Bullying against California’s Asian American and Pacific Islander youth remains stubbornly high — affecting nearly 1 in 5 ninth and 11th graders, just above the statewide rate for all students.
But we’re missing a big part of the problem if we continue to lump all Asian American students into a catch-all group. We’re not seeing which ethnic subgroups are most vulnerable. And what we can’t see, we can’t solve.
We recently disaggregated statewide bullying data from the California Healthy Kids Survey, collected annually between 2015 and 2021, to see what might be hiding in plain sight within our state’s 10 Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups. What we saw in the data was troubling.
Nearly 1 in 3 Cambodian ninth and 11th graders were bullied based on their identity including race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. This is 1.5 times the overall Asian American and Pacific Islander rate. Hmong, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and Laotian youth experience similarly higher rates. If we aggregated these groups into a catch-all group, their elevated risks would disappear from sight.
In another concerning trend for each of these ethnic groups, bullying rates initially declined between 2019 and 2020, but rebounded by 2021, often exceeding pre-pandemic levels. However, we don’t see this pattern for Asian American and Pacific Islander students as a whole. These rebounds are all the more critical to address because they may exacerbate the educational impacts of the pandemic. Research shows that bullying can erode academic achievement, increase absences and reduce mental health.
There is some good news in the data. We saw reductions in bullying if students had supportive adults and stronger connections at school. We also discovered several school districts that provided resources specifically tailored to Asian American and Pacific Islander students and their families. For example, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Resource Guide addresses anti-Asian racism and offers lesson plans and curriculum that uplifts the experiences and contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islanders across the state.
Based on our work, we recommend two starting points for schools and districts aiming to prevent and address bullying.
First, schools serving Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth must figure out what is happening in these groups. If the statewide findings mirror local trends, then schools and districts should assess what kinds of anti-bullying resources are being channeled to these youth. Resources could include specific materials and outreach strategies tailored — culturally and linguistically — to students and families from specific Asian American and Pacific Islander groups.
Second, schools need to assess how they are creating inclusive and welcoming environments where students can form strong connections with supportive adults. Enhancing the school climate benefits not only Asian American students, but all students.
We know that schools are continually asked to do more with less. So we recommend that schools take stock of what they are already doing to build stronger connections rather than create something new requiring an entirely new set of resources.
Many schools strengthen teacher-student connections through existing schoolwide programs, like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports alongside curricula to support social and emotional well-being. Figuring out where there’s room for improvement within those existing programs is a step in the right direction. Schools should also evaluate how effective they are in intentionally building more positive connections for Asian American and Pacific Islander students.
Making schools more inclusive so that bullying is an exception, and not the norm, will require dismantling monolithic assumptions we hold of Asian American and Pacific Islander youth, digging deeper into subgroup data, and devising ways to deepen meaningful connections with our students. Such an approach will also help ensure we more fully recognize the diversity and humanity of these young people across our state.
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.
Bullying against California’s Asian American and Pacific Islander youth remains stubbornly high — affecting nearly 1 in 5 ninth and 11th graders, just above the statewide rate for all students.
But we’re missing a big part of the problem if we continue to lump all Asian American students into a catch-all group. We’re not seeing which ethnic subgroups are most vulnerable. And what we can’t see, we can’t solve.
We recently disaggregated statewide bullying data from the California Healthy Kids Survey, collected annually between 2015 and 2021, to see what might be hiding in plain sight within our state’s 10 Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups. What we saw in the data was troubling.
Nearly 1 in 3 Cambodian ninth and 11th graders were bullied based on their identity including race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. This is 1.5 times the overall Asian American and Pacific Islander rate. Hmong, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and Laotian youth experience similarly higher rates. If we aggregated these groups into a catch-all group, their elevated risks would disappear from sight.
In another concerning trend for each of these ethnic groups, bullying rates initially declined between 2019 and 2020, but rebounded by 2021, often exceeding pre-pandemic levels. However, we don’t see this pattern for Asian American and Pacific Islander students as a whole. These rebounds are all the more critical to address because they may exacerbate the educational impacts of the pandemic. Research shows that bullying can erode academic achievement, increase absences and reduce mental health.
There is some good news in the data. We saw reductions in bullying if students had supportive adults and stronger connections at school. We also discovered several school districts that provided resources specifically tailored to Asian American and Pacific Islander students and their families. For example, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Resource Guide addresses anti-Asian racism and offers lesson plans and curriculum that uplifts the experiences and contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islanders across the state.
Based on our work, we recommend two starting points for schools and districts aiming to prevent and address bullying.
First, schools serving Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth must figure out what is happening in these groups. If the statewide findings mirror local trends, then schools and districts should assess what kinds of anti-bullying resources are being channeled to these youth. Resources could include specific materials and outreach strategies tailored — culturally and linguistically — to students and families from specific Asian American and Pacific Islander groups.
Second, schools need to assess how they are creating inclusive and welcoming environments where students can form strong connections with supportive adults. Enhancing the school climate benefits not only Asian American students, but all students.
We know that schools are continually asked to do more with less. So we recommend that schools take stock of what they are already doing to build stronger connections rather than create something new requiring an entirely new set of resources.
Many schools strengthen teacher-student connections through existing schoolwide programs, like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports alongside curricula to support social and emotional well-being. Figuring out where there’s room for improvement within those existing programs is a step in the right direction. Schools should also evaluate how effective they are in intentionally building more positive connections for Asian American and Pacific Islander students.
Making schools more inclusive so that bullying is an exception, and not the norm, will require dismantling monolithic assumptions we hold of Asian American and Pacific Islander youth, digging deeper into subgroup data, and devising ways to deepen meaningful connections with our students. Such an approach will also help ensure we more fully recognize the diversity and humanity of these young people across our state.
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.
Political signs for the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified school board are on display at an intersection in Yorba Linda.
Credit: Courtesy of Kevin Reed
Millions of California residents will not have the opportunity to vote for the people representing them on their school boards on Nov. 5 because many of the board races will not appear on the ballot.
EdSource analyzed data from 1,510 school board races in 49 California counties and found that 851 races, or 56%, will not appear on a ballot because either no one is running for the seat or a single candidate is running unopposed – making that person an instant winner.
The problem is most prevalent in more remote areas of the state, where the lack of school board members has been an ongoing issue, said Troy Flint, chief information officer for the California School Boards Association.
Districts in rural counties have smaller populations, limiting the pool of candidates for school board, and offer fewer incentives — such as monthly stipends or health insurance — than larger districts, said Yuri Calderon, executive director of the Small School Districts’ Association.
In Siskiyou County, 14 school districts do not have candidates running for their open board seats, and in San Benito County, there are 20 candidates for 31 open school board seats, leaving 13 seats without candidates. Only one race, for Trustee Area 4 in the Hollister School District, is on the ballot. It has three candidates.
