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  • State takes another step toward mandatory testing for reading difficulties in 2025

    State takes another step toward mandatory testing for reading difficulties in 2025


    Students at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in the Burbank Unified School District practice their reading skills.

    Credit: Jordan Strauss/AP Images

    A panel of reading experts has designated the tests that school districts can use to identify reading difficulties that kindergartners through second graders may have, starting next fall.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Tuesday of the selection of the reading risk screeners marks a milestone in the nearly decadelong campaign to mandate that all young students be measured for potential reading challenges, including dyslexia. California will become one of the last states to require universal literacy screening when it takes effect in 2025-26.

    To learn more

    For Frequently Asked Questions about the screening instruments for risk of reading difficulties, go here.

    For more about the screeners selected for district use, go here.

    For the letter on screening sent to district, county office and charter school superintendents, go here.

    For more on the Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel, go here.

    Between now and then, districts will select which of four approved reading screeners they will use, and all staff members designated as the testers will undergo state-led training. The Legislature funded $25 million for that effort.

    “I know from my own challenges with dyslexia that when we help children read, we help them succeed,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

    Students will be tested annually in kindergarten through second grade. In authorizing the screeners, the Legislature and Newsom emphasized that screening will not serve as a diagnosis for reading disabilities, including dyslexia, which is estimated to affect 5% to 15% of readers. Instead, the results could lead to further evaluation and will be used for classroom supports and interventions for individual students. Parents will also receive the findings of the screenings.

    “This is a significant step toward early identification and intervention for students showing early signs of difficulty learning to read. We believe that with strong implementation, educators will be better equipped to support all learners, fostering a more inclusive environment where every child has the opportunity to thrive,” said Megan Potente, co-director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, which led the effort for universal screening. 

    A reading-difficulty screener could consist of a series of questions and simple word-reading exercises to measure students’ strengths and needs in phonemic awareness skills, decoding abilities, vocabulary and reading comprehension.  A student may be asked, for example, “What does the ‘sh’ sound like in ‘ship’”?

    Among the four designated screeners chosen is Multitudes, a $28 million, state-funded effort that Newsom championed and the University of California San Francisco Dyslexia Center developed. The 10 to 13-minute initial assessment will serve K–2 grades and be offered in English and Spanish.

    The other three are:

    Young-Suk Kim, an associate dean at UC Irvine’s School of Education, and Yesenia Guerrero, a special education teacher at Lennox School District, led the nine-member Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel that held hearings and approved the screeners. The State Board of Education appointed the members.

    The move to establish universal screening dragged out for a decade. The California Teachers Association and advocates for English learners were initially opposed, expressing fear that students who don’t speak English would be over-identified as having a disability and qualifying for special education.

    In 2015, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring schools to assess students for dyslexia, but students weren’t required to take the evaluation.   

    In 2021, advocates for universal screening were optimistic legislation would pass, but the chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Patrick O’Donnell, refused to give it a hearing.

    “Learning to read is a little like learning to ride a bike. With practice, typical readers gradually learn to read words automatically,” CTA wrote in a letter to O’Donnell.

    Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Glendale, reintroduced his bill the following year, but instead Newsom included funding and requirements for universal screening in his 2023-24 state budget.

    The Newsom administration and advocates for universal screening reached out to advocates for English learners to incorporate their concerns in the requirements for approving screeners and to include English learner authorities on the selection panel.

    Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners statewide, said Wednesday it was clear that the panel considered the needs of English learners and she is pleased that the majority of the screeners are available in Spanish and English. 

    “Their commitment to addressing the unique needs of English learners was evident throughout the process,” Hernandez said.

    However, she said it is important for the state to provide clear guidance to districts about what level of English proficiency is required in order for students to get accurate results from a screener in English.

    “The vast majority of English learners will be screened only in English, and without evidence that these screeners are valid and reliable across different English proficiency levels, there is a risk of misidentification,” Hernandez said.

    Hernandez said Californians Together emphasized to the panel that it is important for students who are not yet fluent in English to be assessed for reading in both their native language and English, “to capture the full scope of their skills.” In addition, Hernandez said it is crucial for the state Department of Education to offer guidance to districts on selecting or developing a screener in languages other than English or Spanish.

    The article was corrected on Dec. 18 to note that the initial Multitudes assessment takes 10 to 13 minutes, not 20 minutes, depending on the grade; a followup assessment can take an additional 10 minutes.





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  • Big decisions ahead for new leaders at West Contra Costa Unified 

    Big decisions ahead for new leaders at West Contra Costa Unified 


    Guadalupe Enllana, 43, was sworn in as the new West Contra Costa Unified board member in Area 2.

    Andrew Whitmore/Richmondside

    In a ritual similar to ones happening in school districts across California, two new board members in the West Contra Costa Unified School District along with a reelected incumbent were sworn in at the board’s final meeting of the year — as it braced itself to take on the numerous challenges that await it in 2025. 

