Tag: California

  • How a California district embraces student-centered counseling

    How a California district embraces student-centered counseling

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    Sustained, comprehensive investments in school counseling can greatly improve school climate and academic and behavioral outcomes — especially for students in historically underserved areas, according to a recently released study from the University of California, Los Angeles Center for the Transformation of Schools.

    The study focused on Livingston Union School District in California’s Central Valley, which serves a rural, predominantly Hispanic and socioeconomically challenged student population. Due to metrics such as below-state-average chronic absenteeism rates, LUSD has been recognized as a “bright spot” by the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, AttendanceWorks, and the University of California, Davis.

    The four-school, transitional kindergarten to 8th grade district’s success is credited to its use of a student-centered, data-driven model based on an American School Counseling Association framework.

    Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the district had a 4.9% chronic absenteeism rate, which spiked to 18.3% in 2023 before falling to 14.2% in spring 2024, and a 1.9% suspension rate, which rose to 3.4% in 2022 before falling to 2.8% in 2023.

    Too often, the roles of school counselors have become “over-expanded” to the point where they can’t serve students as well as they could, said Adriana Jaramillo Castillo, research analyst at the UCLA center and lead researcher, who suggests that Livingston USD’s ASCA-based model is one that other districts should consider replicating. 

    Among the key facets are lowering the student-to-counselor ratio from above 400:1 — the national average — to more like 200:1 or 250:1, which is “more feasible and provides more personal interactions between counselors and students,” she said. “The model also nuances a lot of the roles of the counselor away from administrative tasks,” based on the ASCA’s recommendation that at least 80% of counselors’ time be spent in services provided to students.

    School counseling is not required by state law in California, but Livingston Union has been providing it since Alma Lopez, school counselor coordinator, was hired in 2006, Lopez said. 

    Counselors are “in the classroom leading instruction, in small groups in our office based on what our data says is needed, and with crisis counseling support as needed,” she said. “We have a pretty highly structured program.”

    The counseling department meets before the school year to plan its rounds, with counselors visiting each classroom six times per school year: twice to talk about academic achievement and the importance of attending school; twice to cover college and career readiness, sometimes with university partners; and twice to discuss social and emotional topics, Lopez said.

    “There’s a high emphasis on that mental health space, understanding that school counselors are part of the mental health team at schools along with psychologists and social workers,” she said. “It is preventative in nature, and proactive.”

    School counselors play a key role in both academics and student well-being, particularly in districts with disadvantaged demographics, Castillo said. 

    “That’s not to say this counseling model would not work in an urban or suburban educational setting,” she said. “Livingston Union was recognized as a bright spot because of all the good work they have been doing, and their expansive knowledge of using data-driven and evidence-based practices.”

    When Joseph Bishop co-founded the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools eight years ago and began surveying how need-based funding from the state is operationalized at the local level, Livingston Union kept coming to his attention. Bishop, the center’s executive director, believes stability in leadership of the district — starting with Superintendent Andres Zamora — as well as doubling down on the counseling program have led to the positive results.

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  • After L.A.’s Wildfires, Reshaping Disaster Response to Address Children’s Needs – The 74

    After L.A.’s Wildfires, Reshaping Disaster Response to Address Children’s Needs – The 74


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    As the one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles wildfires passes, rebuilding efforts continue to lag despite assurances to the contrary and many families are still navigating their search for a return to normalcy. For children in particular, the effects of a disaster do not end when the smoke clears or the debris is removed. 

    As more people’s lives are upended each year due to climate disasters communities — and our political leaders at the local, state and federal levels — must do more to ensure the needs of children and families are met during these emergencies.

    During wildfires and other disasters, we continually see the familiar pattern of school closures, child care disruption, families moving into temporary housing and routines essential to children’s sense of safety abruptly severed. Communities and political leaders at every level must confront a hard truth: Our emergency systems were not designed with children in mind. 

    During wildfires, schools and child care systems are among the first institutions to fail. Children are displaced from classrooms, separated from trusted adults and thrust into shelters or hotel rooms never designed to support their physical, emotional or developmental needs. Studies show that stress brought on by exposure to natural disasters can have an outsized impact on children and lead to lifelong trauma. This trauma can lead to socio-emotional impairments; health-risk behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse; and even early death, according to the Adverse Childhood Experiences study published in 2011 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. 

    This past year has made it clear that local jurisdictions can no longer rely on federal disaster systems to carry the full burden of recovery. As the future of entities such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency becomes more uncertain, states, cities and counties must assume greater responsibility for protecting their most vulnerable citizens. 

    This starts with treating schools as critical infrastructure. While schools became formally recognized as part of critical infrastructure — specifically within the Education Facilities subsector in 2003 under Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7 (HSPD-7) — they are not allocated commensurate resources and protections for security as other designated critical infrastructure. 

    The Covid-19 pandemic underscored the central role that schools play in economic stability, as widespread closures rapidly disrupted labor markets and productivity. Treating schools as critical infrastructure would align education with other essential public systems that underpin public health, safety and economic performance; as such, it merits long-term investment.

    Second, schools need contingency plans that ensure continuity of in-person education when normal operations are disrupted. After the LA wildfires, many schools scrambled to set up alternate sites or transitioned to online learning. Students are still making up learning losses from the pandemic, and it is unclear whether those losses can be stemmed. Online learning should be used only when all other options have been exhausted, given the devastating impacts on student learning. The planning needs to begin now, not after disaster strikes.  

