The first time I met Micah, a Black elementary school student, I was struck by his cherubic face, bright eyes and nonstop knock-knock jokes that had me laughing out loud. He was warm and polite. His grandmother — his guardian — sat close by during the visit, gently encouraging his respectful tone. She described him as responsible and kind, and everything I saw affirmed that.
So, I was puzzled — then troubled — by his school’s mental health referral. Teachers had described Micah as a “behavior challenge” and asked for help managing his “defiance.” His school records even falsely claimed his mother was a “cocaine addict.” None of it matched the child in front of me.
As I got to know him, the real story came out: Micah had just watched his father collapse and die after he tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. My heart sank as my evaluation revealed that his grief had been misread as misconduct, his pain distorted through the lens of pathology. Frustrated by repeated suspensions and missed learning, his grandmother eventually transferred him to another school.
As a child psychiatrist, I’ve seen how often Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous children, like Micah, are unfairly mislabeled and misunderstood. One diagnosis keeps showing up in ways that harm these children: oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) — a common childhood behavioral disorder characterized by anger, defiance and vindictiveness.
Too often, ODD becomes a “bad kid” label, punishing racially minoritized children for behaviors rooted in trauma, racism or structural inequities, rather than addressing the hardships they face.
Oppositional defiant disorder is overdiagnosed in Black, Hispanic and Indigenous children because of biased behavior assessments. Adultification bias leads Black children to be seen as older, stronger and less innocent than they are. Anger bias results in Black students being perceived as angry even when they’re not.
This overdiagnosis often ignores what’s really going on. Anger or irritability can be signs of anxiety or depression, while defiance can be an adaptive response to trauma or discrimination. Gender-nonconforming students of color are at special risk of being labeled defiant when they are simply resisting mistreatment or bullying.
But instead of getting support, these kids are too often punished and criminalized.
Since racially minoritized children already face higher rates of suspension, expulsion and police involvement, an improper diagnosis reinforces exclusion, pushing them out of school and into the justice system.
An ODD diagnosis doesn’t explain a child’s behavior. It blames them for it.
In 2013, California began to ban suspension for willful defiance, eventually in all grades K-12. This measure reduced overall suspensions, but racial disparities in discipline remain stark. Black and Indigenous students are suspended earlier and more often, with Black students with disabilities most affected in middle school.
Disciplinary codes that remain — like “disruption,” “defiance” and “profanity” — are vague and subjective, leaving room for racial bias. In one California school district, Black students with disabilities accounted for three-quarters of all suspensions for these offenses.
While students can’t be suspended from school for willful defiance anymore, teachers can still suspend students from class for it. An oppositional defiant disorder diagnosis can still justify exclusion — through special education placements, psychiatric referrals, or other punitive measures — serving as a backdoor for exclusionary discipline.
There is no denying thateducators face enormous challenges in classroom management, and that they often don’t have the best tools and resources to help. Restorative justice and trauma-informed approaches, for instance, can be difficult to implement because of limited staffing and administrative support. But it’s also true that questioning the “bad kid” label with ODD or defiance can lead to more just outcomes.
How? Here are four things educators and other adults can do:
Recognize bias in discipline and mental health diagnoses A Black student questioning authority may be labeled defiant, while a white student is called assertive for the same behavior. Bias training and reflective practice are key to addressing these misperceptions. While California has introduced implicit bias training as part of teacher professional development, none of these initiatives specifically address diagnostic bias.
Contextualize student behavior Before labeling a child oppositional, ask:
Are they facing hunger, housing instability or bullying?
Are they reacting to discrimination or past trauma?
Building strong relationships with students and families helps uncover the full story.
Support, don’t punish Because they address the root causes of distress, behavioral interventions that teach emotional regulation and restorative practices that repair relationships can be more effective than exclusion.
Be skeptical of mental health referrals Referrals don’t guarantee unbiased care. Psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists aren’t required to account for racism or the school-to-prison pipeline when diagnosing oppositional defiant disorder. California’s medical and behavioral health boards don’t mandate an antiracist approach, meaning students are often assessed without consideration of systemic factors.
ODD’s overdiagnosis among Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students reflects a deeper problem, where certain children’s emotions are pathologized and punished, while the emotions of others receive understanding and support.
By questioning bias and shifting from labels to solutions, schools can ensure every child gets the support they need to thrive.
For Micah, the Black elementary school student grieving his father’s death, the solution wasn’t medication or behavior interventions. It was removing the ODD label and validating his grandmother’s sense that the school was mistreating him. What helped was switching schools and witnessing his grandmother go to bat for him. These actions gave him what he truly needed: love, support and a sense of belonging.
There are no bad kids. There are only systems that fail them. Let’s lift them up, not push them out.
•••
Dr. Rupinder K. Legha is a double board-certified psychiatrist based in Los Angeles who specializes in child, adolescent and adult mental health.
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 commentary guidelines and contact us.
Melissa Ramirez, a first grade teacher at Lockeford Elementary in Lodi, holds up a flashcard while students say and spell the word ‘water.’
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Despite a newfound national focus on the science of reading, states, including California, aren’t doing enough to support and train teachers to effectively teach literacy, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
Thirty-two states have passed laws or implemented policies related to evidence-based reading instruction in the last decade. Despite that, nearly every state could do more to support literacy instruction, according to the report, “Five Policy Actions to Strengthen Implementation of the Science of Reading.“
“While states are rightly prioritizing literacy, they are not focusing enough attention on teacher effectiveness and teacher capacity to teach reading aligned to the science,” council President Heather Peske told EdSource. “If these efforts are to succeed … the state needs to ensure that teachers are prepared and supported from the time that they are in teacher preparation programs to the time that they enter classrooms.”
The report rated states as strong, moderate, weak or unacceptable, based on whether they have policies to ensure students receive science-based reading instruction that includes teaching them to sound out words, a process known as phonics. Only 12 states, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia, were rated as strong.
The state gets high marks for setting reading standards for teacher preparation programs, adopting a strong reading licensure test for teachers, and requiring districts to select high-quality reading curricula. California scored lower on whether it requires ongoing literacy training for teachers and on its oversight of teacher preparation programs to ensure they are teaching the science of reading.
Not all teachers are trained in the science of reading
While California provides funds to school districts to offer literacy training to teachers, it does not require all elementary school teachers to be trained in the science of reading, as other states do, Peske said, adding that without proper training, teachers often flounder when teaching literacy, despite having access to high-quality instructional materials.
Effective teaching is critical to improving students’ reading skills. More than 90% of students would learn to read with effective reading instruction, according to the report.
