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  • Teachers, conservatives battle for sway on school boards

    Teachers, conservatives battle for sway on school boards


    Elk Grove Unified director of elementary school education Jodi Boyle gets tips on how to use a canvassing app before she heads out in support of Measure N, a school facilities bond.

    Diana Lambert/EdSource

    California school board races, largely ignored by voters until the 2022 election, are again taking center stage. The California Teachers Association(CTA), the California Republican Party and other organizations have significantly ramped up efforts to help their favored candidates win local school board seats on Nov. 5.

    On Saturday, teachers and other school employees dropped into the offices of the Elk Grove Education Association to receive last-minute instructions and pick up yard signs and union T-shirts before fanning out across the Sacramento County district to encourage residents to vote for a local school bond and union-supported school board candidates.

    It is part of a larger effort by CTA to get its local unions more engaged in school board elections. For the last few months, California teachers have been attending rallies and canvassing neighborhoods to drop off door hangers and knock on doors. County Republican central committees, other conservative organizations, and in some parts of the state, charter school organizations are doing the same.

    CTA President David Goldberg said the union is “absolutely” taking this year’s school board elections more seriously than it has in the past, and is counting on the engagement and popularity of its teachers to win local races. It is also trying to change the culture of local unions not being active in elections.

    “We know that our popularity as educators and union educators is at an all-time high,” Goldberg said. “And just the words: … ‘I’m an educator in your community, and I’m asking you to vote for this person,’ just that alone, changes elections. I mean that’s the gift we have. So we just have to lean into it and use it much more than we have in the past.”

    Before the 2022 election, the Republican Party, and some conservative organizations and churches, spent more than a year recruiting, training and endorsing candidates in an attempt to create a “red wave” to win what are supposed to be nonpartisan seats.

    Their goal was to gain seats on California school boards to promote conservative ideas, including fighting educational policies on gender identity and racial equity. Although the effort made some headway, it failed to flip many seats in more liberal areas of the state. 

    This year, county Republican central committees and conservative groups, like the Leadership Institute, again recruited and trained school board candidates throughout the state with a focus on winning seats in more liberal areas of the state.

    Shawn Steel

    Conservatives are campaigning even more aggressively than they did two years ago, said Shawn Steel, the Republican National Committee member from California. “There’s been a lot less noise but a lot more action,” he said.

    Both sides say power is the issue

    Goldberg said that some of the conservative candidates running for school board are self-proclaimed “white Christian nationalists” who are part of a broader movement to dramatically change public education to suit their ideology.

    “It’s not an attack on Christianity, what we’re saying,” Goldberg said. “Because this has very little to do with Christianity at all. It’s about power, and it’s about using power to really re-imagine public education in a way that does not include the majority of our students in that vision, but really is a fundamentalist attack on democracy.”

    Steel says the teachers unions have too much power and that union members are trying to get candidates elected that they can control.

    “You got the union reps that are literally knocking on doors and financing their candidate,” Steel said. “And why are they doing that? It’s not because they want education better, they want better salaries and more power. It should be illegal, in my view.”

    How the union supports campaigns

    As a rule, the CTA focuses its efforts on statewide races and propositions, while local unions support local races. But local unions can apply for financial support for school board races from the CTA Political Action Committee. The CTA and local teachers unions sometimes share the cost of joint mailers advertising statewide races on one side and local races on the other, Goldberg said.

    “We’re never going to have enough money to fund these races,” Goldberg said. “We live in the fifth-largest economy in the world. We have billionaires who frankly could write a bigger check in a single day than 300,000 members could raise in years. So, our real power is our member strength. And our members and educators are trusted more than any other people.”

     Over the next several years, the CTA is spending about $60 million so that every union president can be released from the classroom to engage with their members, including encouraging their members to participate in local campaigns, Goldberg said.

    California Teachers Association President David Goldberg and local school board presidents at State Council. The union is paying to release all the presidents from their teaching duties so they can engage with their members and promote participation in elections.
    California Teachers Association

    This is the first year Elk Grove Education Association members have canvassed neighborhoods for candidates. Teachers who were campaigning on Saturday credited the leadership of local union President James Sutter for getting Elk Grove teachers excited about supporting union-endorsed candidates and a local school facilities bond in the upcoming election. 

    Troy Morgan, science teacher at Monterey Trail High School, has been knocking on doors promoting union-endorsed candidates every Saturday since early September. He sometimes goes out after school on weekdays as well.

    “I think we just realized how important it is, having a cohesive school board that supports students, and just knows how things should work, or what’s going to work best for students and all staff, not just teachers,” Morgan said Saturday before heading out for more canvassing. “There have been times in the past where it hasn’t been a cohesive kind of board, and we want to make sure that we have the kind of board that is going to be supporting all students.”

    Elk Grove Unified teachers, wearing “Yes on N” T-shirts, have collectively knocked on about 7,000 doors since they started hitting the streets each Saturday since September, Sutter said. 

    Temecula teachers fight back

    Goldberg recently walked for union-endorsed candidates running for the Temecula Valley Unified school board. The district in Riverside County has been in the media spotlight for more than a year for everything from rejecting textbooks with materials that included references to gay rights activist Harvey Milk, banning critical race theory and passing a policy requiring teachers and school staff to notify parents if a child appears to be transgender. 

    “That’s been turning our district a little upside down,” said union President Edgar Diaz. “Most of the board meetings have turned to focusing on these issues, instead of how do we address supporting students who are falling behind on the dashboard, who have IEPs (individualized education programs), who are English language learners? How do we develop systems that help them be successful in the classroom? So, in this election, it’s turned a lot into supporting candidates who believe in good governance.”

    Tension over the policies of the conservative majority board led to the recall of board President Joseph Komrosky in June. Komrosky is running for one of the four available seats on the board in the upcoming election.

    Two years ago, teachers at Temecula Valley Unified paid little attention to board races and campaigning, Diaz said. That all changed after a conservative majority was elected to the board in 2022. This year, members of the Temecula Valley Educators Association are sending out mailers, making phone calls and texting potential voters. 

    “Once they were elected and the policies and kind of chaos they brought into school board meetings, that is what got people motivated to do the work,” Diaz said.

    The union’s political action committee recruited and interviewed candidates for endorsements and has spent about $60,000 total – $20,000 on each of three endorsed candidates. In 2022, the union spent $18,000 in total helping three candidates get elected. 

    Local teacher unions fund their PACs with donations primarily from their members. Temecula also received contributions from other union locals as well as money the union got from CTA, Diaz said.

    Parental notification still on the ballot

    School board policies directing school staff to notify parents if a student asks to use a different pronoun or name than given at birth — often called parental rights policies — continue to be a hot-button issue in some districts this election season, despite a new state law that will make these policies illegal starting in January. 

    The new state law requires a student’s consent before information about their sexual orientation or gender identity can be given to parents. The law also protects school staff from retaliation if they refuse to notify parents of a child’s gender preference.

    In Yuba County, north of Sacramento, members of the Republican Central Committee attended school board meetings to evaluate whether school board trustees supported parent notification policies and, if not, whether they should be replaced in the upcoming election, said Florentina Di Gennaro, the treasurer of the committee. 

    “We kind of let them know if you’re not going to stand up for these things that we need to start happening in our schools or defending parents’ rights for our children, we are going to find someone to replace you,” Di Gennaro said.

    The California Republican Party leaves funding and campaigning for down-ballot races to its county central committees, said Jonathan Zachreson, a candidate for the Roseville City School District board.

    The Yuba County committee recruited and endorsed “Mama Bears” and “Papa Bears” to run for school board seats. Committee members wanted people who would push back against the new state law and other policies, Di Gennaro said.

    The central committee is also attempting to replace Marysville Joint Unified Superintendent Fal Asrani because she won’t disregard the law. Asrani went on medical leave earlier this month. Di Gennaro said that a committee that will include a member of the GOP Central Committee will soon begin looking for a new superintendent.

