Tucked inside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed state budget is a kernel of hope for the future of adolescents in California: A $15 million investment to reshape the way students experience middle and high schools. It represents just .013% of total state education spending, but it represents an important commitment to serving students better.
This investment will create a small cadre of middle and high schools to support students’ sense of belonging, to help prepare them for well-paying jobs in the future, and to personalize learning environments and supports so that those who need extra help can get it. Participating schools will also integrate more hands-on, experiential learning and lead the way in new and appropriate uses of technology for deeper learning. These are the learning opportunities and environments that young people are asking us to provide.
What might these schools encompass, and how would we approach this work?
The San Diego County Office of Education works with districts, students, families and communities to address system- and community-wide issues and goals. We work with interested districts to build a portrait of a graduate, where leaders listen to students, parents, community members, and school and district staff to co-create a district plan built on the collective answer to: “Where do we want our student to be in 15 to 20 years when they graduate and what attributes and skill sets do they need to possess?” Through this process, we seek to create and strengthen our schools to be welcoming spaces for all students, with opportunities to be successful in school and life.
The Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program (SSRP) is especially timely now, as California continues to chart a course toward improved outcomes and experiences for adolescents in our public schools. This state-level persistence in forward-looking policy is critically important amid federal-level backsteps and disinvestment in young people.
Working as an SSRP network to learn and grow together, a group of secondary schools would be selected to receive state grants to support the reshaping of schools as places where all students feel known, understood and engaged in future-relevant learning. The two-year pilot would be evaluated, as all new programs should be, to identify redesign strategies for schools statewide and determine whether the effort should grow.
The program smartly builds upon recent, substantial investments in secondary schools by the governor and Legislature. These include new “community school” models that serve not just students’ academic but their health and social-emotional needs; dual-enrollment opportunities that allow high schoolers to experience and accelerate toward college; and the Golden State Pathways Program, which puts students on paths toward college and high-wage careers in economic growth sectors such as technology, health care, education and climate science/adaptation.
At a time of sharp ideological divides, we have been encouraged to see strong, across-the-board support among California voters for the importance of college and career education, social-emotional learning, student mental health and school environments where all students feel accepted. Public opinion research conducted by a bipartisan polling group earlier this school year bears this out.
As we prepare to celebrate our many high school graduates during this season of commencement, we remain focused on our most critical work ahead: to ensure that our public schools function effectively for all, especially those students who are furthest from opportunity and for whom our schools have not yet succeeded.
California has taken strong steps toward improving school experiences and outcomes for adolescents, particularly in this post-pandemic period when they are truly in need. The SSRP is another stride in that direction. To stay the course on preparing our young people for the future they deserve, we urge the Legislature to act favorably on the governor’s proposal.
•••
Gloria E. Ciriza, Ed.D., the San Diego County superintendent of schools.
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.
We often talk about the “core curriculum” as the center of our education system, the most essential content for students to master in order to be prepared for their futures. For most, it includes English, math, science and social science. Many support the inclusion of multilingualism, the arts and career-technical education.
With the advances of the past century, isn’t it time to re-evaluate what is “core”? What competencies do young people need to face future challenges? How can they be the drivers of their own learning? Why is it so difficult to change legacy thinking?
Our education system is separated into, and organized around, these discreet “core” subject areas. They are the basis for students’ class schedules, schools’ departmental structures, teachers’ credentials, and universities’ admissions requirements. They are the focus of student report cards, state standards, standardized tests, tutoring programs and accountability measures.
Yet, over the past decade, when more than 75 school districts across California have engaged their communities to develop a “graduate profile” or “portrait of a graduate” by asking their community members what skills, competencies and mindsets are most essential for young people to be successful, the core subject areas are not ranked at the top. Rather, respondents (or community members) say that students should be creative and critical thinkers, effective communicators and collaborators, self-directed lifelong learners, culturally competent and globally aware citizens, technically and financially literate, adaptable and resilient, and kind and curious. This represents a more holistic and integrated approach to teaching and learning. In fact, a recent WestEd report verified that these competencies are most frequently cited in districts’ graduate profiles; the academic content areas fell further down the list.
For decades, employers have identified a similar set of competencies as critical for success in the workplace. While colleges and universities tend to default to core content requirements, when pressed they agree that the same competencies are critical for a young person’s success in postsecondary education. And, wouldn’t we all want informed and productive citizens to embrace these skills? Are they not core?
These ideas are not new. Nearly 20 years ago, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills created the P21 Framework, often simplified by practitioners to “the 4Cs” — collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking.
My goal is not to establish an either/or argument, but rather to suggest a rebalancing for current and future generations. Granted, much of our society still stands behind “the three R’s” — reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmatic — and will argue until blue in the face that these skills are most essential. They are! Yet, in this day and age, when information is available at our fingertips 24/7 and artificial intelligence can organize that information in coherent ways, what should we consider as core?
Content will always be central to our schools. If we were to formally elevate the importance of the 4Cs, and even organize around them, students still would have to think critically about something, collaborate around something, and communicate something. That “something” is the content, and teachers can be creative about how to integrate key standards. But, what would it look like if we were to rebalance the priorities?
We wouldn’t have to look far to find examples of small but significant shifts. Several school districts (such as Davis and Novato) have modified their elementary report cards to reflect their graduate profile outcomes. Anaheim Union High School District employs “5Cs coaches” at each of their 20 school sites to help teachers integrate the 5C skills into everyday lessons and projects (5Cs = 4Cs + compassion). In order to graduate, some districts (including Pasadena and Anaheim) require students to demonstrate their graduate profile outcomes through senior projects, portfolio defenses or capstone interviews.
District efforts to rebalance the priorities of our education system — by creating a graduate profile and working to operationalize it — have been underway for well over a decade, but progress has been slow because the state (the Department of Education, State Board of Education, Legislature, and Governor’s Office) has been slow to incentivize, encourage, and/or support local efforts through funding and policy. Many other states have done so.
What might it look like if formal structures existed to intentionally prioritize a new core set of competencies? For example, what if students could earn digital badges for their demonstration of the 4Cs, to be used as portable credentials for college admission and employment? What if teachers could earn micro credentials for the effective teaching of the 4Cs? What if the state’s data and accountability systems captured student progress on the 4Cs? In more creative and less formalized applications, what if field trips, after-school and summer programs centered on 4C skill development? What if administrators selected the teacher-of-the-month based on impressive 4C instruction? What if foundations awarded scholarships and/or (like in Petaluma) students voted on the homecoming court based on student demonstration of the 4Cs?