In Nevada County, four of the nine districts have no candidates for their open board seats. In Plumas County, there are no school board races on the Nov. 5 ballot, although there are a total of six open seats in two districts, according to the county elections department.
School board members are responsible for setting the vision for the district, hiring its superintendent, adopting policies and curriculum, passing a balanced district budget, overseeing facilities, providing direction for and accepting collective bargaining agreements, monitoring student achievement and making program changes as needed, according to the California School Boards Association.
Calderon recalls having to convince community members to run for school board when he was the chief business officer at Cold Spring School District, which serves 193 K-6 students in Santa Barbara County.
There is less incentive for rural residents to run for school board because they are usually more satisfied with their schools and less likely to think of a school board seat as a springboard to higher political office, like candidates in more populated areas of the state might, Calderon said.
The absence of school board candidates on the ballot suggests an erosion of what many regard as a pillar of American democracy in places where there is reluctance or unwillingness to run for board positions.
Cities, suburbs also have a shortage of candidates
“One of the dynamics that’s been playing out has been people reluctant to hold onto their seats, and then people are reluctant to run for office because there’s a lot of hostility out there, and sometimes threatening behavior that are prompting either existing school board members or potential school board members to rethink whether or not they want to hold this office,” said John Rogers, director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA.
The shortage of willing school board candidates is also impacting urban and suburban areas, according to the EdSource analysis. In Los Angeles County, for example, 252 candidates are running for 174 seats, meaning 90 seats have only one candidate and will not be on the ballot. The same goes for Sacramento County, where there are only 54 candidates running for 31 seats and San Diego County where 169 candidates are vying for 100 seats.
Calderon and Siskiyou County Superintendent of Schools Allan Carver agree that potential candidates are sometimes wary about running for a board seat because of the political divisiveness that has been playing out at school board meetings.
“It’s kind of one of those thankless jobs,” Calderon said. “And there has been a lot in the media about controversial issues and people becoming very, more so than just polarized, kind of aggressive with their positions. And I think that people shy away from wanting to get involved in that.”
Some rural district seldom hold elections
The lack of candidates is so common in some rural districts, school boards routinely fill empty seats by appointing people – often the incumbents – after the filing deadline ends. Some districts rarely have elections.
“It’s very typical,” said Krystal Lomanto, San Benito County superintendent of schools. “We have seven rural districts and many of those districts do not have board members that actually run for seats – they end up appointing them. So, it is a consistent practice, at least in our community. We don’t often have – in our rural school districts – board members that run against each other, so it happens quite often.”
San Benito County, a rural county in the Central Coast region, has some of the smallest school districts in the state – 15 districts with a total enrollment of 11,969 students.
In Siskiyou County, the northernmost county in the state, there are 30 candidates running for 67 school board seats in 25 districts. Fourteen school districts have no candidates for any of their open board seats and six districts have 11 seats with candidates running unopposed.
Carver expects the number of vacancies to dwindle by January when many of the open seats will be claimed by incumbents who did not file candidacy paperwork, but will continue to hold their seats by appointment.
“A lot of these vacancies, they’d hardly even consider them vacant because I bet more than half of those — probably 20 of the 37 — the (incumbent) board members are like, ‘No, I’m happy to serve. I just didn’t get my paperwork in, so just appoint me,’” Carver said.
Finding candidates for board seats in extremely small districts can be difficult. The result is often multiple family members sitting on one board. Delphic Elementary School District in Siskiyou County is governed by a board made up of a mother, father and their adult daughter, Carver said. The single school serves 65 students, many from outside the district — limiting the number of parents eligible to run for school board, he said.
“This family happens to own property that borders the school and their driveway goes right by the school,” Carver said. “Their kids went to school there, and they’ve had a long history of supporting it. So, talk about local control.”
Stipends, insurance could attract candidates
Carver is doing what he can to make being a member of the Siskiyou County Board of Education more attractive. He recently convinced the board to raise the monthly stipend from $40 to $100 so that he could attract more candidates. He said the board, like many other rural school boards, was reluctant to increase their own pay. The board also receives health insurance.
Most school districts in Siskiyou County can’t afford to pay their board a stipend to cover expenses or to offer them insurance, Carver said.
What happens if no one runs for a seat?
If no one runs for a board seat, school boards can either appoint a trustee or hold a special election. Most boards opt to appoint a trustee to avoid costly special elections.
Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro sent a letter to families last month asking parents to consider applying for a seat on the board that does not have a candidate in the upcoming election. District officials also sent news releases about the available seat, advertised it in video updates and on the district’s social media accounts, and placed a legal notice in a local newspaper, said Sam Rolens, district spokesperson.
The district, which serves 4,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, along the state’s Central Coast, has three open seats. The two other seats that are available have one only candidate each, meaning they also will not be on the ballot.
Applicants for the open Santa Cruz seat without a candidate had until Oct. 18 to file their applications. Three days before the deadline, two people had applied, Rolens said. The district offers its trustees a $50 monthly stipend, according to Santa Cruz Local.
Santa Cruz County has even fewer residents interested in running for school boards this year than in the previous election, according to Santa Cruz Local. Three-quarters of the open board seats in Santa Cruz County, including those in Santa Cruz City Schools, will not be on the ballot on Nov. 5, according to the news site.
Boards must have quorum to conduct business
Having a full board is imperative for conducting the school district’s business. In order to vote on agenda items, a school board must have the majority of its board in attendance. Five-member boards, for example, must have at least three, and seven-member boards must have at least four members present to take action on an agenda item.
If the school district cannot fill enough board seats to have a quorum, the county Office of Education can send one of its board members to act as a substitute until the district can make an appointment.
Having a member of the Board of Education sit on school boards isn’t common, but it has happened a few times in Siskiyou County, Carver said. In one case, a county Board of Education member became a temporary board member at a tiny district serving 25 students after it lost two members of its three-person board. In another case, a board member sat on a district board for three months until they found a willing appointee, Carver said.
Despite the dire shortage of school board candidates, Carver says he tries to encourage people who will be willing to learn and consider all sides of an issue to run for office.
“You know, we always want to encourage people who have the right faculties and demeanor, and seek to truly govern for all and don’t have just one specific issue they’re concerned about,” Carver said.
A sign in support of public school is seen outside a home next to Sutro Elementary School in San Francisco on Oct. 9, 2024. The school is among the 11 schools previously proposed for closure within San Francisco Unified School District amid decline in enrollment and budgetary woes.
Credit: Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
San Francisco must do everything it can to avert a state takeover of its schools.
That’s the stark message brought by Carl A. Cohn, the only outside educator to be brought in to help the team of city administrators set up by Mayor London Breed to help the school district overcome multiple crises, including a looming budget shortage, declining enrollment, and the departure of its superintendent, the second in two years.
“I remain a huge fan of local control,” said Cohn, a revered figure in education circles in California and nationally. “I fundamentally believe that if historically underserved students are going to be rescued, it is going to be by locals, not by state government or higher levels of authority.”
