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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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  • How we obtained and examined contracts for school resource officers

    How we obtained and examined contracts for school resource officers


    We began by sending requests for contracts and memoranda of understanding with law enforcement agencies under the California Public Records Act to nearly 20%  – 178 – school districts across the state, in urban, suburban, and rural communities.

    We sent requests to 103 unified school districts, 37 high school districts, and 38 elementary school districts.

    We received responses from 157 districts; we are continuing to pursue responses from the remaining 21. We asked for contracts entered into between 2018 and June 2024 and analyzed the most recent contract provided by each district, some of which extend as far as 2027.

    Of the districts that responded to our requests, 68 said they had no applicable documents. Sixty-five districts had no assigned school resource officers; three had officers on campus but no contracts with cities and counties for policing services. The 89 districts with responsive documents provided contracts, including supplemental material such as memoranda of understanding, as PDFs and other document file types. 

    We analyzed the 118 responsive documents – many districts had agreements with multiple law enforcement agencies – and extracted a collection of data points including contract length, costs to the district, reporting requirements, and resource officers’ duties, among other topics.

    Additionally, to verify and clarify notable points, we reviewed videos of school board meetings, interviewed experts on policing and government transparency, as well as school board members, school superintendents, law enforcement officers, parents and students.

    The resulting data was combined with demographic and accountability information from the California Department of Education and analyzed to identify the commonalities, trends, and outliers explained in our stories.

    Teacher pay data was collected from Form J-90s that school districts submit to the state with teacher pay scales. To determine the salary for a  mid-career teacher, we used data from the “BA+60” field on those forms.

    If you have questions, please email data journalist Daniel Willis at dwillis@edsource.org.

    digging into the documents

    Our collection of district contracts that informed this story can be browsed and downloaded below.





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  • California school districts spend millions on policing, with little scrutiny

    California school districts spend millions on policing, with little scrutiny


    Many California school districts pay cities and counties millions of dollars a year to put law enforcement officers on campuses, moving tax dollars allocated for education to policing with little oversight by elected school boards, an EdSource investigation found.

    Not every district has what are commonly called school resource officers. Many call 911 if they need help, and 20 have their own police departments. Others contract with cities and counties, which provide resource officers from the ranks of local police, sheriffs, and probation departments.

    California doesn’t collect data on school policing. Using public records act requests, EdSource obtained policing contracts from 89 districts, nearly 10% of the state’s total.

    Those districts provided a combined 118 contracts, entered into between 2018 and 2024, with some paying as many as three cities and counties for resource officers. The agreements, along with school board agendas and videos of meetings, show that district leaders rarely scrutinize the spending publicly. 

    School boards routinely approve policing contracts without discussion, often bundling them with routine items, such as field trips and cookies for staff meetings, into a single vote. The practice, known as using a “consent agenda,” alarms government transparency experts. EdSource found some boards approved hundreds of thousands of dollars for school resource officers using consent votes.

    Although the federal government recommends that school districts review their policing programs annually, most of the contracts EdSource reviewed did not require yearly evaluations. In the few districts that required written reports on officers’ activities, police agencies didn’t submit them — and school officials rarely asked to see them.

    The state Education Department offers no guidance to districts on policing contracts, said Elizabeth Sanders, an agency spokesperson.

    “Consent items can be horrifically abused.”

    David Loy, legal counsel for the First Amendment Coalition

    The contracts EdSource obtained show districts spending at least $85 million on school resource officers. But their total costs are likely much higher. Roughly 20% of those contracts don’t include specific dollar amounts.

    Instead, they mention unspecified charges based on law-enforcement union contracts negotiated by cities and counties. As a result, school boards sometimes approve contracts without a clear record of how much public money they have agreed to spend.

    EdSource found that many districts are not only paying for officers whose positions are already funded by local governments, but also for using police cars, uniforms and cellphones.

    The costs to schools surprised policing experts and public watchdogs.

    “It’s protect and serve — and profit,” said retired state Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell, who also served as San Jose’s independent police auditor from 2010 to 2015.

    She said cities and counties should provide resource officers to schools without charging.

    “Shame on them for making this into a money-making operation,” Cordell said.

    ‘An enhanced service’

    In many districts, the cost of a contract for a resource officer often exceeds the salary of a mid-career teacher.

    The Holtville Unified School District in Imperial County has a one-year contract with the county for a sheriff’s deputy not to exceed $192,038.40. 

    That’s enough money to fund the salaries of nearly two teachers, according to teacher pay disclosure forms filed with the state.

    The contract requires the district to pay for the officer’s “training, equipment, uniform, vehicle, supplies and employee benefits,” Undersheriff Robert Benavidez wrote in an email. Holtville Superintendent Celso Ruiz did not respond to questions about spending on officers.

    Some districts spend more than a million dollars a year on resource officers. 

    The Elk Grove Unified School District has 67 schools and 62,000 students, and pays the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office $8.5 million over three years to provide six deputies.

    The contract, which expires in June, includes nearly $648,000 for patrol cars and $15,000 for cellphone bills, and guarantees deputies five hours of overtime per week. The district also pays the city of Elk Grove $951,000 over three years for three officers.

    Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a sheriff’s office spokesperson, said the district is “paying for an enhanced service,” requiring deputies to spend all day in schools.

    Asked whether deputies assigned to the district were counted in the sheriff’s annual budget funded by the county, Gandhi replied, “Yes, for regular sheriff services.” 

    But when deputies work in schools, he said, they provide a service for which the sheriff’s entitled to charge.

    “These are not officers that are simply responding to emergencies,” Gandhi said. “They’re on campus. That’s their full-time assignment. They’re helping the administration. It’s a presence issue. It’s something we value.”

    If Elk Grove Unified were to end its contract with the county, which it could do with 30 days’ notice, the deputies would “be assigned to regular, other, sheriff functions, in patrol, investigations, corrections, whatever,” Gandhi said, noting that the sheriff’s office has a large number of vacant, budgeted positions. 

    ‘Double taxation’

    Many districts pay more than half or all of the salaries for officers whose positions are already funded by cities and counties.

    In Ventura County, the Oxnard Union High School District currently has contracts with two cities and the sheriff’s office. The largest is a $2.23 million deal with the city of Oxnard for five police officers, which includes 75% of the city’s costs for the officers’ salaries and benefits.

    The district pays for the full costs of one deputy as part of its three-year, $625,000 pact with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. It also has a deal with the city of Camarillo for police services. 

    Oxnard Union board member Karen Sher, who describes herself as an advocate for school resource officers, told EdSource that charging districts for officers whose positions are already funded amounts to “double taxation.”

    “The taxpayer’s paying twice for the same services,” Sher said.

    “I really don’t understand how this is not a bigger issue. I have asked the question publicly. I can’t even tell you how many times, and I have never gotten an answer,” she said. 

