The most famous and powerful bros broke up today. Elon Musk and Donald Trump turned on one another. Elon had spent months slashing and burning the federal government, destroying agencies and Departments.
Congress sat back and watched, happy to relinquish their Constitutional powers to the richest man in the world. No, he can’t close down USAID, which is Congressionally authorized. No, he can’t shutter the U.S. Department of Education, without the consent of Congress. Republicans in Congress did nothing to slow him down or reclaim their Constitutional duties.
Apparently, Elon was not happy to learn that Trump’s new budget will increase the national debt.
The tweets flew today between Musk and Trump. I don’t have them all, but you will get the picture of intense acrimony.
The most amazing tweet: Musk wrote that Trump would have lost and Republicans would have lost the House without Elon’s help. What did Elon do that turned the election for Trump? We know he offered million dollar rewards to Trump voters, but only a few. What else did he do? Was it something about voting machines?
May 27: Musk says he’s ‘disappointed’ in Trump’s spending bill
Musk criticized Trump’s spending bill, saying he was “disappointed” in the president’s bill in a CBS News interview.
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS.
DOGE stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, which has been responsible for slashing federal programs and jobs during Trump’s first months back in office.
June 3: Musk calls Trump’s spending bill a ‘disgusting abomination’
Just days after Musk departed as a senior adviser at the White House, the billionaire issued a scathing criticism on X, calling President Trump’s spending bill a “disgusting abomination”
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
June 4: Musk continues to blast Trump’s bill
Musk on Wednesday escalated his attacks, urging lawmakers to “KILL the BILL.”
“Call your Senator, Call your Congressman,” Musk wrote. “Bankrupting America is NOT ok!”
June 5: Trump threatens to cut Musk’s government contracts
During an Oval Office meeting Thursday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump told reporters that he was “very disappointed” with Musk as the tech billionaire continued to blast the president’s massive tax and spending cuts package.
“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill,” Trump said. “I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Trump added that he and Musk “had a great relationship” but “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
Musk swiftly responded to the president’s criticism on social media, saying “Slim and beautiful is the way.”
“Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,” Musk wrote on X.
“In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way,” Musk added.
Musk continued his criticism in a series of posts, saying Trump has him to thank for winning back the Oval Office.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote.
Just hours after Trump said he was “disappointed” with Musk, the billionaire fired back online — prompting Trump to stoke the flames by threatening to cut Musk’s government contracts.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote Truth Social, his social media network. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Musk then claimed Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, then reposted a comment calling for the president’s impeachment.
In a separate post, Trump touted his spending bill and suggested Musk should’ve turned against him months ago.
OnnElin’s Twitter account (@Elonmusk), he tweeted that Trump would cause a recession in the second half of the year. He also retweeted videos of Trump partying with Jeffrey Epstein and young women.
At 3:10 pm today, Musk tweeted:
Time to drop the really big bomb:
@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.
Students walk near Laxson Auditorium on the Chico State campus.
Credit: Jason Halley/University Photographer/Chico State
California lawmakers introduced a series of bills Monday to prevent and address sexual discrimination and harassment in the state’s colleges and universities.
The 12-bill package led by Assemblymember Mike Fong, who chairs the Assembly Higher Education Committee, follows a report released in February that detailed significant deficiencies in how the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges handle Title IX. That federal law prohibits schools from sex-based discrimination.
“This package is a crucial step in creating a system of compliance and oversight that will increase transparency and accountability to address and prevent sex discrimination and harassment on college campuses,” said Fong, D-Monterey Park. “While there is still much work ahead, I am confident in the impact this legislative package will have for campus communities, especially students and staff. I look forward to continual collaboration between the Legislature and all California’s higher education institutions to address this issue of safety and equity on campus.”
The 12 bills include:
AB 810, from Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Burbank, would require all public colleges and universities to use UC Davis’ policy to conduct employment verification checks to determine if a job applicant for any athletic, academic or administrative position had any substantial misconduct allegations from their previous employer.
AB 1790, from Assemblymember Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, would require CSU to implement recommendations made in a Title IX report conducted last year by the California State Auditor by Jan. 1, 2026. That report found the 23-campus system lacked resources and failed to carry out its Title IX responsibilities.
AB 1905, from Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-San Luis Obispo, would create parameters around employee retreat rights, letters of recommendations and settlements for administrators who have a substantiated sexual harassment complaint against them.
AB 2047, from Fong, would create an independent, statewide Title IX office to assist the community colleges, CSU and UC systems with Title IX monitoring and compliance, and create a statewide Title IX coordinator.
AB 2048, from Fong, would require each community college district and each CSU and UC campus to have an independent Title IX office.
AB 2326, from Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-Chula Vista, would create entities responsible for ensuring campus programs are free from discrimination and would require the community colleges, CSU and UC to annually present to the Legislature how their systems are actively preventing discrimination.
AB 2407, from Assemblymember Gregg Hart, D-Santa Barbara, would require the California State Auditor to audit the community colleges, CSU and UC systems every three years on their ability to address and prevent sexual harassment on the campuses.
AB 2492, from Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, would create additional positions on college campuses to assist students, faculty and staff during the adjudication of sexual harassment complaints.
AB 2608, from Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, would require campuses to offer drug-facilitated sexual assault prevention training.
AB 2987, from Assemblymember Liz Ortega, D-Hayward, would mandate that the community colleges and CSU provide timely updates on the outcomes of sexual discrimination and harassment cases to the people involved. The bill would request the same of UC.
Senate Bill 1166, from Sen. Bill Dodd, would establish annual reporting requirements for the community colleges and CSU to conduct a report on sexual harassment complaint outcomes, and a summary of how each campus worked to prevent sex discrimination. The bill would request the same of UC.
SB 1491, from Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Hayward, would create a notification process for students who attend private institutions to disclose discriminatory events to the U.S. Department of Education, even if their college or university is exempt from Title IX.
The slate of bills follows a series of news nationally and statewide about mishandled Title IX cases. Last year, the CSU system was found to have mishandled a variety of cases based on reports from an independent law firm and the state auditor. CSU is currently implementing the changes and reforms called for in both reports, and it has already changed its policy allowing administrators who have committed misconduct to “retreat” to faculty positions.
“Whether it’s sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination, or any other form of misconduct, no student should feel unsafe or unwelcome in their learning environment,” said Lisa Baker, a representative from the student senate for California Community Colleges. “Unfortunately, harassment remains prevalent on college campuses, potentially affecting students’ mental health and academic performance. We students, and future students, are relying on Title IX and this package of bills for our success.”
