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  • The nightmare after federal Covid funding ends 

    The nightmare after federal Covid funding ends 


    Photo: Alison Yin/EdSource

    School districts around the nation are facing a terrible financial problem.

    During the pandemic, they received billions in federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund (ESSER), which they are required to spend or commit by the fall of 2024. Meanwhile, many districts, especially ones in California, received massive increases in state funding. Recently, because of declining revenues, states are projecting deficits and education budget cuts. This means that districts, especially urban districts suffering from declining student enrollment, could be hit by the double whammy of the ESSER funding cliff and a state budget crisis.

    As I traveled the state visiting our urban districts, I listened to one budget presentation after another from finance officers talking about a post-ESSER Armageddon. In the last district I visited, I sat in a packed auditorium as the CFO showed how they’d spent their one-time money on ongoing costs and funded programs that couldn’t survive. As he droned on about all the horrible things that would happen, I drifted off to sleep.

    When I awoke, the auditorium was empty. I looked down at my watch and noticed it had stopped 28 days after the board presentation. I’d clearly been out for a while because my fingernails were long, and I’d grown a full beard. I’d been asleep until the Halloween day after the ESSER funding cliff. I assumed that I owed my life to the extra-large burrito I’d eaten before the board meeting. I walked out and entered the district offices, looking for signs of life. Everywhere I walked, there were overturned tables, candy wrappers and papers strewn about.  

    As I turned a corner, I noticed three people shambling toward me with the typical urgency of a central office manager. I was about to approach them when I realized they were zombies trying to eat me. Terrified, I ran to my car and drove away. Over the next few days, I visited schools and district offices that were filled with zombies. It was clear that something terrible had happened and that it was connected to the ESSER funding cliff, but I couldn’t fathom what.

    I knew there was only one place to find the answer — the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. When I walked through their doors, I was relieved to find that they were still human. From the haggard looks on their faces, it was clear that they’d been working nonstop on a cure. “What the hell happened?” I asked.

    A crisis team leader pointed to flow charts taped on a nearby wall. “We knew that the ESSER cliff would be bad and that a state budget crisis would make it worse. We also knew that some of our more financially irresponsible urban districts were already deathly ill. We were especially worried about the declining enrollment ones whose school boards made politically popular decisions to increase salaries with one-time money and wouldn’t make difficult decisions to lower costs, like closing small schools and cutting staff. What we didn’t expect was that the people in these zombie districts would actually turn into zombies,” he sighed.

    “Is there anything we can do to fix this?” I entreated. He shrugged and motioned me toward another room.

    “Ask him,” he said, pointing to a shadowy figure on the other side of a thick plexiglass wall. I looked closer and cried out, “Oh my God, that’s a zombie.”

    “I prefer the term ‘differently human’,” said the zombie, who introduced himself as a local teacher’s union president. I asked him how he would cure the situation so kids could get back to school. He said, “There’s nothing to cure. We showed during the pandemic and in places like Oakland afterward that we don’t need kids to have schools. All we need are teachers. Now, we are proving it. Of course, if anyone wants to come back, we’ll welcome them with open arms.”   

    “But zombies eat children.” I gasped.

    “Yes. There will be accidents, but the class sizes are delightful,” he said, smiling widely.  

    I left and again wandered the state, looking for anyone with a cure. Thinking that one of the state’s tech billionaires might be helpful, I traveled to in Silicon Valley to meet a famous one who’d focused on education and pleaded for his assistance. He listened for a few minutes and then cut me off. “Why would we help?” he said. “They did this to themselves with the tax money they took from us. Now, we have much less money which means they have less money.”

    “But what about the kids?” I asked. “They can’t learn in zombie districts.”

    “It’s just like New Orleans after Katrina,” he said. “Sometimes you have to destroy something that is bad before you can create something better.”

    I threw up my hands, wondering what could possess people to think in this destructive way. At my wits’ end, I made one last journey to visit the Oracle at Georgetown University. She was sitting in her office nursing a cup of tea. She offered me a cup and told me I could ask two questions.

    “Oh Great Oracle,” I said. “What could we have done to prevent this, and what can we do now?”

    “The answer is one and the same,” she said. “School districts and their communities knew what was coming. They should have had the courage to say no to spending short-term dollars on future costs that would require ongoing funding. They must make hard choices on people and schools that they don’t have enough money for. They must have state and local leaders who will encourage them to do so, and when possible, give them cover. And those political leaders must be willing to make these choices even at the expense of their careers, knowing that they are doing the right thing. That will cure this apocalypse and prevent the next one.” 

    I thanked the Oracle and pledged to share her wisdom, hoping that others would listen too.   

    •••

    Arun Ramanathan is the former CEO of Pivot Learning and the Education Trust—West. 

    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.





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  • Schools take on new designs for extra security in era of campus shootings

    Schools take on new designs for extra security in era of campus shootings


    A would-be intruder would have a difficult time trying to sneak into the new Del Sol High School in Oxnard, which opened in August with its first group of 475 first-year students.

    That’s because the $189 million campus was planned and built with security at the top of the list of concerns, officials say. And that puts it at the forefront of a trend throughout California and the nation as school districts respond to school shootings and try to prevent any more violence.

    At Del Sol, two perimeters of 8-foot-high black fencing — designed to deny a foothold to potential climbers — surround the campus and fill in openings between the buildings’ edges. After incoming students file through Del Sol’s two gates under the watchful eyes of campus employees, the only entry is through a glass cube-like lobby. There, visitors are screened carefully from behind a bulletproof glass window and, if approved, admitted through a locked metal interior door. Cameras survey the courtyards and exterior walkways. Coming soon is a new schoolwide door-locking system for emergencies.

    Students walk through the quad area of Del Sol High School during the passing period in Oxnard on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023.

    “Nowadays safety and security are the first priority. The rest follows that,” explained Oxnard Union High School District Superintendent Tom McCoy on a recent tour of the school, which opened this fall. Many of the same safety features built into the new 47-acre campus are being added as retrofits where possible to the district’s 11 other high schools and one adult school. That includes Hueneme High School, where 22 years ago, a teenage gunman took a student hostage but was soon killed by a police sniper while the hostage was saved.

    Throughout the nation, new schools are being designed — and older schools retrofitted — to make them as safe as possible for students and staff and as difficult as possible for a potential assailant to gain entrance and cause deadly trouble. Those features often include a single point of entry, new fencing, limited visibility into classrooms, bulletproof glass in vulnerable spots and new alert and locking systems.

    McCoy and educators and architects throughout the state and country say the challenge is to make a school safe without making it look like a bunker or penitentiary. They say Del Sol and other campuses succeed in showing that a pleasant and secure learning environment can be created.

     

     

    Oxnard Union High School District Superintendent Thomas McCoy walks through Del School High School on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023.

    “It’s a fine line,” Del Sol principal Terri Leon said. “We want our kids to feel safe, but we don’t want them to feel imprisoned. I think (the design) does a good job of balancing that. Our kids seem to like the design and the spaces and how everything is set up. But then we are pretty secure.”