    Third, practice is key to success. Emergency plans often fail children not because they are poorly written but because they are never written with children in mind. Children experience disasters differently than adults, and procedures designed without them can inadvertently heighten fear and trauma. Age-appropriate drills, school-based tabletop exercises and responder training in developmentally appropriate communication can dramatically improve outcomes. 

    Local governments can formally integrate school districts, child care providers and pediatric health systems into emergency planning rather than treating them as afterthoughts once a crisis unfolds. Practicing with children builds familiarity, reduces panic and accelerates recovery — not just for young people, but for entire communities.

    Finally, funding structures must reflect the realities families face after disasters. While billions are allocated for fire suppression and mitigation, far fewer resources are earmarked for sustaining schools, child care and pediatric mental health in the months and years that follow. Local and state governments should establish dedicated funding streams for child- and family-centered recovery — supporting school continuity, mental health care and family stabilization — since these investments can reduce long-term social and economic costs.

    Implementing a family-centric disaster response model isn’t just a moral imperative. Adverse childhood experiences lead to an economic burden of  hundreds of billions of dollars annually in the U.S, much of it absorbed by taxpayers through Medicaid and Medicare spending, special education, disability programs and lost lifetime tax revenue. When disaster responses destabilize children, short-term emergencies are converted into long-term public liabilities, driving government inefficiency and reactive spending. These failures also spill into insurance markets, increasing claims, raising premiums and deepening reliance on federal backstops that distort risk pools and shift costs to the public.

    In an era of escalating disasters and constrained budgets, policies that protect family stability during crises are not social add-ons but high-return investments: reducing future taxpayer exposure, stabilizing insurance systems and limiting the need for costly federal intervention after the fact.

    The one-year mark of the Los Angeles wildfires should not serve as a memorial to what was lost, but as a reckoning with what must change. Disasters will continue to test our systems, but allowing children to bear the brunt of those failures is a policy choice, not an inevitability. Protecting children during emergencies necessitates radical change. If we fail to act, we are not merely accepting risk: We are knowingly passing preventable harm and long-term costs onto the next generation.


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  • Basing K-12 Funding on California School Enrollment Could Bring Problems – The 74

    Basing K-12 Funding on California School Enrollment Could Bring Problems – The 74


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    This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

    For years, California schools have pushed to change the way the state pays for K-12 education: by basing funding on enrollment, instead of attendance. That’s the way 45 other states do it, and it would mean an extra $6 billion annually in school coffers.

    But such a move might cause more harm than good in the long run, because linking funding to enrollment means schools have little incentive to lure students to class every day, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Without that incentive, attendance would drop, and students would suffer.

    If the Legislature wants to boost school funding, analysts argued, it should use the existing attendance-based model and funnel more money to schools with high numbers of low-income students, students in foster care and English learners.

    When it comes to attendance, money talks, the report noted. For more than a century, California has funded schools based on average daily attendance – how many students show up every day. In the 1980s and ’90s, the state started to look at alternatives. A pilot study from that time period showed that attendance at high schools rose 5.4% and attendance at elementary schools rose 3.1% when those schools had a financial incentive to boost attendance.

    This is not the time to ease up on attendance matters, the report said. Although attendance has improved somewhat since campuses closed during the pandemic, it remains well below pre-COVID-19 levels. In 2019, nearly 96% of students showed up to school every day. The number dropped to about 90% during COVID-19, when most schools switched to remote learning, but still remains about 2 percentage points below its previous high.

    Attendance is tied to a host of student success measurements. Students with strong attendance tend to have higher test scores, higher levels of reading proficiency and higher graduation rates.

    “It’s a thoughtful analysis that weighs the pros and cons,” said Hedy Chang, president of the nonprofit research and advocacy organization Attendance Works. “For some districts there might be benefits to a funding switch, but it also helps when districts have a concrete incentive for encouraging kids to show up.”

    True cost of educating kids

    Schools have long asked the Legislature to change the funding formula, which they say doesn’t cover the actual costs of educating students, especially those with high needs. The issue came up repeatedly at a recent conference of the California School Boards Association, and there’s been at least one recent bill that addressed the issue.

    The bill, by former Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Democrat from the La Cañada Flintridge area, initially called for a change to the funding formula, but the final version merely asked the Legislative Analyst’s Office to study the issue. The bill passed in 2024.

    A 2022 report by Policy Analysis for California Education also noted the risks of removing schools’ financial incentive to prioritize attendance. But it also said that increasing school funding overall would give districts more stability.

    Enrollment is a better funding metric because schools have to plan for the number of students who sign up, not the number who show up, said Troy Flint, spokesman for the California School Boards Association.

    He also noted that schools with higher rates of absenteeism also tend to have higher numbers of students who need extra help, such as English learners, migrant students and low-income students. Tying funding to daily attendance — which in some districts is as low as 60% — brings less money to those schools, ultimately hurting the students who need the most assistance, he said.

    “It just compounds the problem, creating a vicious cycle,” Flint said.

    To really boost attendance, schools need extra funding to serve those students.