West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond.
Photo: Andrew Reed/EdSource
Cheryl Cotton was appointed the next superintendent of West Contra Costa Unified.West Contra Costa Unified
West Contra Costa Unified School District’s incoming superintendent already knows the district well.
On Wednesday night, the district’s board unanimously approved a contract with Cheryl Cotton, a Richmond native, a former district administrator and a former student who attended district schools in San Pablo and El Cerrito.
Cotton currently serves as the deputy superintendent of public instruction at the California Department of Education, overseeing the instruction, measurement and administration branch, according to a press release from the school district. She also served as CDE’s deputy superintendent of human resources and labor relations.
“This is my life’s work. This is my home. This is my community,” Cotton told Richmondside after the announcement.
The board approved a three-year $325,000 contract with Cotton. She begins on June 20, presiding over the East Bay district that has 54 schools.
Board President Leslie Reckler said that the board was thrilled to find someone with Cotton’s “excellent skill set” who knows the district well enough to hit the ground running.
“She was born here; she went to school here; she worked as a principal here,” Reckler told EdSource. “She’s familiar with our community. That is super helpful, no question.”
Cotton is the first African American woman to hold the permanent role of superintendent. She served as a school principal and later a human resources director in the district for 14 years. She also worked in human resources in the Albany Unified School District and the Contra Costa County Office of Education.
Reckler said she is hopeful that Cotton’s experience and connections at CDE will help “drive student success.”
United Teachers of Richmond President Francisco Ortiz said he appreciates that the incoming superintendent is a product of the district, which he considers a “really big asset in working towards school stability.” He’s also hoping that Cotton’s experience at CDE working with districts all over the state will enable her to bring fresh insights into tackling the district’s thorniest issues.
“We’ve had a tough couple of years with the constant threat of layoffs,” Ortiz said. That makes it hard to find qualified teachers, he said.
Reckler said Cotton will have a solid team of support to ensure that she’s able to help the district navigate these challenges. Cotton’s contract also provides up to $20,000 for a mentor to support her during her first two years.
“We have good people watching over us, and we have a good safety net — not that the decisions will be easy,” Reckler said.
Ortiz, who had experience with Cotton while she served as district human resources director, said he appreciated her site visits and work to find solutions by seeking common ground. He added they’re ready to work with Cotton to fully staff district schools and stabilize the district. He also hopes that Cotton will improve transparency at the district level and aim to work more collaboratively with teachers, families and others in the school community.
The district’s previous superintendent, Chris Hurst, retired in December. Kim Moses, associate superintendent for business services, has been serving as an interim superintendent. Moses said, in a statement, that she is eager to return to her prior role to “support the fiscal operations of our district.”
This is the second part of a special series on the recruitment and retention of Black teachers in California. The recruitment and hiring of Black educators has lagged, even as a teacher shortage has given the task new urgency.
Our series looks at the obstacles that keep Black people from becoming teachers, and the bias and lack of support some face when they join the profession.
The final story looks at what California and school districts are doing to recruit and retain Black teachers, and what still needs to be done.
California school districts have been trying to recruit and retain Black teachers for years, but the numbers don’t seem to be increasing. The cost of teacher preparation and unpaid student teaching make it difficult for Black teacher candidates to complete the work to earn a credential. Once in the classroom, a lack of support and respect sometimes makes it difficult for them to remain.
In the 2020-21 school year, the most recent year data is available, 3.8% of all teachers in California were Black, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Black students made up 5.2% of the state’s student population that year.
Research shows that having a Black teacher in the classroom has a positive impact on all students, especially students of color who, as a result, have higher test scores and graduation rates.
Krystle Goff: We constantly have to prove ourselves
Krystle Goff is a student program coordinator at 122nd Street Elementary in Los Angeles Unified.Krystle Goff
Krystle Goff worked as a special education paraeducator for four years before earning a teaching credential, and later a masters’ degree. Now, even with eight years as a credentialed teacher, she still feels she has to prove herself every day.
Black teachers aren’t given the same opportunities to make mistakes that other teachers are given, said Goff, who works in Los Angeles Unified. There is pressure every day to get it right the first time, even from other Black teachers, she said.
“There is a standard that Black educators hold toward each other,” she said. “We are harder on ourselves and harder on our students than I think is talked about.”
Goff alsospent 14 months at the Principal Leadership Institute at UCLA, which prepares educators to be social justice leaders in Los Angeles schools.
“(There was) lots of reading, lots of literature, and it just kind of pulled apart the systems that I now just can’t unsee,” Goff said. “It’s almost like I’m in the matrix. When I walk into school systems. I’m like, you guys need help.”
Goff is currently the targeted student population coordinator, responsible for the re-designation of English learners at 122nd Street Elementary Schoolin Los Angeles. She wants to be a school administrator.
“It’s important because that’s the only way we are going to shift schools,” she said. “… We need principals who are able to see the needs of the community and address them on the school campus, and not weaponize what’s happening in the community on the school campus.”
There is racial tension at 122nd Street Elementary that should be addressed, she said. The school is predominantly Latino, with Black students making up less than 20% of the population. The tension was apparent in February as teachers made decisions about whether to have Black history programs.
“It’s been very, what seems controversial,” Goff said. “… It’s very political.”
Schools should offer staff training on race and identity, or a staff retreat where colleagues can discuss the topic, Goff said.
“I think that in every layer of what makes a school run — from the parent center to the classroom, to the office — there’s this buzz about race and identity, but we don’t ever talk about it,” she said. “We don’t ever mention it. And somehow we’re supposed to all gel together and work together. I think it takes training to identify who we are and what we bring to our position to understand how we’re able to best work with one another.”
Preston Jackson: More Black mentors are needed
P.E. teacher Preston Jackson works at California Middle School at Sacramento Ct.
Being a teacher is hard, but being a Black teacher is harder, said Preston Jackson, who teaches physical education at California Middle School in Sacramento City Unified.
“Ninety percent, you probably are going to be on a site where you’re the only one there,” Jackson said. “And so you’re not going to have someone there that has gone through a similar process, because being a Black teacher is a completely different situation.”
Jackson is one of two Black teachers at the middle school. During his 19-year tenure, there have only been a few more, he said.
Having more Black mentors would have made his early years in teaching easier, Jackson said, because they would have provided guidance on difficult topics a new teacher may not feel comfortable discussing with administrators, like how to deal with parents of other races that talk down to them.
