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  • Colorado: Aeronautics Charter School Closes Suddenly, Two Weeks Before Start of Semester

    Colorado: Aeronautics Charter School Closes Suddenly, Two Weeks Before Start of Semester


    A charter school in Colorado shocked parents and students by announcing its closure two weeks before school opened.

    CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Colorado Skies Academy, a Centennial-based charter school with a focus on aviation and aerospace education, abruptly announced its closure on Friday, just 16 days before the start of the school year. 

    The announcement, which came in an email on Friday at 8:17 p.m., leaves parents scrambling to find alternative schools for their children. 

    The school cited financial challenges as the reason for the immediate closure. A spokeswoman for the Colorado Charter School Institute, which serves as the school’s authorizer, said there were  “unanticipated financial developments” over the summer which, caused the school’s viability to “rapidly deteriorate.”

    CSI acknowledged the sudden closure was not ideal, but said it supported the board’s decision to close now, rather risk closing mid-school year which would have been more challenging.

    Still, the timing of the announcement has particularly frustrated parents, who received the closure notice hours after the school posted on Facebook about an upcoming back-to-school night event. 

    “They posted in the morning, come join us for back-to-school night. Then they send an email in the evening saying sorry, there’s gonna be no school at all,”  parent Erin Hess said. Her son Connor was set to attend sixth grade at the 6-8 school. 



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  • How these bills before Gov. Gavin Newsom could change education in California

    How these bills before Gov. Gavin Newsom could change education in California


    Senate Bill 1263 will be heard by the full Assembly if it makes it through the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

    Credit: AP Photo/Terry Chea

    Within the past week, the Legislature dispatched hundreds of bills, including several dozen affecting TK-12 and higher education.

    Important education bills heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom include extending the ban on suspending students for willful defiance in high schools, creating more training for bilingual teachers, requiring gender-neutral student bathrooms by 2026, and enticing retired teachers to return to the classroom for the next few years.

    We include one bill dealing with the Local Control Funding Formula that was withdrawn at the last minute but could find its way into next year’s budget. Newsom has through Oct. 14 to sign or veto bills he received by Sept. 14. Two bills to place a school bond before voters next year were also pulled; negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom will determine which moves forward next year. 

    Teacher shortage

    Retired teachers: Senate Bill 765 would temporarily increase the amount teachers can earn post-retirement so that they can return to the classroom to take teaching positions that districts otherwise can’t fill. If the governor signs the bill, retired teachers will be able to earn 70% of the median final compensation of all California State Teachers Retirement members who retired the previous year, instead of the current 50%. The temporary measure would start July 1, 2024, and end on July 1, 2026. 

    “California has a teacher shortage, and we must do more to get teachers back in the classroom,” said state Sen. Anthony Portantino on Friday. “This is the most critical investment we can make and one that our students deserve. SB 765 makes it easier for retired teachers to come back to their teaching positions, and I look forward to the governor’s signature on this important measure.” 

    The bill originally called for increasing the grant award for teacher candidates participating in the Teacher Residency Grant program from $25,000 to $40,000, but the increase was included as part of the state budget earlier this year.

    Teacher recruitment: Assembly Bill 934, authored by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, would require the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to spend up to $900,000 to contract with a public relations organization to develop a campaign highlighting the value of educators and urging people to become preschool to 12th-grade teachers. The campaign would also include information about the various pathways teacher candidates can take to earn their credentials.

    “Most districts have found teachers to be in short supply, especially for math, science, special education and bilingual education,” said Muratsuchi, in his author’s statement. “Most districts are filling hiring needs with teachers on substandard credentials and permits, reflecting a statewide trend of increasing reliance on underprepared teachers. AB 934 will support the state’s numerous efforts to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, by building public awareness about the exciting and meaningful career of teaching.”

    Assembly Bill 238, also authored by Maratsuchi, would have paid student teachers. The bill did not make it through the Legislature by Thursday’s deadline and was put in the inactive file. Legislators will consider the bill again next session, said Kerry Jacob, communications director for Muratsuchi. 

    “We will continue to work with the administration and stakeholders on solutions to pay student teachers, which will improve teacher recruitment to address California’s teacher shortage,” Jacob said. 

    School nurse shortage

    Vocational nurses in schools: Senate Bill 1722 will allow licensed vocational nurses to serve as school nurses when there are not enough credentialed school nurses. The licensed vocational nurses must be supervised by a credentialed school nurse.

    There has been a shortage of credentialed school nurses for years. Although school nurses often work fewer days than their peers in hospitals and clinics, they are paid less and must take additional classes and pay more fees to get the job, which requires a school nurse services credential. 

    School districts can only hire a licensed vocational nurse if they can not find a credentialed school nurse for the job and if their school board votes to approve the hire.

    “AB 1722 is a step toward enhancing the health and safety of our students in the face of a growing school nurse shortage,” said Assemblymember Megan Dahle, author of the bill. “This legislation recognizes the urgency of the situation — especially in rural areas of California, such as the 1st Assembly District — and provides schools with a viable solution to ensure trained medical professionals are available to address students’ medical needs.”

