard team.

Both districts implemented reforms before the pandemic and, importantly, maintained them through the uncertainty of school closures in the peak pandemic years. They also both rely on data from internal assessments to identify struggling students and provide targeted support quickly.

“I don’t see us as a district, so to speak, recovering from the pandemic,” said Darin Brawley, 13-year superintendent of Compton Unified. “I see us as a district that really used that moment to strengthen and build stronger systems to create stronger instruction, to create stronger accountability, and ultimately, to produce better outcomes for the students that we serve.”

The Education Scorecard team found that 33% of California students attended districts where math scores exceeded 2019 levels — up two percentage points from . The share of students in districts surpassing pre-pandemic reading levels also rose, from about 18% to 22%.

“I think you’ll see in that list of districts on the rise, a lot of districts that don’t normally get mentioned in this national discussion of who’s making a difference, but we’re trying to put a spotlight on local leaders that are making a difference,” said Stanford professor Sean Reardon, who helped create the Education Scorecard.

Data-driven collaboration

Modesto City did not have a professional development department until Sara Noguchi, superintendent from 2018 to 2025, joined the district.

Today, principals, assistant principals and intervention specialists from every Modesto City elementary school meet quarterly for 90 minutes to two hours to review and evaluate student performance data, said Vanessa Buitrago, current superintendent.

Schools facing similar challenges — such as chronic absences or high rates of special education assessments — are paired together to share strategies for improvement. During Graduation Rate Intervention Team meetings, school teams develop specific action steps that they revisit at the next quarterly check-in.

“We need to create those strategic pairings so that they can learn from each other,” said Buitrago.

The GRIT meetings also include discussions about classroom walk-throughs and what professional development teachers may need based on what school leaders observe in the classroom.

Teachers also meet weekly in their Professional Learning Communities to identify students who need additional support and collaborate on intervention strategies.

“In my experience, there are two things that are really sacred to teachers: the classroom space, in other words what they teach and how they teach, and grading,” Buitrago said. “I would say that this is probably the most challenging part of our work, … finding that balance between culture and all this other technical work that is very data driven.”

Some of that work has included a revamp of reading instruction during the pandemic, and of math a couple of years earlier. The district created a new department to help students who are still learning English. Schools also ramped up teacher training, paying educators $5,000 to complete an extensive “science of reading” program called LETRS, or Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling. Teachers can opt in to meeting with math coaches who can provide feedback on their teaching, or they can request a substitute so they can observe other math teachers’ classrooms.

“I really think it comes down to creating the conditions for the teacher to be successful,” said Noguchi, the former Modesto City superintendent. “It’s really about building a relationship with that third grade teacher, fifth grade teacher, what have you, because everyone has different needs.”

While initially establishing the systems now in place, Noguchi said districtwide buy-in was critical. This meant consulting with leaders across the district, including those reluctant to change.

“If you bring them in on the forefront and really listen to their issues and those concerns, that will help counterbalance others within the system,” said Noguchi. “It worked and we got complete buy-in.”

The latest Education Scorecard data shows that Modesto’s test scores grew enough to represent an extra 18 weeks of learning in math and 13 weeks in reading. Nevertheless, the district still has a way to go: Overall scores remain far below grade level.

‘Sustained focus and aligned instruction’ are critical

According to the Education Scorecard, reading and math scores in Compton Unified District have increased since before the Covid-19 pandemic — with the only setback being a slight decline in math scores between 2019 and 2022.

Compton Unified is one of 108 districts identified by researchers as improving faster in both reading and math than demographically similar districts.

The district’s strategies for improvement include data meetings every four to six weeks, where groups of principals review student performance and discuss interventions. Like Modesto City Schools, Compton Unified expects principals to closely track which students are receiving additional instructional support and whether that intervention is effective.

“Our belief is pretty simple: the earlier you identify learning gaps, the faster you can intervene,” said Brawley, district superintendent.

Other ways Compton Unified seeks to identify and intervene on academic gaps, he said, include:

• Weekly quizzes where students answer seven questions each in English language arts and math.
• In-class, small group tutoring for students who are not reaching the district’s threshold of 71% or above on internal assessments.
• A “heavy, districtwide focus” on the standards and vocabulary students are likely to encounter in the CAASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress), the state’s annual assessment.
• Teams consisting of Brawley, directors and principals who do walkthroughs of school sites throughout the year

“We believe that students must be able to explain their thinking, justify their responses, communicate their reasoning and engage in analytical discourse, and if they don’t have the academic language that is necessary for that, then that creates a bigger problem,” said Brawley.

Some district teachers have raised over whether the district might be emphasizing too much test prep with the internal assessment calendar teachers are expected to follow.

“We basically believe that assessment should not be viewed as an event,” Brawley said. “It should be embedded within the instructional cycle.”

EdSource’s data visualization specialist, Yuxuan Xie, contributed to this report. Sharon Lurye and Jocelyn Gecker of The Associated Press, Lily Altavena of Chalkbeat and Ruth Serven Smith of AL.com also contributed to this report.

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The primary for the state’s top K-12 schools job is in less than a month, but judging from the polls, it’s debatable whether anyone is paying attention.

A whopping 32% of voters are undecided with just a few weeks until the for state superintendent of public instruction, according to by the Public Policy Institute of California. In the past, it’s been one of the state’s hottest races, with millions of dollars in spending.

Among the dozen or so candidates, none had more than 10% of voters’ support, meaning that the race is essentially a 10-way tie.

“There’s no lack of qualified candidates, but previous elections had an urgency and a sense that who won really mattered,” said Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at USC. “We don’t have that this time.”

A job with few duties?

One reason for the malaise, observers said, may be that voters are more focused on education policy unfolding in Washington, D.C. The Trump administration is in the process of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, which could potentially upend funding and student rights. Another reason might be that most of the candidates agree on the major issues, so there’s not much to distinguish them.

Regardless, the position might be nearly irrelevant by the time the new superintendent takes office. The state is poised to . Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed in January that the superintendent no longer run the California Department of Education. Instead, it would fall under the control of the State Board of Education, which is appointed by the governor. The idea was introduced in his January budget proposal and is expected to pass the Legislature.

That would shift power over the state’s 10,000 public schools to the governor’s office. The superintendent would have few responsibilities except championing various education-related causes. The governor’s race would carry more relevance to school funding, policies and other issues than the superintendent’s race.

Teachers union weighs in

The California Teachers Association, one of the biggest players in education politics, has been far more involved in the governor’s race than the superintendent race. After Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the governor’s race, the union endorsed billionaire Tom Steyer for governor, citing his alignment with the union’s priorities.

For superintendent, the union endorsed Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board member who was little known outside San Diego before winning the union’s backing.

“The superintendent race is off the radar because the governor’s race has taken up so much bandwidth,” said David Goldberg, president of the union. “Although the superintendent’s impact is deeply felt by those who work in public education, it’s not widely known outside public education.”

The next superintendent will replace Tony Thurmond, who is termed out and is running for governor. The superintendent position is nonpartisan and pays . The top two candidates in June’s primary will advance to the November general election.

So far, the leading candidates in the superintendent’s race include a host of education policy veterans. Among them: Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, former head of the Assembly education committee; Josh Newman, former head of the Senate education committee; Anthony Rendon, former speaker of the Assembly and a longtime early education program administrator; and Nichelle Henderson, a Los Angeles Community College District board member.

‘A lightning rod’

Sonja Shaw, a school board member in Chino Valley, is also running and has gained traction on the right. In the most recent poll, she had support from 7% of voters, the same as Barrera. Lance Christensen, who ran against Thurmond in 2022, predicted that Shaw will advance to the November election because Democrats’ votes will split among the other candidates.

Shaw is best known for her fiery positions on transgender student rights. She was propelled to the limelight in 2023 when she presided over a Chino Valley school board meeting where out when he spoke over his time limit defending transgender students’ right to privacy. She’s been an outspoken advocate for schools to inform parents if their child identifies as transgender, and for students to participate on teams that align with their gender at birth.

“They can say anything they want about her, but she’s such a lightning rod that now everyone knows who she is,” said Christensen, who’s now a vice president at the anti-union California Policy Center. “I think this issue will take her all the way to Sacramento.”

Why no one’s talking about charter schools

One issue that’s been glaringly absent in the superintendent race is charter schools. In years past, charter schools were the No. 1 topic in the race. Candidates were deemed to be either “pro-charter” or “anti-charter,” with donations and rhetoric following suit. “Pro-charter” was often interpreted to mean anti-union, leading to an avalanche of rancor from both sides.

But the public, and even the unions, seem to have grown tired of arguing about the independent public schools. One reason is that many charter schools now have unions. Another reason is that because of declining enrollment, charter schools are no longer expanding; they appear to have plateaued at about 10% of overall enrollment.

A more likely reason is that voters see that charter schools and traditional public schools grapple with the same issues, said Marshall Tuck, a former chief executive of the Green Dot charter school network who ran for superintendent in 2018 and 2014. The 2018 election in which he lost to Thurmond was one of the most costly superintendent races ever, with contributions topping $50 million. By comparison, no candidate in the current election has raised more than $1 million so far.

Most schools – regardless of their governance structure – are facing , and lackluster student engagement since the pandemic ended.

“Now that we’ve removed the charter vitriol, we can focus on bigger issues,” said Tuck, who is now chief executive at EdVoice, a policy advocacy organization. “The core issues are the same everywhere.”

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It may come as a surprise to Californians who know the state has consistently ranked low in how much it spends on students compared to other states: California’s ranking has soared to the 13th-highest in the nation for how much it funds education per student.

03That’s not all. California’s equity ranking — comparing how fairly it distributes money to districts in high-poverty communities — rose to the second-highest in the nation, capturing the impact of the state’s equity-focused funding formula for schools, known statewide as the Local Control Funding Formula.

These are just some of the findings of , a report from the Education Law Center, a national education advocacy organization that has been ranking states since 2019.

Many Californians have long complained about the state’s dismal ranking in public education funding. But it turns out that some of what is repeated is outdated. The report’s findings led EdSource to take a closer look at its data and what they can tell us about whether decisions California voters and policymakers have made are leading to better outcomes for all students.

California’s rise in student funding

California’s average per-student funding is $19,894, as of 2022-23. That California rose from 28th in per-student funding in 2021-22 to 13th in 2022-23, the latest year for which comparisons are available, reflects a unique set of circumstances: California rebounded quickly from a short Covid-19 recession, producing higher revenues led by high-tech stocks, while education spending in many states, still mired in the recession, declined.

Other factors helped boost California’s ranking. The state responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with about $30 billion in one-time funding over four years. That included billions of dollars for summer school, learning-loss recovery, the phase-in of transitional kindergarten, as well as money to hold districts financially harmless from chronic absences.

Yes, California is the most populous state and has vast riches. Still, no other state provided funding on this scale in the aftermath of Covid-19; it roughly matched California’s share of record-level federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief aid.

Even before the Covid-19 education funding bump, California’s per-student funding had been steadily increasing over the past dozen years, from when its ranking was near the bottom of states amid the Great Recession.

How bad was it then? In 2010-11, the Golden State ranked 50th, behind only Utah in spending, according to , which preceded the law center’s reporting using similar metrics.

Then, in 2012, threatened with further cuts to education, state voters approved a temporary income tax increase on the wealthiest Californians and renewed it in 2016. (In November, state voters will be asked to make the tax permanent.) California began to climb the per-student funding ranking: By 2017, it rose to 37th, just behind Kentucky, putting it close to Texas and Mississippi and lagging far behind Northeastern states, according to ELC’s first report in 2019.

Study shows California distributes its funding equitably

Comparing public school funding among states is complex. States’ tax structures, per-capita economic output and poverty rates differ, as do their funding formulas for assisting higher-poverty school districts.

A state’s average per-pupil funding tells only part of the story, particularly in California, where a district’s funding is tied, through the Local Control Funding Formula, to the proportion of low-income students, English learners and foster and homeless children. Districts in the bottom quintile receive nearly $6,000 less per enrolled student than the highest-funded districts in California in 2024-25.