    Steel doesn’t agree with everything conservative board members have done since the last election. Some of the people elected to school boards in 2022 were wrongly focused on social issues instead of economic issues or fighting against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, he said. Steel said that DEI policies are racist and punish students for their color, but he doesn’t agree with policies focused on LGBTQ+ communities, he said.

    “That’s a mistake,” he said. “I think most folks don’t think that the gay community should be targeted and scorned. So, that’s something I think most of the folks have learned this time around, because it’s not something that most folks believe. It’s not a community that should be attacked.”

    San Jose union protecting board seat

    The San Jose Teachers Association has been recruiting candidates and helping them win elections for years, but this year the 1,500-member union is putting more energy and money into campaigning after seeing conservative organizations recruiting candidates for local school board seats, said Renata Sanchez, union president.

    “We shared it (the information) with our smaller locals as well,” Sanchez said. “And we’re like, let’s get ready now because they’re coming for us next year. And now they’re here.”

    One candidate running for San Jose Unified is being endorsed by the Santa Clara County branch of Moms for Liberty, a national group that has supported efforts to bar schools from teaching about race, gender and sexuality. Members of the organization and the Silicon Valley Association of Conservative Republicans also are endorsing the candidate, Sanchez said. 

    “So, we’re making sure that we protect our school board and protect our academic freedom, by making sure that she doesn’t get on,” Sanchez said.

    The union is sending out mailers, buying digital advertising and recently launched a mass text-messaging campaign. It also has encouraged teachers to go on “block walks” in the neighborhoods around their campuses after the school day ends to talk to potential voters about union-backed candidates and a facilities bond that includes some funding for workforce housing. Groups of teachers also canvas neighborhoods every Saturday.

    “The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been,” Sanchez said.

    LA teachers take on charter proponents

    Not all hotly contested elections are cultural. In Los Angeles Unified, the teachers union and charter school organizations are also battling over school board seats.  

    The union is running campaigns in two of the three school board races, endorsing and supporting a UTLA member — who will stop teaching if elected to the paid school board seat —  and an incumbent it has endorsed in prior elections, said Julie Van Winkle, vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles. The incumbent is running against another UTLA member who has been an advocate for charter schools and is outspending the union candidate 3-to-1, she said.

    “We are always outspent by the charter school candidates, and we anticipate that in our school board election in the Valley, we’re going to be outspent 7-to-1,” Van Winkle said. 

    The union political action committee that finances campaigns is funded by about $2 million in member contributions and additional funding from the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, she said.

    Because funding is limited, Van Winkle said it is more advantageous for UTLA to mobilize its 39,000 members to knock on doors and to talk to residents about the union’s endorsed candidates.

    “People value teachers and respect teachers, and so we feel like our best strategy is just getting teachers to donate their time to go out and tell people about why it’s important to vote for our candidates,” Van Winkle said.





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  • Berkeley, Oakland teens cast first votes in school board elections

    Berkeley, Oakland teens cast first votes in school board elections


    A poster at Oakland High School encourages 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in the school board election. These posters are displayed throughout the campus.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    While the upcoming presidential election crowds voters’ minds, a new demographic will be casting their ballots for the first time this November. Both the cities of Berkeley and Oakland announced in August that 16 and 17-year-old constituents are now eligible to vote in local school board races.

    Berkeley voters approved Measure Y in 2016 by just over 70% of the vote. In Oakland, Measure QQ — which indicates similar youth voting stipulations as its Berkeley counterpart — was approved in 2020 with 68% of the vote.

    Years after the approval, continued community advocacy from organizations like Oakland Kids First has helped push the Alameda County Registrar of Voters to finalize a system to register 16- and 17-year-old voters.

    At a school board candidate forum on Oct. 22 hosted by Fremont High School and organized by Oakland Youth Vote, students, teachers, administrators, organizers and school board candidates from Oakland Unified School District gathered to register voters and learn more about the candidates running in local school board contests.

    Nearly all the school board candidates from districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 were present, and each was given a chance to introduce themselves and discuss their priorities and platforms within a time-limited format moderated by students from Fremont High School.

    After the student moderators and administrators gave introductions and explanations on registration, voting and the school board, the moderators emphasized the importance of voting in making student voices heard. They cited the efforts of community organizations like the Oakland Youth Commission and Californians for Justice in their success.

    Organizers and candidates spoke to students at the Oakland Youth Voting Forum on Oct. 22.
    Credit: Emily Hamill / EdSource

    “Your vote has the power to bring us closer to your vision and make your dream a reality,” said a student moderator. “This makes history, but it was only possible because we have been fighting for the last five years. We have earned this — it is a right.”

    Forum presenters highlighted what they considered the most important issues to Oakland students — access to health and wellness, community-centered schools, and essential life skills — all of which outlined concerns from over 1,400 student survey forms gathered from across the district. 

    The remainder of the forum consisted of the student moderators asking the candidates questions about how they plan to represent student concerns for equitable resource distribution, holistic mental health and wellness checks, school safety and budget deficits.

    Oakland Tech senior Ariana Astorga Vega and sophomore Amina Tongun, both members of the All City Council, or the ACC, attended the forum and emphasized the importance of students using their newfound voting rights, which are limited to the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD board races. The ACC is made up of 11 peer-elected high school students to represent student concerns to OUSD.

    “Even though I can’t vote yet because I have not turned 16, I’m here as a part of the ACC to support the local youth vote,” Tongun said. “I feel like it’s really special because we get to vote as young people and our voices are being heard. That’s one of the main reasons that I joined the ACC, because I really believe in advocating for young people and helping their voices be heard.” 

    Vega echoed Tongun’s opinion about the new voting rights, and her appreciation for being able to be “a part of that change.” 

    The two have also been involved in the ACC’s efforts to encourage youth voting, including streamlining social media posts about it and putting up fliers reading “Breaking News: 16-17 year-olds can now vote!” across district’s schools. 

    Although they have run into obstacles, like student disinterest due to not knowing how to vote and what the implications are, Vega and Tongun hope their community’s continued efforts to raise awareness and education will motivate their peers to take action.

    Maya Rapier, an organizer with Oakland Kids First, who also attended the forum, has been committed to the purpose. By helping distribute voter registration forms, spread awareness about the forum, and even implement a new voting curriculum into OUSD schools, Rapier said the organization has helped the district register over 1,000 student voters.

    “I genuinely feel like Oakland is such a beautiful place with such a beautiful community of voters who deserve so much, but there’s a history here of students being underserved and under-resourced,” Rapier said. “Students know their own experiences best, so for them to be able to be in the schools real-time, notice an issue, take that to the representative, and know that they have the power to bring attention to it, means a lot.”

    Rapier added, “I’m a former student of OUSD, and I’m really inspired by the students here and the work that they’ve been doing.”

    Fremont High School Principal Nidya Baez echoed these sentiments, expressing that her student body “feels responsible” for representing families and community members who cannot vote. She has worked to help “eliminate (obstacles like) the fear factor” by partnering with local coalitions to organize class presentations, lunchtime tabling and events like the candidate forum. 

    At Berkeley High School (BHS), students, with faculty help, have spearheaded youth voter registration and education. On Oct. 8, students from the BHS Civic Leaders Club organized a school board candidate forum with assistance from John Villavicencio, the director of student activities. The students invited the candidates to speak at the high school and allowed time for students to ask questions. 

    Villavicencio added that other BHS student organizations have led efforts in encouraging students to register to vote and done the groundwork by taking mail-in voter registration forms to classrooms. He also noted efforts from Josh Daniels, a former member of both the Oakland and Berkeley unified school district boards, who organized a weekly Zoom call between student leaders, student organizations and nonprofits in support of the youth vote to discuss efforts in their respective school districts. 

    During one weekly meeting, Oakland Youth Vote shared a curriculum members had put together detailing what the school board does, introducing the OUSD school board, emphasizing the importance of youth voting and assisting in registering students to vote. 

    After hearing about the curriculum Oakland Youth Vote created, Villavicencio encouraged Berkeley to create something similar. BHS teacher librarian Allyson Bogie offered to help, and created a shortened two-day curriculum tailored to Berkeley Unified. After review from the superintendent’s office, student leaders, teachers and administrators, the curriculum was shared with teachers who could use it in their classrooms. 