    English learners and immigrant students 

    Seal of biliteracy: In order to earn the state seal of biliteracy on their high school diploma, students must show proficiency in English and another language. Assembly Bill 370 gives more opportunities for students to show proficiency in English, including high school GPA, standardized test scores, college-level English language arts class, Advanced Placement exams or SAT scores.

    This is similar to what is required of students to show proficiency in a language other than English to obtain the seal. 

    Advocates say that many bilingual students, particularly English learners, have not received the state seal of biliteracy because there weren’t enough options to show students are proficient in English.

    Newcomer data: Assembly Bill 714 requires the state to report the number of newcomer students, defined as students who were born in another country and arrived in the U.S. within the past three years. 

    It would also require the state to consider including resources specifically for teaching newcomers in the next revision of the English Language Arts and English Language Development framework. Currently, the framework includes resources for teaching all English learners, but not specifically for newcomer students.

    In addition, the bill allows schools to exempt all newcomer students in middle and high school from some required coursework. Current law only exempts students enrolled in programs just for newcomers.

    “AB 714 will ensure that newcomer students are more visible in our education system and receive the support they need for success,” said Martha Hernández, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners.

    Child care language surveys: Assembly Bill 393 requires child care centers and family child care homes that serve low-income children with state subsidies to ask all families about the languages they speak at home.

    The idea is to incorporate more of children’s home languages in the child care program, to help support them in maintaining those languages and learning English. The information will also be shared with the state to monitor how many children speak languages other than English at home.

    State-subsidized preschool programs have already been conducting the language surveys. 

    Bilingual teacher preparation: Assembly Bill 1127 re-establishes the Bilingual Teacher Professional Development Program to help prepare more teachers to work in dual-immersion schools or with English language learners.

    The budget included $20 million to re-establish the program for five years. School districts in California have struggled for years to hire teachers with bilingual authorizations — a specialized credential required to teach English language learners.

    In-state tuition for Mexico residents: Students who live in Mexico within 45 miles of the border would be eligible for in-state tuition at community colleges under Assembly Bill 91.

    The bill would apply to community colleges near the border — Cuyamaca College, Grossmont College, Imperial Valley College, MiraCosta College, Palomar College, San Diego City College, San Diego Mesa College, San Diego Miramar College, and Southwestern College. Each college could enroll the equivalent of up to 150 full-time students.

    In order for the bill to go into effect, however, the governing board of the California Community Colleges would have to enter into a similar agreement with a university in the state of Baja California, to allow California residents to attend there with in-state tuition as well.

    Dream resource centers: Assembly Bill 278 would establish a grant program to help more high schools set up Dream Resource Centers. Dream Resource Centers provide counseling on financial aid, immigration law, and other resources to help immigrant students and children of immigrants.

    There is no funding in the budget for this grant, however, and the bill would not go into effect until the Legislature funds it.

    School finance and funding

    School facilities bonds: Given the choice of two very different bills to place a large school facilities bond issue before state voters in 2024, the bills’ authors and legislative leaders chose to hold back both in the final days of the legislative session. It will be up to the Newsom administration, through negotiations, to determine which version — or a blend of the two — makes the ballot.

    Assembly Bill 247, authored by Assembly Education Committee Chair Muratsuchi, calls for a $14 billion bond issue for TK-12 and community colleges. Muratsuchi said it would include money for renovations and new construction, including transitional kindergarten facilities; seismic retrofits and safety repairs; improvements to adapt to climate change, reflecting the dangers of extreme heat, fire and flooding; and abatements from lead in water. The bill doesn’t say how the money will be apportioned. Senate Bill 28, authored by Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, would be for $15 billion, and would provide $9 billion for TK-12, including $500 million for charter schools and $500 million for career education, and $6 billion for UC, CSU and community colleges. It would be similar to a Proposition 13 that voters defeated by 47% to 53% in March 2020.

    Advocates for a TK-12-community college bond will point to Proposition 13’s rejection as evidence that including higher ed bonding reduces the odds of passage. But others argue there were other reasons for the loss, including confusion over the number 13: a previous Proposition 13, still much in voters’ minds, was the 1978 anti-tax initiative. What’s clear is the need. Voters last passed a state bond, for $9 billion, in 2016, and there is already a nearly $4 billion backlog of school projects waiting for new money.

    Raising LCFF funding: Legislation that would aim to increase funding for the Local Control Funding Formula by 50% over the next seven years almost made it to Newsom’s desk. But uncertainty about whether Newsom would sign it led the author of Assembly Bill 938 to pull the bill in the last week of the session.

    The bill would re-establish a long-term funding target that was a feature of the 2013 law phasing in the funding formula. Since reaching the target amount in 2018-19, two years early, the Legislature has annually increased LCFF based on the cost-of-living (last year being an exception, with several billion dollars beyond the growing cost of living). AB 938 would increase base funding by 50% by 2030-31, while encouraging districts to use the new money to increase staff pay by that percentage over that time.

    The author, Muratsuchi, said he would continue talks with Newsom’s finance team with the intent of incorporating the bill in the 2024-25 budget. He said it is needed to address staff shortages, although critics say districts should decide, without state pressure, how to balance the need for higher pay with other priorities, like reducing class sizes.

