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  • Newsom prioritizes electric school buses over preschool for children with disabilities

    Newsom prioritizes electric school buses over preschool for children with disabilities


    Marysville Joint Unified School District runs preschool for children with and without disabilities.

    Courtesy of Marysville Joint Unified School District

    Gov. Gavin Newsom invested millions into expanding preschool for children with disabilities. Now, he’s proposing to scale it back, to invest more in electric school buses.

    The move is causing an uproar among leaders of county offices of education and school districts, and advocates for early education and special education.

    “While I appreciate the governor’s dedication to climate change, as a special education administrator and somebody who’s been in the special education field, I think students with disabilities are more important than electric buses,” said Anthony Rebelo, director of the Trinity County Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) and chair of the Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education.

    Two programs that aim to expand access to preschool for children with disabilities are proposed to be slashed in Newsom’s May revision of his budget proposal.

    The first is an increase in the number of slots in state-subsidized preschool programs that are set aside for children with disabilities. Beginning in 2022, the state began to require these preschool programs to set aside at least 5% of their space to enroll children with disabilities. The percentage of space set aside was to increase to 7.5% in 2025-26, and to 10% in 2026-27. Facing a massive budget shortfall, Newsom is now proposing to cancel that increase and leave the number of slots for children with disabilities at 5%. This move would save the state $47.9 million in 2025-26 and $97.9 million ongoing, beginning in 2026–27.

    The second program the governor plans to cut is the Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program, a program that was set to fund $250 million in grants to help school districts and county offices of education adapt facilities and playground equipment and train preschool teachers to meet the needs of children with disabilities. The state funded a first round of grants in 2020. School districts and county offices of education had applied in April for a second round of grants. The California Department of Education sent out award letters this week to some applicants specifying how much funding they can expect to receive.

    During a May 16 hearing before the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee on Education, Alex Shoap, finance budget analyst from the California Department of Finance, made it clear Newsom is proposing “pulling back $250 million in currently unallocated Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program funding to instead support the electric school bus grant investment.”

    H.D. Palmer, deputy director for external affairs for the Department of Finance, said the state Legislature had committed to putting $500 million toward electric school buses in 2024-25 and another $500 million in 2025-26. Newsom now aims to spend $395 million more on the buses in 2024-25, most of which would come from the Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program.

    Palmer said spending more now on electric school buses would reduce the amount the state would have to pay in 2025-26 to $105 million.

    In response to criticism of cuts to preschool for children with disabilities, Palmer pointed to the following comment from Newsom on May 10 when he announced his new budget proposals.

    “You will ask me, I’m sure, in the Q and A, ‘Why this cut?’ I will undoubtedly say, ‘I prefer not to make this cut.’ These are programs, these are propositions that I’ve long advanced, many of them. These are things that I’ve supported. These are things we worked closely with the Legislature to advance. None of this is the kind of work you enjoy doing, but you’ve got to do it,” Newsom said.

    School district and county leaders, as well as other preschool providers across the state expressed dismay that these programs would be cut at a time when preschool programs were just beginning to include more children with disabilities in their classrooms.

    “It really is a breach of promise,” said Dave Gordon, Sacramento County superintendent of schools. “People have been planning for these services to go forward for several years. They’re ready to go. I have several people on my staff who are broken-hearted that this is not going to go forward, because they feel it’s been long delayed.”

    Preschoolers with and without disabilities learn and play together in Marysville Joint Unified School District.
    Courtesy of Marysville Joint Unified School District

    Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, children as young as 3 years old with disabilities must be provided special education. The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have stated that children with disabilities should have access to preschool and child care programs where they can participate alongside their peers without disabilities. California also made expanding access to inclusive preschool programs a goal in its Master Plan for Early Learning and Care, released in 2020.

    “We’re woefully behind most states,” said Elizabeth Engelken, chair of the association SELPA Administrators of California. “We were relying on this … support to begin to shift the environment in schools to be more developmentally appropriate.”

    Jolie Critchfield, director of child development for Marysville Joint Unified School District in Yuba County, said her district used funding from the Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program to train staff and completely revamp their preschool programs with new materials and playground equipment, like swings built for children with disabilities. The district also moved all “special day classrooms” alongside general preschool classrooms, so that children with disabilities are able to interact with other children on the playground and spend time in class with them as well.

