Are your students struggling to understand complex historical timelines? Many history teachers face a common challenge – helping students grasp and visualize interconnected historical events, especially during pivotal periods like World War II. Traditional textbooks, with their dense paragraphs, often leave students overwhelmed and disconnected from the material.
Here’s where Google Sheets comes to the rescue with its powerful timeline feature. This versatile tool transforms complex historical data into clear, interactive visual timelines that enhance student comprehension and engagement. Through hands-on experience with several history classes, I’ve seen how this simple yet effective tool helps students better understand historical relationships and concurrent events.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll walk you through creating dynamic, engaging timelines using Google Sheets. Whether you’re a history teacher mapping out World War II events, a curriculum planner organizing yearly objectives, or an educator helping students manage project deadlines, you’ll discover how to create interactive timelines that make learning more accessible and engaging.
What You’ll Need
A Google account (your school account works perfectly)
Basic familiarity with Google Sheets
Events or milestones you want to visualize
Let’s Create Your Timeline
Step 1: Setting Up Your Data
First things first – let’s organize our information in a way that Google Sheets can understand:
Open a fresh Google Sheet (I like to name mine right away to stay organized)
Create three columns: Date, Event Title, and Description
Pro Tip: I always freeze my header row to make scrolling easier later
Step 2: Creating Your Timeline Chart
Here’s where the magic happens:
Highlight your data range (including headers)
Click Insert > Timeline
Watch your data transform into a visual timeline!
Step 3: Making It Look Professional
Let’s make your timeline pop with some educator-friendly customizations:
Use different colors to categorize events (great for visual learners!)
Add detailed tooltips to provide additional context
Adjust the date format to match your needs (especially helpful for historical events)
Classroom Application Ideas
Historical Event Mapping: Perfect for showing cause and effect relationships
Project Management: Help students track group project milestones
Curriculum Planning: Map out your units across the school year
Literary Timeline: Track events in a novel or play
Troubleshooting Tips
After helping dozens of teachers implement this in their classrooms, here are the most common issues I’ve encountered and their solutions:
Dates not showing correctly? Double-check your date format consistency
Timeline too crowded? Try creating separate timelines for different themes or periods
Need more visual impact? Experiment with different colors and font sizes in the Chart Editor
What Can You Do with Google Sheet Timelines?
Remember, the goal isn’t just to create a pretty timeline – it’s about making information more accessible and engaging for our students. I’d love to hear how you’re using timelines in your classroom! Reach out on social media to share your ideas.
Happy teaching!
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When schools close, students don’t have to stop learning. In recent years, eLearning has made huge advancements that make it more accessible, personalized, and engaging than traditional learning. Plus, with digital reporting tools built into the program, teachers can instantly see how students are progressing. However, before choosing or implementing a new eLearning program, first, follow these three key steps:
1. Prepare teachers with professional development
Although eLearning often involves students working individually at home, teachers are still vital to the process. Teachers are involved in monitoring students’ progress, reacting when they struggle with particular concepts, and adjusting their learning path as necessary. Teachers should also plan to communicate regularly with their students’ parents. To properly prepare teachers for these new responsibilities, put a professional development plan in place. This professional development doesn’t need to take place in person. Just as students are able to learn through digital methods, so can teachers. As part of the professional development, teachers should learn:
What does the curriculum look like?
How is the curriculum personalized for each student?
How can teachers monitor their students and navigate the available reports?
Which alerts indicate that students need additional help and what should be done that happens?
How can teachers adjust what students work on?
2. Get parents on board
Because eLearning typically happens at home, parents need to be involved and on board with the program. To do so, schools should send home information to the parents in advance. This communication should include:
Why the school is choosing to implement eLearning
What this program will look like for students and what technology is needed
How students access the program
Any expectations on how frequently students should use the program or how much progress they should make
How often the teacher will send reports or communicate with parents on their child’s progress
Supporting research and proven effectiveness of the program or of eLearning in general
How to contact the teacher or school with additional questions, concerns, or issues
3. Keep students accountable
Get students excited and invested in eLearning! Show off the program’s engaging features, such as:
Digital rewards to keep them motivated
Variety of content to prevent boredom
Personalization of the curriculum
Student choice to encourage personal responsibility
If possible, introduce students to the program and help them log in for the first time in the classroom. If not, consider holding a livestream or creating a video tutorial. Students should also understand how often they’re expected to use the curriculum or how much progress they’re expected to make, and who they can contact if they get stuck or have any questions.
How does Wowzers Learning fit in?
Wowzers Learning is the perfect fit for eLearning. With its complete K-8 math curriculum, extensive professional development program, experience working with schools around the world that are using eLearning, focus on student engagement, and built-in reports and tools for teachers, it makes the move to eLearning easy. Wowzers doesn’t require access to a VPN, which makes it available worldwide. Recently, international schools in China are using Wowzers while students work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have experience working with both virtual schools and traditional schools that are looking to put eLearning to more widespread use.
For more information on how Wowzers works, and what makes it a great choice for eLearning, check out the video below or sign-up to get started:
Third graders read along as teacher Patty Lopez reads a text about plastic straws aloud.
Credit: Zaidee Stavely / EdSource
A few years ago, I met a first-grade English learner in a bilingual program who was learning to read in Spanish. The student, who I’ll call Elena, and her mother were from Guatemala. Elena’s mother only had a second-grade education, but she knew that one facet of Elena’s education was the gateway to all future opportunities: learning to read.
Elena had started school late, and her mother was taking no chances. She worked with Elena to teach her some basics — how letters formed syllables and syllables formed words. Elena was able to read by the end of first grade, but the outcome could have been very different without her mother’s efforts. Whether she knew it or not, what Elena’s mother taught Elena aligns with decades of reading research on how the brain learns to read — regardless of native language.
Unfortunately, most children from low-income communities like Elena’s do not share her story. Millions of California students fail to make adequate progress in reading. Today, only one-third of economically disadvantaged Latino students and one-fourth of economically disadvantaged African American students meet or exceed grade-level standards in English language arts. This is not because they are incapable of learning, but largely because they are not taught using effective practices supported by a broad consensus of reading researchers and experts.