    Switching to an enrollment-based funding model would increase K-12 funding by more than $6 billion, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Currently, schools receive about $15,000 annually per student through the state’s main funding mechanism, the Local Control Funding Formula, with an additional $7,000 coming from the federal government, block grants, lottery money, special education funds and other sources. Overall, California spent more than $100 billion on schools last year, according to the Legislative Analyst.

    Motivated by money?

    Flint’s group also questioned whether schools are solely motivated by money to entice students to class.

    “Most people in education desperately want kids in class every day,” Flint said. “These are some of the most dedicated, motivated people I’ve met, and they care greatly about students’ welfare.”

    Josh Schultz, superintendent of the Napa County Office of Education, agreed. Napa schools that are funded through attendance actually have lower attendance than schools that are considered “basic aid,” and funded through local property taxes. Both types of schools have high numbers of English learners and migrant students.

    “I can understand the logic (of the LAO’s assertion) but I don’t know if it bears out in reality, at least here,” Schultz said. “Both kinds of schools see great value in having kids show up to school every day.”

    This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.


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  • Cutting costs without cutting corners

    Cutting costs without cutting corners

    Key points:

    With the end of federal COVID-19 emergency funding and the inherent volatility of state income tax revenues, California school districts are in an era of financial uncertainty. Fortunately, Jurupa Unified School District is already several years into the process of finding ways to track and control expenses while still supporting teachers and staff so they can provide the best possible educational experience for our students. Here’s how we’re making staffing and payroll processes more efficient, starting with the perennially challenging extra duty.

    Getting a handle on extra duty

    In addition to our salaried staff, we have a number of part-time, hourly, and what we call “extra duty” assignments. Because a significant amount of our funding comes from grants, many of our assignments are temporary or one-time. We fill those positions with extra duty requests so we’re not committed to ongoing payroll obligations.

    For many years, those extra duty requests and time cards were on paper, which meant the payroll department was performing redundant work to enter the information in the payroll system. The request forms we used were also on paper, making it very difficult to track the actual time being used back to the request, so we could be sure that the hours being used were within the limitations of the request. We needed a better control mechanism that would help school sites stay within budget, as well as a more formal budget mechanism to encumber the department and site budgets to cover the extra duty requests.

    Budgeting can get very complicated because it’s cross-functional. It includes a position-control component, a payroll component, and a financial budgeting component. We needed a solution that could make all of those universes work together. The mission was either to find a system or build one. Our county office started a pilot program with our district to build a system, but ultimately decided against continuing with this effort due to the resources required to sustain such a system for 23 county districts. 

    Our district engaged in a competitive process and chose Helios Ed. Within six months, our team developed and launched a new system to address extra duty. Since then, we have saved more than $100,000 in staffing costs, time expenses, and budget overruns because of the stronger internal controls we now have in place.

    A more efficient (and satisfied) payroll department

    Eliminating redundant data entry and working with data instead of paper has allowed us to reduce staffing by two full-time equivalents–not through layoffs, but through attrition. And because they have a system that is handling data entry for them, our payroll department has more time to give quality to their work, and feel they are working at a level more aligned to their skills.

    Finding efficiencies in your district

    While Jurupa Unified has found efficiencies and savings in these specific areas, every school district is different. As many California district leaders like to say, we have 1,139 school districts –and just as many ways of doing things. With that in mind, there are some steps to the process of moving from paper to online systems (or using online systems more efficiently) that apply universally.

    1. Sit down and identify your objectives. What are the critical components that you must have? 
    2. Make the decision to make or buy. When COVID first hit, Jurupa Unified created its own invoice-routing system through SharePoint. We’ve also built an excursion request process in PowerApps that handles travel, conferences, and field trips. As our county office found out, though, when you’re bringing a number of functionalities together, it can make more sense to work with a vendor you trust.
    3. If you choose to buy software, be certain that it can do precisely what you need it to. If a vendor says they can develop a functionality along the way, ask to see the new feature before you buy.
    4. Be certain the vendor will be responsive. When it comes to a function such as payroll, you’re dealing with people’s livelihoods, and you need to know that if there’s something wrong with the system, or if you need help, that help is just a phone call away.

    Putting in a new payroll management system has made an enormous difference for our district, but it’s not the end of our cost-cutting process. We’re always looking at our different programs to see where we can cut back in ways that don’t impact the classroom. Ultimately, these changes are about ensuring that resources stay focused where they matter most. While budgets fluctuate and funding streams remain unpredictable, my team and I come to work every day because we believe in public education. I’m a product of public education myself, and I love waking up every day knowing that I can come back and support today’s students and teachers.

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  • California College of the Arts to close, Vanderbilt to take over campus

    California College of the Arts to close, Vanderbilt to take over campus

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    Dive Brief:

    • The California College of the Arts plans to wind down after its 2026-27 academic year, ending the 120-year-old institution’s long-running effort to turn around its finances, officials announced Tuesday.
    • Vanderbilt University has agreed to acquire CCA’s campus. Vanderbilt’s plans include operating a school to be dubbed the “California College of the Arts Institute at Vanderbilt,” along with offering arts programming and maintaining elements of CCA’s legacy, such as its archives and an exhibition venue. 
    • The arts college’s leaders ultimately realized its “tuition-driven business model is not sustainable” amid demographic declines and persistent financial deficits, CCA President David Howse said in the announcement.