About 40% of students entering fourth grade in the United States can read at a basic level, according to the research. The latest California test scores show fewer than half of the students who were tested were proficient in reading. These results have not changed much in the past decade.
“Why do we see staggering numbers of children, especially children of color and from low-income backgrounds, without fundamental literacy skills? said Denise Forte, president and CEO of The Education Trust. “Because in many districts and schools nationwide, outdated teaching methods and curricula that have been proven ineffective, and even harmful, are still being used.”
The report comes as California and other states are renewing their focus on the science of reading, which is based on over 50 years of research that provides a clear picture of how effective literacy instruction can produce a skilled reader, Peske said.
Only two of the 41 teacher preparation programs reviewed in California adequately cover all five components of the science of reading, according to the report. The five components include phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
California puts renewed emphasis on reading
But that could change soon. By July 1, California will require teacher preparation programs to provide literacy training based on the science of reading and the state’s new literacy standards.The new standards include support for struggling readers, English learners and pupils with exceptional needs, incorporating dyslexia guidelines for the first time.
The state is also eliminating the unpopular Reading Instruction Competence Assessment in 2025. It will be replaced with a performance assessment based on literacy standards and a new set of Teaching Performance Expectations.
“This latest set of standards and TPEs are probably the strongest statements we’ve had about reading and literacy in teacher preparation,” said Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. “We are going gangbusters to get them in the field.”
More than half of the states use outside accreditors to review teacher preparation programs, which researchers say is not ideal. The report includes California as one of those states, but Sandy says that is not the case. Teacher preparation programs in California must be reviewed every seven years by a commission-approved institutional review board made up of university faculty and practitioners across all credential areas, Sandy said. Members are trained on the standards, or have a background or credential in the subject being reviewed, she said.
Teacher preparation programs that want a national accreditation can choose to use an outside accreditor, but it is not required for state accreditation, Sandy said.
California should also include data it collects on teacher pass rates on the state reading licensure test as part of the review of teacher preparation programs, Peske said.
California’s changes to teacher preparation and emphasis on the science of reading were taken into consideration by National Council on Teacher Quality’s researchers when evaluating the state, Peske said. The research was also sent to the California Department of Education at least twice for review. No one at the department said the research was in error, according to the council.
The council has provided a guide to help states implement and sustain strong reading instruction.
“Helping all children learn to read is possible when you have teachers who’ve been prepared in the science of reading,” Peske said. “Much like an orchestra needs each section of instruments to come together to successfully create music, states need to implement multiple teacher-focused reading policies that work together to improve student outcomes.”
Teacher candidates in the Claremont Graduate University teacher residency program spend an entire year working with a mentor teacher in Corona Norco Unified classrooms.
Courtesy: Claremont Graduate University School of Education Studies
Public schools in California are facing historic staffing challenges: rising rates of dissatisfaction and burnout within the current workforce and unprecedented shortages of future teachers, as increased housing and education costs deter potential teachers from entering the field.
But university teacher preparation programs and school districts can create more effective partnerships to meet these demands.
Historically, the partnerships between teacher preparation programs and school districts have been transactional: teacher preparation programs place student teachers in districts for short periods of time without considering district needs. To change this dynamic, teacher preparation schools launched residency programs to ensure new teachers better understood the communities they were serving. Residencies are similar to student teaching models, but differ in that they are for a full year. Within a residency, aspiring teachers take on increasingly more responsibility in the classroom alongside a mentor teacher for the entire year, gain familiarity with the ebbs and flows of the school year, and assume full teaching responsibilities by the end of the year.
Over the last five years, California has dedicated more than $350 million for teacher residencies to better prepare future educators and help diversify the workforce. Research shows candidates who go through a residency become more effective teachers more quickly than those launching their careers through other pathways, and they are likely to remain in the profession longer. It costs a district roughly $20,000 to hire a new teacher; by reducing turnover, residencies are not only good for new teachers and K-12 students, but also for school district budgets.
One promising avenue to meet these challenges is by creating mutually beneficial partnerships between university teacher preparation programs and school districts to help place and nurture new teachers in the field. These partnerships require transparency, a clear vision, and shared investments. With these elements in place, they have the opportunity to meet districts’ staffing needs and teacher preparation programs’ enrollment goals while surrounding new teachers with systems of social and professional support. These partnerships also provide stipends and embedded professional development that enrich existing teachers’ work with new avenues for leadership as mentors to new teachers.
One example of a creative and effective partnership can be found between Claremont Graduate University and Corona-Norco Unified School District. The university and the district had worked together for many years, with Corona-Norco hiring many Claremont alums, but they had never formalized a partnership. With a foundation of mutual trust and understanding, the district shared data about their current and anticipated staffing needs, and the faculty of the Claremont teacher education program shared insight into their students’ experiences, strengths and needs entering the profession. Understanding the benefits that a residency program provides to veteran teachers, students and the district as a whole, the district committed to paying residents a living stipend from reallocated budget dollars.
A shared vision is key to a successful partnership. For example, both the university and the district have a strong commitment to diversity. This is visible in the diverse participants recruited by Claremont’s teacher education program, who are drawn to its deeply rooted commitment to social justice and humanizing relationships. It also reflects Corona-Norco Unified’s mission to foster the wellness of their students by cultivating an educator pool that better reflects the diversity of its students and communities. This mutual commitment to what teaching can and should be created pathways for recruiting experienced mentor teachers from the district interested in professional development with the university that leveraged and built from their knowledge and expertise. Research shows that grouping mentors in community with other experienced teachers and giving them opportunities to engage not only as practitioners but also as intellectuals helps fend off burnout and gives them a renewed sense of purpose.
The teacher residencies that have come out of this partnership buffer participants from the overwhelm and burnout so many other new teachers face by embedding them within a community of support that includes university advisers and faculty alongside mentor teachers and advisers at the district. The residents not only learn from their university classes and experiences in their mentor teachers’ classrooms, but also from opportunities to work with colleagues to support students who are struggling academically, working with small groups of students, analyzing students’ work with department teams, and interacting with parents and caregivers at drop-off and during teacher conferences. The breadth and depth of these experiences give residents confidence that when they step into their own classroom, they’ll be ready to meet the needs of students and have colleagues to call upon when they need support.
District leaders are ready to hire their residents after they earn their master’s degree and credential and eager to have more residents at their school sites. School principals note that residents provide data-driven, hyper-personalized instruction to students that they otherwise would not be able to offer. Students love residents, often running up to them during lunch and recess for hugs. And parents and caregivers appreciate having more people around who care about their kids. Having more adults on campus who know and are known by more students benefits everyone.
