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  • California voters say yes to $10 billion school construction bond

    California voters say yes to $10 billion school construction bond


    A student sits in the hallway at San Juan Unified’s El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    This story was updated to include additional information on community college projects.

    Californians on Tuesday decisively passed a $10 billion initiative to support construction projects by TK-12 schools and community colleges. The victory of Proposition 2 will authorize the first state bond for school construction since 2016 and replenish state funding that had run dry.

    With initial results from all precincts, 56.8% of voters backed the bond measure, and 43.2% opposed it. Still to be counted are mail-in ballots not yet received and provisional ballots. Support for the bond broke 60% in Los Angeles, Alpine, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Mendocino, Alameda, Yolo, Marin and San Mateo counties. Only counties in the state’s far north opposed it.

    Proposition 2 was one of two $10 billion state bonds on the ballot; the other was Proposition 4 for funding efforts to abate the impact of climate change. Proposition 2 supporters had worried that voters might choose one over the other, but both passed easily.

    “What has been clear is that people support it when they understand what Proposition 2 will do and its impact on schools,” said Molly Weedn, spokesperson for a pro-Proposition 2 campaign. “People are seeing the need in real time. When you have a leaky roof, it only gets leakier.”

    The campaign, organized by the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), representing school districts and school construction interests that underwrote the effort, had not yet issued a statement Wednesday.

    Even as enrollment in most districts is projected to continue to fall over the next decade, the need for unattended repairs and replacement of aging portable classrooms and buildings has mushroomed. The Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley estimates that 85% of classrooms in California are more than 25 years old; 30% are between 50 and 70 years old, and about 10% are 70 years old or older. 

    Climate change has exposed more of the state to unprecedented levels of heat and unhealthy air and underscored the need to replace aging or defective heating and cooling systems.  

    The last state bond proposal, in March 2020, coincided with the emergence of Covid-19; anxiety over the virus contributed to its defeat as well as a majority of local districts’ construction bonds. Districts on the rebound from the pandemic were reluctant to ask voters to pass bonds in 2022.

    Reflecting a suppressed demand for addressing facilities, a record 252 school districts asked voters on Tuesday to pass local construction bonds totaling $40 billion; an additional 13 community colleges proposed bonds totaling $10.6 billion. Thus, the demand for state help will far exceed the new funding.

    Proposition 2, funded by the state’s general fund, needed a simple majority of voters to pass while local school bonds, which require increases in property taxes, require a 55% majority approval. A quick look at some of the larger proposals indicated voters were largely supportive, passing a $9 billion bond in Los Angeles Unified, a $900 million bond in Pasadena Unified and a $1.15 billion bond in San Jose Unified for upgrading facilities, with $283 set aside for housing for staff.

    The portion of state funding for school districts will be distributed to projects on a matching basis, with the state contributing 50% of the eligible funding for new construction and 60% of the cost for renovations.

    An estimated $3 billion in unfunded school projects from the 2016 bond measure, Proposition 55, will get first dibs at Proposition 2’s new construction and modernization money under the existing rules. Some of these projects have already been completed and will receive the funding retroactively. The rationale is that districts undertook the projects with the expectation that they would eventually receive state aid.

    Once Proposition 2 runs out of money, a new line of unfunded projects will be formed for the next state bond. Interest and the principal for Proposition 2 will be repaid from the state’s general fund, at an estimated cost of $500 million per year for 35 years, according to an analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

    How money will be spent

    The $10 billion will split as follows:

    • $1.5 billion for community colleges
    • $8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
      • $4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
      • $3.3 billion for new construction
      • $600 million for facilities for career and technical education programs
      • $600 million for facilities for charter schools
      • $115 million to remove lead from school drinking water

    The portion of Proposition 2 for community colleges will help renovate existing buildings, construct new classrooms and even replace sewage lines. The chancellor’s office earlier this year already approved 27 projects — totaling about $709 million — that will be covered by the bond measure in a first round of funding. They include projects across the state, from Shasta College in the north to Imperial Valley College near the Mexico border.