Recently, I facilitated a team of educators and community members working to implement their graduate profile. When I asked the father of a Latina 12th grader whether he thought the traditional transcript or the graduate profile most reflected what his daughter needed for her future success, he pointed to the graduate profile.
●●●
Roman Stearns is the executive director of Scaling Student Success, a California partnership dedicated to educating the whole child, leveraging the power and potential of a community-developed “graduate profile” or “learner portrait” as a driver for transformational change.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
When first grader Jordan Muñoz stopped going to school during the 2022-23 school year, his mother attributed it to depression, following the deaths of Muñoz’s great-grandfather and uncle. Some days, his mom couldn’t get him out of the house. Other days, she’d get him dressed and to the corner of Fresno’s Fremont Elementary, but he’d take off running. Most often, she failed to get him beyond the school parking lot.
“I tried to just take him. Leave him at school. But he would get right in front of my car so I wouldn’t leave,” said Muñoz’s mom, Deyanira Pacheco.
Aware of the difficulty, administration, counselors, psychologists and teachers at his Fresno Unified school developed a plan to support Muñoz, according to Cecilia Aguayo, the district’s child welfare and attendance specialist.
The district of over 70,000 students had made such plans before in an effort to reduce chronic absenteeism rates, which went from 50.3% during the 2021-22 school year to 35.4% in 2022-23. While this is still higher than pre-pandemic years, the decrease stands in sharp contrast to other districts, like Oakland Unified, where chronic absences rose from 47.5% to 61.4% during the same years.
Statewide, nearly a quarter of K-12 students remained chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year — a decline of about 5 percentage points from the previous school year, but a sign of the lingering effects of the pandemic that led to sharp drops in student attendance after schools reopened for in-person instruction. Students who are chronically absent from school are sometimes also the same children who do not have their basic needs met: Federal data shows that nearly half of all California homeless students, 44.5%, were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before. A small number of districts, 33, had a chronic absenteeism rate over 50% in 2022-23, the most recent data available.
EdSource’s analysis of data from the California Department of Education offers insight: The statewide average rate of excused absences for the 2022-23 school year was 54.7%, with unexcused absences at 39.2%. Both numbers are similar to pre-pandemic levels.
While both excused and unexcused absences are counted toward chronic absenteeism rates, a school’s knowledge of the reasons behind the absences can better help them support and re-engage students.
Researchers and school staff have long tried to better understand how to re-engage chronically absent students, or students who missed 10% or more days in one school year.
State education code lists over a dozen reasons for excusing students from school; however, interviews with districts show that many excused absences are mental health and illness-related. Unexcused absences could indicate that students did not have proper documentation to mark them excused, or that they provided no reason for their absence or that the reason they provided does not qualify as an excusable absence.
Fresno Unified is in the Central San Joaquin Valley and is the state’s third-largest district. Across the 30 districts in Fresno County, all but four decreased their chronic absences between 2021-22 and 2022-23. Altogether, the average change was 11.62 percentage points, with Fresno Unified, the county’s largest district, above average with a gain of 14.9 percentage points.
Child welfare and attendance specialist Aguayo made phone calls, visited Muñoz’s home and popped up at the school when Pacheco picked up her other child, a kindergartner, who soon followed his brother’s example and sometimes refused to attend school. The district referred them to counseling services.
Although Pacheco, the kids’ mother, said the visits and calls helped in a way, she didn’t pursue counseling, perhaps thinking it wouldn’t work, Aguayo said.
By the end of the 2022-23 school year, Muñoz had attended only 27 days out of 179 days enrolled — a 15% attendance rate. Of the days missed, only six were excused. The school district didn’t give up on him, however. They used every tool to get him back to school.
Oakland Unified’s rising chronic absences
Farther north, in Oakland, chronic absences increased from 47.5% in the 2021-22 school year to 61.4% the following school year. But the high rate was already clear prior to the pandemic, at 34.4% during 2018-19.
“There hasn’t been a ‘normal’ year in many years,” said Heather Palin, the district’s director of multitiered systems of support, about chronic absences, in October. “Just broadly speaking, this is way higher than pre-Covid.”
Oakland Unified, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a diverse district of 46,000 students that is currently facing a significant budget deficit. Most districts across Alameda County, of which Oakland Unified is the largest, either saw a decrease in chronic absenteeism or had virtually no change between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years. Oakland Unified ranked last and stands out with an increase of 13.9 percentage points.
The district has adopted a plan aimed at reducing its 61.4% district absentee rate by 25 percentage points with similar drops in each individual school, Palin said.
Each Oakland Unified school is expected to have an attendance team that meets regularly and includes an administrator, community school manager, attendance specialist and principal. Teams’ plans for increasing attendance include offering incentives like attendance certificates, celebrations and swag.
“It was an expectation that was set last year, and we have more capacity to support it, and we’re more kind of unified as a system in the messaging around the importance of that team,” Palin said.
The district offers a virtual school, Sojourner Truth Virtual Academy, but it’s not aimed at students who are chronically absent. Rather, it’s a different learning format offered to all students.
Cumulative enrollment data shows that this school remained a popular choice for students: it had 250 enrolled students pre-pandemic, then jumped to 1,533 students during 2021-22. The following year, 2022-23, nearly 1,000 remained enrolled.
Palin said that district authorities do not know why all students are chronically absent because schools were unable to reach some families. The students they reached mostly said they no longer wanted to attend school or requested a transfer to the virtual academy. Students also cited illness, family relocation, mental health and safety concerns.
How insight from families can help
While school administrators can excuse absences based on students’ individual circumstances — even if the reason is typically not covered by state law — they can only do so if they know the difficulties absent students are experiencing.
According to a recently published PACE report that examined California attendance data across the 2017 and 2022 school years, schools with higher rates of unexcused absences often have lower attendance rates overall. The same study by the nonprofit research group found that “socioeconomically disadvantaged students are much more likely to have their absences labeled unexcused.”
To address the number of illness-related absences, Fresno Unified clarified expectations, informing families about appropriate scenarios in which to send their kids to school. Consequently, excused absences increased from 41.3% in 2021-22 to 54.8% the following year, while unexcused absences decreased from 64% to 43.4%.
When the district knows what’s impacting student attendance, they can support, not penalize families, which many feared, said Tashiana Aquino, executive director of support programs, and Abigail Arii, director of the district’s student support services.