These practices include a strong emphasis on foundational literacy skills, typically known as phonics and decoding, and an emphasis on developing language, comprehension and knowledge.
But foundational literacy skills are not given enough attention in California, leaving too many students with a weak or nonexistent foundation for literacy development and academic success.
Literacy achievement in California is alarming. Fewer than half of California students meet or exceed grade-level standards in English language arts. For decades, California students have been either smack in the middle or, more often, trailing national reading achievement. In the most recent national assessments, California’s fourth-grade students’ scores were below 36 other states in reading proficiency. And, according to research from the Stanford Education Data Archive, California has one of the largest gaps in fourth-grade reading proficiency between low-income and non-low-income students in the nation.
The real-world consequences of poor literacy skills are devastating for both individuals and society as a whole:
Our state has invested millions of dollars in literacy over the past decade, but we are still not seeing an adequate return. This is, in part, because much of the policy to date has consisted of mixed and confusing recommendations from the state. We have failed to put into practice the best knowledge we have about promoting literacy development.
Meanwhile, states like Mississippi have gone from significantly below average in reading proficiency and among the worst in the nation to significantly above the national average and one of the most improved, after passing comprehensive early literacy policies that align with reading research. The average low-income California fourth grader is a full year behind their counterpart in Mississippi.
California now has the potential to make similar progress and take a positive step forward if elected leaders in Sacramento choose to vote for Assembly Bill 1121. The bill could help align decades of interdisciplinary reading research with reading instruction by providing paid professional development for elementary school educators in more effective literacy practices and requiring school districts and charter schools to adopt English language instructional materials from a new State Board of Education list aligned with evidence-based means of teaching literacy (identified in current law).
Even with advanced language skills and vast knowledge, you can’t be a successful reader if you can’t pull words off a page quickly, effortlessly and accurately. Similarly, you can’t be a successful reader if you lack the language and knowledge to make sense of words.
AB 1121 will help move us toward a more comprehensive approach to reading instruction, emphasizing the importance of developing the neural pathways between sounds, letters, and meaning that are necessary for the brain to learn to read.
Building these pathways is essential for those learning in any language. Research around the world demonstrates there are many commonalities in learning and teaching to read in any language, whether it’s a language one already knows or is simultaneously learning. English learners have much to gain from implementing known effective approaches to teaching reading, which include what Elena’s mother did instinctively to help her build a strong foundation of literacy.
In the Information Age, reading is the gateway to all future opportunities. Our students don’t have time to waste while we, the adults they’ve entrusted with their education, continue to fight fruitless “reading wars.” If we care about our children’s futures, and our state’s, we must push for effective reading instruction in all classrooms by passing AB 1121.
•••
Claude Goldenberg, a former first grade and junior high teacher, is Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, at Stanford University. His areas of expertise are literacy education and English language learners.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Thom Hartmann explains the significance of what Trump did to our democracy yesterday. He killed it. He sneered at the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. He snuffed out the rule of law, which is the foundation of democracy.
Yesterday was the day democracy in our nation officially died.
We no longer live in the America we grew up in: “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” The country the rest of the world looked up to and depended on. The country that claimed to follow the rule of law, and valued compassion and the protection of its most vulnerable people.
We are now in the midst of an outright coup against the Constitution, against the United States, and against our founding ideals: Donald Trump proclaimed it yesterday when he openly defied the Supreme Court and our founding documents with a sneer, and his neofascist sycophants chuckled and giggled in the Oval Office.
When Marco Rubio claimed that arresting and deporting a man legally living in the US was “foreign policy” that can’t be overseen by the Supreme Court and then congratulated himself on his cleverness.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal U.S. resident who committed no crime, is now held in El Salvador’s most notorious concentration camp, where as many as 75 men are packed into cells designed for a fraction of that number.
Prisoners are not allowed outside — not for fresh air, not for exercise — and the fluorescent lights never go off. Food is minimal: plain rice or beans twice a day, with water. There is no possibility of appeal for him or the other 75,000 people El Salvadoran dictator Bukele has arrested and imprisoned without due process.
This father of three US citizens, this husband of a US citizen, who had been in the US with the permission of our government, is today packed in with savage gang members — literally murderers and rapists — in one of the most infamous and violent prisons in the world.
He has no access to legal counsel, no information about charges or release, and medical care is often denied except in extreme emergencies. Days blur into nights as men lie on concrete floors or sit in silence, many carving repetitive paths along the walls to stay sane.
Kilmar may be doing the same, clinging to routine, to hope, to anything that reminds him he once belonged to a country that promised justice.
But then came the most lawless president in the history of America, who yesterday all but declared that we are no longer a constitutional democratic republic as long as he is president.
Article I, Section 9 of the United States’ Constitution is unambiguous about habeas corpus, Latin for “produce the body,” which means no person can be imprisoned without first knowing the charges against them, being able to challenge those charges, and having a court of law decide their fate.
This right embraced by our Founders and written into our Constitution literally dates back to the year 1215 when King John signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede, as Article I Section 9 clearly states:
“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
(Trump is falsely and cynically claiming in an illegal Executive Order that the government of Venezuela has sent gang members to “invade” the US. Bizarrely, even if a court were to uphold this “invasion” gimmick, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is neither a gang member nor even a Venezuelan; he’s a citizen of El Salvador who’s lived in the US since he was 16, is a union worker and beloved member of his community, and was here legally.)
Fifth Amendment to the Constitution:
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
Sixth Amendment to the Constitution:
“In all criminal prosecutionsb, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
Seventh Amendment to the Constitution:
“[T]he right of trial by jury shall be preserved…”
Eighth Amendment to the Constitution:
“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Please point out to me where, in our Constitution, it says that the President of the United States or the Secretary of State can simply order a “person” (see 5th Amendment; nowhere does the word “citizen” appear) to be arrested and transported to a foreign hellhole concentration camp without a warrant, without an attorney, without a trial, and without even advance notice that might give him a chance to protest his innocence.