    Not unlike its larger neighbors in Oakland and San Francisco, these challenges include declining enrollments, budget deficits, and threatened deportation of undocumented immigrants affecting an unknown number of families in the district.  

    The district, which includes Richmond, El Cerrito, San Pablo and several other East Bay communities, was able to traverse its most immediate challenge — finding school board members to fill the three seats that were on the November ballot. Only one of the seats was contested, and in the other two, the candidates had no opponent, and didn’t even have to appear on the ballot. 

    Guadalupe Enllana, a Richmond native and community advocate, was sworn in Wednesday night to represent Area 2, which covers the Richmond area, one of the nearly dozen cities in the East Bay communities within the district’s boundaries. She beat incumbent Otheree Christian, running for his second term, with nearly 55% of the vote.

    Cinthia Hernandez, who ran unopposed, replaced eight-year incumbent Mister Phillips in Area 3, which covers the San Pablo area. Incumbent Jamela Smith-Folds, who represents Pinole and Hercules in Area 1, was also sworn in for her second term, after running unopposed for the seat. 

    The pattern of unopposed school board seats is one that is occurring across the state. An EdSource analysis found that out of 1,510 school board races it analyzed, in nearly half of them a candidate’s name did not appear on last November’s ballot, either because no one was running for the seat or because a single candidate was running unopposed — making that person an instant winner. 

    One of the biggest decisions the West Contra Costa board will make is hiring a permanent superintendent. At Wednesday night’s meeting, longtime district employee Kim Moses attended her first meeting as interim superintendent, after being appointed by the board in October shortly after  Superintendent Kenneth “Chris” Hurst announced he would be retiring in December after more than three years in the job. Hurst said he was leaving to take care of his mother-law, who he said was facing “serious health challenges.”

    Moses, a West Contra Costa alumna who graduated from Kennedy High School in Richmond, worked in the district for 18 out of the more than 30 years she’s been in education, most recently as its superintendent of business services. She worked for years as a teacher in Oakland, and then as vice principal and principal in the district.

    “I welcome our new trustees. I actually really look forward to working with both of you,” said current board member Demetrio Gonzalez Hoy. “You’re coming in at a time when the board was fairly divided, as you both know. My hope is that with this change of two new board members that it would lead to us working in collaboration.” 

    One of the biggest rifts this year was during a June meeting when the board failed to pass the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) by the end of the fiscal year in June. The LCAP is a required document that describes how funds from the state will be spent, especially on low-income students and English learners. Because the board did not approve the LCAP, they could not vote on its annual budget as the accountability plan must pass first.

    It is believed to be the first time that a district has failed to approve its LCAP by the state-imposed deadline.  As then-Superintendent Hurst said at the time, “This is an unprecedented event in the state of California.”

    In a frenzy of activity district, county and state leaders had to work together to figure out the next steps, complicated by the fact that the state’s education code doesn’t spell out clearly what happens when a board doesn’t approve its accountability plan before June 30. After making revisions, the board was able to approve the updated plan on Aug. 28, nearly two months after the usual deadline.

    At Wednesday’s meeting, the newly constituted board was able to resolve its first split vote, this one for board president. Gonzalez Hoy and another incumbent board member, Leslie Reckler, were both nominated for the position, to replace outgoing board President Smith-Folds, whose term as president had expired. Reckler was elected to the position, voting for herself along with Enllana and Hernandez.  She will serve for one year.

    As a mother of four children, first-time board member Enllana said she had to figure out how to navigate different programs in the district and advocate especially for her child who has special needs. It is what motivated her to run a second time to be on the board after running unsuccessfully in 2020.

    “As parents, we are really left in the dark sometimes about decisions being made on the board that directly affect their children,” she said in an interview with EdSource. “I was a teen mom and at the time (and my child), having special needs, made it really difficult to navigate the (special education) department, how to advocate, and how to get the information I needed and how to ask for it.”

    Enllana said her top priority is to hire a superintendent who values transparency, communicates well with the board and community, and prioritizes data-driven solutions. 

    “We have to make sure that every decision that we’re making on the board is student-focused, because if the students aren’t here, then we have no seat at the table,” Enllana said. “We really need to learn how to communicate with parents, and it’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach.”

    As a daughter of Mexican immigrants, Enllana said she’s also hoping to better reach the Spanish-speaking community and engage them in what’s happening at the district level as well as their children’s schools. 

    At Wednesday’s meeting, newly inducted board member Hernandez said she grew up going to West Contra Costa schools and is focused on offering more transparency to families.

    “I’m also dedicated to creating more access to our families and creating resources and making sure our families are walking with us every step of the way,” Hernandez said.

