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  • Budget would require districts to post plans to educate kids in emergencies

    Budget would require districts to post plans to educate kids in emergencies


    The burned remains of the Paradise Elementary school on Nov. 9, 2018, in Paradise. Blocks and blocks of homes and businesses in the Northern California town were destroyed by a wildfire.

    Credit: AP/Rich Pedroncelli

    Starting next March, California school districts will be required to post a plan on their websites outlining how they will provide instruction to students within 10 school days of an emergency that keeps children from attending classes. They should also make contact with students and families within five days of the emergency. Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the education trailer bill as part of the 2024-25 budget.

    The plan must be operative by July 1, 2025. 

    Local educational agencies — school districts, charter schools and county offices of education — that do not develop an instructional continuity plan as part of their school safety plan will not be eligible to recover lost state attendance funding if schools close or a significant number of students are unable to attend because of an emergency.

    In a separate action, the trailer bill also addresses chronic absenteeism by authorizing school districts to provide attendance recovery programs during school breaks, weekends or after school, to allow students to make up for up to 10 days of school missed for any reason. Beginning next July, districts that offer the programs will be able to recover state funds lost when students in the program were previously absent from school.

    The legislation comes four years after California schools closed for more than a year because of a worldwide pandemic. Since then, chronic absenteeism rates have more than doubled. Wildfires and flooding also have closed schools across the state with increasing frequency in recent years.

    “Given the effects of public health emergencies and the significant and growing number of natural disasters that the state has faced in recent years, there is an increased need for local educational agencies to provide instructional continuity for pupils when conditions make in-person instruction infeasible for all or some pupils,” according to the trailer bill.

    The instructional continuity plan must describe how districts will provide in-person or remote instruction to students, including potentially temporarily reassigning them to other school districts. Students who are reassigned during an emergency will not have to comply with any residency requirements for attendance in that district. 

    Penalties removed

    The legislation has changed dramatically since the May budget revision, which would have given districts five days to offer students instruction after an emergency, and penalized them financially if they didn’t. 

    The revisions are due, in part, to heavy opposition from a coalition of nine education organizations, including the California Teachers Association, California School Boards Association and California County Superintendents.

    “There are countless instances where the physical infrastructure and human capacity necessary to comply with this requirement does not exist: roads, landlines, internet connectivity, access to devices, access to shelter, family and staff displacement, etc.,” said California County Superintendents in a May letter to the chairs of the Senate and Assembly budget committees. “When this occurs, a LEA may find it impossible to offer remote instruction.”

    Derick Lennox, senior director for governmental relations and legal affairs for the association said, “There was the feeling that the state does not understand the challenges that schools face to locate and serve the basic needs of their students and families during a serious emergency.” 

    As an alternative, the coalition asked for a proactive planning process without financial penalties, and lawmakers agreed, Lennox said.

    El Dorado County Superintendent of Schools Ed Manansala said that the proactive, constructive tone of the new legislation is more productive than the punitive tack legislators took in the original version.

    Manansala said it isn’t feasible to expect schools to deliver instruction 10 days after schools close in an emergency.

    El Dorado County has had at least 70 wildfires of varying sizes between 2004 and 2023, the largest being in August 2021, according to CalFire. It burned 221,835 acres and razed Walt Tyler Elementary School in Grizzly Flats.

    “We had teachers and students that were being displaced out of their communities,” Manansala said. 

    Mendocino County Superintendent of Schools Nicole Glentzer first experienced the extended closure of schools in 2017 when a fire burned 36,000 acres.

    Glentzer, who worked at nearby Ukiah Unified School District at the time, had to evacuate her home. She moved into the district office and went to work making decisions about school closures. The district’s schools were closed for five days.

    Since then, the county on the state’s north coast has been ravaged by numerous fires, including two of the nation’s largest, which together burned more than 1.41 million acres in multiple counties in 2018 and 2020.

    Schools in Mendocino County also have been closed recently because of flooding and power outages.

    Glentzer said that while she is satisfied with the revamped language in the legislation, she cringes when she hears that small districts, with small staffs, are expected to come up with plans similar to larger districts. The Mendocino County Office of Education will help the 12 school districts in its county by providing sample plans and templates, she said.

    Attendance recovery

    State chronic absentee numbers have skyrocketed from 12.1% in 2018-19 to 30% in 2021-22, according to an analysis of California data. Chronic absenteeism rates are determined by the number of students who miss at least 10% of school days in a given year.

