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  • Let the latest scramble begin for California school construction money

    Let the latest scramble begin for California school construction money


    Construction site at Murray Elementary in Dublin Unified in 2022.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    The record 205 school districts that passed construction bonds in November will spend 2025 vying for matching money from a $10 billion state bond that will meet only a small portion of the demand for financial help. 

    Novices at navigating state agencies, especially small districts, may find the process of claiming a share of state funding will be lengthy, complex and potentially overwhelming, said Julie Boesch, administrator for small school district support for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. Boesch singlehandedly shepherded a renovation project through the funding process as superintendent and principal of Maple Elementary, a one-school district in Kern County.

    “Putting out requests for qualifications and for proposals to hire consultants, architects, construction management and then to determine what kind of funding you can get — there are just so many things that have to happen,” she said. “There were times when I, as superintendent, was spending 90% of my time just on facilities.”

    The success of Proposition 2, the construction bond for schools and community colleges, with 59% of support, was a vote of renewed confidence in public schools and a rebound from March 2020, when voters defeated a $15 billion bond amid anxiety over the Covid pandemic.

    “They understood the need for this,” said Rebekah Kalleen, a legislative advocate with the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), an organization of school districts and construction and architectural firms that led the effort to pass the proposition. “The funding opportunities will go a long way to ensure that projects are robust and that we’re able to make the repairs and the upgrades that we need.” 

    New money, old projects

    Proposition 2’s passage will inject a welcome $10 billion on top of the $45 billion in bonds approved for school and community college districts. However, $3.7 billion — less than half of the $8.5 billion allotted to TK-12 districts under Proposition 2 — may be available for local projects approved in November.

    That’s because as much as $4.8 billion in unfunded projects with preliminary approval from the last state bond will get priority. This extensive backlog dates back to Proposition 51, which voters passed in 2016. Funding from that bond ran dry several years ago, but under state law, districts could apply through Oct. 31, a week before the vote on Proppsition 2. They could reasonably assume that state funding would eventually become available from the next bond.

    “Because there is so much more demand than there is funding, it’s safe to say that there’s always a long pipeline of projects awaiting allocations,” said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley, which researches school facilities.

    Districts submitted plans with preliminary approval for more than 1,000 unfunded projects. These include projects valued at $1.46 billion for new construction and $3.42 billion for modernization. The latter category includes renovations, system upgrades, repairs, and replacement of portable classrooms more than 20 years old and permanent buildings over 25 years old.

    One line ends, another forms

    After Proposition 2 money runs out, the remaining projects will form a new line of unfunded projects awaiting state money whenever voters pass the next state bond.

    “It is a fair question whether voters understood the degree of the funding backlog and the fact that so much of the Proposition 2 funding would already be spoken for by the time they were voting on their own local bonds in November,” Hinkley said. “What this all really emphasizes is that we are constantly playing catch-up with facilities funding, not coming anywhere close to meeting the actual needs of districts.”

    It’s unlikely that all the pending projects will successfully run the gauntlet of state agencies for final approval, although it’s not possible to know how many now.

    What follows is a primer on steps districts must take to be eligible for matching money under Proposition 2. 

    How will Proposition 2 money be divided?

    Under the ballot language that the Legislature passed, Proposition 2 will be apportioned into several categories. It’s too soon to know how funding the previous bond’s unfunded projects will affect Proposition 2 categories.

    • $1.5 billion for community colleges. The Legislature and the governor will select specific projects based on recommendations of the community colleges.
    • $8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
      • $4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
      • $3.3 billion for new construction
      • $600 million for career and technical education facilities
      • $600 million for facilities for charter schools
      • $115 million to remove lead from school drinking water

    When can districts apply?

    Over the next eight months, the Office of Public School Construction will revise rules to differentiate Proposition 2 from previous state construction bonds. Changes include requiring districts to submit a five-year master plan with an inventory of classrooms, square footage and auxiliary facilities at each school.  

    Proposition 2 also will set aside 10% of modernization and new construction money for districts with fewer than 2,500 students. But that provision notwithstanding, what hasn’t changed is a first-come, first-served distribution system that can favor property-wealthy districts and large districts, such as Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) which can afford to employ permanent facilities staff to push their projects to the front of the line.

    Kalleen of CASH and others familiar with state facilities grants urge districts to start submitting applications for priority projects now and not wait for more state guidance, in order to avoid getting left behind and ending up on the next waiting list.

    “Districts are already planning and looking at their projects and submitting without yet knowing what the regulations will look like because there’s so much pent-up demand for state support for facilities funding,” Kalleen said. “Projects are funded based on the date that they’re received by the Office of Public School Construction. So as long as you meet those eligibility criteria, they’re funded in the order that they’re received.”

    Districts won’t have to finish their master plans to initially apply for state funding, although they will have to complete them before receiving state money. They’ll have an opportunity to amend their proposals after the state revises regulations this summer.

    Districts that have already completed a master plan with a needs assessment and established priorities “will be ahead of the game,” said Karla DeLeon, senior director-education for Dahlin Architecture, with three offices in California.

    A small shift toward needs-based funding

    Instead of submitting one application for all of their construction work, districts must apply for each project. The state’s share — at least 50% of the cost for new construction and 60% for a modernization project — will be funded uniformly on a per-student basis. 

    For an elementary school, for example, the per-student funding for 2024 was $15,770, meaning that building a classroom for 25 students would be $394,250 of base funding. (The per-student amount differs depending on whether a student is in elementary, middle or high school.) The per-student dollar amount is the minimum districts will qualify for, as there could be additional funding through supplemental grants if the project includes certain features.

    But for the first time, the state will slightly increase funding for high-poverty, low-property-wealth districts. Huge differences in districts’ taxable property values create disparities in how much they can charge property owners for repairing and building school facilities. To narrow the gap, the state will provide up to 5 percentage points more matching money for qualifying projects based on the proportion of students who are low-income, foster youth, and English learners and, to a lesser extent, on a district’s property wealth per student.

    A district could receive a 65% state match for renovations, reducing its contribution to 35%; the maximum contributions for new construction would be 55% state and 45% district.

    “The total funding for the project would, in the eyes of the state, remain the same; it’s just more would be on the state’s dime, less on the school district’s dime,” Kalleen said.

    Advocates for changing the system say the bonus funding won’t make enough difference to help many districts fully repair or replace subpar and antiquated buildings. The new system “does not meaningfully address the serious equity concerns that we and others have raised about the distribution of state funds,” wrote the Center for Cities + Schools, an institute at UC Berkeley, in an analysis. 

    How soon will local bond and Proposition 2 money be available? 

    When the state and local money becomes available depends. Bonds are loans that are usually paid back over 25 to 30 years. Working with their financial teams, districts will time their borrowing to align with their construction schedule and minimize property tax increases. 

    The increases cannot exceed a statewide bonding limit of charging property owners more than $40 per $100,000 of assessed property value for school facilities. For many small, low-wealth districts, this is a major obstacle to funding school improvements. For property-wealthy districts, it’s not an issue.

    State funding to districts will be disbursed in batches over the next several years. The Legislative Analyst’s Office projects that paying for Proposition 2’s interest and principal will cost the state’s general fund about $500 million per year over 35 years.

    What else is new under Proposition 2?

    Proposition 2 includes other new features affecting TK-12 districts:

    Along with reserving 10% of new construction and modernization funding for districts with fewer than 2,500 students, small districts can receive 5% of a project’s funding to hire architects, engineers and project managers. This should help them speed up the application process.

    The state has a financial hardship provision funding the full cost of a project for a district that lacks the property tax base to pay for it. Proposition 2 triples the maximum tax base qualifying from $5 million to $15 million in assessed value.

    Proposition 2 does not set aside funding for classrooms specifically equipped for transitional kindergarten (TK), as advocates had hoped, but it does permit districts to seek supplemental funding for TK in a school project. Districts can also seek supplemental money to pay for updating or constructing “essential facilities,” including kitchens, cafeterias, and undersized gyms, and installing energy conservation and efficiency measures like solar panels, outdoor shade areas and more efficient heating and air conditioning units.

    What will the application process be like?

    Districts face a multiagency and multiyear process with hoops to jump through and deadlines to meet before they can receive state funding. All must submit project plans to at least two state agencies before their plans can go to the Office of Public School Construction for a review for funding.

    The Division of the State Architect, a group of architects and engineers, will ensure compliance with building codes, structural requirements and safety standards.

    The Department of Education ensures “educational adequacy” — whether the facility complies with the state’s education code, meets classroom space requirements by subject and grade as well as how its design handles the needs of special education students, English learners, intervention services and accommodates community events, parking and outdoor activities. Depending on the site location, approval may be needed from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control or review under the California Environmental Quality Act.   