    The defeat of Otheree Christian means there is now only one Black member on the board, in contrast to the three on the previous board. Of its approximately 30,000 students, nearly 60% are Latino, 14% are Asian, 11.5% are Black, and 9.1% are white. Two decades ago, nearly 30% of the student body was Black.

    Louis Freedberg contributed to this story.





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  • New law could boost Social Security checks for thousands of retired California teachers

    New law could boost Social Security checks for thousands of retired California teachers


    Kindergarten students at George Washington Elementary in Lodi listen to teacher Kristen McDaniel read “Your Teachers Pet Creature” on the first day of school on July 30, 2024.

    Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource

    The Social Security Fairness Act, signed by President Joe Biden on Sunday, will increase retirement benefits for many educators and other public sector workers, including nearly 290,000 in California.

    The act repeals both the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset laws, which reduced Social Security benefits for workers who are entitled to public pensions, such as firefighters, police officers and teachers, according to the Social Security Department.

    The change in the laws does not mean that California teachers, who do not pay into Social Security, will all get benefits. Instead, teachers who paid into Social Security while working in non-teaching jobs will be eligible for their full Social Security benefits, as will those eligible for spousal and survivor benefits.

    Teachers who had previous careers, or who worked second jobs or summer jobs, benefit from the repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision, said Staci Maiers, spokesperson for the National Education Association.

    California is one of 15 states that does not enroll its teachers in Social Security. Instead, teachers receive pensions from the California Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS. 

    “This is about fairness. These unjust Social Security penalties have robbed public service workers of their hard-earned benefits for far too long,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association in a media release. “They have hurt educators and their families — and damaged the education profession, making it harder to attract and retain educators. And that means students are impacted, too.” 

    At a press conference Sunday, President Joe Biden said the Social Security Fairness Act would mean an increase on average of $360 a month for workers that have been impacted by the laws. There will also be a lump sum retroactive payment to make up for the benefits that workers should have received in 2024, Biden said. No date has been announced for those payments.

    “The bill I’m signing today is about a simple proposition,” Biden said. “Americans who have worked hard all their lives to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity.”

    “It’s a game-changer for a lot of educators,” said Kathy Wylie, a retired teacher who lives in Mendocino. Wylie, who is a few years away from drawing Social Security, worked for a technology company for 15 years before embarking on a 17-year career in education.

    She expects that the bump in retirement funds could encourage some veteran teachers to retire early.

    Biden signed the legislation following decades of advocacy from the National Education Association, the International Association of Fire Fighters and the California Retired Teachers Association. The bipartisan bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 12 and the U.S. Senate on Dec. 21.

    The amendments to the Social Security Act apply to monthly benefits after December 2023. The Social Security Department is evaluating how to implement the new law, according to its website.





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  • A new year and a new CEO for EdSource

    A new year and a new CEO for EdSource


    This week, I step into the role of EdSource’s CEO, only the fifth in the news organization’s near-50 year history. So I thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself and tell you why I’m excited about what’s ahead.

    I’m a lifelong storyteller — one of those people who discovered a calling at a very young age. My passion has been predicated on two notions: one, that everybody has a story to tell, and two, if we understand the world around us, we can make better decisions and, frankly, make the world a richer and more just place.  

    Deborah Clark, Chief Executive Officer of EdSource.

    That passion led me into public service journalism, where I’ve worked across TV and radio for organizations including PBS and NPR. For more than a decade, I was the general manager of Marketplace, APM’s suite of podcasts and radio shows on business and the economy.

    Our North Star at Marketplace was to raise the economic intelligence of the country by covering business and the economy in a way that was smart enough for Wall Street insiders or Beltway policymakers and relevant and accessible to real people living in the real economy. 

    It feels like a very direct line, then, to take over the reins at EdSource. I’ve long viewed the world through a lens of economic mobility. That may stem in part from being from England, where there’s a greater sense that the world is not a level playing field.

    I’m fascinated by how the circumstances of your birth can fell or fuel you. That dynamic plays out nowhere more starkly than in education.

    So I come into this organization believing that the work we do is crucial in helping our audiences — whether they are parents or policymakers (and everything in between) understand the complicated landscape of public education in California.

    Let’s do the numbers (if you’re a listener to Marketplace, you’ll appreciate my homage there):

    • California has nearly a thousand school districts.
    • The second charter school in the nation started in California, which now has roughly 1,300 schools. The next closest state — Texas — has just 700.
    • Our community college system is the largest in the country, to say nothing of the vast California State University and University of California (UC) systems. The three systems together serve about 2.8 million students. 
    • More than 100 languages are spoken in schools up and down the state.

    I was educated in the UC system, the first in my family to attend college. I paid my way through UC Berkeley by juggling work with my academic demands. When I think about the cost of college today, I think of how many young people work harder than I did and have the added burden of loans to make it all work. I wonder about the promise of California’s master plan.