    Instruction and testing

    Textbook and library book censorship: Pushed by Newsom after a confrontation with the Temecula Valley Unified school board, Assembly Bill 1072 states that school boards would be committing censorship and discrimination if they refused to include materials or removed library books or textbooks that would interfere with California’s FAIR Education Act. The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, passed in 2011, requires instructional materials to accurately portray the history, viewpoints and experiences of California’s diverse and underrepresented racial, ethnic and other groups, including LGBTQ+ Californians.

    The bill, authored by first-term Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Perris, would enable parents and others to file a complaint charging a violation with their county superintendent or directly with the state superintendent of public instruction, who could order a remedy, such as the purchase of a library book or instructional material. If a school district refuses to update a curriculum or textbook intentionally to avoid FAIR Act compliance, the state superintendent could order a FAIR Act-compliant textbook for students, charge the district, and impose a one-time penalty of about $95 per student or $950,000 for an average district with 10,000 students.

    Passed with an urgency provision, AB 1078 will take effect as soon as Newsom signs it, which is expected any day.

    Reporting Smarter Balanced results: The California Department of Education will face a deadline to release Smarter Balanced results and other state testing data by Oct. 15 each year, starting in the fall of 2024, as a result of legislation that Newsom signed earlier this month.

     Senate Bill 293,otherauthored by Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, comes one year after EdSource challenged the department’s decision to delay the release of the statewide test results until December 2022 to coincide with the release of data measures, such as chronic absentee data, in the California State Dashboard. EdSource argued that there was no legal justification for withholding test results because school districts and schools receive their numbers in late summer.

    The Association of California School Administrators agreed in its letter supporting the bill. School districts will use the earlier release “to make informed decisions on many issues, including how to effectively distribute resources to maximize support for students,” the group wrote. “Parents and guardians will better understand how well their children are performing and how best to help them.”

    Eliminating willful defiance: Senate Bill 274 would prohibit teachers from suspending fifth- through 12th-grade students for willful defiance until July 1, 2029. It would also extend the ban on willful defiance suspensions for sixth through eighth grades until July 1, 2029. 

    Willful defiance, as defined by the bill, involves disrupting school activities or the “valid authority” present. 

    The bill would expand on current California law, where students in first through fifth grades cannot be suspended for willful defiance, and first through 12th grade students cannot be expelled for the same reason.  SB 274 would retain a teacher’s current authority to suspend any pupil in any grade from class for willful defiance for the day of the suspension and the following day, as long as the student is under supervision during an in-house suspension. 

    Basic Needs 

    CalFresh eligibility: Under Assembly Bill 274, grants, awards, scholarships, loans and fellowships will not be considered as income when determining eligibility for CalFresh. 

    Additionally, lump sums would only be considered for the month it is received, with the exception of social insurance payments such as veteran’s benefits, social security income, railroad retirement benefits and disability insurance. 

    Income from the U.S. Census Bureau and other government entities – along with federal pandemic unemployment aid – would also not be considered.   

    Mental health access: AB 665, authored by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, D-Los Angeles, would allow children 12 years and older to consent to mental health treatment or counseling without the involvement of their parent or guardian. Under existing law, children 12 and older are allowed to consent to mental health treatment or counseling without the involvement of parents, but only after they demonstrate that they are in danger of serious physical or mental harm to themselves or to others, or be the alleged victim of incest or child abuse.

    This bill, which would take effect July 1, 2024, would require the mental health professional to consult with the child before determining whether involvement of the child’s parent or guardian would be appropriate.

    Lead in school water: California would expand its testing and treatment for lead found in public school water with more stringent standards under new legislation.

    Water companies serving schools receiving federal Title I funding would be required to test all water outlets by Jan. 1, 2027, and report the findings to the state and school districts. Districts would be required to shut down the contaminated outlet immediately, notify parents within 30 days, and then replace the outlet or take measures other than running the water before school to dilute concentrations of lead, a standard remediation until now.

    Assembly Bill 249, authored by Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, would cover all outlets, not just some, as a 2017 law requires, and also cover all pre-schools built on public property. The standard for taking action would be 5 parts per billion instead of the current 15 parts per billion. A 2018 analysis by EdSource estimated that 4% of outlets in schools had more than 15 parts per billion and 1 in 5 school outlets tested between 5 and 15 parts per billion. Scientists have concluded that tiny exposures to lead could damage children’s nervous system and organs and cause learning and attention difficulties.

    State analysts project significant one-time costs for districts to do the remediation — money that might be reimbursable as a state mandate or funded through federal or perhaps state construction bonds.

    Narcotic abuse treatment: Assembly Bill 816 would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to consent to replacement narcotic abuse treatment that uses buprenorphine by a medical professional or other medication-based opioid use disorder treatment by a licensed narcotic treatment program without the consent of their parent or guardian. Buprenorphine, one of the active ingredients in Suboxone, partially activates opioid receptors in order to reduce withdrawal symptoms in opioid addicts as they wean off of the drug.

    LGBTQ students

    Gender-neutral bathrooms: Senate Bill 760 requires all public K–12 schools in the state to provide gender-neutral restrooms for students to use during school hours by 2026, as long as they have more than one male and female restroom for students.