    Across the college system, with 115 brick-and-mortar community colleges, more than half of the buildings were built more than 40 years ago, said Hoang Nguyen, director of facilities for the system. 

    “It’s not like we’re sitting on newer facilities or anything like that. Our campuses are older,” he said. “So this proposition would be of great help.”

    The state’s largest district, the Los Angeles Community College District, got approval for four projects in the first round. That includes a new building to house Los Angeles Trade-Tech’s automotive technology, diesel technology and rail systems technology programs, as well as a new kinesiology building at Los Angeles City College. There will also be sewer replacement at Los Angeles Valley and Pierce colleges.

    “We’d like to think that our students, if they’re learning in these beautiful new buildings, will feel motivated to complete their training, get their certificates and get an education,” said Leigh Sata, the district’s chief facilities officer.

    The portion for TK-12 will set aside 10% of new funding for modernization and new construction for small districts, defined as those with fewer than 2,501 students. It will also expand financial hardship assistance in tiny districts whose tax bases are too low to issue a bond. The state will pick up the full tab for those districts.

    The bond will also allow districts to seek supplemental money to build gyms, all-purpose rooms, or kitchens in schools that lack them. But, contrary to the wishes of early education advocates, it won’t dedicate funding to one of the most pressing needs that districts face: adding more classrooms or renovating existing space for transitional kindergarten students.

    Except for the set-aside for small districts, Proposition 2 will continue allotting matching money on a first-come, first-served basis, which favors large districts and small, property-wealthy districts with an in-house staff of architects and project managers adept at navigating complex funding requirements.

    It also won’t significantly provide a bigger state match for districts with low property values; many lack a large enough tax base to issue bonds to meet basic building needs. Data from the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley shows that property-wealthy districts, with more taxable property per student, have received a disproportionately higher share of matching state funding over the past 25 years.

    One of the system’s outspoken critics is the nonprofit public interest law firm Public Advocates. Its managing partner, John Affeldt, said Wednesday that in passing Proposition 2, “Voters recognized the reality that so many facilities need significant modernization. But I don’t think voters are also aware of and approving the underlying distribution of the bond funds that send so many more dollars to high-wealth districts instead of low-wealth districts.

    “We’ll continue to be a voice to make sure the state creates a system that equitably treats all its students,” he said.

    EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to the article.





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  • To expand appeal, California apprenticeships in construction trades offer child care support

    To expand appeal, California apprenticeships in construction trades offer child care support


    Cindy Crisanto, an ironworker apprentice, says the child care benefit is “a lifesaver” that allows her to pursue a career in construction. She is one of the few women ironworkers on the construction site at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.

    Credit: Courtesy of Cindy Crisanto

    After bouncing around in several job paths, including retail sales, office receptionist and warehouse worker, Cindy Crisanto has begun a potentially lucrative career as a welder and ironworker — a field with very few women.

    She made that switch with the aid of a new state apprenticeship program that provides child care funds during her on-the-job training, helping her to overcome an obstacle many women face in trying to enter the construction trades while also raising a family.

    Crisanto — a single mother of two elementary school-aged boys — is receiving about $800 a month in state subsidies for child care expenses, a part of a push to bolster the ranks of women and other underrepresented people into such male-dominated jobs as plumbers, electricians, carpenters and welders. She is now in her first year of an apprenticeship program run by an ironworkers union local in connection with Cerritos College, a community college near Los Angeles.

    “It makes a huge difference. It’s a lifesaver,” Crisanto, 36, of Los Angeles, said of the subsidy. The money is particularly helpful because the very early work hours at construction sites make it hard to find and otherwise afford child care at schools and regular centers, she and others explain. Under the apprenticeship with Ironworkers Local 433, she begins working at 6:30 a.m. installing window and elevator structures at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art under construction south of downtown Los Angeles.

    The child care subsidy is part of a wider campaign spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom to expand apprenticeship opportunities in many different fields for Californians usually not pursuing college degrees.

    The goal is to enroll a half-million Californians in state-supported apprenticeship programs by 2029 — a huge increase from the approximately 84,000 in 2018 when Newsom announced the effort.