    DeLeon of Dahlin Architecture recommends turning to experts to guide the process. “You will want a solid team of support to manage all of the balls in the air within the time limits.”

    Boesch said her most important advice to districts is to seek pre-approval meetings with state agencies. “Most districts avoid these, because they assume ‘they’ll just tell us to do something different, and it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,’” she said. “Truly, it’s not. It’s easier to ask permission and move forward instead of having to go back and undo something that may have been done incorrectly.”

    Kalleen said districts can expect the process to take six months to a year for approval from the Office of Public School Construction, depending on the size of the project, and an additional two years or longer to receive funding from the State Allocations Board.

    Boesch agreed. “At an absolute minimum, in a perfect world, it really would be two years,” she said, to receive funding, but more likely three or four.

    “The backlog is so large that state funds often get to districts after projects have already been completed,” Hinkley said. “Districts that do not have sufficient local funds to cover a project’s costs while waiting for the state backlog are at an enormous disadvantage.”





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  • Community college bachelor’s degrees stall for years amid Cal State objections

    Community college bachelor’s degrees stall for years amid Cal State objections


    Santiago Canyon College is one of seven community colleges in the state that have yet to get final approval for bachelor’s degrees they proposed in 2023.

    Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College

    Rudy Garcia was excited when he learned that his local community college, Moorpark in Ventura County, planned to offer a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity and network operations.

    A father of four and the only source of income for his family, Garcia believed getting the degree would help him advance in his career in IT support. He had come to realize that more senior jobs typically required a bachelor’s degree. 

    Getting that degree at nearby Moorpark was appealing, especially because he had already finished an associate degree in cybersecurity at the college. 

    Rudy Garcia has two associate degrees from Moorpark College and hopes to enroll in a proposed bachelor’s degree program in cybersecurity.
    Rudy Garcia

    “Being able to add that to my resume, it would help me get a better job, better benefits and everything,” he said.

    But in the two years since Moorpark first proposed the degree, the college has still not received final approval. It’s one of seven degrees across California that received provisional approval from the state community college chancellor’s office in 2023 but remain in limbo because California State University has flagged them as duplicative of its own programs. The two sides have yet to come to a compromise.

    A 2021 law allows the state’s community college system to approve up to 30 new bachelor’s degrees annually, so long as the degrees support a local labor need and don’t duplicate what any of CSU’s 23 campuses or the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses offer. 

    Since the passage of that law, many community colleges have successfully launched new degrees: Thirty-two new degrees are now fully approved across the state, joining 15 that already existed as part of a pilot. Some of the most recently-approved degrees include drone and autonomous systems at Fullerton College, emergency services administration at Mission College in Santa Clara and water resource management at San Bernardino Community College.

    But due to disagreements over what constitutes duplication, some degree proposals have stalled.

    Resolution, however, could be coming soon. The seven degrees delayed since 2023 are currently being reviewed by WestEd, a nonprofit research organization that was selected to serve as a neutral, third-party evaluator.

    Some local community colleges have been under the impression that WestEd would render final decisions on the programs, but that is not the case, a spokesperson clarified. Instead, WestEd will evaluate the programs and share an analysis with the community college system’s board of governors that will “help inform the review process,” the spokesperson said. 

    The spokesperson shared the additional details about WestEd’s role on Tuesday morning. WestEd had previously declined an interview request prior to publication of this story. 

    Colleges have been told to expect the reviews from WestEd as early as this month, though it could take longer.

    Officials with the systemwide chancellor’s offices for both the community colleges and CSU also declined interview requests.

    For the community colleges, getting a verdict will be welcomed as they have grown increasingly annoyed that their degrees are being delayed. 

    “My frustration is on behalf of the students that are missing out on this opportunity,” said Jeannie Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, which got preliminary approval for a degree in digital infrastructure and location services. “We talk a really loud game about student success and being student centered. But right now, preventing these kinds of degrees from going forward is not student centered.”

    Although officials from CSU campuses declined to be interviewed, memos obtained by EdSource through a Public Records Act request show that those campuses cited a number of reasons for objecting to proposed degrees. 

    In some cases, CSU campuses objected only to a few courses where they believed there was overlap. For example, CSU San Bernardino’s objection to San Diego Mesa’s proposed physical therapy assistant degree came down to three upper-division courses focused on biomechanics, nutrition and exercise physiology that would be part of the Mesa program. San Bernardino staff argued those courses duplicate classes that they offer as part of a bachelor’s degree program in kinesiology. 

    San Diego Mesa officials believe they may have been able to find common ground if they had more time to negotiate. Their only live interaction with San Bernardino staff was a 30-minute Zoom meeting last year, according to Cassandra Storey, dean for health sciences at Mesa. “We never really had the discussion on those three courses,” Storey said. “I would like to think that we could have a conversation and negotiate this.”

    Other proposals faced stronger objections. Moorpark faces duplication claims from seven CSU campuses over its proposed cybersecurity program. One campus, CSU San Marcos in San Diego County, wrote in a memo that the proposal “substantially overlaps” with its own cybersecurity degree. “Almost all cybersecurity issues are directly or indirectly related to network operation. The proposed program description is a typical cybersecurity degree,” San Marcos staff wrote.

    In the view of Moorpark officials, however, there are fundamental differences between its degree and what San Marcos offers. Whereas degrees like the one offered at San Marcos prepare students for engineering and computer science careers, Moorpark would train students to be technicians and work in cybersecurity support, said John Forbes, the college’s vice president of academic affairs.

    “We understand we need more engineers in this world across every type of engineering, and we need good computer scientists that understand coding,” Forbes said. “But our labor force also needs the people that aren’t authoring and designing and engineering. They need the technicians that are using this stuff.”

    Moorpark’s program would not be a calculus-based STEM degree, he added. The San Marcos degree does require a calculus course and other math classes as prerequisites. 

    That itself is a positive for students like Garcia. If he were to attempt a CSU bachelor’s degree, he would essentially have to start over and take several lower-division courses to be eligible to transfer to a CSU campus and potentially pay more in tuition. At Moorpark, he would need only upper-division credits to get his bachelor’s degree and have to pay $130 per credit. On average, community college bachelor’s degrees in California cost $10,560 in tuition and fees over all four years, much less than attending a CSU or UC campus. Much of Garcia’s tuition would also get covered by financial aid, he said. 

    “So that’s a big plus for me,” he said.

    The other major selling point for Garcia is that the Moorpark campus is just a short drive from his house. He’s hoping it will get approved soon and he can start taking classes in the fall. 

    “The college is like four exits from my house,” he said. “I would totally jump on that.”

    Some students are place bound and can’t attend colleges outside their hometown, the community colleges emphasize. But the law does not mention location, allowing CSU campuses to bring objections even if they aren’t located in the same region as the college proposing the degree. 

    Moorpark, for example, has faced objections from CSU campuses other than San Marcos, including Sacramento State and three San Francisco Bay Area campuses: Cal State East Bay, Sonoma State and San Jose State. 

    Those campuses may be worried about losing potential students to community colleges. Sonoma State in particular has seen its enrollment plummet in recent years. Staff at San Jose State, where enrollment has flattened, wrote in a memo that they are concerned the Moorpark program would “draw from the same pool of students” as their bachelor’s degree in engineering technology. 

    Forbes said he understands those worries but believes they may be misguided. “We are big fans of the CSU system, and we want our students to be successful there, and we’re doing everything we can to help them on the transfer end. But for this program, these are not students who would be going to CSU,” he said. 

    Forbes and other community college officials around the state are eager for resolution. “We’re hopeful, with the smart people we have in California, that rational minds can come to the table and figure out a better path forward,” Forbes said.

    This article was corrected on Jan. 21 to include further detail and clarification about WestEd’s role in the review process.





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  • How to protect children from wildfire pollutants | Quick Guide

    How to protect children from wildfire pollutants | Quick Guide


    La entrada a un aula se ve en la Escuela Preparatoria Palisades después del incendio de Palisades en el vecindario Pacific Palisades de Los Ángeles el 14 de enero de 2025.

    Crédito: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    In the aftermath of L.A.’s most destructive wildfires, air quality experts warn that families should be prepared for the “disaster after the disaster” — toxic pollutants, smoke and ash that contaminate the air for months, or even years, to come. 

    “People at higher risk include children, older adults, pregnant individuals and those with heart or lung conditions or weakened immune systems,” said Dr. Muntu Davis, health officer for Los Angeles County, in a smoke advisory issued through last Sunday. “Predicting where ash or soot from a fire will travel, or how winds will impact air quality, is difficult.” 

    As local leaders focus on rehousing some of the more than 100,000 people forced to evacuate, public health leaders emphasize that families, including educators and students, must also protect themselves from the long-term health effects of wildfires, especially those living or working near burned areas. 