    Attendance recovery programs like the one required by the new legislation can help districts reduce their chronic absenteeism and regain the average daily attendance funding lost when students miss school. The programs must be taught by credentialed teachers and be aligned to grade-level standards and to each student’s regular instructional program, according to the legislation.

    Attendance recovery programs can be funded through the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program at school sites where the after-school or summer enrichment programs are being offered and operated by the school district.

    “In my mind, it’s a whole theme that the administration and Legislature are going for, around addressing chronic absenteeism — one of the top issues facing students today,” Lennox said. “And, they basically outlined a few different strategies to do it.”





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  • University of California to no longer require diversity statements in faculty hiring

    University of California to no longer require diversity statements in faculty hiring


    The campus of UCLA

    Michael Burke/EdSource

    This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. with additional reactions.

    The University of California will no longer require diversity statements for faculty applicants, university leaders announced. The change comes as the Trump administration has threatened to withhold funding from universities that have programs or initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

    Many UC academic departments and programs for years have required applicants seeking faculty positions to describe how they have or would contribute to campus diversity, such as racial diversity. But the system’s board of regents has directed UC President Michael Drake to “ensure that diversity statements are no longer required” for new applicants, Provost Katherine Newman wrote in a letter Wednesday to campus provosts.

    “The requirement to submit a diversity statement may lead applicants to focus on an aspect of their candidacy that is outside their expertise or prior experience,” Newman said. She added that UC “can continue to effectively serve communities from a variety of life experiences, backgrounds, and points of view without requiring diversity statements.”

    The letter did not explicitly mention the Trump administration. But at an emergency meeting earlier this week of the university’s systemwide Academic Council, Drake told faculty the change was being made and said UC “needed to show signs it was listening to the Trump administration,” according to Sean Malloy, an associate professor of history at UC Merced who sits on the council and was present for Drake’s presentation.

    Malloy, in an interview, called the decision cowardly and naive. “It is a catastrophic misreading of the current political dynamic,” he said. “We are dealing with people who want to punish political enemies. And the University of California is a political enemy. Offering concessions, particularly unasked-for concessions, only invites further repression.”

    Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot measure, bans California’s public colleges from giving preferential treatment based on race, sex or ethnicity, including in employment decisions. But the diversity statements, which have existed for years, were not believed to violate that law.

    The statements are typically up to two pages and allow an applicant to describe their track record of advancing various types of diversity — such as race, gender or sexual orientation — or how they expect their work would promote diversity. UC was considered a leader in the practice, with supporters saying the statements were helpful in understanding how prospective faculty would contribute to campuses and diverse student bodies.

    The use of diversity statements also faced criticism, with opponents often arguing that they served as an unfair political test of applicants. Other prominent universities, including Harvard and the University of Michigan, have also recently stopped requiring the statements.

    The Trump administration last week opened investigations into more than 50 colleges nationwide, including UC Berkeley, and accused them of running programs that discriminate against white and Asian students. Trump has separately threatened to withhold funding from Berkeley and three other UC campuses — Davis, San Diego and Santa Barbara — if his administration deems they aren’t doing enough to protect Jewish students. 

    Citing the threats of federal funding cuts, UC earlier on Wednesday announced it is implementing a hiring freeze across its campuses, hospitals and health professional schools. 

    In a separate statement Wednesday, the chair of UC’s board of regents, Janet Reilly, maintained that UC’s “values and commitment to our mission have not changed” despite no longer requiring diversity statements. She said UC would “continue to embrace and celebrate Californians from a variety of life experiences, backgrounds, and points of view.”

    Even though standalone diversity statements won’t be permitted, faculty applicants can choose to refer to accomplishments related to diversity “in other parts of an application or during interviews and discussions,” Newman said in her letter. Hiring committees can then “consider these contributions alongside the applicants’ other qualifications,” she added.

    The move to no longer require those statements “was the wrong decision at the wrong time and sends the wrong message to students and families,” said Jessie Ryan, the president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit organization that has advocated for more diversity among faculty and students. 

    The campaign has previously published studies highlighting the disparities in the racial demographics of students at California’s public universities compared with the racial makeup of faculty. The 2024 report found that 60% of UC’s tenure-track faculty are white, but only 19% of UC’s undergraduates are white. 

    Having a diverse faculty encourages more students to stay in school and succeed, Ryan said.

    “When you take away a statement that centers diversity and offer nothing as a replacement, it sends a message to students that we are walking away from this work,” she said.





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