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

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


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

    Courtesy of Jorge Espinoza Jr. and Luke Wilson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Board members historically receive low wages 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Empowering students

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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  • Academic gaps ‘allowed to linger’ among California’s Black students over past decade, report says

    Academic gaps ‘allowed to linger’ among California’s Black students over past decade, report says


    Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, coordinator of the Heritage Program at Adelanto High in California’s High Desert, regularly meets with Black students to make sure they stay on track to graduate and meet A-G requirements that enable them to apply to a public university.

    Emma Gallegos/EdSource

    In the areas of chronic absenteeism, suspension and reading proficiency, the rates for Black students in California remain largely the same as they were a decade ago. That is the focus of a new report, Black Minds Matter 2025, which provides new insight and recommendations on education for Black students in California a decade after the first iteration of the report was published by Education Trust-West.

    “This report really meets the moment that we’re in when we’re seeing so many cuts to education funding and programs that are inevitably going to impact Black students,” said Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of research at the prominent nonprofit behind the report that advocates for equity in education.

    Ten years ago, Black students were nearly three times more likely than white students to be suspended, and while suspension rates among Black students have since declined from 14% to 9%, the rate is still three times higher than white students, according to data from the California Department of Education included in the report. The chronic absenteeism rates are similar: in 2016-17, Black students had the second-highest rate of chronic absenteeism of any student group, just under Native American students — a statistic that remained the same in 2023-24.

    “None of the opportunity gaps or outcome gaps explored in this report are new — all have been allowed to linger over the past decade,” concluded the report authors.

    Black students represent about 5% of California’s student population from transitional kindergarten to 12th grade. That totals about 287,400 students, with about a third of them living in Los Angeles County, per 2023-24 state data. About 150,000 Black students are enrolled at institutions of higher education, both public and private.

    “We constantly have in the front of our minds that there are students and families and communities behind every single data point,” said Valenzuela-Stookey. “For that reason, it felt really important to not mince words and just bring to bear the information that we have about what conditions students and families are facing and are up against; despite the fact that they enter those systems with really ambitious aspirations, something is pushing against them, and that something is systemic.”

    The “ambitious aspirations” Valenzuela-Stookey mentioned refers to a finding by The United Negro College Fund in which 9 in 10 Black students agreed that earning a college degree is important, plus additional studies that found Black parents “are highly engaged and invested in their children’s educations, particularly in the early years,” per the report.

    The report, published Thursday, highlights multiple key findings, including:

    • The percentage of Black students in California at grade level in math increased from 16% to 18% in the decade since 2015-16 but has remained the lowest of all student groups
    • The gap between California’s Black and white students who have met or exceeded the state’s reading proficiency exams, known as California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, has not changed significantly since 1998
    • Three in 4 Black students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, which is 13 percentage points higher than the statewide average
    • The rate of Black students completing A-G course sequences in high school, which are required to attend the University of California and California State University systems, has increased by just 4 percentage points in the last decade
    • While the number of Black children enrolled in transitional kindergarten more than doubled from 2021 to 2023-24, the rate still makes up less than half of the number of Black 4-year-olds who are eligible to enroll
    • Black elementary school students report feeling sadness more frequently than any other student group
    • The number of Black teachers remained disproportionately lower than the share of Black students statewide; just over a quarter of school districts employ Black teachers at a rate proportionate to their Black student population
    • The rate at which Black students participate in dual enrollment increased by only 6 percentage points in the last seven school years, from about 11% to nearly 17%, while other student groups increased between 8 and 14 percentage points
    • Black college students in California face the highest rates of food and housing insecurity

    “This status quo is not an accident — it is the consequence of systems designed to produce unequal outcomes operating largely unchecked for centuries,” the report’s authors wrote. “It is also the consequence of incremental changes made in place of what’s called for: much more fundamental transformation.”

    A deeper look into some of the data cited in the report reveals alarming trends. For example, dual enrollment rates increased among all student racial groups between 2015-16 and 2021-22, per an analysis of state data by Policy Analysis for California Education, but Black students recorded the lowest rate of growth — at nearly 17% in 2021-22, just under the rate of dual enrollment participation for Asian students in 2015-16.

    Also, according to data from the California Community Colleges, within their first year in community college, Black students were completing and passing transfer-level coursework at a rate lower than their peers, with a difference of 30 percentage points between Asian students at 77% and Black students at 47%.

    While the report’s authors acknowledged the pandemic exacerbated some of the academic gaps, many existed long before Covid lockdowns began, and the data included in the report reflected that longevity. “It was really important for us to make sure that people had a long view of how entrenched these systemic inequities are because the solutions to them should follow from how long they’ve been baked into our systems,” said Valenzuela-Stookey.

    In addition to sharing the stark disparities, the report’s authors highlighted a handful of programs and initiatives they believe are working to close the gaps.

    These include a teacher residency program called The Village Initiative and created in collaboration with the Watts of Power Foundation; Los Angeles Unified School District; and California State University, Dominguez Hills. Fifteen Black male teachers were part of the program in 2023, and the partnership estimates they will place 113 fully credentialed, Black teachers in school over the next decade.

    Farther north, at Berkeley High School, the campus’ African American Studies Department is credited for the high rate of graduating within four years among the Black student population, at nearly 95% in the latest school year, compared to the statewide average of just over 86%.

    One of the overarching recommendations proposed by the authors was the creation of a Commission on Black Education Transformation, made up in part by Black students, parents and educators. This would be a standing state commission with the authority to make actionable decisions, including the allocation of resources to ensure follow-through from state and local agencies on policies related to academic progress for Black students.

    Other recommendations include:

    • Mandating that all high schools incorporate the 15-course A-G curriculum required for eligibility to the UC and CSU systems
    • Increasing award amounts for the existing Cal Grant program to aid students with non-tuition costs
    • Prioritizing the hiring and retention of Black educators in both TK-12 and higher education
    • Expanding pandemic-era supports, such as before- and after-school programming and academic tutoring
    • Requiring that all school staff receive training to end the disproportionate impact on Black students of punitive disciplinary practices
    • Modifying the state’s Local Control Funding Formula to target funds based on an index of metrics such as levels of adult educational attainment and homeownership rates
    • Instructing school districts to report “evidence-based strategies” aimed at supporting Black students in their Local Control and Accountability Plans

    Valenzuela-Stookey noted that her team sees both the progress and persistent gaps over the last decade “as a reminder that policy change is just the first step in closing a lot of these opportunity gaps that are highlighted in the report, and implementation and on-the-ground practice work is really the necessary next step if any of that is to come to fruition.”





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