    The campus was designed by the PBK architecture firm, which has nine offices throughout California. So far, the school consists of eight buildings, mainly two stories and connected by walkways. All share plenty of outdoor space and plazas. Corridors and classrooms have large windows, providing much light and views of mountains. Students can present projects or hold meetings in big, flexible interior spaces. While a sense of openness exists inside the campus, there is no mistake that the exterior’s decorative black metal mesh fence presents a strong impression of do-not-enter to an uninvited visitor — even without old-fashioned barbed wire or chain link.

    In California, many older schools were built when openness and a sense of freedom were important, taking advantage of the climate with unprotected breezeways, unfenced lawns and multiple easy entries. School officials and architects and parents say they don’t want to entirely lose that, at least inside secure perimeters.

    “Security is on everyone’s minds,” said Michael Pinto, design director at NAC Architecture firm’s Los Angeles office, which has worked on many school projects with anti-crime features. “It is really a concern of parents. And when someone is concerned about the safety of their children, there is nothing you can do but respect that and take those concerns seriously.”

    That does not mean designing a dark, windowless bunker or having excessive fencing, said Pinto, whose projects include the current rebuilding of the century-old Belvedere Middle School in East Los Angeles. Belvedere’s new buildings were placed to form much of the campus’ exterior boundaries. As a result, the amount of fencing is actually reduced from the old arrangement, according to Pinto. Meanwhile, inside the campus, students get a lot of outdoor space and light.

    “We don’t want hermetically sealed schools,” said Pinto, who served on the Los Angeles city attorney’s commission on school safety. That panel’s 2018 report called for improved security measures like single entries, along with better mental health services and more societal gun controls. The federal government has issued similar guidelines that emphasize clear sight lines and access control, along with clean and upbeat school environments.

    The Saugus Union School District in northern Los Angeles County recently spent much of a $148 million bond issue for security measures at its 15 K-six schools. Those include new single-point-of-entry lobbies with secondary locked doors leading into the campuses, better fencing and lighting, new door-locking systems and window shades that can be closed in an emergency. Identification letters and numbers have been painted on roofs so police or fire crews can see them from the air and get to the right location quickly in an emergency, according to Nick Heinlein, the district’s assistant superintendent of business.

    The goal is to make campuses “as safe as we can make them without them seeming unappealing,” Heinlein said.

    The need was brought home by a tragic 2019 episode at Saugus High School, a hometown campus run by a separate district, Heinlein said. A student armed with a pistol shot five schoolmates, killing two, before killing himself. When something like that happens, “there is always something that can be learned,” Heinlein said. Among other things, changes were made to allow students to flee if necessary through campus exits with panic bars that can be opened from the inside or that can be easily unlocked by adults in an emergency, he said.

    Responses to school violence go beyond architecture and window panes. Staffs are getting better trained on how to lead lockdowns, evacuations and student drills. Campus and municipal police are being better trained for a faster response to shootings, searching quickly for assailants and being well-armed enough to counter them. Schools look more closely for students’ behavioral and emotional problems that could escalate. Mental health resources have been boosted, as have methods of reporting threats.

    Architecture and engineering help a lot, but they aren’t sufficient without other efforts, according to Scott Gaudineer, who is president of the California branch of the American Institute of Architects, a professional organization representing 11,000 architects in the state. “Human intelligence is just as important,” said Gaudineer, who also is president of the Flewelling & Moody firm, in the Los Angeles area, which has worked on school projects. “Schools must keep a watchful eye and offer counseling to a student “who is going through a divorce, who is stressed.”

    “The challenge is you never know who is going to show up with an AK-47 and is mentally deranged. It is shocking how often this is happening,” he added.

    Two of the most infamous school shooting sites have taken different approaches in the aftermath. In Connecticut, the Sandy Hook Elementary School was demolished in the wake of the 2012 rampage that left 20 children and six educators dead. A new school was built with a moat-like rain garden around it, bulletproof windows and an elevated first floor to make it harder to see in.

    In contrast, Columbine High in Colorado remained pretty much the same after the 1999 assault, during which two students killed 12 classmates and one teacher before committing suicide. Some new security measures have been added such as more fencing.

    McCoy, the Oxnard Union superintendent, has personal experience encountering violence. In 2001, a troubled teenage boy who was not a student there easily got into Hueneme High School. McCoy, a vice principal then, escorted him off the grounds. The intruder came back, holding a female student at gunpoint as he entered a campus quad through an unguarded gate. A police sniper shot and killed the gunman, and the girl was not wounded.

    McCoy, who was nearby but did not witness the shooting, said its lessons are reflected in Del Sol’s design and in improved emergency sheltering and evacuation procedures. Adult staff, he said, must be prepared since “the kids look to the adults immediately and follow our directions.”

    During the tour, McCoy pointed out what he said is one of the most important anti-violence features: a wellness center, a big sunny room with beanbag chairs where students under emotional stress can chill out and meet with a counselor. “If they are having a bad day, instead of acting out in the classroom, they can hang out here and spend the time they need and go back to class,” he said. About 60 students a day spend at least some time there, usually at lunch.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    Eight-foot wire gates surround Del Sol High School in Oxnard on Oct. 3, 2023.

    Del Sol, built on a former strawberry and citrus farm in the eastern part of Oxnard, serves a predominately Latino and low-income population, including some whose parents work in the fields. As additional classes enter each of the next three years and the current freshmen become seniors, enrollment is expected to grow to about 2,100 students.

    The land cost $25 million, and construction bills so far total $194 million, including $30 million to the city for street improvements, funded by bonds, certificates of participation and other sources, according to McCoy. Athletic fields are being finished to the rear of the site, and plans call for a performing arts center, swimming pool and football stadium to be added when more state or local funds can be found.

    The contemporary-style buildings are clad in complementary panels of gray, cantaloupe and white. The black metal fencing has narrow vertical openings that make it nearly impossible to get a foothold, but there are no barbed wire or top stakes that could hurt a student who tries to climb out, according to Mark Graham, its principal architect, at the PBK firm. The company has installed similar security measures at the new $200 million Chino High, which opened last year, and at retrofits at three campuses in the Cucamonga School District in San Bernardino County.

    The fence aims to look porous, Graham said. “We wanted to use something that didn’t look so penal. It is there, but it is not like you are being caged in.” Going fenceless is not an option on most school projects these days since security is “at the top of the list of concerns, especially for parents and school board members.”





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  • Erratic results, high costs doomed this district’s once-heralded student improvement program

    Erratic results, high costs doomed this district’s once-heralded student improvement program


    Students in a Fresno Unified classroom.

    Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr

    Top Takeaways
    • Fresno Unified and its teachers union reached an agreement in mid-June to attempt to mitigate the impacts of a long-standing program ending. 
    • The multimillion-dollar program was touted by the district as a way to close gaps between student groups less than three years ago. 
    • Finances, inconsistent program implementation and varied results are some of the reasons the district says the program was eliminated. 