    What pollutants are in the air?

    The Palisades and Eaton fires — classified as wildland-urban interface fires, and now the largest urban fires in the country’s history — have spread a host of particulate matter, toxic pollutants and carcinogenic materials from fire and smoke-damaged urban structures, according to experts. 

    Short- and long-term exposure to particulate matter, one of the main pollutants from wildfires, can cause respiratory problems such as coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing, bronchitis and reduced lung function, as well as cardiovascular problems such as heart failure, heart attack and stroke, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  

    Household items, electrical wires and building materials damaged by fire contain dangerous and toxic compounds such as benzene, toluene, formaldehyde and xylenes, along with heavy metals such as lead, chromium and arsenic, some of which can travel over 150 miles from the sites of the fires, according to data from previous wildfires. These toxic pollutants, which are commonly found in ash and debris from burned structures, can cause severe long-term illnesses such as cancer, liver problems, respiratory problems, heart disease and learning disabilities. 

    Even if you live or work near the fires, it is imperative to limit children’s exposure to areas still polluted with debris, experts say. 

    How can I know if the air quality is safe for my family?

    The air quality index uses air monitoring devices to measure the amount of particulate matter (microscopic particles that can lodge in the lungs) in various populated areas. Families can see the level of exposure for their particular locations on the map — from good (green) air quality to hazardous (maroon) air quality — and when to limit outdoor exposure and wear a protective mask accordingly. 

    • AirNow.gov measures real-time, reliable data for particulate matter present in smoke and dust. 
    • Fire.airnow.gov measures the main type of particulate matter present in smoke and depicts areas of major concern around the fires. 

    Air quality index does not measure everything

    “The AQI (air quality index) does not measure the contaminants and pollutants we care deeply about,” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. 

    In fact, pollutants such as dioxins — known to cause severe liver, endocrine, immune and developmental problems — can chemically bind to and travel in the air with smoke particles without being detected by monitoring devices. 

    “You can look at AQI and see that there’s only particulate matter in an area today,” Williams said. “Problem is, these toxic compounds have adsorbed (latched) onto the particulate matter there, which is how, for example, the health impacts from (9/11) spread so far.” 

    Experts caution that while the index accurately measures particulates, it does not depict the presence of larger toxic chemicals from fires — such as asbestos from old homes, plastic, lead and copper — which increase the risk of acute and chronic health problems. Families should take extra precaution if they see or smell smoke, ash or live in and around neighborhoods with dangerous air quality levels.  

    How are children affected by these pollutants?

    Children are at a higher risk of negative health outcomes such as acute respiratory infections, asthma and decreased lung function due to air pollution and smoke inhalation. One study found particulate matter from wildfires to be 10 times more harmful to children than particulate matter from non-wildfire sources. Inhaling toxic pollutants has also been linked to severe chronic respiratory, cardiovascular, immune and endocrine illnesses in children. 

    Acute symptoms of smoke inhalation include coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing and chest tightness, eye burning, chest pain, dizziness or lightheadedness and exacerbated symptoms for children with pre-existing conditions like asthma. Children from low-income neighborhoods are also at higher risk of experiencing these symptoms due to higher rates of air pollution near their homes. 

    How do I stay protected from wildfire smoke?

    Children and adults should wear masks and limit outdoor activity near wildfires for at least two weeks after the fire is out, according to experts from the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. 

    When outside, children and adolescents should wear a tight-fitting KN95 mask, N95 mask or P100 respirator. For young kids, only KN95 masks come in children’s sizes. 

    Make sure the mask is certified by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), has two straps and tightly fits over the nose and under the chin. Surgical masks, dust masks, bandannas and other makeshift masks do not protect from wildfire pollutants. 

    Free N95 masks are available for pickup at Los Angeles public libraries, Los Angeles recreation centers, Los Angeles senior centers and local nonprofits. And Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) students also have masks available at school, according to a district spokesperson.   

    Keep outdoor exposure to a minimum and, if possible, run an air conditioning system with a clean, high-efficiency air filter at home to prevent smoke and ash from entering indoors. If your child’s school has reopened, check that it has proper air filtration systems installed. If they do not have proper ventilation, contact your school district or a local clean air advocacy group, such as Coalition for Clean Air, to advocate for upgrades. In the meantime, schools can also pick up free air purifiers from donation sites across the county. 

    Schools in and around evacuation zones should also limit or cancel outdoor activities such as recess. 

    If your home has been affected by the fires, avoid bringing polluted ash and dust back to spaces shared with children. Remove shoes at the doorway, and wash and change out of clothing before you have contact with children.

    If your child has problems breathing, refuses food and water or experiences other health problems potentially related to smoke inhalation, remove them from a smoke-contaminated place and seek medical help immediately. 





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  • How a new LAUSD board member hopes to inspire change following Trump’s inauguration 

    How a new LAUSD board member hopes to inspire change following Trump’s inauguration 


    LAUSD school board member Karla Griego reading with students.

    Credit: Courtesy of Karla Griego

    A lot has changed in the life of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s new board member, representing District 5. 

    In the past few months, Karla Griego was elected to LAUSD’s school board, was sworn in and now is having to find her stride as a new presidential administration takes charge on Monday. 

    While many of her priorities remain unchanged — including providing more support for community schools, investing in special education and charter school accountability — Griego said she’s rethinking some of her priorities because of another four years of President Donald Trump. 

    Despite the potential hurdles ahead, Griego, an educator of more than 19 years and backed by the district’s teacher’s union, emphasized that she is grateful to work with LAUSD’s community as part of a larger movement.  

    “Change doesn’t happen with individuals, change happens with movements,” Griego, the first Latina to serve her board district in more than 30 years, said in an interview with EdSource. 

    “And if that’s what we want in our schools — we want schools to be student centered and holistic educational experiences and schools that are healthy, green, racially just, affirming, community schools — then it’s a movement that’s going to make that happen.” 

    Here’s what she said she hopes to accomplish in her tenure on the board. 

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  

    What are the most critical issues that you most want to address during your term on the Los Angeles Unified board?  

    The immigration issue is very big here in L.A. because there’s a lot of anxiety among our families, our communities, our students, and so that is definitely one thing that was not on my campaign platform, but it has now risen as a priority. And with that, I’m hoping that we could lead in having “Know Your Rights” sessions for families and parents and students, and provide social-emotional support. It was the student board member who highlighted the need for social-emotional support for students who will be dealing with a lot if their families are in fear of deportation. We saw in 2017 how children were affected by that. I am hoping that we can, as a district, lead in spearheading some of these workshops and support systems for our students and their families. 

    And then, of course, the budget is always very important. Every year, we need to make decisions. I want to make sure that I involve stakeholders, and I want to host meetings throughout my district to hear from families and parents and teachers, classified staff, administrators about what their priorities are. I want to hear from the community. I made that commitment when I was running, and so one of the first tasks is going to be to host listening sessions throughout the district. 

    And of course to expand community schools to allow them to grow and thrive as they’re meant to, and to make sure that we keep our promise to our Black students by maintaining the Black Student Achievement Plan. 

    And, just overall, that as we are making decisions, I bring that voice to the table of seeing the decisions that we make through the lens of supporting our students and supporting our students holistically— so let that be the driving force for all of our decision-making.

    You’ve already discussed supporting families who fear deportation. But beyond immigration, how has the outcome of the November election impacted your priorities, if at all?  

    I’m a special education teacher, and with the federal government threatening to disband the Department of Education, special education could be dispersed to another department, and so it won’t have as high a priority. I definitely want to make sure that we continue to center one of our most vulnerable (groups of) students in spite of all the hits that we get (and make) decisions about what’s best for them to be able to access the curriculum and schooling and to be in a safe environment that is equitable and meets their needs. 

    Special education is an area of concern for me in terms of the new presidency, but it just means that we need to work harder, and we need to bring together special ed parents, special ed students and teachers and administrators to organize and push back on any cuts to what’s already a very small budget. And even though they’re threatening to cut even more, we continue to ask for more. 

    There are so many stakeholders who sometimes have conflicting views on critical issues, ranging from policing to charter schools. How do you plan to balance all of that feedback and decide what to act on? 

    When I was a community school coordinator, I learned to do different types of assessments and surveys, but also to have focus groups and to determine to come to a consensus as to what the priorities will be. And so that’s what I’m hoping to do. 

    Few parents say we want police and, likewise, we don’t want police. The first thing that comes out generally, in my experience with talking to families throughout the campaign and even now, is we want safe schools. And so, what are you going to do to create safe schools? And that’s what they want to hear from the district. I’ve always told stakeholders that I know that there is funding in community-based safety programs. I know that there is funding for restorative practices and de-escalation techniques, and so I want to make sure that we spend that money to support our staff and support our students and to implement Safe Passages in our neighborhoods, especially those where families feel that their kids are not safe going to and from school. I want to make sure that we use that funding for those things as they were meant to be used. 