“They have to have someone they can have those types of tough conversations with, to kind of help them work through the process until they get to a point where they are confident enough on their own feet, where they can handle those things,” he said.
Jackson gets discouraged about teaching sometimes, particularly when it comes to the low expectations he feels some in education have for Black children. This is the No. 1 reason Black teachers quit, he said.
He was going over benchmark test scores with the principal and fellow members of the School Site Council in February, when he realized that no Black students were enrolled in Math 8, the highest level math course.
“So, you can tell me that, with all the Black kids we have on this campus, not one is qualified to be in Math 8?” Jackson asked.
Not even the high-achieving Black students in the school were enrolled in the class, and Jackson suspects they were not steered toward the class because teachers think it is too difficult for them.
“They’re expecting kids to fail,” he said. “They’re setting the kids up for failure instead of preparing them for success. And that’s a huge problem.”
Alicia Simba: I wanted to work with Black teachers
Alicia Simba is a transitional kindergarten teacher at Prescott Elementary School in Oakland Unified.
Alicia Simba chose to work in the Oakland Unified School District when she started as a teacher four years ago, so that she could be in a school community with other Black teachers. Her school, Prescott Elementary,also has a Black principal, and the district has a Black superintendent.
When she was looking for work, Simba went to Wikipedia and looked for cities in California with the largest populations of Black residents, and then looked up their school districts. Even those districts often didn’t have many Black teachers, she found.
“Unlike other friends and peers that I have, I’m never the only Black teacher in a professional development or at a conference in the district,” Simba said of Oakland Unified. “I think that, really, to me, helps with the retention part.”
Of her friends from her teacher preparation program, Simba, a transitional kindergarten teacher, says she works with the highest number of Black children and has the lowest salary.
“I can see how friendships might become more segregated as we get older,” Simba said. “In a couple of years, my friends and I will just not be living within the same means. They’ll want to go to Baja, and I can’t go — not because I don’t want to go to Baja. I do want to go to Baja. But because I teach in OUSD.”
Simba attended a women’s college on the East Coast as a science major and worked at the campus day care center before being accepted into the teacher preparation program at Stanford University on a full scholarship. It was the job at the day care center that made her decide to teach.
“I was like, one, this is the best job ever,” she said. “I love the kids. But two, I get to hang out with the best women in the world.”
Simba decided to take the traditional route to a credential instead of an alternative route, such as an internship, which pays teacher candidates to work as a classroom teacher while completing teacher preparation coursework. She wanted a more thorough education, she said.
While teacher interns are paid, they are more likely to leave teaching because they do not benefit from mentorship and are thrust into a classroom as the lead teacher without support or guidance, she said.
Traditional training can help teachers learn to deal with difficult situations that may lead to burnout, Simba said.
“Like when a kid throws a chair, or bites them,” she said. “Like when one peed on the floor, they actually know what to do. These are all things that happened to me.”
There are things that can be done to increase the number of Black teachers, including student loan forgiveness, paying student teachers, paying teachers more equitably across districts and offering subsidized housing, Simba said. Young teachers also need mentorship and emotional support, she added.
Black teachers may feel they have to leave (their jobs) to preserve their own emotional well-being, even if they love the kids and the community and love to teach, Simba said.
Brooke Sims: Cruel words impact Black students
Brooke Sims has always loved school. Her mother and grandmother were teachers, so she spent a lot of time in classrooms, even as a small child.
“I was joking about how much I loved school supplies, so maybe that’s why I’m a teacher — a love of school supplies,” she said. “I always played school.”
Sims had a chance to do it for real in high school when she helped out in preschool and kindergarten classrooms in Stockton as part of a career educational course called Careers with Children. It wasn’t long before Sims was certain that teaching was what she wanted to do with her life.
Having her family as role models helped Sims to visualize herself as a teacher, because she had few Black teachers during her K-12 years in Stockton. She didn’t see many Black teachers until she attended Delta College in Stockton and then later, when she began student teaching at Elk Grove Unified in Sacramento County.
Sims says that in the 16 years since she received her teaching credential, she has considered quitting many times. The work is harder; there is little support and the pay isn’t great.
She also has had to contend with colleagues who make racist and insensitive comments about people of color, including students.
“It breaks my heart because it’s like, you’re teaching Black children, you’re teaching children of color, and this is what you think, and you’ve never taken the time to reflect or maybe look at it differently.”
This sometimes plays out with Black children being punished harder than their white counterparts, even if their offenses are worse, Sims said.
“I’m not in all of these people’s classrooms, but I’ve heard the microaggressions, I’ve heard the way they speak, and I can’t imagine what happens in the classroom,” she said.
The incidents go back as far as her days as a student teacher. In one case, a white teacher candidate came back from a meeting with her consulting teacher livid. She told Sims that the consulting teacher told her not to work so hard with two students of color because “they are not going to go to college.” The candidate asked to be assigned another consulting teacher.
“She could not believe that this woman said this to her about some little kids, some little first graders,” Sims said.
Petrina Miller: Better pay would make teachers stay
Petrina Miller teaches at 116th Street School in Los Angeles.
A lot has changed since Petrina Miller began teaching at 116th Street School in Los Angeles about 26 years ago, including the demographics of the students. When she began teaching, the school had mostly Black students, and now the majority of students are Latino.
Although Miller appreciates the need for Black students to have Black teachers, she doesn’t think people should be assigned tasks, or students, solely because of their skin color. It’s not fair to the student, and it’s not fair to the teacher, she said, because sometimes, they might fare better with a younger teacher, for example.
Miller, who teaches a combined transitional kindergarten and kindergarten class at the school, is a member of Educators for Excellence, a nonprofit with the goal of elevating the teaching profession. It has more than 30,000 members.
Black teachers are being pushed out of the profession because of a lack of support, an ability to earn more at another job and a general lack of respect from the public and administrators, Miller said.
People don’t go into teaching for the high pay, Miller said. But teachers do deserve a wage that is livable or some sort of property tax adjustment or other financial help to make being a teacher more attractive.
“Then they can live where they work,” Miller said. “I know some teachers who work in San Pedro and live somewhere else. They can’t afford it, or they work in Torrance and … they can’t live there, it costs too much.”
Since the Covid pandemic, there has been less support and sometimes respect from administrators as they struggle to balance new rules and requirements from the district and state.