    The Fresno Unified School District and its teachers union have reached an agreement to terminate a decade-old, once-promising student improvement program that expanded from a pilot in a handful of low-performing schools to 40 of the district’s 67 elementary schools and one middle school. 

    Faced with rising program costs, declining enrollment and cuts in revenue, the district decided that inconsistent results could not justify the program’s high expense of almost $30 million.

    “When you have finances crash with programmatic inconsistencies … just kind of created the perfect storm for us to go a different direction,” said David Chavez, district chief of human resources, who also worked for two former superintendents. 

    The Designated Schools program, which operated under three superintendents, was a district initiative to improve achievement through additional daily instruction by targeting the specific needs of students. The effort was extensive: 30 additional instructional minutes per day for students, 10 extra paid days of professional development for teachers, and either a math or reading coach in each school.

    Under the agreement with the Fresno Teachers Association, the coaches will return to the classroom as regular teachers, and teachers will see a phaseout of their 10-day training over the next few years. For students, aside from losing 30 minutes of instruction, there will be no transition. They can participate in the after-school program they are already entitled to attend, where they may receive intervention or instruction from teachers who choose to participate.    

    Dismantling the previously praised program raises questions about how and why it went awry. 

    The district blames inconsistent program implementation across schools, but it failed to set standards or hold schools accountable to the program’s tenets. 

    Going Deeper: Who Designated Schools served 

    Designated Schools, affecting 24,000 students and over 1,250 educators across 41 campuses, were intended to close academic gaps among students and were typically located in neighborhoods with large numbers of socioeconomically disadvantaged students. In the extra 30 minutes, all students received additional instruction or intervention in some way.

    Reading specialists at Wilson Elementary, a Designated School, used those extra minutes on remedial instruction for struggling fifth graders who were unable to read even at a third or fourth grade level, said Drew Colburn, a fifth grade teacher. 

    During intervention time, Colburn and other teachers divided their classes into small groups by proficiency level and targeted students’ weak points, allowing all students to get additional support, without missing core instruction. 

    At Wilson, following slight improvements, 18.6% and 12.1% of students achieved reading and math proficiency in the 2023-24 school year, according to Ed-Data. 

    Teachers say they saw improvements, which may not have been as apparent on summative state tests that the district evaluated to determine program effectiveness. 

    “If you take that 30 minutes away from them, they’re going to come to fifth grade with even more of a deficit,” Colburn said. 

    Inconsistent implementation or lack of oversight?

    The first “Designated Schools” were actually three of the district’s lowest-performing schools. Fresno Unified gave teachers more time to plan, additional instruction time with students and extra support as part of the state’s turnaround model to reform persistently low-achieving schools.

    The schools started to see improved student performance, including double-digit gains in some instances, according to district Superintendent Misty Her.  

    “We thought, ‘Can we take what happened there and now replicate it into other schools?’” said Her, who was a school administrator at the time. 

    In 2014-15, under the label of Designated Schools, two schools, along with nine others, implemented the model. Over the last decade and multiple years of implementation, the program expanded with the district being the initiative’s biggest advocate.

    The model, when implemented as intended, supported improved student outcomes on state assessments for English and math, Fresno Unified said in May 2021 in its accountability plan for the 2021-22 school year, when the program cost $19.9 million across the 41 schools.  

    But, according to district leaders, schools implemented the program differently, undermining the effectiveness of the extra staff and extra 30 minutes, and leading to varying results. 

    Timeline of Designated School expansion, elimination

    2014-15: Fresno Unified implemented the Designed Schools initiative at 10 elementary schools and one middle school

    2015-16: 20 schools were added as Designated Schools

    2016-17: 10 more elementary schools became Designated Schools

    From 2017-2019: The model had improved scores on state assessments for low-income, foster youth and English learner student populations, according to district accountability plans.

    2019: Annual funding for the program continued to increase, rising to over $18.6 million.

    2020-21: Hanover Research conducted its analysis, showing mixed results from the program.

    2021: Fresno Unified, in its accountability plan for the 2021-22 school year, said the initiative would “address the needs of students by providing extended time to accelerate learning and close the gap of learning loss resulting from the pandemic.” 

    2022: The district suggested expanding the program to its remaining two dozen elementary schools. 

    2023-24: Fresno Unified proposed phasing out the initiative before abandoning the idea later in the school year. 

    2024-25: The district announced the program’s elimination for the 2025-26 school year. 

    The district added a special assignment teacher to every Designated School, but gave schools the autonomy to use that position as they saw fit. Some schools used the position as an intervention teacher; others used the extra support to assist during class or pull students out for individualized or group instruction. A few schools required the specialists to take on multiple duties, consequently hindering their work in the classroom. 

    Laura Schwalm, chief of staff for California Education Partners, where she works with about 50 school districts on systemic change and improvement, said that before expanding an initiative, districts should have a plan, including how to fund it; set clear expectations; monitor the program and its results throughout the year to make adjustments; and invest in teachers and administrators to deliver the program. 

    An analysis of the program, conducted by Hanover Research in the 2020-21 school year, found that:

    • Academic outcomes were mixed
    • Program implementation varied across campuses, with only some schools aligning resources with data-driven practices 

    District administration had the authority and ability to address the program’s flaws. In fact, the Hanover report recommended that Fresno Unified establish a set of standards on how staff should use its additional time at Designated Schools. 

    The autonomy, alone, wasn’t the problem; a lack of district monitoring was. Schwalm said using different approaches could have led to improved student results and could have been used in other schools.

    “If you’re not monitoring and not adjusting what you’re doing to get better results, then you can’t be surprised when you don’t get good results,” she said.

    Former Superintendent Bob Nelson, who led the district from 2017 until 2024, said he and the district leadership “didn’t pay close enough attention to schools that were doing it well” to be models for other schools. 

    “The issue was we were not learning from the sites we had. That’s what was missing.”

    Bob Nelson, former superintendent of Fresno Unified

    According to a June 2022 accountability plan, the district still hailed the initiative as being “critical” to the achievement of English learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged students and foster youth.

    By November 2022, Fresno Unified wanted to expand the initiative to all elementary schools to improve academic outcomes for students, according to contract negotiation documents with the teachers union. 

    “Less than a year and a half after they proposed every school site become a Designated School, they’re saying, ‘This program doesn’t work,’” said Manuel Bonilla, teachers union president. 

    Chavez, the chief of human resources, said Fresno Unified had evaluated the program’s effectiveness every year since its inception and that its continuation, especially since it was meant to be a pilot, had been a part of conversations for years. 

    But was it effective? 

    Parents, teachers and administrators told EdSource they believe students benefit from more time with their teachers. The extra 30 minutes amounted to 90 additional instructional hours each year.

    “I believe it does give teachers a little bit more time to be able to work with each kid,” said Adriana Ramirez, a Wilson Elementary parent.

    But both the district and teachers union agreed that its effectiveness was not a simple yes or no answer. 