    State law already allows students to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. However, some students who identify as non-binary require gender-neutral bathrooms, and some students who identify as transgender feel safer using a gender-neutral bathroom. This bill was written after meetings of an ad hoc committee on safe school bathrooms that was created by State Superintendent Thurmond in response to a 2021 proposal by Chino Valley Unified School District that would have required students to use the bathroom of their biological sex. That proposal did not pass.

    According to a 2019 National School Climate Survey, 45% of LGTBQ+ and nonbinary students avoid gender-segregated school bathrooms because they feel uncomfortable and unsafe using them. Thurmond, who sponsored the bill, said providing an all-gender restroom at every public school is a “critical step toward preparing California students to succeed by ensuring the necessary steps of having a safe foundation to rely on: having a safe and inclusive place to use the restroom.”

    Safe and supportive schools: Assembly Bill 5, authored by Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Hollywood, would require public school teachers and credentialed staff to take online training in LGBTQ+ cultural competency starting with the 2025-26 school year. Previously, the state “encouraged” schools to provide training on these topics every two years.

    Zbur, in his comments supporting the bill, said despite progress, LGBTQ+ students still often experience harassment, violence and a lack of affirmation at school.

    “AB 5 will provide public school teachers and staff, who are on the front lines of supporting California students, with the training and support they need to better serve LGBTQ+ and all students,” Zbur said.

    Higher education

    Community college transfer – Assembly Bill 1291, which the Legislature passed last week, attempts to simplify the process of transferring from a California community college to a University of California campus. Under a new pilot program starting at UCLA, students who complete an associate degree for transfer in select majors would be prioritized for admission. The program would later expand to additional campuses in limited majors. 

    Proponents say it would streamline the state’s transfer system since students can get a guaranteed spot somewhere in the California State University system by completing an associate degree for transfer. But the student associations representing UC and the community college system are opposed to the bill.

    “The pilot ADT admissions program this bill would create does not contain any assurances for students that their hard-earned ADT can be used for admission at a UC or CSU of their choice. … Instead of attempting to pass a hastily drafted and last-minute legislation with no student input, we urge you to veto AB 1291,” the students wrote in a message to Newsom.

    EdSource reporters Michael Burke, John Fensterwald, Diana Lambert, Mallika Seshadri, Zaidee Stavely and Ali Tadayon contributed to this story. 

    Correction: Two competing bills to create a state school facilities bond did not move forward, as first reported; they were held back for negotiations to determine which version will go to voters in 2024.





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  • Inside the IT Engine Room: What School Districts Must Fix Before the Bell Rings

    Inside the IT Engine Room: What School Districts Must Fix Before the Bell Rings


    Jul 6
    2025

    Inside the IT Engine Room: What School Districts Must Fix Before the Bell Rings

    Scott Rupp

    By Scott Rupp, editor, Education IT Reporter.

    There’s a myth that school buildings go quiet during summer. Walk the halls in July, and you’ll hear the click of keyboards, the hum of laptops updating en masse, and the buzz of tech teams scrambling to patch systems, reset devices, and prepare for the digital demands of another school year.

    For school district IT leaders, summer is less a break and more a deadline. It’s the one narrow window to assess, upgrade, secure, and strategize before the onslaught of helpdesk tickets, classroom rollouts, and surprise crises hit like a storm on the first day of school.

    As we look toward the 2025–2026 academic year, here’s what’s top of mind for these unsung heroes and why the work they do now may define how smoothly (or chaotically) the year ahead unfolds.

    The Cybersecurity Time Bomb

    In recent years, K–12 schools have become ransomware ground zero. Attackers aren’t guessing anymore—they know schools often run aging infrastructure, have limited security staff, and store goldmines of sensitive student data. And they’re exploiting that knowledge.

    Overworked IT directors are spending their summers asking hard questions: Have we patched every exposed system? Can we trust our third-party vendors? What happens if our SIS goes down the first week of school?

    Some districts are making real progress adopting Zero Trust models, running phishing simulations, building incident response plans—but for many, it still feels like putting duct tape on a submarine. Funding is thin, awareness is spotty, and the stakes have never been higher.

    The Chromebook Cliff

    Remember the great rush to 1:1 device programs during the pandemic? Well, those devices—millions of them—are aging out. Batteries are failing. Screens are cracked. Charging carts are breaking down.

    Summer is when IT departments try to get ahead of it all. They’re running diagnostics, triaging broken units, and scrambling to figure out how to replace entire fleets when budgets are stretched thin.

    For many, it’s a sobering realization: the quick fixes of 2020 are now long-term operational burdens. And unless they make smart decisions now standardizing device types, implementing MDM tools, tracking asset lifecycle—they’ll be trapped in a repair-and-replace cycle for years to come.

    The EdTech Hangover

    If you ever thought your school was using too many apps, you’re probably right. On average, districts use more than 1,400 digital tools each year. Many of them do the same things. Few of them talk to each other.

    Educators are overwhelmed. Students are confused. And IT departments? They’re spending hours troubleshooting login issues and fielding support calls for tools no one really needed in the first place.