In its report, in addition to looking at funding levels per student across states, the law center has looked at two other factors:

• Equity: how well funding is redistributed to low-income and high-needs districts
• Effort: how much a state makes education funding a priority relative to its capacity, measured by the percentage of state gross domestic product (GDP) spent on public education

Benefiting from rising overall per-pupil funding, California has moved to the forefront in efforts to distribute funds to districts where they are most needed. On the law center’s measurement of funding equity, California rose from 6th place to 2nd, behind only Utah. In 2017, it ranked 9th.

The funding distribution measure, said Education Law Center researcher Danielle Farrie, “is meant to show … if states provide greater funding in higher-poverty districts versus lower-poverty ones.”

California’s equity ranking increased steadily as it phased in the Local Control Funding Formula, enacted in 2013.

A greater funding advantage for lower-income districts yields a greater score. The law center’s report shows high-poverty school districts in California receiving 42% more funding than districts with the least poverty received an A ranking. In contrast, its neighbor to the north, Oregon, earned an F: its higher-poverty districts received 18% less funding than higher-income ones.

Some states have comparatively high funding, but are rated poorly on funding distribution. Illinois, for example, gets an “A” on per-pupil funding, ranking 8th among states, but a “D” on distribution, ranking 35th. Connecticut is the sharpest example of this pattern, near the top in per-pupil funding — but at the very bottom in funding equity, because districts’ funding relies on local property taxes, favoring high-property-value suburbs over poorer urban districts.

“Two things can be true: You can have an equitable funding formula on the books, but have inequitable funding,” said Farrie. Having a big investment in education “doesn’t mean that it’s distributed equally.”

Not a top state priority by ‘effort’ metric

Let’s look at “effort.”

California’s rise in the ranks for funding effort (the percentage of the state’s GDP going toward public school spending) is partly attributable to other states’ decline. Many states, according to Farrie, have “decided to cut income taxes and corporate taxes,” so that “effort is down because they’re not capitalizing on new economic activity.”

As California’s rank rose in “effort” from 35th nationally in 2016-17 to 20th in 2022-23, the percentage of GDP spent on public education in the state only increased from 3.08% to 3.23% during that time.

And unlike most states, California’s tax receipts soared from the boom in high-tech profits following the pandemic, and K-12 benefited.

Nonetheless, in the latest report, California ranks lower in per-student funding than some other states viewed as its peers, including those with large urban areas and a high cost of living. New York, for example, spent 4.4%, and Illinois spent 4.3% of their GDP on education. The Golden State did not rank as low as states toward the bottom, however, such as Texas with 2.6% and Florida with 2.1%, both getting an “F” grade, compared with California’s “C.”

As a relatively high-cost, , California’s 20th-place ranking in effort indicates a capacity to increase funding for K-12 education either by raising revenue or shifting spending priorities. Two key contrasting measures of education funding — teacher pay and the average number of students per teacher — underscore the limits of California’s funding.

Tops in teacher pay, but also tops in cost of living

During the past decade, as its per-student funding rose, California surpassed New York in paying teachers the highest salary: $101,084 in 2023-24 compared with New York’s $95,615 (unadjusted for inflation). California’s average starting teacher pay of $58,409 was the second-highest, according to the . The numbers exclude benefits, including state and local contributions to retirement and medical coverage, which add about a third to the average salary.

But higher educator salaries have been undermined by a spiraling cost of living in California that erodes the value of those pay increases. Adjusting teacher pay for the state’s cost of living, using a formula that factors in housing costs, shows an erosion of more than $10,000, larger than any other state, including New York.

Class sizes in California remain among the largest

Class sizes historically have been large in California. Although the ratio has improved in the past five years, California’s class size remains among the highest in the nation. Its teacher-student ratio is similar to states with much lower education spending — only Nevada, Utah and Arizona have a higher ratio — and California’s 2025 rate of 21 students per teacher is almost double New York’s teacher-student ratio of 11.

Paying teachers well to attract and retain them is a challenge in a high-cost state. Reducing class sizes to the national average in California would require a substantial increase in funding. New York manages to do both by spending $29,440 per student in 2022-23, the most in the nation and $10,000 more per student than California.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking to focus on teacher-led, high-dosage tutoring to meet the requirements of a settlement that requires LAUSD to provide 10 million hours of tutoring to 100,000 students over three years. 

Shaw et al. v. LAUSD et al. was filed during the Covid-19 pandemic, and  that only 60% of the district’s students participated in virtual instruction during the spring 2020 semester, and that virtual learning practices discriminated against Black and Latino students, as well as those from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. 

Per the settlement, LAUSD seeks to provide 45 hours of high-dosage tutoring each year to eligible students in small groups of three to five, who would receive intensive subject support. 

In keeping with the recent bargaining agreement with United Teachers Los Angeles, the district will first look to teachers to provide tutoring, relying on outside contractors as a backup. Currently, LAUSD works with 25 vendors to provide tutoring, according to the presentation. 

The district plans to spend $74 million in ELO-P (Expanded Learning Opportunities Program) funds in fiscal year 2027 to provide tutoring, according to a presentation from Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. 

“We know that teachers know their students best,” said board member Kelly Gonez at Tuesday’s meeting. “And so it would seem that this is a shared priority to ensure that there’s a high level of take up on the teacher-led model, and that we have enough teachers who volunteer to be able to implement it without needing additional vendor support.”

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School closures are an incendiary issue in nearly every corner of California, as enrollment declines and expenses climb. The topic has sparked parent revolts, teacher strikes and school boards’ desperate attempts to keep districts financially afloat.

And then there’s Orick.

The picturesque town in northern Humboldt County has a historic school with five classrooms, a gym, a vegetable garden and an expansive play field. Its current enrollment: nine. Its expenses: $118,000 per student per year, more than five times the state average. 

California has dozens of school districts with enrollments under 100 and higher-than-average expenses. Most of these districts are in remote areas miles from the next nearest school. But as urban districts grapple with the threat of school closures and the inevitable backlash from families and staff, rural schools face an even more heart-wrenching scenario: close the school and decimate the town.

“Close the school? It comes up all the time,” said Orick Elementary School District Superintendent Justin Wallace. “But I’d say it’s an equity issue. We have families who can’t afford a lot, and this school provides the most consistent setting for our kids. They’re safe, they’re well fed, they’re learning.”

Most of these rural towns once had booming local economies. Logging, ranching, farming, mining and other industries employed generations of families. In the 1960s Orick had 3,000 people and nearly 300 students in its school. There were seven lumber mills, grocery stores, restaurants, churches, even a movie theater. 

But as California’s economy changed and jobs in these towns vanished, many communities struggled to find a new purpose. In Orick, the lumber mills gradually closed, the National Park Service claimed much of the surrounding land and residents moved elsewhere. Now, Orick has about 300 people and an average household income that’s just under $39,000 a year — a third of the state average. According to Orick School’s , Orick residents “experience high rates of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, domestic violence, substance abuse, and run-ins with the criminal justice system due to limited resources and high community rates of intergenerational trauma.”

‘Terrified’ of closure

In towns like Orick, the school serves as a savior, of sorts. It’s a community hub, one of the few sources of decent-paying jobs and a symbol of hope for the future. It’s a central part of the town’s identity. The school in Orick operates as a food pantry for the community, gives away clothes to families in need, hosts Narcotics Anonymous meetings and runs a toddler playgroup. The district bought a washer and dryer so residents have a place to do laundry.

Kimberly Frick is the fifth generation in her family to attend Orick School. She remembers when the classrooms were full, students won trophies and the town was like a close-knit family. Now she’s president of the school board and fights to keep the school open. Saving the school, she said, is tantamount to saving the town. 

She and Wallace scour the area to find new students for the school. Every time a new family moves to town, they visit and try to persuade them to enroll their children. Other community members chip in, as well, by fixing up homes, keeping the town clean and participating in the volunteer fire department, water district and other local services.

“I feel terrified about the possibility of the school closing. I’d hate to see it happen on my watch,” Frick said. “The facility is clean, safe, well maintained. We provide a high-quality, individualized education for each child.”

Orick, whose name originates from the language of the nearby Yurok tribe, sits in a lush valley along Redwood Creek, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Ranges. A herd of about 60 elk roam through the town and are frequent visitors to the school play field. There’s a pizza truck, a small convenience store and a newly refurbished hotel. A rodeo draws crowds every July.

But much of the town is abandoned or dilapidated. A trailer park near the school is strewn with trash and broken furniture. Many of the buildings are boarded up. There’s no gas station. The post office is only open a few hours a day.

Budget breakdown

California funds its schools based on how many students show up every day. But small districts get most of their money in grants, in order to protect them from wild fluctuations in revenue. Last year Orick received $774,000 from the state and federal governments. The school gets extra money because so many of its students have high needs: all are low-income and more than half receive special education services. Some years, numerous students are homeless or in foster care.

Most of the budget goes toward salaries. The school has four full-time staff: two teachers, an administrative assistant and Wallace’s position, which includes serving as superintendent, principal, literacy coach and special education director. A janitor, cook, counselor, special education teacher and after-school teacher all work part time. Maintaining the school buildings is expensive: heating bills can cost $1,100 a month. So is transportation, because everything is far away. When the students take swim lessons, for example, a driver transports them 30 miles south to McKinleyville. Whatever funds are left over go toward student supplies and enrichment activities like field trips.

An obvious way for the state to save money would be to merge Orick School District with its neighbor, Big Lagoon Union Elementary District, 15 miles south. But the merged district would only save money on facility costs and one superintendent’s salary, totaling less than $200,000 a year, because the new merged school would have higher expenses, such as the cost of transporting students 30 miles round-trip every day. 

A merger would also alienate one of the communities, Wallace said. Both communities are highly invested in their schools and prize their independence and local control, he said. 

How to close a district

In the early 20th century, California had more than 3,500 school districts, each with its own school board, superintendent and unique traditions. To save money, the state gradually winnowed the number down to the 1,000 that exist today. But there are holdouts. Sonoma County, for example, has 40 school districts, some with only a handful of students.

“It’s one of the most common questions we get: Why do we have 40 school districts?” said Eric Wittmershaus, spokesman for the Sonoma County Office of Education. “Everyone in the community agrees it’s too many. The problem is that no one wants to close their school.”

California has a lax attitude toward closing under-enrolled schools. The state lets a district’s average daily attendance slip below six before it intervenes. In those cases, the county can request a temporary waiver, in hopes that enrollment increases, or start the process of consolidating the district with one of its neighbors. But consolidation rarely happens because local officials and voters have the ultimate say.

In 2011, the Legislative Analyst’s Office the minimum district size to 100, but the recommendation was never implemented. In fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s current budget includes a 20% boost in funding for schools that the state deems to be “,” which are elementary schools with fewer than 97 students – or high schools with fewer than 287 students – at least 10 miles from the nearest other school. 

Grand juries in and counties have recommended consolidating small districts to save money, but neither of those reports led to changes. 

Still, some experts say that financial realities may force the issue. Enrollment is declining nearly everywhere and it might not be the best use of taxpayer money to pay for half-empty classrooms and deserted playgrounds.

“Do we need to provide a school in every community? A post office? What if that community barely exists?” said Carrie Hahnel, senior associate partner at Bellwether, an education research nonprofit. “We guarantee a free public education to every child, but do we guarantee a school in every community?”

Now and then, districts will shutter. Last year, Green Point Elementary District, deep in the Klamath mountains, consolidated with a neighboring district when its enrollment fell to three (its per-pupil spending was $108,000 a year). In Sonoma County, Kashia Elementary District, with eight students last year, is at risk of closing next year.

Schools reclaimed by nature

Enrollment in Humboldt County has been declining steadily since at least the 1990s, and isn’t expected to rebound any time soon. A century ago the county had about 100 school districts, essentially one in every mill town, but as the mills closed the districts gradually closed, too.

