A group of WCCUSD school psychologists at a union contract rally in 2023.
Courtesy of John Zabala
West Contra Costa Unified School District’s school psychologist internship program once flourished. The district recruited from substantial applicant pools from local universities and provided a strong start for beginning school psychologists entering the workforce, often retaining them after the internships ended.
Now, however, in the years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, WCCUSD is struggling to recruit interns and fill vacant school psychologist positions. This means psychologists, considered essential pieces of school environments, are carrying larger case loads and working longer hours, leading to burnout.
School psychologists fill a critical role in school communities, collaborating with administration, teachers and parents to ensure students are succeeding academically, emotionally and behaviorally.
West Contra Costa has struggled with five to seven school psychologist vacancies for the past couple of years. Halfway through the current school year, the district is still dealing with three.
“We’re going to weather, this obviously, but we still have a couple of years in which we are going to have a really significant shortage, and we’re going to have a really significant increase in the demand for services, so we’re kind of in for a little bit of a scary period,” said John Zabala, a school psychologist in the district and the president of United Teachers of Richmond.
California is generally facing a critical shortage of school psychologists. According to the California Association of School Psychologists, the National Association of School Psychologists recommends a ratio of 1 school psychologist for 500 to 750 students. However, California schools on average have 1 per 1,000 students. Some schools have 1 per 3,000 students.
Although WCCUSD’s ratio falls into the recommended range at around 1 school psychologist per 500-550 students, school psychologists in the district still face large caseloads and longer work days, contributing to burnout.
Some districts compensate for shortages by hiring contractors or traveling school psychologists. Emily Springhart, department co-chair of psychology at West Contra Costa, however, said the district has preferred increasing the caseload of school psychologists and extending their work days to deal with the shortage.
“A lot of the report writing and the case management — those things just go home with people,” Springhart said. “I’m sure it’s not great for their own personal health.”
Schools have seen a substantial increase in the number of students requiring mental health and behavioral resources in recent years. In April 2022, 69% of public schools reported that the percentage of students seeking mental health services had increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Covid-19 disrupted early intervention for many students, leading to an increase in the number of students needing support, while the staff who would be able to support them, like school psychologists, have not.
Mary Campbell, a WCCUSD school psychologist and former department chair, said she worries about what the shortages and the resulting burnout could mean for the longevity of the profession.
Springhart said the school psychologist shortage seems to be caused by the same factors triggering shortages of other school staff: inevitable events like retirement, but also financial hardship, forcing people to move out of parts of California with high costs of living.
But another cause lies in the declining number of incoming applicants from universities that typically feed into districts like WCCUSD. Springhart said the number has steadily declined, despite the district having a long and strong history of hiring school psychologists from those programs.
“It seems like all of the districts are kind of fighting over everybody right now, just because there’s not enough people coming out of programs,” Springhart said.
Oanh Tran, school psychology program coordinator for California State University, East Bay, said she’s actually seen an increase of applicants to the program in recent years. But because the Bay Area is home to so many school districts, there aren’t enough school psychologists to go around.
“We have so many districts, so many schools, and just a handful of students are graduating with their PPS (Pupil Personnel Services) credential to service those schools and districts,” Tran said.
Tran said new school psychologists are also experiencing burnout earlier in their careers. Not only are they dealing with more assessment caseloads, but they’re also spending their days putting out fires likely caused by a lack of early intervention.
The best districts, Tran said, prioritize monitoring the needs of their school psychologists, ensuring they have access to helpful mentors, have a manageable caseload, and feel supported by their team. Students are being strategic about finding districts that provide these resources, Tran explained.
“In West Contra Costa, I do remember there was a time where they did have a lot of our practicum and interns,” Tran said. “But now, I think because there are so many districts that are recruiting our students, it’s competitive. It’s so competitive. We only have so many students in our cohort, but we have over 50 districts now participating in our recruitment fair for our students.”
Although West Contra Costa offers competitive pay, especially after salary increases last year, Springhart agreed the shortage has been a regional issue, extending beyond the district. She said more education and recruitment about the profession may be necessary to increase the number of applicants to school psychologist programs.
“I think there are ways that we know that we can attract and keep people in these jobs, which can be very rewarding jobs,” Campbell said, “but not when we’re so under-resourced.”
This is a very important chart to raise awarement across schools, districts, and the state; however, I think it needs to be corrected that these are students who don’t pass these college-prep courses with a C or higher. It sends the wrong message to say that these “students don’t take courses needed to apply to CSU or UC” as I know that most students in many schools/districts do take these courses — they just … Read More
This is a very important chart to raise awarement across schools, districts, and the state; however, I think it needs to be corrected that these are students who don’t pass these college-prep courses with a C or higher. It sends the wrong message to say that these “students don’t take courses needed to apply to CSU or UC” as I know that most students in many schools/districts do take these courses — they just don’t get a passing grade, which is another systemic issue that needs to be tackled.
Christian Robinson always planned to go to college, but when she graduated from Adelanto High School in California’s High Desert, she felt aimless. Without a plan or preparation for higher education, she decided to go to work instead.
She regrets that now.
“I wish I would have gone straight into college because I would have had everything done, finished and over with,” said Robinson, who at 20 is now enrolling at Victor Valley College.
Currently, Robinson juggles two jobs, working for a security company and serving fast food. She wishes she had received more guidance about attending college from her school.
Robinson’s story was typical for Black students at Adelanto High School, where over 8 out of 10 Black students graduated in 2020 without the college prep courses — known as A-G — required for admission to California’s public universities.
The path has been different for her younger brother MarQuan Thornton, currently a high school senior at Adelanto. Months away from graduation, Thornton is one of a small group of students deciding not whether he will go to college, but which one.
MarQuan Thornton is a senior at Adelanto High in California’s High Desert. He credits the Heritage Program at his school, aimed at Black students, for helping to keep him on track for attending college.Emma Gallegos/EdSource
Thornton has worked hard but recognizes that the key difference between his trajectory and his sister’s is the support he’s getting from school that did not exist during his sister’s time there.
Three years after his sister graduated, his high school began the Heritage Program, which is aimed at ensuring that Black students, like him, are on track to complete their A-G requirements.
Thornton knows he’s on track to meet the requirements that will make him eligible to attend a state university.
“If she (Christian Robinson) had this type of chance when she was in high school, she probably would have been where I am at,” Thornton said. “I can see the difference.”
While the vast majority of students in California — 86% of seniors in 2023 — graduate from high school, most — 56% in 2023 — do not complete their A-G requirements, according to an EdSource analysis of data from the California Department of Education. EdSource’s analysis found that Black and Latino students are the hardest hit.
In 2023, 68% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet A-G requirements, compared with 26% of Asian students and 48% of white students, according to EdSource’s analysis.
The highest non-completion group is foster students at 88%, followed by disabled students at 85% and English learners at 82%.
“These kinds of numbers should be treated as a five-alarm fire,” said Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of P-16 research for Ed Trust-West, a nonprofit that advocates for justice in education.
Valenzuela-Stookey said high school graduates are being shut out of affordable four-year public college options, because they are not getting the support they need to complete the A-G coursework.
“Our education systems urgently need to invest more in our students of color,” Valenzuela-Stookey said.
As Robinson neared graduation in the early days of the pandemic, she said everyone, even teachers, seemed to lose track of how to prepare students for college and life after high school.