    She said the district planned to use future funding to increase coaching for teachers and to include more children with disabilities in general education preschool classrooms.

    “It literally brings tears to your eyes, seeing the kids in the program with wheelchairs and scooters. Kids that you just would not think could be OK in a general education setting, because it would be too overwhelming, are going in there and doing so well,” Critchfield said. “I can’t believe we ever did it any differently.”

    One mother, Stella Goodnough, said she is grateful her daughter was able to attend preschool in Marysville alongside children with disabilities. 

    “I was always afraid to approach special-needs children because I didn’t know what to say or do. Now I see my daughter make friends, especially a best friend, with a special-needs child,” said Goodnough. “She often talks about him at home, which creates opportunities to talk about how wonderful we all are with our differences.”

    The Kings County Early Learning Center playground includes a swing for children in wheelchairs and other equipment for children with disabilities.
    Courtesy of Kings County Office of Education

    The Kings County Office of Education in the Central San Joaquin Valley used funding from the first round of grants to transform an old school building into an early learning center, with many services available for children with disabilities. The center, in Hanford, currently has one classroom where children with and without disabilities are taught together. The county office applied for another grant this year to open two more inclusion classrooms. 

    “Without this funding, our goals are once again relegated to a far-off future when we can’t ever guarantee when that might happen,” said Todd Barlow, Kings County superintendent of schools.

    Several special education administrators said cutting the program would end up costing the state more in the future, because children who have had early education and services at a young age may not need as much intervention in later years.

    “If we identify a student much earlier, get them in that school routine of what it’s like to have group instruction, they’re going to be much more prepared by the time they’re in kindergarten or TK,” Rebelo said. “This just feels like a huge step backwards.”

    The budget proposal would cut about 200 children with disabilities from attending preschool at Kidango, a nonprofit organization that runs dozens of child care centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the organization’s director, Scott Moore.

    “This budget cut is not only harmful to children, but research shows it will result in higher special education costs in the future,” Moore said. “So it’s bad for kids and bad for the state budget.”

    The state budget is still in negotiations until the Legislature passes a final bill in June.





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  • As we expand universal preschool access, let’s ensure teachers mirror their students’ ethnicity

    As we expand universal preschool access, let’s ensure teachers mirror their students’ ethnicity


    Preschool students build a structure from plastic interlocking tubes.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    Author’s original hed: As Universal Preschool Access Expands to Reach More Families of Color, So Do Inequitable Practices Such as Racial Bias, Exclusionary Discipline and Lack of Cultural Representation, Leading to a Crisis for Black Boys

    As California progresses toward universal preschool access, the need increases for training, hiring and retaining early childhood male educators who are racially and ethnically representative of the children in their classrooms. A study examining preschool teachers’ implicit biases and expulsion rates found that teachers spent significantly more time watching Black children, especially boys, than other-race children when anticipating problematic behaviors. Further, researchers found that public preschool teachers’ systemic use of exclusionary discipline, such as suspensions and expulsions, disproportionately impacts Black children, with Black boys being expelled more than anyone else.

    In efforts to reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions, last year the California Department of Education released a bulletin announcing new requirements for the California State Preschool Program (CSPP) that no longer allowed contractors to suspend, expel, or coerce parents and guardians to pick children up early from school due to their behavior. This is a step in the right direction. However, not all California preschool programs are funded by the state program and, therefore, many do not have to abide by those guidelines.

    The good news is that the positive effects of ensuring that students have teachers of the same race as them can happen across all programs, despite their funding sources. I propose that schools and agencies recruit and train male educators who match the racial and ethnic background of the communities they represent.

    As a Black woman and a credentialed early childhood educator for more than 15 years in San Joaquin and Sacramento counties, I’ve witnessed Black children aged 3 to 5 years old be sentenced to in-school or out-of-school suspension because a teacher lacked the necessary skills or cultural competencies to work with them. I would often be the one who other teachers would send their children to when they were struggling. Though I did not have any extra or special training, I was often able to successfully help children reset and return to their classrooms at peace. Once, I worked with a Black male teacher who was more effective than I in this aspect, especially when dealing with boys.