Some of those towns — and their schools — have been swallowed up by the redwood forests. The old logging town of Falk, for example, had a school, mill, post office, dance hall and about 400 residents. After the mill closed, the town gradually emptied out and the Sierra Pacific lumber company, which owned the land, tore down whatever buildings were left in 1979. “Aside from the rose bushes and English ivy, the town of Falk has literally disappeared,” according to the county’s visitor guide. 

Michael Davies-Hughes, the county superintendent of schools, encourages small districts to plan ahead to avoid abrupt mid-year closures, which are disruptive to students, families and staff. 

“We want districts to be proactive, so they have options,” Davies-Hughes said. “For some, the current model may be increasingly difficult to maintain.”

Outdoor ed and Native traditions

In Orick, older students take a bus 40 minutes every day to attend high school in McKinleyville. Wallace and Frick said it’s unrealistic to put younger children on a bus for long distances, especially in bad weather. Humboldt County has long, dark, rainy winters, with roads often blocked by fallen trees, floods or mudslides.

Besides, Frick and Wallace said, Orick School does a great job educating its students, which is reason enough to keep it open. It has an exemplary outdoor education program, with students going on regular excursions into the nearby wilderness, learning about the local flora and fauna, the seasons and forest ecosystem. They raise trout and steelhead to be released in local waterways, test water quality in the creek and watch pollywogs turn into frogs in classroom terrariums. 

Wildlife is all around them. In addition to the elk, students can observe condors and falcons soaring overhead, deer and coyotes hanging around the field and even the occasional bear. Students learn to fish, camp, raft and surf.

About half the students are Native American, and the school offers a robust education in Native traditions and history. A Yurok volunteer comes regularly to teach Yurok culture through activities such collecting acorns and making mash, and extracting pine nuts from pinecones to make beads.

“I mean, come on, how many other schools are in such an incredible setting?” Frick said. “Orick is a great place to go to school.”

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Enrollment in California K-12 schools, and in schools across the country, is declining rapidly as birth rates drop and immigration rates fall. This school year, California had the largest decline in enrollment rates since 2021-22, after schools returned from the pandemic.

Enrollment in public schools declined by 1.3%, or by 74,961 students, according to data released Thursday by the California Department of Education. State public school enrollment is now at 5.7 million students.

The biggest declines were in private schools, with a 6.6% drop in enrollment, and home schools, with a 3.7% decline, according to state officials. Traditional public school enrollment dropped 1.4% and charter public school enrollment fell by 0.3%.

State officials attribute the enrollment dip to an ongoing decline in birth rates and immigration losses.

The California Department of Finance, which makes demographic projections for the state, estimated last October that enrollment would decline by only 10,000 students, or about 0.2%.

Districts are shoring up enrollment losses with cuts

California funds schools based on average daily attendance. The new enrollment figures may not surprise district leaders, who have the staff to track births, housing projections and other factors, but smaller districts may have to redo attendance-based revenue projections for the coming years, said Kenneth Kapphahn, principal fiscal analyst for the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. 

The impact on schools is real and immediate, said Kindra Britt, communications director for California County Superintendents. 

“That translates directly into budget deficits, staff layoffs, program cuts, and in some cases, school closures,” Britt said.

The continuing trend of declining enrollment is a new reality the state must adapt to, said Troy Flint, chief information officer for the California School Boards Association. Even when enrollment declines, costs to operate the school remain the same, he said. 

The decline in enrollment statewide will not affect overall TK-12 state funding, which will continue to be about 40% of the state’s general fund, and is projected to rise significantly in 2025-26.

Declining enrollment is a national problem

Nationwide K-12 school enrollment has declined by 2.3% or 1.18 million students over the past five years, according to the . National projections predict that the country will lose another 2.7 million students by 2031.

All 39 states that released enrollment data for this school year have experienced a decline, said Elizabeth Sanders, director of communications and public relations for the CDE. About half of the states had larger enrollment losses than California.

Half the enrollment loss in the state is in L.A. County

Los Angeles County lost 32,953 students, more than half from the Los Angeles Unified School District. The 2.6% decline in county enrollment accounted for 43% of the state’s loss.  

The number of LAUSD has dropped over the past two years after reaching a peak of 5% of the student population in 2023-24. Newcomer students are generally defined as students with limited English proficiency who have attended a U.S. school for three years or less.

LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who is on administrative leave, has blamed the decline on “a climate of fear and instability created by the ongoing immigration crackdowns,” according to the  

Declining enrollment was one of the main reasons for the budget deficits that led Los Angeles Unified to issue 3,200 layoff notices in February, according to district officials. The layoffs are expected to actually result in 650 job losses.

The number of Hispanic students has dropped

Hispanic students, who make up 56% of California’s student population, had the biggest loss in student enrollment, but not the largest percentage. The number of Hispanic students dropped by 48,064 or 1.48%, while the number of white students dropped by 31,076, or 2.68%.

The number of English learners also dropped by 8.2%, although the decline could be attributed, in part, to students being reclassified as proficient in English.

“We surmise that a portion of the enrollment loss is driven by current immigration enforcement activities; how long and to what extent that will continue is the crux of that question,” said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of external affairs for the California Department of Finance.

Immigrant families have been afraid to send their students to school, said Martha Hernandez, executive director of  a coalition of 40 organizations focused on the educational success of English learners.

School staff have tried to assure families that it is safe for their children to go to school, but some families have opted to self-deport or simply leave the state or region for a safer place, she said. 

Immigration losses are likely to have continued to have an impact on school enrollment. Immigration to the state declined from 312,761 to 109,278 between 2024 and 2025, according to the .

Charter school skews Sacramento numbers

Sacramento County had a 9,744 drop in enrollment in its schools overall, a decline of 3.8%; while Orange County had 7,518, Santa Clara 4,198, San Diego 4,190, San Bernardino 2,543 and Ventura County 2,345 fewer students than last year.

Despite Sacramento’s ranking as the county with the second-largest loss in enrollment, two of its districts were listed as having some of the highest enrollment gains. Elk Grove Unified grew by 1,097 students, or 1.7% — making it the district with the largest enrollment gain in the state. Folsom Cordova Unified gained 537 students, an increase of 2.5%. 

The disparity in Sacramento County seems to be the result of a large enrollment dip in Twin Rivers Unified, which lost 12,300 students the same year  and Technical Schools laid off teachers and staff following a state audit that found it did not have enough teachers with the proper credentials.  

Regions with lower costs grew

The counties with the largest gains in enrollment this year are in Northern California and the Central Valley.

“There are counties and regions in California where there’s actually a sharp increase in school enrollment, and we’re seeing a direct correlation there between economies that are livable for families and where students are enrolling in school,” Sanders said. “And then of the students who remain, those families are moving to areas that are more affordable for them to live.”

The seven counties with the largest increases in enrollment are San Joaquin County, 842; Placer County, 841; Sutter County, 802; Butte County, 200; San Benito County, 146; Glenn County, 82; and Yuba County, 58.

More kids are attending transitional kindergarten

The drop in enrollment was offset somewhat by a 20.1% increase in students attending transitional kindergarten, after the state fully implemented enrollment for all 4-year-old students this school year. An additional 36,000 children were enrolled in transitional kindergarten this year, bringing the total to 213,313.

There was a 16% increase in the percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged families that enrolled their children in the state’s transitional kindergarten program. There were also almost 20% more students with disabilities and almost 11% more homeless students in transitional kindergarten this year than last year.

There were fewer English learners listed in transitional kindergarten as a result of , which exempted transitional kindergarten students from taking the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California (ELPAC).

EdSource reporter Betty Márquez Rosales contributed to this report.

After taking a break from social media, Orange County student Elise Choi helped write a bill that would mandate California schools teach digital wellness — a response to growing concerns about how technology is affecting students’ mental health.

Assembly Bill 2071 would require California schools to include digital wellness in health classes, teaching students how social media and AI affect their mental health and behavior. Supporters say the bill focuses not on limiting access, but on teaching students how to use technology responsibly. 

Elise, a junior at the Orange County School of the Arts and a member of the student coalition, GenUp, said a bill that serves students — not simply alleviates parent anxieties — has been long overdue. 

“It’s powerful to have students at the center of policy change when it comes to education legislation,” Elise said. “It’s important because we are the ultimate stakeholders, and these issues affect us and our future.”

The bill follows landmark court verdicts that found social media companies Meta and Google liable for designing “addictive” features and endangering children online. Elise said it also responds to what experts describe as a growing , fueled in part by  about social media use. 

If the bill is passed, the California Department of Education must develop by January 2028 a plan to teach students about topics such as healthy screen habits, algorithms and AI and safe interactions on social media. The proposal passed a committee hearing last week and is expected to pass in the Legislature with bipartisan support. 

State Assemblymember Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, who introduced the bill in the Legislature, said the idea of digital wellness instruction was born out of student pushback against the Phone Free Schools Act, which would require all public school districts to create policies to ban or prohibit mobile phone use starting in July. 

“Now, students are realizing how much the screen time and the social media use really does impact their well-being,” Hoover said. “And they’re actually getting excited about making changes and helping their peers actually improve their health as well.”

Where cellphone bans fall short

For many digital wellness advocates like Kelly Mendoza, a senior education leader at Media Education Lab who served as an expert consultant on the bill, digital wellness education picks up where California schools’ cellphone bans fall short. 

“Phone-free schools can reduce screen time or potentially reduce behavioral issues that can happen at school, but that doesn’t teach students healthy media use, decision-making and self-regulation,” Mendoza said. “Students are still not offered the opportunity to learn these skills in school in a structured and valuable way.”

Mendoza said she regularly sees students who are cyberbullied, experience depression and suicidal thoughts, are unhealthily attached to social media or struggle with loneliness in her work at a phone-free high school. A digital wellness course, she said, would teach students that they have control over their relationship to their phones.

Students would learn practical skills such as adjusting account settings, disabling notifications and managing algorithms to limit harmful or addictive content. They would also work through scenarios such as cyberbullying, body image pressure and misinformation to develop healthier behaviors online.   

Elise said she would like the curriculum to include families, particularly those from low-income and under-resourced communities. She recently attended a digital wellness workshop at a private school in San Diego, where parents and students learned to create a screen time agreement.

“Digital wellness instruction is very inconsistent, and it depends a lot on the resources of the school,” Elise said. “I also envision digital wellness to be an equitable subject that hopefully all students can have access to.”

Social media can be ‘good’ but ‘inescapable’ 

Elise said social media also served as an essential “tool” for building connections after she switched to a different high school. She met students online who had launched social impact clubs and helped her sister recruit volunteers to teach dance classes for people with disabilities. 

“We’re not anti-tech,” Elise said. “We’re for education, and we have to be balanced with technology, because it can be good and also inescapable.”

Elise said she met with representatives from Google last week, who she said generally supported “the course of safety (for) children and youth online” and expressed support for the bill. 

Hoover, however, emphasized that the bill is not meant to shield social media companies from regulation.  

“We cannot count on these companies to police themselves when it comes to child safety, so it’s important that we’re educating students, but also putting the right rules and regulations in place,” he said.

Hoover has introduced additional bills to regulate children’s use of social media, including one that would prohibit children under 16 from creating social media accounts — similar to Australia’s blanket ban — and another that would establish an e-safety commission to enforce age compliance. 

“Tech companies have a responsibility to be regulated to make sure that they’re not entrapping kids into a very addictive technology,” Hoover said.

Mendoza, a parent of a teenager, said her daughter uses social media to share and receive feedback on her art, where she has connected with a community of artists. She said the course could also teach students how to reap the “rewards and opportunities” of social media. 

The course would examine “What are the healthy communities that you connect to that are really fostering your growth and your development as a person? And how can you change your algorithm to connect more with those things?” Mendoza said. 

Before she got her first phone, Elise said she spent her time solving Rubik’s cubes, baking and reading. She said she is now spending time on those hobbies when she gets home from school. 

“The cellphone ban only gets us halfway — it doesn’t change our relationship with our devices,” Elise said. “We need to teach kids and give us skills for what happens when we get our phones back at the end of the day.”