The very few excused absences that Muñoz had, along with conversations with his mother, helped the district set up a plan to increase his attendance.
Staff sent letters, called, visited the home, and educated Pacheco about attendance laws. “They asked me why he didn’t want to stay at school,” Pacheco said.
But even with a plan in place, Pacheco couldn’t get Muñoz, 7, to school.
By Sept. 23, 2022, she’d enrolled Muñoz in the district’s eLearn Academy, hoping he’d complete the work from home. Still, he wouldn’t. Six weeks later, he was re-enrolled at Fremont but was still not attending school.
Pacheco faced a school attendance review board (SARB) case in June 2023, a step “we really tried to avoid,” Aguayo said.
But the case was the “wake-up call” that pushed Pacheco to get the help she and Muñoz needed, said district staff.
“I think that’s where she realized, ‘I need to step up, too,’” said Tainia Yeppez, the SARB technician.
During the case, Fresno Unified again referred the family to counseling services. This time, in summer 2023, Pacheco started Muñoz in therapy.
New, more flexible solutions
Ongoing chronic absenteeism requires new thinking, advocates say, to ensure students do not fall back on foundational academic skills.
“Just because kids are not in the school building doesn’t mean we can’t still figure out creative and innovative ways to educate them. These chronic absenteeism rates are not going to just drop,” said Lakisha Young, CEO and founder of parent advocacy group Oakland REACH. “Everybody is in uncharted territory. So the question is: ‘Can we change the conversation?’”
At the height of the pandemic, Oakland REACH established a virtual learning hub for Oakland Unified’s K-2 students, offering tutoring that kept them engaged and attending school regularly. Early results showed that 60% of their students improved two or more reading levels on the Oakland Unified assessment, while 30% improved three or more levels. The organization now offers paid fellowships for Oakland caregivers to work as tutors producing high academic results.
Part of the challenge with common alternative learning formats to re-engage absent students while meeting their academic needs is that they are not always viable for students whose homes do not have the space to designate for schoolwork, said Young.
“A family who chooses to home-school has a different setup than a kid that’s chronically absent, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be given that option,” she said. It’s up to each district to find the solutions that would best serve their students, she added.
Southern California’s Glendale Unified is one of the few school districts with a slight decrease of 1% in their absenteeism rate plus low excused and unexcused absences: 20.6% and 22.3%, respectively.
Last school year, more students met with the district SARB, said Hagop Eulmessekian, Glendale Unified director of student services.
To address increasing mental health concerns, every Glendale Unified school has a wellness center where students can take a break during the school day. If a student is experiencing behavioral challenges, they are transferred to a community day school where they take each class in the same room throughout the day while teachers rotate for different subjects.
“There’s no wiggle room for the students who kind of disappear” throughout the day, said Eulmessekian. “They get the same education, they get fed, they get additional support, whether it’s counseling or therapy, and then when we see they’re able to go back on our comprehensive campuses, we transfer them back.”
Oakland REACH’s Young encourages educators to think outside the box.
“We have got to get creative about these babies,” said Young. “At some point you have got to do something different. You have got to just say: ‘This kid’s at home, how do I still get them educated?’”
Back in Fresno, Muñoz has done a complete 180. As of March, his attendance rate is 98%.
“Counseling really does help a lot,” Pacheco said.
She also needed to learn skills to address the boy’s behavior, Aguayo said. “I think she kind of got the power she needed. She finally got control.”
Of 128 days, he’s only missed two, one of which was excused. Even on days when he’s sad about losing his great-grandfather and uncle, he goes to school, Pacheco said. In fact, he made a commitment at the beginning of the school year to attend every day.
“Now, he wakes up at 6 in the morning, ready to go,” Pacheco said with a grin. Muñoz, now 8, likes going to school to play soccer with his friends.
He is behind academically — the impact of not attending school for most of his first-grade year, Pacheco said. The school provides additional academic support through remediation classes.
“All he needed to do was attend,” Yeppez said.
Because of his current high attendance rate, the court dismissed the SARB case in December, and Muñoz ended counseling in February.
For other families with students not regularly attending school, Pacheco said schools and districts must help them by talking to them and figuring out the problem, much like Fresno Unified did for her, and families must utilize the provided or recommended services, such as counseling.
“I think it was a little bit of everything that helped mom,” Yeppez said. “She was willing to get the help, accept the help and make that change. She was willing to make that change for her son’s success.”
Students work on homework during an after-school program in Chico, the largest city in Butte County. (File photo)
Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
For nearly a decade, the Orange County Department of Education and the Butte County Office of Education have had the privilege of co-leading the implementation of the California Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) — a statewide framework that’s transforming how schools serve students academically, socially, emotionally and behaviorally.
This work began with a simple but urgent goal: to ensure that every student in California — no matter their ZIP code, background or circumstance — has access to a responsive and coordinated system of supports that meets their individual needs.
Today, that vision is being realized in thousands of schools across the state, where educators are reporting measurable gains in academic performance, reductions in suspensions and absenteeism, and stronger alignment with initiatives like Universal Pre-kindergarten, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program and Community Schools.
In short, California MTSS is working. And now is the time to sustain and expand its impact.
For those unfamiliar with the framework, the California Multi-Tiered System of Support is based on three levels of support:
Universal instruction and strategies for all students.
Targeted help for those who need more.
Intensive interventions for students with the greatest needs.
What makes it so powerful isn’t just its flexibility or scalability — though those are important — but its ability to help schools work together more effectively and break down silos across California’s education system.
Our state has made historic investments in mental health, early learning, expanded instructional time and more. The multitiered system doesn’t replace those efforts — it ensures they work together. In other words, it’s the delivery system for every promise we’ve made to our students.
Consider these scenarios, drawn from real-life practices, to see how the framework can support students across different educational settings:
At an elementary school, a student who is reading below grade level benefits from universal supports built into the classroom for all learners. The teacher uses strategies like visual scaffolds — including maps, illustrations and diagrams to aid comprehension — along with flexible grouping based on reading levels and multiple ways for students to demonstrate understanding. These tools, part of a schoolwide commitment to Universal Design for Learning, help the student stay engaged and make steady progress without needing to be pulled out or referred for separate services.
In a middle school, a student who begins to withdraw socially and fall behind in assignments is connected with supplemental support. A school counselor checks in weekly, and the student joins a small group focused on building organization and self-regulation skills. With these added layers of support, the student regains confidence and starts participating more actively in class.