    “Depending on the situation, some components were really good at this site, some weren’t at this (school), and one component that could have been good somewhere wasn’t necessarily really good at another place,” Chavez said. 

    There were “pockets of excellence,” he and other district officials admitted, but students were not seeing the academic gains the district envisioned. 

    Though not school-specific, the district provided data measuring the yearly progress of students at Designated Schools compared to students at non-designated schools. 

    EdSource also evaluated school-specific data from a GO Public Schools 2024 student outcome report based on the 2023-24 school year.

    chart visualization

    chart visualization

    chart visualization

    The district-provided and school-specific data is indicative that many schools were making progress under the initiative, as teachers say, while also depicting the district’s point that it was not across the board.

    Without data from a 10-year longitudinal study, Bonilla, the teachers union president, said he couldn’t say whether the Designated Schools initiative was effective. 

    “Some of our teachers felt that it was effective and some teachers felt that there were components that could make it even more effective because it wasn’t,” Bonilla said.

    Mitigating impact

    The district and teachers union spent six months negotiating how to maintain student support through other programs. 

    The agreement approved on June 18 dedicates an additional $4 million in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years for educators at Designated Schools to offer after-school literacy instruction or intervention. 

    Educators at Designated Schools, under the agreement, will have the right to refuse the work. If given the opportunity, Drew Colburn, a fifth grade Wilson Elementary teacher who was also a former after-school program coordinator, is confident educators are going to want to do that extra 30 minutes, if not more. 

    But if teachers decline the assignment, the after-school intervention won’t be as consistent or effective, he said. 

    And unfortunately, families won’t know the repercussions of the program’s elimination until this school year when it’s no longer in place, Ramirez said. “Parents,” she said, “won’t notice until it’s not there.”





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  • Strike averted for students: Fresno Unified, teachers reach ‘historic’ contract

    Strike averted for students: Fresno Unified, teachers reach ‘historic’ contract


    Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla, centered on the left, passes the pen and contract to Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson to sign a tentative agreement that FTA and FUSD reached less than a day ahead of a potential strike.

    Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource

    This article was updated Nov. 2 to reflect changes in the final version of the contract between Fresno Unified and the teachers union.

    Less than 24 hours before a strike by thousands of educators was scheduled to start, Fresno Unified School District and its teachers union agreed on a tentative contract, the two announced during a joint press conference Tuesday morning. 

    The “historic” agreement, which was still being revised as late as this morning, brings more than a year of negotiating to an end and prevents a divisive strike that would’ve undoubtedly harmed the Fresno community and the district’s over 74,000 students. 

    “Our students have been the innocent bystanders waiting through the difficulties of negotiations,” Superintendent Bob Nelson said. “This deal is really about you (students): it’s our joint commitment to avoid a strike because there’s really nothing more important than making sure our students have the opportunity to be in school every day, all the time.” 

    District and union leaders as well as board members touted the contract for investing in teachers, supporting students and maintaining the district’s fiscal solvency. 

    To Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla, the contract meets and exceeds the four requests that emerged as sticking points throughout negotiations: reducing class size, reducing special education caseloads, keeping educators competitive in pay and maintaining certain health care benefits. 

    Bonilla and Louis Jamerson, executive director of the teachers union, highlighted key provisions from the offer, including: 

    • Class size reductions for all grades with investments for new classrooms to continue to reduce class size.
    • A comprehensive guideline for special education caseloads – the first time such guidance has existed in contract language.
    • Competitive salaries.
    • Lifetime medical benefits.

    “Soon a child will walk into their classroom and have the closest connection ever with their teacher, rather than competing for attention and assistance,” Bonilla said about one of many “wins” for students.

    What does the contract offer? 

    Class size

    The teachers union came to the bargaining table with a request to cap class size while the district proposed maintaining class size averages but reducing the number of students over that average for a teacher stipend.

    Starting next school year, the district will reduce class size averages to ratios of 1 teacher for every: 

    • Eight students for prekindergarten.
    • 12 students for transitional kindergarten.
    • 23 students for grades K-three.
    • 28 students for grades four to six.
    • 27 students for grades seven and eight.
    • 28 students for high school grades. 

    The contract language provides guidelines for class size, which say the district will reduce individual class size even more each school year and will reassign 75 non-classroom educators back to the classroom to lower class size. 

    Benefits

    The agreed-upon offer includes what Fresno Unified previously called a bridge to Medicare to meet the same goal as lifetime retiree benefits: 

    • At age 57.5, if an employee has worked in Fresno Unified for at least 20 years, they’ll be offered the same health care plan, and at the same rate, as current employees.
    • At 65, when employees become eligible for Medicare, they will have access to a district health plan that acts as a secondary coverage to Medicare.

    The contract guarantees seven and a half years of the coverage, even if the Medicare eligibility age changes. The contract also includes provisions about the district’s contribution to employees’ health care fund, which, in part, determines health care benefits. The district will contribute less to the health fund, but, according to the contract, it will automatically increase to the previous contribution level within a couple of years. 

    More than 20% in raises and bonuses

    Over the next three years, Fresno Unified educators will receive 21% in raises and one-time payments – up from the previous 11% and 19% offers – which include: 

    • 8.5% raises this school year.
    • 3% raises in the 2024-25 school year with a 2.5% one-time bonus.
    • 4.5% raises in the 2025-26 school year with a 2.5% one-time bonus.

    Educators will also receive a $5,000 one-time payment as part of a side letter agreement to the contract. 

    A win for teachers and students

    The contract allows educators and students to thrive, Bonilla said. 

    “As educators and as a community, we’ve made it clear (that) students thrive when educators thrive,” he said. “And educators thrive when leaders value their hard work — when they value that tireless dedication to adequate support.” 

    While negotiations have ended, many said that the work of building a better Fresno starts now. The district and the union agreed to act as partners in a “collaborative shared decision process (that) will ensure the partners work together in a meaningful way within a timely manner.” Four district leaders, including the superintendent, and four union leaders will be a part of the partnership. 

    Don Raczka, author of a fact-finding report, recommended that Fresno Unified and its teachers union work closely to find solutions so they can address the “transformational student and teacher support systems the (Fresno Teachers) Association believes essential.” 

    The partnership, said school board member Andy Levine, will enable the district and union to continue to work on issues over time, not wait three years for the next contract negotiations to come around. 

    “It’s not over; we start from a different place today,” trustee Valerie Davis said. “Today, our students win.” 





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  • Tuition-free access expanding across California community college campuses

    Tuition-free access expanding across California community college campuses


    Fresno City College campus.

    Credit: Ashleigh Panoo / EdSource

    As enrollment rates across California’s community college system took heavy losses following the Covid-19 pandemic, colleges have focused on advertising their tuition-free access in recent months. 

    Tuition-free community college has been a reality for many students for several decades under the California College Promise Grant, which waives tuition fees for California resident students and non-residents under the California Dream Act who meet the needs-based criteria spelled out in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as FAFSA.