An unanimous Supreme Court ruled last week that our Constitution, as quoted above, says exactly what it means and Trump must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is not a criminal and has been denied all of the due process provisions detailed above in our Constitution and its amendments.
“The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene. …
“[T]he proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador. That means the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard…
“It must also comply with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”
Trump’s response yesterday was a resounding, “Fuck you” to our courts, our Constitution, and our laws. And to the millions of American citizens who are frightened by his systematic dismantling of our legal system.
It was an open assertion by Trump that he can do anything he wants, no matter how unlawful or unconstitutional, without fear of consequences. That he has successfully staged a coup against the government of the United States and her laws and has every intention of running this country like Russia or Hungary.
And not only that, he told El Salvador’s authoritarian president Bukele that the people he next wants to send to his slave labor camp are American citizens like you and me:
“Home grown criminals. Home growns are next. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.”
Which brings us to a frightening echo of Jefferson’s objections to the “tyranny” of King George II, as outlined in the Declaration of Independence he authored and was signed on July 4, 1776:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. …
“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. …
“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone…
“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws…
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: …
“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: …
“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” (emphasis added)
If Trump and his ass-kissing lackeys aren’t stopped by public outrage, our courts, and our Constitution and laws, then America has ceased to be a functioning republic and the future is unknowable but certainly grim.
That would be, the Declaration says, the very definition of tyranny. As Senator Chris Murphy just posted to Bluesky:
“You may not think this case matters to you. But Abrego Garcia was legally in the U.S., just like all the rest of us. His status as an immigrant doesn’t matter as a matter of law. If Trump can lock up or remove ANYONE — no matter what the courts say — we are all at grave risk.”
Trump should be impeached for his defiance of the Supreme Court and our Constitution. For spitting in the face of our Founders and every American veteran who has ever fought (or died) for this country and it’s ideals. For using foreign concentration camps.
Tragically, however, Republicans in Congress and across the country are now fully in on the coup. They have chosen an egomaniacal, self-centered narcissist and his billionaire friends over their integrity, country, and their oath of office.
Show up in the streets this coming Saturday and reach out to your elected representatives to demand a return to the rule of law.
The number for Congress is 202-224-3121, at least for the moment; like with Social Security, Trump may cut that phone number off any day now, too.
Cal State Long Beach lecturer Casey Goeller wants his students to know how to use AI before they enter the workforce.
Tasmin McGill/EdSource
Since Open AI’s release of ChatGPT in 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and models have found their way into the California college systems. These AI tools include language models and image generators that provide responses and images based on user prompts.
Many college professors have spoken out against AI’s use in college coursework, citing concerns of cheating, inaccurate responses, student overreliance on the tool, and, as a consequence, diminished critical thinking. Universities across the U.S. have implemented AI-detecting software like Turnitin to prevent cheating through the use of AI tools.
However, some professors have embraced the use of generative AI and envision its integration into curricula and research in various disciplines. To these professors, students learning how to use AI is critical to their future careers.
An October 2024 report from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business found that 38% of the school’s faculty use AI in their classrooms.
Ramandeep Randhawa, professor of business administration and data science at USC, was one of the report’s 26 co-authors and organized the effort.
“As companies increasingly integrate AI into their workflows, it is critical to prepare students for this AI-first environment by enabling them to use this technology meaningfully and ethically,” Randhawa said. “Universities, as bastions of knowledge, must lead the way by incorporating AI into their curricula.”
All in on AI
At California State University, Long Beach, gerontology lecturer Casey Goeller has incorporated AI into his course assignments since fall 2023.
Students enter Goeller’s Perspectives on Gerontology course with various levels of experience with AI. By asking students for a show of hands, Goeller estimates the class is usually evenly split, with some students having no experience, others having dabbled with it and some who have used it extensively.
Goeller aims to help students understand how AI can be beneficial to them academically, whether it be assisting with brainstorming, organizing, or acting as a 24/7 on-call tutor.
To achieve this, Goeller’s assignments include students using an AI tool of their choice to address his feedback on their essays based on criteria such as content, flow and plagiarism concerns. Another assignment, worth 15% of their grade, emphasizes the importance of prompt engineering by having students use AI-generated questions to interview an older person in their life.
While Goeller gets a lot of questions from fellow faculty members about how AI works and how to implement it, he also hears plenty of hesitation.
“There’s a lot of faculty who’s still riding a horse to work, I call it,” Goeller said. “One of them said, ‘I am never going to use AI. It’s just not going to happen.’ I said, ‘What you should do if you think you can get away with that is tomorrow morning, get up really early and stop the sun from coming up, because that’s how inevitable AI is.’”
Goeller heeds the difficulties in establishing a conclusive way to incorporate AI into curricula due to different academic disciplines and styles of learning, but he does recognize the growing presence of AI in the workforce. Today, AI is filling various roles across industries, from analyzing trends in newsrooms and grocery stores, to generating entertainment, a point of contention for SAG-AFTRA members during 2023’s Hollywood strikes.
“If we don’t help our students understand AI before they escape this place, they’re going to get into the workforce where it’s there,” Goeller said. “If they don’t know anything about it or are uncomfortable with it, they’re at a disadvantage compared to a student with the same degree and knowledge of AI.”
California State University, Northridge, journalism lecturer Marta Valier has students use ChatGPT to write headlines, interview questions and video captions in her Multimedia Storytelling and Multi-platform Storytelling classes due to the inevitability of AI in the workforce.
The goal of the implementation is to teach students how AI algorithms operate and how journalists can use AI to assist their work. Not using it, she said, “would be like not using ink.”
“I absolutely want students to experiment with AI because, in newsrooms, it is used. In offices, it is used,” Valier said. “It’s just a matter of understanding which tools are useful, for what and where human creativity is still the best and where AI can help.”
AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot are frequently updated, so Valier emphasizes flexibility when teaching about these technological topics.
“I basically change my curriculum every day,” Valier said. “I think it reminds me as a professional that you need to constantly adapt to new technology because it’s going to change very fast. It’s very important to be open, to be curious about what technology can bring us and how it can help us.”