    “I wanted to make sure any teachers who wanted a tool to talk about youth voting, and getting kids registered, and the history of it, had something really easy to use,” Bogie said. “I believe it’s important for kids to vote, and I want to support the teachers, and that’s part of my role as a librarian.”

    According to Villavicencio, there have been several hurdles to overcome in convincing students to register, and to understand why this opportunity is special. Some students did not know their own Social Security numbers, complicating the registration process, while others have never heard of the school board or don’t know what the school board does, making it difficult to teach students about the impact of their vote.

    Villavicencio said they could “easily reach 1,000 pre-registration” out of about 1,800 potential BHS students who could register to vote. As of Oct. 22, 491 students were registered, leaving him “slightly disappointed,” he said. 

    “(Some students) are very passionate about activism and also engaging in the community,” Villavicencio said, but the overall sentiment is “lukewarm.” Bogie noted that she doesn’t think students view it negatively but has noticed a lot of students who also “aren’t that interested.” 

    Looking forward, Bogie hopes to see “continuing student momentum” for future elections. 

    “It’s commendable, what’s being done,” Villavicencio said. “And it’s crazy to say that there could be a lot more done.” 

    Emily Hamill is a third-year student at UC Berkeley double-majoring in comparative literature and media studies and minoring in journalism. Kelcie Lee is a second-year student at UC Berkeley majoring in history and sociology. Both are members of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.

    California Student Journalism Corps member Jo Moon, a junior at UC Berkeley studying political economy, gender and women’s studies and Korean, contributed to this story.





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

    California voters say yes to $10 billion school construction bond


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

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    How money will be spent

    The $10 billion will split as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to the article.





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  • School board results show wins on conservative and progressive sides

    School board results show wins on conservative and progressive sides


    Political signs for the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified school board are on display at an intersection in Yorba Linda.

    Credit: Courtesy of Kevin Reed

    Election results for California’s school boards are still not final in most counties, but the dust is settling in some of the state’s most hotly contested races.

    This year, California teachers unions and conservative groups intensified efforts to get their favored candidates elected to district school boards. Their primary difference of opinion — educational policies on gender identity and racial equity.

    In June, voters recalled Temecula Valley Unified school board President Joseph Komrosky — one of a three-member conservative block that passed controversial policies to reject textbooks with materials that included references to gay rights activist Harvey Milk, ban critical race theory and require teachers and school staff to notify parents if a child appears to be transgender. 

    But Komrosky and a new conservative majority could be back in January. As of Thursday evening, he and candidates Melinda Anderson and Emil Roger Barham — all endorsed by the Riverside County Republican Party — were winning their races.

    Komrosky is narrowly edging out opponent David Sola in the race for Trustee Area 4, with 51.21% of the vote — a little more than 300 votes — as of about 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Sola is endorsed by the Temecula Valley Educators Association, the district’s teachers union.

    “During this historic election season, I’m confident Temecula will choose trustees devoted to prioritizing academics, honoring parents, protecting children, and (keeping) divisive ideology out of the classroom,” said Jennifer Wiersma, who was part of the board’s conservatively held majority, in a statement to EdSource. Wiersma represents Trustee Area 3.

    Riverside County still had 350,000 mail-in and conditional ballots to be counted on Wednesday.

    The seats of the two board members who pushed back against the conservative majority — Steven Schwartz and Allison Barclay — are also up for election. Currently, Schwartz leads challenger Jon Cobb with 51.64% of the vote in Trustee Area 5, while Barclay is losing with 41.50% of the votes to Anderson’s 58.50% in Trustee Area 1.

    The Area 4 and Area 2 seats have been empty since Komrosky’s recall in June and the resignation of board member Danny Gonzalez last December.

    Both Cobb and Komrosky are supported by the Inland Empire Family PAC, a conservative Christian political action committee. Cobb is also endorsed by the Riverside County Republican Party.

    Barclay, Schwartz and Gary Oddi are endorsed by the teachers union. Oddi is running against Barham and Angela Talarzyk for the Trustee Area 2 seat.

    San Jose Unified results mixed

    Nicole Gribstad, endorsed by the Santa Clara County branch of Moms for Liberty, could take the Trustee Area 5 seat on the San Jose Unified school board, despite heavy campaigning against her by the teachers union. 

    Moms for Liberty is a national group that has supported efforts to bar schools from teaching about race, gender and sexuality. If Gribstad wins, she will be the only conservative member of the board, said San Jose Teachers Association President Renata Sanchez.  

    Gribstad is leading with 44.93% of the votes, only 870 votes more than union-endorsed candidate Lenka Wright.

    “We are not quite ready to call the race yet,” Sanchez said.  

    The county had about 284,000 ballots left to count at 10 a.m. Thursday, according to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.

    “(If she wins) we will continue to do everything we can to protect our students from these policies, including working with the board to make sure they understand how policies impact the work at the site level, ensure that our policies and processes are in alignment with those from CSBA (California School Boards Association),” Sanchez said. 

    “The parental rights policies, book bans and anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies are coming from a loud minority, and are not indicative of what the community as a whole desires for their children,” she said.

    Teresa Castellanos, the union’s other endorsement in the San Jose Unified race, seems likely to take the Trustee Area 1 seat with an overwhelming 59.47% of the vote compared to 40.53% for Chris Webb.

    Orange Unified incumbents winning

    Orange Unified School District incumbents Ann Page, Sara Pelly and Stephen Glass seem to have handily won re-election in Orange County. All three incumbents had between 72% to 80% of the votes in their trustee areas by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

    The county reported there were about 364,000 ballots left to process on Thursday evening.

    Pelly, in Trustee Area 4, and Glass, in Trustee Area 7, completed the terms of Madison Miner and Rick Ledesma, who were recalled in April, after Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen was abruptly fired without explanation. Neither Miner nor Ledesma sought re-election.

    Orange Unified recall organizer Darshan Smaaladen said interest in local races has grown since culture wars made their way into school district boardrooms. 

    “We have seen greater interest in the high quality and motivation of school board candidates, which is a great thing,” Smaaladen said in a statement to EdSource. “Greater interest equals greater engagement; public schools shine brighter in the light of transparency and truth from this interest.”

    Santa Ana Unified surprise

    In what could be an upset, special education teacher and conservative candidate Brenda Lebsack is edging out incumbent Rigo Rodriquez for the Trustee Area 1 seat on the Santa Ana school board, 52.16% to 47.84%. 

    The district has three seats up for election. Valerie Magdaleno is handily beating opponent Lloyd Boucher-Reyes, 72.5% to 24.75% in Trustee Area 2, while incumbent Alfonso Alvarez has 59% of the vote in a three-way race for the Area 3 seat.

    Recalled Sunol Glen trustee losing

    School board policies focusing on gender identification and LGBTQ+ rights continue to be a hot-button issue in some districts this election season.

    Ryan Jergensen played a role in passing conservative policies associated with gender identity and the display of flags, including the Pride flag, while a trustee for the Sunol Glen Unified School District in Alameda County. Now, he is trying to reclaim his board seat.

    On Wednesday at 1 a.m. he was losing to Erin Choin, 41% to 59%.

    LA Unified filling three seats

    The Los Angeles Unified School District board will go through a drastic change in leadership this election cycle — with three of its seven seats up for grabs. 

    Board President Jackie Goldberg, representing District 5, along with board member George McKenna from District 1, announced their retirement last fall after decades in education. Their seats — along with the District 3 seat currently occupied by board Vice President Scott Schmerelson, are on the ballot this November. 

    United Teachers Los Angeles, the district’s teachers union, and charter school organizations have been battling over board seats. The union mobilized its 39,000 members and ran campaigns in two of the districts, said Julie Van Winkle, vice president of the union.

    As of 4:34 p.m. Thursday, all three union-endorsed candidates — Sherlett Hendy Newbill, Schmerelson and Karla Griego — were winning their races. Only the District 3 race between Schmerelson, 51.91%, and Dan Chang, 48.09%, was close.