    Dive Insight:

    Over the past year, CCA has been in talks with possible partners as it recognized “lasting financial independence is out of reach given our current constraints,” Howse said. 

    “Throughout our conversations, Vanderbilt has been a thoughtful and responsive partner, with a team of people who clearly respect our 120-year legacy and see in it great value for future generations of students,” he added.

    Howse acknowledged that the news of CCA’s closure and Vanderbilt’s takeover of the campus might evoke “shock, frustration, and disappointment” in stakeholders. 

    Less than a year ago, Howse trumpeted an “extraordinary milestone” for the institution after raising $45 million to fund a turnaround. That donation blitz was anchored by a $22.5 million matching gift from Jensen Huang, the billionaire founder of Taiwanese technology company Nvidia, and his wife, Lori.

    But CCA was ultimately unable to raise the full amount needed to sustain itself. The year before receiving those gifts, the college’s endowment totaled just $42.6 million, most of it earmarked for student aid, according to its fiscal 2024 financials.

    Anticipating the question of why the Huangs couldn’t donate more to help the college, officials said in an FAQ that while the couple has been supportive, they “understand that CCA’s existing tuition-driven financial model is not working.”

    The college — the last private arts institution in the city after the San Francisco Art Institute closed in 2022 — has suffered sizable enrollment losses in recent years. Between 2019 and 2024, fall headcount dropped by roughly 30% to 1,308 students, according to federal data. That’s a problem for a college that drew just under 70% of its core revenues from tuition and fees in fiscal 2023. 

    Local media raised the possibility in 2024 that CCA could close or merge with another institution. By September of that year, the college laid off 10% of its staff and eliminated open roles as it tried to reduce a $20 million budget deficit. 

    Now it’s winding down and handing the keys over to Vanderbilt. Students on track to graduate by the end of the 2026-27 year will be able to get their degrees from the college, and CCA is working on transfer and teach-out pathways for the students who won’t be finished with their studies by then, the college said. 

    For its part, Vanderbilt plans to keep aspects of CCA’s legacy alive. The Nashville-based private institution will operate CCA’s Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts while maintaining the arts college’s archival materials and engaging its alumni.

    CCA’s agreement with the university also “provides opportunities for both faculty and staff to apply for positions with Vanderbilt once Vanderbilt has completed an assessment of its needs,” CCA said in its FAQ. 

    The institutions didn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal. 

    The acquisition of CCA’s campus adds to Vanderbilt’s national expansion, with planned campuses in New York and Florida as well. The New York campus is set to open this fall.

    The university plans to open the San Francisco branch for the 2027-28 academic year, pending regulatory approvals, Vanderbilt said. The university expects to serve around 1,000 students, both graduate and undergraduate, at the campus.

    “San Francisco offers an extraordinary environment for learning at the intersection of innovation, creativity and technology, and it provides an unparalleled setting for Vanderbilt to shape the future of higher education,” Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said in a statement Tuesday.

    CCA is one of a handful of distressed arts colleges to end operations in recent years. Perhaps the most dramatic case was the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, which shuttered suddenly in 2024 — a fate that CCA managed to avoid through its fundraising and deal with Vanderbilt.

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  • Trump Administration Plans to Freeze Billions in Childcare Funding to California – The 74

    Trump Administration Plans to Freeze Billions in Childcare Funding to California – The 74


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    The Trump administration says it’s planning to freeze about $10 billion in federal support for needy families in California and four other Democrat-run states, as the president announced an investigation into unspecified fraud in California.

    The plans come on the heels of the Trump administration announcing a freeze on all federal payments for child care in Minnesota, citing fraud allegations against daycare centers in the state.

    The state’s Democrat governor, Tim Walz — who ran for vice president against Donald Trump’s ticket in 2024 — announced Monday he was dropping out of running for reelection. He pointed to fraud against the state, saying it’s a real issue while alleging Trump and his allies were “seeking to take advantage of the crisis.”

    On Monday, the New York Post reported that the administration was expanding the funding freeze to include California and three other Democrat-led states, in addition to Minnesota. Unnamed federal officials cited “concerns that the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens,” The Post reported.

    Early Tuesday, President Trump alleged that corruption in California is worse than Minnesota and announced an investigation.

    “California, under Governor Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible??? The Fraud Investigation of California has begun. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

    He did not specify what alleged fraud was being examined in the Golden State.

    LAist has reached out to the White House to ask what the president’s fraud concerns are in California and to request an interview with the president.

    “For too long, Democrat-led states and governors have been complicit in allowing massive amounts of fraud to occur under their watch,” said an emailed statement from Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the federal childcare funds.

    “Under the Trump administration, we are ensuring that federal taxpayer dollars are being used for legitimate purposes. We will ensure these states are following the law and protecting hard-earned taxpayer money.”

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office disputed Trump’s claim on social media, arguing that since taking office, the governor has blocked $125 billion in fraud and arrested “criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers.”

    Criminal fraud cases in CA appear to be rare for this program

    Defrauding federally funded programs is a crime — and one LAist has investigated, leading to one of the largest such criminal cases in recent years against a California elected official, which surrounded meal funds.

    When it comes to the federal childcare funds that are being frozen, the dollar amount of fraud alleged in criminal cases appears to be a tiny fraction of the overall program’s spending in California.