    Former Oxnard Police Cmdr. Louis Mc Arthur was in charge of school resource officers before being elected as the city’s mayor in November 2024.
    Credit: J. Marie / EdSource

    Oxnard Mayor Luis Mc Arthur, who, until taking office on Dec. 8, was the Oxnard Police commander in charge of school resource officers, said the city can’t afford to provide the officers without charging the school system. The department’s 2024-25 budget is $105 million, records show. 

    “We’re strapped financially and also short-staffed,” McArthur said.

    “We can argue philosophically if it’s the responsibility of police to fund” resource officers, but the charges will likely continue, he said.  

    Districts should not fund officers who are already on government payrolls, said David Kline, vice president of communications for the California Taxpayers Association, which advocates for limiting taxes. 

    “If taxpayers are paying for two police officer positions, they should be getting two police officers,” Kline said. “They shouldn’t be paying twice for the same officer.”

    Not all municipalities charge for providing resource officers.

    Last year, voters in the Central Valley cities of Manteca and Lathrop passed sales-tax measures funding a range of services, including resource officers for the Manteca Unified School District, which supported the measures.

    “We don’t believe in double taxation,” said Victoria Brunn, the district’s chief business and information officer.

    But the Manteca district also has a two-year, $274,000 contract with the Stockton Unified School District, which has its own police department, for one officer.

    Cost-sharing is common across the country, said Mo Canady, executive director of the Alabama-based National Association of School Resource Officers. The percentage of an officer’s salary that districts pay varies widely, he said. “Some may pay 25%, while others will pay 100%.”

    Canady recommends that school boards review policing contracts annually. “You get to the end of the school year and no one thinks, ‘Hey, we need to take an hour or two here and sit down with people that are going to be making decisions and at least review this thing.’”

    ‘In case of an armed intruder’

    A poll released earlier this month by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that 4 out of 5 public school parents are worried about a mass shooting at their local school, and nearly as many support having at least one armed police officer on campus while school is in session.

    The contracts EdSource obtained rarely mention the role armed officers play in student safety.

    The Anderson Union High School District’s three-year contract with the Shasta County Probation Department does not mention school security. But Superintendent Brian Parker said that’s why the district is paying $1.6 million for three resource officers through 2027.

    Anderson Union High School in Anderson in Shasta County.
    Credit: Thomas Peele / EdSource

    “The main reason our board and our community want officers on campus is to provide security in case of an armed intruder,” Parker wrote in an email. “Thankfully, that hasn’t happened in our district.”

    Many contracts require officers to divide their time between several campuses, which could reduce their ability to respond quickly to a shooting.

    According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there were about 24,900 school resource officers in 2019. The federal government does not collect data on school shootings, but according to a Washington Post database, there have been at least 428 school shootings in the United States since 1999, including 72 in California. 

    Whether the presence of school resource officers makes schools and students safer remains the subject of research and debate. In 2024, policy analysts  at the Rand Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, reviewed dozens of studies and found, “the presence of SROs (school resource officers) may reduce some types of crime and increase the detection of weapons and drugs on campus.”

    But, the Rand analysts wrote, “research has also shown that the presence of SROs inflicts costs on students. Students at schools with SROs are more likely to face disciplinary action by school administrations and more law enforcement contact in general. Black and Latino students may be particularly affected.”

    ‘We wanted to look at everything’

    Last year, the Folsom Cordova Unified School Board decided to examine its policing contracts with the city of Folsom and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, which totaled $502,000. Those contracts had remained largely unchanged for 12 years, said board President Christopher Clark.

    Christopher Clark, president of the Folsom Cordova Unified School Board.
    Credit: Folsom Cordova Unified

    “What we wanted to do as a school district is be transparent. We wanted to look at everything in the contract,” Clark told EdSource.

    At a board meeting last May to discuss the contracts, speakers expressed concerns about the impact police officers had on Black and Latino students.

    Van Merrill, a student board member, said he worried about having “armed police officers on campus.” He said the district has many students who come from groups that “have been historically discriminated against and arrested and killed by police.”

    Earl F. Smith, a parent who attempted to speak to police about a problem with his daughter at school, told the board that a Folsom High School administrator described him to a resource officer as “an angry, raving black man.” 

    “I’m scared to go to Folsom High School,” Smith said. He referred to the 2018 fatal shooting of a 22-year-old unarmed Black man by two Sacramento Police Department officers who said they mistook his phone for a handgun.

    “It’s easy to make wrong decisions. It’s hard on the officer. It’s hard on the community,” Smith said. “ I would like the board to consider the perspective that maybe only a certain amount of students would feel comfortable with an officer.”

    In a telephone interview, Smith said, “I don’t think there should be an officer at a school walking around with a gun.”

    Clark, the board president, who is Black, told EdSource that Smith “absolutely” voiced valid concerns. “I’m speaking as an African American,” said Clark. “We are stereotyped. Oh, yeah. I’ve been stereotyped by a police officer.”

    The board eventually approved a change to the contract, requiring officers to spend more time patrolling the areas around schools and to respond to emergencies in schools when needed.

    “What works for me is that these officers are actually patrolling the area,” Clark told EdSource. “If there happens to be an emergency, the response time is within three and a half minutes. I believe in safety for our kids.”

    ‘Unaware’ of requirements

    The U.S. Justice Department recommends that law-enforcement agencies and school districts “conduct an annual assessment” of resource-officer programs to ensure that they are adequately addressing all expectations, successes, and challenges.”

    Both school and police leadership should review law enforcement data and records to help determine whether officers “are using their law-enforcement powers judiciously,” according to the department’s recommendations.

    But many school districts don’t seek or receive such data even when they require it by contract. 

    The Manteca Unified School District in San Joaquin County has a one-year, $125,000 contract for a resource office with the Stockton Unified School District, which has its own police department. The contract requires officers to document “the type, nature and/or description of activities performed each shift” to help school officials evaluate the program’s effectiveness. The reports are to be provided quarterly.

    The contract also requires Stockton Unified Police to provide “copies of incident, crime, service and other police-generated reports, search warrants and other public documents which concern substantial actual or potential criminal activity.” 

    But EdSource found that Stockton Unified police gave no such documents to Manteca. Asked why the reports weren’t provided, Stockton Unified Chief Mayra Franco said she didn’t know anything about them.

    “We were unaware of this requirement,” she wrote in an email, adding that her department would start providing the documents. 

    Brunn, Manteca Unified’s chief business officer, called the failure of Stockton Unified to provide the documents “very unfortunate.” But she also said no one in her district asked for them. 

    ”We had employee changes during that time frame. It’s not what we would have preferred to have happened,” she said.

    Parker, the Anderson Union High School District superintendent, said its contract with the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, which used to provide school resource officers, required deputies to prepare quarterly activity reports on their activities and provide them to the district “upon request.”