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

A nonprofit organization created by the California State Library to improve childhood literacy has spent more than $1 million in taxpayer money but has yet to put a single book in the hands of a child.

Lawmakers grilled State Librarian Greg Lucas and other officials about the organization’s spending in , with one lawmaker saying it raises “serious questions.”

Lucas, however, blamed the shortcomings on the fact that legislators themselves pulled the organization’s funding prematurely. After the hearing, he told CalMatters in a statement that “every taxpayer dollar spent on this program is fully accounted for.”

In total, lawmakers allocated $70 million in 2022 to improve children’s love of reading with the intent of giving some of the money to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and some of it to a local organization.

The California-based Strong Reader Partnership was formed by the state library as the local partner, and it was originally set to receive $19 million. But in 2024, with very little of the money spent, lawmakers redirected the money to the Dollywood Foundation, which oversees Parton’s Imagination Library. Ultimately, the project has been able to meet many of its goals, the Dollywood Foundation this year. In all, it has served more than 160,000 children in California and distributed  nearly 3 million books. The foundation is administering the program but not donating any money toward the project.

Although the $1 million spent by the Strong Reader Partnership is small, relative to the total project budget, Sen. , a Pasadena Democrat, and Sen. , a Bakersfield Republican, said in the hearing that it’s their job to ensure it was still spent correctly, especially since the money was designated for children.

In the hearing, Pérez and Grove questioned the Strong Reader Partnership’s finances, repeatedly stating that its accounting practices and business activities were ineffective, negligent or potentially in violation of its state contract. Grove pressed Lucas about why he created a separate nonprofit instead of giving the money directly to the Dollywood Foundation, even though she herself required the state library to do so.

In 2022 Grove authored that created the program. The bill required “the State Librarian to coordinate with a nonprofit entity, as specified, that is organized solely to promote and encourage reading by the children of the state.” The Dollywood Foundation, which is national and based in Tennessee, was not eligible to be that nonprofit entity.

When CalMatters asked Grove why she is criticizing the state library’s formation of a nonprofit when her bill required it, she responded by email but didn’t answer the question. Instead, she reiterated her criticisms of the Strong Reader Partnership, saying that its money was “squandered away without putting books in kids’ hands.”

Letters to lawmakers

State lawmakers first questioned the Imagination Library project in 2024, when budget officials, faced with closing a nearly $50 billion , told lawmakers that most of the money for the program remained unspent nearly two years after its launch. That year, the governor keeping the money intact but requiring 90% of it go directly to the Dollywood Foundation instead of the Strong Reader Partnership or any local nonprofit. The foundation did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about its relationship with the Strong Reader Partnership.

Sonya Harris, executive director of the Strong Reader Partnership at the time, that 2024 bill and said she sent letters to legislators opposing it.

Lawmakers said speaking about the bill was a violation of her contract. “You’re attempting to influence legislation when it’s explicitly stated that you are not supposed to use state taxpayer dollars to do so. Do you agree?” asked Pérez during the April 7 hearing. Harris didn’t answer the question.

Also during the hearing, Pérez repeatedly questioned the organization’s financial management, referencing instances when checks bounced, reports were not completed or documents arrived months after lawmakers had requested them. “As far as I can see here, there (were) no local partnerships that you all established in order to facilitate this program over a two-year period,” she said. “We are not able to understand what you did with these dollars and that’s the whole purpose of this hearing.”

Contracting with nonprofits comes with risks

The roughly $1 million in state funds that went to the Strong Reader Partnership is  less than a thousandth of 1% of the state’s  total spending, but that’s not the point, Pérez said

“Comments have been made about the amount of money that this is, and that it might be small relative to the budget,” she said before closing out the hearing. “But for me, as a public servant, I take this very seriously. We need to ensure that when we’re making a commitment to provide something as simple as books to children, that we’re actually delivering on that commitment.”

State and local lawmakers routinely sign contracts and grant money to businesses, including many nonprofit organizations, to enact public services or programs. In the process, taxpayers “lose transparency,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association, a group that opposes higher taxes. “Why is the state government or the local government turning them over to nonprofits instead of having their massive bureaucracies handle these things where someone is accountable?”

Shelley said the responsibility lies both with the nonprofits and the Legislature, especially in this instance, because Grove’s bill required the California State Library to work with a local nonprofit.

Normally, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association is strongly aligned with Grove. Last year, the organization gave her based on her voting record on tax-related issues.

This article was and was republished under the license.

Sergio Garcia is quick to the scene. He puts on a scuffed firefighter jacket, grabs an oxygen mask and crouches down on hot concrete to start chest compressions on a dummy body. 

At the Los Angeles Unified School District’s career technical education showcase, under an outdoor canopy in blistering Southern California heat, the fire academy student demonstrates CPR to other students who might also be interested in joining. 

Sergio represents one of 23 high schools and six middle schools that showcased a range of career technical education at L.A. Unified, including 15 comprehensive three- or four-year programs that prepare students for industries through real-world experience. The showcase, held last month at the , a private health equity foundation, featured student projects, live demonstrations and skill-based challenges, is part of the district’s “Dream It, Achieve It!” initiative that pairs students with local industry leaders.

“With my degree, I’d rather know I’m going to help people,” said Sergio, a senior and fourth-year deputy chief at the fire academy at Banning High School who is on track to earn a fire science degree at a technical college. “Although it is very physically demanding, the fact that you’re doing good in this world is a bigger gift than anyone could ever ask for.”

Building technical and team-building skills 

At another canopy at the showcase, students cheered a remote-controlled battle of two robots, vying for the prize of a 3D-printed bot, while Madelynne Arevalo helped set up a mini flight simulator. Madelynne, a senior at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, is in the robotics program and is designing a rocket launch for her aerospace engineering project.

“We also compete with other high schools, and the competitions are really fun,” Madelynne said. “I’m really proud of all the models (we made), even if they’re not the final ones we end up using.”

Madelynne remembers designing an elevator system in a robot she worked on for a competition. Although she and her team chose a more time-efficient robot for the event, she said she learned how to develop new technical and team-building skills in a high-stakes environment. 

“It was a lot of our own ideas and a lot of collaboration,” Madelynne said, “and I thought that even if it doesn’t work, at least the process was nice.”

In recent years, L.A. Unified has significantly expanded career technical education to about 435 pathways, from engineering and technology to business and construction, serving nearly 40,000 students. About 1,000 students completed internships in the 2024-2025 school year, and CTE programs have about a 97% graduation rate. 

“CTE careers are the fastest growing careers in the United States, more than students going to a four-year university,” said Jaime Medina, a firefighter and teacher in L.A. Unified’s firefighting program. 

Israel Urbina, a junior at Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles, is a third-year student in the photojournalism program. At the showcase, he displayed a photo in which he manipulated light to create different designs, objects and shapes, including one that spelled out his name. 

“Right now, my thing in photography is light painting,” Israel said. “I did a video about it in my photography class, and it’s about all my light paintings and the different ones I’ve done and the different people I’ve done it with.”

Ken Kerbs, a photojournalism teacher at the school, described Israel as nearly an “expert” on light painting. Through years of honing techniques related to perspective, reflections, texture, light and shadow, Kerbs said most of his students leave the program with greater curiosity about the world and a sharper eye for detail. 

“What that says to me is that teaching them the basics is to be sensitive and have a different sensibility about their environment,” Kerbs said. “That’s what makes me come to school in the morning.”

Blessed Thomas-Hill, a senior at Washington Prep, worked with Israel on a film about light painting and wrote poetry for the film’s narrative. She said she chose the photojournalism program because of Kerbs, who helped teach her to be more comfortable expressing herself.  

“I’m an introvert, and talking with people, I really struggle with that a lot,” Blessed said. “I got to know a lot of great friends this year. I’ve got to get closer to more people. It’s made me more sociable.” 

Students ‘rise to the occasion’ 

Blessed said she wants to be an artist and plans to incorporate photography in her personal art. She remembers a field trip to Cal State Northridge, where she learned about a photographer’s protest of immigration raids through his photos of L.A. communities, which inspired her to commit to art. 

“It’s really inspiring in a way because it shows that you’re not just alone in your community,” Blessed said. 

Madelynne said she plans to continue studying robotics and will pursue a college degree in biomedical engineering. Because she had not committed to robotics until her senior year, she felt she was behind many students who had started coding in middle school. 

“At first, I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t think I was smart enough to do something as complicated as engineering,” Madelynne said, adding that the robotics program led her to Girls Build, a club where girls learn to code and build machines together. 

“Spreading the positivity around has helped me believe more in myself,” she said. 

Sergio, the Banning High fire academy student, said he initially struggled with how physically demanding his training was, but that he learned to build speed and strength with each simulated fire alarm drill. 

“I’ve also learned that when it comes to rising to an occasion, I rise to that occasion. Whether it be someone’s in trouble, I help protect people,”  he said. “This academy has brought out leadership in me, the discipline, the social skills that I wouldn’t have learned any other way.” 

Sergio said he also plans to become certified as a diesel mechanic, because the firefighting program has allowed him to combine two of his interests.  

“I love the whole firefighting part, but I’ve also always loved working on cars. I figured if I’m going to be a mechanic, I might as well do it for a better cause,” Sergio said. “Working on fire engines, so when those firefighters go out and save those lives, I can say I helped with that.”

This story was originally published on EdSource.

Sacramento City Unified and La Mesa-Spring Valley school districts and Taft College in California are among six educational institutions in the U.S. that had civil rights settlements terminated by the U.S. Department of Education on Monday, according to the 

The agreements, negotiated by previous administrations, were meant to uphold protections for transgender students. Now that they have been terminated, the colleges and school districts are no longer obligated to continue measures such as faculty training or allowing students to use the bathrooms, names or pronouns that align with their gender identity, the Associated Press reported.

The termination of the agreements is an effort to enforce President Donald Trump’s executive order that the government recognize only a person’s sex assigned at birth. 

In Sacramento City Unified, that means the district will no longer have to abide by a 2024 settlement that requires it to provide training on Title IX policies to school administrators, teachers guidance counselors and school resource officers, according to the  

The settlement stems from a 2022 complaint by a transgender student who said a teacher refused to use his preferred pronouns and that an administrator also referred to him incorrectly. The Office for Civil Rights, under the Biden administration, agreed with the student and directed the school district to take corrective measures, according to The Bee.

Sacramento City Unified said Monday it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”

The district won’t decide whether to rescind the policies until it learns whether it will impact its federal funding, according to The Bee. The district faces a $170 million budget deficit and threats of state takeover.

La Mesa-Spring Valley Unified Superintendent David Feliciano told the  that the decision would have no effect on district policies and procedures.

“We remain committed to ensuring a safe and supportive learning environment for all students,” he said.

Embarking on a treasure hunt for the art and artifacts held by the Los Angeles Unified School District is no small feat. 

The nation’s second-largest school district is home to 389,000 students and roughly 100,000 pieces of art, including paintings, sculptures, maps and murals.

The art can be found in schools and district buildings across the district’s over 700-square-mile terrain. It is part of its Art & Artifact Collection, which began sometime in the 1850s and morphed into a multi-million-dollar collection today.

Sure, the collection holds school records — classroom materials, photos, yearbooks. But it also has ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets dating back to 2100 BCE. Sculptures of “Don Quixote” by Salvador Dalí from 1979. A 1931 “Bugs Bunny & Friends” by the animator Chuck Jones shows Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and The Road Runner reading a book entitled “History of the 9th St. School.”

The collection predates the official formation of LAUSD in 1961. The city was served by the Los Angeles City School District and the Los Angeles City High School District, which later . Most of LAUSD’s notable pieces are donations from alumni, former administrators and members of the larger Los Angeles community. A 2008 appraisal estimated the value was more than $12 million, according to a 2022 district document obtained by EdSource.

“LAUSD history is Los Angeles history,” said Cintia Romero, the archive and museum’s curator and archivist. “We have all the people here; we have all kinds of buildings; we have all kinds of architecture; we have all kinds of cultures.” 

It is rare for school districts to hold on to such artifacts, says Brenda Gunn, the president-elect of the Society of American Archivists.