Carl A. Cohn
The challenges facing the 48,000-student district are being experienced to some degree by many others around the state. Just across the San Francisco Bay, Oakland Unified and West Contra Costa Unified, which includes Richmond, are grappling with comparable challenges.
San Francisco’s, however, seem especially acute.
“I think the loss of federal pandemic relief funds, coupled with declining enrollments will make things difficult for most districts, but San Francisco is probably ahead of the curve on this,” he said.
There’s little that Cohn, who projects calm and reassurance but can also be disarmingly direct, has not seen in his 50 years in an array of roles in public education.
He was superintendent of the San Diego and Long Beach school districts, the second- and third-largest in California after Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD). His 10-year tenure at Long Beach was especially noteworthy for fostering academic excellence and accountability, resulting in the district winning the prestigious Broad Prize For Urban Education.
He was appointed to the State Board of Education by then Gov. Jerry Brown, who later recruited him to lead a new state agency, the California Collaborative for Education Excellence.
He has been brought in to deal with various trouble spots over the years. He co-chaired a commission of the National Academy of Sciences to look into whether District of Columbia schools had exaggerated their academic results under the leadership of Michelle Rhee, then arguably the best-known, and most controversial, school superintendent in the nation.
He was the court-appointed monitor overseeing a consent decree to improve special education in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Currently, he is co-leading an initiative with Harvard professor Jennifer Cheatham to prepare school superintendents to cope with the political polarization roiling school districts across the country.
He has also been a mentor to generations of school superintendents, and trained many of them as a professor at Claremont Graduate University, and at the University of Southern California before that.
Cohn has never had to close schools himself and says that San Francisco must do everything it can to find alternatives to doing so. That is similar to a mindset Breed appears also to have embraced, and was a major reason behind the resignation of Superintendent Matt Wayne last week.
For now, at least, school closure plans are on hold. “The challenge with closing schools from a symbolic point of view is that it can be seen as the beginning of the death of a community,” Cohn says.
“There are multiple ways to cut a school district budget,” he says. “And if you have to, there are ways to do it so it is not a huge negative.”
He recalls being sent to Inglewood Unified a dozen years ago by then-State Board President Michael Kirst to take stock of the deep financial hole the Southern California district was in.
He found a lackadaisical attitude among school officials about the prospect of a state administrator with the power to overrule local decisionmaking. “They seemed to think the takeover wasn’t such a big deal, that after the bailout they would get their authority back,” he says. “And here we are, 12 years later, with the district nowhere near having an elected school board with any authority.”
The district is still overseen by an administrator appointed by the county.
Cohn has yet to meet Breed, but two weeks ago he came from Palm Springs, where he is based, to meet with the mayor’s School Stabilization Team made up of top San Francisco officials, co-led by Maria Su, the longtime head of the city’s Department of Children, Youth and Their Families. In an unexpected move last week, the school board appointed Su to be the new superintendent, at least until June 2026.
He points out that, unlike other large urban districts in California, the city of San Francisco commendably contributes funding to its schools, which means it has a more direct stake in their functioning.
What is essential is strict oversight over how the district spends its money, he says. He recalls the first day he was given a tour of the administration offices at Long Beach Unified as a 31-year-old educator in the district.
On the second floor was a tiny office with a sign on the door reading “Position Control” right next to the budget office. He was told it was the most powerful office in the district — one that determined what staff could be hired at a school. “Even if you were the superintendent you could not get a position filled unless Position Control said it was in the current budget.”
In addition, each year the district’s research office issued what was called a “quota bulletin,” which decreed how many employees a school qualified for based on its enrollment. Its edicts, he says, were “treated as a sacred document that had been handed down from Mt. Sinai.”
A similar parsimonious ethos is in place in parochial schools. “What is notable about these schools is that they are not over resourced,” said Cohn, who advises the California Catholic Conference on its schools. “You won’t find an assistant principal, a counselor, a reading specialist unless the school has the enrollment to support it.”
“My impression is that these types of controls were not present in the San Francisco school system,” he says. “It’s important for spending to be based on actual enrollment and not on wishful spending.”
He says it would be important to bring all key parties together — the mayor’s stabilization team, incoming Superintendent Su and her deputy, board representatives, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, a state-sponsored oversight agency — and put them all in the same room to have a “candid conversation.”
“Getting a handle on what exactly they need to do to retain local control seems like a real important value,” he said.
One thing schools can have no impact on is declining birthrates, Cohn points out. So other strategies to attract and retain students will be needed.
He notes that San Francisco has many private, parochial and charter groups — more than most communities. He suggests conducting focus groups with people who are opting out of more traditional public schools to find out more precisely “what it is that those schools are offering that San Francisco isn’t.”
That could suggest strategies that San Francisco could offer — from more child care to innovative magnet schools — to support families and to encourage them to enroll their children in district schools.
San Francisco schools are especially vulnerable to being taken over by the state. In recent years, when the state bails out a district financially, authority to appoint an administrator has been delegated to the county offices of education. But because San Francisco is both a city and a county, it would be subject to, in Cohn’s words,”an old-fashioned state administrator.”
With Mayor Breed up for reelection in two weeks, and with four of seven school board seats also on the ballot, the district faces many unknowns.
Regardless of what happens on Election Day, Cohn says a fundamental issue the district has to address is “what kinds of resources a school gets based on its enrollment so that future spending doesn’t spiral out of control because someone thinks ‘I need this’ or “I need that.’”
Not all screen time is created equal, and how kids spend it, whether creatively or passively, can make all the difference.
For instance, young children who watch a “Bluey” episode or play a memory game with their parents can build new cognitive and social-emotional skills early in their development. Also, teenagers can and have used their online networks to engage with social media-based mental health resources before they feel confident enough to reach out to a counselor or therapist.
But as children and adolescents have become increasingly isolated from their support systems at home and at school — exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic — they have become more vulnerable to threats such as cyberbullying and predatory behavior online. Kids’ first line of defense, ultimately, is an adult who has earned their trust and is able to guide them when necessary.
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, in 2022, 21.6% of students who were bullied said the bullying had happened online, a nearly 6 percentage-point jump from those reporting being bullied online in 2019. A 2021 survey by the National Crime Prevention Council found that only about a third of victims blocked their bully online, and only about a tenth told their parents about the incident.
New risks like AI-generated imagery and financial sexual extortion also contribute to the 87% increase in online child sexual abuse reports since 2019, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. As young children get online at earlier ages, preteens spend over half of their waking days on screens, and social media algorithms push harmful, addictive content to teen users, the threat of a dangerous interaction is often one unsolicited or derogatory message away.
Lawmakers and school administrators across the country are tackling online safety and well-being with policies such as banning cellphones in schools and restricting addictive algorithms on children and teenagers’ social media feeds. For Fareedah Shaheed, a children’s online safety expert, prevention and intervention start with the adults — parents, teachers and school counselors — interacting with kids on a daily basis.