At an alternative high school, a student returning from an extended absence receives more intensive support. A personalized plan is created that includes one-on-one counseling, a flexible academic schedule, and regular collaboration between school staff and the student’s family. Over time, the student re-engages with learning and builds toward graduation.
As county leaders, we’ve seen firsthand how California MTSS helps schools weave together fragmented programs and services into a single, integrated system that responds to the whole child.
In some schools, that has meant fewer students being referred to special education thanks to earlier, research-based interventions. In others, it has led to improved school climates, stronger teacher-student relationships and higher graduation rates.
Crucially, this work has taken hold in settings as diverse as the state itself. California MTSS is driving progress in large urban districts, small rural schools and alternative education programs that serve some of our most vulnerable youth.
In Butte County, where educators often juggle multiple roles and resources are limited, the framework has provided structure and tools to meet local needs while maintaining alignment with statewide goals. These strategies have become a blueprint for many rural communities across California.
Meanwhile, in Orange County, the multitiered framework is helping schools tackle chronic absenteeism, expand mental health supports and ensure students are not just seen, but supported and successful.
California has emerged as a national leader in this work. Our state was the first to embed social-emotional learning and mental health into the multitiered system of support framework, and we’ve launched online certification modules to build capacity for administrators, teachers, counselors and even higher education faculty. The annual California MTSS Professional Learning Institute, which draws thousands of educators each summer, has become a hub for sharing evidence-based practices and building cross-county collaboration.
Yet like any systemic improvement effort, the long-term impact depends on sustained commitment. The current phase of statewide funding is set to conclude in 2026. Without additional investment, we risk stalling momentum — or worse, losing the progress we’ve made.
That’s why we’re jointly requesting a new round of funding — approximately $18 million annually over four years — to ensure that the framework continues to evolve and expand. Two-thirds of every dollar would go directly to schools, districts, county offices and fire-impacted regions to support coaching, trauma-informed practices and professional development. It would also fund large-scale research efforts and deepen implementation in classrooms, where it matters most.
The data speaks for itself. Recent studies show statistically significant improvements in reading and math scores in schools implementing the framework. Educators in rural communities report stronger collaboration and better outcomes. And thousands of students — including those with disabilities, those in foster care and those experiencing homelessness — are getting the supports they need, when they need them.
We believe the foundation is strong. Now is the time to build on it.
•••
Stefan Bean, Ed.D., is Orange County’s superintendent of schools. Mary Sakuma, Ed.D., is Butte County’s superintendent of schools.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before. Use this interactive map to explore rates of absenteeism by Unified and Elementary districts or High School districts and contrast rural, urban and suburban districts across California.
.errordiv padding:10px; margin:10px; border: 1px solid #555555;color: #000000;background-color: #f8f8f8; width:500px; #advanced_iframe_44 visibility:visible;opacity:1;vertical-align:top;.ai-info-bottom-iframe position: fixed; z-index: 10000; bottom:0; left: 0; margin: 0px; text-align: center; width: 100%; background-color: #ff9999; padding-left: 5px;padding-bottom: 5px; border-top: 1px solid #aaa a.ai-bold font-weight: bold;#ai-layer-div-advanced_iframe_44 p height:100%;margin:0;padding:0var ai_iframe_width_advanced_iframe_44 = 0;var ai_iframe_height_advanced_iframe_44 = 0;function aiReceiveMessageadvanced_iframe_44(event) aiProcessMessage(event,”advanced_iframe_44″, “true”);if (window.addEventListener) window.addEventListener(“message”, aiReceiveMessageadvanced_iframe_44); else if (el.attachEvent) el.attachEvent(“message”, aiReceiveMessageadvanced_iframe_44);var aiIsIe8=false;var aiOnloadScrollTop=”true”;var aiShowDebug=false;
if (typeof aiReadyCallbacks === ‘undefined’)
var aiReadyCallbacks = [];
else if (!(aiReadyCallbacks instanceof Array))
var aiReadyCallbacks = [];
function aiShowIframeId(id_iframe) jQuery(“#”+id_iframe).css(“visibility”, “visible”); function aiResizeIframeHeight(height) aiResizeIframeHeight(height,advanced_iframe_44); function aiResizeIframeHeightId(height,width,id) aiResizeIframeHeightById(id,height);var ifrm_advanced_iframe_44 = document.getElementById(“advanced_iframe_44”);var hiddenTabsDoneadvanced_iframe_44 = false;
function resizeCallbackadvanced_iframe_44()
Source: EdSource analysis of California Department of Education data
I retired from the practice of family child care last December after 29 years. That same month, I attended a funeral for Deanna Robles, an amazing family child care provider and early care and education advocate who was 53 years old.
In January, I attended another funeral for another family child care provider in her mid-60s. Renaldo Sanders was not only a professional who had done this critical work for over 25 years, but also a dear friend. Both died from “natural causes,” but there is nothing natural about working 60, 70, or 80 hours a week for 20 or 30 years.
These were women who worked in a field with little, no, or all-too expensive health care, who struggled to provide for themselves and their families on wages far below the minimum. These were women who couldn’t get a good night’s rest trying to figure out how to take pennies and create a million-dollar early learning environment within the walls of their homes. These were women who sacrificed and gave their lives to children and early learning.
The reality is, California’s 24,700 home-based family child care providers, 71% of whom are women of color, earn the least of the state’s early childhood educators. These small business owners typically work very long hours with little pay. Smaller programs with a licensed capacity of six to eight children earn on average just $16,200 to $30,000 annually, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. Larger programs may enroll up to 12 or 14 children, yet these provider-owners earn on average just $40,000 to $56,400 a year. Many experience stress and depression and health issues, the latter often caused by the job’s need to constantly lift, carry, and keep up with several young children.
There is no way those conditions did not contribute to my friends’ deaths. I am 64 years old, and, sadly, I have suffered the same concerns, pains and pathetic wages as they did during their working lives. I got out just in time, perhaps adding a few more years to my life span.
Something has got to change. I do not want to attend another funeral for a child care professional who has died too young.
So how can we fix this mess and begin to support the women who are preparing our youngest learners for success? To start, we must treat early care and education as a public good and fund programs to reflect the true cost of care instead of relying on what parents can pay. Public preschool and infant-toddler teachers would then be paid similarly.