“I don’t think it’s very common at all,” Gunn said. “I think what typically happens is that the school districts don’t really invest in any sort of preservation. It’s not often that a school district has an archivist, and if they do have any preservation efforts, it’s usually by a nonprofessional.” 

Treasures at school sites 

School officials also collect items unearthed at school sites during renovations — such as old fire alarms — as well as yearbooks and photographs that document LAUSD history. Los Angeles Unified says it maintains “professional standards for archival care and are intended to ensure that important pieces of the district’s history are maintained for future generations.” 

“School district records are like a continuous public diary of shifts in neighborhoods, how the school district has approached its curriculum, how did it manage desegregation or any big social and cultural events,” Gunn said. She added that some might also be interested in viewing them for something more personal, like understanding family genealogy. 

There’s little the LAUSD archive turns down. The main criteria is whether the art can serve in an educational capacity or as a teaching aide, Romero said. While LAUSD does sometimes loan pieces out to other institutions, it is “not in the business of buying or selling artwork.” And sometimes, she said, selling wouldn’t be in the “spirit of the donors,” some of whom were the original artists. 

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be valuable to be accepted. It can be a teaching aid,” Romero said. “So, everything kind of has value, really. Everything can be somewhere.”

And it is. 

The “X” on LAUSD’s treasure map sits in a warehouse at the school police headquarters in rows of boxes that house a large portion of the collection. That includes the district’s  collection donated by Venice High School’s historic Latin Museum, which operated from 1932 to 1997, and is now defunct.

In a small museum at the LAUSD headquarters on S. ​​Boundary Avenue, there is a display mimicking a late 19th-century classroom. 

In the “classroom” are wooden phonics teaching tools with scrolling letters, antique maps and silver-colored vessels once used during home economics classes. 

The classroom has a list of “Rules for Teachers 1872” that sits on the front desk: bring “a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session,” take “one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they attend church regularly.” 

Preservation at schools 

But it is among the modern-day classrooms with digital tablets and smart boards where the rest of the treasure lies:

Typically, in most school districts, items just end up sitting idly by for years, succumbing to what archivists call “benign neglect,” Gunn said.   

“There are all kinds of places that this archival material will end up,” Gunn said. “And staff are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to throw this away, but it can’t be in my office, so I’m going to store it somewhere,’ and then it stays there until the next person.”

For Gunn, the hope is that school officials may take the extra step to preserve art, documents and history. Leaving something in a storage closet or in a box and walking away is not enough, she says.

“You’re not hurting anything. You’re certainly not throwing things away, but you’re not helping this; you’re not improving the situation of the records,” Gunn said. “But, what you hope is that someone down the road will see them, open that door and say, ‘Oh, these are valuable. And, if we can’t keep them here, then maybe there is another archive that will take them.’”

In the case of the LAUSD archive, there have been several thefts, including a painting at Dorsey High School. Romero said that while there aren’t many details of the painting, the president of the school’s alumni association has since found it, and traded $25,000 worth of posters and plans to leave it to LAUSD. 

Today, the district maintains that school security procedures, including key access, protect the pieces. 

Ensuring public access

While LAUSD students might enjoy little treasures displayed on their school walls and in hallway display cases, it’s more challenging for members of the public to view items in the collection. 

In the 1980s, a formal inventory of art was curated. And in 2004, the collection was digitized, Romero said.

So, since 2018, Romero and her small staff — made up of a volunteer and a small cohort of interns from Cal State Northridge and LAUSD’s Downtown Business Magnet school — continued to digitize items and add them to a public , which can be viewed for free. 

This process of digitizing the archive is largely made possible by donations and grants, though Romero’s position is funded through LAUSD’s general fund, according to the district. 

But curating the collection isn’t just about LAUSD’s or Los Angeles’s past. It’s also about the future. 

Romero and her team also keep tabs on ongoing renovation projects at school sites that could reveal new additions. 

“We have so many schools, and each school has something,” Romero said. “Every school has some kind of history.”

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

A Southern California school district agreed to sweeping reforms Friday in settling a state attorney general investigation into how it handled allegations staff sexually abused students.

The with the El Monte Union High School District draws to a close an 18-month investigation, which found “systemic shortfalls in the district’s response to allegations and complaints of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse of students.” The investigation was spurred by a 2023 article in Business Insider, , which documented decades of sexual misconduct by teachers, coaches and other staff at one of the district’s schools, Rosemead High, ranging from sexual harassment and groping to statutory rape.

“Every child deserves to learn and grow in a safe and supportive school environment. Unfortunately, our investigation found that this has not always been the case for students enrolled in El Monte Union High School District,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said. District administrators, he added, “consistently mishandled students’ complaints of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse by District employees and others. In doing so, it jeopardized the safety and well-being of its students and violated the community’s trust. Today’s settlement marks a beginning, not an end. I am hopeful that the District will move swiftly to implement the reforms required by this settlement, and my office will be monitoring closely to ensure its compliance.”

In an emailed statement, El Monte Superintendent Edward Zuniga said that “student safety and well-being remain our highest priorities. This agreement reflects our continued commitment to strengthening systems that support safe, inclusive, and respectful learning environments.”

Reforms mandated after investigation

Among other changes, the stipulated judgment requires the district to designate a compliance coordinator to investigate complaints of sexual harassment or abuse and creates a centralized system to store documents related to investigations. It also requires the district to maintain a list of substitute teachers found to have violated the district’s employee policy on appropriate boundaries with students. The agreement requires the district to establish an advisory committee to study its compliance with the reforms and make additional recommendations, and to provide students and parents with training for how to recognize the signs of grooming — curriculum that Rosemead students have fought to have implemented for the past four years.

The agreement is a rare instance of state law enforcement taking an active role in a K-12 school district’s compliance with California education code and mandated reporting laws. The only other agreement like it was with the Redlands Unified School District, following sexual abuse and misconduct allegations that in legal settlements. In El Monte’s case, announced Friday by Bonta at a press conference in Los Angeles, the judgment requires four years of court-supervised oversight, and includes sweeping reforms in how the district handles serious misconduct allegations.

In an interview with CalMatters, Bonta said that his office was focused on trying to establish best practices for school districts across the state in how to address sexual misconduct allegations when they surface. “I don’t think this will be the last case of this type, unfortunately,” Bonta said, adding that his staff would conduct unannounced site visits of the district in the months ahead to ensure compliance with the settlement. “We think we’ve arrived at a model that can really help districts that have failed systemically, transform.”

Attorneys in the justice department’s Bureau of Children’s Justice conducted the investigation, which focused on the district’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations against school staff since 2018. It included a review of more than 100 complaints, thousands of pages of documents, and interviews with more than two dozen employees, former students and others. The investigation found that district officials had failed to properly respond to complaints, provide adequate reporting procedures and adequately maintain records of misconduct allegations.

The findings mirror those first identified by Business Insider, which sued the school district for not releasing records under the California Public Records Act. , with district administrators agreeing to conduct new searches for records and pay $125,000 in legal fees. The district’s head of human resources, Robin Torres, said in a deposition that her office had discarded disciplinary records it was legally obligated to keep. She acknowledged that her predecessors had failed to properly investigate allegations that staff had sexually harassed students or had sex with former students soon after they graduated.

Years of sex abuse allegations

The stipulated judgment is the latest fallout from generations of Rosemead High students coming forward to share their stories of being preyed upon and groomed for sexual relationships at school. The LA Sheriff’s Department into at least three former staffers, while students and several teachers resigned following district investigations. At least five civil lawsuits .  Many were represented by attorneys Dominique Boubion and Michael Carrillo, who previously brought a case against the district that resulted in a $5 million verdict in favor of a former student who said she was abused by a teacher after he was accused of fondling children.

“The attorney general’s intervention confirms what survivors have been saying for years: EMUHSD failed its students,” Boubion told CalMatters. “This was not an isolated breakdown. It was a longstanding failure to protect children, and it stretches back decades. The district should stop resisting and start complying. Students have the right to be safe at school.”

A new state law, the , took effect earlier this year and gives school officials more tools to identify suspected misconduct. State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat from Alhambra whose district includes Rosemead High, authored .

Among other reforms, the law establishes the creation of a non-public database of alleged staff misconduct that administrators are required to consult before hiring new employees. Similar databases already exist in other states as part of a growing nationwide effort to prohibit instances of “pass the trash,” where educators accused of sexual misconduct leave a school district only to return to the classroom elsewhere. This happened numerous times in the El Monte district.

Perez called the settlement a “significant step toward ending the pervasive sexual misconduct that has harmed so many students in the El Monte Unified School District. Today’s agreement stems from the work of former Rosemead High School students who bravely shared their stories of harassment, assault, and abuse.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

Unacceptably high numbers of students are testing below state standards, 50% in reading and more than 60% in math, according to state assessment data from the California Department of Education. Chronic absenteeism, while improving from pandemic peaks, remains well above pre-2020 levels in many districts. At the same time, school systems continue to teacher shortages and high early-career attrition.

Federal relief funds temporarily expanded tutoring and student support programs. But those dollars have largely expired. District leaders are now tasked with advancing academic recovery while operating in a far more constrained fiscal environment.

The question facing policymakers and superintendents is not whether students need more support. It is how to provide that support sustainably, without further overburdening teachers and budgets.

One statewide model offers an effective answer: the .

The network is a coalition of 14 AmeriCorps programs operating in more than 30 communities, from Sacramento to San Diego and Fresno to El Centro, with a presence at more than 200 schools and youth programs. The network recruits, trains and places full- and part-time student success coaches directly in K–12 public schools.

These coaches are near-peer mentors and tutors. They’re typically recent high school or college graduates between the ages of 18 and 25 exploring careers in education and youth development or simply looking for what’s next in their lives.

Applicants are recruited locally and through higher education collaborations such as California Community Colleges. They undergo screening, interviews and background checks consistent with AmeriCorps requirements. Before entering schools, they receive training in tutoring strategies, relationship-building and student engagement.

Unlike short-term volunteers, the coaches are embedded on campus to become a part of the school community, not just a periodic guest. During their time of service, typically a full school year, they provide targeted, evidence-based support aligned with school priorities directly in the classroom. That can include one-on-one and small-group tutoring,. attendance support and family communication support, academic mentoring and goal setting and social-emotional skill reinforcement.

Coaches can be directed to provide priority support to students who are identified by school staff based on academic performance, attendance patterns or other indicators.

This model is built upon a strong body of research demonstrating that high-impact tutoring and consistent mentoring relationships can improve engagement and accelerate academic gains. A landmark meta-analysis of found that tutoring is one of the “most versatile and potentially transformative educational tools” for substantial learning gains across grade levels.

Of course, coaches do not replace teachers, but they vitally extend classroom capacity, augment the learning environment and allow teachers to focus on core instruction. 

While AmeriCorps programs like this have existed for decades, the Student Success Coach Learning Network was created with intent to make a larger impact through the power of collaboration, information and resource sharing, and advocacy. The metrics support the efficacy of the efforts.

Across participating SSCLN programs in the 2023 and 2024 school years:

• 73% of students supported by Student Success Coaches improved their semester grades.
• 77% improved their grades over the full academic year.
• 95% of students served graduated from high school, compared with California’s statewide graduation rate of 87%.

Additionally, organizations within the network reported positive improvements in strengthening attendance efforts including reduced absenteeism and increased days attended, with two specific organizations showing an average 56% improvement in attendance-related measures. 

These results are consistent with national findings. A nationally representative survey of K–12 principals conducted by the at Johns Hopkins University found that schools providing people-powered, evidence-based supports such as tutoring report measurable improvements in attendance and academic engagement.

For district leaders, the takeaway is straightforward: Additional trained adults embedded daily in schools help students stay on track.

Roughly 36% of student success coaches through this network pursue careers in education following their service year. A year spent working alongside teachers, students and families provides hands-on experience, professional mentorship and a bridge into teaching with a realistic view of classroom life.

This matters in a state where teacher shortages remain particularly acute in some communities.