    A search of thousands of news releases by all four federal prosecutor offices in California, going back more than a decade, found a total of one criminal case where the press releases referenced childcare benefits.

    That case, brought in 2023, alleged four men stole $3.7 million in federal childcare benefits through fraudulent requests to a San Diego organization that distributed the funds. All four pleaded guilty, with one defendant sentenced to 27 months in prison and others sentenced to other terms, according to authorities.

    It appears to be equivalent to one one-hundredth of 1% of all the childcare funding California has received over the past decade-plus covered by the prosecution press release search.

    Potential impact on California families

    The plans call for California, Minnesota, New York, Illinois and Colorado to lose about $7 billion in cash assistance for households with children, almost $2.4 billion to care for children of working parents, and about $870 million for social services grants that mostly benefit children at risk, according to unnamed federal officials speaking to the New York Times and New York Post.

    In the largest category of funding, California receives $3.7 billion per year. The program is known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.

     ”It’s very clear that a freeze of those funds would be very damaging to the children, families, and providers of California,” said Stacy Lee, who oversees early childhood initiatives “at Children Now, an advocacy group for children in California.

     ”It is a significant portion of our funds and will impact families and children and providers across the whole state,” she added. “It would be devastating, in no uncertain terms.”

    About 270,000 people are served by the TANF program in L.A. County — about 200,000 of whom are children, according to the county Department of Public Social Services.

    “Any pause in funding for their cash benefits – which average $1000/month – would be devastating to these families,” said DPSS chief of staff Nick Ippolito.

    Ippolito said the department has a robust fraud prevention and 170-person investigations team, and takes allegations “very seriously.”

    It remains to be seen whether the funding freeze will end up in court. The state, as well as major cities and counties in California, has sued to ask judges to halt funding freezes or new requirements placed by the Trump administration. L.A. city officials say they’ve had success with that, including shielding more than $600 million in federal grant funding to the city last year.

    A union representing California childcare workers said the funding freeze would harm low-income families.

    “These threats need to be called out for what they are: direct threats on working families of all backgrounds who rely on access to quality, affordable child care in their communities to go to work every day supporting, and growing our economy,” said Max Arias, chairperson for the Child Care Providers United, which says it represents more than 70,000 child care workers across the state who care for kids in their homes.

    “Funding freezes, even when intended to be temporary, will be devastating — resulting in families losing access to care and working parents facing the devastating choice of keeping their children safe or paying their bills.”

    Federal officials planned to send letters to the affected states Monday about the planned funding pauses, the New York Post reported. As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, state officials said they haven’t gotten any official notification of the funding freeze plans.

    “The California Department of Social Services administers child care programs that help working families afford safe, reliable care for their children — so parents can go to work, support their families, and contribute to their communities,” said a statement from California Department of Social Services spokesperson Jason Montiel.

    “These funds are critical for working families across California. We take fraud seriously, and CDSS has received no information from the federal government indicating any freeze, pause, or suspension of federal child care funding.”

    This story was originally published on LAist.


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  • As Job Market Tightens, More Californians Are Heading Back to College – The 74

    As Job Market Tightens, More Californians Are Heading Back to College – The 74

    “When the economy is doing well, our enrollments are down, and when the economy is in a tough stretch or in a recession, we see our enrollments go up,” said Chris Ferguson, an executive vice chancellor with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which oversees all of the state’s 116 community colleges. 

    Ferguson said the state has yet to release authoritative data on fall enrollment, but early data shows upward trends. In interviews with CalMatters, some college presidents said they’re seeing over 10% more students compared to last fall. But they say the state hasn’t provided enough funding to keep up with their growth. 

    California is not in a recession, but some economic indicators are grim. Unemployment is rising, and it’s getting harder to find a job. The cost of consumer goods, such as toilet paper and cosmetics, is going up, and economists say tariffs and President Donald Trump’s increased deportations could lead to further economic declines in the state. 

    “Typically when the economy gets a little crazy, like it is right now, people need to upskill or find new work,” and workers look to colleges for help, said Nicole Albo-Lopez, deputy chancellor for the Los Angeles Community College District. In the Los Angeles district, students between the ages of 35 and 54 are coming back to school in droves — up 28% compared to last year, she said. 

    Other factors may also be bringing students back to school. The COVID-19 pandemic created a sudden and historic drop in college enrollment, and some schools say the influx of students this year is just a return to pre-pandemic levels. A large portion of recent enrollment growth comes from high school students taking college courses, which has exploded in popularity in the past few years. 

    But most college officials agree that uncertainty about the economy is at least one of the driving forces for new students this semester. 

    At the Los Rios Community College District, which represents four campuses in the Sacramento metro area, enrollment is up by more than 5% compared to last fall. Part of that is due to “the gap between Wall Street and Main Street,” said Mario Rodriguez, an executive vice chancellor for the system: The stock market has performed well in the past few years, even as job seekers see fewer opportunities and families struggle with inflation. Enrollments in career technical classes are up 10% this semester at the district, the equivalent of almost 4,000 new students. 

    These job-ready programs, such as medical assisting, welding, and automotive, have always been popular, and some cap enrollment. School officials say waitlists are growing.