“I think that being 10, 15 years into this profession, you expect a certain amount of respect or professionalism from your higher-ups,” Miller said. “And I think that the trickle-down effect on all the things that happen from the district office to the (school) office, that respect is just getting lost.”
Heather Cox Richardson warns about the Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which cuts Medicaid and other vital services while increasing the deficit. Republicans cover up the cruel cuts to vital services by lying about them.
The Republicans’ giant budget reconciliation bill has focused attention on the drastic cuts the Trump administration is making to the American government. On Friday, when a constituent at a town hall shouted that the Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for low-income Americans, meant that “people will die,” Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) replied, “Well, we are all going to die.”
The next day, Ernst released a video purporting to be an apology. It made things worse. “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth. So, I apologize. And I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ,” she said.
Ernst blamed the “hysteria that’s out there coming from the left” for the outcry over her comments. Like other Republicans, she claims that the proposed cuts of more than $700 billion in Medicaid funding over the next ten years is designed only to get rid of the waste and fraud in the program. Thus, they say, they are actually strengthening Medicaid for those who need it.
But, as Linda Qiu noted in the New York Timestoday, most of the bill’s provisions have little to do with the “waste, fraud, and abuse” Republicans talk about. They target Medicaid expansion, cut the ability of states to finance Medicaid, force states to drop coverage, and limit access to care. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the cuts mean more than 10.3 million Americans will lose health care coverage.
House speaker Mike Johnson has claimed that those losing coverage will be 1.4 million unauthorized immigrants, but this is false. As Qiu notes, although 14 states use their own funds to provide health insurance for undocumented immigrant children, and seven of those states provide some coverage for undocumented pregnant women, in fact, “unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for federally funded Medicaid, except in emergency situations.” Instead, the bill pressures those fourteen states to drop undocumented coverage by reducing their federal Medicaid funding.
MAGA Republicans claim their “One Big, Beautiful Bill”—that’s its official name—dramatically reduces the deficit, but that, too, is a lie.
On Thursday, May 29, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the measure would carry out “the largest deficit reduction in nearly 30 years with $1.6 trillion in mandatory savings.” She echoed forty years of Republican claims that the economic growth unleashed by the measure would lead to higher tax revenues, a claim that hasn’t been true since Ronald Reagan made it in the 1980s.
In fact, the CBO estimates that the tax cuts and additional spending in the measure mean “[a]n increase in the federal deficit of $3.8 trillion.” As G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers notes, the CBO has been historically very reliable, but Leavitt and House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tried to discount its scoring by claiming, as Johnson said: “They are historically totally unreliable. It’s run by Democrats.”
The director of the CBO, economist Philip Swagel, worked as chief of staff and senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisors during the George W. Bush administration. He was appointed in 2019 with the support of Senate Budget Committee chair Michael Enzi (R-WY) and House Budget Committee chair John Yarmuth (D-KY). He was reappointed in 2023 with bipartisan support.
Republican cuts to government programs are a dramatic reworking of America’s traditional evidence-based government that works to improve the lives of a majority of Americans. They are replacing that government with an ideologically driven system that concentrates wealth and power in a few hands and denies that the government has a role to play in protecting Americans.
And yet, those who get their news by watching the Fox News Channel are likely unaware of the Republicans’ planned changes to Medicaid. As Aaron Rupar noted, on this morning’s Fox and Friends, the hosts mentioned Medicaid just once. They mentioned former president Joe Biden 39 times.
That change shows dramatically in cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA is an agency in the Commerce Department, established under Republican president Richard Nixon in 1970, that monitors weather conditions, storms, and ocean currents. The National Weather Service (NWS), which provides weather, wind, and ocean forecasts, is part of NOAA.
NWS forecasts annually provide the U.S. with an estimated $31.5 billion in benefits as they enable farmers, fishermen, businesspeople, schools, and individuals to plan around weather events.
As soon as he took office, Trump imposed an across-the-board hiring freeze, and billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” fired probationary employees and impounded funds Congress had appropriated. Now, as hurricane season begins, experts in storms and disasters are worried that the NOAA will be unable to function adequately.
Cuts to the NWS have already meant fewer weather balloons and thus less data, leaving gaps in information for a March ice storm in Northern Michigan and for storms and floods in Oklahoma in April. Oliver Milman of The Guardianreported today that 15 NWS offices on the Gulf of Mexico, a region vulnerable to hurricanes, are understaffed after losing more than 600 employees. Miami’s National Hurricane Center is short five specialists. Thirty of the 122 NWS stations no longer have a meteorologist in charge, and as of June 1, seven of those 122 stations will not have enough staff to operate around the clock.
On May 5, the five living former NWS leaders, who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, wrote a letter to the American people warning that the cuts threaten to bring “needless loss of life.” They urged Americans to “raise your voice” against the cuts.
Trump’s proposed 2026 budget calls for “terminating a variety of climate-dominated research, data, and grant programs” and cutting about 25% more out of NOAA’s funding.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has also suffered dramatic cuts as Trump has said he intends to push disaster recovery to the states. The lack of expertise is taking a toll there, too. Today staff members there said they were baffled after David Richardson, the head of the agency, said he did not know the United States has a hurricane season. (It does, and it stretches from June 1 to the end of November.) Richardson had no experience with disaster response before taking charge of FEMA.
Trump’s proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are even more draconian. On Friday, in a more detailed budget than the administration published in early May, the administration called for cuts of 43% to the NIH, about $20 billion a year. That includes cuts of nearly 40% to the National Cancer Institute. At the same time, the administration is threatening to end virtually all biomedical research at universities.
On Friday, May 23, the White House issued an executive order called “Restoring Gold Standard Science.” The order cites the COVID-19 guidance about school reopenings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to claim that the federal government under President Joe Biden “used or promoted scientific information in a highly misleading manner.” (Schools closed in March 2020 under Trump.) The document orders that “[e]mployees shall not engage in scientific misconduct” and, scientists Colette Delawalla, Victor Ambros, Carl Bergstrom, Carol Greider, Michael Mann, and Brian Nosek explain in The Guardian, gives political appointees the power to silence any research they oppose “based on their own ‘judgment.’” They also have the power to punish those scientists whose work they find objectionable.
The Guardian authors note that science is “the most important long-term investment for humanity.” They recall the story of Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko, who is a prime example of the terrible danger of replacing fact-based reality with ideology.