    This summer, more districts are taking stock. They’re auditing usage, sunsetting underperforming tools, and trying to simplify the learning experience. It’s less about cutting costs (though that helps) and more about cutting the noise. Because when every tool claims to be “the future of learning,” it’s hard to know what’s actually helping.

    Wi-Fi Woes and Connectivity Gaps

    For most schools, Wi-Fi has become as critical as plumbing. And yet, network infrastructure often goes untouched for years, only getting attention when something breaks.

    Summer gives IT teams the chance to breathe and look at the bigger picture: Are access points where they need to be? Can the network handle a hallway full of AI-enabled learning apps? What about those students at home who still can’t get online?

    Upgrades to Wi-Fi 6, bandwidth increases, and expanded mesh networks are top of the to-do list. So is partnering with local ISPs to keep students connected off campus. Because in 2025, learning doesn’t stop at the school gate and neither should connectivity.

    Student Data, Privacy, and the Compliance Tightrope

    With each new app, platform, or analytics dashboard comes a fresh load of student data. Grades, attendance, behavior, even biometrics in some cases. And districts are under more pressure than ever to safeguard it all.

    IT leaders are spending these weeks re-reading vendor contracts, updating privacy policies, and working with legal teams to stay compliant with laws like FERPA and COPPA. They’re building guardrails—who can access what data, for how long, and under what conditions.

    It’s tedious work. But with parents increasingly tuned in to digital privacy—and regulators watching closely; it’s no longer optional. If schools want trust, they have to earn it, and transparency about data practices is where that starts.

    The AI Question No One Has Answered Yet

    Every superintendent is asking about AI. Should we use it in classrooms? Can it reduce administrative burden? How do we prevent cheating? What about bias? What about the data?

    Some districts are experimenting with mixed results. Others are standing back, watching carefully. What’s clear is that IT leaders need to be part of these conversations, not pulled in after the fact to clean up the mess.

    This summer, a few are drafting AI use policies, conducting risk assessments, and exploring partnerships with ethical AI vendors. It’s early days, but one thing’s certain: AI is coming to education whether we’re ready or not.

    The Human Challenge: Burnout and Brain Drain

    Technology isn’t the only thing under strain. The people managing it are, too.

    Districts are struggling to recruit and retain qualified IT staff. The work is hard, the pay often lags behind the private sector, and the burnout is real. One person managing thousands of devices, users, and tickets? It’s not sustainable.

    Forward-thinking districts are investing in automation, cross-training, and shared service models across regions. They’re advocating for better staffing ratios. Because even the best systems crumble without the people to maintain them.

    A Narrow Window for Real Change

    The clock is ticking. In a few short weeks, teachers will return. Students will log in. And any cracks in the system will widen under pressure.

    Summer isn’t just a time to fix what’s broken—it’s a chance to reset. To rethink what’s necessary, what’s working, and what no longer fits. For school district IT leaders, it’s not just about avoiding disaster. It’s about building infrastructure that supports every learner, teacher, and admin not just for this year, but for years to come.

    Because education is changing. And the technology behind it has to keep up.



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  • How California can stop losing great teacher candidates before they start

    How California can stop losing great teacher candidates before they start


    Tylyn Fields, with some of her fifth-grade students, is now a beloved teacher. But she almost never made it to the classroom.

    Courtesy: Tylyn Fields

    During California’s most recent teacher shortage, Tylyn Fields, a trained social worker, saw teaching as a calling and a promising career. Smart and motivated to make a difference, she was an excellent candidate for the high-need schools in the community where she lived and worked. Sadly, her research into teacher education revealed an impossible choice. A quality preservice program would require quitting her job for a year of unpaid coursework and student teaching. Taking out more loans was a nonstarter: she already owed thousands for previous student loans.

    We desperately need more well-trained teachers across the state. And while there are countless aspiring teachers eager to make a difference in their communities, the financial barriers to entering the profession are pushing promising candidates toward emergency credentials or away from teaching altogether. Teaching is a public service profession. For too many, their future earnings as public school teachers are not enough to pay back the upfront costs of preparation, causing them to enter the profession as an Intern with little or no training so they can earn a salary, or simply give up on the idea of becoming a teacher.

    California has made impressive progress in recent years to begin addressing this issue. In 2019, the state began investing in the Golden State Teacher Grant (GSTG) program to offer $20,000 tuition grants for teacher candidates who commit to teaching in high-need schools. And over the past 5 years the program has evolved to prioritize candidates who need the funding most and who seek meaningful teacher preparation before becoming teachers.

    The GSTG program has made an extraordinary difference for thousands of teachers, including Tylyn. At the Alder Graduate School of Education, we focus on community-based recruitment of aspiring teachers and saw a significant jump in applications thanks to GSTG. Without the financial support from the state, Tylyn said she would have waited until she could pay off her student loans – about 10 years, she estimated.

    To extend allocated funding for longer, GSTG awards were cut in half – to $10,000 – and the funding has run out. The Governor’s revised May budget for 2025-26 includes $64.2 million for the program, which is barely enough to extend GSTG for one more year.  By the time the funding could be signed into law, teacher candidates will already be enrolled in programs, having less of a potential impact on recruitment.

    We propose three big ideas to better support California’s teacher preparation pipeline. 