    Overall, our success was evidence of the mutual understanding and respect that the same-race teacher-child dynamic has. Perhaps from the child’s perspective, there’s a familiarity in our looks or mannerisms. Whatever the reason, such experiences speak to why Black children need educators who they can identify with.

    As it stands, in many places the public preschool curriculum, like that of the public K-12, has long ignored Black history and culture. The state preschool curriculum framework developed by the California Department of Education in alignment with the K-12 Common Core State Standards attest to this. Writers of the California Preschool Learning Foundations, Volume 3, History-Social Science admit that “the developmental research on which these foundations are based is full of studies of English-speaking, middle-class European American children” and that “fewer studies focused on children who speak other languages or come from other family, racial, or cultural backgrounds.”

    Training and hiring teachers and staff who represent the racial and cultural communities they serve is beneficial because they connect better with the students through incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy, which is generally not offered in typical school curriculum. This was my approach upon opening a child care facility specifically for Black families. I found that children engaged more with the learning content when they could relate to it. For example, children expressed an increased interest in reading materials and spent more time in the classroom library browsing through books when they saw characters they could identify with. And the boys in my program took a special liking to my teenage son.

    Findings from a 2023 early childhood longitudinal study observing more than 18,000 students in the U.S. suggest that children in the classroom with a teacher of the same race performed better academically, in math and reading, and on working memory tasks. Besides the increased positive benefits of race-matching teachers and students, a decrease in negative outcomes has also been observed. According to scientists from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University who analyzed 10 years of data, Black students were less likely to be suspended when they had a teacher of the same race.

    We cannot ignore the fact that Black children are disproportionately suspended and expelled from preschools. It’s also true their communities are underrepresented in the curricula and with regard to same-race educators. For better social and academic outcomes for this vulnerable group, early childhood educational spaces need more Black male teachers.

    This is a call for state agencies and schools to put resources into the community by training and hiring educators who reflect the student population they serve. This is a call for families and community members to volunteer their time at local preschools and early childhood centers.

    With universal preschool access becoming a reality in California, the rest of the country is sure to follow. To support all preschool children, diversifying the teaching workforce is of the utmost importance right now.

    •••

    Sajdah Asmau is owner of an African-centered child care facility. She is in her first year as doctoral student in education student at UC Davis and serves as a Public Voices fellow on Racial Justice in Early Childhood with the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.

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





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  • For preschool educator, kids’ paintings give them a deep brush with themselves

    For preschool educator, kids’ paintings give them a deep brush with themselves


    Credit: Courtesy of Daniel Mendoza

    Daniel Mendoza makes his own paintbrushes. It may have started out as a way to save money, but it also reflects his aesthetic as a veteran preschool teacher who uses painting to engage pint-sized students.

    “The brushes happened out of a necessity of wanting to make things big,” said the child development specialist who is also a painter. “If you’re familiar with preschool teachers, we make super low salaries starting out. I had to stay on a budget.”

    Daniel Mendoza uses art as a way to spark engagement in preschool.
    Credit: Daniel Mendoza

    Instead of downsizing his plans to teach small children how to create epic murals or Jackson Pollock-style canvases, Mendoza got creative. The brushes became a symbol of his DIY vibe.

    “I came up with this mop-style brush,” said the 44-year-old, with customary modesty. “It really allowed me to feel even more connected to this work and a part of who I am and what I’m trying to convey, down to the materials themselves.” 

    While he started out as a musician and now works primarily in visual arts, he says the leap to education was a no-brainer for him. 

    “It wasn’t really a stretch for me to move worlds,” said Mendoza, the program administrator for the Placer County Office of Education early childhood education department. “Music and visual arts are so interconnected. Even education is the same in ways.  It takes thinking in that creative mindset.”

    Much like the preschoolers he spent 10 years teaching, Mendoza embraces big messes. One of the first things students saw when they came into his classroom was a drippy, paint-splattered canvas.

    Now, he teaches other educators how to unleash the power of creativity in the classroom. Some teachers are afraid of making a big mess, but he relishes it.