As Sam Kean of The Atlantic noted in 2017, Lysenko opposed science-based agriculture in the mid-20th century in favor of the pseudo-scientific idea that the environment alone shapes plants and animals. This idea reflected communist political thought, and Lysenko gained the favor of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Lysenko claimed that his own agricultural techniques, which included transforming one species into another, would dramatically increase crop yields. Government leaders declared that Lysenko’s ideas were the only correct ones, and anyone who disagreed with him was denounced. About 3,000 biologists whose work contradicted his were fired or sent to jail. Some were executed. Scientific research was effectively banned.
In the 1930s, Soviet leaders set out to “modernize” Soviet agriculture, and when their new state-run farming collectives failed, they turned to Lysenko to fix the problem with his new techniques. Almost everything planted according to his demands died or rotted. In the USSR and in China, which adopted his methods in the 1950s, at least 30 million people died of starvation.
“[W]hen the doctrines of science and the doctrines of communism clashed, he always chose the latter—confident that biology would conform to ideology in the end,” Kean said of Lysenko. He concludes: “It never did.”
The topic of AI has already grown trite, but don’t let that fool you. It’s not a fad. It feels more akin to the “atmospheric river” storms hitting California — a phenomenon we didn’t hear or know about a few years ago that is now changing how we look at rain and mudslides and fires and insurance. The storms also bring life-giving water desperately needed in the West.
Artificial intelligence is an atmospheric river impacting everything we do — including how teachers teach, how students learn — and creating opportunities to rethink and redesign the 200-year-old institution called public education. While some may view AI as a threat, I see it as breathing new life into education.
With education at a critical juncture, the recent K-12 AI Summit in Anaheim provided education, policy, philanthropy, and industry leaders (from 31 states and over 100 districts) an opportunity to explore ways of integrating these new technologies into K-12 experiences for both students and teachers. Spearheaded by key partners such as the Anaheim Union High School District, Digital Promise, AI EDU, and UC Irvine, this summit landed on one resounding message: The powerful role of AI as an assistant and thought partner, not a replacement for teachers.
AI technologies offer opportunities to personalize learning experiences, provide immediate feedback and identify areas where students need support. They complement teachers’ expertise, fostering a human-centered approach to education while enhancing learning outcomes. Other themes that emerged include the need to:
Address equity and access disparities. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into classrooms, we must ensure that all students have equitable access to these resources. Participants stressed the importance of bridging the expensive AI digital divide, providing training for educators (but not in traditional top-down ways that edtech has delivered in the past), inclusive design practices in AI development, and addressing infrastructure gaps to promote equitable access to technology.
Incorporate ethical and responsible AI use in education. Concerns about data privacy, algorithmic bias and the ethical implications of automated decision-making have grown. Participants emphasized the need for collaborative efforts to establish frameworks and guidelines for ethical AI use that foster transparency, accountability and equity as AI becomes a tool for enhanced curriculum and instruction and the reinvention of schooling where the walls of learning between school and community come down.
Equip students with skills for an AI-driven economy. AI can help teachers assist students with technical proficiencies and mastering substantive knowledge, but also in critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration. Participants emphasized how AI can accelerate interdisciplinary teaching and hands-on learning to prepare students for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Share knowledge and collaborate. Partnerships between schools, universities, industry and community organizations are essential for developing AI curriculum, providing professional development and piloting initiatives to connect school experiences with career opportunities.
Sharing best practices and research findings fosters a community dedicated to advancing AI education. It is estimated that over 30% of current jobs require some type of AI skill set. This number will likely increase sharply over the next few years. School leaders who put their heads in the sand ignoring AI are committing a serious disservice to their students when it comes to competitiveness in the job market.
I believe that this “movement” in K-12 spaces could energize the vibrant community school initiatives happening across California where folks are rethinking schools and teachers are developing experiences for students to problem-solve local and national issues. The AI future holds immense potential to empower teachers, students, parents and community members around what is the purpose of school. By leveraging the community school movement, which is a relationship-centered, inclusive process that uplifts the voices, needs and assets of historically marginalized students and groups, advanced AI tools can help teachers develop more personalized instruction, promote equity, foster ethical use, and prepare students to thrive through civic engagement and discover real-world solutions to real-world problems. AI can also help us assemble evidence of student learning and teacher leadership as well as insights from community stakeholders in ways heretofore impossible.
The journey toward integrating AI into K-12 education is just beginning, with summit partners committed to continuing this crucial work. Therefore, let’s seize this opportunity to rethink and re-imagine what schools can be. As Martin Luther King Jr. once emphasized, “Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District, challenging the district’s policy limiting charter co-locations on nearly 350 campuses, including the district’s 100 Priority Schools, Black Student Achievement Plan schools and community schools.
The lawsuit, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, argues that the policy is illegal and discriminates against charter students by not providing them with “reasonably equivalent” facilities.
“We have consistently maintained that this policy is a shameful and discriminatory attack on public charter school students, for which the district shares a responsibility to house,” said Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the CCSA at a press event Tuesday.
“Families choose to send their children to LAUSD charter public schools because they have found programs uniquely tailored to their needs. … This policy limits options for those parents among the most vulnerable across LA Unified.”
The CCSA started making threats of litigation when the board passed the resolution on Feb. 13. The following month, the CCSA claimed the vote was invalid due to alleged violations of the state’s open- meetings law, the Brown Act, tied to board member George McKenna’s virtual participation during the February vote.
LAUSD’s school board reconvened on March 19 and passed the policy a second time with a 4-3 vote that included the support of Board President Jackie Goldberg, Vice President Scott Schmerelson and members McKenna and Rocio Rivas.
The four board members, along with members of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), have repeatedly emphasized negative effects of co-location, particularly on vulnerable students, including allegedly hostile school environments and challenges with accessing programmatic spaces, including computer labs, music rooms and art studios.
Family centers, according to Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of UTLA, are also negatively impacted by co-locations.
“Implementing proper oversight and limitations on co-located schools is the fairest way to ensure that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, can access a high-quality education within LAUSD,” Myart-Cruz said in a statement to EdSource.
She added that the lawsuit filed by the CCSA is “a misguided response” to a policy widely supported by teachers, parents and students.
“All students deserve a space to thrive, and overcrowding our already resource-limited public schools has had a detrimental effect on both public and charter students,” Myart-Cruz said.
Charter proponents, however, have argued that taking nearly 350 schools off the table for co-locations could lead to more multi-site offers and school closures, which they say will negatively impact vulnerable students.
The lawsuit specifically states that the 240 charter schools in LAUSD educate more than 115,000 students, who are largely low-income and students of color.