    EdSource is a great organization. The journalists here are dedicated to telling great stories about the people and policies that are shaping the futures of young people in our state. I am ready to roll up my sleeves, dig in and find new ways to grow EdSource so we can serve more Californians and do right by our kids.

    I’d love to hear what’s on your mind. What should we be covering more? Less? Send story ideas, questions or just your own reflections on public education in California. You can reach me at dclark@edsource.org.





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  • Los Angeles schools close, brace for more fire, wind and ash 

    Los Angeles schools close, brace for more fire, wind and ash 


    Wildfire smoke fills the air over the 110 freeway in Los Angeles.

    Credit: AP Photo / Etienne Laurent

    Fires, ash and power outages continue to push communities throughout Los Angeles away from their homes and into uncertainty — all while more than 12% of the state’s schools, including nearly 800 in Los Angeles Unified, have had to stop in-person instruction, and, despite incurring damages, extend essential services to students and their families. 

    As of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, blazes spanning roughly 350 to 17,000 acres continued to burn across Los Angeles County, according to CalFire. At least five people have died, and thousands of buildings have been destroyed. 

    Eight schools are among the structures that have been damaged in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and beyond.

    Schools damaged and districts closed due to fires in Los Angeles County

    The map below shows the status of districts in the region. Data as of 1/10/2025 11 a.m.

    Map designed by Yuxuan Xie / EdSource

    “With so many students, staff, and families affected by the devastating Eaton fire and mandatory evacuations, we know this is an overwhelming and difficult time for everyone,” Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco said in a statement. “Our hearts are broken for everything that our beloved community is enduring. But we know that our community is strong, and together, we will get through this.” 

    Meanwhile, several unions — including Associated Administrators of Los Angeles/Teamsters Local 2010, Teamsters Local 572, SEIU Local 99 and United Teachers of Los Angeles — along with teachers and parents criticized the Los Angeles Unified School District’s response to the fires as well as the decision to only close campuses in certain regions on Wednesday. 

    LAUSD has since announced it will close all of its campuses and district offices through Friday. 

    “Extreme winds continue to threaten the further spread of the fires. … Air quality is at an extremely unhealthy level throughout LA, with ash falling like rain in many areas of the district,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and district officials wrote in a letter to four unions collectively representing more than 74,000 LAUSD employees. “Traffic is also congested throughout, making it difficult or impossible for many students and workers to travel to school sites and leaving many without food deliveries.”

    “Many school sites have lost power, water, telephone, and internet access,” the letter noted. “In these extreme circumstances, requiring students, families, and workers to travel to school and attempt to conduct educational services in this environment is unsafe and irresponsible.” 

    Damages to schools  

    Los Angeles Unified and Pasadena Unified school districts have experienced severe damage from the fires. 

    As of Thursday, three LAUSD schools had been damaged, including Palisades Charter High School, Palisades Charter Elementary School and Marquez Elementary School, according to a district spokesperson. 

    At the 63-year-old Palisades Charter High School — which was featured in films including “Carrie” and “Freaky Friday”— the school community remains hopeful that 70% of its campus may survive the flames, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

    The damage at the other two campuses was worse, and roughly half of Marquez Elementary School has been turned to rubble. 

    Meanwhile, five campuses in Pasadena Unified have been damaged by the Eaton Canyon fire, which, according to CalFire, was still 0% contained as of 5 p.m. Thursday. 

    School Closures 

    As fires continue to ravage communities, more districts and schools throughout the L.A. area have opted to close. 

    More than 1,000 public schools closed, according to an EdSource analysis, affecting more than 9% of students across the state.

    Districts that closed are: 

    • Alhambra Unified School District
    • Arcadia Unified School District
    • Beverly Hills Unified School District
    • Burbank Unified School District
    • Compton Unified School District
    • Culver City Unified School District
    • Duarte Unified School District
    • Garvey School District
    • Glendale Unified School District
    • Glendora Unified School District
    • La Canada Unified
    • Los Angeles Unified School District
    • Monrovia Unified School District
    • Pasadena Unified School District
    • Rosemead Unified School District
    • San Gabriel Unified School District
    • Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District
    • South Pasadena Unified School District
    • Temple City Unified School District

    On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District — the largest in the state, with roughly 1,000 campuses — closed schools in harder-hit areas, including in the central and eastern parts of the district. Several parents had opted to keep their children home anyway, and the district’s attendance rate was 68% on Wednesday. 

    “I understand as a parent and former medical professional what we are dealing with,” said Vicky Martinez, a parent of three Los Angeles Unified students in the Highland Park area. “And I was not going to expose my kids and myself to the debris unnecessarily.” 