    The related child care funding comes from the Equal Representation in Construction Apprenticeship Grant (ERICA), for which the state has appropriated a total of $15.6 million over two years. A participant in pre-apprenticeships — readiness programs that often get them up to speed in math and general work skills — can receive up to $5,000 a year for child care. Those, like Cristano, in the next step, the actual paid on-the-job apprenticeships, can get up to $10,0000 annually.

    Officials and labor experts say the child care money represents a new strategy after past efforts to diversify the trades by gender showed little progress. The program is supposed to help “women, non-binary and underserved communities interested in a rewarding career in the building and construction industry,” according to the state Division of Apprenticeship Standards. (Men are eligible as well, but they are not the prime target.) The child care grants became available last year from the state budget and are distributed via labor unions, nonprofit organizations and colleges chosen in a competition.

    Another nearly $9 million is earmarked for campaigns to recruit more women, to run career fairs and to offer workplace training.

    The goal is to turn those women, many of whom barely made ends meet in the past, into skilled construction professionals earning close to $100,000 a year.

    Although the aid seems to be encouraging more women to enroll as apprentices, officials say it is too early to determine whether the program will significantly boost the number who persist through the four years or so the paid trainings can require.

    Some 37 women are among the nearly 1,200 apprentices in Cerritos College’s ironworkers program run with the union, according to Graciela Vasquez, the school’s dean of continuing education. But that is about 40% higher than before the child care money and the accompanying push to attract more women into the trades, she said.

    In the past, female participation in state-authorized apprenticeships across California could hardly have been smaller.

    Women comprise only about 10% of the nearly 95,100 current job training apprenticeships that are formally recognized by the state and receive some state money across many industries, according to the Division of Apprenticeship Standards. Even worse, just 3% or 4% of apprentices in building trades such as carpentry, plumbing, ironworking and electrical are women. However, women are strongly represented in a few apprenticeships, mainly in health care, child care and culinary services.

    With the child care grants and other funds for recruitment and training, enrollment of women apprentices in construction appears to be moving “in the right direction,” said Adele Burnes, deputy chief of the state apprenticeship standards agency. “We hope to start to see higher percentages in one, two or three years from now.”

    Finding and affording child care can be more difficult because of construction fields’ early work shifts and the need sometimes to work far from home. So the grant had to be “a bit more flexible if we really want to help people in the trades,” said Burnes. The subsidies can be used for private babysitters, even friends and family members, with proper proof of the work hours, as well as for day care centers and after-school care.

    Crisanto first earned a certificate in welding at a local adult school and was connected to the career apprenticeship, which includes some classes run by Cerritos College. She uses the child care grant to pay a relative who gets her children ready and takes them to school in the morning. That allows her to pursue a career path that is much more fulfilling and well paid than her past jobs. 

    She and other women say they sometimes face doubts and harassment in a male-dominated industry. But she added, “I love what I do. That’s what keeps me going, seeing I can keep up with the guys and keep learning. I am making something of myself. And this is my reward: my career.”

    The subsidies may make a difference, said Felicia Hall, a workforce development manager for Tradeswomen, an organization that recruits women into construction careers and runs apprenticeship readiness programs across California. “That is one thing we hear from all our mentees, even men. Child care is the No. 1 thing that hinders them from completing the program,” she said.

    Among the substantial awards from the program, the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California is distributing $2 million for child care and has received another $1 million to recruit women; Cerritos College got $600,000 for child care and $300,000 for outreach and community building; the Fresno Area Workforce Investment Corp. got $1.4 million and $400,000.

    (The apprenticeships are usually run by councils of labor unions and industries, with the state looking over their shoulders.)

    In some locations, the overwhelming number of men in a trade has caused more men than women to receive the child care subsidy, officials report. Nevertheless, Jeremy Smith, of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, said the funds are especially helpful to keep women on the job and make “their work-life balance much easier.”

    Still, with state revenues in decline, it is not certain whether the money will continue to be available after 2025.  Women apprentices hope the program survives.