The lawsuit also claims that the district has failed to collaborate in good faith and points to a history of alleged violations of Proposition 39, which dealt with bonds to finance school facilities.
“Despite CCSA and the charter public school communities’ offer to work collaboratively with the board on a new policy that would improve the process of sharing campuses, LAUSD has disregarded the voices and needs of charter school families and adopted a new policy to harm their charter schools,” Castrejón added at Tuesday’s press event.
LAUSD declined to comment on the lawsuit as litigation is pending.
Meanwhile, the CCSA emphasized its strong legal track record and said they feel optimistic about the case.
“It is a common theme with LAUSD,” said CCSA’s vice president of legal advocacy and executive director, Julie Umansky, on Tuesday. “We’re feeling confident with the precedent on their disregard for Prop. 39 and our ability to get the court to see it the way we do.”
It’s hard to say what is the very worst thing Trump has done in the first few months of his second term.
Here’s my candidate: the cancellation of vast numbers of grants for medical research. There is simply no rationale for the way he has laid waste to scientific research–to those seeking the causes and cures for deadly diseases that afflict the lives of millions of people.
This link is a gift article, so you should be able to open it.
It contains interactive features that I cannot duplicate.
Thousands of grants have been canceled or put in indefinite hold. They include research about effective vaccines. The search for cures for different types of cancer.
In his first months in office, President Trump has slashed funding for medical research, threatening a longstanding alliance between the federal government and universities that helped make the United States the world leader in medical science.
Some changes have been starkly visible, but the country’s medical grant-making machinery has also radically transformed outside the public eye, a New York Times analysis found. To understand the cuts, The Times trawled through detailed grant data from the National Institutes of Health, interviewed dozens of affected researchers and spoke to agency insiders who said that their government jobs have become unrecognizable.
In all, the N.I.H., the world’s premier public funder of medical research, has ended 1,389 awards and delayed sending funding to more than 1,000 additional projects, The Times found. From the day Mr. Trump was inaugurated through April, the agency awarded $1.6 billion less compared with the same period last year, a reduction of one-fifth. (N.I.H. records for May are not yet comparable.)
A middle school science teacher explains a lesson on climate change using a SMART board.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
Recruiting and retaining Black teachers has taken on new urgency in recent years as California lawmakers try to ease the state’s teacher shortage. The state and individual school districts have launched initiatives to recruit teachers of color, but educators and advocates say more needs to be done.
Hiring a diverse group of teachers helps all students, but the impact is particularly significant for students of color, who then score higher on tests and are more likely to graduate from college, according to the Learning Policy Institute. A recently released report also found that Black boys are less likely to be identified for special education when they have a Black teacher.
This is the third part of a special series on the recruitment and retention of Black teachers in California. The recruitment and hiring of Black educators has lagged, even as a teacher shortage has given the task new urgency.
Our series looks at the obstacles that keep Black people from becoming teachers, and the bias and lack of support some face when they join the profession.
In the last five years, state lawmakers have made earning a credential easier and more affordable, and have offered incentives for school staff to become teachers — all moves meant to ease the teacher shortage and help to diversify the educator workforce.
Despite efforts by the state and school districts, the number of Black teachers doesn’t seem to be increasing. Black teachers say that to keep them in the classroom, teacher preparation must be more affordable, pay and benefits increased, and more done to ensure they are treated with respect, supported and given opportunities to lead.
“Black educators specifically said that they felt like they were being pushed out of the state of California,” said Jalisa Evans, chief executive director of the Black Educator Advocates Network of a recent survey of Black teachers. “When we look at the future of Black educators for the state, it can go either way, because what Black educators are feeling right now is that they’re not welcome.”
Task force offers recommendations
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond called diversifying the teacher workforce a priority and established the California Department of Education Educator Diversity Advisory Group in 2021.
The advisory group has made several recommendations, including beginning a public relations campaign and offering sustained funding to recruit and retain teachers of color, and providing guidance and accountability to school districts on the matter. The group also wants universities, community groups and school districts to enter into partnerships to build pathways for teachers of color.
Since then, California has created a set of public service announcements and a video to help recruit teachers and has invested $10 million to help people of color to become school administrators, said Travis Bristol, chairman of the advisory group and an associate professor of education at UC Berkeley. Staff from county offices of education also have been meeting to share ideas on how they can support districts’ efforts to recruit and retain teachers of color, he said.
The state also has invested more than $350 million over the past six years to fund teacher residency programs, and recently passed legislation to ensure residents are paid a minimum salary. Residents work alongside an experienced teacher-mentor for a year of clinical training while completing coursework in a university preparation program — a time commitment that often precludes them from taking a job.
Legislators have also proposed a bill that would require that student teachers be paid. Completing the 600 hours of unpaid student teaching required by the state, while paying for tuition, books, supplies and living expenses, is a challenge for many Black teacher candidates.
Black teacher candidates typically take on much more student debt than their white counterparts, in part, because of the large racial wealth gap in the United States. A 2019 study by the Economic Policy Institute showed that the median white family had $184,000 in family wealth (property and cash), while the median Latino family had $38,000 and the median Black family had $23,000.
Lack of data makes it difficult to know what is working
It’s difficult to know if state efforts are working. California hasn’t released any data on teacher demographics since the 2018-19 school year, although the data is submitted annually by school districts. The California Department of Education (CDE) did not provide updated data or interviews requested by EdSource for this story.
The most recent data from CDE shows the number of Black teachers in California declined from 4.2% in 2009 to 3.9% during the 2018-19 school year. The National Center for Education Statistics data from the 2020-21 show that Black teachers made up 3.8% of the state educator workforce.
Having current data is a critical first step to understanding the problem and addressing it, said Mayra Lara, director of Southern California partnerships and engagement at The Education Trust-West, an education research and advocacy organization.
“Let’s be clear: The California Department of Education needs to annually publish educator demographic and experience data,” Lara said. “It has failed to do so for the past four years. … Without this data, families, communities and decision-makers really are in the dark when it comes to the diversity of the educator workforce.”
LA Unified losing Black teachers despite efforts
While most state programs focus on recruiting and retaining all teachers of color, some California school districts have initiatives focused solely on recruiting Black teachers.
The state’s largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, passed the Black Student Excellence through Educator Diversity, Preparation and Retention resolution two years ago. It required district staff to develop a strategic plan to ensure schools have Black teachers, administrators and mental health workers, and to advocate for programs that offer pathways for Black people to become teachers.