Yet, public funding has not come despite President Joe Biden’s efforts, so I won’t hold my breath for that to happen. Meanwhile, here are some steps to move us closer to supporting early childhood educators:
Step 1: Center and involve educators of color when creating child care policies. The absence of Black and brown women sitting at the table when these policies are being discussed, informed and written is shameful. As is the absence of family child care providers. When policymakers listen to and hear the women who do this work, and include them as they discuss and craft regulations, we will see different outcomes.
Just look at last year’s landmark win by Child Care Providers United (CCPU), an effort led largely by educators of color, myself included. Together, we fought for and won a contract for family child care providers who accept state subsidies for low-income families. We secured $2.8 billion in payment enhancements over the next two years and an $80 million annual investment in a newly established provider retirement fund. This would never have happened without our active involvement.
Step 2: When updating California’s reimbursement rate-setting methodology, include salary standards that consider education level, tenure and job role.This can ensure fair compensation regardless of program type, location, or an educator’s race and ethnicity. And, it would begin to reduce the vast pay gaps between Black educators and their peers of other races and ethnicities with similar education and experience. The planned switch to rate-setting based on the true cost of care was a key component of our union agreement. Once approved at the federal level, the new approach will need to be implemented promptly, and with educators of color at the decision table to address inequity and promote effective solutions.
Last, but certainly not least:
Step 3:Create a state-funded program to reward and sustain family child care providers for their commitments. Currently, there are no awards to recognize and retain these amazing women, and this lack of formal recognition while they dedicate their blood, sweat and tears for pennies contributes to burnout.
Here are a few ideas. Award a $500 bonus for small capacity licensees that become large capacity child care homes after one year. Present “longevity bonuses” to providers who remain in business in good standing based on their years of operation, such as $5,000 for 10 years, or $10,000 for 20 years.
Finally, develop significant bonuses for providers who stay in the business longer than 20 years and create a bonus for downsizing from large- to small-capacity programs. This is one way of supporting seasoned early childhood educators to live longer lives.
Implementing these steps would create a different world for family child care providers, their own families, and for the children and families they serve. If we take these recommendations seriously, families and children will receive optimal attention from the educators who touch their lives, and providers could see their life spans grow.
●●●
Tonia McMillian is a just-retired family child care provider in Southern California.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Fresno Unified School District board member Keshia Thomas speaks during a 2022 news conference.
Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
Among accusations of racism, intimidation and political play, ensuing from a March 20 decision by the Fresno Unified School District board to interview internal candidates first in the process to hire a superintendent, some district employees have faced harassment and threats, with some members of the Hmong community also citing attacks against them.
Sources, including district spokesperson Nikki Henry, told EdSource that board members and Deputy Superintendent Misty Her — a candidate for the open position and the presumptive interim superintendent — have been threatened. Her, specifically, has faced racial harassment, Henry said.
“It’s not fair to staff, and it’s not fair to the process,” school board member Keshia Thomas said.
During last week’s board meeting, Kao Xiong, CEO of the Hmong Business Incubator Center, a community-based organization serving the underrepresented Hmong community, said his group has been monitoring racial tensions related to the superintendent search.
Community member John Thao spoke about the “painful” and “hurtful” words someone told him in the wake of the superintendent’s search: “‘Your kind will never be superintendent.’”
On Jan. 22, when Superintendent Bob Nelson announced his plans to leave Fresno Unified, the district announced that if a permanent superintendent isn’t named by his final days, Her would be named interim superintendent.
Plans to name Her as interim superintendent put her at the center of the search as a favored candidate even though she’s not the only internal applicant. Her became the highest-ranking Hmong K-12 professional in 2021 when she was hired as deputy superintendent.
Stacy Williams, a community member who spoke at last week’s meeting, accused the board of favoring Her as the next superintendent for their own political gain.
“I know some of you have something to gain by using the Hmong community as your political pawn for when you want to run for something,” Williams said. A similar sentiment had been expressed in an opinion piece on news site GV Wire, which accused some board members of “pandering to the Hmong community for votes” in their November re-election bids.
Process is compromised
After the March 20 closed meeting of the school board, during which the board decided to interview internal candidates before deciding on how to proceed with the hiring process, details of the 4-3 decision and how each board member voted were leaked to the media, instigating community anger that propelled the board to reverse course in a 5-2 vote last Wednesday and postpone the scheduled internal interviews.
Beyond the threats, the search for the top leader of the state’s third-largest school system is engulfed in community angst about an alleged lack of transparency as well as accusations that the process has been tainted by politics.
Simply put, some say the search process has become “compromised.” But the reason for that conclusion varies, depending on whom you ask.
Trustee Thomas said the process is compromised because board members and staff are afraid but helpless to protect themselves and their families from threats and harassment, incited by the turmoil that the leaked information has caused.
“I don’t know what the next steps are going to be because everybody is uncertain, scared and wants to protect their families and protect employees from the nonsense,” Thomas told EdSource before the board voted to cancel the interviews of in-house candidates. “So now, we may have to pivot and try to figure out: how do we stop the unnecessary nonsense?”
Manuel Bonilla, president of the Fresno Teachers Association, on the other hand, said the process was compromised from the moment the board decided to prioritize district employees rather than conducting an “extensive search to find the best candidate … creating the appearance that politics matter more than students.”
Fifteen community members who spoke at last Wednesday’s board meeting agreed that politics has permeated the process one way or another.
“Is this politics as usual?” asked Terri Kimber-Edwards, who attended Fresno Unified schools, is a parent to former students, and was a teacher and school and district administrator. “Is there some agenda? Are there backroom deals?”
Accusations of a personal or political agenda
A recently launched political action committee, Moving the Central Valley Forward, sent mailers to Fresno residents, asking them to run for a seat in the Roosevelt and Hoover High areas, represented by Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas and Claudia Cazares, who are up for re-election in November. Both trustees’ names were leaked as part of the board majority that voted to start the superintendent search with internal candidates.
Jonasson Rosas did not confirm or deny her part in the March 20 decision because it happened in a closed-door session, and Cazares could not be reached for comment. Both have since voted to cancel the internal candidate interviews. In fact, Cazares led the charge to change the scope of the search at last Wednesday’s meeting.
Board member Andy Levine, who represents the Fresno High area, is also up for re-election but was not included in the mailer, although the area is listed on the political action committee’s website. Last week, Levine stated on Facebook and told EdSource that he supported opening the search to both internal and external candidates from the start.
Board members are not the only ones being accused of having a political agenda in the superintendent search.