Children’s online safety expert and consultant Fareedah Shaheed.
“I see the real change in those interpersonal relationships between (educators) and parents, people exchanging information they can use to start talking to (each other),” Shaheed told school administrators, counselors, teachers and advocates at a student wellness conference. “I believe the biggest impact is on the ground.”
EdSource interviewed Shaheed about her experiences and how adults can help keep young people safe online. Her remarks have been edited for length and clarity.
What can students learn about online safety from your early internet experiences?
When I was 13, I got my first smartphone. I started playing mobile games and talking to strangers online. I had a near miss with an online predator. I was (planning on) meeting someone at 16, when he was 40 years old. I was a very private teenager, and I kept my online life secret. So the only reason why I told my mom, ‘Hey, I’m just going to meet this guy that I met at an online game in the park,’ was because I was her only child, and I felt like it was the mature thing to tell her where I was going. But I wasn’t asking her for permission because she would’ve said no.
She knew that this was really serious if I was telling her this, because she knew I was a very private person. But she didn’t ask to look into my phone. And instead of her taking away my phone, getting upset with me, she just wanted to know, ‘Who’s this person? What’s his name? Why did you connect? Why do you like him? Why do you want to meet?’ And that changed my entire life because she came to me as an experienced friend, and I decided I did not want to go. That conversation saved me. From those experiences being groomed online and talking to strangers as a kid, I went into cybersecurity and threat intelligence, and I started doing workshops with organizations to raise awareness and then create some actionable impact on internet safety for kids.
What concerns about online safety do you hear from parents, educators and school counselors?
I hear a lot of stories about cyberbullying, kids talking to strangers online, being addicted to social media and making comparisons (online.) The hardest stories to hear are when parents lose their children. They lose their child through suicide, or they lose their child’s (trust) to someone targeting them. I heard from one parent that her son, who was groomed as a (child), was now grooming another child. The mental turmoil that she went through as a parent completely took her out. She came back from that, and told me her son is in therapy now (unpacking) his own history of abuse. She’s looking back at her life and retracing her steps as a parent, thinking, “What the hell did I do wrong?”
I advise parents to prioritize safe spaces, accountability, fun and empathy to protect kids online. We also have discussions over time about mental health resources and helping kids create a community around a shared problem, such as an after-school program for kids experiencing bullying. Many school counselors can also have a closer relationship with the student only because there is that degree of separation of, “You’re not my parent, and you’re not trying to control my life.” In certain circumstances, counselors have an easier time becoming the experienced friend role.
How have these threats, such as cyberbullying, grooming and sextortion, changed since you first used the internet?
We would always tell kids, “Don’t share pictures of yourself with other people, especially strangers,” right? Now you have AI (artificial intelligence). We’re at a point where it doesn’t matter if you don’t share (photos), someone can create something that looks real. I didn’t grow up with that. That’s a whole different ballgame. So I believe we have to act like everyone has been in this situation — anyone can experience extortion — and have mental health (resources) for those who are experiencing or experience this at some point.
New developments like AI can often feel inaccessible to parents and educators. How can adults protect kids if they don’t entirely understand the threat in the first place?
You don’t have to know more than your kids to protect them. You don’t have to be tech-savvy to protect them. You don’t have to know all the new slang to protect your kids, because what predators want are parents staying in the darkness. When you’re thinking about sextortion, AI, cyberbullying, predatory behavior, inappropriate content, screen time, all of these things rely on one domino effect. If you research the predatory handbook for targeting kids on Roblox or Minecraft, they’re not saying, “We want parents who don’t understand technology or the newest thing.” They’re saying, “We want parents who don’t know what their kids are going through emotionally.” They want parents who themselves struggle with mental illness, lack support or resources and feel isolated. That’s why the resources that will help protect kids are also support for parents — financial, self-care, mental health. That’s what matters more than parents knowing the latest thing.
Can school cellphone bans help protect kids online?
I believe there’s a better way to do it. Schools are trying to introduce something new to solve a huge problem, and I do believe that it’s necessary, but I don’t believe “ban” is the best term. I think “policy” is the best term. I believe schools have to have the students be part of the decision, otherwise it’s going to create a lot of friction. If the students are part of the decision, you understand how students are using the cellphone and how they can use it in a way that’s according to the policy and what’s best for them.
Many students don’t approach school counselors about their online problems, and many might not recognize that online interaction could be unsafe or outside the norm. In that case, how can schools better identify the issue and intervene?
Schools can help by giving them the tools to solve a problem that they don’t see, because the adults are not in control of what happens. Counselors can provide educational programs about mental health resources, talking through online scenarios and explaining the tools (students) can use to deal with a situation so that they can, one, identify it for themselves, and then two, know how to self-regulate. They can slowly work themselves out of the situation, whether it’s removing themselves from the relationship, blocking somebody, reporting somebody — no one has to know. Sometimes you can remove yourself from a situation and not have to talk to somebody about it. There should be resources for them when they need to talk about it and provide that support, but it’s also about making it normal to have those conversations in school, letting them hear different stories from other people, teaching them red flags and how to identify their own discomfort.
Can online threats present differently, especially for students in marginalized communities?
[A 2022 survey found that Black teens are about twice as likely as Hispanic or white teenagers to say they were targeted online for their race. Teenagers who identify as part of the LGBTQ community also face more harassment online related to their identities, including hateful language or sexual victimization, and have been found to be more susceptible to cyberbullying.]
Whether it was being a Black gamer girl online or posting on social media as a Black girl, I spent my entire childhood being bullied for being Black and for being the only Black girl in classes a lot of the time. It’s harder for kids from these backgrounds to have the tools and support systems to deal with the (bullying). So if there are other minority or underrepresented communities, they can also have that community at school. I’ve seen schools that have groups like Black Gamer Girl clubs — these five students that meet every Thursday after school, for example — that are really helpful for their mental health and for them to feel safe online. Schools can also have classes that serve them, in particular by giving them tools to deal with bullying, having conversations about what they see online if they’re creating content, how they make sense of someone saying something horrible about them, and then how to walk through that and emotionally regulate.
Teenagers also seek emotional support and information about their identities online. How can they identify the line between dangerous interactions and ones that might feel new and uncertain — and a little uncomfortable for parents — but might also help them feel more secure in themselves?
[For example, transgender and queer students often find acceptance in online communities known to reduce reports of depression and suicidal thoughts in LGBTQ youth. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many reported being stuck at home with unsupportive parents, flocking to online communities for acceptance.]
It’s so much better for your child to be involved in communities that you may be uncomfortable with when you’re there to support them, even in your discomfort, than for your child to go behind your back and not tell you and get a burner phone. Most of the time, the community that your child is connecting with online is going to be OK, so long as they have your support and someone to talk to. It becomes dangerous when the parent or caretaker can’t be involved because the child thinks that they can’t share their experiences.