    Quitting a job, starting school

    Carla Gruhn, 29, has worked as a medical assistant in San Jose for 10 years. At one point she was making roughly $50,000 a year, but it wasn’t enough.

    “In the last year, eggs started becoming super expensive,” she said. “That’s when I started paying more attention to gas and groceries.” Together with her husband, she started planning ways to scale back — fewer coffee runs, less travel with their truck, cheaper gifts this Christmas. But they needed a long-term solution, too.

    In July, she quit her job and enrolled in a two-year radiologic technology program at Foothill College, in the south Bay Area, which will teach her how to read X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs. Her salary will double, maybe even triple, once she graduates with the new credential. 

    The pay raise could be “life-changing,” she said. At the moment, Gruhn said her family is small, just her husband and her dog, so their costs are lower, but they know it’s going to get more expensive, since they want to buy a house and have kids. “We’re trying to plan for the future too.”

    At Foothill College, enrollment is up, especially in science and technology classes, said Simon Pennington, the school’s associate vice president of community relations. Many of these students are looking to fulfill prerequisites to enter careers in the health care sector, he added. Health care is one of the largest and fastest-growing job sectors in the state, according to a recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California. 

    In Merced, hours away from major urban centers like the Bay Area, Sacramento, or Los Angeles, students are clamoring for classes in electronics, where the fall waitlist numbers have nearly doubled compared to three years ago. Demand is also up for classes in criminal justice and mechanized agriculture, according to James Leonard, a spokesperson for the school. 

    “When the economy goes bad, enrollment skyrockets,” said Dee Sigismond, Merced College’s vice president of instruction, though she wasn’t certain that a recession would have the same impact it did 15 years ago. Staring during the pandemic, Merced College, like most community colleges, now offers many of its classes online, which can make it easier for students to juggle school with a full- or part-time job. She added that Merced is also experimenting with new, more flexible kinds of instruction, such as competency-based education, which allows students to pass a class by showing they already have the requisite skills.

    Colleges call for more funding

    California’s community colleges receive most of their funding based on the number of students they serve. When enrollment declined during the pandemic, colleges were set to lose funding, but the governor and the Legislature granted the community college system a special exemption, delaying many funding cuts. 

    Now that enrollment is ticking up, many colleges say they have the opposite problem — they aren’t getting enough money to serve the influx of new students. That’s largely because the state’s funding formula is based on the college’s average enrollment over the past three years, so sudden changes this year are slow to have an effect. Rodriguez said his Sacramento area district is serving about 5,000 more students than the system is funded to support, representing about $20 million in lost revenue. 

    This summer, the state agreed to send more money to California’s community colleges to account for recent enrollment growth, but Ferguson said it isn’t enough to fully fund all the new students. 

    Last month, presidents and chancellors from 10 different community colleges or community college districts, including representatives from Los Angeles and Sacramento, sent a letter to the governor, asking him to change state policy and allow colleges to get more funding in next year’s budget. Though he did not sign the letter, Ferguson said the state chancellor’s office is asking the governor for similar changes. 

    In 2008, colleges had to cut back on services or classes, even as new students poured in because the state didn’t provide proportionate funding for each new enrollment. 

    Next year, California is expected to face an $18 billion budget deficit, according to a November analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. For comparison, the state had a deficit of about $24 billion in 2008, worth about $36 billion in today’s dollars. 

    In Chula Vista, Southwestern College President Mark Sanchez said his district is already saying no to potential college classes in high schools and prisons because of a lack of state funding. 

    His district had over 32,000 students in the last academic year — the highest enrollment rate since the Great Recession.


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  • Top Los Angeles Teacher Encourages Kids To Make a Mess in Her Class – The 74

    Top Los Angeles Teacher Encourages Kids To Make a Mess in Her Class – The 74


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    By the time the morning bell rings at Rosewood STEM Magnet, Urban Planning and Urban Design, Monika Heidi Duque has already been in her classroom for hours — reviewing lesson plans, setting out materials, and greeting students by name.  

    Duque, who has taught at the award-winning, urban planning-themed LAUSD elementary school in West Hollywood for 18 years, was one of four teachers named as finalists by the state education department for the 2026 California Teachers of the Year in October. She was the only LAUSD teacher to receive the honor.

    Duque works hard to create a free-flowing vibe in her first-grade classroom to promote the creativity of her students, describing the scene as the “best kind” of messy.  

    “It’s a place where my students are able to wonder, to be curious, to take risks, to be able to make things with their hands and minds,” said Duque, who has been a teacher in Los Angeles Unified since 2000. 

    “It’s a place where you can tell learning is happening,” she said of her classroom. 

    The veteran teacher’s freewheeling approach is apparent in her classroom but there’s a method to the mayhem. Everything her students do is somehow tied back to the school’s theme of urban planning and urban design, topics Duque admits could be heady for her 6-year-old students, were it not for her approach to the subjects, which links them to kids’ everyday lives. 

    On a recent school day, students in Duque’s class were drawing pictures of designs for a new community space in Griffith Park after she noticed a news report about the city’s struggle to repurpose the area formerly used for pony rides.   

    Students drew pictures of their ideas for the space, coloring construction paper using markers and drawing their visions for forests and lazy rivers that could be installed in L.A.’s historic park.  