But long before the pandemic, the district was struggling to prepare Black students to meet their A-G requirements and be ready for higher education, according to Ratmony Yee, assistant superintendent of educational services for Victor Valley Union High.
Robinson’s mother, Crystal Francisco, says that she is proud of how hard her daughter works to earn her own money. But she concurs that if Heritage had been around, Robinson might have gone straight to college.
“She probably would have gone a different way,” said Francisco.
Snapshot of California
Of 1,766 high schools in California, about half graduated more than 56% of students lacking the required college preparatory courses.
Fewer than 2 out of 10 students met A-G rates in 2023 in many northern counties, such as Lake, Del Norte, Plumas, Lassen, Nevada, Tehama, Trinity. Just 3 out of 10 students in Kern, Merced, Tulare and Kings counties met the requirements. That compares to the Bay Area in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Marin counties where more than 5 out of 10 students met A-G requirements.
Improving low A-G completion rates has been a longtime goal of both educators and state policymakers, but it’s a problem that resists easy answers or quick fixes, said Sherrie Reed, executive director of the California Education Lab at UC Davis and a researcher with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), an independent research nonprofit affiliated with several California universities.
The idea of simply aligning the state’s minimum high school requirements with A-G requirements hasn’t gained steam because of the concern that it would result in fewer students graduating, said Mayra Lara, the director of Southern California partnerships and engagement with Ed Trust-West.
What are A-G requirements?
The details of A-G requirements can be arcane, especially for students and parents who are not familiar with the college admissions process. The state requires students to complete a minimum of 13 courses to receive a high school diploma.
But to attend a UC or CSU requires that a student takes 15 courses in seven areas: history, English, math, science, foreign language, arts and an elective. Each category has its own letter, A-G, which is where the requirements get their name.
These courses overlap with high school requirements, but they are also more rigorous. For instance, three years of English are required to graduate from high school, while A-G eligibility requires four years. Only one of those years can include English as a Second Language or English Language Development — courses that English learners are often enrolled in.
Low grades are a common way students fall off the A-G track. A “D” is considered a passing grade for a high school diploma, but A-G classes require at least a “C” to count as eligible.
The state, instead, has offered carrots for districts working on improving poor A-G rates, especially those that have a large marginalized student population, such as those who are low-income, English learners, homeless or have a disability. In 2021-22, the state set aside over $547 million for the A-G Completion Improvement Grant Program. The state has also pushed dual enrollment and career technical education to the high school curriculum, both of which can help students meet their A-G requirements.
Progress has been slow. The number of students who have met A-G requirements statewide has ticked up just shy of four points over the last six years.
Understanding why any given student may or may not meet A-G requirements requires examining what is happening in a particular region or district, as well as disparities within schools.
“The answer is that it is all of that,” said Reed. “No one factor accounts for it.”
Some students said that graduating without meeting A-G requirements sent them the message that they were not college material.
Brock Wooster-Mills, 20, said he felt “doomed to fail” as a student with a disability attending Liberty High School in Bakersfield, where 49% of students do not meet A-G requirements.
Partial hearing loss had affected Wooster-Mills’ ability to speak and follow lessons in elementary school. But even when his hearing improved, his counselors in the Kern High School District wouldn’t allow him to transfer into required A-G courses such as French and geometry.
He remembers one special education teacher telling his class that they likely wouldn’t even attend a community college, but Wooster-Mills said he always knew he was capable of more. He enrolled in Bakersfield College in 2021, the fall after he graduated.
He’s now in his sixth semester, but his lack of academic confidence and inadequate preparation continue to dog him. In high school, he had never been taught how to write an essay. He had never studied a foreign language, which made Spanish daunting. He failed the first time he took it.
“I feel like I’m still behind,” he said. “I wasn’t taught what I was supposed to be taught.”
Most high schools in the state — 91.4% of traditional district schools, according to PACE — do offer a full slate of A-G coursework that put them on track for college. But the degree of access students get to those courses or support, once they have enrolled, varies greatly, resulting in wide disparities between groups of students.
Interactive Map
View the map to see the percentage of students in each high school who graduate without A-G required courses.
PACE released a series of briefs and reports on the A-G completion rates in summer 2023, noting that access to rigorous coursework — whether dual enrollment, Advanced Placement or other college preparatory courses — can profoundly change the trajectory of a student’s life. These courses not only set students up for admission to college, but make it more likely that a student will pursue college in the first place.
Researchers found that some high schools do not offer the full range of A-G courses. In 2018-19, 2.5% of schools offered no A-G courses, and another 6% only offered some A-G courses. The list also includes small and rural schools that struggle to hire teachers who are qualified to teach A-G required classes in fields such as math, science or foreign language.
But 84% of schools that do not offer a full range of A-G courses are charter schools focused primarily on credit recovery for students at risk of not graduating from high school. Charter schools tend to be outliers in both directions; schools with the highest and lowest A-G rates — where fewer than 40% or greater than 80% of students meet A-G requirement — tend to be charters.
Changes in high school can help
Adelanto High is a part of Victor Valley Union High School District, which serves communities in the High Desert, including Victorville. Cheap, abundant land attracts residents priced out of the Southern California housing market, but there is little economic opportunity. Unemployment is high, and so is the poverty rate.
“The kids get stuck here, because there’s a cycle of poverty,” said Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, the coordinator of the Heritage program at Adelanto High.
Educators in Victor Valley Union High say that beyond ensuring that students have all of their options open to them upon graduation, it is not their role to choose a path for students. Military or trade school are options celebrated at the school, but educators tell students that a bachelor’s degree will be key for most students who aim to earn better wages and escape the cycle of poverty.
“Money talks,” said Yee, assistant superintendent of instructional services for Victor Valley Union High.
District leaders say ensuring that students meet their A-G requirements opens up two key options for students: being eligible to apply for a CSU or UC school, and also having the preparation to succeed at a community college.
Like much of inland California, the rate of students completing their A-G is low in Victor Valley Union High. In 2016-17, 13% of students in the district completed their A-G coursework, but it has been improving: that number rose to 29% last year.
Victor Valley Union High has been making districtwide changes that administrators say are key to putting more students on track for A-G completion.
Scheduling is important, Yee said. Creating a master schedule that prioritizes disabled students or English learners ensures these students aren’t missing A-G coursework because of a scheduling conflict. Some schools also build tutoring into daily schedules for struggling students.
The district studied students’ transcripts to figure out how to improve their chances of meeting A-G requirements. For instance, they found that students who took foreign language classes as freshmen or sophomores were more likely to fulfill this requirement, because they had time to retake classes to make up for any poor grades. Students are now required to begin their foreign language courses by sophomore year.
Victor Valley Union High also rolled out two programs aimed specifically at groups of students that were struggling the most: Black students and long-term English learners.
Homing in on groups who need the most help
The Heritage program, aimed at Black students like MarQuan Thornton, was piloted in 2022-23 at Adelanto High. Beginning sophomore year, every Black student in this High Desert school is automatically enrolled in this program that ensures students are prepared for graduation as well as college and a career.
Thornton said the program has helped him, even ensuring that he made up classes he struggled with his sophomore year. He now boasts a 3.7 GPA.
A-G completion rates for Black students at his high school improved. In 2021-22, 6% of Black students met their A-G. The following year, when Heritage began, that number jumped to 26%.