    In terms of charters, it’s accountability. That’s huge with charter schools — making sure that they are held accountable in the same way that public schools are held accountable. If they say that they accept special ed students and English language learners, then I want to see that is the case, that that is happening, that children, that families are welcomed, and families are engaged. 

    How do you plan to engage student voices?  

    The student voice is super important, and the way that I want to make sure that I engage them is by meeting with different student organizations that already exist in LAUSD. And, in particular, we have a lot of groups of students who are affinity groups: the LGBTQ, trans groups, Latino groups or Black student unions. 

    I also want to make sure that when I visit school sites, that I also engage with students at the school sites and, at these listening sessions that I’m hoping to have, there’s going to be a concerted effort to make sure that students also attend and (that I) get ideas from them. 

    What message would you like to send to LAUSD’s student body?

    Our students go through so much. All students experience so much stress either just by the mere fact that they are in the developmental stage that they’re in, or social factors. And so, what I want to tell them is to try to find joy in the things that you like and enjoy yourself as much (as you can), because you deserve it. And, yeah, it’s hard. I have an 18-year-old daughter, so I try to stress that to her, to just try to find joy. 

    There’s so much stress on our students about performance. Even if we don’t tell them, they feel it. They feel the stress of testing, performing graduation, doing better. It’s just the messages that we send to our kids sometimes are always about doing better, and how does that make us feel? That we’re never enough, that we’re just not quite there. And, I don’t want our students to feel that way. They are where they are, and they are strong and resilient. 

    And also, to lean on the support system that they may have: a sibling, cousin, a friend, an educator, a parent. Whatever that support system may be, lean on that because when you’re in community, you also feel a lot stronger.





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  • In teaching, language quirks can be an asset

    In teaching, language quirks can be an asset


    Courtesy Jenine Catudio

    In 2016, 21 special education teachers from the Philippines were hired at a school district in the Bay Area. I was among the Filipino newcomers. The orientation took place in an oversize room, where echoes of Visayan and Tagalog dialects filled the space. As the session neared its end, the administrator asked, “Are there any questions?” The room fell silent, suggesting a collective no. Once he left, we eagerly exchanged queries and sought clarification from one another — in our native language.

    What just happened?

    There’s much to consider in that scenario. While no single explanation suffices, cultural norms likely played a significant role. Filipinos, often indirect communicators, favor subtlety over directness. In the Philippines, questioning authority can be seen as disrespectful. This potentially explains our reluctance to respond to the administrator. Additionally, the fear of speaking, driven by concerns about grammatical errors, mispronunciations and accents, can inhibit us from speaking up.

    While communication is integral to our roles as educators, navigating the nuances of language and cultural expectations has presented unforeseen challenges. For instance, during one of my initial meetings with the principal, I described my class as “an amalgam of different abilities.” He asked me to repeat myself, highlighting the cultural gap in our communication styles.

    After I administered a spelling test to a student who was about to exit special education, the student remarked, “Oh, I got a low score because you were saying each word differently,” referring to my accent. I explained that each word was used in a sentence, so understanding the context was key. Feeling self-conscious, I consulted the school speech-language pathologist about my accent potentially affecting the student’s test score. She responded, “I don’t think so, Jenine. You don’t have a strong accent. What you have, though, is pronoun confusion.” I laughed since I knew exactly what she was talking about. The English use of “he,” “she” and “him,” “her,” in place of the catchall “siya” in Filipino, often confuses me.

    In another class, a student laughed at me when I put the stress on the first syllable instead of the second — the word was “adult.”

    Clearly, there is a language barrier, and Filipinos are well aware of it. Despite English being a medium of instruction in the Philippines, we rarely use it in daily conversations. Vocabulary training encompassed terms like “amalgam” without addressing conversational nuances. Pronunciation differences, such as using the British /a.dult/ instead of the American /uh.dult/, went unclarified. Moreover, mastering gender pronouns demands continuous effort, contrasting with our natural usage in Filipino.

    The following year, the recruitment agency that hired Filipino teachers in another district required English language classes for new hires. While teaching grammar rules enhances understanding of the language according to studies, applying these rules during spontaneous speech is much more challenging. It has less to do with understanding grammar and more to do with the process of language acquisition. For many years, recruiting teachers from the Philippines has been an answer to the worsening teacher shortage in California, resulting in a more diverse teaching workforce.

    Reflecting on my journey, I realize that the benefits of speaking up outweigh my culturally rooted fears. As an educator in an underserved community in California, I needed my voice to advocate for my students. I realized that my colleagues didn’t mind my accent or minor grammar mistakes. It was encouraging. Although it took time, I eventually discovered a newfound confidence in expressing myself authentically. I learned that as long as I could get my point across, the specifics didn’t matter.

    Does this imply that we are not holding Filipino teachers to the same standard as our students? Absolutely not. However, it’s crucial to remember that language proficiency does not correlate with overall cognitive abilities and intelligence. This understanding applies equally to our students.

    Filipinos, as English learners themselves, can empathize deeply with minority students facing similar challenges. Drawing from these shared cultural experiences, they can offer invaluable contributions to culturally responsive classrooms. When students ask why I speak a certain way, I take the chance to share insights about my culture and heritage. It’s important to recognize our perceived weaknesses while harnessing our strengths to our students’ advantage. Rooted in our collective experiences of hardships, our heightened cultural sensitivity cultivates inclusivity and mutual understanding within the classroom. We understand firsthand the challenges, whether in language or culture, and use this empathy to create a culturally responsive learning environment.

    •••

    Jenine Catudio is a special education teacher and autism advocate from the Philippines who taught students with mild to moderate disabilities in West Contra Costa Unified in Richmond.

    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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  • ‘The day I lost my house:’ School communities reel from Eaton, Palisades fires

    ‘The day I lost my house:’ School communities reel from Eaton, Palisades fires


    A parent and child embrace as students are welcomed to Brentwood Elementary Science Magnet on Jan. 15.

    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    Tanya Reyes, a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, initially tried to befriend her reality. 

    But when her husband sent her a video of her Altadena home up in flames, and she heard him cry, she had to press pause. 

    “I’ve only watched parts of it, but I know at one point he starts crying. … It just felt surreal,” Reyes said. “We’re worried about our neighbors, worried about who’s safe, the peacocks that lived on our street.” 

    “I’m from Maui, so it feels like Lahaina, all over again.” 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_GHxX9zQdI

    Tanya Reyes received this video from her husband, Antonio, which shows their house engulfed in flames.

    It was Wednesday, Jan. 8 — roughly 24 hours after she, her husband and three daughters unknowingly left their home for good and drove to a relative’s house in West Hollywood with just two items each and a few critical documents. 

    When it was finally time to break the news to her three daughters, Reyes asked: “What’s the most important thing that we have?” 

    She hoped the kids would come back with “each other.” 

    Instead, her daughters said: “A house!’” 

    “And then we told them, and my eldest daughter just kind of wanted to keep watching the video that he (her husband) had taken. And then, she started journaling ‘The day I lost my house,’ Reyes said. 

    “And then that night, from like 3 to 4:30 in the morning, my 3-year-old, who normally sleeps, spent the hour and a half telling me everything that she missed.” 

    Reyes, who works with pregnant girls and young mothers, is among thousands of teachers, staff and students across Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD )and Pasadena Unified reeling from evacuations and losses associated with the Palisades and Eaton fires that have ravaged nearly 60 square miles, including at least 10 schools — all while schools are reopening and attempting to restore a sense of normalcy to children who have lost everything. 

    Pasadena Unified looks to a gradual reopening

    Reyes isn’t just a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She’s also a mom of two students in Pasadena Unified, the hardest hit by the Eaton fire. 

    Longfellow Elementary, her daughters’ school, is one of the lucky ones that’s still standing.

    Five district-run schools and three of its charters schools are either seriously damaged or destroyed. 

    More than 1,300 employees in Pasadena Unified lived in evacuation zones, and Jonathan Gardner, the president of United Teachers of Pasadena, the teachers union, told The New York Times that roughly 300 had lost their homes. 

    The vast majority of students were displaced, too. Of Pasadena Unified’s 14,000 students, about 10,000 had to leave their homes, according to a district media release. 

    “In times of hardship, our district community has always shown remarkable strength and unity, and this time is no different,” board President Jennifer Hall Lee said in a statement. 

    “The challenges of the Eaton Fire have tested us in unthinkable ways,” she added. “Yet I am still struck by how much resilience and compassion I have seen from our community. This has truly been a testament to the spirit of Pasadena Unified.”