    For students who don’t qualify for that grant, colleges have the option of using another pot of funding to waive tuition. The separate but similarly named California Promise, created under Assembly Bill 19 in 2017, set aside $46 million annually to be split among the state’s community colleges to support students. 

    Colleges get flexibility with how they spend their portion of the funds, but many are choosing to put theirs toward waiving tuition for students who don’t qualify for the Promise Grant, something administrators say is driving students back to their campuses following pandemic enrollment declines.

    As of the current semester, all 116 California community college campuses offer some form of tuition-free education.

    Thus far, it’s been well-received by students like Paige Stevens, a returning student at Folsom Lake College.

    “I didn’t even know about it. I was set up on a payment plan, paid my first payment, and then the next time I checked my balance, it said it was paid by the California College Promise Grant. I had to look it up,” Stevens said. “Now that I received this financial aid, I was super excited and enrolled in another two classes to take advantage.”

    While much of the data immediately following the pandemic focused on the massive drop in enrollment, which subsequently led to fears of funding cuts, enrollment in the state’s two-year colleges has begun to see a fresh increase, and many administrators point to the Promise Program.

    Some campuses have gone a step further and offered awards to students who may not qualify for the Promise Grant program. 

    Since the 2020-21 semester, Diablo Valley College in Contra Costa County has been offering a “full-time free tuition award” that refunds tuition to students who are California residents, enrolled in at least 12 units, maintain at least a 2.0 GPA and follow an education plan. Marisa Greenberg, marketing and communications coordinator for Diablo Valley, said that more than 8,000 students took advantage of these programs at their campuses.

    “DVC is experiencing a moderate increase in enrollment this semester, and although many factors impact enrollment, we are confident that the college’s free tuition programs have played a role,” Greenberg said in an email. “We know from conversations with students that receiving free tuition makes it possible for many students to either remain in college or to take more units, thereby accelerating their time to completing a degree or certificate.”

    In the San Mateo County Community College District, tuition has been waived for all students, regardless of income, since the fall 2022 semester. Between the fall 2021 and fall 2022 semesters, there was an increase of about 1,500 students, or a 9.5% increase within the three district campuses, according to Chancellor’s Office data.

    The enrollment increase continued in the spring 2023 semester, which saw another increase of 400 students. Spring semesters generally see a loss of enrollment, according to the data. The district’s ad campaign, as seen in mailers and online ads, has focused on pointing out that tuition is now free.

    Chabot College in Hayward also has implemented tuition-free enrollment for first-year students, regardless of income. 

    “At Chabot College, we understand that the ability to pay or offset college expenses yields a greater probability of enrollment,” President Jamal A. Cooks said in an email. “We wanted to make sure to break down the barriers to postsecondary education,” he added, noting that it’s the path toward upward social mobility.

    The strategy seems to be paying off as Chabot College’s enrollment remained steady between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 semesters, seeing only a slight drop of under 200 students.

    Given that the state in 2025 plans to end its “hold harmless” protections, which are currently keeping funding for the colleges at their 2017-18 levels even if their enrollment has declined, these campuses will need to continue reversing the trend of enrollment losses to avoid cuts. Once the temporary freeze expires, the state’s funding for community colleges will largely be reflective of enrollment numbers. The California Promise program will be one of the critical tools they continue to lean into.

    Chip Woerner, director of marketing and communications for Los Positas College, believes that remaining tuition-free keeps access to other services available.

    “A tuition-free campaign … opens a conversation with students about the many resources available to them at our college,” Woerner said in an email.

    Joshua Picazo is majoring in media studies at UC Berkeley and is a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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  • Collaboration is the key to student success from school to college to career

    Collaboration is the key to student success from school to college to career


    A student in Oakland’s Skyline High School Education and Community Health Pathway sculpts a clay model of the endocrine system.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    Could collaboration between TK-12 schools, colleges and industries improve educational equity and opportunity for the most high-needs learners? California is betting that the answer is yes and is backing that belief up with a $250 million investment in the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program.

    The success of California’s nearly 6 million public school students, 60% of whom are low-income, depends on the ability of educators and employers to provide seamless pathways to degrees and careers. This is no small feat and requires a big investment of time, energy and resources.

    In 2020, amid the pandemic, 15 education organizations in the Central Valley, including school districts, community colleges and four-year institutions, joined forces to improve dual enrollment and skill-building opportunities and create more equitable pathways to college. The Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative has already launched thousands of learners on a path to and through college. Building on the initial success of this effort, the California Department of General Services has invested $250 million in the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program to fund career-oriented pathways and Recovery with Equity recommendations. Nine regional collaboratives received four-year funding in June 2022, and a second-round application to fund additional collaborative regions just closed on Oct. 3.

    Too often, innovations in education and workforce development occur in silos, with little support to build a community of practice or align strategy. The goal of the K-16 grant program is to break down these silos and get regional entities working together to advance educational equity and workforce resilience. However, because such regional efforts are relatively new, little research and few resources exist to support them.

    From our work supporting educational and workforce partners, here are a few lessons learned:

    1. Focus on learners and equity. Partners in a regional collaborative are drawn together for one common goal: to advance equity of opportunity for learners. As such, keep learners at the center of all discussions. One suggested principle to guide the collaborative: Consider each student, no matter their age, location, or pathway as our collective responsibility, and use this orientation as a north star in decision-making.
    1. Ensure balance. The composition of an educational collaborative matters. Representation and equity are essential in making high-stakes decisions — especially regarding dissemination of funding. To ensure the buy-in of partners, consider educational segments, geography and distribution of partners across education and industry. While postsecondary partners often have larger support structures, resources and student populations, the participation of TK-12 districts and county offices of education is crucial to the success of K-16 collaboratives. Thus, TK-12 partners may need additional financial backing to ensure equitable representation and influence.
    1. Build deep and authentic employer engagement. Strong industry partnerships will drive pathway development in high-needs areas and enhance career education and work-based learning for students. Accomplishing this in a collaborative setting can be challenging. Because the worlds of public education and private industry have historically been separate, businesses/employers must be active participants in meetings and discussions. Talent pipeline management, an approach to workforce development, which positions employers as end customers of education supply chains, may be useful in such collaborations.
    1. Dedicate staffing. A collaborative must have its own staffing to be effective and sustainable. Initiating a collaborative staffed only by volunteers presents challenges, as members, usually employed full-time, have limited availability. Dedicated staff can maintain momentum and handle daily operations, securing the collaborative’s success. Acknowledging members’ limited availability is essential. Providing support and, if feasible, incentives for participation can enhance engagement.
    1. Design the funding model to be both equitable and sustainable. How the collaborative divvies up funds is a momentous decision that influences its ability to advance its priorities. Consider where funds will have the greatest impact. For example, while most rural high schools have far smaller head counts than urban high schools, they face greater challenges competing for grant funds and building career programs because of their geographic isolation and limited resources.