Because of its early success, the program is not only being rolled out at other campuses in the district, but is being used as a model for Legacy, a program aimed at long-term English learners.
Students in both Heritage and Legacy are sorted in four groups. Level 1 students are on track to graduate from high school with A-G requirements, while Level 4 students may be in danger of not graduating from high school at all. The coordinators hold monthly sessions with each group on topics ranging from how to fill out the FAFSA form or make up failed classes to basic life skills that students approaching adulthood need. Students also visit college campuses.
Parents are invited for workshops to school so that they can understand the importance of A-G classes and learn how to support — and perhaps badger — their children into staying on track.
Heritage coordinator Jackson-Jarrell said that having a background similar to her students’ helps her connect with them. She dropped out of high school when she was younger. She tells students that earning degrees — starting with an associate degree and ultimately obtaining a doctorate — helped her go from making $4.25 an hour to making six figures.
Her counterpart at Silverado High, Jose Velasco, teaches Spanish and runs the Legacy program. Like many of his students, Velasco is a child of immigrants whose first language was Spanish. He checks in to make sure students have access to bilingual aides so that they can understand the content in their college preparatory classes, such as geometry or history.
When Heritage first began, Jackson-Jarrell experienced pushback from non-Black teachers, parents and students questioning the need for a program focused solely on one group of students and pointing to other programs such as AVID, that focused on college and career readiness.
“We were hit with questions like, ‘Why is this program just for Black students? It’s not fair,’” she said.
Jackson-Jarrell would tell them that the data was showing that overwhelmingly, Black students need the most support meeting A-G requirements and that they have unique needs and challenges that Heritage addresses. When students visit college campuses, they try to imagine themselves fitting in. Not seeing Black students on campus can reinforce the idea that they don’t belong on a college campus.
“They’re looking for themselves,” said Jackson-Jarrell. “They feel like they don’t belong.”
So, Heritage will often ensure that when they visit campuses, they can meet directly with students from the Black student resource centers. This upcoming spring, Heritage students are invited on a tour through the American South, visiting historically Black colleges and universities. Legacy makes a point of visiting with Latino student groups on campus for similar purposes.
Jackson-Jarrell said that programs like Heritage and Legacy are important for the economic development of the community and hopes to see more programs like them in other districts in the High Desert.
Superintendent Carl Coles concurs. Increasing the rigor of students’ coursework and preparing them for higher education doesn’t just set students up for success, it improves the prospects of their families and the larger community. The district’s renewed focus on A-G requirements, he said, goes right to the core of why education is so important.
Coles said, “It really is so that every kid can live a life of purpose.”
This post has been updated to clarify a source’s statement
Chelsi Allen, a mother with children in a Fresno private school, buys farm-grown produce at a Fresno Unified farmers market. Allen saw the market while picking up her daughter from a basketball game at Fort Miller Middle School on February 5, 2024.
Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource
When the end-of-school bell rang, groups of students, parents and community members headed for the on-campus farmers market displaying plump green vegetables, potted seedlings and even boxes of free food.
Reflecting the community’s diversity, signs in the booths advertised crops not often seen in mainstream grocery stores, such as chijimisai (a hybrid Asian green that’s packed with nutrients) and other items popular with Asian or Latino families, alongside the standard fare.
As adults bagged and paid for the produce or helped themselves to any free items, young children questioned the farmers about how much water or sunshine a plant needs.
Later, when after-school activities ended, more parents and their student athletes, many still wearing their game uniforms, joined the crowd in the schoolyard at Fort Miller Middle School in Fresno on Feb. 5 — one of a number of farmers markets being held on Fresno Unified campuses this year.
Fresno Unified contracted with Fresno Metro Ministry, a nonprofit organization, to bring farmers markets to schools and increase access to fresh, healthy and affordable food in neighborhoods where it’s not easy to come by.
Fresno Unified and Fresno Metro Ministry leaders say the partnership is important for students, families and the community. Here’s how:
Why start the program?
Much of Fresno is a food desert, lacking access to affordable, healthy food due to an absence of nearby grocery stores, or a food swamp with better access to junk food than nutritious food options, said Amanda Harvey, director of nutrition services with Fresno Unified.
Bringing farmers markets to schools within a food desert or swamp — which mostly exist in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods — provides access to nutritious food.
Is this the first time Fresno Unified has put farmers markets on its campuses?
In the past, the district has hosted farmers markets sponsored and run through community partnerships, Harvey said, but the partnership with Fresno Metro Ministry is run with the school district.
The big difference is that through the new partnership, Fresno Unified students and staff will learn how to operate the markets, said Chris De León, the farm and gardens program manager with Fresno Metro Ministry.
Why partner with Fresno Metro Ministry?
Fresno Metro Ministry creates school and community gardens at locations throughout Fresno to educate the community about gardening and provides land access and other resources for beginning farmers and community members to grow fresh, local produce in food-insecure neighborhoods. De León said it was a “no-brainer” for the organization to partner with the school district to engage students and bring farmers to school campuses.
What’s sold at the markets?
Xiong Farm Produce, one of the vendors at the Fort Miller Middle School farmers market, sells Romanesco broccoli. Fresno Unified has been placing farmers markets on its campuses to provide affordable, nutritious food options for families. Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource
The Fresno Unified partnership is funded, in part, through a grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture that requires the farmers market to sell specialty crops, such as apricots, avocados, asparagus, beans, blueberries, broccoli, cabbage, carrots and other fruits and vegetables, as well as tree nuts, herbs and other plants.
Crops from different cultural groups, such as Latino and Southeast Asian farmers, can be offered, too. For instance, Casillas Farms and Siembra y Cosecha Farms, managed by Spanish-speaking farmers, and Xiong Farm Produce, which sold Chinese cauliflower, were at the Fort Miller market.
How does the program impact students?
The farmers markets are meant to be student-led.
Students learn how to seek out farmers, work with market vendors, organize, then promote the upcoming event and set up the market, Harvey said.
Students can even earn food safety and handling certifications, an experience Harvey called a “resume-builder.”
The farmers market itself highlights and promotes student clubs and district programs, especially activities related to agriculture.
Harvey said schools give students the autonomy to come up with ideas for the markets: “What do they want to see in their event?”
A community member and student visit a booth with herbal plants. Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource
Eighth graders Lilly Blanco and Andrea Morgan (who managed a booth with herbal plants) pointed out to shoppers how enslaved Africans used herbs, a topic they’re exploring in their ethnic studies class. Aloe vera was used to treat burns and inflammation, and mullein could treat whooping cough, chronic bronchitis and congestion, Morgan said about the research she and her classmates conducted and published in pamphlets for the market.
The farmers market allows students to sell, feature or display products.
“They’ve been really excited planting their own herbs,” Morgan said.
Having students lead, plan and facilitate the events puts them at the forefront, gives them a voice and teaches them responsibility, said Yang Soua Fang, a farm and gardens project manager with Fresno Metro Ministry.
How is it beneficial for families?
While picking up her daughter from a basketball game at Fort Miller, Chelsi Allen expressed how convenient it was for her, a mother of five, to be able to shop while on campus.
“Being at the school setting,” Allen said, “I never thought about it. It just feels right to get some healthy foods and go home and cook.”
Allen, whose children attend Holy Cross Junior High, a private school in Fresno, said that what Fresno Unified is doing gives families affordable access to items needed for a balanced meal.