    District 7’s seat was on the ballot last March — and board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin secured her next term with support from 55.91% of voters. 

    In addition to deciding the makeup of LAUSD’s school board, voters determined the fate of a substantive $9 billion school construction bond to upgrade LAUSD school facilities. It needs at least 55% of the vote to pass, and has secured just over 66% of the vote so far. 

    West Contra Costa race close

    Early returns in the West Contra Costa Unified race show incumbent Otheree Christian trailing challenger Guadalupe Enllana by about 400 votes, according to results published early Wednesday morning. Enllana had nearly 53% of the vote. 

    Enllana, a member of the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) committee, has been critical of the district’s financial management and the school board’s failure to adopt an LCAP, which in turn prevented the district from passing a budget by the deadline.

    Otheree, a graduate of the district’s Kennedy High School and a substitute teacher, was elected in 2020. As trustee, he abstained from voting on the accountability plan because the document lacked transparency and failed to include parent feedback.





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  • Lawsuits charge antisemitism, civil rights violations at California charter school and high school district

    Lawsuits charge antisemitism, civil rights violations at California charter school and high school district


    Sequoia Union High School District in Redwood City.

    Credit: Flickr

    The parents of a former student of a San Jose charter school and six families in a wealthy Bay Area high school district have filed separate lawsuits charging “rampant” civil rights violations resulting from bullying, taunting, ostracism and other forms of antisemitic conduct. In the lawsuit brought against the Sequoia Union High School District, the families claim school officials ignored and showed “a deliberate indifference to the problem.”

    Both lawsuits, which were filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, say the discrimination escalated following the October 2023 attack on Israeli communities by Hamas and the Israeli retaliation and invasion of Gaza. 

    The lawsuit against the Sequoia Union High School District also reflects tension over how the ongoing conflict in Gaza has been taught in two Sequoia Union high schools as well as other districts engulfed in investigations and litigation. 

    The Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether Berkeley Unified failed to respond to rising incidents of antisemitism in its schools. Last month, several Jewish teachers in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit to overturn collective bargaining laws that they said force them to belong to a teachers union that helped create an ethnic studies curriculum that “is patently antisemitic.”

    Next month, an Orange County Superior Court judge will consider two nationally known Jewish legal groups’ motion to void an ethnic studies curriculum in Santa Ana Unified. They claim it was written by teachers and staff members who privately expressed antisemitic remarks and excluded Jewish community members from participating in the curriculum process.

    In their lawsuit, filed Friday, the six Sequoia Union High School District families named Woodside High Principal Karen Van Putten and three administrators of Woodside High, where five of the students attend, as well as Menlo-Atherton High School Principal Karl Losekoot, Sequoia Union Superintendent Crystal Leach, two district administrators, all five district board members, and Gregory Gruszynski, a history teacher at Woodside High.

    Placing the lawsuit in a wider context, lawyers for the Sequoia Union lawsuit said “leftist academics” have spread an ideology that “falsely portrays Jews as oppressors, engaged in ‘exploitive capitalism’ in the West and or ‘colonialism’ in the Middle East.”  

    “The result is not only a reprehensible failure of pedagogy but a hostile learning environment for Jewish students” — including in some Sequoia Union classes where the ideology is taught, the Sequoia lawsuit said.

    It cites as a relevant party but not a defendant the Liberated Ethnics Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, whose member groups are selling curriculum and training teachers in dozens of California districts. 

    Curriculum issues are not directly at issue in the lawsuit against University Prep Academy in San Jose. In that case, student Ella Miller, 13, and her parents filed the lawsuit on Oct. 23 against the charter middle and high school and its executive director. After months of abuse during which students taunted her as “the Jew” or “Jew,” Miller withdrew from the school and now attends a private school, the lawsuit said.

    The lawsuit also named as defendants the Santa Clara County Office of Education, which approved and oversees the charter school, and the California Department of Education, including State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. The lawsuit claims county and state officials failed to respond to the family’s formal complaint that Ella’s rights had been violated or to intervene after learning of her mistreatment.

    The 55-page filing does imply some teachers were hostile to Israel. Ella’s father, Shai Miller, an Israeli, said he noticed on back-to-school night that Israel was erased from maps of the modern Middle East in Ella’s history class.

    Ella, who identifies as an Israeli American and speaks fluent Hebrew, has spent summers in Israel with cousins, the lawsuit said. The Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, in which 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, distressed her and her family. She was visibly upset in history class on Oct. 9, the first day back in school after the attack, the lawsuit states. But before allowing her to go to the bathroom to collect herself, her teacher told her she had to read aloud something he had written “to the effect that, in the past, Palestinians and Jews had gotten along.”

    The lawsuit alleges that “this requirement to publicly espouse a position that was at odds with present-day reality was overwhelmingly oppressive and humiliating. It also further identified Ella as ‘the Jew’ to her classmates.” 

    Did history teacher show bias?

    Allegations of prejudiced classroom instruction that included antisemitic materials are a central element of the lawsuit against Woodside and Menlo-Atherton, two of four high schools in Sequoia Union, a demographically diverse, 10,000-student high school district. 

    Of Woodside High’s 1,646 students, 50% are Hispanic, 42% are white, 4% are Asian and 1% are Black. Only 28% were identified as low-income. Its students include low-income sections of Redwood City, and Woodside and Atherton, which are among the wealthiest ZIP codes in the United States.

    The lawsuit claimed that Gruszynski, a Woodside High history teacher who currently chairs the bargaining committee for the Sequoia District Teachers Association, “singled out and harassed L.K. (all plaintiff students are identified with initials), the only openly Jewish student” in his 10th grade world history class.” Gruszynski displayed a “Free Palestine” bumper sticker on his classroom wall. The lawsuit stated that he “mocked her beliefs, undermined her attempts to provide factual information to classmates, and coerced her into endorsing his biased and ahistorical views to achieve satisfactory grades on exams.”

    On a multiple-choice test, for example, the correct answer to the definition of Hamas, which the United States government has designated a terrorist organization, was a “Palestinian political party which is continuing to fight against Israel.”

    “In this way,” the lawsuit said, “Gruszynski forced a Jewish student to condemn Israel and disavow her beliefs in order to receive a passing grade.” The lawsuit said that L.K. returned home in tears after Gruszynski’s classes and decided she could not participate in any further classroom discussions “without inviting further harassment.”                       

    L.K.’s father, Sam Kasle, filed a complaint against Gruszynski, who refused to meet with him. Kasle requested to see Gruszynski’s course materials, which he, like other parents, had a right to review, but the district rejected that request. In response to the complaint, the vice principal disputed that Gruszynski made L.K. feel “uncomfortable” or “browbeaten,” and considered the case closed without reporting any action taken.

    Student handbook guarantees civil rights

    David Porter, University Prep Academy’s executive director, said the school’s attorney advised him not to comment on the lawsuit because it is an ongoing complaint. However, he did say that as the case proceeds, “what actually happened will come forward.”

    He added, “Our student handbook’s policies around bullying and discrimination are strict, and we follow them as written.”

    The school’s staff and student handbook for 2023-24 was expansive on protecting students’ civil rights, and the lawsuit extensively quotes from it. “The University Preparatory Academy Board and Staff commit to raise our voices against racism, unconscious bias, intolerance, injustice, and discrimination starting by reflecting on our own policies and actions,” it read.

    Another section that the lawsuit cites states that, “To the extent possible, UPA will make reasonable efforts to prevent students from being discriminated against, harassed, intimidated and/or bullied, and will take action to investigate, respond, and address and report on such behaviors in a timely manner.”

    David Rosenberg-Wohl, the family’s attorney, said the anti-discrimination language “is obviously important to the school, and so if the school does not honor it, that’s relevant because it suggests that one group does not count.”

    “Everybody talks the talk,” he said.