    But the district “never requested them,” Parker said, and no longer has a contract with the sheriff’s office. The district’s current contract with the Shasta County Probation Department doesn’t include any reporting requirements. 

    Canady, of the school resource officer association, questioned whether reports are necessary.

    “What would go in a report?” he said. “I don’t think it’s something that school districts have been demanding. If you’re in a good partnership with the law enforcement agency, there shouldn’t be any need for reports.”

    Last year, during the debate about law enforcement contracts for the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, school board member Kara Lofthouse said that reports are crucial to understanding the effectiveness of policing programs.

    They are needed “so that we can determine whether or not it’s a smart decision” to continue to pay for police. Without them, Lofthouse added, “we cannot make a sound decision on what’s best for our district.”

    She said officers should write reports to “show the schools that they’re going to, even if they’re doing nothing, even if they’re checking in with the principal and they have lunch with a couple of kids. That’s really the report I want to see. I want to see what their time is being spent doing.”

    The Tracy Unified School District’s contract with the city of Tracy requires police to provide “statistics related to crime if requested.” But the district told EdSource that it did not have any documents with that data. It also did not respond directly to questions about how it determined whether policing services were successful.

    “Our district works extremely closely with our officers and Tracy Police. We communicate through in-person meetings, phone calls, etc.,” Bobbie Etcheverry, a district spokesperson, wrote in an email. 

    Consent votes

    Some school boards approved hundreds of thousands of dollars for resource officers using catch-all consent votes, records show.

    Policing contracts require more scrutiny and “should not be on consent agendas,” said Barbara Fedders, a University of North Carolina law professor who has written about school policing in California and is a school board member herself.

    “Your contract language for a playground provider doesn’t implicate your values as a school district in the same way that a (contract) with the police does,” Fedders said.

    “Consent items can be horrifically abused,” said David Loy, legal counsel for the First Amendment Coalition, which advocates for government transparency and press freedoms.

    Loy said that two school board votes identified by EdSource may have violated the Brown Act, the state law requiring local legislative bodies to conduct open and transparent meetings.

    The agenda for Elk Grove Unified’s board meeting, section VI.10, specifies that the contracts on the attached list “are under the bid limit of $99,100.

    In June 2022, Elk Grove Unified’s school board approved its current contracts with the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office and the city of Elk Grove on a consent vote.

    The meeting’s consent agenda stated that all the items under consideration cost no more than $99,100. But the contracts with the Sheriff’s Office and the city included payments for $2.7 million and $317,000, respectively.

    The list referenced by the agenda includes two law enforcement contracts worth a combined $3 million, both well over the stated $99,100.

    “If an agency says, ‘Don’t worry, nothing to see here, everything on the consent agenda is under $99,100,’ and in fact, what’s on the consent agenda is more than $99,100 over the life of the contract, that is itself a Brown Act violation,” Loy said. “I would argue strongly in court you cannot mislead the public.”

    Kristen Coates, the district’s deputy superintendent, wrote in an email that the district did not violate the Brown Act because the law contains “no requirement to agendize items based on dollar figures.”

    She declined multiple requests to be interviewed. Board President Michael Vargas did not return messages.

    A vote in San Joaquin County also raises questions about how boards approve police contracts.

    In 2022, Tracy Unified’s board voted for a consent agenda that included “routine agreements, expenditures, and notices of completions.” As part of that vote, the board approved a $900,000 contract with the city of Tracy to provide three resource officers.

    The contract was not listed on the consent agenda. A report attached to the larger meeting agenda said the contract was for $450,000 over two years. The board did not discuss the contract before voting.

    “The public obligated $900,000, not $450,000,” Loy said. “As a best practice, these things should not be on consent. The public has a right to know what the total obligation is for the life of the contract.”

    In an interview, Tracy Superintendent Robert Pecot did not explain why the agenda misstated the contract’s cost. “We’re not hiding anything,” he said. “People are welcome to come to our meetings.”

    Loy said lawmakers need to amend the Brown Act “to limit the use of consent agendas.” Items such as school policing contracts should be debated, he said. “You should go through the full democratic process. It definitely cries out for significant policy reform.”

    Bret Harte Union High School in Angels Camp in Calaveras County.
    Credit: Thomas Peele / EdSource

    ‘Sloppy’ practices

    Some school boards wait months or even years to ratify contracts for resource officers and, in a few cases, long after those contracts have taken effect or expired, EdSource found. Under state law, school superintendents can agree to contract terms, but those agreements aren’t valid until school boards approve them, a process known as ratification.

    The Bret Harte Union High School District in Calaveras County has a one-year policing contract with the city of Angels Camp with a start date listed as July 2, 2024. The district’s board voted to ratify that contract on Feb. 4, 2025. By that time, the city had billed the district more than $35,000 for a resource officer, records show.

    Long ratification delays are “an extremely bad budgeting practice,” said Kline of the California Taxpayers Association. “What happens if the school board votes ‘no’ on a contract seven months after it’s been signed?” 

    It’s “a huge transparency issue,” he added. “The taxpayers haven’t had their notice and chance to voice their opinions.”  

    Bret Harte’s board also didn’t ratify a separate contract with Angels Camp until two years after it had expired, voting only after EdSource raised questions about it.

    Superintendent Scott Nanik initially claimed that the district couldn’t produce a policing contract for the 2022-23 school year. But Angels Camp records show the city billed the district nearly $45,000 for policing services for that school year.

    Nanik had signed the document on Aug. 2, 2022.  Last month, the board voted without comment to retroactively ratify the deal.

    Byron Smith, a lawyer for the district, wrote in an email that the late ratification vote was taken under a portion of state law allowing school districts the “flexibility to create their own unique solutions” and to spend money “not inconsistent with the purposes for which the funds were appropriated.”

    Bret Harte leaders “are committed to doing things the right and legal way,” Smith said.

    Professor David Levine of UC Law San Francisco said the board likely voted to ward off any potential litigation by making the contract “a proper expenditure.”

    “Imagine if you had a gadfly saying it wasn’t a proper use of public funds,” and suing because there was never a vote, Levine said. The district had been “clearly sloppy,” he added.  

    School boards “should be approving contracts before the related work begins, not afterward,” said Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association.

    EdSource found another school board, Benicia Unified in Solano County, that had not voted to ratify a $225,000 policing contract with the city of Benicia for the 2023-2025 school years.

    In response to a reporter’s questions, Benicia Superintendent Damon Wright acknowledged the district made a mistake. “The contract should have been formally brought back to the board for final approval,” he said.

    On April 10, three months before the contract expires, the board approved the agreement, without discussion, on the consent agenda.





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  • What high school graduating classes might look like in 2041

    What high school graduating classes might look like in 2041


    Credit: Fermin Leal / EdSource

    More graduates in California and nationwide will walk across the stage to receive their high school diplomas in the spring of 2025 than in more than a decade — and more than in decades to come.   