    Closures among colleges and universities 

    Several colleges and universities throughout Los Angeles also closed their campuses or halted in-person instruction. 

    UCLA canceled undergraduate courses on Thursday and Friday, while graduate courses are being held remotely.

    Cal State Los Angeles has also announced that instruction will be online-only until Monday. “We are closely monitoring the situation and are in regular communication with our students and employees to ensure their safety and well-being,” said CSU Chancellor Mildred García in a statement Thursday morning. 

    The California Institute of Technology was closed Thursday but planned to reopen Friday.  

    Community colleges, including Glendale Community College, Pasadena City College and Santa Monica College also paused in-person instruction through the end of the week, while the Los Angeles Community College District remained closed on Thursday. 

    Support and relief services 

    The California Department of Education announced Wednesday that it, along with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, will work with SupplyBank.org Disaster Relief Fund to provide families and school employees in need with emergency resources, including housing assistance, water, food, gas cards and clothing. 

    Meanwhile, as part of an emergency plan, LAUSD doubled the number of available sites for Friday meal pickups between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. 

    Now, each student can receive two meals at the following locations: 

    • Region North: Mulholland Middle School, Sepulveda Middle School, San Fernando Middle School, Richard E. Byrd Middle School
    • Region East: Hollenbeck Middle School, South Gate High School, Los Angeles Academy Middle School, John H. Liechty Middle School
    • Region South: Fremont High School, Harry Bridges Span School, Edwin Markham Middle School, Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy
    • Region West: Marina Del Rey Middle School, Sonia Sotomayor Arts and Sciences Magnet, Berendo Middle School, Fairfax High School

    Los Angeles Unified also announced Thursday a partnership with the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles to help provide displaced and evacuated families with free child care and provide additional resources. 

    The YMCA — which has 28 centers across Los Angeles — is also allowing students who are at least 12 years old to use its facilities for free at its facilities that remain open. 

    “We are deeply grateful to the YMCA for stepping up during this challenging time to support our students, families, and essential workers,” Carvalho said in a statement. “This partnership exemplifies the power of community and our shared commitment to ensuring no child or family is left without support.”

    Community members have also initiated GoFundMe campaigns to support teachers and families who have lost their homes; the Los Angeles County Office of Education is providing guidance to school districts and sharing resources. 

    “We are committed to supporting our schools and communities during this challenging time,” Van Nguyen, spokesperson for the county office, said in an email to EdSource, “and will continue to adapt our response as the situation evolves.” 

    Staff writers Daniel J. Willis, Diana Lambert and Karen D’Souza contributed to this report.





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  • Federal Judges Order Pentagon to Resume Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Troops

    Federal Judges Order Pentagon to Resume Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Troops


    One of Trump’s major goals during his campaign was to strip any rights from transgender people and make them invisible. He and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth agree that trans men and women should not serve in the military and should not receive gender-affirming care to support their transition to a different gender identity. Trump signed an executive order ousting them from the military.

    However, federal judges have blocked their plans. Not only will they continue to serve but the Pentagon will continue to provide gender-affirming care for them.

    Politico reported:

    The Pentagon will resume gender-affirming care for transgender service members, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO, an embarrassing setback to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s efforts to restrict their participation.

    The memo says the Defense Department is returning to the Biden-era medical policy for transgender service members due to a court order that struck down Hegseth’s restrictions as unconstitutional. The administration is appealing the move, but a federal appeals court in California denied the department’s effort to halt the policy while its challenge is pending.

    As a result, the administration is barred from removing transgender service members or restricting their medical care, a priority of President Donald Trump and Hegseth. The administration insisted its restrictions were geared toward people experiencing medical challenges related to “gender dysphoria,” but two federal judges said in March that the policy was a thinly veiled ban on transgender people that violated the Constitution.

    The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow the Pentagon to ban transgender servicemembers while legal battles continue to play out.

    Both judges ordered the military to refrain from forcing out more than 1,000 transgender troops and to resume providing for their medical care, including surgical procedures and voice and hormone therapy. The memo is the latest move by the Pentagon to comply with those orders.

    But it presents another headache for Hegseth, who has made culture war issues — such as changing recruitment standards and reinstating the ban — a key piece of his effort to make the military more lethal. Hegseth has emphasized this theme as he’s sought to defend himself amid multiple scandals, including texting sensitive details of military operations in Yemen to multiple Signal group chats and a vicious brawlbetween his top advisers.

    “Service members and all other covered beneficiaries 19 years of age or older may receive appropriate care for their diagnosis of [gender dysphoria], including mental health care and counseling and newly initiated or ongoing cross-sex hormone therapy,” Dr. Stephen Ferrara, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs, said in a memo dated April 21.

    Trump signed a long-expected order banning transgender people from serving in the military at the outset of the administration, just as he had done in 2017. But LGBTQ+ advocacy groups quickly pounced, calling the order discriminatory.