    In subsequent parts of the project, Duque said, students will create three-dimensional models of their ideas for the part using recycled materials such as cardboard and paper.  

    “We’re making an arcade that’s called Fun Time, and then we put a petting zoo next to it called Pig Pig,” said Ben, a student in Duque’s class, who was working on a drawing with a few classmates. “I wonder if it will really happen.”

    Duque often pulls ideas for lessons from real-life events in L.A., finding the sprawling and diverse city offers no shortage of inspiration for classroom activities tied to urban planning. 

    “I just keep my eyes and ears to the news, and I just see what’s happening in our community, and I just get ideas from there,” she said. 

    A favorite lesson from a few years ago was based on an experience the teacher had while walking her dog in Griffith Park, when a coyote approached the two and nearly attacked Duque’s pet. 

    Feral coyotes are common in L.A. and such experiences aren’t unusual, but this event inspired Duque to create a lesson for students to create outfits for pets to repel predatory coyote attacks.

    Students created costumes for pets that featured things known to deter coyotes, such as flashing lights. One student liked the project so much she created a picture book about the lesson with her parents, a copy of which Duque keeps displayed on the wall in her class. 

    “It’s another example of how I really look at what’s in our city, what’s in the news, and what’s relevant to kids and our lives,” the teacher said. 

    Duque’s relentless curiosity and enthusiasm make her a natural leader among her colleagues at Rosewood, said the school’s principal, Linda Crowder.

    “She is a lifelong learner,” Crowder said. “She gets something and she runs with it.”


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  • Federal judge rules California teachers are allowed to ‘out’ transgender students to parents

    Federal judge rules California teachers are allowed to ‘out’ transgender students to parents

    Parents rights supporters attend a rally in Simi Valley on Sept. 26, 2023.,the night before a Republican presidential primary debate.

    Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Holz / California Policy Center

    Top Takeaways
    • A judge ruled parents have the right to know if a student expresses gender incongruence.
    • California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office applied to stay the court’s injunction.
    • The ruling may ultimately be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    A federal judge issued a ruling Monday that strikes down California school policies aimed at preventing schools from revealing a student’s gender identity to their parents.

    The class action suit, filed by California teachers and parents, hinges on whether TK-12 educators can breach a student’s confidentiality and tell parents that students are using a name or pronoun other than what they have been assigned at birth.

    U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, of San Diego, ruled in favor of two Escondido Union School District teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who claimed that district policies “flatly prohibit teachers from respecting parents’ wishes.” The middle school teachers named district officials in the suit and said district policies violated the teachers’ constitutional free speech and religious rights.

    Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in his order granting summary judgment that California’s public schools “place a communication barrier between parents and teachers.” The judgment applies to all California public schools, not just the original North San Diego County district.

    “Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence,” Benitez wrote. “Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence.”

    The suit, filed in April 2023, named California state officials, including State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, the State Board of Education and Attorney General Rob Bonta.

    Benitez’s ruling references guidance that the California Department of Education shared with school districts, including an FAQ that has since been deleted, as well as cultural competency training. But he stated that this case is not about California Assembly Bill 1955, which prohibits forcing teachers to disclose the gender identity of their students. 

    The Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth, or SAFETY Act, was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July 2024, in response to more than a dozen California school boards proposing or passing parental notification policies that required school staff to inform parents if a child asks to use a name or pronoun different from the one assigned at birth.

    A statement from the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus says that Benitez’s ruling “deliberately injects confusion into the public understanding” of the SAFETY Act and “signals an alarming willingness to undermine long-standing constitutional rights to privacy and nondiscrimination protections across California law.”

    Bonta’s office on Monday filed a brief seeking to stay the court’s injunction. A spokesperson for Bonta said the district court misapplied the law and that the decision will ultimately be reversed on appeal.

    “We are committed to securing school environments that allow transgender students to safely participate as their authentic selves while recognizing the important role that parents play in students’ lives,” said a statement from Bonta’s office.

    Benitez referenced the U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which granted public school parents the right to withdraw from materials and discussions that conflict with their sincerely held religious beliefs.

    A statement from the Thomas More Society, the Chicago-based conservative Catholic law firm that took on the case, called the judge’s decision a “landmark class-action ruling.” 

    “Today’s incredible victory finally, and permanently, ends California’s dangerous and unconstitutional regime of gender secrecy policies in schools,” said Paul M. Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More Society and a partner at LiMandri & Jonna.

    The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement that this ruling puts transgender and gender-nonforming students at risk of being outed.

    “A culture of outing harms everyone — students, families, and school staff alike — by removing opportunities to build trust. LGBTQ+ students deserve to decide on their own terms if, when, and how to come out, and to be able to be themselves at school,” said Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

    An attorney for the Escondido Union School District argued in court documents that both the California Constitution and the state education code protect the privacy rights of students in many contexts. For instance, the California Supreme Court has held that children have the right to an abortion without state notification of their parents. And school counselors are barred from disclosing confidential information if the counselor believes that it would result in a danger to the health or safety of the student.

    Legal experts said the case is likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

    When the case came up during a panel at the California School Boards Association conference in Sacramento earlier this month, Anthony De Marco, a partner at the firm Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, which represents school districts, called it a “direct attack” on California education. 

    “It crosses a line,” De Marco said, while speaking to board members about important legal issues they may be facing. “Certified employees should not be able to opt out.”

    Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers, called the court decision “an attack on the safety of our students and educators.” He said that as a math teacher, he witnessed students who were struggling with issues that they wanted to keep private from their parents.

    “Students more often go to their parents than their teachers,” Freitas said. “If they’re not going to their parents, there’s probably a reason why.”

    EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to this report.

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  • Layoffs, Cuts and Closures Are Coming to LAUSD Schools As District Confronts Budget Shortfalls – The 74

    Layoffs, Cuts and Closures Are Coming to LAUSD Schools As District Confronts Budget Shortfalls – The 74


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    Budget cuts, staffing reductions and school consolidations are coming to Los Angeles Unified as the cash-strapped district works to balance its shrinking budget, a top school official said. 

    LAUSD’s chief financial officer in an interview last week said declining enrollments and the end of pandemic relief funds have forced the district to take cost-cutting measures.  

    Schools have already been notified of how much they will have to cut from their budgets. The cuts will go into effect starting in August. 

    LAUSD officials in June had predicted a $1.6 billion deficit for the 2027-28 school year. But an updated version of the budget approved by the board last week eliminates the deficit by using reserve funds plus cost-cutting measures over the next two years. 

    The planned cuts to school budgets will begin in the 2026-27 school year, with school consolidations and staffing reductions planned for the following school year, said LAUSD Chief Financial Officer Saman Bravo-Karimi. 

    “We have fewer students each year, and in LAUSD that’s been the case for over two decades,” Bravo-Karimi said. “That has a profound impact on our funding levels. Also, we had the expiration of those one-time COVID relief funds that were very substantial.”  

    The district recently contracted with the consulting firm Ernst and Young to create models for closing and consolidating schools. While school officials wouldn’t say which schools or how many would be closed, the district has clearly been shrinking. 

    Enrollment last year fell to 408,083, from a peak of 746,831 in 2002. Nearly half of the district’s zoned elementary schools are half-full or less, and 56 have seen rosters fall by 70% or more. 

    Bravo-Karimi said in the current school year the district will spend about $2 billion more than it took in from state, local and federal funding. The trend of overspending is expected to continue next year and the year after that, he said.

    The district’s board in June approved a three-year budget plan that included a $18.8-billion budget for the current school year. The plan delayed layoffs until next year, and funded higher spending in part by reducing a fund for retirees’ health benefits. 

    According to the plan approved this month, the district will save:  

    • $425 million by clawing back funds that went unused by schools each year 
    • $300 million by reducing staffing and budgets at central offices 
    • $299 million by cutting special funding for schools with high-needs students
    • $120 million by cutting unfilled school staffing positions
    • $30 million by consolidating schools  
    • $16 million by cutting student transportation 

    Bravo-Karimi said the district gets virtually all of its money through per-pupil funding from the state. Since enrollment in the district has fallen steadily for decades, and then sharply since the pandemic, funding is down significantly, he said.

    Most zoned L.A. elementary schools are almost half empty, and many are operating at less than 25% capacity. Thirty-four schools have fewer than 200 students enrolled; a dozen of those schools once had enrollment over 400.     

    The drops have prompted LAUSD leaders to talk about closing or combining schools, a controversial step that other big U.S. cities are already doing or considering. 

    Bravo-Karimi said the district would assess the needs of communities and the conditions at local schools before it makes any decisions about school closings or consolidations. 

    “That process needs to play out before any decisions are made about potential consolidation of school facilities,” he said.

    Bravo-Karimi said other factors, including ongoing negotiations with labor unions, and changes to state funding, will further impact the district’s budget in the coming months. 

    Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab and Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said the cuts planned for LAUSD are “relatively mild” compared to overall size of the district’s budget and cuts being considered at other districts around California and the rest of the country. 

    “I don’t think the people in the schools are going to notice that there’s a shrinking of the central office or that they’re using reserves,” said Roza. “Unless you’re one of the people who loses their transportation or if you’re in one of the schools that gets closed.” 

    But, Roza said, many of the cuts taken by LAUSD can only be made once, and the district still faces profound changes as enrollments continue to fall and downsizing becomes more and more necessary. 

    “This really should be a signal to families,” said Roza of the planned cuts in the district’s latest budget. “After several years of really being flush with cash, this is not the financial position that LA Unified is going to be in moving forward.” 

    LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz-Franklin, who represents LAUSD’s District Seven, which includes neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro, said the district will work to shield kids from the impact of budget cuts. 

    But, Ortiz-Franklin said, the district hired permanent staffers with one-time COVID funding, and now some of those staffers will have to be let go. 

    Still, LA Unified has made strong gains since the pandemic, she said, and the district must work hard to preserve its upward trajectory despite financial headwinds. 

    “We would love to share good news, especially this time of year,” said Ortiz-Franklin. “But the reality is, it is really tough.” 

    School leaders across LAUSD received preliminary budgets for the next year over the last few weeks, said Ortiz-Franklin. Some schools in her district are facing cuts of up to 15%, forcing them to make tough decisions on which staffers to keep and who to let go. 

    Several hundred additional layoffs will be announced in February, she said, when the district makes another assessment of staffing needs. 

    “We don’t know the total number yet, and we don’t know which positions yet,” said Ortiz-Franklin.


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