She pointed out the stark difference between the convenience of the school farmers market and a grocery store, where most people shop for specifics and may not seek out healthy food options that aren’t “in your face” like those at the farmers market.
“We get to serve our students every day,” said Harvey, the district’s nutrition services director, “but to be able to also bring nutritious meals to our adults in our community is huge.”
Will the school district do anything differently?
During the markets, Fresno Metro Ministry can offer food demonstrations to show families ways to serve the farm-grown produce. The food demos weren’t available at the Fort Miller market on Feb. 5, but Fresno Unified plans to do its part to promote nutritious food options to families.
Harvey said the district’s nutrition team can obtain participants’ input on introducing products into the food students eat in school.
“Is this something you’d be interested in seeing on school menus?” a survey asked farmers market attendants about kale.
“The more familiar students are with them, the more likely they are to ask for them at home,” she said. “‘I had this item at lunch; it was delicious. Let’s buy it.’”
What else do markets mean for families, school and community?
The farmers market also “puts a face to produce,” De León said.
“There’s so much: ‘What is this? How did you grow it? How do you cook it?’” he said.
He said he believes those conversations will build relationships between farmers and families, leading to more awareness and a better understanding of the importance of local farming.
Patricia Hubbard is a farmer who grows produce at Fresno Metro Ministry’s Yo’Ville Community Garden & Farm behind the Yosemite Village housing complex.
At the Fort Miller market, Hubbard sold starter plants of sweet peas and kale, including Ethiopian and Portuguese kale. The products are easy-to-grow plants that can hold kids’ interest in growing their own vegetables, Hubbard said.
“We need young people farming,” she said.
The farmers market can pique that interest while changing the narrative about farmworkers, Soua Fang said.
“There’s such a negative stereotype to being a farmworker or laborer, but yet their contribution to our society is so important for us: That’s how we can sustain ourselves,” he said. “But … it’s like we put them at the bottom of the pedestal.”
Connecting and engaging with farmers places value and respect in their craft, especially when they share the stories of how they overcome barriers to become farmers.
Are there more markets?
With plans for different schools to host markets on a monthly or quarterly basis, Fresno Unified and Fresno Metro Ministry hope to set up about 15 farmers markets on campuses this school year. In addition to the Fort Miller market, Phoenix Secondary Academy held a farmers market in the fall to launch the partnership, and a couple of markets have been held in collaboration with the Fresno High School Flea Market. For the rest of the school year, markets will be at:
Fort Miller Middle School on the first Monday of each month. The March 4 market has been rescheduled for March 18.
Fresno High School on the second Saturday of each month.
McLane High School, which is still planning dates but has confirmed April 6 for its first market.
Some of the designated schools are located in the middle of food deserts or serve high numbers of students experiencing food insecurity, Soua Fang said.
At other Fresno Unified schools where there may be agricultural programs offering gardening and farming, Fresno Metro Ministry hopes to “fill the last little gap” by creating a culture around farmers markets. At the Fresno High Flea Market, De León said the organization adds healthy food access to an already thriving market “to connect that bridge from community to school, so it’s not so separate.”
Schools interested in hosting a farmers market should reach out to Fresno Metro Ministry.
A student holds a welcoming sign at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland.
Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/EdSource
In June 2023, as I tightly hugged my childhood friends and departed from Saratoga High School, an emotional conflict stirred within me. We had graduated with an intense knowledge of the thrilling and very challenging life of a student in today’s world. As I reflected on the transformative experiences that shaped my high school years, I felt fortunate to have shared and expanded these insights while on the California Center for School Climate’s Youth Advisory Team. This defining moment to partner with peers and experts throughout California to help improve school climate had a resounding impact on me.
The Youth Advisory Team, which included adult mentors and seven students I collaborated with virtually, examined the challenges that stem from high levels of stress in students and the root causes of it — exploring the daily pressures of academic success, college admissions and competition. As I engaged in discussions and initiatives in and outside my school, it became evident that fostering a positive and inclusive environment is not merely a goal but an urgent necessity.
Attending schools in both Costa Rica and Saratoga, I witnessed the impact of school climate on students’ emotional and physical well-being. Local and societal prioritizations of social status and wealth led many students, including me, to share a simple mindset: The more we take on, the better we are as people. Rather than using empathy, curiosity and integrity to gauge our worth and that of others, we often rely on a resume to determine a person’s value. While many dedicated school staff and parents attempt to alleviate this taut way of thinking, students often feel compelled to take on as many responsibilities as possible and try to execute them all perfectly, leaving them anxious and exhausted. The need to excel at everything can lead to a negative school climate and internal conflicts where students feel burdened by unrealistic expectations from themselves and others.
Academic achievement and college admissions should not overwhelm students’ educational experiences. To thrive, students need opportunities and flexibility to discover their own paths. However, students can’t expect adults to properly bring about change if they don’t hear students’ voices — youth need to help guide the direction education leaders take with decision-making, whether this be in advisory committees, one-on-one conversations, school polls/surveys, etc.
Working closely with the California Center for School Climate and fellow students, our team helped develop resources explaining the importance of school relationships and school safety, designed a toolkit for educators to better support staff and student connection, and attended meetings about topics related to school climate, including school safety, mental health, and well-being, equity and inclusion.
A key lesson I learned through this work was that in order to co-create school climate resources, adults must actively listen to and engage with students to build trust and meaningful relationships — helping them feel comfortable speaking up in any environment. Breaking down barriers is essential to have these meaningful conversations in which students can begin to see adults beyond their authoritative powers (making rules, handing out punishments, giving rewards) and as real people with struggles. When adults are willing to be vulnerable to the extent that they feel comfortable, it makes students feel like they can open up, too — creating an open and honest space to talk, share and take real steps forward.
However, a movement toward a healthier future isn’t automatically successful on its first day; it requires us to adapt to our communities’ changing needs constantly. The mental and physical health of youth will only improve through a constant flow of reflection and open-mindedness, tied together by a disciplined will to do something better. I was reminded of this during the center’s annual virtual event in 2023, in which nearly 200 school staff, parents and educators from across California came together in the middle of a workday to listen to our youth panel relay our insights.
The youth panel members had spent months researching resources (such as toolkits, educational videos, and guides) from a broad range of sources, analyzing our school experiences, and considering different concepts. That day, we shared our recommendations with education leaders on what they could do to help their young people, which included:
Integrating mental health discussions/lessons into existing or new curriculums.
Revisiting guidelines regarding a balanced amount of take-home work.
Ensuring that school clubs and sports are healthy environments.
Creating online open channels of communication and in-person events with parents to educate them on the pivotal role home life plays in student well-being and success.
The members of our audience were willing to take the time to reflect on their own strategies and were open-minded enough to acknowledge and consider new ones.
Students and adults should aspire to assemble and strengthen bridges of trust and understanding with the overarching goal of committing actionable change. Together, they can forge a path toward a more positive and inclusive school climate where students feel cared for, empowered and ready to embrace their futures.
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Julian Berkowitz-Sklar is a recent graduate of Saratoga High School and served on the Youth Advisory Team of the California Center for School Climate, a state initiative that provides free support on school climate and data use to local education agencies in California.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Career Education offers a critical and timely opportunity to reshape education and workforce preparation to be more efficient, effective and accessible, especially for students. As the Legislature considers the proposal, there is plenty here to embrace, from the need for greater agency coordination to better data, more opportunities to “earn-and-learn,” and workable pathways for students to stack up credentials in robust and emerging job markets.