With more partnerships like this, the possibilities to innovate and strengthen learning for everyone at our schools grow exponentially. This story is just the beginning.
•••
Rebecca Hatkoff, PhD, is the interim director of teacher education at Claremont Graduate University.
Debra Russell works as part of the California Educator Preparation Innovation Collaborative team at Chapman University to promote strategic teacher residency models across the state.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
A school principal addresses parents during a monthly meeting.
Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages
As upcoming national elections loom, there is a concerning overshadowing of local political engagement.
City councils, school boards and local commissions significantly shape our daily lives, particularly affecting our children’s future. Local elections are crucial as they directly impact essential services like water, sewer, garbage collection and infrastructure maintenance such as roadways, park systems, bike trails, and sidewalks. On top of that, local governments regulate zoning, permits and land use, profoundly molding our communities’ development and quality of life.
My journey advocating for my daughter’s safety at school propelled me into local advocacy through school site councils and, eventually, as a mayoral appointee to my city’s Commission United for Racial Equity. You’re not alone if “site council” doesn’t ring a bell for you. Four years ago, I found myself in the same position. Site councils are the mechanism districts use to engage parents, caregivers and the broader community in pursuing an equitable educational experience for students.
When my daughter started first grade, a visceral moment fortified my intention to engage in local politics. I’d given our then 6-year-old daughter a phone watch for safety and comfort. I soon learned that electronic devices are not allowed on a student’s person during the school day and must remain inside their backpacks. I felt the policy defeated the device’s purpose. I had a series of terse but kind conversations with the school about the importance of my child always wearing the watch. The school did not budge.
In a burst of frustration, I stormed into the living room, tossing freshly printed pages at my husband. “What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing my anger.
“You’re going to the school office today and using that white privilege,” I demanded. As a multiracial couple in a predominantly white district, I felt my identity as a Black woman might hinder progress, so I urged my husband to take action. “I’ve already prepared everything you need to say,” I added sharply. Standing over me, he embraced me as I broke into tears, then took on the task as requested.
My husband reiterated to the school, ad nauseam, my concerns about the rampant threat of school shootings in the U.S. and the imperative for constant communication with my child, emphasizing our proactive measures such as relocating closer to her school; it’s a 5-minute journey from our front door to the front steps of her school; I could run there in an emergency. The phone watch served as another layer of safety, compelling me to adamantly push for a revision of the policy on electronic devices. As parents, we are our children’s foremost advocates, necessitating relentless advocacy, always.
In California, site councils play a crucial role in schools by conducting assessments recommending equitable uses of federal funds to meet the educational needs of our students, reviewing school safety plans, and partnering in the development of schools’ plans for student achievement.
Parents must understand the importance of participating in these spaces to support effective decision-making and their children’s safety and academic and personal growth. I just finished year three as a site council member and have learned a great deal about the policies and practices that govern our children’s educational experience. Many site council members proceed to serve on school boards or in city leadership, as I have with my city’s Commission United for Racial Equity, where we shape the long-term policies and practices that impact our community.
In my home of Benicia, community engagement with the site council process continues to yield tangible outcomes. This has led to integrating professional development opportunities, encompassing restorative practices, implicit bias training, and social justice at both district and site levels. Additionally, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging have been integrated into the district’s accountability plan, alongside construction efforts undertaken to enhance the safety and accessibility of the physical environment. Finally, revisions to the classroom curriculum and the school library have been made to ensure a comprehensive representation of history’s diversity.
You have the power to engage as a parent, caregiver or concerned community member. Start by contacting your principal for the site council’s meeting schedule. These meetings are open to the public, and agendas are provided in advance, allowing you time to prepare thoughtful questions or comments on topics that directly impact your child’s educational journey.
And if you are wondering, yes, my daughter’s school site changed the electronic device policy, and she has worn her phone watch to school every day for the last five years: Parental engagement and advocacy works.
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Amira K.S. Barger is an adjunct professor at California State University, East Bay and works on diversity, equity and inclusion and communications at a consulting firm.
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.
Community member Kayla Church stands in support of LGBTQ+ community and in opposition to Temecula Valley Unified curriculum ban.
Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource
While litigation moves forward, the Temecula Valley Unified District can keep enforcing its transgender notification policy as well as its ban on critical race theory, which restricts instruction on race and gender more broadly, Riverside County Judge Eric A. Keen ruled Friday.
In what seemed to be a contradiction to this decision, Keen had ruled on Feb. 15 that the case — Mae M. v. Komrosky — filed on behalf of the district’s teachers union, teachers, parents and students, in August by Ballard Spahr and the country’s largest pro-bono law firm Public Counsel LLP — will move forward. The plaintiffs had asked Keen to temporarily block enforcement of the policies while the case was fought out in court, but did not get it.
“We are deeply disappointed with the denial of the preliminary injunction, primarily for the students and teachers and parents that we represent,” said Amanda Mangaser Savage, supervising attorney for Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project.
“While these policies remain in effect, students in Temecula’s classrooms are being denied access to an accurate and fact-based education and, instead, are receiving an education that is dictated entirely by the board members’ ideological preferences.”
Supporters of the board’s policy, including Joseph Komrosky, the Temecula Valley Unified school board president, have claimed that the policies do not discriminate against transgender students or students of color.
“The diversity that exists among the District’s community of students, staff, parents, and guardians is an asset to be honored and valued,” Komrosky said in a news release by Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a Murrieta-based law firm, “dedicated to protecting religious liberty in the courts,” that is representing the district for free.
“These policies were enacted by the school board to ensure our district puts the needs of students and their parents above all else,” adding that Temecula Valley Unified is committed to providing students with a well-rounded education devoid of “discrimination and indoctrination.”
In August, the board passed a policy that percolated through about a half-dozen other districts, requiring that school administrators notify parents if their child shows signs of being transgender.
Edgar Diaz, president of the Temecula Valley Educators Association, the district’s teachers union, criticized Keen’s ruling, stating that it “does not consider the ripple effects” of the district’s policies.
Diaz added that wooden blocks have since been placed on library shelves in lieu of books because teachers and staff fear “there may be some banned concept in them.”
“We shouldn’t be banning anything; we’re an educational institution. If children are curious about something, they explore it; they talk to the teachers. And especially in high school, they’re old enough to form their own opinions about what’s real and what’s not real,” said Temecula Valley Unified school board member Steve Schwartz.
He added that if an LGBTQ+ student “doesn’t feel safe enough in their home to tell their parent but needs to share it with someone and shares it with a teacher, it doesn’t seem like a good idea for the teacher to have to tell that parent.”