    The “Knocking at the College Door” report, released Wednesday by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, predicts how many students might graduate across each state in the country, how demographics might shift, and the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic could have an impact still. 

    The researchers anticipate that the number of students graduating from high schools in the United States will peak next year and then fall gradually until 2041. The number of California graduates is expected to drop across all racial and ethnic demographics — except for multiracial students, who are expected to increase by more than 200%.

    “After years of growth, higher education in the United States now faces a decline in the size of the traditional college-going population as well as shifting demographic patterns within that population,” the organization’s president, Demarée K. Michelau, stated in the foreword of the report.

    “These enrollment factors and the pressures of inflation and constraints on government funds combine to present the most perplexing set of issues to face higher education planners and administrators in a generation,” the foreword continued. 

    Here are the key takeaways from the report. 

    The number of high school graduates is expected to peak in 2025 

    The number of students graduating from public high schools in both the state and the nation is projected to peak in 2025. 

    After that, the number is expected to fall steadily from about 3.5 million nationally to 3.1 million in 2041, largely because of declining birth and fertility rates, but also because students are projected to take longer to finish their K-12 journeys. 

    The report notes that net migration and mortality also play a role. 

    California is one of five high-population states that are expected to make up about three-quarters of the national decline, according to the report.

    “When we hit the peak in 2025 and then start declining with the number of high school graduates, that puts more downward pressure on those postsecondary moments,” said report co-author Patrick Lane, who spoke at a press briefing Monday.

    “So what are the responses?” Lane asked. “How do we address concerns that students have about value?” 

    Distributions across race and ethnicity will likely change

    Nationwide, Hispanic or multiracial students should make up a greater proportion of high school graduates, while the share of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds will decline, according to the report. 

    But, according to data from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, multiracial students are the only group projected to see an increase in California. 

    Specifically, in California, between 2023 and 2041: 

    • Multiracial students are projected to increase 224%.
    • Hispanic students are projected to decrease 25%.
    • American Indian and Alaska Native students are projected to decrease 58%.
    • Black students are projected to decrease 62%.
    • Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students are projected to decrease 35%.
    • White students are projected to decrease 53%. 

    Not everywhere in the country will see the same trends 

    The report projects that the decline in the Western U.S. will mirror the nationwide trend. And California’s decline — anticipated to be roughly 29% across both public and private schools — is expected to account for roughly three-quarters of the regional decline.

    Meanwhile, the report states that the South will continue to defy broader national trends — first seeing some growth and later a smaller decline. 

    The pandemic might have a smaller impact than anticipated  

    According to the report, the Covid-19 pandemic may lead to a slight drop in the number of high school graduates nationwide — only 1% less than what the organization previously projected for 2037. 

    The 1% change is “within the usual fluctuations,” but the report also states that the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has historically underreported the number of future graduates and that they have found evidence “of a substantial number of students no longer enrolled, suggesting a modest impact overall.” 

    The decline, according to the report, is a result of falling enrollments in both public and private schools. And while the decline is smaller than anticipated, Lane said it will have an impact on the economy. 

    “When we look around our region, and more broadly around the country, we see workforce shortages in virtually any important employment sector that you can think of, from health care, teaching, nursing, engineering, to things that may not be as high on people’s radar, like diesel technicians. It’s a huge deal for a lot of the West,” Lane said at a press briefing Monday. 

    “But if these declining high school graduate numbers translate into even more downward pressure on enrollments,” Lane said, “it’ll be hard to meet some of these workforce demands.” 





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  • Deteriorating East Bay school to be rebuilt after yearslong fight

    Deteriorating East Bay school to be rebuilt after yearslong fight


    West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    After a yearslong fight to remodel an East Bay school that was deteriorating and infested with mold and asbestos, the West Contra Costa Unified School District found enough funds not just to remodel, but fully rebuild the school. 

    It’s a long-awaited victory for Stege Elementary School students, staff and community members. The district made promises to redesign the Richmond school at the start of the 2020-21 school year, but that never happened. 

    Now, a complete rebuild is set to start soon, with the new school set to open by fall 2027, according to district staff. Alten Construction will be rebuilding it. 

    “It’s about time, and the children deserve it,” said Guadalupe Enllana, the board member representing the Stege area.

    The board unanimously approved increasing the budget for Stege Elementary School’s redesign from $43 million to $61 million during the last board meeting of 2024. The board had previously approved $43 million for the modernization of the school, but it wasn’t enough to cover a complete rebuild. 

    After backlash from the community and demands for a rebuild instead of remodeling, the district found $18 million in spare funds to cover a complete rebuild of the school. 

    The district is using funds left over from other building modernization projects that have been completed, said Melissa Payne, interim associate superintendent of facilities. It’s a strategy the district has used since 2016.

    “I stand here with a commitment on behalf of our entire team —that we are listening, that we want to work together, and that we will,” Payne said during the board meeting. 

    While thanking the board for increasing the budget for the project, community members expressed frustrations about how long it took the district to get there.

    “This is about equality,” a community member said during the public comment period. “If the students at Stege were not Black and brown, the school would have never deteriorated. This isn’t an issue of funds, this is an issue of will.”

    According to district officials, Stege Elementary, built in 1943, has the highest population of Black and African American students in the district. Nearly 39% of students were Black or African American in the  2022-23 school year, and 34% were Hispanic or Latino. 

    The school has also struggled with low performance for the last decade. In the 2017-18 school year, it was one of the lowest performing schools in the state. More recently, 3.4% of students in grades 3-8 met or exceeded English standards in 2024, about 5 percentage points lower than the previous year. Last year, 18% of students in grades 3-8 met or exceeded math standards, up nearly 8 percentage points from 2023. 

    As groups, African American and Latino students statewide have had the lowest percentage of students meeting or exceeding math and English standards for the last decade. Last year nearly 37% of Latino students and about 30% of African American students met English standards. About 24% of Latino students and nearly 18% of African American students met math standards. 

    The school is also at the center of a lawsuit that was filed in July civil rights law firm Public Advocates, alleges the school district failed to remedy issues in the required timeframe for nearly 50 complaints filed by teachers, students and parents since June 2023. The bulk of the complaints were about poor building conditions at Stege Elementary. 

    The complaints said Stege had moldy walls, inoperable windows, classrooms reaching more than 90 degrees without ventilation, and broken floor tiles. Lead and asbestos were also found after the district hired an environmental firm to test building materials. 

    Building conditions at Stege Elementary were never improved, even as district officials “repeatedly” acknowledged conditions at the school were “dangerous,” the lawsuit says. The closure of the school was announced on July 23, four days after the lawsuit was filed and hazardous materials were detected during the removal of window panels.

    Students and staff began the 2024-25 school year at Dejon Middle School. 

    “I think this has been long awaited, and I really hope that the process moving forward will be transparent and all inclusive to the greater community,” Enllana said. “I think it’s really going to take community buy-in not just from students and parents, but the greater community.”