However, Valier acknowledges the issues of AI in terms of data privacy and providing factual responses. She reminds students that it is their responsibility to make sure the information ChatGPT provides is accurate by doing their own research or rechecking results, and to avoid reliance on the platform.
“Be very careful with personal information,” Valier said. “Especially if you have sources, or people that you want to protect, be very careful putting names and information that is sensitive.”
Valier sees a clear difference in the quality of work produced by students who combine AI with their own skills, versus those who rely entirely on artificial intelligence.
“You can tell when the person uses ChatGPT and stays on top of it, and when GPT takes over,” Valier said. “What I am really interested in is the point of view of the student, so when GPT takes over, there is no point of view. Even if [a student] doesn’t have the best writing, the ideas are still there.”
Balancing AI use in the classroom
Many AI-friendly instructors seek to strike a balance between AI-enriched assignments and AI-free assignments.
At USC, professors are encouraged to develop AI policies for each of their classes. Professors can choose between two approaches, as laid out in the school’s instructor guidelines for AI use: “Embrace and Enhance” or “Discourage and Detect.”
Bobby Carnes, an associate professor of clinical accounting at USC, has adopted a balance between both approaches while teaching Introduction to Financial Accounting.
“I use it all the time, so it doesn’t make sense to tell (students) they can’t use it,” Carnes said.
An avid user of AI tools like ChatGPT, USC associate professor of clinical accounting Bobby Carnes encourages AI experimentation for some assignments, but prohibits students from using it on exams. (Christina Chkarboul/EdSource)
Carnes uses AI to refine his grammar in personal and professional work and to develop questions for tests.
“I giveChatGPTthe information that I taught in the class, and then I can ask, ‘What topics haven’t I covered with these exam questions?’ It can help provide a more rich or robust exam,” Carnes said.
He doesn’t allow students to use AI in exams that test for practical accounting skills, though.
“You need that baseline, but we’re trying to get students to be at that next level, to see the big picture,” he said.
Carnes said he wants his students to take advantage of AI tools that are already changing the field, while mastering the foundational skills they’ll need to become financial managers and leaders.
“The nice thing about accounting is that the jobs just become more interesting (with AI), where there’s not as much remedial tasks,” Carnes said.
Preserving foundational learning
Olivia Obeso, professor of education and literacy at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, believes establishing foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills through AI-free teaching is non-negotiable.
Obeso enforces her own no ChatGPT/AI usage policy in her Foundations of K-8 Literacy Teaching class to prepare her students for challenges in their post-collegiate life.
“AI takes out the opportunity to engage in that productive struggle,” Obeso said. “That means my students won’t necessarily understand the topics as deeply or develop the skills they need.”
Obeso is also concerned about ChatGPT’s environmental impact: For an in-class activity at the start of the fall 2024 semester, she asked students to research the software’s energy and water use.
The energy required to power ChatGPT emits 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to Earth.Org. The average passenger vehicle produces 5 tons per year. Asking ChatGPT 20-50 questions uses 500 millliters (16.9) ounces of water, the size of a standard plastic water bottle.
By the end of the exercise, Obeso said her students became “experts” on ethical considerations concerning AI, sharing their findings with the class through a discussion on what they read, how they felt and whether they had new concerns about using AI.
“You are a student and you are learning how to operate in this world, hold yourselves accountable,” Obeso said.
Jessica Odden, a senior majoring in child development, said Obeso’s class helped them understand AI use in the classroom as an aspiring teacher.
“For people that are using (AI) in the wrong ways, it makes people reassess how people might be using it, especially in classes like this where we are training to become teachers,” Odden said. “What are you going to do when you actually have to lesson-plan yourself?”
Odden makes sure she sticks to learning the fundamentals of teaching herself so that she will be prepared for her first job.
AI in curricula
At the University of California, San Diego, some faculty members have echoed a concern for AI’s infringement upon independent learning.
Academic coordinator Eberly Barnes is interested in finding a middle ground that incorporates AI into curricula where it complements students’ critical thinking, rather than replaces it.
Barnes oversees the analytical writing program, Making of the Modern World (MMW), where her responsibilities include revising the course’s policy of AI use in student work.
The current policy enables students to use AI to stimulate their thinking, reading and writing for their assignments. However, it explicitly prohibits the use of the software to replace any of the aforementioned skills or the elaboration of the written piece itself.
Despite the encouraged use of AI, Barnes expressed her own hesitancy about the role of AI in the field of social sciences and the research and writing skills needed to work within it.
“One of the goals in MMW is to teach critical thinking and also to teach academic writing. And the writing is embedded in the curriculum. You’re not going to learn to write if you’re just going to machine,” Barnes said. “The policy is inspired by the fact that we don’t think there’s any way to stop generative AI use.”
When Barnes designs the writing prompts for the second and third series in the MMW program, she collaborates with teaching assistants to make assignment prompts incompatible with AI analysis and reduce the likelihood that students will seek out AI’s help for passing grades.
“Students feel absolutely obsessed with grades and are very pressured to compete,” Barnes said. “That’s been around. I mean it is definitely worse here at UCSD than it was at other colleges and universities that I’ve been at.”
A tool, not a cheat code
Dr. Celeste Pilegard
Celeste Pilegard is a professor of cognitive science and educational psychology at UCSD. She has been teaching introductory research methods since 2019, focusing on foundational topics that will prepare students for higher-level topics in the field.
Educators like Pilegard have been struggling to adapt after the widespread adoption of AI tools.
“For me and a lot of professors, there’s fear,” Pilegard said. “We’re holding onto the last vestiges, hoping this isn’t going to become the thing everyone is using.”
Pilegard is concerned that students rely on AI tools to easily pass their intro-level courses, leaving them without a firm understanding of the content and an inability to properly assess AI’s accuracy.
“It’s hard to notice what is real and what is fake, what is helpful and what is misguided,” Pilegard said. “When you have enough expertise in an area, it’s possible to use ChatGPT as a thinking tool because you can detect its shortcomings.”
However, Pilegard does believe AI can assist in learning. She likens the current situation with AI to the advent of statistical analysis software back in the 1970s, which eliminated the need to do calculations by hand.