    In the days following Hamas’s attack, the discrimination against Ella intensified, the lawsuit said. This was before the Israeli army’s counter-attack and continued occupation, in which Gaza health officials say more than 40,000 Palestinian people, including many women and children, have been killed, and hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been displaced.

    The lawsuit further alleges that two girls, who said they were Palestinian, told Ella, “Jews are terrorists,” and asked her, “Do you know your family in Israel is living on stolen land?” Of dozens of girls who had been friendly to her, only one girl would speak to her.

    Students began to call her “White Ella,” progressing to “White Ella’s family are terrorists;” two boys chased her around the school, yelling, “We want you to die,” the lawsuit said.

    During the three months between Oct. 7, 2023, and Jan. 9, 2024, when Ella withdrew from University Prep Academy, the family had multiple meetings with school administrators, including Porter, the school’s executive director, but felt that the school failed to acknowledge and address the bigotry and harassment she faced. 

    Complaints with no response

    On Jan. 22, Ellla’s mother, Elisa, filed a formal complaint with the Santa Clara County Office of Education, the charter school’s authorizer. By law, the office had until March 24 — 60 days — to respond. On May 6, according to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for the Bay Area Jewish Committee met with May Ann Dewan, then county superintendent, to request that she intervene and answer the complaint. In its answer on May 14, the county said the complaint does not fall within its oversight of University Prep Academy, and the complaint could be filed instead with the California Department of Education.

    Miller did that, and, on June 10, the department notified her that the complaint had been forwarded to Porter, who had until July 13 to respond.

    Since then, the lawsuit said, there has been no response from Porter, the school, the county office, or the state Education Department. “Doing nothing … despite knowing of the anguish of Ella and her family, was deliberate indifference,” it said.

    The family is seeking damages for Ella’s emotional and physical stress, the cost of a private school, and her lost access to educational opportunities.

    Long-standing ‘antisemitic sentiment’

    The lawsuit by the Sequoia Union families also cited “deliberate indifference to anti-Jewish harassment,” which it said started well before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. In one incident, according to the lawsuit, a long-term substitute teacher, who continues to teach at Menlo-Atherton High, asked plaintiff W.K. about his background. Told that his family is Jewish, the teacher allegedly shared jokes about the Holocaust with a group of students: “How do you fit 10,000 Jews in a Volkswagen?” she asked. “In the ashtray.”

    After the start of the Israeli-Hamas conflict on Oct 7, however, antisemitic incidents “surged,” the lawsuit said, citing several examples.

    A group of Woodside students yelled, “Go back to where you came from!” to another Jewish student at Woodside High. No disciplinary action followed, the lawsuit said.

    About that same time, a group of Menlo-Atherton students taunted plaintiff W.K. on the way to class, calling him a “kike” and said, “All Jews should die.”

    On Nov. 1, two swastikas were etched into the pavement in Woodside High. (Swastikas had been drawn on bathroom walls in Menlo-Atherton high a year earlier.) Two days later, Woodside High Principal Karen Van Putten emailed the Woodside community that an extensive investigation by school administrators and the San Mateo Sheriff’s Department confirmed that the swastikas were actually “spiritual symbol[s] from Japanese Buddhism known as Manji popularized by anime.” 

    The lawsuit called the investigation a “sham” that, in fact, did not involve the sheriff’s department. Citing administrators’ dismissal of the swastika incident, other derogatory remarks, and the failure of Van Putten and the Sequoia school board to address incidents, Scott and Lori Lyle, parents of a 12th grader at Woodside High, filed a detailed formal complaint.

    With no answer and no action taken in response for more than 200 days, the Jewish families filed their lawsuit, citing violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, the First Amendment’s right to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech, as well as protections under California education laws and the state constitution.

    Filing a lawsuit is a huge step for families, said Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director for The Deborah Project. “Students don’t want to embarrass teachers, risk ridicule and humiliation. All of the families went through internal procedures. They tried to speak with principals; they filed complaints to see if they could rectify their situations, but all felt let down. A lawsuit was the next option.”

    The families are seeking the court to order a dozen remedies. They include:

    • prohibiting discrimination and harassment of their children;
    • prohibiting the district from engaging in any antisemitic conduct; 
    • ordering the district to implement a comprehensive policy addressing antisemitism;
    • providing training for all teachers, administrators and staff in strategies to promote empathy and respect for Jewish individuals and their connection to Israel;
    • terminating any teachers found to have engaged in antisemitic discrimination; and
    • creating transparent requirements for disclosing course materials to the public.

    The families also call for appointing a special master to monitor compliance with the court’s orders for three years.

    The Deborah Project, a public interest law firm that defends the civil rights of Jews in educational settings, with pro bono assistance of California attorneys in the global law firm Ropes and Gray, are representing the families. The case is Kasle, et al. v. Van Putten, et al.

    Naomi Hunter, public information officer for Sequoia Union, said the district has not yet been served with the lawsuit. “We support a safe environment for all students, and we are very concerned any time we receive a complaint about a hostile environment, but we cannot respond further until we have more information,” she said.





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  • First forecast for 2025-26 school funding: More money with a twist

    First forecast for 2025-26 school funding: More money with a twist


    After years of preparation inside and outside the state Capitol (shown), California has launched a website that gathers all sorts of education and career data in a single, searchable place.

    Credit: Kirby Lee / AP

    Higher revenues than Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators predicted will likely produce a modest increase in funding in 2025-26 for TK-12 schools and community colleges, the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected on Wednesday. 

    The growth in revenues will also pay down a big portion of the state’s debt to education, with enough to sock away money into a rainy day fund for education that was depleted by the Legislature last year. But at the same time, a rarely invoked constitutional provision would deny schools and community colleges billions in funding that they would otherwise get, the LAO said. 

    The LAO’s annual state budget forecast is the first hint of how much funding schools and community colleges can expect when Newsom releases his budget in early January. How to spend the new funding amid pressure from competing interest groups — always a challenge — will be up to Newsom and the Legislature.

    The LAO is projecting only a $1.5 billion increase (1.3%) for 2025-26 above the $115.3 billion approved in June for 2024-25 for Proposition 98, the quarter-century-old voter-approved formula that determines the minimum amount that must go to schools and community colleges. It comprises 40% of the state’s annual general fund.

    But combined with an additional $3.7 billion freed up from expiring one-time costs and Proposition 98 adjustments, schools and community colleges can anticipate a 2.46% cost-of-living-adjustment for programs like the Local Control Funding Formula, the primary source of spending for TK-12. That will leave $2.8 billion in new, uncommitted spending. (The LAO suggests using a piece of that to wipe off $400 million in “deferrals,” late payments to schools that will be carried over from year to year unless paid off.)

    Even though California’s economy has been slowing and the unemployment rate is higher, the 2024-25 Proposition 98 level is projected to be $118.3 billion, $3 billion more than the Legislature set in June; however, none of the increase will go to the pockets of school districts and community colleges. All of it, by statute, will be deposited into the Proposition 98 reserve account unless the Legislature overrides the law.

    “I think that’s the element of our forecast that will surprise school groups the most,” said Ken Kapphahn, principal fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO. “I think many people do understand revenue is up in 2024-25. What isn’t as well understood is that the increase is going into the reserve and not available for them.”

    “Building reserves is a good use of one-time funding,” he said. “We just saw how valuable those reserves can be when we went through $9.5 billion from the reserve. That was a big reason why the state didn’t have to cut ongoing school programs last year. In some ways, making a deposit makes sense right now; it’s an opportunity to rebuild that reserve.”

    A big increase in tax receipts from capital gains income, which governs when and how much is deposited into the rainy-day fund, is the source of the money, the LAO said. Much of it is from stock options and reflects the wealth gap between well-compensated high-tech employees and other workers.  

    There’s also expected to be enough money by the end of 2024-25 to pay off nearly two-thirds of the $8 billion debt to schools and community colleges in 2022-23, caused by a revenue shortfall resulting from a short Covid-19 recession.

    The Proposition 98 debt to schools is called a “maintenance factor.” Repaying it becomes the top state priority once more revenue becomes available — to the extent of capturing 95 cents of every new dollar in the general fund.  The LAO projects that the maintenance factor will be lowered $4.8 billion this year, leaving $3.3 billion unpaid.