    A lot lies ahead on Pasadena Unified’s road to recovery. To begin a phased reopening, 10 of the district’s schools and programs that collectively serve over 3,400 students will reopen on Thursday, prioritizing schools that are furthest away from the fires and deemed safe through testing by the California Office of Emergency Services.

    A large-scale cleanup is also underway, involving the district’s maintenance and operations team and more than 1,500 contractors, according to the district. 

    So far, 82 tons of debris have been removed from schools, according to a media release issued Tuesday evening. 

    Pasadena Unified’s maintenance and operations team, working alongside more than 1,500 contractors, has been clearing debris and conducting extensive sanitization efforts to meet environmental and safety tests after the devastation caused by the Eaton fire.
    Credit: Pasadena Unified School District

    Meanwhile, the district welcomed back about 2,700 teachers, staff and administrators on Wednesday morning.

    “I’m really proud of my Longfellow Elementary,” Reyes said. 

    And when the staff at the low-income community school found out Reyes and her family had lost everything, they jumped in to help.

    “They sent out emails of everyone you could be in contact with: ‘here’s this person; here’s Connie; here’s Monica; here’s who can help you if you need help with anything.’”  

    Palisades Charter High School seeking a home

    Known for its appearances in films such as “Carrie” and “Freaky Friday,” Palisades Charter High School is a long way from reopening. 

    Roughly 40% of the campus was damaged or destroyed by the fires, according to the Los Angeles Times — but the school’s leaders are still seeking a temporary place to call home. 

    In the meantime, students will learn online. 

    “We have a unique opportunity to show the strength and resilience of our community in the face of adversity,” said Pamela Magee, the school’s principal and executive director, in a Jan. 13 media release. 

    “By coming together, we can ensure our students can stay in their learning environment, with their friends and mentors, at a time when they need it most.” 

    Students embark on a new normal at Los Angeles Unified 

    At 11:15 a.m. on Jan. 7, teachers and staff at Marquez Elementary School were informed they had to evacuate the school immediately. 

    A dark cloud of smoke hovered above the yard where everyone convened. They could see fires on the hillside. 

    Students, who ranged from 4-year-olds to third graders “were put on a school bus and sent out over to another school, where the parents were told they could pick them up,” said Wendy Connor, a veteran first grade teacher. “Half of (the kids) are crying. Half of them aren’t. They’re all trying to help each other.”

    Just over a week later, 353 of the 722 students who attended LAUSD’s Marquez Elementary and Palisades Charter Elementary resumed their school year — but there was nothing normal about their circumstances.

    Parents carry books and supplies into Brentwood Elementary Science Magnet on Jan. 15.
    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    Their schools had been burnt down. Some of them had also lost their homes, and now the students found themselves on a new campus altogether. 

    But the students made their transition as one class to Brentwood Elementary Science Magnet and Nora Sterry Elementary School. They are still learning from the same teachers and are studying alongside their same classmates.

    “Not one of them has said, ‘I don’t want to be here,’ or ‘I want to be with my mommy or my daddy,’” Connor said. “They’re all just like, ‘Oh, where do I line up? Let’s go! We’re ready to go!’”  

    However, she added, many students who lost their homes have not yet returned. And many parents and school employees remain concerned about the toll the fires will have on students’ mental health in the short term and the long run. 

    The district has compiled resources for LAUSD communities to access mental health resources, among other wraparound supports, including telehealth options, a 24/7 support line and access to wellness centers.

    Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County superintendent of schools, also emphasized the need to curb students’ social media use, so students are not watching videos repeatedly of homes and familiar spaces being burnt to ash. 

    She also said it is critical for parents and adults to stay calm and model positive coping strategies. 

    “They’re resilient, like you wouldn’t believe,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of UTLA, the district’s teachers union, speaking during an elementary school visit. “My son lost his father two years ago, just unexpectedly. And I’m in the throes of the ebbs and flows of grief. And that’s what I saw today.” 

    A first grader now at Nora Sterry Elementary drew his home surrounded by fire after returning to class on Jan. 15.
    Credit: Mallika Seshadri

    Teachers and staff across the district are struggling, too. 

    Of the 10% of UTLA’s members that had been assessed as of Jan. 15, Myart-Cruz said 539 members had been displaced, and the homes of 136 members were either destroyed or damaged. 

    Meanwhile, more than 100,000 teachers reported experiencing medical complications as a result of the fires, including respiratory issues, and more than 1,000 said they are unable to work because they are dealing with other extenuating circumstances, like helping family members who have lost their homes, according to Myart-Cruz.  

    While Connor’s home and family are safe, she admits to having much higher stress levels and a higher heart rate at times.

    Connor grew up in the Palisades — and is coming to terms with her loss — her childhood home, her old school and Marquez Elementary all gone. 

    But she is holding onto a glimmer of hope — three classrooms in the middle of Marquez Elementary remain standing. Her old room was one of them. 

    “I’ve been anxious trying to … go into the room and see if there’s anything I could save,” Connor said. “And then, I just had to put most feelings aside, so that I could get the (new) classroom ready and get going for the kids.”





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  • California leaders reject Trump administration order to allow immigration enforcement in schools

    California leaders reject Trump administration order to allow immigration enforcement in schools


    Protesters in Bakersfield rally against an extensive Border Patrol operation held on Jan. 14,.

    Credit: Emma Gallegos / EdSource

    This article has been updated with information from the California Department of Education, Long Beach Unified and San Diego Unified.

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    California state officials and leaders of county offices of education and school districts quickly rebuked the Trump administration’s new guidance allowing immigration enforcement near or in schools.

    “Schools must be safe spaces, not sites of fear,” said Alex Traverso, director of communications of the State Board of Education. “Every child deserves to learn without intimidation, and California will do all we can to protect our students.”

    The directive issued Tuesday by Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman reverses guidance that dates back to 2011, restricting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies from detaining immigrants near locations like schools, child care centers, playgrounds, hospitals and churches.

    “This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Tuesday.

    Under California law, school officials are not required to allow immigration agents to enter schools without a judicial warrant, according to recent guidance issued by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

    “It is disappointing, but unfortunately unsurprising that President Trump, in his first days in office, is focusing his time and energy on making his inhumane and irresponsible mass deportation agenda a reality. My team is actively reviewing his executive orders, and we stand ready to defend the rights of Californians if we find that the President has in any way violated the law — starting with our lawsuit, filed today, challenging the President’s unconstitutional executive order on birthright citizenship,” Bonta said.

    The Association of California School Administrators issued a statement saying they are “troubled and deeply disappointed” in the Trump administration’s order allowing immigration enforcement near schools.

    “This is an abuse of power and goes against the constitutional right of every child to have a public education,” the statement reads. “Schools are meant to be safe spaces where children can learn and grow without fear. … We know from past experience that this decision will result in some students not attending school, families disengaging, academics being disrupted, and severe impacts on social-emotional well-being.”

    In response to requests for support from school districts and county offices of education, the California Department of Education sent a letter Tuesday to all county and school district superintendents and charter school administrators with resources for immigrant students and families and reminders about their rights.

    “Our schools must be a safe place for children to learn and educators to teach. In line with federal and state law, California’s schools can take actions to ensure that all students have access to school campuses and educational opportunities without fear of deportation,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said.

    “In light of the new administration’s action today to overturn the sensitive locations policy, I want to reassure our education community that the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) remains steadfastly committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of their immigration status, has access to a safe, secure and nurturing learning environment,” said Debra Duardo, superintendent of schools for Los Angeles County, in a statement.

    “The change to the policy does not overrule the student’s constitutional right to an education. It also does not overrule state constitutional protections,” Duardo continued. “It is important to reinforce that all students possess the right to a public education, independent of their immigration status. Our schools are mandated to ensure that no student is denied enrollment or faced with barriers to their educational opportunities based on their or their family’s immigration status.”

    Many school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, Long Beach Unified, San Diego Unified and San Francisco Unified have reaffirmed “sanctuary resolutions” or sent letters to families in recent weeks, explaining their rights and sharing legal resources. Seventeen Santa Clara County superintendents and school board members signed a letter earlier this month, saying schools will continue to support immigrant students and families and reminding the public of a 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, which found that all children present in the United States have a right to a public education, regardless of their immigration status or their parents’ immigration status.

    A spokesperson for Los Angeles Unified School District said the district has begun training all staff in how to respond if federal immigration officers show up at schools and will be distributing cards to students explaining their rights if approached by immigration agents.

    “Los Angeles Unified School District is compelled by legal, professional, and moral obligations to protect rights of its students and employees, including privacy rights under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), and state and federal constitutional rights, which include rights of all students to a free and public education,” a district spokesperson wrote in an email. “School officials do not collect or share information about the immigration status of students and their families. Since 2017, LAUSD has had a policy to not voluntarily cooperate with immigration enforcement actions by federal agencies.”