      Wherever possible, leveraging existing funding toward a common purpose can remove silos and maximize sustained collaborative impact. For example the Community Economic Resilience Fund is a $600 million state grant program designed to promote sustainable, climate-friendly economic development and equitable pandemic recovery. Funds support regional communities in developing coordinated road maps for economic development, with an emphasis on the creation of high-quality jobs in sustainable industries. The CERF regions and timeline intentionally align with those of the K-16 Collaboratives grant program, and the two regional efforts should complement and support one another.

      Finally, the K-16 Collaboratives Educational Grant Program expires in 2026, so designing the funding model to be sustainable is critical. In determining how to direct funds, think not only about what pilot initiatives will be sustainable but can provide proof of concept for replication and scalability through future investments.

    An adage says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

    In a recent panel on diversifying the health care workforce, Freeman Hrabowski, a former educational adviser to President Barack Obama, argued that the single most important policy change he would make would be, “more incentives to have people at different levels of education understanding both the strengths of other levels and the challenges they face. … We need policies that will have more substantive collaboration across levels.”

    At every TK-16 school in California, there are bright spots of innovation and individual educators working tirelessly to make sure their students don’t fall through the cracks. Regional collaboration can harness and scale the impact of these individuals to advance systems change.

    •••

    Annie Sterling is a program manager at Capitol Impact, a Sacramento-based social impact consulting firm, and previously served for more than a decade as an English language arts and social studies teacher in California public schools. Natalie Lenhart, Lex Carlsson and Alex Taghavian of Capitol Impact contributed to this op-ed.

    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.





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  • Meet School Gig: A new app to connect schools and artists 

    Meet School Gig: A new app to connect schools and artists 


    Rapper D Smoke at a hip-hop jam in Los Angeles, part of the launch event for the School Gig app.

    Credit: Chase Stevens

    Elmo Lovano fell for the drums at the age of 10. He was touring as a musician by 15, performing with the likes of Miley Cyrus and Juliette Lewis. His affinity for music eventually led him to found Jammcard: The Music Professionals Network, which has been described as a sort of LinkedIn for the music industry, connecting musicians to jobs.

    “Art and music led me to become the entrepreneur that I am today,” Lovano said. “It taught me how to communicate with others and how to lead. Drumming gave me a feeling of passion that fueled my drive.”

    Lovano used his unique blend of tech know-how and musical instincts to develop School Gig, a job platform that connects schools with artists of all kinds, from musicians and dancers to actors and visual artists. The new app, which was recently launched at a hip-hop jam featuring R&B singer/songwriter Omarion and Daniel “D Smoke” Farris in Inglewood, is a tool to help schools tap into the expertise of their local arts communities in the wake of Proposition 28. 

     “To me, teaching young students arts and music is one of the most important things they could learn,” said Lovano. “I love bringing people opportunities, and School Gig allows us to provide artists with new opportunities while educating kids and assisting schools. It’s a win-win-win.”

    The app is part of an ongoing effort to bang the drum for Proposition 28, to help recruit the thousands of arts educators who will be needed as California schools begin to ramp up their plans for the state’s 2022 historic initiative to bring arts education back into schools after many decades of budget cuts. The mandate ensures roughly $1 billion in annual funding, administered by the California Department of Education, to teach a wide range of disciplines as diverse as hip-hop riffs and marching band, dance and drama, folk art and high-tech animation.

    “Prop. 28 is the largest investment in arts and music in our nation’s history,” said Austin Beutner,  the former superintendent of LAUSD who spearheaded Proposition 28, “It will provide all 6 million kids in California public schools the opportunity to participate in arts and music at school.”

    That money is on its way to schools. A schedule of allocations for Proposition 28 funds will be posted on the Department of Education website in November, officials say, and the first installment is set to land in February. The guidelines state that at least 80% of the money is earmarked for arts education staff, and the rest can go toward other costs, such as training, supplies, materials and partnership programs. 

    One main challenge now is how to recruit legions of new educators, given that the arts teacher pipeline has shriveled over time. There are so few newly minted arts educators in California that some schools are having to recruit out-of-state teachers. The existing teacher shortage also means that filling all the anticipated arts ed positions will be no mean feat.

    “It’s a significant number of teachers that we’re looking at being hired in California,” said Mike Stone, coordinator of the visual and performing arts with the Bakersfield City School District. “The problem that we will face with Prop. 28 is filling the ranks of teachers, certificated teachers in the classroom, because there simply is going to be a shortage in the pipeline for the next several years.”

    Some say tapping working artists, who can either work alongside classroom teachers or pursue a credential, is a way to grow the ranks until the supply can meet the demand. That’s where School Gig comes in.

    “We know how to hit artists where they live,” Lovano said. “This is exciting for us, it’s powerful to bring artists to the schools. You can still do you, you can have your art, but also you have an opportunity to connect with the schools.”

    “Prop. 28 is the largest investment in arts and music in our nation’s history.”

    Former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner

    Many are hopeful the app can play a role in helping schools overcome the state’s ongoing teacher shortage, which has deepened during the pandemic, by enticing prospective teaching artists.

    “The School Gig app seems like it has got some legs,” said Merryl Goldberg, a professor of music and arts integration at California State University San Marcos. “The biggest challenge will be outreach to get schools to market their positions.” 

    For the record, there are already sites where schools post open jobs, such as EdJoin. A recent search for “music teacher” resulted in 216 postings representing 363 job vacancies. 

    Stone recently hired 13 new arts teachers, with specialties ranging from stringed instruments and rock music to theater, to help build out the already robust Bakersfield arts ed program. He says it was a highly competitive process that will only get harder as more schools get in on the act.

    “It’s difficult right now, and it’s going to be more difficult this coming hiring cycle because everyone will have the dollars in their bank account and be hiring,” said Stone, a veteran music teacher who started out playing a baritone horn in the fourth grade. “We’re going to see more of a crisis this coming summer.”

    Making deeper connections within local school communities, tapping into homegrown talent, could be part of the solution, some say.

    Austin Beutner, author of Prop 28, at a launch event for the School Gig app.

    “That’s the beauty of something like School Gig,” said Stone who is also the president of the National Association for Music Education, Western Division. “Maybe there is a hip hop dancer in Oakland who wants to work in a school, and maybe there’s a way to connect them to the school district to see if there’s a job that would be of interest.” 

    Several districts have already signed on to participate with the app, including Inglewood and Fresno. 

    “I am excited to start using the platform to find and recruit arts teachers,” said Heather Kuyper-McKeithen, arts education department manager for Fresno Unified. “We have a plan to hire 60 teachers over the next few years for TK-12th grade instruction in dance, theater,  art, and music.”

    Some arts educators, however, are concerned the app may favor putting teaching artists in schools at the expense of credentialed arts teachers. As one arts education expert put it, “teaching is not a gig.” 

    Despite the complications of launching a program this ambitious, including differing opinions about what kind of genres to teach, who should teach them and whether the CDE is providing enough guidance on the rollout, Stone remains steadfast in his enthusiasm. 