    Proposition 98 is a stunningly complex formula, and the higher 2024-25 funding level will add a new twist. Usually, the Proposition 98 level from one year becomes the base funding level for the next year. But the increase in 2024-25 is expected to be big enough to trigger a rarely used “spike” protection, limiting the increase in 2025-26; without that restriction, Proposition 98 would be $4.1 billion higher than LAO’s forecast. 

    The rationale behind its adoption is to create stability in the non-Proposition 98 side of the general fund. Education advocates view it differently, as a way to fund schools at the minimum constitutionally required level — and no more.

    “The maintenance factor payment increases Prop. 98 on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, the state is making the spike protection adjustment to slow the growth in Prop. 98,” said Kapphahn. “Both of those different formulas are part of the constitution, and they happen to be working in opposite ways.”

    The “spike” clause has been triggered several times before during years of unusual growth in Proposition 98. What would be different this time is that 2025-26 funding of $116.8 billion would be $1.5 billion less than LAO’s projection for 2024-25.

    TK-12 revenue is tied to student attendance, which has been declining in most districts. Attendance statewide fell by nearly 550,000 (9.3%) from 2019-20 to 2021-22 during the height of the Covid pandemic, and has recovered gradually. The LAO expects overall attendance to increase slightly by 12,000 students (0.2%) in 2024-25 and 26,000 (0.5%) in 2025-26 due to the expansion of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds. The LAO projects attendance will drop each of the three years after that by about 60,000 students primarily because of a smaller school-age population due to lower births.





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  • Search and compare data from the California School Dashboard, 2024

    Search and compare data from the California School Dashboard, 2024


    On Nov. 21, 2024, the California Department of Education updated the official California School Dashboard with the latest data for schools and districts. You can also view results for 2023, 2019, 2018, and 2017.* The dashboard shows achievement and progress, or lack of it, on multiple measures in color codes tied to performance metrics by the state. Enter a search term in the box to search by school, city, district or county. If a school or district does not appear, it means that no data is available. Detailed test scores are available on cells with an “i” (click to see more). For a full explanation, see the notes below the chart.

    * Missing or incomplete years of data from the California School Dashboard are due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic. 




    School Name, City and County Chronic Absenteeism Rate Suspension Rates English Lang. Arts Performance Math Performance High School Graduation Rate English Learners Link
    School Name, City and County Chronic Absenteeism Rate Suspension Rates English Lang. Arts Performance Math Performance High School Graduation Rate English Learners Link

    Notes to Database

    Color Codes and Ratings: The dashboard includes five color-coded performance levels, based on a combination of current performance level and change over the previous year. The color spectrum ranges from red to orange to yellow to green to blue, with red signifying the lowest performance level and blue the highest.

    More information about how the performance levels were calculated is available at the California Department of Education’s website here.

    Column Headings:

    Chronic Absenteeism: Proportion of students who miss 10 percent or more expected days of attendance in a school year. (For a student enrolled for 180 days, this would be 18 or more days.) Note: This indicator is not reported for high schools.

    Suspension Rates: Based on a combination of current suspension rates and changes in those rates over time.

    English Language Arts Performance: Student performance in Grades 3-8 and 11 on the English Language Arts Smarter Balanced tests administered in the current year, combined with whether scores improved, declined or stayed the same compared to the previous year.

    Math Performance: Student performance in Grades 3-8 and 11 on the math Smarter Balanced tests in the current year combined with whether scores improved, declined or stayed the same compared to the previous year.

    High School Graduation Rate: Combined four-year and five-year graduation rates, including current graduation rate along with whether rates have changed over the previous year.

    For more information about how the performance levels were calculated, go to the California Department of Education’s website here.

    For the full dashboard for each school or district, go here.





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  • Native American students miss school at higher rates. It only got worse during the pandemic

    Native American students miss school at higher rates. It only got worse during the pandemic


    Social worker Mary Schmauss, right, greets students as they arrive for school in October Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico.

    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo

    After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home.

    When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class.

    He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him.

    “I didn’t have everything,” said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Tommy attends school on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Arizona. “You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car.”

    A teacher and a truancy officer also reached out to Tommy’s family to address his attendance. He was one of many. Across the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.

    Years after Covid-19 disrupted American schools, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance. But attendance has been worse for Native American and Alaska Native students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press.

    Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.

    Many schools serving Native American students have been working to strengthen connections with families who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools.

    History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

    With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn that around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured are Kanette Yatsattie , 8 , left, and his classmate Jeremy Candelaria, 10, hanging out by a board depicting the race for best attendance at the school on Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024.
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo

    On-site health, trauma care helped bring students back

    The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is guided by cultural success coaches — school employees who help families address the kind of challenges that keep students from coming to school.

    Nearly 100% of students in the district are Native, and more than half of families have incomes below the federal poverty level. Many students come from homes that deal with alcoholism and drug abuse, Superintendent Deborah Dennison said.

    Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, a cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said.

    “You feel better, you do better,” Jones said. “That’s our job here in the care center is to help the students feel better.”

    Jason Jones, cultural success coach and care center manager, talks about the care center at San Carlos High School on Aug. 27 in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
    The Rice Primary School Care Center in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    In the 2023-2024 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate in the district fell from 76% to 59% — an improvement Dennison attributes partly to efforts to address their communities’ needs.

    “All these connections with the community and the tribe are what’s making a difference for us and making the school a system that fits them rather than something that has been forced upon them, like it has been for over a century of education in Indian Country,” said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation.

    In three states — Alaska, Nebraska, and South Dakota — the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, it has continued to worsen, even while improving slightly for other students, as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism for Native students rose from 22% in 2018-19 to 45% in 2022-23.

    AP’s analysis does not include data on schools managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools.

    Schools close on days of Native ceremonial gatherings

    At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent.

    The communities were hit hard by Covid-19, with devastating impacts on elders. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Excused absences for sick days are still piling up — in some cases, Principal Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed about falling behind academically.

    Staff and tribal liaisons have been analyzing every absence and emphasizing connections with parents. By 10 a.m., telephone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with those students’ parents.

    “There’s illness, there’s trauma,” Montoya said. “A lot of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so that the parents can be working.”

    About 95% of Algodones’ students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It doesn’t open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos.

    Second grade teacher Lori Spina taking a photo of her class for her newsletter in October at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
    Principal Rosangela Montoya waves goodbye to parents as students arrive at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New .Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
    With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured is a third grade class in October.
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family’s native language of Keres. She speaks Keres at home, but says that’s not always enough to instill fluency.

    Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when they were in the federal Head Start educational program — a system that now promotes native language preservation — and they struggled academically.

    “It was sad to see with my own eyes,” said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school’s food bank. “In Algodones, I saw a big difference to where the teachers were really there for the students, and for all the kids, to help them learn.”

    Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son, Cameron Tenorio, said he likes math and wants to be a policeman.

    “He’s inspired,” Tenorio said. “He tells me every day what he learns.”

    Home visits change perception of school

    Velma Kitcheyan, a third grade teacher at Rice Intermediate School, instructs her students in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
    Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro walks to a classroom at Rice Intermediate School in San Carlos, Arizona.
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom’s, has helped improve attendance. Since many parents are without working phones, he said, that often means home visits.

    Lillian Curtis said she was impressed by Rice Intermediate’s student activities on family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school by mid-October last year but had missed just two days by the same time this year.

    “The kids always want to go — they are anxious to go to school now. And Brylee is much more excited,” said Curtis, who takes care of her grandchildren.

    Curtis said she tells Brylee that skipping school is not an option.

    “I just told her that you need to be in school, because who is going to be supporting you?” Curtis said. “You’ve got to do it on your own. You got to make something of yourself.”

    The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of school and what it can offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. Its efforts have helped not just with attendance but also morale, especially at the high school, she said.

    “Education was a weapon for the U.S. government back in the past,” she said. “We work to decolonize our school system.”

    Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lurye reported from New Orleans. Alia Wong of The Associated Press and Felix Clary of ICT contributed to this report.





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  • Numerous districts don’t heed federal advice to bar police from enforcing school rules

    Numerous districts don’t heed federal advice to bar police from enforcing school rules


    Policing experts say that discipline is the responsibility of school administrators, not law enforcement.

    Many California school districts’ contracts for policing services do not prohibit officers from involvement in routine student disciplinary matters, despite the federal government’s guidance that administrators are responsible for handling those issues, an EdSource investigation found.

    EdSource obtained 118 contracts between 89 districts across the state and the cities and counties that provide them with school resources officers from local police, sheriff’s and probation departments. More than half either allow police to enforce school rules and code of conduct violations, such as using profanity or wearing inappropriate clothing, or don’t address disciplinary issues.

    The U.S. Department of Justice advises that agreements for what are generally called school resource officers “clearly indicate” that officers will not be responsible for requests to resolve routine discipline problems involving students. That guidance aims to “prevent unnecessary law enforcement involvement in noncriminal student misbehavior.” (A spokesperson for the department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services did not respond to multiple requests to elaborate on the department’s recommendations.) 

    Jyoti Nanda, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, said that officers lack the training necessary to respond to behavioral issues that can result in student discipline.

    “Well-trained educators can handle all of the disciplinary issues,” Nanda said. “When police enforce school rules as opposed to criminal law, they are overreaching their footprint” in ways that are “deeply damaging to children.” 

    Many policing contracts also put resource officers in vaguely defined roles. 

    They are to act as “informal counselors,” “mentors,” “role models” and exemplars of “good citizenship.” Some contracts are meant to “promote a positive image of law enforcement.” One agreement refers to them as “youth development officers.” Another says their duties include serving as “a visual deterrent to aberrant behavior.”

    Some give police authority to enforce school rules and code-of-conduct violations, such as using profanity or public displays of affection, that could result in a student being disciplined. 

    Some contracts say that officers will teach classes, without specifying the courses or training requirements.

    The Anderson Union High School District’s contract with the Shasta County Probation Department requires resource officers to “provide class instruction as identified by the district and approved by the county.” Superintendent Brian Parker did not respond to questions about that requirement.

    The varying roles officers play can result in legal risks to students, according to University of North Carolina law professor Barbara Fedders, who has argued for removing school resource officers.

    “Relationship forming and being nice and all of that is misleading. Because if you then need to question the kids, you’re going to be able to take advantage of that relationship and use it for law enforcement purposes,” Fedders said in an interview.

    ‘Situations that arise from student conduct’

    Some contracts don’t differentiate between officers’ roles in investigating school rule violations and potential crimes.

    The Fullerton Joint Union High School District, which straddles Los Angeles and Orange counties, has policing contracts totaling more than $800,000 with the cities of Fullerton, La Habra and Buena Park. Each requires resource officers to “investigate situations that arise from student conduct at school.” The agreements also authorize officers to search students if they believe, or have reasonable suspicion, that something illegal occurred, or are “directed to do so by a school administrator.” 

    Fullerton Union High School in Orange County.
    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    Legal experts were critical of those terms.

    The language in the contract “sends the wrong message not only to officers but to students and parents and teachers because it’s so vague,” said retired Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell, who also served as San Jose’s independent police auditor from 2015 to 2020.

    “It’s pretty much at the discretion of an administrator, or even the officer, to just decide if there’s something suspicious, or they think may be illegal,” Cordell said. “We’re not talking here about probable cause. Who’s the reasonable person? The officer? The administrator? Who knows?”

    District Superintendent Steven McLaughlin, Assistant Superintendent Ruben Hernandez, school board President Vickie Calhoun, and Dr. Chester Jeng, who was board president when the contracts were ratified on a consent agenda vote, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The city managers of Fullerton, La Habra, and Buena Park also did not reply to messages seeking comment.

    Khadijah Silver, a supervising civil rights attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers For Good Government, also criticized Fullerton’s contract language.

    “It’s basically saying, anytime a kid acts up, you’re free to go violate their civil rights and interrogate them off of the school’s premises and all of that,” Silver said. “It’s unconstitutionally overbroad language that fails to define or delineate any bounds of appropriate police behavior whatsoever.”

    ‘What any reasonable adult would do’

    Some legal experts say that by allowing officers to enforce school rules, districts create situations that are confusing and intimidating to students. Nanda said that officers’ involvement in discipline is often “ambiguous.” Students, she added, may not understand why an officer stops them in the hallway: Is it for an alleged crime or a violation of school rules?

    “Are they just walking the child over to the principal’s office, or are they interviewing the child and taking police notes? How does that play out?” she said. The presence of resource officers can result in harsher discipline for students, “particularly for Black students, male students and students with disabilities,” according to a 2023 study by researchers at State University of New York, Albany, “even though officers are typically not trained to, and often do not intend to, become involved in minor disciplinary matters in the school.”

    Although the Alabama-based National Association of School Resource Officers recommends that districts prohibit officers from “becoming involved in formal school discipline situations,” its executive director, Mo Canady, said in an interview that he thinks officers should get involved in situations that could result in discipline. 

    When officers see a young person misbehaving and get involved, they’re doing “what any reasonable adult would do,” Canady said. “Adults should never walk by and ignore a situation like that. I don’t care if we’re at a shopping mall, whatever it is.”

    Asked whether there is a difference between an adult and an armed police officer intervening when a juvenile misbehaves, Canady said: “That’s why one of the issues that we harp on constantly is the importance of good relationships that (officers) build with students.”

    California’s Department of Education does not provide guidance on the use of school resource officers, Elizabeth Sanders, an agency spokesperson, said. 

    The California School Boards Association provides districts with what it calls a “sample policy” on policing contracts, which recommends that the duties of resource officers should “not include the handling of student code of conduct violations or routine disciplinary matters that should be addressed by school administrators or conduct that would be better addressed by mental health professionals.”

    Troy Flint, spokesperson for the association, said district leaders are free to “interpret the sample policy in a way that captures their community’s desired approach to law enforcement on campus. We recognize there’s a diversity of opinion throughout the state about the role security personnel should play on campus or whether they should be there at all.”

    ‘Why are we policing our students?’ 

    The Oxnard Union High School District has contracts with two law enforcement agencies that clearly prohibit resource officers’ involvement in disciplinary matters.

    The district’s $2.33 million contract with the city of Oxnard states that police are to distinguish “between disciplinary misconduct to be handled by school officials from criminal offenses.” The contract also says that officers “are responsible for criminal public order offenses” and “should not get involved in school discipline issues.” A separate contract with the city of Camarillo contains similar language. Both contracts require officers to establish “clear probable cause” before searching a student.

    Oxnard Union High District Superintendent Tom McCoy chats with school resource officers Alexus Santos,left, and Sgt. Hannah Estrada on the campus of Pacifica High School in Oxnard.
    Credit: J. Marie / EdSource

    But the district’s contract with Ventura County for one resource officer does not address discipline. Superintendent Tom McCoy said in an interview that it is “well understood and discussed in meetings” that resource officers provided by the county do not enforce discipline. It’s never been an issue. They are very aware of our policies.”

    The district has a policy that is not in its policing contracts and that allows students to request “a person of the same gender or gender identity or a staff member familiar to them to be present” if they are questioned by law enforcement.

    McCoy added that the district requires students who “are questioned or interviewed by police on campus also must be referred for counseling and wellness services on the same day to address any specific needs identified through the interview process.”

    Karen Sher, the school board member whom McCoy credited with helping create the district’s policy, said her experience teaching at a school with resource officers led her to ask herself, “‘Why are we policing our children?’”

    Oxnard Union High School District board member Karen Sher.
    Credit: J. Marie / EdSource

    Sher said she believes that officers have a role to play in school safety, but she also worries about how their presence might affect disadvantaged students. About 16% of district students lack stable housing, she said.