The workforce implications extend beyond education. Research from , analyzing millions of job postings, found that seven of the 10 most in-demand skills are “durable skills,” including communication, teamwork, empathy and adaptability. Coaches practice these competencies daily as they collaborate with educators, communicate with families, and navigate complex student needs. In that sense, the model addresses two policy priorities simultaneously: student recovery and American workforce development overall.

Because AmeriCorps members receive a living allowance and a help paying off student loans or graduate school tuition through state and federal investment, districts can expand student support capacity with modest local contributions.

This structure offers flexibility as districts add educator capacity without committing to permanent staff positions that may be difficult to sustain during budget downturns. That can extend classroom capacity for students and strengthen a pipeline of future educators.

The impact is people helping people. Young adults are choosing to serve in support of students who might have looked a lot like them just a few short years earlier. They are supporting a teacher who may just need that extra hand and energy they gain through teamwork. And students gain access to a personal mentor whose support may just change their education trajectory. 

As California looks ahead to future budget cycles and leadership transitions, the question is not whether the state can afford to invest in coordinated, people-powered student supports.

It is whether it can afford not to.

But just because we’re always worrying doesn’t mean that we’re always wrong. Children today are struggling with their mental health — struggling to maintain a semblance of hope about the future they’re inheriting. — report feeling so discouraged that it interferes with their daily lives. 

This youth mental health crisis has been with us for a moment. In 2018, in response to the horrifying Parkland, Florida, school shooting, President Donald Trump’s using federal School Safety funding for investments to “expand the pipeline of school-based mental health services providers.” The ensuing began in 2019, near the end of Trump’s first term. 

And yet, despite the issue’s ongoing urgency, the second Trump administration . Among the schools that felt that loss was the Multicultural Learning Center, a public charter school on the outskirts of Los Angeles County. As the administration’s decision works its way through the courts, it’s worth considering what might be lost if we stop investing in supporting children’s mental health. 

A $4.6M grant for students’ well-being

Winter is sunny in Canoga Park, where the Multicultural Learning Center’s campus is cloudless, ice-free and pushing 70 degrees. The air’s crisp on a dry December Thursday in the school’s courtyard garden, which hosts a series of green, thriving native plants and a sign that outlines the school’s goals for its learners: “Caring, Respectful, Responsible, Safe, Tolerant.” 

The dual language immersion charter school opened in after California voters approved a statewide mandate largely banning bilingual education. Its status as a charter allowed it flexibility from that decision, which it used to pursue a child-focused pedagogy in both English and Spanish. Co-founder and executive director Gayle Nadler says that these elements serve the goal of “learner agency. We want our students to be ready to advocate for themselves.”

This focus on students’ social skills and well-being sharpened as the school reopened after the pandemic. This tracked national—and international—trends. A of the pandemic’s impact on children found that they “consistently point[ed] to a decline in child wellbeing globally.” At the Multicultural Learning Center, school leaders now estimate that they had capacity to support only one-quarter of their children who needed services. 

In 2022, seeking to grow that capacity, the school applied with several other charters for one of . They were awarded nearly $4.6 million over five years, which launched at the beginning of 2023. Simultaneously, the school secured funding from to construct a small “Wellness Center” where students could receive the mental health support they needed. 

That $4.6 million made it possible for the school to staff the center with two full-time therapists and a rotating group of graduate interns preparing for careers in social work or therapy. “The funds get used to partner with universities to have master’s-level students do their fieldwork with us,” Nadler says, “to hire recently graduated candidates from those same universities to work on our staff.” 

The program at Multicultural Learning Center modeled the twin purposes of the grant: create more demand in the job market for school-based mental health therapists by funding those positions while making the schools a training ground for future therapists.

When the administration zeroed out the grants last April, it blocked MLC from accessing the last $1.9 million originally budgeted for the project.

The sudden loss of funds left grantees like Nadler in a lurch. She estimates that her school’s share of the money raised their mental health services capacity to a level that they were meeting the needs of at least 95% of students who needed support. To try to recover the resources they’d been expecting, the school joined a lawsuit headed by Washington state. 

The federal government technically ended the grants by denying their renewal, arguing that they were no longer aligned with the president’s second term priorities. While federal grants are subject to regular reviews to ensure that grantees are meeting expectations, the Multicultural Learning Center and their co-plaintiffs countered that the administration had made the choice to cancel their grants without any substantive consideration of the work being done. 

In December, , and ordered the administration to undertake an appropriate review of the grants by the end of the month. The administration then disbursed small “interim” grants — $90,000 in the Multicultural Learning Center’s case — while individual reviews took place. As the deadline for these reviews neared, the Education Department requested an extension from the court while it prepared an appeal. 

On Feb. 24, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused, ruling that the administration appeared unlikely to convince the courts that it had provided grantees adequate reason for canceling their funding. 

In the meantime, the ruling meant that the department had to release the originally promised 2026 funds for the mental health grants for recipients like the Multicultural Learning Center.

The saga is far from over. As the Education Department plans its appeal, it released six months of the promised 2026 funding. In a letter sent to grantees, the department explained that the remaining half may be made available after it conducts an “updated performance and budget report,” depending on how the lawsuit is ultimately settled.

For now, the school is muddling through, staffing the Wellness Center through the end of this school year with the half-year of funding they were able to pry loose through the courts. Nadler says it’s a priority to maintain these services, but isn’t sure where she’ll find the funds to replace the federal resources if the Trump administration ultimately succeeds in blocking the rest of the 2026 money they’d budgeted for. 

Taking care of the kids still No. 1

Almost anything can become normal if we let it. Remember traveling without a phone in your pocket? Remember when school shootings were so rare that, when they occurred, we expected our political leaders to act to make them even less likely?

Humans can get used to most anything. But that doesn’t mean that we can navigate any particular new normal with an equal degree of ease. This is particularly true for children, who are less practiced at accommodation than their parents and caregivers. You might have grown used to bloodstained classrooms and brazen public corruption, but your 11-year-old’s gonna have questions when they first see these sorts of things. 

As I’ve written many times now, this is the key to understanding the United States’s youth mental health crisis. The various tech boogeymen haunting public discourse — smartphones, social media, screens more generally — are real problems, but insufficient for understanding the depth of the problem. No, today’s kids are gloomy because they are clearsighted: we have dealt them a genuinely terrible hand. 

To dig them (and ourselves) out of this hole, we need to 1) make actual, effective steps towards a safer, stabler and more dignified world worthy of our children’s dreams; and 2) provide mental health services to help repair the damage we’ve done to their well-being. 

“The number one thing you can do to prevent school violence,” Nadler says, “is mental health counseling, build[ing] relationships, taking care of the kids. That’s the number one thing. It’s not metal detectors, it’s not active shooter drills, it’s not armed guards, none of that.” 

“I just can’t imagine a world,” she added, “where we don’t take care of people — and it starts with children.”

Growing fears about  — and confusion over federal “public charge” rules that can affect green card and visa applications — are prompting some California families to retreat from child care and early education programs, even when their children qualify.

Under federal immigration law, officials can deny green card and visa applications if they determine the applicant is likely to rely heavily on government assistance. Although many benefits cannot be considered for purposes of the “public charge” rule, advocates say many families avoid social service programs altogether out of an abundance of caution.

 in November by the current administration would repeal a 2022 rule that advocates say provided significant clarity on when the rule applies. During the previous Trump administration, the government made  what could be considered “public charge.” Even after those changes were rescinded, fears persist.

Advocates say the fear and confusion that are already impacting families could be far-reaching for a state like California, where it is estimated that nearly 1.1 million children have at least one parent who is undocumented, according to the . More than half of those children are U.S. citizens and over 250,000 under the age of 5.

“With public charge there’s a level of anxiety around signing up for public benefit programs, submitting information, and/or scrutiny that may be increased and make people uncomfortable because of whatever the public rhetoric may be or the perception that it creates risk,” said Stacy Lee, chief learning officer and senior managing director of early childhood at the nonprofit Children Now.

She noted that many child care providers are uniquely positioned to support families because they are not only aware of the impact of immigration raids, but many have also developed trust with immigrant families who might be confused about proposed policy changes.

While public charge does not apply to U.S. citizen children and affects only specific types of immigration cases, many families, including those with mixed citizenship status, still withdraw from public benefits programs out of fear that participation would jeopardize their residency or protection from deportation, advocates say.

“Even when I was representing clients as an immigration attorney and I would tell them 100% that I was sure they were not going to be affected, that their case was exempt from public charge, sometimes they just still wouldn’t [enroll in public programs] because the fear is so severe,” said Liza Davis, advocacy director at The Children’s Partnership.

What is the current policy on ‘public charge’?

The  affirms that the public charge test is used only in specific immigration cases and does not apply to a  of people, including asylum seekers, U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants and lawful permanent residents applying for citizenship.

“A public charge only shows up when you are an individual that is submitting an application for a very specific form of relief, which a lot of people don’t qualify for,” Davis confirmed.

Additionally, only  of certain benefit programs are considered.

Depending on a person’s specific immigration situation, cash assistance programs like CalWORKS could be considered for public charge tests. CalWORKs is California’s version of the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which many families rely on for benefits such as child care, stable access to food and other basic necessities, like diapers.

Davis encourages families to seek accurate information and assistance. She says concerns about public charge often spread by word-of-mouth among applicants who may be comparing cases without properly accounting for the complexity of the immigration system, which includes many different types of applications with varying rules.

“We’re not able to anticipate what will happen in a different administration, but if this need is absolutely essential for you and you qualify for it right now, then you should really consider taking the help because it’s so important to the well-being of the children in your household,” Davis said she advises families.

Further exacerbating the issue is the lack of definitive certainty on whether and when rules related to public charge may change.

“Public charge has just been historically weaponized,” and different federal administrations have either made or proposed changes, leaving a sense of instability,” said Davis. “The ebb and flow, the unknown of it, and the fact that we can’t say ‘this is not going to change’ — there is no guarantee.”

How child care providers can support immigrant families with young children

Lee from Children Now says that home-visiting programs, which provide parenting support in a young child’s home, are one way to keep families accurately informed about anticipated changes to their benefits and how they can remain connected to social services.

“The standout has been families who have access to home visiting have someone they can trust, that they can ask questions to,” Lee said. “They can talk to their home visitor, who can explain to them what’s going on, what’s real, what’s not real. It’s hard to navigate what’s actually happening versus what’s just a lot of aggressive words or what’s being held up in courts.”

In 2025, about 18,200 children from over 17,000 families in California received home visiting services, according to the . It is estimated that nearly 2.6 million children from nearly 2 million families in the state would benefit from home visiting services.

What is the latest proposed change?

The latest proposed change would mostly repeal the 2022 rule clarifying when public charge applies, but does not offer regulations to replace existing rules. Advocates argue that the lack of clarity can lead families to disenroll or avoid eligible public benefits.

The administration acknowledges that changes to public charge rules between 2019 and 2022, “heightened fears among immigrant families about participating in programs and seeking services, such as health coverage and care.”

The current proposal, filed by former Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, also recognizes the far-reaching impact of families withdrawing from public services out of fear. “DHS has determined that the rule may decrease disposable income and increase the poverty of certain families and children, including U.S. citizen children. DHS continues to believe that the benefits of the action justify the financial impact on the family.”

Following allegations of rape and sexual abuse by the late California labor leader Cesar Chavez, more than 30 school districts across the state face questions about renaming elementary, middle and high schools, while at least one California State University reckons with its memorialization of Chavez’s legacy.

Detailed in a report by �ճ���� and in a  on Instagram, civil rights leader Dolores Huerta said Chavez forced her to have sex with him in the 1960s, leading her to become pregnant. On a second occasion, she says, Chavez “manipulated and pressured” her into having sex, leading to another pregnancy.

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” Huerta wrote. “Following the New York Times’  multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.”

Huerta was already a young mother at the time. She said that after the babies Chavez fathered were born, she arranged for other families to raise them.

Huerta and Chavez co-founded the United Farm Workers in 1962. On Tuesday, the union it would not participate in Cesar Chavez Day activities later this month due to the “deeply troubling allegations.”