At that time, many professors argued for the importance of students doing work manually to comprehend the foundations. However, these tools are now regularly used in the classroom with the acceptance and guidance of educators.
”I don’t want to be the stick in the mud in terms of artificial intelligence,” Pilegard said. “Maybe there are some things that aren’t important for students to be doing themselves. But when the thing you’re offloading onto the computer is building the connections that help you build expertise, you’re really missing an opportunity to be learning deeply.”
One of the greatest challenges that teachers face is the ability to personalize learning for each student. With only one teacher and often more than 30 students, teachers have trouble finding the right pace. What may be too fast for some students is too slow for others. The solution many teachers settle on is to teach to the middle student. The slower students often get left behind, the more advanced students quickly become bored.
Even teaching one student, the teacher is challenged to find the right curriculum path that meets the needs of that individual student.
Using artificial intelligence, Wowzers adjusts the content, tailoring learning to each individual student. Additionally, teachers are able to monitor student progress through the Wowzers’ Learning Management System. This is extremely beneficial as the new normal adjusts to Remote Learning.
Wowzers takes advantage of the power of artificial intelligence in its adaptive nature and design. When a student makes a mistake in the curriculum, the program automatically checks for common errors and detects what the student did incorrectly. This information is used to craft an intelligent response to the student to get them back on track.
In the practice portion of the curriculum, artificial intelligence is used to balance the questions asked of the student. When the student gets multiple questions correct, the math becomes harder, but they’re not required to answer as many questions. When the student begins to struggle, the math becomes easier, but they’re presented with additional problems before they progress to the next activity.
Artificial intelligence is also used when the Wowzers system syncs with NWEA’s API to fetch RTI scores to intelligently create a personalized curriculum that challenges the student at their individual skill level.
This decade will see more use of artificial intelligence to help guide students on a path of learning that includes the ability for more student choice based on data. Wowzers is proud to be a part of the first wave in the development of a product that uses artificial intelligence and intends on growing and expanding content using artificial intelligence to enhance the learning experience.
The U.S. Department of Education announced that it is reducing its workforce by half, shutting seven of 12 regional branches of its Office for Civil Rights.
California has over 700 pending cases with the Office for Civil Rights. The Trump administration has not provided details on what happens to cases handled by the shuttered regional office in San Francisco.
The administration said this dramatic slashing would be followed by “significant reorganization to better serve students, parents, educators and taxpayers.”
Educators and civil rights advocates say that vulnerable students will not have recourse when schools violate their civil rights.
The announcement of a large-scale effort to reduce the workforce of the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday — or nearly half of the agency’s staff — is raising concerns among California educators and advocates about the future of civil rights enforcement and funding for vulnerable students.
Seven of 12 regional offices that handle federal civil rights complaints were shuttered, including the Office for Civil Rights branch in San Francisco, which handles complaints filed in California.
“There is no federal presence enforcing civil rights in schools in California,” said Catherine Lhamon, the former assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. “Our country and California will effectively see an end to a federal backstop of harm in schools.”
While local and state governments provide the vast majority of funding and governance for TK-12 schools and higher education, the federal government handles key aspects of education in the U.S., including disbursing student loans and Pell Grants; funding programs for students with disabilities as well as schools serving low-income students; and overseeing national research that provides critical data for educators and policymakers.
The U.S. Department of Education is also tasked with enforcing federal civil rights laws, authorized by Congress, through its Office for Civil Rights in order to protect students from discrimination. California alone has more than 700 pending complaints of civil rights violations.
“I don’t know what is going to happen to those cases,” said an attorney who works in the San Francisco branch of the Office for Civil Rights. The attorney declined to be identified, citing concerns about retaliation for speaking out. “The students are going to suffer.”
McMahon said in a statement that the reduction in force reflects a commitment to efficiency and accountability, and that the department will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”
Some conservative groups, such as the Cato Institute, applauded the dramatic slashing of staff.
“We don’t know how many people are actually needed to execute (the U.S. Department of Education) jobs, and it’s time to find out if it’s been a bloated bureaucracy all along,” said Neal McCluskey, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom.
But many educators and advocacy groups who work with students forcefully condemned the cuts.
The Los Angeles Unified School District board passed a resolution Tuesday condemning the cuts to the U.S. Education Department, as well as cuts to other federal funding for school meals and Medicaid. Board member Kelly Gonez called on legislators to “push back against this radical and cruel agenda.”
“The Trump administration and its allies in Congress are looking to decimate federal funding to schools, including cuts to school meals, MediCal, and education block grants,” Gonez said. “More threats are on the horizon due to Trump’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the Department of Education entirely. We will not stand by while this administration removes essential support for students.”
‘These are not minor issues’
After a student with autism died after being restrained, Davis Joint Unified agreed to change its policies and training related to secluding and restraining students in 2022. That same year, Los Angeles Unified promised to address the concerns of disabled students who said they received little legally required special assistance during the height of the pandemic.
These are just a few of the high-profile complaints that the Office for Civil Rights investigated and settled in California.
“These are not minor issues,” said Lhamon, who was then the assistant secretary for civil rights.
The Biden administration pleaded with Congress for additional funding to staff the Office for Civil Rights, which was facing a mushrooming caseload that reached an all-time high during his presidency, according to the Office for Civil Rights’ annual report. Now staff face the prospect of their caseload doubling from 50 cases per person to 100 cases — an “untenable” number, Lhamon said.
The increase in cases, combined with an existing staffing shortage has likely created a backlog, extending the wait time for investigations to be completed and findings issued, said Megan Stanton-Trehan, a senior attorney at Disability Rights California who represents students with disabilities.
“With increasing complaints and an idea that we want to increase efficiency, what we shouldn’t be doing is closing offices and decreasing the workforce, unless what we really want is to not enforce civil rights,” said Stanton-Trehan.
The federal government is sending the message that though students are required to attend school, there is no federal agency that will protect them from harm, Lhamon said.
“That’s dangerous for democracy; it’s dangerous for schools,” she said.
The U.S. Department of Education has not announced a plan for transferring cases from San Francisco or any other shuttered regional office.