Thomas, who says she stands by her decision to interview internal candidates first, questioned the teachers union’s involvement in the April 2 news conference called by board President Susan Wittrup to challenge the board’s decision.
At that news conference, community leaders, including members of the teachers union, urged Fresno Unified board members to conduct the search the “right way,” with a scope that includes at least statewide candidates, and in an open and transparent way, led by and with community involvement.
Thomas said the labor union’s top leaders want to apply for the superintendency, which they couldn’t have done under the board’s original plan to interview internal candidates first.
District leaders, principals, teachers and other staff would be considered internal candidates who could apply.
Union presidents are district employees and could have applied; however, other union leaders and representatives would not have been able to unless the search was expanded to include external candidates.
Fresno Teachers Association leaders Louis Jamerson, pictured in the center, and Manuel Bonilla sign a tentative labor agreement between the teachers union and Fresno Unified School District last October. Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr
The teachers union’s executive director, Louis Jamerson, said he’ll apply to be Fresno Unified’s superintendent if the process is opened to external candidates, but added that questions about the union’s involvement in the search process are “ridiculous.”
The union’s executive board endorses Jamerson’s plan to become superintendent and Bonilla, FTA president, as deputy superintendent.
“We have some support from our executive board and from our teachers to pursue this,” Jamerson said, referring to his public announcement in February to 200 educators who gave him a standing ovation.
“But that assumes that that’s possible. I don’t know, ultimately, how the board is going to decide on this process,” Jamerson said. “There could be another hurdle that prevents me from being able to apply. But if there are no hurdles, in terms of the ability for me to apply to become the superintendent, I will apply.”
FTA involvement isn’t unique to this search
The teachers union has been involved in the superintendent search process dating back to 2005, when Mike Hanson was hired, and 2017, when Nelson was selected.
Jamerson said that ensuring that the right superintendent is selected isn’t the only action the union takes to improve the education of students in Fresno Unified, where most students are still not meeting state standards.
“In my almost 10-year tenure at FTA, we have been involved in trying to do our best, from where we are, to try to … move this rock up a hill in terms of our students: our student safety, our student academic outcomes, our students’ ability to learn, read, do math — all of that,” Jamerson said about work the union engages in.
Trustee Jonasson Rosas said the situation is causing uneasiness at the district’s many schools, where students are now preparing for testing and other end-of-year obligations, such as college applications. Students who spoke during the April 3 meeting confirmed their worry.
“It’s unsettling for our school sites,” Jonasson Rosas said, “and I’m concerned about the effects that our schools are having because of this.”
Edison High senior Yunah Vang was one of seven students who stood at the podium during last Wednesday’s meeting, though not all spoke.
”Instead of preparing for my graduation or getting ready for my prom, my classmates and I are here addressing issues that we are supposed to trust adults with,” Vang said.
But regardless of how the search unfolds, the next superintendent must address the district’s struggles with student performance, including children’s ability to read and teens’ college readiness.
For third grade — the school year believed to be pivotal in determining reading proficiency and predicting future success — less than 1 in 3 third-graders are at grade level, a GO Public Schools 2023 student outcome report on Fresno Unified showed.
Of high school seniors in Fresno Unified, according to the report, under 20% are ready for college courses in English while less than 5% are ready for college math courses. College readiness is defined by a student exceeding standards on the 11th grade standardized tests.
It’s still unclear how the superintendent selection process will proceed. It’s possible that the board will update the community about the next phase of the process at its meeting on April 10.
Many are wondering whether qualified candidates will risk applying and being part of a process that has questionable community support or to work under a fractured school board. EdSource found that less experienced superintendents are becoming common across the state as there is a rise in superintendents leaving the job; many who are leaving cite threats, stress and politics.
“Interested candidates are going to be looking at the process thus far,” said Henry, the district’s spokesperson. “They’re going to be looking at how the board operates, how district leadership operates, how our schools operate. They’re going to take a deep dive and decide if this is the right fit for them, so I think it’s yet to be seen if this has a positive or negative impact on a wider search.”
Joanne Scott, left, practices pharmaceutical compounding, part of Mt. San Antonio College’s short-term vocational pharmaceutical technician program.
Michael Burke/EdSource
Top Takeaways
Short-term vocational certificates, especially those in health fields, are growing across community colleges.
At Mt. San Antonio College, 83% of students complete the programs on their first try.
Officials see vocational training as a way to recover enrollments, which dropped sharply during the pandemic.
Joanne Scott had been without full-time work for about two decades and was struggling to reenter the workforce. Then she learned this year about a short-term pharmacy technician program at Mt. San Antonio College in eastern Los Angeles County.
Scott, 45, is a stand-up comedian who performs about twice a week in Los Angeles, usually at The Elysian Theater in the city’s Frogtown neighborhood, but was looking for a more consistent paycheck. She and her husband have twin 11-year-old boys, and Scott wanted to contribute more.
“Obviously, being a performer is not steady,” she said.
Scott thought something in the medical field would be promising because of the high demand in the job market. She landed on the pharmaceutical program in part because it fit her schedule. The noncredit program is just 20 weeks long, and classes are during the day, allowing Scott to still perform comedy in the evenings. Students who get their certificate often enter the workforce right away as a pharmaceutical technician, either at a retail location like Walgreens or within a hospital.
The program is one of 48 short-term vocational programs that Mt. San Antonio has added in the past five years as part of an effort to serve more adults and prepare them for the workforce. Most of the new programs are in health fields, but the college has also added programs in areas such as tax accounting, welding and appliance repair.
It’s reflective of a growing trend across the state’s community colleges to target more programs at adult students who, because they often work or have family to support, have less time for school than traditional-aged students do. College officials say that enrolling those adults is one way to reverse steep pandemic declines across all populations.
Serving large portions of the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire, Mt. San Antonio has prioritized noncredit vocational programs because many adults in the region are interested in upskilling or finding new careers, said Martha Garcia, the college’s president and CEO.
“If we look at trends for our traditional students, 18 to 24, that population is decreasing,” Garcia said. “I’ve analyzed our demographics, and if I want to impact this community at the greatest level that I can, I need to focus on serving adult learners, because that’s where we have the greatest level of need.”
The number of adult learners in the community college system took a massive hit during the pandemic: Head counts for students age 35 and older declined by about 25% between 2019 and 2021, an even higher rate than students in the 18 to 24 age range.
Those enrollments have, however, been steadily recovering in recent years, especially among students aged 35 to 44, who are now enrolled near their pre-pandemic levels.