    Rocio Campos, an apprentice ironworker, on a recent construction job at the Los Angeles Zoo. Child care subsidies are important for her.
    Cerritos College

    Rocio Campos came to the U.S. from El Salvador at age 10 and now lives in Littlerock in northern Los Angeles County. Since she was a teenager, she held various jobs, including office work, sales, cashier, drafting and design. Sometimes, she took a second job on weekends to help pay bills. Tired of instability and low pay, she tried to enter a nursing program at a community college but wound up on a waiting list because it was overcrowded. Instead, she took a welding class and enjoyed that. That led to an apprenticeship with Ironworkers Local 433 and jobs assembling solar energy panels and windmills. 

    A divorced mother, she was able to get between $800 and $1,200 monthly in ERICA child care funds that she uses to pay her mother to take care of her two sons, ages 11 and 17, while she is on the job, sometimes out of state. Previously, she paid her mother out of her own wages. The grant “really helped me out a lot,” Campos, 36, said. And she finds on-the-job satisfaction from “assembling things from bottom to top.”

    An ironwork apprentice, for example, usually starts earning about $24 an hour, and that goes up to $47 or so over four years by the time they graduate and become a journey person. Some work can be seasonal with unpaid breaks between projects, but overtime pay can be substantial as well.

    Dulce Martinez, 34, of San Jose, emigrated from Mexico at age 11 and, after high school, attended community college on and off. She held a series of jobs — from a house cleaner to a school health clerk — and became the mother of two boys, now 10 and 12. But several years ago, her husband, a construction worker and house painter, suffered an on-the-job injury that makes it difficult for him to work steadily.

    With the family’s income strained, she began looking around for a better-paid career. Martinez’s father and other relatives are ironworkers, but she never before thought of following in their footsteps. She then saw a Facebook page from the Silicon Valley-based social justice and training organization Working Partnerships USA, recruiting women into construction and technical jobs. She entered a pre-apprenticeship readiness program and used the ERICA funds for several months to pay a relative to watch her boys since her husband was not always available or well enough.

    Then in July, she landed her current apprenticeship as an instrumentation and controls technician at the Santa Clara Water District. She is learning to install and fix the water system’s many meters and controls for pressure, chlorine and other factors. She is earning about $85,000 a year, compared with $35,000 at her old school job, and will be getting raises as the four-year apprenticeship proceeds.

    Another attraction is that work is less physically taxing than the electrical or plumbing jobs she first considered. “It was something I couldn’t pass up. Physically, I’m going to be OK, and monetarily it’s going to be good for me and my family,” she said.





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  • Let the latest scramble begin for California school construction money

    Let the latest scramble begin for California school construction money


    Construction site at Murray Elementary in Dublin Unified in 2022.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    The record 205 school districts that passed construction bonds in November will spend 2025 vying for matching money from a $10 billion state bond that will meet only a small portion of the demand for financial help. 

    Novices at navigating state agencies, especially small districts, may find the process of claiming a share of state funding will be lengthy, complex and potentially overwhelming, said Julie Boesch, administrator for small school district support for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. Boesch singlehandedly shepherded a renovation project through the funding process as superintendent and principal of Maple Elementary, a one-school district in Kern County.

    “Putting out requests for qualifications and for proposals to hire consultants, architects, construction management and then to determine what kind of funding you can get — there are just so many things that have to happen,” she said. “There were times when I, as superintendent, was spending 90% of my time just on facilities.”

    The success of Proposition 2, the construction bond for schools and community colleges, with 59% of support, was a vote of renewed confidence in public schools and a rebound from March 2020, when voters defeated a $15 billion bond amid anxiety over the Covid pandemic.

    “They understood the need for this,” said Rebekah Kalleen, a legislative advocate with the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), an organization of school districts and construction and architectural firms that led the effort to pass the proposition. “The funding opportunities will go a long way to ensure that projects are robust and that we’re able to make the repairs and the upgrades that we need.” 

    New money, old projects

    Proposition 2’s passage will inject a welcome $10 billion on top of the $45 billion in bonds approved for school and community college districts. However, $3.7 billion — less than half of the $8.5 billion allotted to TK-12 districts under Proposition 2 — may be available for local projects approved in November.