    So far, the courts have rejected the Pentagon’s arguments that including transgender troops reduces the military’s ability to fight. U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle ruled in March that there is no evidence that transgender troops harm military readiness, and ordered the Pentagon to return to the status quo.

    A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday became the first appellate court to hear arguments on Trump’s transgender military policy but gave little indication of how it might rule.

    Defense officials acknowledged in a March memo sent to Pentagon leadership that the agency would comply with the court order, but did not detail the steps the department would take to follow it. Hegseth has openly attacked one of the judges, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, for her order, labeling her “Commander Reyes” in a pejorative post on X.



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  • Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s “Peace Plan” for Ukraine Is Putin’s Plan

    Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s “Peace Plan” for Ukraine Is Putin’s Plan


    Trump has long demonstrated his admiration for Putin. No one can say exactly why Trump admires Russia’s ruthless dictator. But Trump insists that Ukraine is responsible for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. His lame efforts to broker an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine have robustly echoed Putin’s demands.

    Heather Cox Richardson analyzes how Trump has changed American policy towards the Russian war on Ukraine. Trump’s “peace plan” gives Russia everything Putin wants:

    She writes:

    After previously suggesting that the U.S. would not involve European representatives in negotiations to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff met in Paris last week for talks with Ukrainian and European officials. The U.S. presented what it called “the outlines of a durable and lasting peace,” even as Russia continued to attack Ukrainian civilian areas.

    A senior European official told Illia Novikov, Aamer Madhani, and Jill Lawless of the Associated Press that the Americans presented their plan as “just ideas” that could be changed. But Barak Ravid of Axios reported on Friday that Trump was frustrated that the negotiations weren’t productive and said he wanted a quick solution.

    Talks were scheduled to resume today, in London, but yesterday Rubio pulled out of them. The U.S. plan is now “a final offer,” Ravid reported, and if the Ukrainians don’t accept it, the U.S. will “walk away.”

    On a bipartisan basis, since 2014 the United States has supported Ukraine’s fight to push back Russia’s invasions. But Trump and his administration have rejected this position in favor of supporting Russia. This shift has been clear in the negotiations for a solution: Trump required repeated concessions from Ukraine even as Russia continued bombing Ukraine. Axios’s Ravid saw the proposed “final offer,” and it fits this pattern.

    The plan would recognize Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea and its occupation of almost all of Luhansk oblast and the portions of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts Russia has occupied. This would essentially freeze the boundary of Ukraine at the battlefront.

    Ukraine would promise not to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the post–World War II defensive alliance that first stood against the aggression of the Soviet Union and now stands against the aggression of Russia.

    Sanctions imposed against Russia after its 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine would be lifted, and the United States, in particular its energy and industrial sectors, will cooperate with Russia.

    In essence, this gives Russian president Vladimir Putin everything he wanted.

    What the Ukrainians get out of this deal is significantly weaker. They get “a robust security guarantee,” but Ravid notes the document is vague and does not say the U.S. will participate. We have been here before. After the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Ukraine had the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. In exchange for Ukraine’s giving up those weapons, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia agreed to secure Ukraine’s borders. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, they agreed they would not use military force or economic coercion against Ukraine.

    Russia violated that agreement with its 2014 and 2022 invasions, making it unlikely that Ukraine will trust any new promises of security.

    Under the new plan, Ukraine would also get back a small part of Kharkiv oblast Russia has occupied. It would be able to use the Dnieper River. And it would get help and funds for rebuilding, although as Ravid notes, the document doesn’t say where the money will come from.

    There is something else in the plan. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is Ukrainian: the Zaporizhzhia plant. It will be considered Ukrainian territory, but the United States will operate it and supply the electricity it produces to both Ukraine and Russia, although the agreement apparently doesn’t say anything about how payments would work. The plan also refers to a deal between the U.S. and Ukraine for minerals, with Ukraine essentially repaying the U.S. for its past support.

    Ravid notes that the U.S. drafted the plan after envoy Steve Witkoff met for more than four hours last week with Putin. But the plan has deeper roots.

    This U.S.-backed plan echoes almost entirely the plan Russian operatives presented to Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort in exchange for helping Trump win the White House. Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014 and was looking for a way to grab the land it wanted without continuing to fight.

    Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election explained that Manafort in summer 2016 “discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas, and having [Russian-backed Viktor] Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President ousted in 2014, elected to head that republic.”

    The Mueller Report continued: “That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.” The region that Putin wanted was the country’s industrial heartland. He was offering a “peace” plan that carved off much of Ukraine and made it subservient to him. This was the dead opposite of U.S. policy for a free and united Ukraine, and there was no chance that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who was running for the presidency against Trump, would stand for it. But if Trump were elected, the equation changed.