One of the reasons for that is the expansion of short-term, noncredit vocational programs.
The programs are tuition-free for students, which is common for noncredit programs across the state. That helps the community colleges compete with for-profit colleges and other institutions that offer their own short-term programs, often with much higher tuition rates.
The colleges also benefit because they receive state funding for students enrolled in noncredit programs.
In 2023-24, community college enrollment statewide in noncredit career programs rose to nearly 82,000 full-time equivalent students, up about 37,000 from pandemic lows and also much higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Mt. San Antonio now has 89 noncredit vocational programs, and about 83% of students who enroll complete their chosen program on the first try. That’s much better than the percentage of students who typically finish longer degree programs at California’s community colleges: Fewer than 1 in 10 students complete an associate degree or transfer to a four-year university within two years of enrolling, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Most of the vocational programs at Mt. San Antonio have a limited number of spots and are open to students with a high school diploma or equivalent on a first-come, first-served basis. The college’s licensed vocational nursing program has more stringent admission standards, requiring students to submit high school transcripts, write a personal statement and demonstrate basic skills competency.
On a recent Tuesday morning on the Mt San Antonio campus, Scott and other students in her program were practicing pharmaceutical compounding, a process that involves mixing or altering drug ingredients to create a medication. In a classroom on the other side of the campus, students in the medical assistant program — another noncredit vocational program — were practicing cleaning minor wounds on one another.
Many of the programs also include an externship, essentially an unpaid internship with a local employer in which students shadow employees or get additional hands-on training. Pharmacy technician students complete a 120-hour externship at a retail location or at a nearby hospital such as Casa Colina in Pomona. Students who do well in their externships often get hired right away, said Amy Kamel, the instructor for the pharmaceutical technician program.
Whenever Mt. San Antonio designs a new vocational program, it’s typically based on labor market data and filling a need, said Diana Lupercio, the college’s director of short-term vocational programs.
“One of the main questions that students will ask us is, what can I do with this? They want to make sure it’s going to lead to a job,” Lupercio said.
Other times, students enroll as a first step to a more advanced degree, like going to pharmacy school or a registered nursing program. Registered nursing programs at California’s community colleges are typically competitive, with the number of applications often exceeding the number of available spots.
Sabrina Hernandez, 29, enrolled in the medical assistant program because it seemed like a “good stepping stone” to a career in health care. Hernandez, who is considering becoming a nurse, initially attended Fullerton College after high school and dropped out to work. She recently finished the medical assistant program at Mt. San Antonio and has started applying for jobs, which she’s hopeful will give her a better sense of whether she wants to continue on her current path.
“I thought this was a good way to make sure I actually like being in a hospital,” she said. Hernandez eventually plans to return to college if she can get admitted to a registered nursing program and is hoping her new certification will bolster her application.
Scott, the pharmaceutical tech student, has some interest in pursuing a more advanced degree and going to pharmacy school, but isn’t certain because doing so would lead to a more stressful career.
For now, she is going to class from 8 am to about 1:30 pm each Monday through Thursday and hoping to land a job at a hospital, which she said she would prefer to a retail job because she’d be interacting with doctors and nurses rather than directly with patients.
“I’m just looking forward to a reliable paycheck,” she said. “All my friends are performers who are poor, and I’ve been texting them saying, ‘You gotta go back to college.’”
High school junior Maya Shtangrud may have given up on her childhood dream of learning to play the violin — but now, serving as an arts justice fellow at the ACLU of Southern California, she remains steadfast in her advocacy for arts education.
Like many, she hoped Proposition 28 — a ballot measure passed by roughly 65% of voters in November 2022 to allocate about $1 billion toward arts education each year — would lead to greater opportunities for her fellow students.
She’s not quite as optimistic now, and is joining a group of teachers and advocates to sound alarms on the district’s alleged mismanagement of their estimated $76.7 million in Proposition 28 money — which they claim has been used to pay for current teachers rather than create new programs or bolster existing ones.
“I really want adults, teachers, administrators, people who distribute the Prop. 28 funds, to understand that they need to really think about it from our perspective and see how much it is impacting us,” said Shtangrud, who now plays jazz piano and enjoys filmmaking. “A lot of people don’t understand the impact that the arts have on us students.”
Most families assume their children are getting some form of arts education, said Janine Riveire, a professor of music and music education at Cal Poly Pomona. Many also hoped that Proposition 28’s passage would lead to better outcomes for their children.
Despite Proposition 28’s widespread support in the polls, bringing arts education to students across the Los Angeles Unified School District has remained a challenge — with educators and advocates claiming that the district’s implementation of Proposition 28 has failed to give individual campuses their own discretion over the use of their funds, leading to roadblocks that impede teachers’ ability to access supplies central to their artistic discipline.
“Millions of Californians, voters and parents and others, voted for more arts funding for schools,” said Amir Whitaker, senior policy counsel of the ACLU of Southern California’, who is also part of the LAUSD Arts Advisory Council. “And that’s not what we’re seeing.”
Widespread calls to action
On March 25, various unions and former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, who authored Proposition 28, wrote a letter to state officials — Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas — demanding the state hold districts accountable for their spending.
“Prop 28 is the largest investment in arts and music in U.S. history and establishes California as a national leader. But only if it’s properly implemented,” the letter reads.
“If school districts are allowed to violate the law without consequence and substitute the new funds for something they were already spending money on, their actions will make a mockery of voters’ clear wishes.”
The letter — supported by SEIU 99 President Max Arias, Oakland Education Association President Ismael Armendariz, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz, California Federation of Teachers President Jeff Freitas, Teamsters Local 572 Secretary-Treasurer Lourdes M. Garcia, California Teachers Association President David Goldberg — also urged the state officials to direct schools to submit, within a 30-day window, proof that they have not supplanted money and a list of teachers employed during both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.
“Instead of hiring about 15,000 additional teachers and aides, the funds would instead be used to pay for existing programs,” the letter reads. “This means millions of children will miss out on the arts education voters promised them.”
In a statement to EdSource, LAUSD said it remains committed to arts education. This year, the district budgeted $129.5 million toward the arts, on top of $76.7 million from Proposition 28, for a total of more than $206 million. That is almost three times the $74.4 million that a district spokesperson said LAUSD spent on arts education in the 2022-23 academic year.
“We couldn’t agree more in how formative and critical the arts are for personal development, social emotional regulation, educational attunement, and an overall appreciation for diversity, cultures, and experiences,” according to the statement. “That is why the arts are so central to the instruction and pedagogy of Los Angeles Unified.”