Widespread divides over critical race theory
The transgender notification policies and critical race theory ban supported by the Temecula Valley board are part of a larger movement driven by conservative organizations like Reform California. These groups formed to counter widespread calls from the left for racial justice following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020.
Nearly 800 measures in 244 local, state and federal entities have been taken against critical race theory, according to CRT Forward, an initiative of the UCLA School of Law’s critical race studies program.
In California alone, 13 measures have been introduced at the local level, nine of which have been passed or implemented.
As of April 2023, however, 60% of anti-CRT measures were adopted in predominantly conservative states.
“Today’s ruling unfortunately means that Temecula will continue amongst the ranks of Texas and Florida,” Mangaser Savage said.
“While California is obviously a liberal state, I think that the fact that this is happening in our districts demonstrates how pernicious this is.”
The survey specifically found that between 80% and 86% of Democrats support the idea of high school students learning about LGBTQ+ topics compared with less than 40% of Republicans. Introducing LGBTQ+ topics at the elementary level garnered less support on both sides of the aisle.
Over half of those surveyed also supported discussion of topics about race at the high school level. But at the elementary level, Democrats were much more likely to support the idea of students learning about slavery, civil rights and racial inequality.
Critical race theory is usually taught at the college level, and Schwartz said it has not been taught in Temecula Valley Unified.
“But if I were a teacher today, and a student came to me and said, ‘What do you think about CRT?’ my response would be: ‘Why don’t you do some research and see what you think about it, and then we can have a discussion,’” Schwartz said.
“My thought is not to tell kids not to investigate things that they’re interested in. That’s what learning is all about.”
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California
California LGBTQ Health & Human Services Network
Equal Justice Society
Equality California
Family Assistance Program
Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network
GLSEN
Inland Empire Prism Collective
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.
LGBTQ Center OC
LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert
Legal Services of Northern California
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest
Public Advocates, Inc.
Public School Defenders Hub
Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance
Sacramento LGBT Center
Safe Schools Project of Santa Cruz County
Transgender Law Center
TransFamily Support Services
Trevor Project
Penguin Random House and PEN America have also announced their support for the preliminary injunction.
As pressure has mounted on the district to stop its enforcement of allegedly discriminatory and illegal policies, the school board’s makeup has also changed — and more could shift in the coming months.
In December, One Temecula Valley PAC, a political action committee, lodged a recall effort against the board’s three conservative members and gathered enough signatures to move forward with a recall election this spring against Komrosky, the board president.
Conservative board member Jennifer Wiersma, however, will remain on the board, while Danny Gonzalez announced his resignation in December with plans to move to Texas.
Temecula Valley Unified’s school board met on Feb.13 to appoint a replacement but was unable to and decided to move forward with an election. Whoever replaces Gonzalez in that seat will determine whether the board retains its conservative majority.
“Despite the small but vocal opponents that seek to rewrite history and indoctrinate students,” Komrosky said, “I am very optimistic for our school district.”
Editors’ note: This story has been updated to add a statement from Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project supervising attorney, Amanda Mangaser Savage.
Throughout the discussion on Tuesday, the panelists explored why a majority of high school students fail to complete A-G requirements — courses they need to qualify for admission to the University of California or California State University systems — and offered ways that schools can help change that.
“I think we have a responsibility to raise the expectations and then lean in to making sure that we have the support in place for students to be successful in those expectations,” said Sherrie Reed Bennett, executive director of the California Education Lab at the UC Davis School of Education.
Panelists agreed that the more options students have, the better their situation after graduation and that increasing access to college prep courses is crucial.
Michael R. McCormick, superintendent of Val Verde Unified, said that awareness should start well before students enter high school and that schools should create a college and career culture with events such as College Days or elementary school lessons on A-G courses.
But beyond awareness, high school students are not getting the support they need to complete the A-G coursework, and parents and students, who often know little or nothing about these requirements, are left to figure it out on their own, panelists said.
“To expect people to go out and figure it out on their own is really difficult,” Delilah Brumer, a student at Los Angeles Pierce College, said about high school students not having the resources to learn about A-G requirements.
Some schools also struggle with offering the A-G coursework or doing so in a way that supports students. In 2018-19, 2.5% of schools offered no A-G courses, and another 6% only offered some A-G courses.
Although Brumer met her A-G requirements at a Los Angeles Unified school, she said the process was stressful and confusing. Her Career Technical Education courses often conflicted with her A-G courses, and she could only take some courses online.
Taking A-G and CTE courses shouldn’t be a matter of “either or,” Reed said, adding that districts should work to prevent those conflicts. For example, Val Verde Unified offered 42 career pathways and ensured that every course within each pathway was also A–G approved, according to Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) research in which Reed co-authored and cited during the roundtable.
Whether college or career, the A-G courses are important for all students, no matter what their plans are after high school, panelists said.
Systemic changes needed
Students planning to attend UC or CSU must complete the college preparatory courses known as A-G requirements — 15 courses in seven areas that overlap with the requirements for a high school diploma but are more rigorous.
More than half, 56%, of high school seniors failed to meet these requirements in 2023, meaning they were ineligible to apply to a California public university and may struggle at a community college.
Research indicates that enrollment and completion rates on A-G courses vary across student groups and schools. In 2023, 68% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet A-G requirements, compared with 26% of Asian students and 48% of white students, according to EdSource’s analysis. The highest non-completion group was foster students at 88%, followed by disabled students at 85% and English learners at 82%.
It’s a multifaceted problem that requires systemic changes at a district, and possibly, statewide level, panelists said.
Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, program coordinator for the Heritage program at Victor Valley Union High School District, said schools must evaluate support through an equity lens because there are systemic barriers keeping African American and Latino students from qualifying for four-year universities.
With just 6% of Black students graduating with A-G courses at Adelanto High, Victor Valley started Heritage, an equity program that helps place students in A-G courses. The program also educates families about college applications, financial aid and housing, spearheading school and districtwide changes, such as career advisers helping all students with UC and CSU applications.
“So many system changes needed to be made in order for all of our students, not just the African American students, to benefit,” Jackson-Jarrell said. “So a lot of things have changed because of this one equity program; they’re mirroring and changing the systems.”
PACE research found that at the school or district level, routine data analysis, such as comprehensive A-G course audits, can also help inform school and course-level changes to support students with meeting the requirements.
McCormick suggested that a default enrollment process in the A-G courses would guarantee all students have access and the opportunity to reach their dreams.
“If we can, through a policy solution or the stroke of the governor’s pen, decide that we need to teach cursive writing, why can we not do some sort of a policy solution for A-G?” he said. “It seems like a viable path is there.”