    “It’s important that the Department of Education put out accurate information as soon as possible,” said Stone. “In fairness to the Department of Ed, they’re trying to figure it out as well. This is such a huge endeavor to operationalize. The point is that we have to be patient.”

    Like many in the arts education world, Stone is still pinching himself that there is finally funding earmarked for the arts. After 35 years in the field, this is a watershed moment he never thought he’d see happen.

    “There’s finally discrete funding for arts education. We have never had that in California,” said Stone. “It’s a paradigm shift forever. We are leading the way here. It’s an arts education renaissance.” 





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  • Chico State professor hit with legal fees in failed libel case

    Chico State professor hit with legal fees in failed libel case


    Suspended Chico State professor David Stachura’s failed effort to sue a colleague for libel has hit him in the wallet.

    A Superior Court judge has ordered Stachura to pay the California State University system more than $64,000 it spent to defend a lecturer he sued after she said at a campuswide forum nearly a year ago that Stachura threatened to shoot up the biology department. The university indemnified the lecturer, Betsey Tamietti.

    Judge Stephen Benson threw out the suit in July under a California statute that allows successful defendants to recoup the cost of beating back such litigation. He issued the fee order late last month. Stachura also sued his estranged wife for libel but withdrew the suit.

    “As a public institution, we must be responsible stewards of the money allocated to us by the state of California,” Chico State spokesperson Andrew Staples said in an email. The school looks “forward to recovering the attorney’s fees the university was forced to incur to fight this lawsuit that the court agreed was without merit and would have chilled free speech.”

    Stachura’s lawyer, Kasra Parsad, didn’t respond to a request to comment on the ruling.

    David Loy, legal director of the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition, said the law worked as intended in the Stachura case. “It protects those who speak out on matters of public concern from being intimidated by frivolous and costly lawsuits,” he said. It allows defendants to quickly beat back bogus suits meant to intimidate critics without years of costly litigation. In libel cases, “the process itself is the punishment,” Loy said.

    The lecturer’s remarks came days after EdSource reported that Stachura’s estranged wife said in court documents in the couple’s divorce case that he threatened to kill two colleagues who cooperated in a university investigation that found Stachura had an inappropriate affair with a graduate student that included sex in his office.

     A different judge in August granted Chico State a three-year workplace violence restraining order against Stachura. It requires him to stay off campus and away from Tamietti and others, including the professors who reported his affair with the student.

    Stachura was put on paid suspension in December, a status that continues, Staples said. An investigation of the threats against the co-workers and other matters “is complete and has moved to the next stage of the personnel process,” he said.

    The CSU chancellor’s office in Long Beach is overseeing an outside investigation of how the Chico State administration handled the Stachura affair, including the original investigation of the sex case and the gun threats. It is expected to be concluded in a month or two, Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson, said in an email. Stachura received light punishment in the sex case and was later named the school’s ‘”outstanding professor” of the 2020-2021 academic year.

    During hearings in the restraining order case, Shanna McDaniel, a deputy state attorney general, said that the fact Stachura was likely to lose the libel case and be hit with the type of fee motion that Benson approved made him even more dangerous and a greater threat to the campus community.

    In a written declaration in the libel case, Stachura said he’s suffered financially over the last year, losing consulting jobs he had for several companies. He is now listed as the founder and chief executive of a company called Philanthropic Pharma, according to its website. He is listed as its only employee.





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  • Community college professors allege new diversity policies infringe on academic freedom

    Community college professors allege new diversity policies infringe on academic freedom


    Bill Blanken, a chemistry professor at Reedley College, claims that a diversity and equity policy in California’s community colleges amounts to a “loyalty oath.”

    Photo courtesy of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

    Bill Blanken, a chemistry professor at Reedley College, said a new diversity and equity policy in California’s community colleges amounts to a “loyalty oath” and “compelled speech” that runs afoul of free speech and academic freedom. 

    Community colleges’ DEIA goals: address diversity and especially racism

    The push for new diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) policies came out of a long-running effort to improve student outcomes in California Community Colleges. The systemwide plan called Vision for Success outlined goals for improving transfer rates and other outcomes for students. 

    In 2019, the board of governors for the California Community Colleges voted in favor of establishing a framework for evaluating all its employees on their competency in serving a diverse student population. More than seven out of 10 students in the California Community College system are not white, according to 2022-23 enrollment data from community college’s Data Mart site.

    But in the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, discussions over how to address diversity and especially racism on college campuses became more pointed. In August 2020, the Student Senate for the California Community Colleges held town halls where students could discuss the racism they had experienced on their college campuses and offer possible solutions. 

    These discussions led to Anti-Racism: A Student Plan of Action, a report which called for changes to the curriculum and for training of all college employees in areas of cultural diversity and concepts like unconscious bias.

    During the first town hall, several students spoke about being assigned texts that contained racial epithets. Students said they did not object to the texts themselves, examples of which  include “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” The students said, however, that they objected because professors, who were not Black, read these epithets aloud. Other students said they did not take issue with being assigned white authors who held racist views, but that authors with opposing perspectives were excluded from the syllabus. 

    Some students detailed explicit racism they faced from professors.

    Joseph Merchain, a student at Pasadena City Community College from South Los Angeles, said that as a Black man, he felt singled out when his professor told him that his dreadlocks were not professional in front of the class.

    Merchain said, “So I’m taking a whole two-hour bus ride every morning and every night just to get to and from school, just to be racially profiled?”

    Blanken, along with five other tenured professors in State Center Community College District, are challenging new California Community College diversity policies that change the way employees are evaluated. A lawsuit, filed in August, describes the plaintiffs as critics of anti-racism and diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion (DEIA) principles who are concerned that these stances could result in negative performance evaluations or even losing their jobs.

    “We need legal protection,” Blanken said in an interview with EdSource on Oct. 12. 

    Last year, the Board of Governors for the California Community Colleges adopted new regulations requiring local districts to evaluate employees, including faculty, on their competency in working with a diverse student population. Local districts were required to be in compliance last month.

    Blanken disagrees with the DEIA policy’s premise that racism is embedded in institutions, including California’s community colleges, or in disciplines such as chemistry, math and physics. He argues that these fields should be taught in a way that is race- and gender-neutral.  That is at the crux of the lawsuit by the six plaintiffs.

    Filed by free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the suit names California Community College Chancellor Sonya Christian, the board of governors of the California Community Colleges as well as the chancellor and governing board of State Center Community College District.

    A related suit, filed in June on behalf of Bakersfield College history professor Daymon Johnson, targets the chancellor and board of the Kern Community College District.

    State Center Community College District, which serves Fresno and surrounding central San Joaquin Valley communities, is one of the first districts in the state to include these new diversity requirements in its latest faculty contract. The district said in a statement that it will defend its implementation of the state’s DEIA regulations and its collaborative effort with the State Center Federation of Teachers.

     “The District now and forever will be a welcoming place for a diverse population, with a commitment to access and inclusion,” wrote Jill Wagner, spokesperson for State Center Community College District. “DEIA initiatives have sparked many important conversations spanning decades, and as this issue continues to evolve, efforts to address them will continue to be at the forefront.” 