One promising approach is increasing access to career technical education (CTE) fields through dual enrollment. Our recent research highlights how dual enrollment expands opportunities for both career education and exposure to postsecondary pathways.
By its very nature, dual enrollment — the practice of students enrolling in college courses while still in high school — facilitates access to higher education, accelerates credit-earning and streamlines education and workforce transitions. CTE-focused dual enrollment provides students early access to growing occupational fields, such as allied health, information technology and construction, and can move them toward economic prosperity.
Research shows that dual enrollment is associated with higher rates of high school completion and college participation and success. What’s more, dual enrollment opportunities in career-oriented fields may offer students who are not currently finding success or relevance in high school a “warm handoff” to additional training, typically in community colleges, and to jobs in growing economic sectors.
With our partners at the California Department of Education and the California Community Colleges, we explored access to different course pathways. We found that 18.4% of California public high school graduates in 2022 completed a high school-based career technical education pathway and 9.4% participated in these CTE pathways through dual enrollment (including 3% of students who do both). Importantly, 6.4% of high school graduates participated in career technical education coursework exclusively through dual enrollment, many of whom may not have otherwise engaged in such subjects. These courses expand the range of industries available for exploration among high school students. For example, fields like business and finance, public service, education and child development are available through college courses rather than through high school CTE pathways.
Right now, these opportunities are unevenly accessed, with lower relative participation among Black and Hispanic/Latino students and among students who struggle academically. These disparities arise from differences between schools, such as available programs or staffing, and school-based practices such as class scheduling and postsecondary advising. Yet, we and others (including the Public Policy Institute of California) show that formal, carefully implemented dual enrollment programs, such as those created through College and Career Access Pathways (CCAP) partnerships, foster more equitable access and participation.
We are convinced that CTE and dual enrollment, especially delivered in tandem, can be good for all students, as all can benefit from exposure to college-level work and relevant career-connected education. The unfortunate history, however, is that our systems too often sort students into one or the other: academic or career technical pathways. CTE-focused dual enrollment can bridge a stubborn divide and deliver early access to growing occupational fields, setting high school students on a path to professions with economic security.
The governor’s strong new Master Plan for Career Technical Education could be further strengthened by a greater focus on the expansion and careful implementation of CTE dual enrollment opportunities. Along the way, policymakers and educators should focus more on reducing barriers to these programs and encouraging participation by students who, in the past, have been unnecessarily left behind.
The research reported here was supported by the Stuart Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Analysis was completed under research partnership agreements with the California Department of Education and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. The findings and conclusions here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the funders, including the U.S. Department of Education, or of the state agencies providing data.
Construction site at Murray Elementary in Dublin Unified in 2022.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
A public-interest law firm threatened Wednesday to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom and state officials unless they create a fairer system of subsidizing the costs of school facilities. That system must be as equitable as the Local Control Funding Formula, the decade-old formula for funding schools’ operating budgets, Public Advocates demanded in a lengthy letter.
At a news conference announcing their demand, Public Advocates and school board members, superintendents and parents with decrepit, inadequate and unhealthy school buildings charged that the state’s school facilities program discriminates against districts with low property values. Districts with high property values gobble up most of the state’s matching subsidies to modernize schools, while property-poor districts serving low-income families can’t afford local school bonds to qualify for state subsidies to build comparable facilities, they said.
“It is our clear call to get this right,” said Gary Hardie, a school board member in Lynwood Unified in Los Angeles County. “We have not solved our facilities needs — not because we don’t fight each and every day for our young people, but we are up against policies that prevent us from doing the best we can do for our community.”
Hardie is one of four potential plaintiffs in a lawsuit. The others are Building Healthy Communities – Monterey County, Inland Congregations United for Change, and True North Organizing Network, which works with families across Tribal Lands and the broader North Coast region.
In 1971, the California Supreme Court struck down the school funding system based on local property taxes as violating the constitutional right of students in low-wealth districts to have an equal education. In the letter to Newsom, Public Advocates argued the current system of funding school facilities is no better than the property-tax-based system that the court rejected in the Serrano v. Priest decision.
“Study after study has acknowledged the open secret here: Some districts get to build swimming pools and performing arts centers, while others suffer through leaky roofs and black mold,” said John Affeldt, Public Advocates’ managing attorney and director of education equity. Citing a 2022 study by the Public Policy Institute of California, he said that lower-wealth districts have received nearly 60% less state modernization funding than higher-wealth districts since 1998.
“The discriminatory design of the state’s facility funding system is no accident,” he said. “It has been intentionally baked into the system, and its disparate results are wholly foreseeable.”
Hardie, a native of Lynwood, called his city “culturally rich” but under-resourced as a result of federal redlining policies that divided Lynwood’s Black and brown communities with highways that lowered property values.
Lynwood Superintendent Gudiel Crosthwaite said that this week the district of 12,000 students “had about 40 classrooms that were leaking due to the rains, and last year it was a different 60 classrooms.” While other districts are modernizing labs and performing arts theaters, he said Lynwood was forced to demolish the only major auditorium in the city because of the building’s condition. In the district, 99% of students are Black or Hispanic, and 94% are from low-income families.
Going Deeper
Credit: bike-R on flickr
Read more EdSource coverage about school facilities funding, planning and construction. California school districts rely on state and local bonds and developer fees to fund facilities. As this funding has fluctuated over time, research has found significant disparities in their capacity to keep up facilities that adequately meet students’ needs.
Public Advocates’ 21-page demand letter coincides with the start of negotiations between legislative leaders and the Newsom administration over the size and details of a school facilities bond for the November ballot. Two bills must be reconciled. Assembly Bill 247, by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, calls for a $14 billion TK-12 and community college state bond. Senate Bill 28, by Sen. Steven Glazer, D-Orinda, calls for a $15 billion bond that includes funding for UC and CSU.
Neither bill, at this point, gives a funding breakdown. However, AB 247 includes a possible framework for reform, with a point system that favors low-wealth and low-family income districts with a slightly larger state subsidy. Affeldt, of Public Advocates, dismisses this as inadequate for failing to provide enough funding to address the stark disparities in the current system.
There is little disagreement that a state school bond is needed. Money from the last state school bond, Proposition 51 (2016), with $7 billion in state support for K-12 and $2 billion for community colleges, has been allocated, and about $2 billion in state-approved projects are in the queue for the next round. There is also a demand to remove lead in school water and to shield schools from the impacts of climate change through better air filtration systems, flood protection and heat abatement.
Under the state program, districts pass local bonds through property taxes, and the state matches the money through a state-funded bond issue paid off through state taxes. For new construction, the state splits the cost. For modernization projects — renovating facilities at least 25 years old and portables at least 20 years old — the district pays 40% and the state 60% of a project’s cost.
Public Advocates is calling for addressing only the modernization program, not new construction. Affeldt said that the 60% guarantee for all districts, regardless of their ability to raise far more money than property-poor districts, provides substantially more modernization funds per pupil to higher-wealth districts.
The current facility program also includes a hardship program for small districts with so little assessed property that they can’t afford a school bond. However, the current qualifying criteria — a maximum of $5 million of assessed value — are strict and don’t account for the high construction costs in remote areas. AB 247 would raise the limit to $15 billion.