Steve Perez chats with a representative at the Northern Virginia Community College Office of Wellness and Mental Health resource table during the ADVANCE program welcome event at George Mason University on Jan. 31.
Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
Steve Perez faced a daunting challenge as he considered where to attend college.
The first in his family to pursue a higher education, Perez was “basically all on my own.” Rejected from his top choice, Virginia Tech, he was considering community college near his hometown of Falls Church, Virginia. But he worried whether he would be able to successfully transfer to a four-year university, knowing it would be up to him to take the right courses and successfully apply for admission.
“No one in my family really knows anything about college,” he said. “That was really tough.”
Students start at the community college but are immediately accepted to George Mason before even taking their first community college class. The colleges also provide students up front with the full list of courses they need to earn their bachelor’s degree, a task that in other states is often left to students.
Northern Virginia Community College serves about 70,000 students across its six campuses in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., more than any other community college in the state. Likewise, George Mason is the largest public research university in Virginia with about 40,000 students, most of them commuters. Their main campuses separated by just 5 miles, Northern Virginia historically has sent more students to George Mason than any other community college.
A statue of George Mason on the George Mason University campus in Fairfax. Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
Officials say the ADVANCE program perfected that transfer partnership. Since launching in 2018, just over 1,500 students in the program have successfully transferred to Mason, including 415 this past fall. More than 90% of students in the program graduate within two years of transferring to Mason.
The program stands out nationally, even earning kudos from the federal Department of Education for solving a widespread problem of a cumbersome transfer process that stymies students in community college.
In California, most community college students who want to get a bachelor’s degree never transfer. Without adequate support, they often struggle to keep track of courses, ending up with too many credits but lacking required classes. One study found that as few as 2.5% of students intending to transfer do so within two years, and only 23% do so within four years.
The Virginia program could serve as a model for California colleges. The state is in the early stages of adopting its own dual admission programs at both of its public university systems, the University of California and California State University. CSU’s program, open to far more students than UC’s, is especially exciting to college access advocates.
Both programs launched this past fall, and officials are hopeful it will make transferring easier for students.
Taking away the guesswork
In Virginia, the idea of ADVANCE is to “take away the guesswork for students,” said Jen Nelson, the community college’s director of university transfer and initiatives.
Upon enrolling, students receive a link to a portal where they select one of 85 academic pathways, such as business, computer science or psychology. Based on their pathway, the portal then shows them all the classes they need to take to transfer and eventually earn a bachelor’s degree.
“It provides that guarantee that if students take these classes, they’re going to transfer,” Nelson said. “It takes away that concern of, am I taking the right thing? Am I spending my time and money in the right way?”
As long as they maintain at least a minimum grade point average — usually a 2.5 — students are automatically admitted to Mason. They don’t even need to fill out an application.
Along the way, students can meet with counselors who are hired specifically for the ADVANCE program. They also have full access to all the resources offered at Mason, including clubs, libraries and even health care.
In Perez’s case, he chose a computer science pathway and this semester started his lower-division classes, which include general education, math and introductory computer science classes. He’s on track to transfer to George Mason within two years.
At a recent resource fair for new students hosted on the Mason campus, Perez walked from table to table, learning about the resources offered by Mason, including club sports, mental health services and tutoring. He can participate in all of it now that he’s in the program.
Steve Perez grabs a informational card at the Northern Virginia Community College Office of Wellness and Mental Health resource table during the ADVANCE program welcome event at George Mason University on Jan. 31. Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
“I’m really happy I chose this pathway because it gives me a great opportunity,” he said. “And it takes away the stress.”
Not long before ADVANCE launched in 2018, Janette Muir remembers sitting in on an advising session at Northern Virginia for her son, who had recently graduated from high school.
Muir, a professor and George Mason’s associate provost for academic initiatives at the time, was shocked to learn how confusing the transfer process was.
Students received little guidance, and many were taking unnecessary courses.
“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so confusing for even a student who has professors as his parents,’” she said.
Her son and other students, Muir said, needed more help. Muir started working with the presidents of both institutions to develop ADVANCE.
Janette Muir addresses ADVANCE students and their friends and family during the welcome event at George Mason University in January. Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
That year, the two colleges launched the program with 21 pathways. It has since grown to 85 pathways, and more than 4,500 students have enrolled since the program’s inception.
Any student can enroll so long as they have not completed more than 30 college credits, and students who do enroll tend to stick around. Among the students in the cohort that entered in fall 2021, 87% returned the following year, far better than the national average retention rate of 61%.
When they transfer to Mason, ADVANCE students on average graduate two semesters faster than non-ADVANCE transfer students. In fact, 92% of them graduate within two years of transferring. Students also finish an associate degree upon transferring, which officials say is important to ensure they have the necessary preparation in their major.
Muir, who now oversees ADVANCE in her role as Mason’s vice provost for academic affairs, said officials have started to expect students to finish the entire program in four years rather than six.
“When you come into this program and you follow the pathways, you do better and you finish sooner,” Muir told new students gathered at a welcome event in January.
For Jaden Todd, a second-year community college student in the program, having access to the pathways portal has been especially helpful.
When Todd first started college, learning certain classes would transfer to some universities but not others was a “big shocker.” He took a Western history class only to learn that it wouldn’t be accepted at another college he was considering,Virginia Commonwealth University, which required a world history course.
“There’s stuff like that where I spent several hundred dollars on a class just to be informed that I would have to retake a class in a similar area,” he said.
When it comes to the courses he needs to transfer to and ultimately graduate from Mason, however, there are no surprises.
If students do have questions, they have access to counselors who have been hired specifically for the ADVANCE program.
Emma Howard, a sophomore who will transfer to Mason this fall, consulted her adviser after learning that one of her courses, which she thought qualified as an elective, wasn’t going to be transferable.
The adviser called the transfer center at Mason and successfully convinced them to count the course, an acting for the camera class.
“They really try to make your time here easier,” Howard said. “They bring a lot of ease and just faith in the matriculation process.”
Eliminating the ‘transfer shock’
When Maria Fruchterman transferred this past fall to Mason, she already had a close circle of friends. That’s because, while she was taking her lower-division community college classes, she was also playing club field hockey at Mason. It was a perk afforded to her because she was in the ADVANCE program.
“It’s been really good for my transition,” Fruchterman said. “I just felt at ease and very comfortable.”
Maria Fruchterman answers questions about the ADVANCE program during a welcome event at George Mason University in Virginia.Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
The motivation to give Northern Virginia students access to the Mason campus was two-fold, Nelson said. For one, as a community college, Northern Virginia doesn’t offer all the same benefits and resources available at Mason and other four-year institutions, like health insurance and mental health counseling.