“We are in this work because we care, and we are compassionate,” said the San Francisco Office for Civil Rights attorney. “We are devastated for our students.”
The Office for Civil Rights page listed 772 records of pending cases that the office is currently investigating in the state of California, though it does not include any cases filed after Jan. 3. Of those, 597 of the listed cases involved K-12 institutions, while another 175 involved post-secondary education. Many of the complaints — 388 pending cases — involve disability discrimination complaints.
The cases date back to complaints filed in 2016 on a range of topics, including discrimination on the basis of national origin, religion and English learner status, as well as allegations of sexual violence, racial harassment and retaliation.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that it had sent letters to 60 universities to inform them that the Office for Civil Rights was investigating them for antisemitic discrimination. That list included Sacramento State, Chapman University, Pomona College, Santa Monica College, Stanford University, UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley.
Ana Najera-Mendoza, director of education equity and senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Southern California, is concerned that these complaints may take precedence over others. Every complaint filed in the Office for Civil Rights deserves to be considered in good faith, she said.
Stating that a reduction in force doesn’t equate to a reduction in the department’s responsibilities, Najera-Mendoza said, “No administration should elect to enforce some complaints over others to enforce a specific agenda.”
Investigative reporters at the New York Times–Eric Lipton, Theodore Schleifer, and Zoltan-Youngs, with assistance from Maggie Haberman– were watching the busy scene at Mar-a-Lago during the brief period when Trump announced draconian tariffs on other economies (but not Russia, North Korea, Belarus or Cuba), but before his decision to postpone the tariffs for 90 days. Trump demonstrated that he could rattle the global economy with a statement, then shift gears a few days later. What fun he must have had! He knew he could crater the stock markets and he knew that he could make it soar.
The financial market meltdown was underway when President Trump boarded Air Force One on his way to Florida on Thursday for a doubleheader of sorts: a Saudi-backed golf tournament at his family’s Miami resort and a weekend of fund-raisers attracting hundreds of donors to his Palm Beach club.
It was a fresh reminder that in his second term, Mr. Trump has continued to find ways to drive business to his family-owned real-estate ventures, a practice he has sustained even when his work in Washington has caused worldwide financial turmoil.
The Trump family monetization weekend started Thursday night, as crowds began to form at both the Trump National Doral resort near Miami International Airport, and separately at his Mar-a-Lago resort 70 miles up the coast.
Mr. Trump landed on the edge of one of the golf courses in a military helicopter — just in time for a dinner at Doral. The next day, LIV Golf, the breakaway professional league backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, was scheduled to hold a tournament at the course for the fourth time.
On Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, hundreds of guests gathered for the American Patriots Gala, a conservative fund-raiser that featured Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and President Javier Milei of Argentina, who told his supporters back home that he was hoping to catch up with Mr. Trump while there, seemingly unaware that Mr. Trump was double-booked at two of his family properties that night.
And that was just the weekend’s lead-up.
Mr. Trump ordered a new set of global tariffson Wednesday from the White House using his trademark Sharpie pen, a version of which is on sale at Mar-a-Lago for $3.
The announcement set off one of the largest market crashes in American history, erasing $5 trillion in market value from companies in the S&P 500 in just two days. Mr. Trump has said his policy would reverse what he calls unfair trade practices, and that eventually the “markets are going to boom.”
On Friday, as markets continued to tumble, thousands of golf fans visited Doral, as did Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s son, and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s $925 billion sovereign wealth fund. Mr. Al-Rumayyan is also the chairman of LIV Golf, and was there to see its stars compete.
“It is a nice club,” Mr. Al-Rumayyan said as he walked around the golf course watching the players tee off.
LIV Golf — a venture intended to lift the Saudi profile worldwide even as it has burned through hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds — is styled as a daylong party, with club music pumping out of speakers lining tournament courses and machines dispensing wine and large beers. On Friday, fans watched a bit of golf and danced on the edges of the course. Others in MAGA hats walked around smoking cigars.
In short, the economic turbulence seemed far away.
“You are all looking a little too stiff!” said Matt Rogers, a LIV Golf announcer, as he yelled into a microphone, blasting his message across the greens as the first group of golfers on Friday prepared to play with dance music blaring in the background. “You need to turn this up! This is LIV Golf.”
Every room at the 643-room Trump Doral, including the $13,000-a-night presidential suite, was sold out through the weekend. Not a seat could be found at the BLT Prime steakhouse bar, where a porterhouse steak cost $130.
“This is the perfect venue,” Eric Trump said as he strolled the golf course Friday.
He had driven his father in a golf cart from the military helicopter to the resort dinner the day before, as the festivities over the big moneymaking weekend were getting underway.
The president spent much of Friday at yet another Trump family venue, Trump International Golf Club, not far from Mar-a-Lago, sending out social media messages during the day, including, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE.” [Had he already decided to pause the tariffs?]
By Friday night, the center of attention had shifted back to Mar-a-Lago, as Mr. Trump held another in a series of $1 million-a-head dinners at his private club in Palm Beach.
Since he was elected in November, Mr. Trump has hosted at least four of the fund-raisers, including one in December, two in March and the one Friday night, with a fifth planned for April 24.
The fund-raisers unfold in similar ways, according to people who have attended them.
Roughly 20 people gather around a candlelit table with big white flowers in the club’s “White and Gold Room” after a photo session. Mr. Trump speaks, then listens to the guests discuss their businesses, one by one. In just an hour or two, he can raise as much as $20 million — a great return on his time investment, associates say.
Attendees at some of the post-election dinners at Mar-a-Lago hosted by MAGA Inc., one of Mr. Trump’s fund-raising political action committees, have included the casino owner Miriam Adelson, the sugar magnate Pepe Fanjul and James Taiclet, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest military contractor, along with representatives from the cryptocurrency and energy industries.
On Friday, Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir, and Steve Wynn, the former casino executive, both billionaires, were among the guests at the Mar-a-Lago fund-raiser, according to two people briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the event.