The New York Times report includes Huerta’s allegations in addition to accusations by two women who say Chavez groomed and sexually abused them when they were 12 and 13. 

As many as 40 of California’s public schools are named for Chavez. He received an  from CSU Bakersfield in 2023, and the is housed on that campus. 

In a the foundation said it was “deeply shocked and saddened by what we are hearing. The foundation is working with leaders in the Farmworker Movement to be responsive to these allegations, support the people who may have been harmed by his actions, and ensure we are united and guided by our commitment to justice and community empowerment.”

A spokesperson for CSU Bakersfield said the campus is processing the allegations and has no plan to modify building names or curriculum yet. In a written statement, the CSU Chancellor’s office said it is “deeply troubled” by the allegations.

“As a significant historical figure, his legacy is honored in various ways across CSU universities, including through statues, murals and building names,” the statement reads. “At the same time, the CSU is firmly committed to fostering university environments centered on respect, integrity and the safety and dignity of all members of our campus communities. We are carefully reviewing this information and considering appropriate courses of action.”

A cultural and civil rights icon throughout the state, Chavez inspired instructional programming and research at educational institutions. Today, the Los Angeles Unified School District said it is taking the allegations “very seriously.”

“Los Angeles Unified respects the voices and courage of survivors of all forms of violence,” a spokesman said in a written statement. “The District is reviewing curriculum and resources to ensure the emphasis remains on the important work of the farmworker movement, not on any one individual. It is important to recognize the collective work of thousands who have advanced social justice, labor rights, and community empowerment.”

On Tuesday, the Fresno Unified School District announced that the district would not participate in a planned celebration on Wednesday at the city’s Warnors Theatre.

“Due to recent allegations about Cesar Chavez, district officials have determined that students and staff will not be part of the program or the march afterward to the Cesar Chavez Adult Education Center,” the district statement says.

The UFW’s Tuesday announcement stated that the union does not have “direct reports or firsthand knowledge” of the allegations but added that they involve the abuse of young women and minors.

“Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on,” the statement reads. “However, the allegations are serious enough that we feel compelled to take urgent steps to learn more and provide space for people who may have been victimized.”

A spokesperson for the UFW declined to comment further on the timing of the allegations or how many alleged victims are involved.

Chavez was born on March 31, 1927, and died in 1993. His birthday is a state holiday. Public schools in California may, but are not required to, close in observance. In 2014, President Barack Obama declared Cesar Chavez Day a federal commemorative holiday.

Numerous events take place every year to celebrate Chavez’s legacy. According to The Fresno Bee, the Fresno-based Latino Education Issues Roundtable board announced it would not hold the “Legacy Celebration” honoring Chavez on Wednesday “due to recent allegations and the withdrawal of several key partners,” including the school district.

�ճ���� reported that a march in Corpus Christi, Texas, was called off last week after Huerta withdrew.

That might sound like the premise of an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. But something very similar is happening right now in California’s public schools. Worse still, there’s no celebrity chef coming to clean up the mess. 

Even though public school enrollment has fallen sharply since the pandemic, most California districts have continued adding staff. Now teachers unions are pressing districts to commit to more expensive labor contracts, even as the funding they receive remains tied to the number of students they serve.

Earlier this month, teachers in two Sacramento-area school districts the job after contract negotiations stalled, bringing the number of teacher strikes in California to six this school year. And more may be on the way. Unions in Los Angeles and Berkeley have already authorized strikes if negotiations fail.

These strikes are not isolated incidents. They are part of a coordinated statewide pressure by the California Teachers Association (CTA) called “We Can’t Wait,” involving 32 districts that educate about 1 million of the state’s students. As the San Francisco Chronicle recently , the campaign has emboldened local unions to dig their heels in and make contract demands that go beyond what independent state panels have recommended.

How did we get here? 

From the perspective of union leaders, the answer is simple: California’s schools are understaffed and educators are underpaid. “We have a staffing crisis, and it’s worst in areas where teachers are needed the most,” Kyle Weinberg of the San Diego Education Association . “If we want to fully staff our schools, we need a living wage.” Striking a similar tone, Kampala Taiz-Rancifer of the Oakland Education Association : “Our students deserve smaller class sizes that allow them to thrive and feel safe at school.”

These local leaders are echoed by their counterparts in state headquarters. “There is no district anywhere in the state that is getting what they deserve from the state’s funding system,” CTA President David Goldberg the Sacramento Bee. “It is a system that has gone on for decades and basically balanced budgets on the backs of our students and educators.”

But research produced by a union-friendly organization complicates that claim. A recent school finance from the Albert Shanker Institute finds that California devotes 3.4 percent of its economic capacity to K–12 schools, compared with a national average of 3.1 percent. In other words, California already commits 10% more of its economic capacity to public education than the typical U.S. state.

Many union leaders say that California districts have prioritized administrative spending over investing in teachers and classroom support staff. Yet in Twin Rivers Unified School District, where teachers are currently on strike, the data point in the opposite direction. Combining figures by district officials with on teacher contracts shows that starting teacher pay in the Sacramento-area district has increased about 35% since 2019, rising from $48,168 to $65,228—roughly equal to the household income there. 

Meanwhile, NCES data by Marguerite Roza’s Edunomics Lab shows that administrative and central office staffing in Twin Rivers has been slashed while the number of teachers and paraprofessionals has grown, even as enrollment has fallen.

The slogan “We Can’t Wait” also carries an unintended irony for parents and students. Research has consistently that districts that relied more heavily on remote instruction during the pandemic experienced larger post-pandemic enrollment declines as parents sought alternatives when schools failed to reopen.

According to my own analysis of AEI’s Return 2 Learn , the 32 districts participating in the CTA campaign spent nearly 80% of the 2020–21 school year in fully virtual learning, while the rest of California’s districts were remote for closer to half that school year. Twenty-one of the 32 districts never reopened for a continuous week of fully in-person learning that year.

Many families apparently voted with their feet. Since the pandemic, NCES data shows that the 32 districts participating in CTA’s campaign experienced average enrollment declines of about 8%. Comparing these districts to their neighbors within the same counties — a fairer apples-to-apples comparison — enrollment in “We Can’t Wait” districts fell about 3 percentage points more than in nearby districts that are not part of the campaign.

In other words, the union locals striking — or threatening to strike — are concentrated in districts that have lost a larger share of their students since the pandemic and are therefore more vulnerable to structural deficits.

State policymakers haven’t helped. California expanded “” that allowed districts to be funded based on prior-year attendance rather than the number of students actually showing up. Because those protections were strengthened during the pandemic, the fiscal impact of enrollment losses did not fully hit district budgets until around 2024,especially after federal ESSER funding expired. In effect, districts were being paid based on yesterday’s students rather than today’s. It was like a restaurant paying this year’s servers with last year’s reservations.

Which brings me back to the slogan “We Can’t Wait.” During the pandemic, students and families were the ones told to wait: for classrooms to reopen, for normal schooling to resume, for the adults in charge to figure things out. Families were told to be patient, even as many quietly began leaving the system.

Now many of the same union locals that kept students waiting the longest are warning of a five-alarm fire. But emergencies caused by earlier choices have a different name.

They’re what happens when the customers leave and the bill finally comes due.

As Marguerite Roza recently predicted, “To balance [their] budget, districts will issue pink slips, cut some electives, Advanced Placement classes and sports, eliminate supports for high-needs children, freeze hiring and close schools.” Unfortunately, that prediction is already coming true. Across California, districts have issued thousands of preliminary layoff notices as they scramble to close widening budget deficits.

We can’t wait any longer. That’s just the math.

Thousands of California school employees have received preliminary pink slips in recent weeks as districts scrabble to close budget gaps caused by falling enrollment and rising costs. Most went to school administrators and classified school staff, such as clerks, administrative assistants and paraeducators.

Districts were complying with a  them to send preliminary pink slips by March 15 to any employee who could potentially lose their job before the beginning of the next school year. Many of the notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given — as districts make decisions about seniority. 

This year the layoffs have taken a dramatic turn as district leaders increasingly target classified and central office staff to balance budgets.

School districts have lost both average daily attendance funding, due to declining enrollment, and federal Covid dollars. At the same time, districts are paying more for pensions, health care, supplies and special education. 

“You have some large school districts and even some mid-sized and smaller school districts that are in complete financial crisis right now, and on the verge of insolvency or going into receivership,” said Troy Flint, chief information officer for the California School Boards Association. “When the deficit is so great you almost have to make hatchet-type cuts.”

District offices in the crosshairs

District staff are being targeted by some districts. In Sacramento City Unified, everyone working in the district office, including the interim superintendent, was issued a pink slip.  and are also planning to make major cuts to their central offices. 

“The board directive, ever since we declared the deficit, has been pretty clear: Whatever cuts we have to make, keep them as far away from the classroom as possible,” said Brian Heap, Sacramento City Unified’s chief communications officer. 

District officials can’t say how many employees at the Serna Center – Sacramento City Unified’s headquarters – will ultimately lose their jobs until they complete a plan to restructure the office, Heap said.

“We have to have somebody running payroll. We have to have somebody in the business office. We have to have somebody in our academic office,” Heap said. “But what does that look like? That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

Sacramento City Unified officials have announced they will send layoff notices to 800 employees, most who are classified employees, to help reduce a $134 million budget deficit.

“I’m certainly nervous,” said Heap, who also received a pink slip. “I mean, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

The Los Angeles Unified in February to issue 3,200 layoff notices, including 657 to central office staff and other centrally funded classified positions. The layoffs, expected to actually result in 650 lost jobs, are estimated to save the district about $250 million. The district is facing an $877 million deficit next school year and $443 million the following school year, according to board materials.

Oakland Unified could  of its central office staff along with counselors, case managers, attendance clerks, community school managers and other support staff to make up $21 million of an estimated $103 million deficit, according to media reports. The to issue a total of 421 preliminary layoff notices and reduce the hours of 144 employees, according to Oaklandside.

Nonteaching jobs often cut first

Classified staff are often targeted for layoffs for practical and political reasons, Flint said.

“They [districts] try to concentrate layoffs among classified staff and administrative personnel simply because teachers have the most direct impact on student experience and academic achievement, and because teachers — as the school employees who are most well known to parents and the community — generally are the most sympathetic profession in the education field,” Flint said.

The California School Employees Association, which represents about 240,000 of the state’s K-12 classified school support staff, reported that at least 2,700 pink slips had been issued to its members by the state’s March 15 deadline. An additional 519 members received notices that their hours would be reduced and another 254, with jobs funded by federal dollars, were given 60-day layoff notices, according to a union report issued on March 6. 

Districts should make sure they have cut every possible expense before they start removing staff from school campuses, said CSEA President Adam Weinberger, who works in the Perris Union High School District in Riverside County. 

“When classified employees are laid off, students lose more than services; they lose trusted adults in their lives — bus drivers, educators, custodians and office staff who build relationships with our students. And those connections are essential to a safe and supported learning environment,” Weinberger said.

California school boards also approved layoff notices for administrative staff and workers represented by other unions, including members of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 50,000 classified school employees in California districts including Sacramento City Unified. SEIU officials could not be reached to provide information about the number of members who received layoff notices.

Teachers did not get off unscathed

Even with efforts to shield teachers from layoffs, more than 1,900 pink slips were sent to members of the California Teachers Association by March 13, according to the union. The union represents teachers, librarians, school healthcare workers and school counselors. Last year about  received notices.

The pink slips are being issued at the same time that many bargaining units of the CTA and other unions are negotiating with their school districts for new contracts, most asking for higher salaries and improved benefits.

San Diego Unified approved a contract with its teachers early this year that prohibits the district from laying off teachers or other certificated staff for the 2026-27 school year. Instead, the district sent layoff notices to 133 classified school support staff, according to the CSEA.

San Diego Unified board member Sabrina Bazzo said she is proud of the decision not to cut teachers, saying it’s not what is best for students.

There are still many districts laying off large numbers of teachers, as well as classified support staff.