    1. Establish consistent financial aid for aspiring teachers so that districts and preparation programs can share reliable recruitment offers with candidates. Multi-year funding for the GSTG program is one way to do this and would allow for more reliable messaging to candidates. Another could be a teacher candidate loan program that could draw from Proposition 98 funds that are somewhat more shielded from the volatility of California’s General Fund.
    1. Create a layered system of needs-based financial support, with baseline financial support for those meeting need criteria, and layered support for candidates who commit to a high-need subject, school, or region. This would broaden access for lower-income individuals while giving the state tools for influencing candidates’ choices.
    1. Restructure aid such that pre-service preparation can compete with the financial appeal of emergency pathways. Ideally, candidates could earn pay and benefits while they learn to teach and have their training costs paid for. We wisely do this for Army and police cadets because it’s unthinkable that we’d send them directly to the field without training or have them pay for their own training. Similarly, teacher candidates should be paid for their pursuit of this public service profession.

    In these tight budget times, the most helpful short-term action is to increase the proposed GSTG reinvestment to cover at least two or three years of awards, so that it is useful for teacher recruitment.

    Ending with some great news: after enrolling in Alder’s pre-service residency program, Tylyn graduated a year later with a teaching credential and master’s degree in Education, and took a job as a elementary school teacher in her local school district. She is about to enter her second year of teaching and she is thriving – her students, principal and colleagues are grateful she was able to become a teacher. As a state, let’s continue to push forward with the good reforms we started six years ago, so that many more candidates like Tylyn can find their way to the classroom.

    •••

    Heather Kirkpatrick is CEO and president of Alder Graduate School of Education, a nonprofit, community-based, professional workforce development pathway that partners with public TK-12 school systems across California.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • California districts try many options before charging parents for student truancy

    California districts try many options before charging parents for student truancy


    Credit: Fermin Leal / EdSource

    While California’s school truancy law remains on the books, school districts in recent years appear to have become less and less likely to enforce punitive measures against parents.

    Multiple phone calls, emails, letters and requests for meetings are what parents should expect if their child is deemed truant. If those steps don’t get the child back into school, state law gives districts the right to take parents to court.

    But how often that happens is up to school officials and prosecutors and, clearly, officials say, the times have changed. Punitive measures have been shown to be less effective, especially if the reason for the child missing school is beyond the parent’s control.

    While parents have been arrested in California for their children being habitually absent from school, it is unclear how many cases resulted in criminal charges. According to state law, a district can declare a student truant and refer them to the district attorney after three unexcused absences of more than 30 minutes during the school year, potentially facing fines and even jail time.

    “It’s fair to say that most districts go beyond what the law requires in terms of trying to address these challenges internally at the district level prior to engaging the criminal justice system,” said Jonathan Raven, assistant CEO of the California District Attorneys Association.

    State law gives prosecutors wide discretion over how to charge parents when their child is truant, from an infraction, akin to a traffic violation, to a misdemeanor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

    Chronic absenteeism in California schools is part of a national crisis over children missing school, especially during the pandemic. In California, the percentage of chronically absent students skyrocketed from the pre-pandemic rate of 12.1% in 2018-19 to 30% in 2021-22, after the pandemic. The percentage dropped to nearly 25% in 2022-23.

    The state’s truancy law grew out of Kamala Harris’s efforts as a prosecutor to stem the number of high school dropouts who ended up in the criminal justice system.

    In San Francisco, where she was the district attorney from 2004 to 2010, she implemented a truancy initiative that introduced the threat of prosecution of parents and guardians when children habitually missed school. That initiative became the model for a 2010 state law that Harris sponsored which adopted strict penalties for parents of truant students: a fine not to exceed $2,000, jail time not to exceed one year, or both.

    The penalties could be applied if a student was habitually truant, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year and only after parents had been offered a range of support services to address the student’s truancy. Truancy courts were created where the penalties could be deferred so long as the students begin attending school. While attorney general from 2011 to 2017, her office created an on-line truancy hub with truancy reports from 2013 to 2016.

    The first arrests under the law were in 2011 of five parents in Orange County. The arrest option has since become controversial as districts focus first on how to solve the problems leading to truancy. During her 2019 presidential campaign, Harris stood by the goals of the law but insisted in a podcast interview at the time, that she “never sent a parent to jail” when she was a district attorney. Even though the 2010 state law specifically changed the penal code to include fines and jail time as potential penalties in truancy cases, she said in the same 2019 interview that she regretted knowing some district attorneys had criminalized parents under that state law.

    California’s law specifies that with students who are habitually truant, the goal is to keep young people out of the juvenile justice system and in school.

    State education law lists over a dozen reasons for excusing students from school, but most excused absences, school officials say, are related to illness and mental health. Unexcused absences often mean that students lacked documentation such as a note from a doctor, or that they provided no reason for their absence or that the reason they provided does not qualify as an excusable absence.

    While six out of 10 absences were excused during the 2022-23 school year, four out of 10 were unexcused, state data shows. Both numbers were similar to pre-pandemic levels. The 2023-24 data has not yet been released.

    A case study in Santa Clara County

    In Santa Clara County, just south of San Francisco, for example, a prosecutor from the district attorney’s office speaks with parents at the start of the school year.