Between 1998 and 2016, the state provided $42 billion of the $166 billion that school districts raised for new construction and modernization, according to a report by Jeff Vincent, who co-directs the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley and has done extensive research into the school facility program and its disparities.
Spokespersons for Newsom and Muratsuchi did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
Long-standing complaints
The issues raised by Public Advocates are not new.
In 2016, then-Gov. Jerry Brown called for major changes in the facilities program, and opposed the measure when school districts and construction lobbies wouldn’t compromise. Brown wanted to concentrate state aid on low-income, low-property-wealth districts and end the first-come, first-served basis for allocating state matches, which he said favored wealthy and big districts, like Los Angeles Unified, with large facilities planners that can quickly apply. Voters passed the $9 billion Proposition 51 ($7 billion for K-12 schools and $2 billion for community colleges) anyway.
In 2018, Vincent co-authored a study that documented the disparities among districts’ ability to raise money through local bonds. He found that districts with the most assessed property value raised more than triple the amount of bond revenue per student than districts with the least assessed value per student.
With calls for reform escalating, Newsom took up the cause in negotiating a $15 million bond for the March 2020 ballot. The down-to-the-wire talks led to concessions. Instead of first-come, first-served, the bond issue set priorities for state funding. They started with districts facing critical health and safety issues, like mold in schools or seismic hazards, small districts facing financial hardship, schools needing lead abatement, and districts facing overcrowding.
The agreement also established a ranking system that factored in school districts’ ability to fund construction, as measured by bonding capacity per student and the percentage of students who are low-income, fosters, homeless, and English learners — the same measure for extra state money under the Local Control Funding Formula. Based on their point total, districts could qualify for a bonus 1% to 5% of state funding above the 60% match for modernization and 50% match for new construction.
The changes were not implemented after voters rejected the bond issue 47% to 53%. It was the first defeat of a statewide school bond in more than 40 years. Some attributed the loss to anxiety over Covid, whose infections were making the news; others blamed its unfortunate but coincidental title —Proposition 13 — and confusion with the 1978 tax-cutting initiative.
In September 2020, after Newsom and school districts reached a deal on what would become Proposition 13, Vincent told EdSource, “State leaders took the much-needed first step in putting forth a new program and a new wealth-adjusted funding formula. However, providing poor districts with a few more percentage points of funding may not remedy the inequities we’ve seen. It will be important to watch things closely in coming years.”
Public Advocates and the complainants say now is the time for the much-needed second step.
If negotiations fail, a lawsuit in the fall could complicate the chances of passage, if not derail, a bond measure in November. Knowing that, Affeldt said, “I hope that the serious threat of litigation and negative publicity that will come with that will make all of the players realize that we need a more aggressive overhaul of the system.”
The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) would create a $5 billion federal tax-credit scholarship program through a tax shelter for wealthy individuals.
The bill would provide minimally regulated scholarship-granting organizations with a great deal of discretion over how federal education funds are spent.
A hypothetical scenario illustrates the possibility of waste, fraud, and discriminatory behaviors.
The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) continues to move, quietly, towards becoming one of America’s costliest, most significant federal education programs. Now part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ECCA would create a federal tax-credit scholarship program that’s unprecedented in scope and scale. It has flown under the radar, though, and remains confusing to many observers.
Recently, a colleague and I showed how ECCA is poised to redistribute funds from poor and rural communities to wealthy and non-rural communities. A study from the Urban Institute drew similar conclusions. Since those pieces were published, ECCA—then a standalone bill—has passed through the House of Representatives and now moves to the Senate. ECCA’s fate remains uncertain, which makes this as good a time as any to examine its potential implications.
How would ECCA work?
ECCA’s stealthiness is partly due to the confusing nature of tax-credit scholarship programs. These programs move money in circuitous ways to avoid the legal and political hurdles that confront vouchers. Tax-credit scholarship programs like ECCA aren’t quite private school voucher programs, but they’re first cousins.
In a voucher program, a government gives money (a voucher) to a family, which the family can use to pay for private school tuition or other approved expenses. With a tax-credit scholarship, it’s not that simple. Governments offer tax credits to individuals and/or corporations that donate to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). These SGOs then distribute funds (“scholarships”) to families.
The U.S. already has 22 tax-credit scholarship programs, but they’re relatively modest, state-level programs. ECCA is different. ECCA would create a massive, federal tax-credit scholarship program, operating across all 50 states, with a current price tag of about $5 billion in the first year (down from $10 billion in the bill’s earlier draft). It offers an extremely generous tax credit. Individuals get a full, 1:1 tax credit (not just a deduction) for their contributions, which fully offsets their contributions. In other words, these “donors” don’t actually give up any money—hence the quotation marks. On top of that, ECCA allows individuals to donate marketable securities (e.g., stocks) rather than cash. This provides an avenue to treat ECCA as a tax shelter and avoid paying capital gains taxes. More on that in a moment.
Most students would be eligible for a scholarship, with the exception of those from households that earn more than three times their area’s median gross income. (More on that in a moment, too.) The list of qualified expenses covers everything from private school tuition to online educational materials.
Rather than go through all of the bill’s details, let’s take a look at a scenario that illuminates what this program could do. Remarkably, this scenario appears—to my eye, at least—fully compliant with the House bill (even if the characters are a bit overstated).
A hypothetical scenario to illustrate some of ECCA’s risks
A ‘donor’ who benefits from ECCA’s tax shelter
Let’s imagine a billionaire, Billy, who couldn’t care less about K-12 education but cares a whole lot about his own wealth. Billy hears about ECCA from an acquaintance who tells him about how much money Billy could save by “donating” to an SGO. Billy’s adjusted gross income (AGI) was $20 million last year. That means, according to ECCA, that he’s eligible to donate $2 million to an SGO this year (10% of his AGI).
Let’s walk through the math for Billy’s donation. Billy is looking to give $2 million in stock shares to an SGO. He bought these shares a few years ago for $1 million and then they doubled in value. That means that Billy’s earnings are subject to long-term capital gains tax if he sells the stock. With his AGI, that would be 23.8% in federal taxes plus another 4.7% or so in state taxes (depending on where he lives). In other words, if Billy sold the stocks today and kept the funds for himself, he’d owe about $285,000 in combined federal and state taxes on his $1 million in earnings (28.5% of $1 million).
By donating the $2 million in stock to an SGO, not only does Billy get his entire $2 million back as a tax credit; he also dodges those capital gains taxes. He’s a billionaire who is $285,000 wealthier for having made this supposed donation. (For a detailed illustration of how this works—and some nice figures—I’d recommend this piece from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.)
A scholarship-granting organization with extraordinary leeway in how to direct ECCA funds
Now, let’s get back to that SGO. Billy’s acquaintance, Fred, lives in the same town as Billy, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the United States. In fact, Fred set up the SGO, looking to capture ECCA funds within their shared community—and, just maybe, for himself. Like Billy, Fred doesn’t particularly care about K-12 education. He does have a penchant for fraud, though, along with a strong distaste for Republicans.
It might seem that Fred’s SGO couldn’t distribute funds to families in their ultra-wealthy area, since ECCA has income restrictions for scholarship recipients. That’s not the case. ECCA restricts eligibility to households with an income not greater than 300% of their area’s median income. In Fred and Billy’s town, with its soaring household incomes, even multimillionaire families with $500,000 in annual income are eligible. In more modest (and rural) areas, the cutoffs aren’t nearlyso high.