I loved anime. I loved cosplaying. I loved gaming. And the online world has a lot of communities that understand you, you feel safe and that you’re in a non-judgmental space. But then, when you go to school or are with your parents or friends who are outside that space, they might make you feel like you’re different or too much or too little or weird. The reason why I started talking to strangers wasn’t because I love talking to strangers, but because I didn’t feel accepted elsewhere. If you’re a teenager and you’re worried about your best friend speaking with older strangers online, for example, the best thing you can do is stay in their life in whatever capacity is safe for you. When something happens, you can be there for them in whatever capacity you have and help them out of that situation.
What advice do you have for educators and parents trying to introduce young children to the online world in a positive way?
When children are younger than 7 or 8, it’s all about play and their association with you and play, being there with them in the environment, eye contact and engaging with them. Sensical, from Common Sense, is a great organization that has screen time suggestions based on age that are fun and joyful. As children get older, (parents and educators) can start introducing more teaching concepts. For some digital literacy resources and activities, you have FBI Safe Online Surfing, Google’s Be Internet Awesome and Net Smartz Kids. Fun is one of the most underrated ways to protect kids online and help them with screen time too. It doesn’t matter if the online activity is the greatest activity in the world, if a teacher is stressed out, in what way can you find fun in the activity? For early educators like preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers, anytime I do a workshop with a school, I ask, “What do you need? What are you seeing? What is your capacity? What is the kids’ capacity? What are their ages, their background?” Then, we create something customized for them. But (educators) shouldn’t shy away from technology.
West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond. (File photo 2019)
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Top Takeaways
West Contra Costa Unified gets out from under a cloud of possible insolvency by coming up with a budget approved by the County Office of Education, which rated it “positive.”
Positive certification is conditioned on the district implementing cuts and sending layoff notices by May 15 as agreed to by the elected school board in February.
The district still faces budget challenges, including negotiating a new contract with its teachers and eliminating a structural deficit in three years after it has spent all the funds in a special reserve.
The West Contra Costa Unified District has made substantial financial progress by balancing its budget and averting possible insolvency.
Last week, the Contra Costa County Office of Education notified the district that it approved a “positive certification” in the latest version of its budget for the 2024-26 school years, the second time it has done that this year.
Positive certification means the county office concurs with the district that it can meet its financial obligations during the current school year and the next two years, but only if it follows through on plans to cut another $13 million over the next two years.
“If they do everything they say they’re going to do and keep going down the path that they submitted to us, they should be OK,” said Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey.
The county office’s concurrence came as a relief to district officials. Interim Superintendent Kim Moses, the district’s business manager until last year, described the positive certification as “great news.”
“We are able to say that we can meet our obligations over the next three years with the changes that we’ve made,” she said. “And that is something to celebrate.”
The latest development for the 25,000-student district in the San Francisco Bay Area, which includes the city of Richmond, offers lessons for other California districts experiencing financial difficulties.
No. 1 among them: School boards have to make hard decisions to cut budgets and reduce the number of employees proportionate to their revenues, said Michael Fine, CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), a state-funded agency that helps school districts get out of financial difficulties.
For several years, the county office of education had concluded that the district was no longer “a going concern” based on its shaky finances. And as recently as last year, FCMAT rated the district as at a high risk of insolvency.
To get to the positive rating, the district cut $19.7 million from its budget this year, and its board voted in February to cut another $13 million over the next two years.
Going Deeper
Under state oversight regulations, a school district’s financial situation can fall into three categories:
A positive certification means the school district has the resources to meet its financial obligations to get through the current school year,and two subsequent ones.
A qualified certification means that the district may not to meet its financial obligations in the current school year, or the next two years.
A negative certification is the most dire category: a district will be unable to meet its financial obligation in the current year or subsequent school year.
West Contra Costa’s positive rating is especially good news because, in 1991, the district became the first in California to get an emergency loan from the state, which took two decades to pay off.
But the district still faces substantial challenges. In its letter to Moses last Thursday, Daniela Parasidis, the county’s deputy superintendent for business services, said its approval of the district’s positive certification “comes with significant caution.”
“The district must remain vigilant and continue the implementation of its solvency plan to ensure long-term financial stability,” she wrote.
She also pointed to potential hazards that could affect the district’s finances, which underscore the multiple pressure points school districts face. In West Contra Costa, these include the impact of declining enrollment, increased absenteeism due to fears around immigration enforcement, expiring parcel tax revenue, and possible loss of federal funding cuts by the Trump administration.
County officials say maintaining the district’s positive certification hinges on it doing two things: sending out layoff notices as the board voted to do in February by May 15, the deadline specified by state law, as well as adopting a budget for the coming school year by June 30.
One unknown is that the district is in the final stages of prolonged contract negotiations with unions representing all its staff, including its teachers union, which is demanding a pay increase and other compensation-related changes, and improved health benefits. The teachers’ contract expires June 30.
However, there is deep disagreement between the district and its unions over the severity of the district’s financial difficulties. Francisco Ortiz, the president of United Teachers of Richmond, said the district routinely “underprojects revenue and overprojects expenditures.” As for the cuts planned for the next two years, Ortiz said, “We feel that none of these cuts are necessary.” He said the district needs to, instead, “reprioritize how they’re actually spending their funds.”
“We deeply value our educators and agree they work hard and deserve to be fairly compensated,” Moses wrote in an online message last week. “Our challenge is not about disagreement, but about how we responsibly meet this need while ensuring our district remains fiscally sound.”
Another pitfall is that, despite making significant budget cuts, the district is still operating with a structural deficit, which it is closing by drawing on one-time reserve funds.
Those are so-called “special reserves” called Fund 17, valued at over $37 million at the beginning of the school year.
West Contra Costa was able to accumulate these special reserves at least in part because when it got its state bailout loan decades ago, the state required the district to maintain reserves of 6%, double the normally required amount, Moses said.
To balance its books, the district is drawing down $11.5 million of its Fund 17 reserves this year, another $20.25 million next year, and $6.2 million the following year, fully depleting that reserve. It will still have the 3% minimum reserve required by the state, which amounts to about $15 million.
John Gray, CEO of School Services of California, the largest school consulting firm in the state, says it is quite acceptable for a district to use its Fund 17 reserves to get through a fiscal crisis.
But, he says, it means that “there will be a reckoning in three years” when all those funds are spent. “If you spend it (the Fund 17 reserve) all the way down,” he said, “you’re not going to have a place to grab money, and you’re going to have to make additional cuts.”
Interim Superintendent Moses hopes that over the next two years, the district will be able to “align expenditures with our revenue so that we will no longer have a structural deficit, and we’ll begin to build back up that reserve for economic uncertainties.”
She said, “Any responsible, budget-minded person is going to make sure they save something for hard times.”
Classrooms for career technical education are cramped, and the Wasco Union High School District hopes to expand them with Proposition 2.