    The district’s new evaluation process requires instructional faculty to demonstrate “teaching and learning practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles,” in addition to a written self-evaluation on the faculty’s “understanding” of DEIA competencies and “anti-racist principles,” with the goal of improving “equitable student outcomes and course completion.”

    How these principles will play out in the next rounds of evaluation is still uncertain. Blanken said he has not received guidance from his department. A September memo by State Center’s human resources department noted that the district and academic senate have  yet to develop uniform training guidelines for evaluations, and that meanwhile, “evaluatees should, in good faith, review the language in the contract and do their best to speak to how they have demonstrated or shown progress toward practices that embrace the DEIA principles.”

    Daniel Ortner, the FIRE attorney representing the State Center professors said, “That’s not good enough when free speech is on the line.” 

    Ortner added that broad, undefined regulations could have a “chilling effect” on speech in the classroom. Plaintiffs are particularly concerned about a framework released by the California Community College Curriculum Committee that warns professors not to “‘weaponize’ academic freedom and academic integrity in an academic discipline or inflict curricular trauma” on historically marginalized students.

    In the suit, plaintiffs said they have changed the way they teach their classes this semester because of the new DEIA policies. Loren Palsgaard, English professor at Madera Community College, said he will no longer assign texts that contain racial slurs, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and works by William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. 

    A response filed on Oct. 2 by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, on behalf of thc chancellor and the board of governors challenges the claim the DEIA policies bar professors from using these texts, adding that this framework is not binding and only provides a reference for college districts creating their own DEIA policies.  

    The guidance “expresses competencies the Chancellor’s Office endorses, but does not require,” wrote Melissa Villarin, spokesperson for the state Chancellor’s Office. “The regulations do not impose penalties on district employees. They are intended to contribute to employee professional development.”

    Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, said that it is well within a college’s rights to not only prescribe the curriculum for courses but to insist that faculty be sensitive to teaching a diverse student body. He added, however, that schools cannot require that faculty espouse a particular viewpoint in their teaching.

    “The question is whether this is more the former than the latter,” Chemerinsky wrote in an email to EdSource, adding that he believes the government has a strong argument that this is within its realm of prescribing a curriculum. 

    “It is hard to say on this record that the First Amendment has been violated,” Chemerisky wrote. “It would be different if a teacher was being disciplined and bringing a challenge.” None of the plaintiffs in the suits has been disciplined.

    A separate suit, filed by the Institute for Free Speech on behalf of Bakersfield College professor Daymon Johnson, points to the firing of Matthew Garrett, a professor who had been critical of DEIA initiatives. Garrett was not subject to new DEIA policies affecting faculty evaluations. However, Johnson’s suit claims that he worries that he, too, could lose his job, because he shares many of the same conservative values and anti-DEIA stances as Garrett.

    The Kern Community College District said in a statement that Garrett was not terminated because of his opinions on DEIA or other free speech issues.

    “Matthew Garrett was terminated after a lengthy and detailed examination of his disciplinary violations at Bakersfield College,” said district spokesperson Norma Rojas.

    Garrett, who was terminated by the college in April 2023, contests these alleged disciplinary violations. He filed a lawsuit against the college in May 2021, claiming that he faced retaliation for exercising his free speech. He said in a statement to EdSource, that the district has “fabricated an absurd pretext that simply does not hold up under scrutiny.”

    Plaintiffs in both suits have asked the court for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the California Community Colleges’ DEIA policy — as well as State Center Community College District’s faculty contract — from going into immediate effect. The request remains pending in federal court, and no hearing date is currently set.

    Ortner said he is not aware of any other lawsuits from California’s 116 community colleges that are targeting the new DEIA policies, but he’s keeping his eye on the issue statewide.

    “A lot of colleges have anti-discrimination protections that make students feel welcome, such as tutoring, mentoring. There are a lot of things that you can do that don’t impinge on free speech,” Ortner said. “California colleges are much more aggressive and forward in advocating for these principles.”

    Editors’ note: This story has been updated to include a statement from Matthew Garrett.





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  • Trump and Newsom are stealing from our children to avoid hard choices

    Trump and Newsom are stealing from our children to avoid hard choices


    From left, President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Credit: Official White House photo / Molly Riley and AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli

    For all of their differences, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. President Donald Trump have one thing in common: both are stealing from the future to pay for their budgets.

    Trump’s thefts take the form of budget deficits that are financed by issuing U.S. Treasury securities that must be paid back by future budgets, plus interest, with money that future governments won’t be able to use for their own services. His latest budget is expected to add $4 trillion to the national debt.

    Newsom’s thefts take the form of drawing from budget reserves that are supposed to be used to provide services during recessions and borrowings from Special Funds that are supposed to provide special services. Newsom has taken so much from budget reserves that his own Department of Finance forecasts the next governor will face his or her first budget without reserves. He also skips or shorts deposits to retirement funds that set aside money for future retirement payments to employees.

    How did Trump and Newsom end up with deficits during an economic expansion? The short answer is that Trump cut taxes while Newsom increased spending. Deficits are expected to continue in both Washington, D.C., and Sacramento. To make matters worse, by issuing budget debt during economic expansions, Trump and Newsom set up future governments for a double whammy during recessions when those governments will have to cover Newsom’s and Trump’s thefts, even as their own tax revenues fall.

    Another thing Trump and Newsom have in common is throwing people off of Medicaid rolls while throwing money at favored classes. Trump’s latest budget subjects adults to work requirements, reduces funding and adds administrative hurdles, while Newsom’s latest budget imposes asset limits, freezes enrollment of new undocumented adults, and levies new fees on enrollees. Trump’s favored classes are corporations, higher-income taxpayers, tip-based workers and Social Security recipients who got tax cuts, while Newsom’s favored classes are government unions that got more jobs and higher salaries, and entertainment companies that got more corporate welfare.

    Trump and Newsom aren’t the only ones budgeting with thefts from the future. In his most recent budget, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho skipped an annual contribution to a fund set up to cover health care costs for retired employees. You would think he would know better since a principal reason for the deficit he is struggling with is past skips and shorts that have led LAUSD’s annual spending on retirement debt to nearly triple over the last 10 years to nearly $2 billion per year.

    Each has their own reasons for their actions — Trump asserts that tax cuts will eventually produce more tax revenues, while Newsom and Carvalho assert that deficit spending is needed now — but all are adding to past thefts that are already robbing citizens of huge levels of resources. The federal government is already spending more every year on interest than the $833 billion it spends on defense; California is already spending as much on bonded and retirement debt than on the $23 billion it sends to the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges systems combined; and LAUSD is already spending nearly 20% of its revenues on retirement costs.

    By their actions, Trump, Newsom and Carvalho have just added to those burdens. Our country desperately needs leaders who care about the future.

    •••

    David Crane is a lecturer in public policy at Stanford University and president of Govern for California, a political philanthropy that works to counter special interest influence over California governments.

    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.





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