    That’s because as much as $4.8 billion in unfunded projects with preliminary approval from the last state bond will get priority. This extensive backlog dates back to Proposition 51, which voters passed in 2016. Funding from that bond ran dry several years ago, but under state law, districts could apply through Oct. 31, a week before the vote on Proppsition 2. They could reasonably assume that state funding would eventually become available from the next bond.

    “Because there is so much more demand than there is funding, it’s safe to say that there’s always a long pipeline of projects awaiting allocations,” said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley, which researches school facilities.

    Districts submitted plans with preliminary approval for more than 1,000 unfunded projects. These include projects valued at $1.46 billion for new construction and $3.42 billion for modernization. The latter category includes renovations, system upgrades, repairs, and replacement of portable classrooms more than 20 years old and permanent buildings over 25 years old.

    One line ends, another forms

    After Proposition 2 money runs out, the remaining projects will form a new line of unfunded projects awaiting state money whenever voters pass the next state bond.

    “It is a fair question whether voters understood the degree of the funding backlog and the fact that so much of the Proposition 2 funding would already be spoken for by the time they were voting on their own local bonds in November,” Hinkley said. “What this all really emphasizes is that we are constantly playing catch-up with facilities funding, not coming anywhere close to meeting the actual needs of districts.”

    It’s unlikely that all the pending projects will successfully run the gauntlet of state agencies for final approval, although it’s not possible to know how many now.

    What follows is a primer on steps districts must take to be eligible for matching money under Proposition 2. 

    How will Proposition 2 money be divided?

    Under the ballot language that the Legislature passed, Proposition 2 will be apportioned into several categories. It’s too soon to know how funding the previous bond’s unfunded projects will affect Proposition 2 categories.

    • $1.5 billion for community colleges. The Legislature and the governor will select specific projects based on recommendations of the community colleges.
    • $8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
      • $4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
      • $3.3 billion for new construction
      • $600 million for career and technical education facilities
      • $600 million for facilities for charter schools
      • $115 million to remove lead from school drinking water

    When can districts apply?

    Over the next eight months, the Office of Public School Construction will revise rules to differentiate Proposition 2 from previous state construction bonds. Changes include requiring districts to submit a five-year master plan with an inventory of classrooms, square footage and auxiliary facilities at each school.  

    Proposition 2 also will set aside 10% of modernization and new construction money for districts with fewer than 2,500 students. But that provision notwithstanding, what hasn’t changed is a first-come, first-served distribution system that can favor property-wealthy districts and large districts, such as Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) which can afford to employ permanent facilities staff to push their projects to the front of the line.

    Kalleen of CASH and others familiar with state facilities grants urge districts to start submitting applications for priority projects now and not wait for more state guidance, in order to avoid getting left behind and ending up on the next waiting list.

    “Districts are already planning and looking at their projects and submitting without yet knowing what the regulations will look like because there’s so much pent-up demand for state support for facilities funding,” Kalleen said. “Projects are funded based on the date that they’re received by the Office of Public School Construction. So as long as you meet those eligibility criteria, they’re funded in the order that they’re received.”

    Districts won’t have to finish their master plans to initially apply for state funding, although they will have to complete them before receiving state money. They’ll have an opportunity to amend their proposals after the state revises regulations this summer.

    Districts that have already completed a master plan with a needs assessment and established priorities “will be ahead of the game,” said Karla DeLeon, senior director-education for Dahlin Architecture, with three offices in California.

    A small shift toward needs-based funding

    Instead of submitting one application for all of their construction work, districts must apply for each project. The state’s share — at least 50% of the cost for new construction and 60% for a modernization project — will be funded uniformly on a per-student basis. 

    For an elementary school, for example, the per-student funding for 2024 was $15,770, meaning that building a classroom for 25 students would be $394,250 of base funding. (The per-student amount differs depending on whether a student is in elementary, middle or high school.) The per-student dollar amount is the minimum districts will qualify for, as there could be additional funding through supplemental grants if the project includes certain features.