Officials also wanted to eliminate the “transfer shock” that transfer students often deal with upon arriving at the four-year university, Nelson said. “They’re going to a new environment. Everything is different,” she added.
By giving students access to those resources up front, it allows them to “hit the ground running,” Nelson said.
That’s what Perez is planning for himself. While visiting Mason’s main Fairfax campus for the welcome event, he felt a different buzz than what he was accustomed to at Northern Virginia’s main campus in nearby Annandale.
“I noticed that there’s so many more people around,” he said. “Especially in Annandale, it seems like everyone leaves campus by 3 p.m.”
As he learned about the different clubs offered at Mason, Perez said he planned to join several: a computer science club, a chess club, maybe even an intramural badminton team.
Can California replicate?
Whether California’s dual admission programs will significantly improve transfer won’t be known for some time. Both programs are in their infancy, just launched last fall.
Between the two, CSU may have a better chance at success, with a far more robust program than what UC offers. About 2,000 students enrolled in CSU’s first cohort, compared to just 182 for UC.
CSU’s program is open to essentially any first-time college freshman entering a California community college. Students can enroll by creating an account on the CSU Transfer Planner portal and selecting from one of the degree programs across CSU’s 23 campuses. Eligible students are guaranteed admission.
UC’s program is limited only to students who applied to UC but weren’t eligible because they didn’t complete their A-G course requirements in high school. That was the minimum required by a state law passed in 2021 creating the dual admission programs.
The law, designed to give students a second chance at attending UC or CSU, asks UC and requires CSU to offer dual admission to students who didn’t “meet freshman admissions eligibility criteria due to limitations in the high school curriculum offered or personal or financial hardship.” CSU’s program goes beyond what’s required by law by offering dual admission to just about any student who was rejected or simply chose not to attend CSU.
UC may be less incentivized to admit students because several campuses have capacity issues and turn away many qualified applicants each year. UC’s program is limited to only six of its nine undergraduate campuses, with its three most exclusive campuses — Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego — not included.
CSU’s dual admission program is available at every campus, though select programs with capacity issues are excluded, such as some engineering programs at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
CSU officials hope the dual admission program will eliminate a problem with the current system: local campuses and their staff aren’t familiar with prospective transfer students until they apply.
“We want this to be an opportunity for us to connect with them way earlier in the process and support them,” said April Grommo, CSU’s assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management.
Similar to the Virginia program, students on CSU’s dual admission pathway get access to an online transfer planner showing them all the classes they need upfront.
Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s higher education center, is hopeful it will make a meaningful difference. In an August 2023 PPIC report, Johnson and other researchers identified dual admission as a “promising approach” to help solve California’s transfer dilemma.
“A lot of the challenge for community college students when they start is knowing what is required to get into UC and CSU,” he said. “By front loading all of that information, we think students would face fewer obstacles and be more efficient.”
In addition, CSU’s dual admission program gives community collegestudents access to programs and services available at the campus closest to their residence, like the ADVANCE program does. One CSU campus, Long Beach, for years has already been offering something similar. As part of the “Long Beach Promise 2.0,” launched in 2018, students at nearby Long Beach City College have the option to receive a “future student” ID card for CSU Long Beach and can access the campus library, athletic events, clubs and more.
“A lot of research in higher education focused on why students complete or why they don’t complete has included this notion of belonging, feeling a part of the campus,” Johnson said. “And I think the more that you can do for community college students can only help that sense of belonging so that when you eventually do transfer, you feel like it’s your school.”
In Virginia, staff at George Mason and the community college are often asked how other colleges can replicate their success.
Jennifer Nelson addresses ADVANCE students and their friends and family during the welcome event at George Mason University.Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
Officials at those colleges point out that the two institutions have several factors working in their favor. The partnership is natural given the geographic proximity and historical relationship between the colleges. There are a number of faculty who have taught at both colleges. The colleges’ presidents work closely and actually spend time with each other, like meeting up for an occasional breakfast.
“How do you do this work? I can tell you it’s not easy. If it was easy, lots of people would be doing it,” Muir said. “It takes a lot of relationship-building, a lot of connection and recognizing the value of a community college education.”
The catastrophic Camp Fire roared through Northern California’s Butte County in 2018, charring the landscape, taking 86 lives and destroying countless homes and habitats in the town of Paradise.
The deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history at the time, the fire spread at the rate of 80 football fields a minute at its peak, scorching the hearts and minds of the people who live there, especially the children.
That’s why the Butte County Office of Education sent trauma-informed arts educators into the schools, to help students cope with their fear, grief and loss. Buildings can be repaired far more quickly than the volatile emotions of children scarred by tragedy. Long after the flames died down, the heightened sense of fragility that often follows trauma lingered.
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“The people displaced from Paradise were suffering from acute trauma, running for their lives, losing their houses and being displaced,” said Jennifer Spangler, arts education coordinator at Butte County Office of Education. “This county has been at the nexus of a lot of impactful traumas, so it makes sense that we would want to create something that directly addresses it.
Even now, years after the conflagration, many residents are still healing from the aftermath. For example, the county has weathered huge demographic shifts, including spikes in homelessness, in the wake of the fire, which have unsettled the community. All of that came on the heels of the 2017 Oroville dam evacuations and longstanding issues of poverty, drug addiction and unemployment, compounding the sense of trauma.
“Butte County already had the highest adverse childhood experiences (ACES) scores in the state,” said Spangler. “We’re economically depressed, with high numbers of foster kids and unstable family lives and drugs. I think the fire was just another layer, and then Covid was another layer on top of that.”
Chris Murphy is a teaching artist who has worked with children in Paradise public schools as well as those at the Juvenile Hall School. He believes that theater can be a kind of restorative practice, helping students heal from their wounds in a safe space.
“Arts education is so effective in working with students impacted by trauma because the creative process operates on an instinctual level,” said Murphy, an actor best known for voicing the role of Murray in the “Sly Cooper” video game franchise for Sony’s PlayStation. “All arts are basically a way to tell a story and, as human beings, we are hard-wired to engage in storytelling as both participant and observer. A bond of mutual respect and trust develops among the group as they observe each other’s performances and make each other laugh. Over time, the environment takes on a more relaxed and safe quality.”
A drumming class at Palermo Middle School.Credit: Butte County Office of Education
Another teaching artist, Kathy Naas, specializes in teaching drumming as part of a social-emotional learning curriculum that helps students find redemption in the visceral call-and-response rhythms of the drum circle.