So, Fred is looking to give scholarship money to some wealthy families in his hometown. Notably, ECCA doesn’t limit the amount of money that he can give to any one recipient. ECCA just requires that he provide scholarships to at least two students—who, between them, attend at least two different schools—and that he not earmark the funds for any particular student. Fred offers students $100,000 apiece for supplemental tutoring. That might seem like a lot, but, hey, this is high-end tutoring.
A vendor with little oversight or accountability
In fact, Fred stipulates that the funds must be spent at a new tutoring shop, High-End Tutoring, just created by his buddy, a former teacher. ECCA seems to allow that. ECCA also allows Fred to take a nice cut for himself for running the SGO: 10% of the SGO’s total receipts.
No one really knows the arrangement that Fred and his tutoring friend have, if they have one, because there are hardly any transparency or accountability provisions in ECCA (aside from a requirement to obtain annual financial and compliance audits). We also won’t know if High-End Tutoring provides any educational value, because that’s not part of ECCA either. ECCA’s proponents have claimed there’s accountability to the SGO donors, who want to see their generous donations being put to good use. Billy, though, is enjoying his $285,000 money grab and content to leave Fred alone until it’s time for next year’s donation.
An invitation to discriminate—and an attempt to keep local and state governments from intervening
Fred does have one requirement of his own for High-End Tutoring that he doesn’t need to hide. High-End Tutoring isn’t going to serve any children of Republican parents. All students must complete an attestation form—stating that they and their parents are progressive—before receiving any tutoring services from this publicly funded vendor. Across town, another SGO leader is formally excluding LGBTQ+ children and children of LGBTQ+ parents from their pool of scholarship recipients.
ECCA, in its current form, seems to allow all of this, as objectionable as it may seem. And it’s not just an issue with SGOs funding tutoring companies or other supplemental services. Similar issues could arise with private schools, especially in states without strong anti-discrimination protections.
From hypotheticals to reality
The scenario above might seem ridiculous or caricatured, and to some extent it probably is. But the point is, it’s allowable under the proposed legislation, and we should be realistic about how much fraud, waste, and bad behavior a program like ECCA would invite.
Should we not expect wealthy stockowners to jump at the opportunity to exploit ECCA’s tax shelter? Is it unreasonable to think that many of these wealthy donors will look to benefit their own communities through their donations? Have we not seen bad actors creep in when governments offer large checks with hardly any accountability or strings attached?
This isn’t some tiny, insignificant program either. This is a $5 billion federal program that, because of a “high-use calendar year” provision in ECCA, is almost certain to grow 5% annually. In fact, the cost is likely to be considerably higher than thatdue to the foregone capital gains tax revenue. That’s not quite the size of the behemoth federal K-12 programs—Title I ($18.4 billion in FY 2024) and IDEA ($15.5 billion)—but it’s not all that far off.
And let’s be clear about cost, because ECCA certainly isn’t paid for by the contributions of generous donors. Tax credits are would-be revenue that the IRS is no longer collecting. That money is coming from somewhere else in the budget, whether it’s cuts in education spending, cuts to Medicaid or other social services, tax hikes, or increased debt.
This bill would introduce the most significant and costliest new federal education program in decades. It has virtually no quality-control measures, transparency provisions, protections against discrimination, or evidence to suggest that it’s likely to improve educational outcomes. It’s very likely to redirect funds from poor (and rural) areas to wealthy areas.
And, in its current form, ECCA leaves a whole lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.
A rumor spread quickly on Monday morning that Huntington Park High School in southeast Los Angeles might be the site of a raid after federal immigration agents were seen at a Home Depot nearby.
Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales, EdSource
Top Takeaways
LAUSD assures students’ and families’ safety during graduation ceremonies.
Huntington Park schools activate emergency protocols amid ICE activity.
More summer school locations, plus virtual option, made available to students who fear ICE raids.
Los Angeles Unified School District’s superintendent and board members condemned the raids and arrests of undocumented immigrants on Monday during a press conference at the district’s headquarters in downtown L.A. Meanwhile, 7 miles away, another raid was unfolding next to a high school, creating new tension and apprehension.
Around 8:30 a.m., videos posted on social media platforms showed what appeared to be immigration agents chasing and arresting day laborers by the city’s Home Depot, which sits behind and in sight of Huntington Park High School.
Simultaneously, a graduation ceremony for a local elementary school was taking place in the high school’s auditorium. Many people online began speculating that the ceremony might be the target of an immigration raid. It wasn’t, but the fear was real.
“These are communities of resilience and hope — places where generations have worked hard to build a better life, and yet our families are now forced to live in fear, looking over their shoulders on the way to school or their child’s graduation,” Rocio Rivas, vice president of L.A. Unified’s school board, said at the press conference. “This is just simply wrong.”
Huntington Park’s residents are predominantly Latino, immigrant and working class, a demographic that has been the target of many of the known immigration raids in recent days.
A protest was organized within hours of immigration enforcement activity next to a high school in the city of Huntington Park, commonly known as HP.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales, EdSource
‘Perimeters of safety’
The district’s protocol, which includes offering families the option of remaining on school grounds and notifying the district of immigration enforcement activity so they can determine the appropriate response, kicked into gear. An alternative exit door on the side farthest from Home Depot was opened.
A Huntington Park High official later confirmed that immigration agents made no attempt to enter the school, though a public statement addressing the rumor was not shared online until hours later. An attendee at the graduation ceremony, who declined to share her name, confirmed via a TikTok message that at the end of the ceremony, a school official announced the presence of immigration agents in the area and confirmed the agents were no longer next door.
Amid the uncertainty, district officials discussed the importance of centering students’ needs: Graduation ceremonies should continue undisturbed, and families should feel assured their children would be safe attending summer school.
L.A. Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho stressed that the graduation season, with more than 100 ceremonies taking place Monday and Tuesday, should remain celebratory and joyous. He said the district has directed its police force to establish “perimeters of safety” around graduation sites to help “intervene and interfere” with federal agents if they arrive.
“Every child has a constitutional right to a public education,” he said. “Therefore, every child and their parent has a right to celebrate the culmination of their educational success.”
An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent, and about 133,000 children in California public schools are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Carvalho also said principals have been instructed to minimize entry lines to limit the risks of waiting on the street. And parents will be allowed to stay at the venue as long as they need if there is immigration enforcement outside.
District police will also stay on-site for as long as necessary, he added.
Meanwhile, the possibility of ICE officials storming graduation ceremonies would be a “preposterous condition,” Carvalho said.
“I hope a situation like that will not occur,” he said. “But then again, I certainly would have hoped that militarized equipment would not be seen on the streets of an American city.”
And as the district transitions from this year to the next, Carvalho said L.A. Unified will expand the number of campuses offering summer school to shorten travel times; provide transportation, and add virtual learning options for students who do not feel safe attending in person.
“I want to be very clear to those who may seek to take actions that transcend our beliefs and our policies. We’re not just talking about our schools,” Carvalho said at Monday’s press conference. “We’re talking about our schools, places where kids wait for the buses, the bus itself.”