    “How on earth does anyone believe those students have not had an interaction, both positive or negative, with police?” Sher asked. “We expect them to come to school, see police cars in front of their school, and expect them to feel good about that? That’s a very entitled perspective.”

    Eric Wiatt, a Ventura County sheriff’s deputy who has worked at Adolfo Camarillo High School for the past three years, said adjusting to being a resource officer took time. 

    “The first year was a learning experience of communicating with (students) and developing a rapport. It wasn’t natural in me. You know, all the different social media platforms that are used and the different slang they use,” Wiatt said in an interview.

    He says he spends a lot of time investigating bullying and threats made on social media.

    School resource officer Eric Wiatt from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department patrols the campus of Adolfo Camarillo High School in Camarillo.
    Credit: J. Marie / EdSource

    “We actually dig into them. We take every threat very seriously. We do a full investigation,” Wiatt said.

    When he’s not investigating threats, Wiatt walks the campus wearing a bulletproof vest over his uniform and a pistol holstered to his hip. He often eats lunch with students.

    Riley Young, a 16-year-old junior whom school officials selected to be interviewed by EdSource, described Wiatt as calm and helpful.

    “I’d been getting in trouble,” she said. “He helped me realize that being good in school and in life was important.”

    ‘Providing clarity’

    District leaders provided a range of reasons why their policing contracts don’t address whether resource officers can be involved in disciplinary matters.

    The Madera Unified School District’s contract with the city of Madera for resource officers doesn’t address disciplinary issues. Superintendent Todd Lile said the idea that officers would enforce discipline “has never been present and, as a result, has never been explicitly called out in contractual language.” Police are “not thought of or expected to keep control of a campus,” he said.

    The Lucia Mar Unified School District has two contracts for resource officers. Its agreement with the city of Arroyo Grande prohibits officers from enforcing discipline. But its contract with San Luis Obispo County does not address disciplinary matters.

    Amy Jacobs, a district spokesperson, said Lucia Mar has a policy prohibiting law enforcement’s involvement in discipline, but Jacobs didn’t provide an answer when asked why that policy wasn’t written into the contract with the sheriff’s office.

    The Galt Union High School District board in Sacramento County agreed to a three-year contract with the city of Galt for three resource officers in 2023. The agreement did not address police involvement in discipline. But shortly after Anna Trunnell became district superintendent in 2024, the contract was revised. 

    It now states that resource officers “will not be responsible for requests to resolve routine discipline problems involving students. They will not respond to incidents that do not pose any threat of safety or would not be considered crimes if they occurred outside of the school.”

    Trunnell said the new language “assists in providing clarity when responding to student needs.”

    The lack of clarity in many school policing contracts is “profoundly alarming,” said Nanda, the Southwestern law professor.

    “It’s crucial,” she said, “for parents, educators and administrators to pay attention to the who, what and why of officers in our schools.”





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  • Conflict over race, LGBTQ issues cost schools more than $3 billion last school year

    Conflict over race, LGBTQ issues cost schools more than $3 billion last school year


    Conservative groups and LGBTQ+ rights supporters protest outside the Glendale Unified School District offices in Glendale on June 6, 2023. Several hundred people gathered at district headquarters, split between those who support or oppose teaching that exposes youngsters to LGBTQ+ issues in schools.

    Credit: Keith Birmingham/The Orange County Register via AP

    Conflicts between parents, teachers and school leaders over parental rights policies focusing on LGBTQ+ students, limitations on teaching about race and racism, and book bans have come with a cost — both socially and financially.

    The conflicts are disrupting school districts, negatively impacting schools and classrooms, and costing districts money that could be used to better serve students, according to “The Costs of Conflict, The Fiscal Impact of Culturally Divisive Conflicts on Public Schools in the United States,” released last month.

    Researchers from UCLA, the University of Texas at Austin, American University and UC Riverside conducted a national survey of K-12 public school superintendents from 46 states — 467 in all — and found that these conflicts are prevalent.   

    Since the 2020-21 school year, uncivil discourse and hostile political rhetoric at school board meetings and on school campuses has been an ongoing problem. Two-thirds of the school superintendents surveyed for the study said they have experienced moderate to high levels of culturally divisive conflict in their districts, including misinformation campaigns, violent rhetoric and threats.

    Cultural conflicts cost U.S. school districts about $3.2 billion last school year, according to the study. Researchers estimate that districts with high levels of conflict spent about $80 per student. Districts with moderate levels of conflict spent $50 per student, and districts with low conflict spent $25 per student.

    “This is costing us general fund dollars,” said a superintendent from a midsize school district in a Western state. “In the 2023-24 school year, the district spent an additional $100,000 on security, hiring armed plainclothes off-duty officers … because people coming to the board meetings are unpredictable and sometimes violent.” 

    Researchers allowed superintendents to remain anonymous in the report.

    The superintendent also said the district spent more than $500,000 in legal fees on lawsuits associated with a board member and a campaign against the LGBTQ+ community, and lost $250,000 in outside funding from social services organizations because of the dispute. It also spent $80,000 on recruiting and training new staff to replace teachers, counselors and administrators who left because they did not want to work in such a divisive setting. 

    “Culturally divisive conflicts have substantial costs to the public and to our capacity as a state to mount quality learning experiences for all students,” said John Rogers, director of the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access and lead researcher on the report. “It has a fiscal cost that we’ve tried to lay out with some specificity, and it has broader social costs as well — there’s an undermining of social trust, there’s a deepening sense of stress and all of this is hugely consequential for how educators experience public schools and how young people are experiencing public schools.”

    Costs of conflict can’t always be counted in dollars

    Average-sized school districts of about 10,000 students spent about $811,000 each last school year to cope with cultural division, according to the study. The money was spent on legal fees, added security, additional staff time and on community, school board and government relations. Districts also incurred indirect costs because of staff turnover related to the conflict and because staff had to take time away from their other duties to deal with discord.

    According to the survey, the largest expense for districts with cultural conflict came from staff turnover, with districts of about 10,000 students spending between $148,000 and $461,000, depending on the level of conflict. 

    One superintendent said that cultural conflict has caused “incredible stress on leaders and teachers as they navigate imaginary slights and online drama in the community.” A Pennsylvania superintendent called the emotional stress and anxiety “nearly crippling.”

    “This research makes clear that culturally divisive conflicts in the nation’s schools are generating fear, stress and anxiety that is disrupting school districts and taking a personal toll on the educators and staff members who work in them,” Rogers said. 

    The stress has also led to increased staff absenteeism at schools, even in districts with lower levels of conflict, according to the report.

    Half of the superintendents surveyed said they had been personally harassed at least once during the school year. Ten percent reported being threatened with violence, and 11% had their property vandalized.

    As a result, superintendent turnover has also increased — from 14.2% to 17.1% — over the past four years. More than 40% of the superintendents who left their jobs in the last year said their decision was related to conflict, stress and politics, according to the report.

    “The relentless demands of leading a district can easily overshadow their own well-being, which, if neglected, not only affects their personal health but also the health and stability of students, educators, and families they serve,” said Rachel S. White of the University of Texas at Austin in a statement. “Reducing the extent to which superintendents experience unwarranted divisiveness is an important step to change the trajectory of increasing superintendent churn.”  

    Superintendents who were surveyed expressed concern that the time they spent managing cultural conflict, including responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, and unsubstantiated rumors and misinformation, is keeping them from focusing on improving instruction.

    California not immune to divisive conflict

    Rogers said that while cultural conflict wasn’t as common in California as in other parts of the country in 2021-22, it has grown over the last few years.

    Donald Trump’s election is likely to bring more cultural division to school campuses, Rogers said.

    “I think that a Trump victory will lead some on the right to take a message that these sorts of cultural attacks, that have been playing out across the United States and across California in the last couple of years, are an effective strategy for mobilizing the base and for energizing the electorate,” said Rogers, in an interview the day before the election.

     “A Trump victory will mean that Donald Trump will have more of a presence in our public life in the months to come. And so, that too will mean that he will be using language and framing that will further activate attacks on public schools around these culturally divisive issues.”





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