    Fresno Unified School District is holding a series of workshops for families about immigrant rights. District spokesperson Diana Diaz wrote, “We want to urge our families who are concerned about possible detainment or deportation to please make a family preparedness plan NOW. This includes updating your child’s emergency card with their school so they can be released to another trusted adult if parents are unable.”

    Teachers’ unions also rejected the Trump administration’s change.

    “As educators and union members, we are committed to protecting our students — every single student, regardless of their immigration status,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, which represents 310,000 teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists, librarians and other education staff across the state. “We have a professional and moral responsibility to keep our students safe if ICE comes to our communities. We will always come together in our union to ensure every public school is a safe space and to uphold the constitutionally protected right of all students to access a public education.”

    Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers, the state’s second-largest teachers union, said in a statement, “Trump’s first day in office showed us that he is exactly who he told us he would be. His first actions as president direct hate and aim to stoke fear in the hearts of immigrant families and our LGBTQIA+ community.  We can’t expect students to learn when they fear being separated from their parents, being bullied for being LGBTQIA+, or being treated differently based on the language they speak or the color of their skin.

    “While we still hope to see Congress and our courts block these blatantly unconstitutional actions,” Freitas continued, “we won’t wait for them to act. Educators and school staff stand ready to fight back against every single action that stands to harm our members, our students, and our communities.”

    EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.





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  • What Los Angeles schools can learn from Northern California districts that survived wildfires

    What Los Angeles schools can learn from Northern California districts that survived wildfires


    Paradise Elementary in Butte County was one of nearly 19,000 structures destroyed in the November 2018 Camp fire.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    Diann Kitamura was superintendent of Santa Rosa City Schools in 2017 when the Tubbs fire became the most destructive fire in state history, burning through nearly 37,000 acres and destroying two school structures, plus the homes of about 800 students and 100 staff.

    That record was broken the following year, when the Camp fire tore through Butte County, including the town of Paradise, where eight of nine school structures were damaged or destroyed; more than 50,000 people were displaced, and 85 people were killed. Meagan Meloy heads the homeless and foster youth services department at the Butte County Office of Education, which stepped in to support the thousands of students who were suddenly homeless from one day to the next.

    Now, more than seven years for Kitamura and six years for Meloy after leading their Northern California school districts through the fire recovery efforts, they discuss lessons they learned and offer tips to the districts dealing with the aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County on how they could ease the suffering of their communities.

    At the time of the Tubbs fire, there had been no recent fires impacting schools on that scale, and Kitamura had no model to guide her and her team. She now extends support to other districts going through their own recovery process.

    Both Kitamura and Meloy say they believe their experiences can help school leaders across Los Angeles County as they deal with the widespread devastation of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

    Former State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, center, and former Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Diann Kitamura, right, at the Hidden Valley Satellite school, Santa Rosa, after the school was destroyed in the Tubbs fire in 2017.
    Credit: Diann Kitamura

    Kitamura said it’s important to understand that the impact of fires goes beyond the people whose homes burned down: “Even if their school didn’t burn, their home might have burned; even if their home might not have burned, their school had burned.”

    She added that despite the complex tasks involved, leaders should stay focused on what most matters. “It was really my own common sense and my deep, deep, deep care and love for my students, my staff and my families that guided the decisions every step of the way of how I was going to operate,” Kitamura said.

    To ensure the physical and emotional well-being of their school communities, Kitamura said, leaders must think of a wide range of tasks, including making sure the business department is creating budget codes specific to disaster-related expenses, determining what instructional materials were destroyed and need replacing, identifying what resources the Federal Emergency Management Agency can offer, beefing up air quality monitoring across the areas that burned, figuring out if the insurance policies are adequate, and more.

    “It’s going to be a long process, and it’ll come in waves,” said Meloy of fire recovery efforts in Butte County.

    ‘Create some kind of normality for students as soon as possible’

    Meloy said the immediate need after a fire is to ensure the safety of all students and staff, and she highlighted the importance of finding a place and time for the greater school community to gather, given the impact of such a crisis.

    “It maybe can’t happen immediately, but as soon as possible, when it’s safe and feasible, provide opportunities for the school community to just come together, support one another socially, emotionally,” she said. “Create some kind of normality for students as soon as possible.”

    Meagan Meloy working at the Local Assistance Center after the Park fire in Butte County during the summer of 2024.
    Credit: Meagan Meloy

    Use systems that are already in place to help as many families as possible. For instance, students whose families lose their homes to fires are likely to qualify for resources available to students experiencing homelessness. That’s because homelessness among children and youth is defined broadly under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which mandates that every school district, county office of education and charter school hire a local liaison to ensure that homeless youth are identified and education services are coordinated to increase these students’ chances of succeeding academically.

    This federal law defines homeless students, in part, as “children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals.”

    Districts typically already have systems in place for this student group to ensure students have stability across three basic needs: shelter, food, and gas — the same needs that Kitamura noted are most urgent for students displaced by fires.

    But Meloy, who has worked with the county education office for 21 years, offers a warning about the language used when communicating with families about their children’s education rights while they search for stable, permanent housing.

    “A lot of the families that lost their homes in the Camp fire had never experienced homelessness before and weren’t comfortable with self-identifying. (Consider) using terms like ‘displaced,’ ‘temporary,’ ‘not stable’ rather than that label of homeless or homelessness that can be kind of off-putting to people. They may not want to even think of themselves as fitting under that category,” Meloy said.

    While students displaced by fires may be eligible for student homelessness resources, schools and districts are often limited in the amount of funding available for this student group and in how funding can be used.

    For example, homeless liaisons cannot typically purchase gas gift cards to hand out to families who need help transporting their children to school.

    To meet some of the needs that education funding typically cannot be applied to, Meloy and her team relied on funding from a local foundation, North Valley Community Foundation, which received donations from a wide range of sources.

    “Without that, I don’t know how we would have met the need for transportation,” she said.

    Schools in Los Angeles County can also tap into the network of partners that liaisons and other school staff often work with. Both Meloy and Kitamura noted that their schools faced difficulties managing an influx of physical donations after fires.

    Meloy said while some donations such as school supplies were helpful for her team of liaisons, they were not “really best equipped to” sort through donations like food and clothing.

    It’s best for liaisons to work with “partner agencies who already have storage and systems for disbursing other items” so that they and other school staff can “stay focused on the school stuff,” she said.

    It can also be helpful to communicate to the public that cash donations are most helpful in recovery efforts.

    “I know that sounds maybe not appropriate … but in Santa Rosa City Schools, I had to haul out nine truck and trailer loads of stuff, and people who are displaced, they have no place to hold stuff,” said Kitamura, who is now the deputy superintendent of equitable education services with the Sonoma County Office of Education. “What they need is food, shelter and gasoline in most cases right now.”

    Meloy also underscored what she called “secondary homelessness.”

    For example, a family with sufficient home insurance might be able to purchase another home that had previously been a rental, which might then cause a group of renters to go on the search for housing.

    “It’s families who maybe were not directly impacted in the sense that they lost their home in the fire, but it ripples out into the housing market and pushes people out,” Meloy said.

    Addressing both physical and emotional needs

    With the majority of Paradise Unified schools destroyed, enrolling students at neighboring schools became a primary task for Meloy and her staff.

    To streamline the process, Meloy’s department asked every school district to identify an enrollment point of contact for families displaced by the Camp fire. Families were asked to text or call 211, the state’s local community services number, to be connected with a district point of contact, who worked with each family to help them decide where to enroll their children.

    As student enrollment was handled in Butte County, Meloy noticed that the trauma that students had experienced became clearer and that the wide range of support, from mental health counseling to transportation to tutoring, might become difficult to track over time.

    Meloy’s recommendation to L.A. County education staff is to create a filter in the district’s student information system that can be applied to students who were affected by fires. With this filter, school staff can have “some kind of a system where those students can then be flagged for extra support” over several years.

    That filter can become particularly helpful when students’ trauma around fires is triggered by conditions similar to those that can spark fires. For example, Kitamura’s students dealt with power shut-offs during strong winds, poor air quality, and smoke traveling from other regional fires for years following the Tubbs fire. “The trauma from the fires is exacerbated” each time, said Kitamura.

    Meloy said staff should be “prepared to see behaviors that would be consistent with someone who has experienced trauma.” In her case, she saw some students begin acting out in class by fighting or throwing things, while some other students became more shut down, dissociating while in class, and being extra quiet.

    “Understand that it’s a trauma response,” said Meloy. “If it’s a windy day, it’s probably going to be, years from now, a tough day at school.”