According to the CSEA, Long Beach Unified officials planned to send pink slips to 515 teachers and other credentialed staff, 15 to managers and 54 to support staff. Santa Clara Unified planned to send pink slips to 113 credentialed staff and 49 to classified workers. Antioch Unified approved a resolution reducing its credentialed staff by 104 positions and its classified staff by at least 193 positions, according to a union report.

Pasadena Unified indicated it had also issued 161 pink slips to its credentialed employees and 240 to classified school support staff.

“The reductions are significant and affect every school and department in our district,” said Pasadena Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco in a statement. “We are living within our fiscal reality, as difficult as it is, to protect student learning, the district’s long-term ability to serve future generations, and local control.”

Annual ritual causes anxiety

Many have called the annual ritual disruptive to schools and demoralizing to the employees who receive them.

“Our members are working paycheck to paycheck, and they’re looking for stability,” Weinberger said. “I know we have many members that get one every year and, then they’re rescinded and that creates instability in their lives.”

Eventually, those employees begin to look for other, more stable, jobs to ensure they can provide for their families, he said.

EdSource reporter Mallika Seshadri contributed to this report.

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

For college students seeking a job that fits around their academic schedules, and the opportunity to do meaningful work in their communities, a popular state program offers both.

Since it launched in 2022, the state program known as has been paying college students for community service work. And it has become so popular that only 30% of students who apply get a position.

The program helps college students, including those who are immigrants lacking permanent legal status, pay for college while serving in community-based organizations.

Students are dispersed across California tackling diverse needs. Fellows were key, for instance, in helping food banks meet a surge in demand during last year’s government shutdown, said Josh Fryday, director of California Service Corps. And during the wildfires in Los Angeles last January, fellows were there to support, he said.

“When the government shut down and there was a huge shortage or huge demand at the food bank and they needed support, it was our College Corps members that got deployed. Same thing after the fires,” said Fryday.

The program has recruited more than 3,000 students each academic year since it started, some serving multiple years. Students serve 15 hours a week for 30 weeks and receive monthly stipends totaling $7,000 for the academic school year. At that time those who complete 450 service hours receive an additional $3,000 educational award.

College Corps is just one program within , a statewide service initiative that consists of three other paid service programs sending members into communities around the state.

The state gave College Corps $83.6 million for 2026-27 in addition to a one-time $5 million allotment this academic year to help expand the program to additional campuses. The program currently has 45 participating campuses, 41 of them across California’s public community college and university systems. For the next cohort, they’re planning to expand to 52 campuses and recruit about 4,000 students. Some of the new partner sites include Cal State Northridge, Monterey Peninsula College and UC Santa Barbara.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office had rejecting the request for more funding, and it was cut from the budget proposal in June. However, it was in the final Budget Act.

The program started as a pilot, intended to run through 2023-24 while receiving one-time funding each year. Now, according to the for 2025-26, the intent is to continue with the $84 million in annual funding permanently starting in 2026-27. Of the $84 million, $45 million would go towards program support and administrative costs for the program while the rest would go toward aid for students.

The College Corps program is open to students at participating campuses, including those who qualify for , a state law that allows eligible students without legal status to qualify for California in-state tuition and aid. The state has about who don’t qualify for federal work-study programs and many lack the necessary permits to work other jobs, according to the Higher Education Immigration Portal.

“I wanted to make sure that we gave an opportunity to our Dreamers to be part of [College Corps],” said Fryday. “We’ve had unbelievable success stories of AB 540 students… [by] having this program change their lives and giving them opportunities that they, quite frankly, have been excluded from for far too long.”

Officials with California Service Corps did not provide numbers on how many are filled by immigrant students eligible for in-state tuition and aid under AB 540.

Rafael, an immigrant student and College Corps fellow, came from Mexico to the United States at the age of 14. He requested that his full name not be used due to concerns about his legal status.

Job opportunities do not come easy for Rafael due to his lack of a Social Security number.

“For undocumented students, there are not a lot of things that you can apply to be part of,” he said. “So that was also kind of like my only opportunity.”

Within the program, fellows can choose to serve in K-12 education, climate action or food insecurity. Students often help with tutoring at school sites, work with food banks, and serve at their campus gardens and food pantries.

Eligible students must be full-time undergraduates and of eight participating University of California campuses, 17 California State Universities, 23 community colleges, and four private colleges.

“We have students from all different backgrounds and our students are also getting different perspectives of diversity and empathy and learning how to see how other people live in their community,” said Katrina Gilmore, director of College Corps at Cal State Bakersfield.

Rafael, an English major, currently volunteers at a history museum in his community, a role he holds close to his heart. When he visited a museum for the first time in Mexico, he was amazed by the exhibits and the curiosity they sparked. He is now helping the museum develop an audio tour guide of the exhibits in English and Spanish to help more people feel included.

“It was really touching because my first language is Spanish and I remember having a hard time learning a lot of things,” he said. “I have been in that position. I know how it feels.”

Fellows are chosen based on their interest in service and availability to juggle the service hours with their academics. Eligible students must be full-time undergraduates, have good academic standing and demonstrate financial need.

Currently, UC Berkeley has 98 College Corps student workers. More than 200 students applied, said Ashley Kelly, a supervisor for the program at UC Berkeley.

“That just demonstrated to us that there’s a huge desire and demand to do this program, that the program is working, it’s impactful, and we just need to keep working to create more opportunities for students to be part of programs like this,” said Fryday.

For Lori Dominguez, a College Corps fellow at Cal State Bakersfield, the program has helped her pay for school. She said that if it wasn’t for the program, she would probably have to drop out of college.

“I have loans for my education, and, like, I’m broke, and I barely have job experience,” said Dominguez.

Dominguez struggled with school last year after leaving her job at her local library to take care of her mom who had surgery. She sought out College Corps as a way to pay for school with a program that understands that her education is her priority.

She currently serves with Habitat for Humanity ReStore, a secondhand store whose profits go towards building affordable homes in the community. Dominguez processes donated items such as clothing, toys and furniture.

The program is flexible with students’ schedules, allowing Dominguez to make up missed hours at different work sites and giving her the opportunity to earn money while still being able to pursue a biology degree. She hopes to become a clinical lab scientist.

Djuane “DJ” Nunley, a senior at UC Berkeley, has been a College Corps fellow since its pilot year. He joined the program at College of the Desert in Coachella Valley, before transferring to UC Berkeley.

He served in both campus’ food pantries and also worked at a food warehouse in Coachella Valley where he sorted food before it spoiled to see what could be preserved.

“I would see how families would just be so excited to get the food that they were getting,” said Nunley. “It was a humbling experience.”

He currently serves with UC Berkeley’s Incarceration to College program, tutoring incarcerated youth — and youth whose parents have been incarcerated — at Alameda County Juvenile Hall and with Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, a community-based organization.

Nunley’s wife Lynn attended College of the Desert and joined College Corps at the same time with a desire to help the community. They were both accepted and transferred to UC Berkeley, where they moved with their eight kids ranging in age from three to 16.

“[College Corps] helped us out a big deal… We have a lot of children and raising kids is not easy. And financially, it’s a lot on us,” said Nunley.

For Nunley, the hardest thing about being a College Corps fellow is juggling his service hours, school and family. But he manages with the support of his wife and his older kids.

Nunley was in the entertainment business for 12 years, making music and working as a freelance writer. He started college as an English major hoping to brush up on his writing skills. Joining College Corps shifted his career aspirations away from his original plan and towards helping children.

He is now double majoring in psychology and social welfare with plans of going to graduate school and becoming a psychologist that specializes in talk therapy for youth with traumatic experiences. He wants to open a nonprofit organization in Coachella Valley with his wife to assist kids from underrepresented communities.

“Once I became a part of College Corps, my perspective in life changed, like I had a great epiphany… I realized how my words could actually uplift,” said Nunley.

This article was and was republished under the license.

What steps are being taken to ensure students not only understand their Constitutional rights, but are prepared to use them to strengthen our communities and our democracy?

Civics is not confined to history class, nor high school. It lives in science classrooms from cultivating wonder to debating climate policy; in math classrooms beginning with basic number sense evolving to analyzing public budgets; in English classrooms moving from learning to read into developing the ability to examine persuasive rhetoric; and from classroom discussions to student unions and councils where young people practice democratic debate and take action in ways that are responsible and meaningful to their lives.

These competencies are especially essential in California, where voters regularly decide on high-stakes policy through initiatives and where civic participation has real consequences for budgeting, housing and educational opportunity. 

Civic education fosters the knowledge, skills and dispositions that empower students,beginning as early as transitional kindergarten, to use their voice and understand their rights and responsibilities. It teaches us to engage respectfully with diverse viewpoints and contribute constructively to our communities. 

That goes beyond the memorization of historical facts or the branches of government; it teaches critical thinking across disciplines: how to evaluate sources, separate fact from fiction and make informed decisions that impact public life. 

In California — a state with nearly 40 million residents, a vast and diverse electorate, and one of the nation’s most complex governing systems — teaching young people how government works and how to participate in civic life with respect and empathy is not a luxury. It is a democratic necessity.

Civic Learning Week, March 9 to 13, is an important time to bring civics back to the center of our communities and the lives of students. This nonpartisan week of dialogue and engagement builds awareness of America’s proud democratic traditions. It brings together students, educators, policymakers, and leaders in the public and private sectors to make civic education a priority both nationally and in states and communities across the country.

Yet despite broad public support, civic education in practice remains uneven. The 2022 civics results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the Nation’s Report Card, found that only about one in five eighth graders nationwide demonstrated proficiency in the knowledge and skills related to democratic citizenship, the structure of government, and the principles of the American constitutional system. Students who scored higher on the assessment were more likely to report feeling confident in their ability to explain why it is important to pay attention to and participate in the political process.

California has taken meaningful steps to promote civic learning. The , created through legislation signed in 2017 and adopted by the State Board of Education, recognizes students who demonstrate excellence in civic knowledge and participation, including understanding both the U.S. and California constitutions and completing civic engagement projects that address real community issues. This recognition, affixed to student diplomas or transcripts, provides incentives for deeper learning and highlights civic participation as a valuable skill.

To support equitable access to the SSCE, the state budget established the , which brings the California Department of Education together with California Volunteers to expand service-learning opportunities that help students meet civic engagement criteria. Grants through this program encourage schools and districts to build meaningful service experiences, a proven way to connect classroom learning with real-world civic action. 

The — sponsored by the chief justice of California and supported by the Judicial Council and the state superintendent of public instruction — brings judges and civic leaders into classrooms, offers resources for educators and honors exemplary civic learning with annual Civic Learning Awards that recognize schools engaging students in democratic practice. 

And there are many efforts by nonprofit organizations and researchers both statewide and nationally. These efforts matter. But they are not yet reaching every student. California’s ongoing initiatives create meaningful opportunities for broader access to civics education, yet elevating civics to the central role it deserves will require sustained local commitment from students, educators, policymakers and communities.

If civic preparation is essential to our democracy, how is it articulated in the very systems and structures designed to achieve student outcomes? How is civics reflected in school board goals and strategic plans? In priorities and expenditures under each community’s Local Control and Accountability Plan? In staffing decisions, accountability measures and leadership expectations at the state, county, district and school levels? 

As California invests in other large-scale learning efforts, how might educators intentionally embed civic engagement — not only as content to be learned, but as dispositions and skills to be practiced daily?

Strengthening educator support, investing in leadership development, weaving civic learning across the TK–12 experience, and aligning accountability systems with civic outcomes are not peripheral reforms. They are foundational steps toward ensuring that every student, regardless of ZIP code, graduates prepared to participate meaningfully in our democratic society.

California’s future depends on citizens who not only understand how government works, but who are prepared and have agency to make our communities stronger. To uplift voices. To engage in respectful debate. To vote. To volunteer. To question. To lead. Civic education is not “another subject.” It is the foundation of a resilient democracy.

Given that, what are we, individually and collectively, willing to do to elevate civic knowledge, skill, and consciousness at this pivotal juncture?