    According to the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, Manafort’s partner and Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik wrote: “[a]ll that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from D[onald] T[rump] saying ‘he wants peace in Ukraine and Donbass back in Ukraine’ and a decision to be a ‘special representative’ and manage this process.” Following that, Kilimnik suggested that Manafort ‘could start the process and within 10 days visit Russia ([Yanukovych] guarantees your reception at the very top level, cutting through all the bullsh*t and getting down to business), Ukraine, and key EU capitals.’ The email also suggested that once then–Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko understood this ‘message’ from the United States, the process ‘will go very fast and DT could have peace in Ukraine basically within a few months after inauguration.’”

    According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the men continued to work on what they called the “Mariupol Plan” at least until 2018.

    After Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022, Jim Rutenberg published a terrific and thorough review of this history in the New York Times Magazine. Once his troops were in Ukraine, Putin claimed he had annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, two of which were specifically named in the Mariupol Plan, and instituted martial law in them, claiming that the people there had voted to join Russia.

    On June 14, 2024, as he was wrongly imprisoning American journalist Evan Gershkovich, Putin made a “peace proposal” to Ukraine that sounded much like the Mariupol Plan. He offered a ceasefire if Ukraine would give up Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, including far more territory than Putin’s troops occupy, and abandon plans to join NATO. “If Kyiv and the Western capitals refuse it, as before,” Putin said, “then in the end, that’s their…political and moral responsibility for the continuation of bloodshed.”

    On June 27, 2024, in a debate during which he insisted that he and he alone could get Gershkovich released, and then talked about Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Trump seemed to indicate he knew about the Mariupol Plan: “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream.”

    Now that plan is back on the table as official U.S. policy.

    Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country will not recognize the Russian occupation of Crimea. In this determination, he speaks for the global rules-based order the U.S. helped to create after World War II. Recognition of the right of a country to invade another and seize its territory undermines a key article of the United Nations, which says that members won’t threaten or attack any country’s “territorial integrity or political independence.” French president Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders are standing behind those principles, saying today in a statement from Macron’s office that they reject Russian territorial gains under the U.S. plan. “Ukraine’s territorial integrity and European aspirations are very strong requirements for Europeans,” the statement said.

    But Trump himself seems eager to rewrite the world order. In addition to his own threats against Greenland, Canada, and Panama, in a post today on his social media site he echoed Putin’s 2024 statement blaming Ukraine for Russia’s bloody war because it would not agree to Putin’s terms. Today, Trump said Zelensky’s refusal to recognize the Russian occupation of Crimea was “inflammatory,” and he pressured Zelensky to accept the deal.

    Curiously, he felt obliged to write that “I have nothing to do with Russia…”.

    —



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  • Trump attacks a key strategy for California schools: Flagging racial disparities in discipline

    Trump attacks a key strategy for California schools: Flagging racial disparities in discipline


    Fremont High School students in Oakland Unified use restorative justice circles to welcome newcomers, get to know each other and build bridges between different cliques and ethnic groups.

    Credit: Tatiana Chaterji / Oakland Unified

    Top Takeaways
    • Trump executive order challenges the concept that race-neutral policies can be discriminatory.
    • Administration said focus on equity in discipline has harmed student safety, while advocates say it’s an excuse to roll back civil rights protections.
    • Experts say executive order threatening to withhold funding from schools doesn’t have much bearing on California schools — for now.

    The Trump administration has taken aim at a key assumption of federal civil rights enforcers and California’s school discipline strategy: that large racial disparities are a red flag for discrimination.

    Trump’s executive order, released Wednesday, attacks the concept of disparate impact — the idea that a policy that may seem neutral actually harms a racial or ethnic group. The order calls this approach to discipline, championed by both the Biden and Obama administrations, a “risk to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom.”

    “Their policies placed racial equity quotas over student safety — encouraging schools to turn a blind eye to poor or violent behavior in the name of inclusion,” U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

    The previous Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidance from the Department of Education, which warned it would initiate investigations based on reports of racial disparities in discipline. 

    The executive order takes this a step further by threatening state agencies and districts that fail to comply with the Trump administration’s “colorblind” interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against racial discrimination.

    The introduction of the California School Dashboard, the state’s school accountability website, raised public awareness of suspension rates and other indicators of school performance. The dashboard designates the performance of every district and every school as well as their student groups — including racial groups — in one of five colors. No statewide student group’s suspension rate was red, designating the worst performance, but 674 schools — 7% of 9,671 schools — had that designation. They may have been designated for state assistance to determine the cause of high suspension rates. They would also have to commit to lowering suspensions as part of their district’s annual accountability plan.

    Suspensions in California have dropped dramatically over the last decade, but disparities remain: 8.6% of Black students were suspended in 2023-24, compared with 2.7% of white students.