When the resolution was passed, in February 2022, Los Angeles Unified had 1,889 Black teachers — 9% of its teacher workforce. The following school year, that number declined to 1,823 or 7.9% of district teachers. The number of Black teachers in the district has gone down each year since 2016. The district did not provide data for the current school year.
Robert Whitman, director of the Educational Transformation Office at LA Unified, attributed the decrease, in part, to the difficulty attracting teachers to the district, primarily because of the area’s high cost of living.
“Those who are coming out of colleges now, in some cases, we find that they can make more money doing other things,” Whitman said. “And so, they may not necessarily see education as the most viable option.”
The underrepresentation of people of color prompted the district to create its own in-house credentialing program, approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Whitman said. The program allows classified staff, such as substitute teachers, paraprofessionals, administrative assistants and bus drivers, to become credentialed teachers while earning a salary and benefits at their original jobs.
Grow-your-own programs such as this, and the state’s Classified School Employee Credentialing program, and a soon-to-be launched apprenticeship program, are meant to diversify the educator workforce because school staff recruited from the community more closely match the demographics of the student body than traditionally trained and recruited teachers, according to research.
Los Angeles Unified has other initiatives to increase the number of Black educators in the district, Whitman said, including working with universities and colleges to bring Black teachers, counselors and psychiatric social workers to their campuses. The district also has programs that help school workers earn a credential for free, and channels employees completing a bachelor’s degree toward the district’s teacher preparation program where they can begin teaching while earning their credential.
All new teachers at Los Angeles Unified are supported by mentors and affinity groups, which have been well received by Black teachers, who credit them with inspiring and helping them to see themselves as leaders in the district, Whitman said.
Oakland has more Black teachers than students
Recruiting and retaining Black teachers is an important part of the Oakland Unified three-year strategic plan, said Sarah Glasband, director of recruitment and retention for the district. To achieve its goals, the district has launched several partnerships that make an apprenticeship program, and a residency program that includes a housing subsidy, possible. A partnership with the Black Teacher Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization, offers affinity groups, workshops and seminars to support the district’s Black teachers.
The district also has a Classified School Employee Program funded by the state and a new high school program to train future teachers. District pathway programs have an average attrition rate of less than 10%, Glasband said.
This year, 21.3% of the district’s K-12 teachers are Black, compared with 20.3% of their student population, according to district data. Oakland Unified had a retention rate of about 85% for Black teachers between 2019 and 2023.
Better pay, a path to leadership will help teachers stay
Black teachers interviewed by EdSource and researchers say that to keep them in the classroom, more needs to be done to make teacher preparation affordable, improve pay and benefits, and ensure they are treated with respect, supported and given opportunities to lead.
The Black Educator Advocates Network came up with five recommendations after surveying 128 former and current Black teachers in California about what it would take to keep them in the classroom:
Hire more Black educators and staff
Build an anti-racist, culturally responsive and inclusive school environment
Create safe spaces for Black educators and students to come together
Provide and require culturally responsive training for all staff
Recognize, provide leadership opportunities and include Black educators in decision making
Teachers interviewed by EdSource said paying teachers more also would make it easier for them to stay.
“I don’t want to say that it’s the pay that’s going to get more Black teachers,” Brooke Sims, a Stockton teacher, told EdSource. “But you get better pay, you get better health care.”
The average teacher salary in the state is $88,508, with the average starting pay at $51,600, according to the 2023 National Education Association report, “State of Educator Pay in America.” California’s minimum living wage was $54,070 last year, according to the report.
State efforts, such as an initiative that pays teachers $5,000 annually for five years after they earn National Board Certification, will help with pay parity across school districts, Bristol said. Teachers prove through assessments and a portfolio that they meet the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. To be eligible for the grant, teachers must work at least half of their time in a high-needs school. Teachers who qualify are also given $2,500 to cover the cost of certification.
This incentive will help teachers continue their education and improve their practice, said Los Angeles teacher Petrina Miller. “It’s awesome,” she said.
Teacher candidates must be actively recruited
Many Black college students have not considered a teaching career because they have never had a Black teacher, said Preston Jackson, who teaches physical education at California Middle School in Sacramento. Those who consider a teaching career are often deterred by the cost of teacher preparation, taking required tests and unpaid student teaching.
“In order to increase the number of Black teachers in schools, it has to become deliberate,” Jackson said. “You have to actively recruit and actively seek them out to bring them into the profession.”
Since starting in 2005, Jackson has been one of only a handful of Black teachers at his school.
“And for almost every single one of my kids, I’m the first Black teacher they’ve ever had,” said Jackson. “… And for some of them, I’m the first one they’ve ever seen.”
Mentors are needed to help retain new teachers
Mentor teachers are the key ingredient to helping new Black educators transition successfully into teaching, according to teachers interviewed by EdSource. Alicia Simba says she could have taken a job for $25,000 more annually in a Bay Area district with few Black teachers or students, but opted to take a lower salary to work in Oakland Unified.
But like many young teachers, Simba knew she wanted mentors to help her navigate her first years in the classroom. She works alongside Black teachers in Oakland Unified who have more than 20 years of teaching experience. One of her mentor teachers shared her experience of teaching on the day that Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. Other teachers told her about teaching in the 1980s during the crack cocaine epidemic.
“It really helps dispel some of the sort of narratives that I hear, which is that being a teacher is completely unsustainable,” Simba said. “Like, there’s no way that anyone could ever be a teacher long term, which are things that, you know, I’ve heard my friends say, and I’ve thought it myself.”
The most obvious way to retain Black teachers would be to make sure they are treated the same as non-Black teachers, said Brenda Walker, a Black teacher and president of the Associated Chino Teachers.
“If you are a district administrator, site administrator, site or colleague, parent or student, my bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and my special education credential are just as valuable and carry as much weight, and are as respected as any other educator,” she said.
“However, it’s just as critical for all those groups to acknowledge and respect the unique cultural experience I bring to the table and acknowledge and respect that I’m a proud product of my ancestral history.”
Teaching artists lead students through improv exercises during a Laughing Together workshop at San Joaquin County Office of Education’s Peer-to-Peer Summit in September 2024.
Top Takeaways
Many school districts are using comedy and improv workshops to teach students social-emotional skills, encourage self-expression and foster social connection.
Through the comedy program Laughing Together, professional comedians and mental health clinicians develop workshops based on exercises that can improve student mental health.