    To support Los Angeles County schools with mental health counseling, Kitamura is currently recruiting a group of counselors from across several Northern California schools who are prepared to offer counseling for students.

    “I only learned after experience with the fire to do these kinds of things for other districts,” said Kitamura, who is in contact with the LA County Office of Education regarding this effort.

    Meloy offered a reminder to not underestimate the trauma that staff membrs have also experienced: “In a classroom with students who have experienced this trauma, when you’ve experienced it yourself, it can be really overwhelming, so don’t forget about the staff and the support they need.”

    Kitamura also recommended that the LA education office “beef up” on air quality monitoring; “make sure they are ready to go; make sure they are accurate, and make sure that the places you’re measuring are close to the places where the most burn happens.”

    Lessons in preparation

    Kitamura and Meloy also noted that once the emergency was over, they moved to planning for future fires.

    Kitamura’s district, for example, established a redundant server in a separate location so officials could still communicate with their school community in the event that their primary servers went down or were burned.

    Meloy noted the lack of dedicated, ongoing funding for the work that homeless liaisons do — and how it undermines all planning. Both Kitamura and Meloy called on legislators to provide funding support for students displaced by fires, given that the issue now surges regularly across the state.

    “It is no longer, sadly, an isolated, once-in-a-decade event. It is continuing to happen. I had been thinking about, from the homeless liaison perspective, wildfires being a rural issue,” Meloy said. “But it’s really everywhere. I would love to see some dedicated funding for that.”

    As Kitamura put it: “There will be more wildfires. There will be more crises. So … we better plan accordingly.”





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  • West Contra Costa student school board members among few in California to be paid

    West Contra Costa student school board members among few in California to be paid


    Jorge Espinoza Jr., left, and Luke Wilson are the first two student board members in West Contra Costa to be compensated for the job.

    Courtesy of Jorge Espinoza Jr. and Luke Wilson

    West Contra Costa Unified School District students Jorge Espinoza Jr. and Luke Wilson have a seat and voice at a table that most students don’t have regular access to. 

    For the last five months, they’ve been sitting next to school board trustees at the dais, asking top administrators accountability questions and making recommendations on what could improve student experiences in the classroom. 

    On top of that, they are the first two students in the district to be paid for this work. 

    “It definitely has been an experience,” Espinoza said. “It’s been a journey – one that I would never want to change.” 

    “I believe I’ve learned so much, not only just being a board member, especially as a student, but also getting to engage with my community, engaging with the cabinet and what they do and seeing and learning all these things that go on within the board.” 

    Although many districts in California have student board member positions, it’s rare for them to be paid, said Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association. This school year, West Contra Costa Unified became one of the few in the state that pays its student board members. 

    School districts, including West Contra Costa, moved to pay board members after the 2023 passage of Assembly Bill 275, a state law that allows districts to pay or offer course credits to student board members. The West Contra Costa school board passed the resolution last July and updated and reapproved it last month to comply with the law. 

    Flint said that “the concept of involving student board members more fully, including compensating them in some very rare cases, is gaining momentum … (and) breaks from traditional practices where student board members were not supported to the same degree we’ve seen become more common with this recent generation.” 

    Historically, it’s been difficult to recruit students to be student board members, said West Contra Costa board member Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy. Various West Contra Costa Unified school board members had said publicly that they believed including compensation and course credits would motivate a more diverse population of students to apply. They pointed to the time commitment the students must make. Typically, board meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and last between three and five hours — time that students could use to work for pay, study or participate in an internship.

    “It’s a commitment, and many students in our high schools have to not just take care of their own family, but they have to work,” Gonzalez-Hoy said. “Having to do a volunteer position for our students is a big ask.”

    In West Contra Costa, at least one of the two student board members must be from a school with 60% of students receiving free or reduced lunch, which was an effort to ensure representation from schools in less affluent areas of the district, Gonzalez-Hoy said. Students are paid $150 for every board meeting they attend and $100 for each agenda review meeting and board study session. Students also receive elective course credits. 

    There are typically two board meetings and an agenda review meeting per month, Gonzalez-Hoy said. The number of study sessions varies based on the business of the district. 

    “They won’t have to choose between a paycheck and being in this (student board member) position, but also they won’t have to choose between their studies and working,” Gonzalez-Hoy said.

    Espinoza and Wilson just wrapped up their one-semester term, and the new student board members will be announced and sworn in at the Feb. 12 board meeting. 

    Wilson, who attends El Cerrito High School, is also a student board member of the Contra Costa County Office of Education, a term that lasts the whole school year. He suggested West Contra Costa should do the same.

    “I believe that having two student board members elected for one whole year would actually be a better benefit for all students because of that momentum not being lost,” Wilson said. “One semester really doesn’t make sense in terms of that momentum and actually picking up a grasp on how the meetings run. But then you’re out when you get that grasp.”

    Gonzalez-Hoy said the board is considering all student feedback to make the student board member experience as beneficial as possible. 

    Last year, San Diego and Palm Springs school districts passed resolutions similar to West Contra Costa’s. San Diego students receive elective course credit and are paid $1,736 per month, the amount paid to other board members in the district.  Student board members in Palm Springs are paid about $296 monthly, according to the Palm Springs Desert Sun. 

    Board members historically receive low wages 

    Paying student trustees is not very popular, especially now with many school districts dealing with declines in enrollment, school closures and budget cuts, resulting in a lack of available funds. Most board members serving on school boards around the state are paid low wages.

    The amount of money board members receive in California depends on the average daily attendance in the district. Average daily attendance — which is different from overall student enrollment — is calculated by taking the total number of student attendance days and dividing by the number of school days in the year.

    In a district like West Contra Costa, where average daily attendance was about 23,400 in the 2023-24 school year, regular board members make up to $400 a month.

    Board members in districts with 25,000 to 60,000 students receive up to $750 monthly. In districts with 1,000 to 10,000 students, board members receive up to $240 monthly. In the smaller districts with 1,000 or fewer students but more than 150, trustees receive up to $120 a month. Those in districts with less than 150 students only make up to $60 a month. 

    There’s a stark difference in pay for board members in larger districts with more than 250,000 students. According to the state education code, compensation in those districts is set by municipalities.

    For example, board members in the Los Angeles Unified School District, serving more than 500,000 students, receive $125,000 annually if they don’t have another job and $50,000 if they do.

    Some states, like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, do not allow compensation for board members, and the elected board members are volunteers. 

    Empowering students

    Espinoza and Wilson’s top priority this year is to create a student bill of rights that will eventually be posted in every classroom. 

    “The reason for this is to empower students to not only know their rights but to also have respect and accountability, not just within students but all of our staff as well,” said Espinoza, who attends Middle College High School. 

    Incoming student board members will take over the process of finalizing the bill of rights through outreach and surveys. 

    Another change Espinoza and Wilson spearheaded was to include the All Student Congress — a group of middle and high students, nominated by their schools — in discussions about the Local Control Accountability Plan, a document that outlines how the district should be spending money. Student feedback will then go to an advisory committee made up of parents and community members.

    Students need to be part of the All Student Congress to qualify for the student board member position. The student congress also elects both student board members. 

    Espinoza Jr. and Wilson also helped draft “Educational Response to the Climate Emergency,” a resolution to help implement climate literacy in West Contra Costa schools and to help students graduate with a deeper understanding of the impacts of climate change and possible solutions. The resolution could include a climate literacy curriculum and professional development for educators.

    Other goals Espinoza and Wilson have that will be passed on to the incoming student trustees are to implement a Student Advisory Panel, have more student trustee engagement, and have career technical education programs for students in grades K-8. 

    Wilson’s advice to would-be student board members is to “go into it with an open mind in terms of when you’re listening to the adults and frequently  … you’ll hear debates, you’ll hear people not agreeing with each other. And before you just immediately pick a side, try and hear both sides.” 

    Espinoza said future student board members shouldn’t be shy or let the complex jargon and policies hinder them from applying. 

    “You’re there for a reason,” Espinoza said. “These adults, they’re here to serve us, and as students, we’re here to represent the students’ voices directly as well.”





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  • Why Texas is ahead of California on bilingual education

    Why Texas is ahead of California on bilingual education


    Wendell Norris Marquez teaches pre-AP Spanish to seventh graders at Lively Middle School in Austin, Texas.

    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    On a recent Monday morning in Wendell Norris Marquez’s classroom in Austin, Texas, students were getting ready to read a story in Spanish by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But first, they discussed the differences between a story and a novel, and between a story and a legend.

    “Los cuentos son ficción (Stories are fiction),” said one student. “But are legends real?” asked Norris Marquez.

    No, the students decided. They may have started based on something real, but then they changed over time as they were told and retold.