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  • Gov. Newsom proposes stable California school funding in 2025-26 with an ominous warning

    Gov. Newsom proposes stable California school funding in 2025-26 with an ominous warning


    Gov. Gavin Newsom outlines his proposed 2025-26 $322 billion state budget during a news conference at California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock on Jan. 6..

    Credit: AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli

    The article was updated on Jan, 10 to include more reactions to the budget proposal and note that Newsom did not include funding for ethnic studies.

    California school districts would receive $2.5 billion through a small cost-of-living increase, plus additional funding to train math and reading coaches, expand summer and after-school programs, and help launch the state’s Master Plan for Career Education in the proposed 2025-26 state budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom released Friday.

    But countering a stable funding forecast for schools and community colleges, Newsom said both the University of California and California State University should expect as deep as an 8% cut in ongoing state money.

    Newsom’s budget included a strong caution. He warned that revenues could change between now and May, when he revises his budget proposal, because of potential global financial instability, volatility in stock market prices, and likely conflicts with President Donald Trump that could jeopardize federal funding.

    “California is facing a new federal administration that has expressed unalloyed and uninformed hostility toward the state, threatening the funding of essential services for political stunts,” Newsom stated in the introduction to the 2025-26 budget. The governor, who previewed the budget Monday, was in Los Angeles responding to the wildfires and not at a news conferenceFriday by the Department of Finance.

    Christopher J. Nellum,  executive director of the advocacy no-profit Education Trust-West, urged Newsom and the Legislature to stand firm on behalf of “many students of color and multilingual learners (who) are feeling uncertain and concerned.”

    “We’re glad to see Gov. Newsom affirming that California is a state that believes in and invests in educational equity,” he said. “If the incoming federal administration does what it says it will, state policymakers will find themselves standing between harm and the people of California”.

    The bulk of state funding for the state’s nearly 1,000 school districts, 1,300 charter schools and community colleges is through Proposition 98, a 1988 voter-approved formula. The budget projected that Proposition 98 funding will be flat in 2025-26 at $118.9 billion, $300 million less than $119.2 billion in 2024-25. To avoid overfunding, the state, for now, will assume 2024-25 funding will end up $1.6 billion less, according to the budget.

    Per-pupil funding from Proposition 98 would rise to $18,918 and to $24,764 per pupil, including federal funding and other state money, such as pension contributions for teachers and other school employees.

    Bad news for UC and CSU

    Both the University of California and California State University should expect as deep as an 8% decrease in ongoing general fund dollars under Newsom’s proposed budget for 2025-26. That’s a decline of $396.6 million at UC and $375.2 million at CSU, which officials say would affect academics and student services.

    UC President Michael Drake said he’s concerned about the impact that the cuts would have “on our students and campus services.”

    CSU Chancellor Mildred García expressed disappointment that the governor’s budget maintains plans for a 7.95% cut in light of a rosier state budget outlook than previously projected — and said she hopes that ongoing funding will be restored if state revenues improve.

    “The impact of such deep funding cuts will have significant real-world consequences, both in and out of the classroom,” García said in a statement. “Larger class sizes, fewer course offerings and a reduced workforce will hinder students’ ability to graduate on time and weaken California’s ability to meet its increasing demands for a diverse and highly educated workforce.”

    The two four-year systems were each due to receive a 5% base increase in 2025-26, but the state would also defer that commitment until 2027-28, a move that was telegraphed in the 2024 budget agreement. UC additionally would have to wait until 2027-28 for a $31 million commitment offsetting revenue it lost by enrolling fewer out-of-state undergraduates and more in-state students.

    The State budget Process

    Governor’s initial budget proposal:

    • Must be released by Jan. 10.
    • Assumes an estimate of revenues the state will collect over the next 18 months (by June 30, 2026). Actual revenues are often significantly different based on economic conditions, federal policy and unforeseen events, like the destructive fires in Los Angeles.

    May revision: In mid-May, Newsom will submit a revised budget with an updated revenue forecast.

    Legislature’s response: The Assembly and Senate have until June 15 to hold hearings and respond with their own version.

    Negotiation: Behind closed doors, Legislative leaders and the governor settle differences. Lawmakers sign off, and the governor signs the final version.

    • About 40% of the state’s general fund will go to schools and community colleges. The bulk goes to keeping schools running, but in some years new money is spent on new programs, like, in recent years, transitional kindergarten and community schools.
    • Governors increasingly have used the budget to rewrite statutes outside of the legislative process. That’s why it’s important to read the fine print in massive “budget trailer bills” written after the budget is passed.

    New programs for schools

    The expiration of about $3 billion for spending in 2024-25, will free up money for one-time funding beyond the 2.4% cost of living increase for transitional kindergarten through grade 12.

    These include:

    Transitional kindergarten (TK): The budget completes the four-year phase-in for the new program, which serves as a bridge between preschool and kindergarten for all 4-year-olds. In fulfilling a commitment, Newsom is also providing $1.5 billion to lower the student-to-teacher ratio from 12:1 to 10:1 in every transitional kindergarten classroom. This is key to maintaining quality because younger children need more personal attention, experts say.

    “This is great news,” said Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers. “With this move to a smaller class size, TK takes an important step to becoming the high quality pre-k experience all children deserve.”

    Literacy instruction: The budget would double the $500 million for literacy coaches appropriated in two recent budgets and enable the funding to include math coaches. It also includes:

    •  $40 million for training and materials to inaugurate annual universal screening of kindergartners through second-graders for potential learning challenges, including dyslexia.      
    • $5 million to launch Literacy Network, a clearinghouse for state-developed literacy resources and support to districts with persistent performance challenges.

    Summer and after-school programs: The state will extend the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program for grades TK-6 for districts in which 55% of students are low-income students, English learners, or students in foster care. That will require an additional $435 million. Until now, funding was for only districts with 75% or more of qualifying students.

    Teacher recruitment: The budget proposal includes $300 million for teacher recruitment, including $150 million in financial assistance to teacher candidates. With $50 million, it would revive dwindling funding in the Golden State Teacher Grant program, which awards up to $20,000 to students enrolled in teacher preparation programs who commit to work in priority schools or in the California State Preschool Program.

    A $1.8 billion discretionary funding: Districts will have discretion over a new Student Support and Discretionary Block Grant, but will be encouraged to spend it on professional development for teachers in reading instruction, especially for English learners; teacher training in the new math standards; and additional efforts to address the teacher shortage.

    Career education: In multiple ways, the budget supports Newsom’s proposed Master Plan for Career Education, whose goal is to make it easier for Californians of all ages and backgrounds to find jobs in high-wage, high-growth fields.

    • $100 million to support community colleges in validating the experience students bring from their jobs, the military, internships or even volunteering.
    • $5 million in ongoing funding to establish a planning agency to put the master plan into practice and $4 million to support regional coordination for career education and training.