Credit: Emma Gallegos / EdSource
After decades of disinvestment and neglect, it’s clear that California’s schools are in desperate need of repair. Many school districts across the state are struggling with dilapidated buildings, old classrooms and unsafe conditions for their students.
According to a recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California, 38% of K-12 students in California are enrolled in schools that don’t meet our state’s minimum safety standards. This is obviously dangerous and completely unacceptable. Unsurprisingly, countless studies have shown that bad environmental conditions — including dirty air, lack of light and lack of safe building facilities — significantly decrease students’ academic achievement.
Unfortunately, with no dedicated resource pool and no new state school bond measures in almost a decade, California is almost out of money for school repairs. Unlike many other states, California does not have a dedicated funding stream for investments in school facilities, which makes districts across the state entirely reliant on raising money from state or local bonds for facility upgrades.
As a result, California’s school repair fund is expected to be depleted by this upcoming January, which would leave countless schools across the state without any ability to repair or upgrade their resources, sans a well-resourced PTA or local bond measure providing the funding. Wealthier districts might be able to skate by, but districts in low-income communities would be devastated.
As state superintendent of public instruction, I’ve overseen the administration of billions of dollars for K-12 school construction and modernization that came from the last state bond, but these funds were only a drop in the bucket that just scratched the surface of California’s immense needs and were depleted quickly.
That’s why Proposition 2, a bond measure this November that would provide $8.5 billion in facility renovations for TK-12 schools and $1.5 billion for community colleges, couldn’t come at a more urgent time. It’s a vitally necessary, common-sense step forward to provide critically needed upgrades to California’s schools.
To receive state bond money, districts must attempt to raise a local bond of their own and then apply to the State Facilities Program for a funding match — though districts that are unable to raise more than $15 million from a local bond can receive up to a 100% match.
The measure, along with the accompanying local bonds, would help upgrade facilities at public elementary, middle and high schools and community colleges across California to build more classrooms, modernize science labs, enhance gymnasiums, build performing arts centers, and replace aging buildings.
But most critically, Proposition 2 would help ensure basic 21st-century facility standards in every school across the state — helping low-income districts receive desperately needed funding to repair heating and air conditioning systems, repair leaky roofs, and remediate hazardous black mold. Some of the money is also earmarked for removing lead from water, creating transitional kindergarten classrooms and building career and technical education facilities.
Significantly, this proposal also includes significant equity-focused improvements to existing policy that would ensure this funding goes to the districts that most need it. Proposition 2 improves how state funds are distributed to school districts across the state, making it more equitable for less-affluent districts and those with higher numbers of English learners and foster youth.
Ten percent of the funds would be dedicated to small school districts that currently struggle to amass the funding for facility upgrades, and the formula for allocating state funding establishes a higher match to low-wealth districts that cannot afford to generate much local funding, as well as those with a high percentage of disadvantaged students.
Without Proposition 2, schools districts in smaller and lower-income areas would have no other way to pay for these critical improvements, as they struggle tremendously to raise enough local bond money to pay for school repair, making them completely reliant on funding from state bonds for facility repairs.
Additionally, while not the focus of the measure, the investments provided by Proposition 2 will also create tens of thousands of good-paying construction jobs across the state, which will boost local economies.
Ultimately, California’s schools have a desperate need to modernize our buildings, facilities and campuses, and the money needed to make the necessary repairs has been exhausted. Proposition 2 will provide an infusion of vitally important investments to our schools that will address the significant backlog of districts hoping to receive funding for repairs, and considerably improve the conditions of students across the state.
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.
Madera Community College is in the rural Central Valley. Fresno State, about 22 miles away, is the closest four-year public university.
Credit: Ashleigh Panoo / EdSource
Why is it harder for community college students studying far from four-year universities to transfer?
The answer to that question — which is at the heart of a new study previewed at a webinar last week — could influence state higher education officials’ thinking on proposals to expand bachelor’s degree offerings at community colleges.
Most community colleges in California are within a 25-mile drive of the nearest California State University or University of California campus, according to the study by the RP Group, the independent nonprofit that conducts research for California’s system of 116 community colleges. But among the 29 colleges that are not, a research team led by Darla Cooper and Daisy Segovia found lower rates of transfer from two-year to four-year institutions.
Gaps were most visible across the seven community colleges located the farthest from public universities. Colleges at least 87 miles from the nearest UC or CSU had a 28% transfer rate, researchers said, lagging colleges within a 25-mile drive by 8 percentage points.
The study noted a smaller gap between a middle tier of community colleges located closer to four-year institutions and those within a 25-mile commute. A third of students at community colleges 27 to 78 miles from a California university transferred compared to 36% of those attending a campus where a four-year institution was 25 miles away or less.
“We need to bring the education to where the students are and not force the students to go to where the education is,” said Cooper, RP Group’s executive director.
Proximity to a four-year public university is far from the only factor related to community college transfer rates. RP Group’s own research has identified lots of practices common among students who continue on to four-year institutions, like completing transferable math and English courses in their first year, visiting an academic adviser and getting involved in student programs like Umoja and Puente, said Cooper and Segovia, a senior researcher at RP Group.
Money is a consideration, too: California community college students interviewed in 2019 cited the cost of a university education as a top hurdle to continuing their education.
The new study examining the role of distance in transfer rates comes at a time when concerns over regional worker shortages in fields like education and nursing have stoked debate about how to make bachelor’s degrees more accessible to students who might fill those labor gaps.
California’s overall higher education plan, first released in 1960,left bachelor’s degrees as the purview of four-year universities. But state lawmakers in recent years have relaxed that constraint. In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill allowing community colleges to add up to 30 baccalaureate degree programs annually, leading to dozens of new offerings. The California Community Colleges website now lists 45 approved bachelor’s degree programs.
That framework has at times put the community colleges at odds with colleagues at four-year institutions. The board of governors for the statewide community college system last year approved a program over CSU’s formal objections.
A measure that would have further blurred the boundaries between two- and four-year institutions fell short in the 2024 legislative session. Newsom in September vetoed a bill that would have permitted 15 community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing, opening the door for community colleges to create degree programs already offered at CSU.
Researchers probe ‘university education deserts’
The RP Group’s work builds on previous studies exploring what researchers call “education deserts,” places that either had no college or university or that only had a community college. A 2016 research brief for the American Council on Education reported that such communities tended to have lower college attainment compared with the rest of the country.
The RP Group study — “Exploring Geographic Isolation as a Barrier to Equitable Transfer Outcomes” — followed first-time college students enrolled at a community college between 2012 and 2017 who intended to transfer to a four-year institution. It used data from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office to measure those students’ outcomes after six years. Driving distances were measured from campus to campus.
Researchers excluded Calbright, an online community college, as well as a newer community college and a college focused on students learning technical trades. That left 113 community colleges covering more than a million students in the study sample.