When immigration enforcement activity occurs near schools, educators and staff are at times simultaneously communicating the information with the district so they can confirm what response may be needed, and calming their students’ and families’ fears.
Communication flows the other way too — top-down from district officials to teachers, parents, and students regarding activity, and about any false rumors.
Rapid response network
On Monday, educators like Marcela Chagoya, a middle school teacher at L.A. Unified’s Stevenson College & Career Prep, reassured students, many somber and tearful after a weekend of raids and protests, that school remains the safest place for them to be. As she talked with students, her phone lit up with constant notifications from a Rapid Response Network about nearby ICE sightings.
“Our school district is a sanctuary district, and we’re definitely not going to put any of our students or their families, if they’re on our campus, at risk,” Chagoya said. “We’re going to defend them as much as we can.”
Chagoya is also one of many teachers who have gone through training by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, and is tasked with reporting any notification of ICE activity to their principal, who would then inform the district. She also carries a bullhorn in her car to alert the community.
She reminds the students that ICE agents won’t be allowed inside the classroom and quizzes them on what they learned about potential interactions with a federal agent.
“This is a lesson that we’re learning in real time,” said Chagoya. “And we will all just roll with it and be as proactive as we can.”
Kennedy High School students rally against budget cuts proposed by the West Contra Costa Unified School District board on March 11.
Credit: Jorge González
Top Takeaways
Students at Kennedy High School in Richmond mobilized on Instagram to protest West Contra Costa Unified’s financial decisions.
Students said that cuts proposed by their school board would threaten Pathways programs and class schedules.
The students aim to continue fighting against budget cuts they believe would have a negative impact on their education and future careers.
On March 11, Josue Enamorado stood in the teachers’ parking lot of Kennedy High School. He was nervous for many reasons, but he knew he was in the right place, among a sea of fellow students, their families and Richmond community members.
They had one common goal: to stop the district from gutting the Pathways programs at Kennedy High School, which are essential in protecting the students’ futures.
The district reduced the number of layoffs to eight, but Kennedy High students had more to fear than losing a handful of beloved teachers with these major budget cuts. They’d lose what makes their school special, according to Enamorado.
“Some of our teachers told us they may not return next year, and they mentioned that [the budget cuts] might cut away some of our classes,” says Enamorado, a sophomore. “And, to be honest, at Kennedy, we barely have anything, so hearing that, we knew we had to organize something and see what we could do.”
Enamorado and other leadership students from Kennedy High used social media to mobilize other students and members of the Richmond community to fight cuts that would decimate important programs. The teenagers organized a major walkout using Instagram, expert planning skills and sheer willpower.
“I believe that they have every right to protest against something that they believe is unjust, so I’m going to absolutely support them in executing their rights,” says Jackelyn Avendaño, the ethnic studies teacher and leadership adviser at Kennedy High School.
Enamorado, co-president of Kennedy High’s leadership class, was part of the group of students who organized and promoted the walkout, which was staged by students to protest the district’s proposed budget cuts.
These students were no strangers to protest. Since Donald Trump assumed office as president, the leadership class has organized several events geared toward social justice, learning your rights, and protesting the administration’s actions, including the increase in ICE raids in a city with a large Latino population.
Unfortunately, the narrative in the district, and in the area, is that our school is the bad one.
Jackelyn Avendaño
Sometimes they used class time to plan these events, Avendaño said. Other times, they organized on their own time. Many of these national issues are relevant to Kennedy students. And, as leaders of their community, they do their best to inform fellow students with the information they need to stay safe.
But this was different. This time, the issue felt personal. There’s a widespread feeling among Kennedy High students that they are deprived of many opportunities other schools in the district get, like more substantial elective offerings. Avendaño said this feeling of being given less than other schools is nothing new.
“Unfortunately, the narrative in the district, and in the area, is that our school is the bad one,” she says. “Our students were like, ‘there’s no way you are going to take this away from us when we already feel that we get the bare minimum at Kennedy High School.’”
Kennedy has three Pathways programs — Career Technical Education, Information Technology, and Health and Medical — that aim to prepare students for professional and academic careers once they graduate. With the proposed budget cuts, these programs were at risk. Additionally, the school would have gone from an eight-bell schedule to a six-bell schedule, meaning students would spend more time in fewer classes. With only six classes, they would not have the opportunity to explore electives and expand their schedules beyond the foundational courses.
For students like Enamorado, this walkout was a no-brainer. They would not let these cuts happen and made their dissent known. Leadership students took to Instagram.
They wanted their reach to go beyond the student body at Kennedy because they thought this was an issue that affected everyone. So the students held an emergency meeting, which was announced via Instagram, and they started to discuss how they’d try to prevent these budget cuts.
Finally, they landed on a plan — leadership students would organize a walkout, protesting the district’s proposed budget cuts and the effects they would have on their school. They announced it on Instagram on March 6, the day of their emergency meeting.
It was the first of nine posts about the walkout, with informational graphics about senior prom and the spring carnival peppered throughout. The mix between promoting a normal high school life and urging their community to fight for social justice mimics the dynamics of the student body of Kennedy High, Avendaño says.
“When we were kids, we weren’t as in tune with how the district was managing their funds,” she says. “It’s very special working at Kennedy High School because just working with the kids is a counternarrative to what people say about kids from Richmond.”
Whenever she mentions her job, Avendaño says she’s usually met with groans and apologies that she has to be at Kennedy High, adding that the perception of what her students are like couldn’t be further from the truth. Her 43 students are leaders with a vision for the future, she says.
At Kennedy High, 98% of the student body identifies as part of a minority group, and 65% are reportedly economically disadvantaged, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Kennedy High ranks as the lowest of seven high schools in the district, tied with Richmond High School, according to U.S. News & World Report. Being predominantly Latino from low-income families comes with a lot of false stereotypes, according to Avendaño.
“They take agency, and they’re very strong-minded and grounded, and I think that sets them apart,” says Avendaño, who also grew up in Richmond. “We have these kids who are leaders because of their lived experiences. Some of them have to grow up very quickly, so they’ve matured at different levels, or they’ve had to learn how to advocate for themselves.”
Avendaño admits that a part of her was afraid while planning for the walkout, for herself and her students.
“So I think every time there has been a demonstration, it’s definitely been in the back of my head that, OK, there could be some form of retaliation that can be directed at me from the district.”
She didn’t let that deter her, though. She said the students are very independent with their planning, and she stood by their decision to stage this walkout and supported them fully.
“It was never an option of whether or not I’m going to support them and stand by them, because it just aligns with who I am, and I believe that these students deserve to keep those Pathways and keep their teachers,” she said. “And so even though I was scared at times, at the same time I was at peace.”
The students persisted, despite interim Superintendent Kim Moses urging students to stay in class to avoid danger from crossing streets and unexcused absences.
I feel like the district should know by now that we’re still going to fight no matter what.
Josue Enamorado
Enamorado was the only sophomore at the walkout, which made him nervous. Still, he committed to the walkout for the betterment of the school, which his mother also attended.
Following the walkout, the district reduced the number of proposed layoff notices to one.
It’s unclear if the layoff reductions were a direct result of the students’ walkout. Still, Enamorado considers the walkout to be a success. For him and his fellow leadership students, this is just the start, though.
“I feel like the district should know by now that we’re still going to fight no matter what,” Enamorado said. “If [budget cuts] were to happen again next year, we will continue to fight.”