    The budget would also allow districts to use funding from the $1.8 billion discretionary block grant to expand career pathways and dual enrollment. 

    Funding for career education comes through many different programs, which school leaders describe as both a blessing and a curse. The budget directs the Department of Education to examine how it could consolidate applications for all these different grants into one single application process.

    Barring a big drop in revenue, the 2025-26 proposal would mark a return to normal following the current year’s jury-rigged budget. To avoid education cuts and deal with the hangover from pandemic revenue complications, in the past two budgets, Newsom and the Legislature drained the $8.4 billion Proposition 98 rainy day fund and withheld hundreds of millions of dollars, called deferrals, from districts. The proposed budget would eliminate the deferrals and rebuild the rainy day fund to $1.5 billion.

    No money for ethnic studies

    One much anticipated question was whether Newsom would include funding to implement a high school ethnic studies course. He did not. A spokesperson from the Department of Finance said that there were many demands for spending with limited resources. Ethnic studies was not among the priorities.

    A lack of funding to pay for teachers’ time and materials would delay the Legislature’s 2021 mandate for all high schools to offer a semester course in ethnic studies, starting in 2025-26 and to require that all students take it in order to graduate from high school, starting in 2029-30.

    After multiple drafts and thousands of public comments, the State Board of Education adopted a voluntary framework for teaching ethnic studies in 2021. Since then, there have been conflicts and lawsuits over districts that have adoped curriculums promoted by the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium. Without naming the Liberated version, the ethnic studies law said that districts should not adopt elements of it “due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.” Without funding, that warning also would not take effect.

    A lack of funding also might short-circuit a proposal pushed by UC ethnic studies faculty to require a high school ethnic studies course as an admission requirement with course criteria that UC would create. In December, the UC Academic Senate postponed a vote on the proposal until April; one reason was the uncertain status of California’s ethnic studies mandate.

    More budget reactions

    Other responses to the budget proposal were mixed.

    Vernon Billy, CEO of the California School Boards Association, said the proposed budget appears to avoid direct cuts, while spending more for transitional kindergarten. “But before we offer unqualified praise, we’ll need to evaluate the actual language in the education budget trailer bill to be released in February — especially since the budget summary contains provisions that seem to open the door for shortchanging Proposition 98 under certain conditions.”

    Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies at the conservative Pacific Research Institute, said, “Governor Newsom said that education is ‘all about human capital.’  It is revealing, then, that the governor discussed his proposed 2025-25 education budget only in terms of inputs — the increase in Prop. 98 and total education funding, the increase in per-pupil funding, and the increase in spending directed at particular education programs such as before/after-school and summer school.”

    “Human capital,” he added, ”is about improving the knowledge and skills of students. The fact that he did not include any evidence that the increased education spending during his administration has raised student achievement and therefore increased their human capital is a glaring omission.” 

    Ted Lempert, president of the nonprofit advocacy organization Children Now, said, “We applaud the governor’s focus on continued support for kids in his proposed budget, including TK, community schools, after-school, and career education.  But much more is needed.” Noting that California ranks at the bottom of states in terms of the ratio of teachers, counselors and nurses to students, he added, “We look forward to working on increasing support for child care, education, mental health, youth homelessness and youth in foster care.”

    Jessie Ryan, the president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, said it’s likely that K-12 school districts in the Los Angeles area will decide to dedicate new block grant funding to wildfire recovery, rather than investments in services for undocumented students or other vulnerable populations. 

    “That is a very real possibility,” she said. “We’re moving towards financial stability, but we’re not at restoration, and we’re going to have to continue to do everything in our power to protect our most vulnerable students, recognizing that we still have limited resources to do just that.”

    David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said he also is concerned that the state might not fund its full obligation to Proposition 98. “We are excited to see so many transformative education initiatives supported by CTA members come to fruition in this state budget, including investments in transitional kindergarten, school nutrition and professional development. However, we are concerned that the proposed budget does not allocate the full funding guaranteed by Proposition 98. In the coming months, our union will carefully monitor the required funding levels for schools and community colleges to ensure full funding is provided to our students in a timely manner, without unnecessary delay.”

    Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said the commission is grateful for continued investments in addressing the teacher shortage. “Funding for teacher recruitment helps to improve affordability and access to teacher preparation programs and helps to ensure that students receive the high-quality education they deserve,” she said. 

    Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, which advocates for English learners, said, “We are encouraged to see the governor prioritizing key areas of importance, including a $10 million one-time allocation for statewide English language proficiency screeners to support multilingual learners in transitional kindergarten. Additionally, we applaud the emphasis on the English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework as the foundational guide for literacy instruction—an essential focus that we strongly support.”

    Max Arias, chief spokesperson and chair of Child Care Providers United, a union that is negotiating with the state to increase reimbursements for its 40,000 child care workers, said the union is disappointed with Newsom’s proposed budget for child care.

    “Continuing on the path proposed in this budget — poverty wages with untimely payments — doesn’t just hurt providers and their families, it hurts the parents with essential jobs like grocery clerks, janitors and delivery drivers who can’t go to work without quality, affordable child care,” he said.

    Emmanuel Rodriguez, the senior director of policy and advocacy for California at The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS), called on the state to use programs like the Cal Grant and Middle Class Scholarship to help students from mixed-status families, who may decide not to apply for federal financial aid. Rodriguez said the state must also ensure the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education has an adequate budget framework “to shield Californians from anticipated federal regulatory changes that will leave students more vulnerable than ever to predatory, low-quality colleges.”





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  • Let the latest scramble begin for California school construction money

    Let the latest scramble begin for California school construction money


    Construction site at Murray Elementary in Dublin Unified in 2022.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

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

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

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

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

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

    New money, old projects

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

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

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

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

    One line ends, another forms

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

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

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

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

    How will Proposition 2 money be divided?

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

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

    When can districts apply?

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

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

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

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

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

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

    A small shift toward needs-based funding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    What else is new under Proposition 2?

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

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

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

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

    What will the application process be like?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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  • ‘The day I lost my house:’ School communities reel from Eaton, Palisades fires

    ‘The day I lost my house:’ School communities reel from Eaton, Palisades fires


    A parent and child embrace as students are welcomed to Brentwood Elementary Science Magnet on Jan. 15.

    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    Tanya Reyes, a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, initially tried to befriend her reality. 

    But when her husband sent her a video of her Altadena home up in flames, and she heard him cry, she had to press pause. 

    “I’ve only watched parts of it, but I know at one point he starts crying. … It just felt surreal,” Reyes said. “We’re worried about our neighbors, worried about who’s safe, the peacocks that lived on our street.” 

    “I’m from Maui, so it feels like Lahaina, all over again.” 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_GHxX9zQdI

    Tanya Reyes received this video from her husband, Antonio, which shows their house engulfed in flames.