    California has also taken action and banned schools from suspending students solely for “defiance.” Many advocates claimed it was a “catch-all” justification to punish students, particularly students of color, for smaller infractions, like refusing to take their hat off. The state banned the practice for K-3 students in 2013, expanded it to K-8 in 2019 and, this school year, expanded it to high school students.

    Los Angeles Unified School District pioneered this policy to reduce suspensions. In 2013, its school board passed the School Climate Bill of Rights. A district spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource that the district follows state law and district policy regarding student discipline.

    “Race is not a consideration in the application of student discipline policies at the district,” the statement said. 

    Carolyn Gorman, an analyst with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, says California is at risk of losing funding for schools with its policies on willful defiance that reference disparate impact.

    But other experts disagree.

    Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said the executive order is no surprise. “I expected them to write about it, but it’s so vague, it’s important to wait for the guidance to see, really, what they are trying to say.”

    “It’s one of those threats that I would advise districts to ignore,” said John Affeldt, managing attorney at Public Advocates.

    Affeldt points to recent court rulings that blocked Trump from enforcing an executive order he signed in January that promised to withhold funds from schools that have diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.

    It is not illegal to simply have a racial disparity in discipline statistics, Affeldt notes. Instead, disparities serve as a red flag that triggers an investigation to examine whether certain policies or practices are discriminatory and violate civil rights.

    Daniel Losen, a civil rights attorney, education researcher and former director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, called the executive order “fear-mongering — making up unproven harms to discourage folks from considering the possibility that maybe their school policies are inequitable.”

    “They are hoping that people think that looking at racial differences is unlawful, even though the law requires that we address disparate impacts” of education policies, he said.  “And those regulations, which have been in effect since the ’60s, have not been rescinded.”

    Losen explored nationwide data on suspensions in his 2020 report “Lost Opportunities: How Disparate School Discipline Continues to Drive Differences in the Opportunity to Learn.” He concluded that the lack of instruction time from suspensions, combined with lost access to mental health services and the stigma of punishment “for breaking a rule, no matter how minor their misconduct,” causes racially disparate harm.

    Those sharp disparities, he wrote, “also raise the question of how we can close the achievement gap if we do not close the discipline gap.”

    Sixth grade teacher Thomas Courtney said he is concerned about the message that an order from the country’s highest office sends to teachers about addressing racism. He worries that it may reinforce a perception among a largely white workforce of teachers that students of color are to blame for the rise of misbehavior in classrooms.

    “The scapegoat is brown and Black children and the fact that they’ve been getting away with murder in your classroom — that’s how this is going to be interpreted,” said Courtney, who teaches humanities and English at Millennial Tech Middle School in San Diego.

    He worries some teachers will read the order and say, “I can finally write suspensions on all those Black kids causing all these problems in my class.”

    Looking at discipline through the lens of disparate impact tends to highlight one glaring fact: Black students — boys in particular — are far more likely to be disciplined. 

    “It’s historically egregious that it is Black males in particular who get referred much more often, suspended much more often, expelled much more often,” Affeldt said.

    Order is an ‘opening salvo’

    This executive order may have little immediate legal effect, but experts expect to see much more from the administration on the topic of discipline.

    “If they say, do not treat kids differently based on race, that should be fine. But they could go further to say that the Office of Civil Rights can investigate only individual circumstances, and cannot assume a disparate impact based on suspension data,” said Petrilli, of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

    “They could go looking for principals who would say they did not discipline students because of mandates to reduce the number of suspensions,” he said.

    Or they could find teachers who say that restorative justice in lieu of suspensions, without staff training and administrative support, doesn’t work. As Brian Foster, a retired California teacher, wrote in a comment to EdSource, “When there are no real consequences to bad behavior, it spreads. Behavior is excused and pushed right back into the classroom unresolved, degrading the real learning of all other students.”

    Courtney, who wrote a commentary for EdSource on the topic, worries that this executive order could represent an “opening salvo” in an effort to turn the practice of restorative justice into a politically toxic concept, as critical race theory was. Restorative justice focuses less on punishment and more on strengthening a school’s culture through righting wrongs, solving disputes and building relationships.

    Trump’s executive order doesn’t mention restorative justice practices, but it does refer to a joint letter in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice. That letter notes that strategies such as conflict resolution, restorative practices, counseling and positive interventions may be used.

    Affeldt also expects to see more from the administration on the topic of disparate impact — both inside and outside of schools. He says conservatives have been pushing for a case that would outlaw disparate impact theory. He calls it a “moonshot” for the movement to get a case that would invalidate California’s take on racial discrimination.

    “That’s a real stretch,” Affeldt said, “but that’s their game plan, and they’re trying to tee it up.” 

    EdSource reporter Mallika Seshadri contributed to this story.





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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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