“Trauma is powerful and is connected to something that occurred in the past,” said Naas, a drummer who is currently performing with a samba group as well as a Congolese group based in Chico. “Drumming occurs in the present moment and engages the brain so much that fear, pain and sadness cannot break through.”
To be sure, the use of trauma-informed arts ed techniques goes beyond natural disasters. Many arts advocates believe that these techniques can help children cope with myriad stressors.
“Now more than ever, these cycles of traumatic events, they just keep coming,” said Spangler, who modeled the Butte program after a similar one in Sonoma County in the wake of the devastating 2017 Tubbs Fire.
Children who have experienced trauma may experience negative effects in many aspects of their lives, experts warn. They may struggle socially in school, get lower grades, and be suspended or expelled. They may even become involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice system.
“An individual who has been impacted by trauma, especially ongoing toxic stressors like a home environment with addiction, neglect or abuse, develops a brain chemistry that is detrimental to cognitive function … essentially locking the brain in a fight-flight-freeze cycle,” Murphy said. “With this understanding of what the trauma-affected student is going through, I use theater arts to disrupt the cycle.”
It should also be noted that delayed reactions are par for the course when dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), experts say. Some children will show their distress readily, while others may try to hide their struggle.
Coming out of the pandemic, the healing power of the arts has been cast into wide relief as public health officials seek tools to grapple with the youth mental health crisis.
“Music can, in a matter of seconds, make me feel better,” said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy during an arts summit organized by the White House Domestic Policy Council and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). “I’ve prescribed a lot of medicines as a doctor over the years. There are few I’ve seen that have that kind of extraordinary, instantaneous effect.”
A trauma-informed arts ed class involving theater in Butte County. Credit: Butte County Office of Education
Drumming can help build empathy, Naas says, because it allows for self-expression but also encourages a sense of ensemble, listening to others and taking turns.
“Drumming is a powerful activity that creates community,” said Naas. “What I notice about drumming with children is that students become excited, motivated, and fully engaged at the very start. They reach for the rhythms and begin exploring the drums right away.”
Arts and music can nurture a visceral feeling of belonging that can help combat the isolation that often follows a tragic event, experts say. This may also provide some relief for those grappling with the aftershocks of the pandemic.
“The truth is we are all dealing with hardships associated with the pandemic and with learning loss, and we know that the arts, social-emotional learning and engagement can create a healing environment,” said Peggy Burt, a statewide arts education consultant based in Los Angeles. “Children need to heal to develop community, develop a sense of belonging and a sense of readiness so that they can learn.”
The families of Butte county know that in their bones. Trauma can fester long after the emergency has passed, after the headlines and the hoopla. Turning tragedy into art may be one way to heal.
“I’ve seen it over and over in these classrooms, the kids quiet down, they’re calm, they’re focused,” said Spangler. “You can see the profound impact the arts have on the kids every day.”
This story was updated on Friday to include that the UC Academic Senate urged the regents to reject the policy.
In a move faculty say infringes on their academic freedom, the University of California will soon consider a policy restricting them from using university websites to make opinionated statements. Such statements have come under scrutiny since last fall, when some faculty publicly criticized Israel over its war in Gaza.
The proposed policy, which goes to the system’s board of regents for a vote next week, would prevent faculty and staff from sharing their “personal or collective opinions” via the “main landing page” or homepages of department websites, according to a new draft of the policy. Faculty would be free to share opinions elsewhere on the university’s websites, so long as there is a disclaimer that their viewpoint doesn’t represent the university or their department.
The final version of the policy may not be complete until next week. Regents accepted feedback from the university’s Academic Senate through Friday. Following a systemwide review, the Senate’s Academic Council is asking the regents to reject the proposed policy.
Whatever the final version says, the fact that regents are considering the issue at all is alarming to some UC faculty. They argue that issues of academic freedom are outside the purview of the regents and question how the university would enforce the policy. And although the policy doesn’t explicitly mention a specific issue, faculty see it as an attempt to prevent them from discussing Israel’s war in Gaza.
“At a moment when across the country, academic freedom is being challenged, we’re worried that the regents have lost their way on this issue,” said James Vernon, a professor of history at UC Berkeley and chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association. “I think it’s out of their purview, and I think they’re doing it for very obvious reasons. It’s about Palestine and the political positions of some regents.”
UC officials have said action is needed to ensure that faculty opinions are not interpreted as representing the views of the university as a whole. The regents previously discussed a similar policy in January but delayed a vote until March. At the time, one regent said the board was considering the policy because “some people were making political statements related to Hamas and Palestinians,” seemingly referring to the statements made by some faculty last fall in support of Palestine.
By only disallowing statements on “main landing pages,” the latest version is less restrictive than the policy initially proposed in January, which would have banned statements made on any “official channel of communication.”
To some faculty, the issue was already settled in 2022, when the Academic Senate determined that UC faculty departments have the right to “make statements on University-owned websites,” so long as the statements don’t take positions on elections.
“The Academic Senate came out with very clear recommendations,” said Christine Hong, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz. “We have a group of regents who are running roughshod over what you would think would be the core commitments of the university to academic freedom and to the principle of shared governance.”
Some faculty find the revised version of the policy to be an improvement, including Brian Soucek, professor of law at UC Davis and previous chair of the UC Academic Senate’s university committee on academic freedom. While he remains concerned with the regents “micromanaging” what faculty departments can say, Soucek said the revised policy “is not a major threat to academic freedom,” given that it only limits what can be said on the main landing pages of websites.
UC officials declined to comment on this story, saying only that regents would consider the policy at next week’s meeting.
Traced to Oct. 7 attack
The new push to limit faculty statements can be traced to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. The Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with about another 240 taken hostage. Since Israel launched its military response, more than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children.
On Oct. 9, UC system leaders issued a statement condemning the Hamas attack as an act of terrorism resulting in violence that was “sickening and incomprehensible.” Several of UC’s campus chancellors also issued their own statements condemning the attack.
In a letter the following week, the UC Ethnic Studies Council criticized UC’s statements, saying they lacked context by not acknowledging Israeli violence against Palestinians, including “75 years of settler colonialism and globally acknowledged apartheid.” The ethnic studies faculty also said UC’s statements “irresponsibly wield charges of terrorism” and called on UC to revoke those charges. UC later said it stood by those assertions.
UC ethnic studies faculty then engaged in a back-and-forth with regent Jay Sures. Sures wrote a letter responding to the Ethnic Studies Council letter, saying it was “rife with falsehoods about Israel and seeks to legitimize and defend the horrific savagery of the Hamas massacre.”The ethnic studies faculty subsequently criticized Sures for not condemning Israeli violence and called on him to resign.