Game-based learning and interactive play can engage students who might have fallen behind academically or socially during the pandemic.
“If you were an object, what object would you be?”
Chris Gethard, a veteran comedian and improv teacher, posed this question to a group of high school students in Northern California at a Laughing Together workshop he was leading. He remembered one who identified as a fruit.
“When I was a kid, I convinced myself that I hated avocados,” Gethard remembered the student saying. “And then I tried one, and I actually love ’em. And that’s been my experience the past few years as I’m learning to love and embrace myself.”
It quickly became obvious to Gethard that the improv wasn’t about avocado or any fruit for that matter. It was a big moment, and the student was taking a big risk to figure out something about themselves — their gender identity in real time.
“Young people right now are living in a world where those experiences are often held up in the spotlight and politicized,” Gethard said. “So to see a kid being able to take a comedy exercise, which feels light and accessible and not too heavy, they can let their guard down and take a big swing like that.”
Many school districts are turning to comedy as a way of supporting student mental health. In 2023, Gethard co-founded Laughing Together, a program based on research that comedy can be an effective tool for students’ social-emotional learning and social connection with their peers.
Nearly 6,500 students and educators across 26 different schools, districts, or youth organizations, have taken part in their workshops since Gethard co-founded the program with Marlon Morgan, CEO of parent nonprofit Wellness Together.
“One of the reasons that we [partnered with Gethard] is that he had already shared about his own mental health through his comedy special on HBO,” said Morgan, who is also a former school counselor. “He can make dark and scary things funny, which really helps students gain insight into their own emotions and become better at connecting with each other.”
‘Taking chances in the spotlight’
Research shows that students who practice social-emotional skills in safe environments with well-defined goals have improved social behavior, emotional regulation and academic performance.
“We have clinical psychologists who go through all the improv exercises,” Gethard said. “They get to say — ‘these ones are about making people funny, and they also prioritize nonverbal communication, strengthening eye contact, being comfortable with failure and taking some chances in the spotlight.’”
Christina Patterson, a senior and peer counselor at Lincoln High School in Stockton, said pandemic shutdowns forced her to spend nearly entire days scrolling through social media, hoping for something new to interact with (“But, there never is anything new,” she added).
For the first time since her school implemented a cellphone ban, Patterson said taking part in the Laughing Together workshop, even for an hour, met the level of engagement she had always been looking for on her phone. Like Patterson, students in recent years report better cognitive, social and academic outcomes through game-basedlearning and interactive play, compared to lecture-based instruction.
“I feel engaged with people who are interactive — they’re not trying to teach at you, but they’re trying to teach with you together,” Patterson said.
Laughing Together workshops are led by one of the program’s teaching artists, including professional comedians, actors and performers, alongside children’s psychologists, drawing on art, play and game therapy research, to develop social-emotional learning and communication skill-building into each exercise. For Gethard, a workshop is successful if he can teach students something without them realizing it.
“We want kids to leave feeling more connected and comfortable with each other, not like they just watched a slide show or that they were just spoon-fed these lessons,” he said. “We want them to feel that they’re allowed to at least throw an idea out there, and no one’s going to judge them, pick them apart, or criticize them.”
Sofia Stewart-Lopez, a senior and peer counselor at Lincoln High School, helped set up a peer-to-peer summit, where she and other student mentors took part in a Laughing Together workshop. She remembered starting the day anxious about a big presentation about mental health resources she had later in the day, but after a few skits and improv games, she felt more confident, relaxed and connected to the people around her.
“I learned that a big part of balancing heavy topics of mental health, like anxiety, depression or substance abuse, is learning how to combat them with things that can help you with those feelings,” Stewart-Lopez said.
Markus Alcantar, a senior and a peer counselor at Lincoln High School, said his favorite part of the workshop was one in which he got to become an apple. He had to think on his feet about why he felt like one, and then he improvised a skit with someone who had decided they were a tree. In another exercise, he said a volunteer started with juggling a ball, after which students added another ball, followed by another, and then another — until they couldn’t keep up anymore.
“It was a fun representation of how you can have a lot of things going on in your head mentally, and that you can learn to unravel those thoughts and organize them for yourself and other people,” Alcantar said.
About 1 in 5 teenagers, and most of Stewart-Lopez’s friends at school, she said, have experienced symptoms of anxiety or depression. So the workshop, she said, was particularly helpful in understanding how laughter exactly works in the brain — like how endorphins and serotonin receptors can alleviate some feelings of sadness or anxiety — to be able to have fun and build healthy coping skills with friends at school.
“The [improv exercises] also taught us that thinking on our feet better prepares us to be able to respond in different types of situations,” Stewart-Lopez said. “We learned that different people need different types of support, which betters us as mentors.”
Middle school students attend a Laughing Together workshop at San Joaquin County Office of Education’s Peer-to-Peer Summit in September 2024.
Most recently, Gethard completed nine workshops at a high school where over half of the student body are on Individualized Education Plans (IEP), or accommodations for students with learning, developmental, or behavioral disabilities. During the first workshop, he noticed most students reaching for their phones in the middle of an exercise or while on stage. To ease students into the experience, he’d tell them to simply take a breath and try to be present.
“After the first few workshops, a teacher came up to me and said, ‘their ability to lock in and focus on that is leaps and bounds compared to week one,” Gethard said. “She said, ‘they just never got their ability to focus back after Covid, but if we can keep going with this, it’s going to change the game for these kids in the room.’”
Rates of anxiety and depression — which shot up by 70% among California children between 2017 and 2022 — are the top health-related drivers of absenteeism since the onset of the pandemic. Research indicates that reduced social interaction, coupled with overreliance on screen time, also worsened students’ social cognition skills, such as cooperation and communication, and executive functions, such as attention and memory.
Alcantar was in seventh grade when schools shut down, and when he returned to in-person instruction as a high school freshman, he said he found it difficult for him to initiate conversations with people around him. Stewart-Lopez said that after schools lifted mask mandates, she kept hers on for a while because she was worried about meeting social expectations about what she should look like.
“The pandemic had added to my sense of anxiety about, ‘What if I don’t fit in? What if I’m different from everybody else?” she said.
For Stewart-Lopez, laughter feels like home. It’s how she and her sisters got through their parents’ separation and also how she plans to take new risks with new people at college this year.
“We’re creating that safe place for students to get real-time responses to the risks they’re taking — and everyone’s taking risks — which makes it okay,” said Morgan, the CEO of nonprofit Wellness Together.