The dinners have been just the start. Mar-a-Lago remains a popular site for Republicancandidates to host their own fund-raisers, Federal Election Commission records show. It is not clear to some Republicans why Mr. Trump has been raising money so aggressively, according to eight people involved in conservative fund-raising who have kept track of his efforts. Never before has a president ineligible for re-election vacuumed up so much money for a super PAC.
Some of Mr. Trump’s associates believe it is prudent to fund-raise when the money is available, as corporate interests and others seek to get access to the president or make amends for perceived slights, people close to him acknowledge.
The packed agendas at the two Trump venues recalled the constant buzz and spending by lobbyists, members of Congress and foreign leaders at Trump International Hotel in Washington before the Trump family sold its lease after Mr. Trump’s first term.
In addition to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, top sponsors of the Doral golf tournament included Aramco, the Saudi oil company; Riyadh Air, the airline owned by the sovereign wealth fund; and TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media company whose fate Mr. Trump is helping to decide, according to a large billboard outside one of the event’s party tents.
Mr. Trump’s merchandise shops — there are at least three of them at Doral — were also doing swift business, selling everything from a $550 Trump-branded crystal-studded purse to $18 Doral-branded paperweights made in China. The store clerk said that he did not know if new tariffs on imported products would mean price increases.
Fans in the crowd said that they had traveled from as far as South Africa to attend the event. Some purchased special tickets that cost as much as $1,400 to enter exclusive party areas with free drinks and food — tickets that were sold out as of Saturday.
In interviews, tournament attendees and others said that they did not mind the disconnect between the Wall Street meltdown and the events at the Trump properties.
“The sky is falling every day,” said Mike Atwell, a Key Largo, Fla., restaurant owner who was attending the LIV event with his wife enjoying lunch and drinks. “When you are happy, you drink. When you are sad, you drink. It all works out.”
Tyrell Davis, a 39-year-old entrepreneur spending Saturday afternoon in Palm Beach, said that he admired Mr. Trump for focusing on his own businesses while also implementing tariffs that he believed would benefit Americans.
Mr. Davis said that the United States had given away money to other countries for years while not investing in American cities, and that it only made sense Mr. Trump would continue to bolster his own businesses while in office.
“It’s all about business and money,” Mr. Davis said. “That’s what it’s all about. America is a business. It’s a corporation.”
On Saturday, as the tournament continued at Doral, Mr. Trump showed up at yet another family golf course, in Jupiter, Fla., which is holding its own, more modest tournament.
Good news was announced by the White House staff: “The president won his second round matchup of the senior club championship today in Jupiter, Fla., and advances to the championship round on Sunday.” Reporters and photographers were prohibited from watching him play, and were held down the street at a coffee shop.
As Mr. Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago, one of his political committees sent out an offer to his followers: They could buy a signed replica of his executive order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The minimum contribution was $50. “I want you to have a PIECE OF HISTORY in your home,” Mr. Trump said in the solicitation.
The White House then announced that there would be no more public events on Saturday.
A dining commons at University of California Davis
Credit: Gregory Urquiaga / UC Davis
From curriculum to location, there’s so much to weigh when choosing a college or university.
And for high school seniors or prospective transfers who have dietary restrictions — particularly for medical reasons, including food allergies and chronic conditions such as celiac disease — picking a school that can accommodate their dietary needs is critical.
Before May 1, the official day to commit, here’s what to ask about dining halls, kitchen access and beyond.
Who should I reach out to?
The availability and range of options vary greatly from campus to campus, and the best way to get information is to ask the right people.
Reaching out to and scheduling an appointment with a campus dietitian nutritionist can be the easiest way to understand what options are available in the dining halls, and the extent to which the campus can guarantee safe options.
Some campuses have made extensive efforts. But others, like Cal Poly Humboldt and San Francisco State, can’t guarantee that meals can be made without cross-contamination.
“We understand how serious food allergies, celiac disease, and religious dietary needs can be, and we take those concerns to heart,” Todd Larsen, senior executive director for enterprise services at Cal Poly Humboldt, told EdSource. “While our kitchens are held to high safety and sanitation standards, they are not fully equipped to eliminate the risk of cross-contamination for individuals with severe dietary restrictions.”
Sometimes, campuses will also allow you to speak with a chef before a student enrolls; the chef can help answer specific questions about how meals are prepared and what kinds of measures they can take to prevent cross-contamination.
It’s also worth reaching out to current students or campus organizations focused on certain dietary needs for their perspective on the availability and safety of foods. This can also be helpful if you’re exploring what kinds of kosher or halal options are available.
Beyond dining services, it’s worth speaking with campus housing officials about living arrangements that include access to a kitchen.
What options are available at dining halls?
While dedicated kitchens are rare, many campuses throughout the state try to accommodate those with serious dietary needs — including labeling for top allergens and training for kitchen staff — but their approaches vary.
At some campuses, the options are more limited, with students being granted access to a common refrigerator stocked with frozen meals, whose labels students should read carefully before consuming.
UCLA, for example, takes such an approach, granting students with celiac disease, wheat allergies or gluten intolerance access to rooms with their own microwave, refrigerator, freezer, toaster and gluten-free meals.
Other campuses, like Sacramento State, have a dedicated station at a dining hall that features only allergen-free/friendly options or will allow students to work directly with an individual chef. And some, including UC Davis’s Dietary Support Program, grant students opportunities to order customized meals that are “prepared in a separate area, on separate equipment and by staff who have been trained on the dangers of cross-contact,” according to Emily Ortega, a registered dietitian nutritionist with the UC Davis Dining Services nutrition programs.
And if a student isn’t sure if something served in the dining halls is safe, or looks like it could be improperly labeled, it is important to check with the chef and inform the campus nutritionist.
Some campuses, like UC Merced, allow students to forgo their dining plan if the university cannot meet their needs. They may use a process that campus spokesperson Alyssa Flores Johansen says “involves multiple conversations, medical certification, and coordination with several campus stakeholders.”
What about access to a kitchen?
In addition to talking with the college or university’s dining program, it’s also important to contact housing to see what accommodations are provided.
For example, if a student needs access to an allergen station in a single dining hall, housing officials can sometimes place them in a dorm that’s closer.