    This is a sophisticated literature class. But these students aren’t in high school. They’re in seventh grade. And they’ll be taking the AP Spanish exam before they graduate from middle school. 

    “When I describe this class, I tell people it’s not really what you think in the back of your head as a language course, because in elementary, the kids already learned Spanish, so by the time they get to us, they’re already fully bilingual,” Norris Marquez said. “So it is about taking them to the next level. We learn literary genres, we talk about metaphors, we analyze poems, and we write essays.”

    This kind of advanced Spanish class is only possible at the middle school level because most of Norris Marquez’s students have been attending dual-language programs with instruction in both Spanish and English since preschool or kindergarten.

    It turns out that bilingual education is much more common in Texas than in California.

    “Anybody who studies bilingual education, English learners, dual-language students, eventually stumbles across this reality that Texas has this long and linguistically rich, multilingual, multicultural K-12 history, and California doesn’t,” said Conor P. Williams, senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author of a report called “Making California Public Schools Better for English Learners: Lessons from Texas.”

    According to the report, Texas enrolls 38% of English learners in bilingual education programs — more than double the 18% California enrolls.

    Williams also found that Texas’ English learners have consistently done better than California’s on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in both reading and math. 

    “On every single administration of the test, Texas is better, over and over and over,” he said. 

    It’s not clear whether Texas’ English learners are doing better because of bilingual education. Multiple other factors could influence scores. Still, Williams points out that the findings are consistent with research that shows that bilingual education helps students achieve fluency in English and do better on academic tests over time.

    “The research suggests that English learners in bilingual schools will score a little lower in English acquisition and in academics for a couple of years, but by roughly fourth grade, they should be outperforming English learners in English-only,” Williams said. “So you would expect to see that by about fourth grade, Texas, with its large number of bilingual programs, would start to really outperform California. You would expect that to be especially true by eighth grade. And that’s sort of what we see.”

    Money and a mandate

    Texas requires school districts to offer bilingual education if at least 20 children in the same grade speak the same language other than English at home, a mandate that dates back to 1973.

    By contrast, California voters passed a law in 1998, Proposition 227, that required English learners to be taught in English-only classrooms unless their parents signed a waiver. That law remained in place for 18 years, until voters overturned it in 2016. The almost two decades of English-only instruction set the state back, officials say.

    “The passage of Proposition 227 deeply impacted bilingual teacher education programs, resulting in fewer teachers earning bilingual certification over the past two and a half decades. Bilingual teacher education programs are still recovering,” wrote Alesha Moreno-Ramirez, director of multilingual support at the California Department of Education, in an email.

    After Proposition 227 was overturned, California published two documents that set out a vision and goals for expanding bilingual education, the English Learner Roadmap and Global California 2030. But Williams says these documents have no teeth.

    “There hasn’t been commensurate investment, accountability and oversight to make sure that these goals and vision documents matter,” Williams said. “Neither can make any school district do anything. It’s all voluntary.”

    Texas passed a law in 2019 that sends additional funds to schools for all students enrolled in dual language immersion, and even more for English learners enrolled. By one calculation, Texas schools receive $924 more per year for every English learner in dual-language immersion. The state also has a long history of bipartisan support for bilingual education, and the top education official reportedly sends his own children to a bilingual school. 

    In Austin alone, there are 57 elementary schools offering dual-language programs, in Spanish, Mandarin and Vietnamese. More than half of the district’s English learners, referred to as “emergent bilingual” students, attend these programs.

    At Perez Elementary, Spanish and English can be heard in classrooms, hallways, and out on the playground. One corner of the school library is dedicated entirely to books the students wrote themselves in both languages. Alongside a book that one child wrote about Roblox, a game creation platform, is a poignant story about a family’s journey to the U.S. from Honduras.

    Yadi Landaverde teaches fourth grade at Perez Elementary School in Austin.
    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    In a fourth grade classroom, as students prepared for a math lesson in English, teacher Yadi Landaverde walked them through how to say some terms in English and Spanish — right angle, obtuse angle and protractor, for example.

    Landaverde, who has been teaching for 10 years, said that explicitly teaching the differences and similarities between languages is especially important for students who recently immigrated to the U.S. and are not as familiar with English. This year, she said, she has eight recent immigrants in her class. Landaverde was born in Mexico and grew up in South Texas. Growing up, she only had English instruction in school. But she’s seen the benefits of dual-language immersion with her students.

    “As long as the first language is strong, students do tend to score higher on state tests,” Landaverde said. “I’ve seen that.”

    Her students were eager to share why they love bilingual education.

    “Being in a dual-language program is just the best thing you could do in school because you are learning two languages, and that feels like a superpower for everybody,” said Emil, 10. Austin Independent School District officials asked EdSource not to publish students’ last names to protect their privacy.

    His classmate Luis, also 10, emigrated from Venezuela two years ago, but first attended an English-only school in New York, where he didn’t feel like he could communicate with anyone.

    A fourth grade dual-language classroom at Perez Elementary in Austin, Texas.
    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    “I couldn’t understand nobody and I couldn’t talk to nobody. One time I got home, and I was crying because nobody talked to me,” he said. When he moved to Texas and began attending Perez, he said, he was immediately welcomed.

    “Now in class, I can speak Spanish normally without nobody saying that they don’t understand me,” he said. “And when I don’t know … something in English, I can just ask my friend that speaks more English than me and say, ‘What does this word mean?’”

    Mathilda, who has been in the dual-language program at Perez since pre-kindergarten and speaks Spanish at home, said it has helped her keep both languages strong. 

    “My cousins in California cannot speak Spanish, so I need to teach them to learn Spanish ’cause they don’t go to a program for bilingual,” she said.

    Middle and high school classes

    In Austin, 13 middle schools and five high schools have bilingual programs in which students take at least two classes a semester in Spanish. One is a language or literature course, and the other is a content class, like science or math. Many schools also have electives available in Spanish, like film history or web design.

    Down the hall from Norris Marquez’ class at Lively Middle School, Antonia Vincent teaches AP Spanish to eighth graders.

    “At the beginning, they don’t even believe that they can do an AP class, and they don’t understand, most of them, what is an AP class,” Vincent said. “But at the end, we have good results, and they are very proud of themselves.”

    Antonia Vincent teaches AP Spanish to eighth graders at Lively Middle School in Austin.
    Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource

    The majority of students in the dual-language classes in middle and high school in Austin are students who have been enrolled in bilingual education since elementary school. But some are also recent immigrants.

    Advanced classes in Spanish can be empowering for recent immigrant students, Vincent said.

    “Some of them, in the beginning, they are very shy,” Vincent said. “And this class empowers them because they feel that we listen to them, so they are building their confidence.”

    One immigrant student wrote Vincent a letter saying, “Thanks to your class, I know that I can express myself, and that is empowering me to continue and to take this opportunity in my other classes.”

    The classes also have benefits for students who are not English learners. Caroline Sweet, the dual-language instructional coach at Perez Elementary School, sent both her children to dual immersion programs. Her oldest son, now in 10th grade, attended Perez and then continued in dual immersion at Lively Middle School and Travis High School. 

    “His advanced Spanish courses in high school are so hard that when I look at those texts, I’m like, I do not know what that medieval poem means,” Sweet said. “But I think it’s just kept him pretty astute and paying attention to language and then just kind of really flexible in his brain.”

    Patchy progress in California

    Dual-language immersion programs like the ones at Perez Elementary and Lively Middle School do exist in California. Los Angeles Unified, for example, has more than 230 dual-language programs that span transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. But advocates for English learners say the investment of resources by the state has been piecemeal.

    “Access to bilingual programs varies wildly depending on the district, the community, and available resources,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, a nonprofit organization that advocates for English learners statewide.

    Advocates and state officials agree that the biggest challenge is a lack of teachers with bilingual credentials. 

    Moreno-Ramirez, from the California Department of Education, pointed to recent investments to show that the state is supporting school districts to expand bilingual education. 

    In 2021, California invested $10 million for grants to expand dual-language immersion programs. In 2022, the state put another $10 million toward grants for helping train teachers in “effective language acquisition programs” for English learners, including bilingual proficiency. Most recently, the state invested $20 million in a program to help more teachers get bilingual credentials.

    These investments have been helpful, but insufficient, said Anya Hurwitz, executive director of SEAL (Sobrato Early Academic Language), a nonprofit organization that promotes bilingual education.

    “If we want to see multilingual education scaled in California, it’s got to be invested in,” Hurwitz said. “Money alone is not the answer ever to almost anything in life, yet we can’t pretend that it’s not an important ingredient.”

    Williams agreed.

     “227 is a real thing, no question. But 227 ended almost a decade ago,” said Williams. “At some level, if you’re going to be a progressive leader on this, it’s been a decade, it’s time, you can’t blame that anymore.”





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