The analysis defined three categories of community colleges by their proximity to a public university in California. Researchers dubbed the first two groups – Tier 1 schools, which were at least 87 miles away, and Tier 2 schools, which were 27 to 78 miles away – to be colleges located in “university education deserts.” A third group of community colleges within 25 miles of a university were not considered deserts.
Comparing the three categories revealed demographic trends. Tier 1 and Tier 2 colleges tended to serve a higher percentage of Latino students, first generation students and low income students than colleges not located in university education deserts.
Researchers also observed disparities by comparing the transfer rates of students at Tier 1 institutions to students who were not in a university education desert but who shared the same race and ethnicity. For example, 20% of Black students attending a Tier 1 college — those that were the farthest from a public four-year in California– transferred, compared with 33% of those attending a college in the category closest to a university.
“It’s an equity issue,” Cooper said. “We wanted to see if there were any particular groups that were being disadvantaged by their location in the state.”
The RP Group’s study also reported that students at Tier 1 colleges who succeeded in transferring more often left California altogether to do so. Across all three proximity-to-university tiers, a plurality of transfer students landed at a Cal State campus. But 38% of Tier 1 college students transferred out of state for a four-year degree compared to only 16% of students not in a university education desert.
Future research – and possible solutions
Segovia said future research could take into account not only community colleges’ proximity to public universities in California, but also their distance to nonprofit universities and out-of-state institutions.
Looking across state lines could explain some of the variation researchers observed in transfer rates among the community colleges that are the farthest from a public university in California.
College of the Siskiyous, which is roughly 200 miles from Cal Poly Humboldt but only 70 miles from Southern Oregon University, had a 32% rate of transfer, Segovia said, beating out some community colleges located closer to in-state four-year schools.
The researchers also plan to interview students about how proximity to a four-year college has impacted their education.
Webinar panelists discussed several barriers preventing community college students who live far from a four-year university from earning bachelor’s degrees — and some strategies that could ease the transition.
Panelist Joshua Simon, a student at Lemoore College who serves on the board of the West Hills Community College District, said students struggle to finance their bachelor’s degree education, costs exacerbated by a long commute to a four-year university.
“One of the hardest things is transportation,” he said. “Some students don’t usually drive, or some students don’t have the means of public transportation … so that’s a little bit of a difficulty when it comes to transferring, at least in-state or locally, around that 40-mile range.”
Kevin G. Walthers, the president of Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, said students from his college often don’t get admitted to the nearest Cal State campus, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Those that do, he said, may save money by living at home but find their 70- to 80-mile round trip commute costs $30 a day.
Cal State admissions data for fall 2023 shows that 63% of Allan Hancock students who applied to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo were accepted. Of those students, 71% enrolled.
“If the students are going to finish their degree in two years, and then they can’t afford to leave for Fresno or Northridge or Bakersfield, and they can’t get into Cal Poly, they’re just stuck,” he said. “Given the fact that most of our students are Latino, they’re stuck in a way that is systemically racist. There’s no way around that.”
Walthers said the lack of bachelor’s degree programs has a simple solution: “Either have the CSU offer services here or allow Allan Hancock College to provide those services.”
Kate Mahar, the associate vice president of innovation and strategic initiatives at Shasta College, said the school operates several programs with Chico State, about 80 miles south. A dual admission program allows students who apply to Chico State the option to attend Shasta College instead; it also guarantees them a seat at Chico when they’re ready to transfer, so long as they meet eligibility requirements. Students can also receive a Chico State business degree at Shasta College.
Chico State admitted 87% of Shasta College applicants, according to CSU admissions data for fall 2023. Almost 53% of those students enrolled.
“They really take it to heart that we are in their service area, even though (some students) are about five hours away from Chico,” she said.
School officials said they are currently working on dealing with the wave of new students coming from the Villages of Patterson development under construction. School officials and community members and school officials worry that the schools will not be able to handle another large-scale wave of development without a mitigation agreement.
Credit: Emma Gallegos / EdSource
Education and housing are often inextricably linked, but policy decisions made in the two sectors are generally siloed, at times shaped and passed without considering how a housing policy might impact education and vice versa.
Megan Gallagher’s research bridges the two, focusing on housing and educational collaborations that support students’ academic outcomes. Some of her latest work as a principal research associate at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on public policy, provides school officials and housing developers with ideas on how to partner together to desegregate schools by desegregating neighborhoods.
Gallagher has also co-authored a report that compiled a list of key housing characteristics that impact children’s educational outcomes:
Housing quality
Housing affordability
Housing stability
Neighborhood quality
Housing that builds wealth
In this Q&A, Gallagher details why those housing characteristics matter in a child’s education and the collaborations that can help children have a fair chance at achieving academic success. The interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
How does housing policy impact children’s educational outcomes? It’s really important when we try to understand the influence that housing has on kids’ educational outcomes, that (we look at) its unique contribution.
You could have families with the same income levels, (but) one is in a high-quality house and one is in a low-quality house. A low-quality house can influence a child’s health, ability to sleep, and feeling safe. And so, you could have a very different outcome for that child if they are in a lower-quality home.
You have outlined five characteristics of housing that have an impact on children’s educational outcomes. Why are those five characteristics so important? Those five characteristics have been studied a decent amount in housing policy literature. I didn’t conduct all the original research that went into these findings, I just sort of pulled it all together into one place. It is possible that there are aspects of housing that have not been measured historically that could also have an influence on education.
We know that low-quality housing — housing that has mold or electrical issues — is associated with lower kindergarten readiness scores. That causal relationship has been established. The relationship between spending too much on rent is connected to increased behavioral problems. Housing instability, and I would really put homelessness and housing insecurity into the housing instability bucket, really affects school stability and then has an effect on math and reading scores. We know that successful homeownership, so homeownership that allows families to build equity, increases the likelihood of attending college. We also know that neighborhood context, like violence, can disrupt academic progress and prevent children from succeeding in school.
So there is evidence that connects each one of these housing conditions to a variety of aspects of kids’ well-being and educational outcomes.
One of the things that we have not really done a very good job on is which of these aspects of housing matter the most or have the most influence. If we have a million dollars, what would we want to put that million dollars on to improve educational outcomes? I don’t think we have enough evidence right now to know exactly what would be the right pathway for that.
Do all five characteristics need to be in place for children to have the best possible educational outcomes? There’s not enough data right now for us to understand which of the five need to be in place or what the likelihood of succeeding is if you have one or two or three or four of them in place.
This is an area where we continue to need more understanding, more evidence, but I don’t think that we can wait to make policy decisions until we have all of that evidence.
Is the lack of sufficient research one of the outcomes of the disconnect between housing and education policy? Absolutely. I think the sectors are so siloed, many of the giant data collection investments that have happened at HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) or at the U.S. Department of Education have not had data elements that capture aspects of the other sector.