    “I go to back-to-school nights to speak not about the law and its consequences, but about attendance and its importance, and particularly attendance in the earliest grades,” said Alisha Schoen, community prosecutor for Santa Clara’s district attorney’s office.

    Educators and researchers highlight targeted and constant communication with families — such as phone calls, emails, texts, letters and direct, in-person contact — as a powerful solution to chronic absences. In Santa Clara County, school districts conduct home visits if a student is near truancy.

    If that communication doesn’t result in the student attending school regularly, the family is then referred to the local student attendance review board, SARB. The SARB will open a case during which the family must sign an attendance contract stipulating their child will attend school regularly.

    With methods in place to help students return to school, attendance issues are most often solved at the school or district level, said Schoen.

    But if the student continues missing school, despite all interventions, the student attendance review board then has the discretion to send the case to the local district attorney’s office, at which point the parents could be prosecuted.

    Those cases go to Schoen, who might either issue the parents an infraction, like a traffic violation, which is not punishable with jail time but could carry a fine, or decide that the district or school must take additional action in addressing the absences prior to involving the court.

    “The cases that I file in my court are almost always cases where the parents refused to come to the school site meeting, did not come to the SARB, didn’t answer the door at the home visit, so this is the necessary step to get them to the table so that then we can talk about the problem and offer supportive services,” Schoen said.

    Upon being issued the infraction, the parents then enter what Santa Clara County calls a collaborative truancy court, through which they offer students and their parents access to a county behavioral health social worker, enroll parents in a 10-week in-person or online parenting class, and assign a caseworker to families who might be experiencing far-reaching challenges such as homelessness or unemployment.

    “Our throughline is that truancy is a red flag that tells us this child or their family are experiencing some crisis, and we have to recognize that red flag as such, and then get the supportive services to the family to address that underlying crisis so that the attendance can then improve,” said Schoen.

    Schoen described how they issue infractions, for example, not misdemeanors; if parents plead guilty, they request the lowest possible fine; and they make every effort to dismiss the case to avoid fines.

    “We don’t believe that assigning a large fine will improve their child’s attendance, and it could possibly have a negative effect,” said Schoen.

    Of over 234,000 students enrolled in Santa Clara County during the 2023-2024 school year, Schoen’s office heard 130 truancy cases — although some of those cases were from the previous school year. Infractions were issued to 34 parents; 28 were dismissed as student attendance improved, and six parents pleaded guilty. Those six were issued fines, and their court fees were waived. The remaining cases will be continuing this year.

    In the past, some counties are known to have taken a more punitive approach.

    Merced County in 2017 initiated an anti-truancy effort that included the arrest of 10 parents for failing to send their children to school. They were charged with misdemeanors, contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

    Jennifer McHugh, a deputy district attorney in Yolo County, considers it “very unlikely” that she would support jailing parents in truancy cases because once the case is over, “have you really solved the problem?”

    In the last year, McHugh got school district referrals for 15-20 students who were excessively truant.

    “In the past year, it’s only been one district that’s sent me names of truant students, and I don’t think they’re sending me everyone who’s been truant three or more times, because those would be way more people,” said McHugh. “They’re sending me the people who are excessively truant, you know, 60, 70, 80% of the time that this child’s truant kind of cases.”

    Those students and their families entered mediation with the district attorney’s office. During mediation, McHugh meets for 30 minutes to an hour at the county office of education — “a neutral place,” she said — to sign an attendance contract. The meeting includes the student, their parents, McHugh, student support services from the district who have made previous contact with the parents, and others with direct knowledge of the student’s situation.

    The point of the contract is not perfect attendance; rather, “good enough” attendance is what McHugh is looking for in order to avoid further court involvement. It’s up to every district to decide when to prosecute.

    “My perspective on it is we’re trying to resolve the issue. We’re trying to get them into school,” she said.

    Of the 15-20 students in mediation, only two cases were filed against parents. In one case, the student began attending school and the case was dismissed. The second case is pending.

    Impacts of targeting chronic absenteeism

    While the law stipulates that students with many absences are truant, language today describes the problem as chronic absenteeism, a situation that can be fixed with the proper supports. Another issue is who is targeted when district attorneys get involved in fighting truancy or chronic absenteeism.

    “The problem is having kids being labeled unexcused, it’s not equally distributed,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that works to improve student attendance.

    Her research on unexcused absences, published last year in a PACE report, also found that California “schools serving more socioeconomically disadvantaged students communicate more punitive approaches.”

    Certain demographics of students are more likely to have unexcused absences: Black, Native American, Latino, and Pacific Islander, regardless of socioeconomic status, along with low-income students, the study found.

    Schools serving students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged were far more likely “to publish policies stating that truancy would result in suspension of driver’s licenses, loss of school privileges like extracurricular participation, and Saturday school or in-school detention,” the report said.

    The researchers reviewed the school handbooks of 40 California middle and high schools — half of the schools had a population of over 90% of socioeconomically disadvantaged students and the other half had a population of less than 50% of socioeconomically disadvantaged students.