Sures also wrote in his letter that he would do “everything in my power” to protect “everyone in our extended community from your inflammatory and out of touch rhetoric.” Now, Sures is the regent most fervently pushing the proposal to limit what faculty can say on UC websites.
Since last fall, some faculty departments have displayed statements on their websites condemning Israel. The website for UC Santa Cruz’s critical race and ethnic studies department, for example, includes a statement calling on “scholars, researchers, organizers, and administrators worldwide” to take action “to end Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.”
Involvingfaculty
UC isn’t the only university to move to restrict faculty from making political statements on department websites.
At Barnard College, a private women’s liberal arts college in New York, the department of women’s, gender and sexuality studies published a statement last fall expressing solidarity with the people of Palestine. The college removed the statement and then rewrote its policy on political activity to prohibit faculty departments from posting political statements on college-owned websites. The quick response prompted an outcry from some free speech advocates who criticized the college for making the policy change without consulting faculty.
The American Association of University Professors, an organization that advocates for academic freedom, doesn’t have guidance regarding whether departments should take political positions, a spokesperson said. However, if universities are to create such policies, they should “be formulated through shared governance channels, with substantial faculty input,” said the spokesperson, Kelly Benjamin.
In that regard, UC officials have made progress since January, Soucek said.
Prior to the January meeting, Soucek co-authored a letter to the regents urging them to reject the policy being considered at that time. Among other criticisms, Soucek wrote that the development of the policy was “sudden, opaque, and seemingly devoid of any collaboration at all” with the staff and faculty it would impact.
Following the January meeting, regents shared a revised version of the policy with Academic Senate leaders, requesting their thoughts and giving them until this Friday to share that feedback.
In an interview, Soucek commended the regents for “taking a breath” and accepting feedback on the revised policy. “That’s a great thing, and that’s what they should have done from the beginning,” he said.
Even with the changes to the policy, some faculty still see it as a major threat. Hong, the UC Santa Cruz professor, is concerned with the intention behind the policy, even if the latest version is less restrictive than the original.
Hong pointed out that UC’s general counsel, Charles Robinson, said during the January meeting that the intent of the policy was to “make sure that landing pages wouldn’t be associated with types of speech that the university would feel uncomfortable with.”
Hong called that a “really striking disclosure,” saying that it violates the principle of academic freedom.
“Whatever revisions they make, we have to address what the intention behind this policy is,” Hong said. “This is a joke of an exercise. Why are we being forced to go through this?”
Faculty also say it’s unclear how UC would enforce the policy. The revised version doesn’t define what constitutes an opinionated statement and states that the “administrator responsible for maintaining the website” will be responsible for “assuring compliance with this policy.”
To Soucek, that suggests that the policy will be managed by UC’s IT staff.
“That’s how it sounds,” he said. “Our IT staff has enormous expertise. For most of them, it doesn’t extend to issues of academic freedom.”
Whoever is ultimately in charge of scanning the many departmental websites across UC’s 10 campuses will have a “gigantic task,” said Vernon, the UC Berkeley professor.
“And then the next question is, who’s going to enforce it once they’ve actually found someone who’s violated this policy? That is really important to have clarified,” he said.
A part of the Cal Poly Mustang Band trumpet section in San Francisco for the Lunar New Year Parade in 2023.
Credit: Ashley Bolter / EdSource
Two hundred people took a deep breath.
The marching band had just run onto the football field and it was time for us to play. We played the first note and everything seemed to melt away except for that moment. For the next 10 minutes, all I could think about was our performance.
When the game was over — after hours of practice, performing and cheering on our team — we ran onto the field once more and played all our favorite songs to emptying stands. Then we marched out of the stadium with just as much energy as we had coming in.
While game days are exhausting, I wouldn’t want to spend my Saturdays any other way. Joining the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo marching band was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and it has enhanced my college experience in so many ways.
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Among the most important, it provided a community in which I could fully be myself.
For many, including Lindsay Gonor, a fourth-year liberal studies major and fellow trumpet player at Cal Poly, the community is the best part of being in band.
“I feel like a lot of people stay in band, not because they love marching, but because they love playing their instruments and because they love the people involved. And that’s definitely true for me,” Gonor said.
This community is welcoming and inclusive, bringing people from different backgrounds together. “It’s just a bunch of people with a common interest and like, similar weirdness,” Gonor said.
I love being part of this community and all the fun traditions we have like praising the sun when we stretch, waving to the mountain that appears to have a face that we’ve named “Big Lip Barbara” and singing our fight song super fast when we get dismissed.
Marching band is one of the most diverse groups on campus, at least at Cal Poly, and through this you learn to work as a team with people who are different from you to achieve a common goal. Leadership, accountability, time management, confidence and patience are all skills that members of a marching band gain, which can be applied to their academics and into their careers.
Nicholas Waldron, the associate director of bands at Cal Poly, describes these skills as the “intangibles.”
“What I mean by that is organization skills, communication ability, being able to collaborate, being understanding and empathetic,” Waldron said.
While studies have shown that participating in any extracurricular activity can be beneficial and help a person develop some of these skills, marching band is so uniquely positioned at the junction between a physical activity, a performing art and a social group that members reap all of these benefits.
Beyond the skills people attain and the relationships they build along the way, marching band provides a creative outlet to students that helps them de-stress.
“Not everybody realizes how important it is to have designated [time] not thinking about school,” Gonor said. “One of the most important things in college is to continue to have something that you enjoy doing outside of your major.”
Yuke Billbe, a third-year biomedical engineering major and alto saxophone player at Cal Poly said marching band saved her college experience in this way.
“In my academic career, (there’s) a lot of stuff going on, but I always am able to look forward to (marching band),” she said.
Marching bands also have benefits for the universities.
In his research, Adam Gumble, the director of athletic bands at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, found that marching bands can be powerful recruiting tools for universities.
I know this is true for me. When I was applying to colleges, one of my main requirements was that it had a marching band. Billbe also said she decided to go to Cal Poly after meeting a couple of members of the band.
Even my roommate, who is not in marching band, said seeing the marching band and how much spirit we bring was part of the reason she decided to go to Cal Poly.
Gumble’s research also found that participation in an activity such as marching band increases retention rates and feelings of connection to the institution.
While marching band is a big time commitment, it’s worth the investment.
If I could go back and do it all over again, there’s not a thing I would do differently. Giving up almost every Saturday during the fall for the past seven years has helped shape me into the person I am today, and I wouldn’t trade my time in marching band for the world.
•••
Ashley Bolter is a fourth-year journalism major and French and ethnic studies minor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
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