    It was Wednesday, Jan. 8 — roughly 24 hours after she, her husband and three daughters unknowingly left their home for good and drove to a relative’s house in West Hollywood with just two items each and a few critical documents. 

    When it was finally time to break the news to her three daughters, Reyes asked: “What’s the most important thing that we have?” 

    She hoped the kids would come back with “each other.” 

    Instead, her daughters said: “A house!’” 

    “And then we told them, and my eldest daughter just kind of wanted to keep watching the video that he (her husband) had taken. And then, she started journaling ‘The day I lost my house,’ Reyes said. 

    “And then that night, from like 3 to 4:30 in the morning, my 3-year-old, who normally sleeps, spent the hour and a half telling me everything that she missed.” 

    Reyes, who works with pregnant girls and young mothers, is among thousands of teachers, staff and students across Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD )and Pasadena Unified reeling from evacuations and losses associated with the Palisades and Eaton fires that have ravaged nearly 60 square miles, including at least 10 schools — all while schools are reopening and attempting to restore a sense of normalcy to children who have lost everything. 

    Pasadena Unified looks to a gradual reopening

    Reyes isn’t just a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She’s also a mom of two students in Pasadena Unified, the hardest hit by the Eaton fire. 

    Longfellow Elementary, her daughters’ school, is one of the lucky ones that’s still standing.

    Five district-run schools and three of its charters schools are either seriously damaged or destroyed. 

    More than 1,300 employees in Pasadena Unified lived in evacuation zones, and Jonathan Gardner, the president of United Teachers of Pasadena, the teachers union, told The New York Times that roughly 300 had lost their homes. 

    The vast majority of students were displaced, too. Of Pasadena Unified’s 14,000 students, about 10,000 had to leave their homes, according to a district media release. 

    “In times of hardship, our district community has always shown remarkable strength and unity, and this time is no different,” board President Jennifer Hall Lee said in a statement. 

    “The challenges of the Eaton Fire have tested us in unthinkable ways,” she added. “Yet I am still struck by how much resilience and compassion I have seen from our community. This has truly been a testament to the spirit of Pasadena Unified.”

    A lot lies ahead on Pasadena Unified’s road to recovery. To begin a phased reopening, 10 of the district’s schools and programs that collectively serve over 3,400 students will reopen on Thursday, prioritizing schools that are furthest away from the fires and deemed safe through testing by the California Office of Emergency Services.

    A large-scale cleanup is also underway, involving the district’s maintenance and operations team and more than 1,500 contractors, according to the district. 

    So far, 82 tons of debris have been removed from schools, according to a media release issued Tuesday evening. 

    Pasadena Unified’s maintenance and operations team, working alongside more than 1,500 contractors, has been clearing debris and conducting extensive sanitization efforts to meet environmental and safety tests after the devastation caused by the Eaton fire.
    Credit: Pasadena Unified School District

    Meanwhile, the district welcomed back about 2,700 teachers, staff and administrators on Wednesday morning.

    “I’m really proud of my Longfellow Elementary,” Reyes said. 

    And when the staff at the low-income community school found out Reyes and her family had lost everything, they jumped in to help.

    “They sent out emails of everyone you could be in contact with: ‘here’s this person; here’s Connie; here’s Monica; here’s who can help you if you need help with anything.’”  

    Palisades Charter High School seeking a home

    Known for its appearances in films such as “Carrie” and “Freaky Friday,” Palisades Charter High School is a long way from reopening. 

    Roughly 40% of the campus was damaged or destroyed by the fires, according to the Los Angeles Times — but the school’s leaders are still seeking a temporary place to call home. 

    In the meantime, students will learn online. 

    “We have a unique opportunity to show the strength and resilience of our community in the face of adversity,” said Pamela Magee, the school’s principal and executive director, in a Jan. 13 media release. 

    “By coming together, we can ensure our students can stay in their learning environment, with their friends and mentors, at a time when they need it most.” 

    Students embark on a new normal at Los Angeles Unified 

    At 11:15 a.m. on Jan. 7, teachers and staff at Marquez Elementary School were informed they had to evacuate the school immediately. 

    A dark cloud of smoke hovered above the yard where everyone convened. They could see fires on the hillside. 

    Students, who ranged from 4-year-olds to third graders “were put on a school bus and sent out over to another school, where the parents were told they could pick them up,” said Wendy Connor, a veteran first grade teacher. “Half of (the kids) are crying. Half of them aren’t. They’re all trying to help each other.”

    Just over a week later, 353 of the 722 students who attended LAUSD’s Marquez Elementary and Palisades Charter Elementary resumed their school year — but there was nothing normal about their circumstances.

    Parents carry books and supplies into Brentwood Elementary Science Magnet on Jan. 15.
    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    Their schools had been burnt down. Some of them had also lost their homes, and now the students found themselves on a new campus altogether. 

    But the students made their transition as one class to Brentwood Elementary Science Magnet and Nora Sterry Elementary School. They are still learning from the same teachers and are studying alongside their same classmates.

    “Not one of them has said, ‘I don’t want to be here,’ or ‘I want to be with my mommy or my daddy,’” Connor said. “They’re all just like, ‘Oh, where do I line up? Let’s go! We’re ready to go!’”  

    However, she added, many students who lost their homes have not yet returned. And many parents and school employees remain concerned about the toll the fires will have on students’ mental health in the short term and the long run. 

    The district has compiled resources for LAUSD communities to access mental health resources, among other wraparound supports, including telehealth options, a 24/7 support line and access to wellness centers.

    Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County superintendent of schools, also emphasized the need to curb students’ social media use, so students are not watching videos repeatedly of homes and familiar spaces being burnt to ash. 

    She also said it is critical for parents and adults to stay calm and model positive coping strategies. 

    “They’re resilient, like you wouldn’t believe,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of UTLA, the district’s teachers union, speaking during an elementary school visit. “My son lost his father two years ago, just unexpectedly. And I’m in the throes of the ebbs and flows of grief. And that’s what I saw today.” 

    A first grader now at Nora Sterry Elementary drew his home surrounded by fire after returning to class on Jan. 15.
    Credit: Mallika Seshadri

    Teachers and staff across the district are struggling, too. 

    Of the 10% of UTLA’s members that had been assessed as of Jan. 15, Myart-Cruz said 539 members had been displaced, and the homes of 136 members were either destroyed or damaged. 

    Meanwhile, more than 100,000 teachers reported experiencing medical complications as a result of the fires, including respiratory issues, and more than 1,000 said they are unable to work because they are dealing with other extenuating circumstances, like helping family members who have lost their homes, according to Myart-Cruz.  

    While Connor’s home and family are safe, she admits to having much higher stress levels and a higher heart rate at times.

    Connor grew up in the Palisades — and is coming to terms with her loss — her childhood home, her old school and Marquez Elementary all gone. 