    “Art is intrinsic to who we are as humans,” he said. “It’s tied to our identity and our outlook on how we view the world.  Think about the aesthetics of art, and how that is tied to everyday life. What we like to wear, eat, listen to … We want to create, it’s deep in who we are.”

    Mendoza, who grew up on a pistachio farm, seeing nature as his playground, believes that children are naturally artists. They love to get down-and-dirty, and they often focus more on the process than the product. Sometimes a child will concentrate so hard on a piece they seem to lose themselves in the work, only to run off as soon as it’s finished.

    “They love making the art,” he quips, “not putting their name on it.”

    Little children think outside the box by default, experts say. The challenge is how to let them grow that impulse even as they grow up. 

    “Preschoolers live in their creative mindset, all the time. It’s the perfect space for me,” he said. “Art gives children a voice. It opens the door for them to share their feelings, their thoughts, their ideas.”

    Having grown up in a low-income immigrant family, Mendoza is passionate about making sure all children have the same exposure to the arts that high-income families often take for granted.

    “I was a Head Start kid, I know what it’s like to struggle,” said Mendoza. “It’s sad because when we think about the circle, generational poverty or generational addiction as opposed to generational wealth and prosperity. Some of these children will stay in this lower socioeconomic status as they grow into adults. That’s how they exist. Giving them tools like art, dancing, painting, gives them an understanding of freedom, of expression, of identity.”

    Mendoza views teaching as an art form of its own, cultivating his pedagogy with the same depth of dedication as his mixed-medium artworks.

    “He approaches his work like an artist — with creativity,” said Letty Kraus, director of the California County Superintendents Statewide Arts Initiative, “but also with an educator’s understanding of how to remove enough limitations to engage in play and art-making both individually and collectively.”

    Preschool teacher Daniel Mendoza with some of his students.
    credit: Daniel Mendoza

    Sometimes Mendoza worries that no matter how much headway he makes in the early years, encouraging children to think for themselves and embrace their creativity, that it all gets lost by middle school, when the intense pressure on achieving high test scores can diminish the love of learning.

    “I feel that so many don’t see that connection, the connection art has to culture, individuality and community,” he says ruefully. “It might be a lack of education or awareness, but this conversation is missing. Helping connect what is seen as a ‘luxury’ to those learning goals and foundations that are important to families, gives us an opportunity to show the massive impact the arts have on children’s learning and ability to reach their maximum potential in school and throughout life.  We all need the arts, not just children.”

    He partly blames the laser focus on numeracy and literacy for creating a more stressful environment for children that also hasn’t moved the needle academically.

    “Math scores are down,” he notes. “We have done math all day, and then we did this after-school math program, and now we’re sending math homework home, and that’s still not working. So now we’re going to double down and kids are going to do math on the weekends. I’ve watched a lot of baseball. That’s three strikes right there.”

    By contrast, art teaches focus, he says. It demands that you slow your roll, pay attention and then reflect on the nuance. That depth of concentration and perception pays off in all the other subject areas, experts say. 

    “He has the seamless ability to integrate the arts with other content areas,” said Jennifer Hicks, assistant superintendent of educational services at the Placer County Office of Education. “When children experience art with Daniel, they are experiencing math, they are experiencing literacy, they are experiencing science.”

    Mendoza says he almost got arrested once at the old Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas for spending too much time looking at a painting. The lights turned off, and when security guards appeared, they assumed he was up to no good.

    “Art is an invitation to have an inner dialogue,” he said. “To examine yourself, what you think, what you feel.”

    Credit: Courtesy of Daniel Mendoza

    One of the most noticeable things about Mendoza is his exuberance for art and learning for their own sake. That’s partly why small children often gravitate to him, even when he and his wife are just out shopping at Target, because he radiates warmth.

    “Daniel is joyful,” said Hicks. “ His passion for early education is apparent in everything he does.  He’s always ready to take on a new project or implement an innovative idea. He has a magical way of communicating with children, teaching them language, expression and how to be good humans.”

    While his time is jam-packed with training preschool teachers, painting and teaching about the creative process in children at Sierra College, when he needs to recharge creatively, he always heads back into the classroom to the little ones who are his muses. 

    “If my tank is low, I go hang out at one of our classrooms,” he said. “The children are always so awesome at refilling that creative tank for me.”





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