When we are looking at housing data in housing policy, there hasn’t been really detailed data collected about the children in the family — which schools they attend and how they’re doing — which could potentially allow data to be connected, likewise in the education world.
We run into lots of challenges in research with privacy where just because you can connect data, should you? Is that what program participants have agreed to when they’ve decided to enroll their children in public school or when they’ve decided to enroll in a housing subsidy program? In a lot of cases, the answer is no.
Some of the best data is really connected at the local level, where you have local policymakers that are working with local agencies that have asked permission and are connecting data to kind of fine-tune programs on the ground.
How do we reach a point where we have the information necessary to ensure academic success for all children? It has to happen at multiple levels. The federal government needs to encourage the Department of Ed and HUD to collaborate and to really support or incentivize collaboration in their discretionary grant programs. I really see it as the feds have an opportunity to lead and really support this kind of work.
But I also think that there are so many local organizations that are leading. I think a lot of the case study work that I have done can help to illustrate how flexibility and collaboration can really translate into a set of programs or practices that support kids’ education and stable, high-quality housing.
I know that philanthropy is really supporting a lot of exploration around sector alignment.
I feel really hopeful about this sort of broader vision for how we create policy that thinks about the way that multiple systems can influence how well a child is doing. But I also think that it’s not like there’s just all of this housing sitting there and kids are not living in it. A big part of this work is making sure that there continues to be a housing production pipeline that is developing housing to ensure that there’s enough housing at various price points so that everybody has the opportunity to live where they’d like to live.
A special education class at Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland.
Alison Yin / EdSource
California schools will soon have a template for special education programs translated into 10 languages in addition to English.
Advocates and parents of children with disabilities who speak languages other than English say it is a tiny step forward, but there is still work to be done to fix long waits and faulty translations experienced by many families statewide.
“Ultimately, if parents can’t receive translated documents, they can’t meaningfully engage in their child’s education,” said Joanna French, senior director of research and policy strategies at Innovate Public Schools, an organization that works with parents to advocate for high-quality education. “They can’t provide informed consent. They can’t ask questions or push back on the services that are being proposed.”
A bill introduced last year by state Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Burbank, would have required school districts, charter schools and county offices of education to translate individualized education program (IEP) documents within 30 days. But the bill stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee, where lawmakers decide whether the state has enough money to pay for legislation. This spring, the bill was revived, and Portantino revised it to require the California Department of Education (CDE) to create guidelines suggesting, rather than mandating, timelines for translation and how to identify quality translators and interpreters. But that version, too, was eventually scrapped.
The version of the bill that finally did pass the Legislature and was signed by the governor requires a template for IEPs to be translated into the 10 languages most commonly spoken in California other than English. The translated template must be made available online by Jan. 1, 2027. The template, which can be found in this document, includes categories of services, but also has blank space for language adapted to each student.
“Obviously, whenever you get a partial victory, you take it and you celebrate,” said Portantino. “This is an incremental improvement. Having the template is a good thing. But obviously, these are individualized plans, so my hope is that someone takes up the mantle to get individual plans translated in a more timely manner.”
Aurora Flores said she has had to wait sometimes six or seven months for special education documents to be translated into Spanish. Her 10-year-old son has Down syndrome and autism and attends school in the Long Beach Unified School District.
“It’s really sad for us Spanish-speaking parents because the points that you want to clarify, you can’t understand. They just summarize really fast, with an interpreter, but sometimes it’s not a certified person,” said Flores in Spanish.
Individualized education programs are required for students with disabilities who qualify for special education, and are updated each year or when needs change. Before schools can implement these programs, parents must agree.
The person most affected by long waits for translations is her son, Flores said, because it takes longer for her to sign off on new services that he needs.
“When you least expect it, you realize the next IEP meeting is coming up, and you have just received the documents from the last one,” Flores said.
A spokesperson for Long Beach Unified, Elvia Cano, wrote in an email that the district “is dedicated to ensuring that all families, regardless of their primary language, have timely access to critical educational information, including Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).”
However, she said getting high-quality translations of special education documents can be challenging.
“Translating IEPs requires specialized linguistic and technical expertise. Translators must be fluent in the target language and possess a strong understanding of educational terminology. Finding professionals with these qualifications can be challenging, especially for less commonly spoken languages. Additionally, the complexity of IEPs and the volume of translation requests may extend the timeframe for completion,” Cano wrote.
Portantino said that some felt the previous version of the bill requiring the California Department of Education to create guidelines for translation “was too onerous, too much pressure.”
“I think the education community didn’t want to be forced to do things. I think there were districts who felt they don’t have the personnel, and I think CDE felt the overall structure was not in place,” Portantino said.
Holly Minear, executive director of student services at the Ventura County Office of Education, said she thinks most school districts and county offices understand the importance of giving families a written translation of IEP documents in a timely manner, but it is sometimes a challenge, especially when the translation is for a language that is not common.
“I think a lot of districts use internal translators, and if you have someone out sick or on leave, or if districts work with contract agencies, sometimes the timeline is more than 30 days,” Minear said.
Minear said the Ventura County Office of Education has two Spanish-English translators on staff, but they use outside agencies for other languages like Farsi and Mixteco, an indigenous language from southern Mexico. She said she thinks the template will help districts and translators do a better job.
“Although our IEPs differ … I think we use a lot of the same terms, a lot of the same language,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to having it on the template, because if there’s ever a word or phrase you need, it’s there for you, and it’s free.”
Sara Gomez, who has a 4-year-old with autism who attends preschool in Santa Clara County, said she thinks the law is a good step forward.
“I think the law is positive, in that it gives a sense of alarm that translations need to be done urgently,” Gomez said. “But we still don’t have a required timeline.”
Gomez said she has had to wait three or four months for her son’s individualized education program to be translated into Spanish. Gomez, who is from Venezuela, speaks English, but her husband speaks only Spanish.
She said she has heard of other parents waiting up to a year for translations, leaving them unable to make informed decisions about their children’s education.
“Even four months for a young child make a big difference,” Gomez said in Spanish. “When they are the youngest is when they need the most help.”
Advocates and families said they will keep pushing the state for guidelines about how to access qualified translators and a time limit for translations.
“We understand that districts experience challenges in finding qualified translators, especially for less common languages, and turning around documents quickly,” said French, from Innovate Public Schools.
However, she said, different districts have very different timelines for translations.
“We don’t believe it should be that inconsistent, if a parent lives in one district versus another,” French said. “There should be equity across the state about what a parent should expect in terms of translated documents.”
Allegra Cira Fischer, senior policy attorney for the nonprofit organization Disability Rights California, agreed. She said she was dismayed to see that the 30-day timeframe was removed from the bill.
“Parents tell us that sometimes their student will have a better teacher or a better case manager and they’ll get things in a more timely manner. But parents shouldn’t have to rely on an especially committed teacher or case manager,” Fischer said. “This is a situation that is really untenable and ultimately is harmful to children with disabilities.”