    But she is holding onto a glimmer of hope — three classrooms in the middle of Marquez Elementary remain standing. Her old room was one of them. 

    “I’ve been anxious trying to … go into the room and see if there’s anything I could save,” Connor said. “And then, I just had to put most feelings aside, so that I could get the (new) classroom ready and get going for the kids.”





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  • West Contra Costa student school board members among few in California to be paid

    West Contra Costa student school board members among few in California to be paid


    Jorge Espinoza Jr., left, and Luke Wilson are the first two student board members in West Contra Costa to be compensated for the job.

    Courtesy of Jorge Espinoza Jr. and Luke Wilson

    West Contra Costa Unified School District students Jorge Espinoza Jr. and Luke Wilson have a seat and voice at a table that most students don’t have regular access to. 

    For the last five months, they’ve been sitting next to school board trustees at the dais, asking top administrators accountability questions and making recommendations on what could improve student experiences in the classroom. 

    On top of that, they are the first two students in the district to be paid for this work. 

    “It definitely has been an experience,” Espinoza said. “It’s been a journey – one that I would never want to change.” 

    “I believe I’ve learned so much, not only just being a board member, especially as a student, but also getting to engage with my community, engaging with the cabinet and what they do and seeing and learning all these things that go on within the board.” 

    Although many districts in California have student board member positions, it’s rare for them to be paid, said Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association. This school year, West Contra Costa Unified became one of the few in the state that pays its student board members. 

    School districts, including West Contra Costa, moved to pay board members after the 2023 passage of Assembly Bill 275, a state law that allows districts to pay or offer course credits to student board members. The West Contra Costa school board passed the resolution last July and updated and reapproved it last month to comply with the law. 

    Flint said that “the concept of involving student board members more fully, including compensating them in some very rare cases, is gaining momentum … (and) breaks from traditional practices where student board members were not supported to the same degree we’ve seen become more common with this recent generation.” 

    Historically, it’s been difficult to recruit students to be student board members, said West Contra Costa board member Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy. Various West Contra Costa Unified school board members had said publicly that they believed including compensation and course credits would motivate a more diverse population of students to apply. They pointed to the time commitment the students must make. Typically, board meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and last between three and five hours — time that students could use to work for pay, study or participate in an internship.

    “It’s a commitment, and many students in our high schools have to not just take care of their own family, but they have to work,” Gonzalez-Hoy said. “Having to do a volunteer position for our students is a big ask.”

    In West Contra Costa, at least one of the two student board members must be from a school with 60% of students receiving free or reduced lunch, which was an effort to ensure representation from schools in less affluent areas of the district, Gonzalez-Hoy said. Students are paid $150 for every board meeting they attend and $100 for each agenda review meeting and board study session. Students also receive elective course credits. 

    There are typically two board meetings and an agenda review meeting per month, Gonzalez-Hoy said. The number of study sessions varies based on the business of the district. 

    “They won’t have to choose between a paycheck and being in this (student board member) position, but also they won’t have to choose between their studies and working,” Gonzalez-Hoy said.

    Espinoza and Wilson just wrapped up their one-semester term, and the new student board members will be announced and sworn in at the Feb. 12 board meeting. 

    Wilson, who attends El Cerrito High School, is also a student board member of the Contra Costa County Office of Education, a term that lasts the whole school year. He suggested West Contra Costa should do the same.

    “I believe that having two student board members elected for one whole year would actually be a better benefit for all students because of that momentum not being lost,” Wilson said. “One semester really doesn’t make sense in terms of that momentum and actually picking up a grasp on how the meetings run. But then you’re out when you get that grasp.”

    Gonzalez-Hoy said the board is considering all student feedback to make the student board member experience as beneficial as possible. 

    Last year, San Diego and Palm Springs school districts passed resolutions similar to West Contra Costa’s. San Diego students receive elective course credit and are paid $1,736 per month, the amount paid to other board members in the district.  Student board members in Palm Springs are paid about $296 monthly, according to the Palm Springs Desert Sun. 

    Board members historically receive low wages 

    Paying student trustees is not very popular, especially now with many school districts dealing with declines in enrollment, school closures and budget cuts, resulting in a lack of available funds. Most board members serving on school boards around the state are paid low wages.

    The amount of money board members receive in California depends on the average daily attendance in the district. Average daily attendance — which is different from overall student enrollment — is calculated by taking the total number of student attendance days and dividing by the number of school days in the year.

    In a district like West Contra Costa, where average daily attendance was about 23,400 in the 2023-24 school year, regular board members make up to $400 a month.

    Board members in districts with 25,000 to 60,000 students receive up to $750 monthly. In districts with 1,000 to 10,000 students, board members receive up to $240 monthly. In the smaller districts with 1,000 or fewer students but more than 150, trustees receive up to $120 a month. Those in districts with less than 150 students only make up to $60 a month. 

    There’s a stark difference in pay for board members in larger districts with more than 250,000 students. According to the state education code, compensation in those districts is set by municipalities.

    For example, board members in the Los Angeles Unified School District, serving more than 500,000 students, receive $125,000 annually if they don’t have another job and $50,000 if they do.

    Some states, like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, do not allow compensation for board members, and the elected board members are volunteers. 

    Empowering students

    Espinoza and Wilson’s top priority this year is to create a student bill of rights that will eventually be posted in every classroom. 

    “The reason for this is to empower students to not only know their rights but to also have respect and accountability, not just within students but all of our staff as well,” said Espinoza, who attends Middle College High School. 

    Incoming student board members will take over the process of finalizing the bill of rights through outreach and surveys. 

    Another change Espinoza and Wilson spearheaded was to include the All Student Congress — a group of middle and high students, nominated by their schools — in discussions about the Local Control Accountability Plan, a document that outlines how the district should be spending money. Student feedback will then go to an advisory committee made up of parents and community members.

    Students need to be part of the All Student Congress to qualify for the student board member position. The student congress also elects both student board members. 

    Espinoza Jr. and Wilson also helped draft “Educational Response to the Climate Emergency,” a resolution to help implement climate literacy in West Contra Costa schools and to help students graduate with a deeper understanding of the impacts of climate change and possible solutions. The resolution could include a climate literacy curriculum and professional development for educators.

    Other goals Espinoza and Wilson have that will be passed on to the incoming student trustees are to implement a Student Advisory Panel, have more student trustee engagement, and have career technical education programs for students in grades K-8. 

    Wilson’s advice to would-be student board members is to “go into it with an open mind in terms of when you’re listening to the adults and frequently  … you’ll hear debates, you’ll hear people not agreeing with each other. And before you just immediately pick a side, try and hear both sides.” 

    Espinoza said future student board members shouldn’t be shy or let the complex jargon and policies hinder them from applying. 

    “You’re there for a reason,” Espinoza said. “These adults, they’re here to serve us, and as students, we’re here to represent the students’ voices directly as well.”





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