At some campuses, like Cal State East Bay, all student housing includes a kitchenette. But that’s often not the norm, and housing officials can help explore options that include kitchen access, whether it’s living on the same floor as a communal kitchen where students can cook with their own pots and pans, or being assigned to an on-campus apartment.
On a smaller scale, within an individual dorm, it’s sometimes possible to request a separate refrigerator or microwave to help limit cross-contamination.
Think beyond the school year
It’s a good idea to jump on housing accommodations as soon as possible, and make sure a student’s needs will be met at dining halls from their first day of residency.
Ask about the hours of any dedicated station, what is provided during orientation, and what options are available during breaks.
San Diego Unified teachers protest pink slips before a school board meeting last year. The district plans to issue 30 preliminary layoff notices this year.
California school districts are again turning to layoffs to shore up budgets shrunk by declining enrollment, expiring federal Covid relief funds and a leveling off of state funding. So far, more than 2,300 school employees have received preliminary layoff notices, and the number is expected to grow.
More than 2,000 of the pink slips have gone to credentialed school staff — primarily teachers, school nurses and librarians, according to the California Teachers Association, which represents 300,000 school employees.
State law requires that districts send pink slips by March 15 each year to any employee who could be laid off by the end of the school year. Although many of the layoff notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given to tenured teachers — the annual practice is criticized by many for demoralizing school staff and causing disruption to school systems.
“Layoffs are devastating and chaotic to our school communities and harm student learning conditions,” said CTA President David Goldberg. “This is even happening in communities like Pasadena, where educators and students lost their homes in wildfires. Our union will not stand by. We will demand that every single one of these notices is rescinded in the coming weeks.”
Pasadena Unified has issued 117 preliminary layoff notices, including 115 to credentialed staff.
Districts tried to avoid large layoffs
Some districts tried to avoid large-scale layoffs by considering other options, including early retirement incentives. San Francisco gave buyouts to 300 veteran teachers and other staff, and Santa Ana Unified gave that option to 166 teachers, but ultimately both districts are still laying off staff.
In fact, the two districts have issued the largest number of pink slips in the state so far, according to CTA data. San Francisco Unified notified 395 teachers of potential layoffs and Santa Ana Unified sent pink slips to 351 teachers, according to the CTA. Santa Ana Unified Chief Business Officer Ron Hacker says that number has since been reduced to 280.
San Francisco Unified, the state’s sixth-largest school district, has been struggling to close a $113 million deficit that helped put it on the list of the state’s most financially strapped districts. The district has also sent preliminary layoff notices to 164 teachers’ aides, and to 278 administrators and other staff.
Santa Ana Unified is attempting to reduce a $180 million structural deficit, but it also needs to reduce staff, Hacker said. In 2018, the school board decided not to pursue layoffs despite overstaffing and a structural deficit. The overstaffing problem continued through Covid when funding was tied to a state stipulation that districts can’t lay off employees, he said.
“The Covid relief grant funds are no longer flowing, and they’re expired, so we’re at the point now where we can’t sustain the counseling ratios and the class sizes that we have,” Hacker said.
The district also plans to make cuts to supplies, services and capital outlay to help balance the budget, Hacker said in an interview last month.
“That being said, 80% of our budget is salary and benefits, so the only way to tackle that entire structural deficit is to include positions too,” he said.
Most districts overstaffed
Some school districts avoided making staffing cuts despite declining enrollment, said Michael Fine, chief executive director of the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team.
“I think if you were to look at some statewide data on staffing versus enrollment, you’d see that almost everybody’s overstaffed in some fashion, at least on the certificated side, which is where we see that data,” Fine said.
Data on support staff, also known as classified staff, is not being collected by the state, he said.
District offered early warning bonuses
Santa Rosa Elementary School District and San Ramon Unified issued more than 100 pink slips to teachers and other credentialed staff in recent months, with the districts sending out 151 and 129 pink slips respectively, according to the CTA list.
Santa Rosa City Schools is trying to trim its budget by $30 million to reduce a structural deficit. The district, which operates 24 schools, has lost 3,000 students over the last decade.
Instead of offering an early retirement incentive, which wouldn’t save money for the district, Santa Rosa Unified gave employees bonuses if they gave advance notice that they wouldn’t be working at the district next school year, said Lisa August, associate superintendent of business services. Employees who gave notice by Jan. 31 received a $1,000 bonus, $750 if they gave notice by Feb. 15, and $500 if by Feb. 28.
The CTA list does not include many districts still in the process of issuing layoff notices, or whose unions did not report their numbers. Among them is Berkeley Unified, whose school board voted last week to notify 180 employees, 10 of whom are teachers, that they could lose their jobs, according to Berkeleyside.
Oakland Unified, which is on the state’s list of most financially strapped districts, also plans to issue 97 pink slips to teachers and central office staff, according to district information. And, Oxnard Union School district projects it will issue 91 pink slips to school staff, including 41 teachers and counselors, according to the Ventura County Star.
Layoffs can make recruitment harder
Layoffs can hurt teacher recruitment and make it more difficult to find teachers for hard-to-fill positions teaching special education, science, math, special education and English learners.
Teacher layoffs during the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2009, are widely considered to be one of the causes of the current teacher shortage because they discouraged people from entering teacher preparation programs. In recent years, enrollment in teacher preparation programs in the state has declined.
It’s unclear how many teachers will actually be laid off before next school year, as many pink slips are rescinded after district officials review credentials, expected retirements and projected enrollment numbers at school sites, and hearings with an administrative law judge are held to determine who stays and who goes.
The annual process can be nerve-wracking for teachers, especially those at the bottom of the seniority list, who could be issued pink slips in consecutive years.
“More than 2,000 educators have received a notice that they may not have a job next year, and tragically, that number increases each day,” Goldberg said. “These are the people who show up every day to teach and care for students in public schools across California — teachers, school counselors, social workers, instructional aides, custodians, and more.
“At a time when our students deserve a stable learning environment, smaller class sizes, and more mental health support, it is unconscionable to even think about laying off public school educators,” Goldberg said.