The district also claimed its current investments in the arts “meet and exceed requirements specific to Prop 28, and that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho is coordinating “a comprehensive multilayered scan” of the district’s investments and expenses.
While applauding efforts at various districts throughout the state — and especially in Bakersfield and Santa Monica — for their implementation of Proposition 28, Beutner said LAUSD’s statewide leadership in arts education has waned over the past decade, referring to it as “the poster child for how to violate law.”
“Maybe the time in which (various districts) responded was similar, but one read the law and chose to do what the law says and do the right thing for kids in their schools,” Beutner said. “One read the law and said, ‘OK, we’re going to ignore that, and we’re going to do something different, and we’re going to cut funding for the arts and hope nobody finds out.’
“Two different approaches. Same law.”
Proposition 28 spending at the district level
Beutner said that before Proposition 28’s passage, only about 20% of California’s public schools had a full-time arts or music teacher. Advocates for the measure faced no opposition, and support was widespread — and garnered about 65% of the vote, he added.
Proposition 28 was also designed to prioritize hiring new arts teachers — and schools are required under the measure to use at least 80% of funds to hire staff. The funds are supposed to add to the existing money — not replace it, which Whitaker and several teachers told EdSource that LAUSD is doing. They also said they’ve heard accounts of the district firing arts teachers only to rehire them with Proposition 28 funds. They fear that this practice will deplete the funds without making any improvement in arts ed.
“For the 2023-2024 school year, the LAUSD’s General Fund is not being utilized for either of the above purposes,” an instructor claimed in an email to the California Department of Education.
“Instead, LAUSD has replaced the General Fund’s allocations for itinerant arts positions (approximately 250 FTE funded in the 2022-2023 school year) and the allocations for arts materials/supplies for every elementary and secondary school with the funds from Proposition 28.”
Ginger Rose Fox, an elementary school dance teacher who serves as the United Teachers Los Angeles Arts Education committee chair, said she is concerned that LAUSD’s implementation is costing schools their autonomy in choosing how to spend their Proposition 28 money.
Beutner added that giving schools autonomy is also the law.
“Not top down ‘what does the district want done?’ … This was written to give agency to school communities, and it saddens me greatly to see L.A. Unified ignoring what was written in the law, the will of the voters to do something, just because they want to do it their way.”
Ensuring schools can make their own decisions directly affects students’ ability to access certain arts disciplines and have continued access throughout their K-12 education, Fox said.
“Can this kid who was excelling in dance in elementary school be able to have dance in middle school?” Fox said.
Fox and other educators have emphasized that giving individual schools autonomy on how to allocate resources is critical to that process.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring families into school to engage alongside teachers and school leaders and say, ‘What do we want to do?’” Beutner said.
In November, Fox wrote a letter to Thurmond and California Department of Education.
In addition to concerns about allegedly supplanted money, Fox claimed that the district’s use of Proposition 28 funds has also depleted the stock for critical arts supplies.
Arts educators and advocates stressed that some teachers are now struggling to purchase basic materials that are critical to their discipline — ranging from musical instruments to clay and visual arts supplies.
Many of them are still calling for accountability and hoping that the funds will eventually come to support students.
Beutner said he had hoped that after the documentary film “The Last Repair Shop” won an Oscar recently, the district would make a greater commitment to arts education. Unfortunately, he said, that did not happen.
“The repair shop has been wonderful. It’s been long standing, and the people that work there are my heroes,” Beutner said. “How, at the same time, could you be and have been, for more than a year now, cutting funding for the arts?”
As a former public school kid who grew up in Southern California, I recall racing through the lunch line to quickly grab a cardboard tray and scarf down a soggy, plastic-wrapped meal in the scant time available to me. By the time the bell rang, there were often many students still waiting in the lunch line, having to rush back to class with a slice of pizza in hand.
These seemingly small memories may have a big impact on behavior, with research from the University of Michigan showing that 1 in 8 American adults show signs of food addictions.
Universal school lunch programs are now active in eight states, including California, with many more looking to follow. This is a huge stride forward in increasing nutrition access for public school students. But there is a notable gap in that there are no federal regulations mandating a minimum amount of time for school meals. Students across the country, including at California public schools, have been stuck dumping their meals out and rushing back to class.
Schools play a pivotal role in shaping young minds, but how effective are school lunch programs if children are left hungry waiting in a meal line or rushed through their meals?
To try to achieve equity in K-12 schools, policymakers and educators have rightfully prioritized the need for food access in schools. This movement could extend the positive effects in a low-cost way by implementing sufficient time for lunch in school. There’s plenty of research on how food can improve test scores, and a 2021 study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that middle school students given 20 seated minutes for lunch ate more fruits and vegetables.
Time is a critical aspect of food — time to eat, digest and engage in a social, communal experience that extends beyond just a full stomach. Think of iconic scenes in iconic movies like “Mean Girls” and “The Breakfast Club” that take place during cafeteria time — these are hallmarks of youth that deserve ample time. Food is vital to culture and relationship-building, teaching kids important lessons of socialization and connection that endure for life. Although planning school schedules can be a crunch to ensure required instructional minutes are met, cutting lunch times short is not a sufficient or sustainable solution for students.
By establishing a minimum duration for school meals, schools will acknowledge that fostering a healthy relationship with food is important to setting kids up for a positive future. There may not be one right solution for all schools, but the California Department of Education has suggested making sure lunch is at least 20 minutes, having recess before lunch, requiring a specific amount of time sitting, and ensuring students can get through the food lines quickly.
The interplay of cafeteria, community and classroom (the 3 Cs) reflects how K-12 schools extend beyond students’ desks. Young students are sponges of knowledge, and giving them the building blocks of mindful eating by encouraging longer lunch times can enhance efforts to help students live healthy lives and impact their lifelong eating habits. As mental health advocates call for increased mindfulness in our educational institutions, this philosophy must be extended to the cafeteria.
Now is the perfect time for schools to become environments where students feel empowered to make smart choices about the food they consume. Even with universal free school lunches, parents should continue investigating and asking their children about the food they are getting in school — and whether they’re able to spend time eating it.
Let’s bridge the gap between educational equity and nutritional equity, pushing for a system that enables well-nourished, mindful students to embrace learning during their time at school.
●●●
Julia Ransom is a senior at Stanford University studying human biology.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