    But for the first time, the state will slightly increase funding for high-poverty, low-property-wealth districts. Huge differences in districts’ taxable property values create disparities in how much they can charge property owners for repairing and building school facilities. To narrow the gap, the state will provide up to 5 percentage points more matching money for qualifying projects based on the proportion of students who are low-income, foster youth, and English learners and, to a lesser extent, on a district’s property wealth per student.

    A district could receive a 65% state match for renovations, reducing its contribution to 35%; the maximum contributions for new construction would be 55% state and 45% district.

    “The total funding for the project would, in the eyes of the state, remain the same; it’s just more would be on the state’s dime, less on the school district’s dime,” Kalleen said.

    Advocates for changing the system say the bonus funding won’t make enough difference to help many districts fully repair or replace subpar and antiquated buildings. The new system “does not meaningfully address the serious equity concerns that we and others have raised about the distribution of state funds,” wrote the Center for Cities + Schools, an institute at UC Berkeley, in an analysis. 

    How soon will local bond and Proposition 2 money be available? 

    When the state and local money becomes available depends. Bonds are loans that are usually paid back over 25 to 30 years. Working with their financial teams, districts will time their borrowing to align with their construction schedule and minimize property tax increases. 

    The increases cannot exceed a statewide bonding limit of charging property owners more than $40 per $100,000 of assessed property value for school facilities. For many small, low-wealth districts, this is a major obstacle to funding school improvements. For property-wealthy districts, it’s not an issue.

    State funding to districts will be disbursed in batches over the next several years. The Legislative Analyst’s Office projects that paying for Proposition 2’s interest and principal will cost the state’s general fund about $500 million per year over 35 years.

    What else is new under Proposition 2?

    Proposition 2 includes other new features affecting TK-12 districts:

    Along with reserving 10% of new construction and modernization funding for districts with fewer than 2,500 students, small districts can receive 5% of a project’s funding to hire architects, engineers and project managers. This should help them speed up the application process.

    The state has a financial hardship provision funding the full cost of a project for a district that lacks the property tax base to pay for it. Proposition 2 triples the maximum tax base qualifying from $5 million to $15 million in assessed value.

    Proposition 2 does not set aside funding for classrooms specifically equipped for transitional kindergarten (TK), as advocates had hoped, but it does permit districts to seek supplemental funding for TK in a school project. Districts can also seek supplemental money to pay for updating or constructing “essential facilities,” including kitchens, cafeterias, and undersized gyms, and installing energy conservation and efficiency measures like solar panels, outdoor shade areas and more efficient heating and air conditioning units.

    What will the application process be like?

    Districts face a multiagency and multiyear process with hoops to jump through and deadlines to meet before they can receive state funding. All must submit project plans to at least two state agencies before their plans can go to the Office of Public School Construction for a review for funding.

    The Division of the State Architect, a group of architects and engineers, will ensure compliance with building codes, structural requirements and safety standards.

    The Department of Education ensures “educational adequacy” — whether the facility complies with the state’s education code, meets classroom space requirements by subject and grade as well as how its design handles the needs of special education students, English learners, intervention services and accommodates community events, parking and outdoor activities. Depending on the site location, approval may be needed from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control or review under the California Environmental Quality Act.   

    DeLeon of Dahlin Architecture recommends turning to experts to guide the process. “You will want a solid team of support to manage all of the balls in the air within the time limits.”

    Boesch said her most important advice to districts is to seek pre-approval meetings with state agencies. “Most districts avoid these, because they assume ‘they’ll just tell us to do something different, and it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,’” she said. “Truly, it’s not. It’s easier to ask permission and move forward instead of having to go back and undo something that may have been done incorrectly.”

    Kalleen said districts can expect the process to take six months to a year for approval from the Office of Public School Construction, depending on the size of the project, and an additional two years or longer to receive funding from the State Allocations Board.

    Boesch agreed. “At an absolute minimum, in a perfect world, it really would be two years,” she said, to receive funding, but more likely three or four.

    “The backlog is so large that state funds often get to districts after projects have already been completed,” Hinkley said. “Districts that do not have sufficient local funds to cover a project’s costs while waiting for the state backlog are at an enormous disadvantage.”





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