    There are some biases in the system “around how absences are treated and who gets labeled unexcused,” Chang told EdSource. “And sometimes that’s because we don’t have the supports and resources to really do outreach to families.”

    She added, “When the truancy laws got created, you didn’t have chronic absence even as a metric or even as an accountability metric for schools, and by having chronic absence as an accountability metric, you are saying: ‘Hey, schools, you’ve got to do something about this.’ So it’s not just the court system that has evolved over time. There is a pretty broad standing consensus that you want to invest in prevention first and you use a legal system as a last resort.”





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  • Make climate literacy a gen ed requirement across higher ed — before it’s too late

    Make climate literacy a gen ed requirement across higher ed — before it’s too late


    Local and state officials in mid-March piled 50,000 sandbags along the low-lying banks of the San Joaquin River when rising levels threatened to overtake Firebaugh.

    Emma Gallegos/EdSource

    Earlier this year, students across the country watched as wildfires devastated large parts of southern California. Yet even as they watched — and, in some cases, lived through — a very real example of what climate change can look like, many students don’t have a good understanding of why events like these are happening more frequently and with greater intensity. Without that foundational knowledge, they are ill-equipped to help mitigate the problem that is impacting their generation so significantly. Lack of climate literacy is a crisis — one that higher education has a responsibility to address.

    Acknowledging the problem is no longer enough. Although 72% of U.S. adults recognize that our climate is changing, only 58% acknowledge that it is human-caused and even fewer understand the scientific consensus — that over 97% of climate scientists affirm our role in the ever-warming planet. We need a climate-literate electorate if we want to drive effective climate action because the solutions we choose to support are based on our individual understanding of the problem. To do this, we need to make climate education part of general education. And we must move quickly.

    Many students know what is coming. Rising climate anxiety among 16–25 year-olds is telling but disempowering if they aren’t prepared to meet the moment because they hold misconceptions about the root causes. In a 2021 survey, students 14-18 years old overwhelmingly reported that climate change was real and human-caused, but follow-up questions showed large gaps between their conceptualization of Earth’s interrelated systems and reality. They also vastly underestimated the scientific consensus.

    These gaps in knowledge make sense: when climate change is taught in middle and high school classrooms, nearly one-third of science teachers are sending mixed messages about the cause, often because they themselves were never introduced to the subject during their higher education experience. Prioritizing climate literacy as part of general education at colleges and universities would reduce the perpetuation of these false narratives. 

    Ideally, institutions would offer multi-dimensional climate education for all students; realistically, the pace of climate change far outstrips the pace of change in higher education. However, a general education requirement for climate literacy is possible — and necessary. These central concepts do not rely on additional college-level coursework, making a first- or second-year course on the topic accessible to students in any major.

    Given the monumental challenge before us and what the best physical science tells us we are headed toward (e.g. heat waves, sea level rise, drought and more), it would be easy to put together a fairly depressing curriculum. A solutions-focused approach to climate education is not only kinder to our young people, but also cuts against the temptation to spread anxiety. It’s easy to miss out on the momentum building in the clean energy sector, the climate leadership of local communities, and international efforts to build climate resilience. Resources like Project Drawdown and the Solutions Journalism Network can provide curricular materials that remind students that they are not alone, and that they are not starting from square one. 

    Additionally, we need students to understand that policy, psychology, and art are just as important at shifting our trajectory as atmospheric science and clean energy technology. In this way, we make room for every student in the climate movement, no matter their professional aspirations. At Harvey Mudd College, we have developed a course to help students think critically about the impact of their work on society through an interdisciplinary look at the climate-fueled challenge of fire in the North American west. Our teaching team is intentionally broad, so we can cover California’s legacy of fire suppression, the depictions of nature in media, and the religious roots of environmental attitudes, as well as fire ecology and the greenhouse effect. While we do lay the groundwork for understanding the problem, fully 50% of the course is dedicated to analyzing proposed or current interventions.

    In addition to a solutions-focused curriculum, basic climate education also needs to prepare students emotionally and mentally to keep engaging in the work. Nearly 60% of respondents in a recent global survey of youth indicated “extreme worry” about climate change. Considering students’ emotions doesn’t mean we shy away from hard truths — that would not serve our students well and undermine their trust in faculty. In fact, those hard truths can tap into students’ deeper motivations for learning, so long as we also help them build emotional resilience through reflection. Programs like the All We Can Save Project can offer resources and even course materials. And efforts to wrap this “affective approach” into climate education are already underway, as with the Faculty Learning  Community in Teaching Climate Change and Resilience at California State University in Chico. 

    The world is currently on track for nearly twice the rise in global average temperature that leading climate experts warn is safe. The kind of climate education we need is appearing, but not at the scale or speed required. Higher education leaders must prioritize climate literacy by integrating climate education into the general curriculum. Institutions must ensure students are prepared academically, socially, and emotionally to address climate change. We need empowered graduates who have both climate knowledge and a solutions-focused mindset in uncertain times. Their world literally depends on it. 

    •••

    Lelia Hawkins is a professor of chemistry and the Hixon Professor of Climate Studies at Harvey Mudd College. She is currently serving as the Director of the Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment, a new program expanding climate education for Mudd’s scientists and engineers. 

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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