Louise Simpson, superintendent of Mark Twain Union Elementary School District in Angles Camp, near Yosemite, is frustrated by state rules restricting how small rural districts like hers can spend expanded learning funding.
That was such a well-intentioned and important program for so many districts. It’s known by the acronym ELOP, and it was designed to make additional learning and enrichment opportunities in the school day. But it brought some really burdensome requirements with it, including a 9-hour day and 30 extra days of school.
And while that sounds really great, what’s happened for our small rural districts, is the reality of creating a program just isn’t feasible. And I’ll tell you why:
First, my kids are on the bus for more than an hour each way. They already have a big long day, and adding academics after school for enrichment is not super feasible for two reasons: One is we have a very difficult time finding qualified staff to run it. And the second one is, with the bus-driver shortage, we just don’t have the transportation.
So, many kids that would benefit from this program really don’t have the opportunity, and they are being left behind.
Our budget situation is so, so dire with steep declining enrollment, and we need to use the money that we’re already allocated for super-effective programs.
I came out of retirement this year because this little system was struggling, and only one in 10 kids are proficient in math and only one in four can read — and that’s unconscionable.
And I can fix it, but I need some help using the money that’s already been given to me to use during the day. We have a really cool program that we built with the Sierra K-16 Collaborative Partnership involving peer tutors. It allowed me to get $320,000 to fund an intervention teacher and pay 20 high school kids to come in and tutor my kids. And it’s working, but those funds expire in a year.
I need that ELOP money to be made flexible so that I can teach our kids the core foundational skills they need to be successful. That includes being able to use it during the school day. So many folks can’t find a way to make this funding effective that they’re actually giving it back, and that’s not okay.
We need to come to some agreements where it can be working for everyone. Let me take and share with you what unrestricting these funds could really do for kids.
This is our peer tutoring program. It’s funded in conjunction with Sierra K16.
(short video of tutors working with students)
I hope you’ll join me in reaching out to all of our legislators and asking them to provide small rural districts flexibility in how we use those funds.
The New York Times published a leaked plan to reorganize the Trump State Department; Rubio disowned it. Its goal is to align the State Department and foreign policy with Trump’s “America First” agenda. It’s a very scary vision of Fortress America, cut off from the rest of the world, with no concern for democracy, climate change, human rights, or Africa.
The Times reported:
A draft of a Trump administration executive order proposes a drastic restructuring of the State Department, including eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent.
The draft also calls for cutting offices at State Department headquarters that address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns.
The purpose of the executive order, which could be signed soon by President Trump, is to impose “a disciplined reorganization” of the State Department and “streamline mission delivery” while cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” according to a copy of the 16-page draft order obtained by The New York Times. The department is supposed to make the changes by Oct. 1.
Some of the proposed changes outlined in the draft document would require congressional notification and no doubt be challenged by lawmakers, including mass closures of diplomatic missions and headquarters bureaus, as well as an overhaul of the diplomatic corps. Substantial parts of it, if officials tried to enact them, would likely face lawsuits.
Elements of the executive order could change before final White House review or before Mr. Trump signs it, if he decides to do so. Neither the State Department nor the White House National Security Council had immediate comment on the draft order early Sunday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote a short comment on social media after this article was published calling it “fake news…”
Major structural changes to the State Department would be accompanied by efforts to lay off both career diplomats, known as foreign service officers, and civil service employees, who usually work in the department’s headquarters in Washington, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the plans. The department would begin putting large numbers of workers on paid leave and sending out notices of termination, they said.
The draft executive order calls for ending the foreign service exam for aspiring diplomats, and it lays out new criteria for hiring, including “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”
The draft says the department must greatly expand its use of artificial intelligence to help draft documents, and to undertake “policy development and review” and “operational planning.”
The proposed reorganization would get rid of regional bureaus that help make and enact policy in large parts of the globe.
Instead, the draft says, those functions would fall under four “corps”: Eurasia Corps, consisting of Europe, Russia and Central Asia; Mid-East Corps, consisting of Arab nations, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan; Latin America Corps, consisting of Central America, South America and the Caribbean; and Indo-Pacific Corps, consisting of East Asia, Southeast Asia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.
One of the most drastic proposed changes would be eliminating the bureau of African affairs, which oversees policy in sub-Saharan Africa. It would be replaced by a much smaller special envoy office for African affairs that would report to the White House National Security Council. The office would focus on a handful of issues, including “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.”
The draft also said all “nonessential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa would be closed by Oct. 1. Diplomats would be sent to Africa on “targeted, mission-driven deployments,” the document said.
Canada operations would be put into a new North American affairs office under Mr. Rubio’s authority, and it would be run by a “significantly reduced team,” the draft said. The department would also severely shrink the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.
California State University (CSU) will make generative artificial intelligence technologies like ChatGPT available to students, staff and faculty across its 23 campuses at no personal cost to them in anticipation that AI will reshape higher education and the state’s workforce.
Seeking to train students in AI skills and boost their career prospects, CSU will also be part of a new body, called the AI Workforce Acceleration Board, according to an announcement Tuesday at San Jose State University. That panel will include CSU academic leaders and representatives from the governor’s office as well as firms like Microsoft, IBM and artificial-intelligence chip manufacturer Nvidia.
“This initiative will elevate the CSU student experience, enhancing student success with personalized and future-focused learning tools across all fields of study, and preparing our increasingly AI-driven workforce,” Chancellor Mildred García said at a news conference.
The AI Workforce Acceleration Board will aim to ensure that CSU students are prepared for AI-related jobs or graduate school when they finish their degrees, CSU officials said.The board will also organize events challenging CSU students and faculty to useAI to help address problems like climate change and housing affordability.
In addition, CSU plans to facilitate faculty use of AI in their teaching and research. It will also connect students to AI-related apprenticeship programs, according to the announcement.
The rise of artificial intelligence has provoked optimistic predictions that the technology will trigger rapid innovation in higher education — equipping students with chatbot tutors, administrators with the ability to automate rote tasks and scholars with models that advance their research. But those bright visions are counterbalanced by fears AI will erode the value of a college degree, undermine the academic integrity of research and unleash widespread AI-assisted cheating in classrooms.
California leaders have been eager to cement the state’s place as a leader in developing generative AI, and say there is a need to educate more home-grown talent to work in the sector. More than half of AI workers in the U.S. were born in other countries, according to a 2019 report by Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
CSU’s focus on artificial intelligence comes at a time when campuses across the university system, especially those struggling with troubling enrollment downturns, are looking to trim costs ahead of an expected state budget cut. Noting that financial reality, CSU chief information officer Ed Clark said the chancellor’s office has allocated money from one-time savings to fund AI initiatives.“The truth is, we are piecemealing it,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have available one-time, and we’re going to have to do the same thing next year as well.”
Among the tools CSU is adopting is OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu, a version of the chatbot already in use at higher education institutions including Arizona State University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Unlike the free version of ChatGPT, conversations using ChatGPT Edu will stay within CSU and cannot be used to train OpenAI models, Clark said. Data privacy is a particular concern for universities, since users may wish to use ChatGPT to analyze sensitive or confidential information.
An OpenAI official said the agreement with CSU represents the “single largest deployment of ChatGPT around the world.” By negotiating a system-wide deal with OpenAI, Clark said, CSU is making sure the technology is available to all of its campuses, not just those that can afford to purchase enterprise access to ChatGPT on their own.
The university will pay about $16.9 million over the lifetime of its partnership with OpenAI, which is “less than current and planned expenditures for these technologies,” a CSU spokesperson said.
Generative AI tools from other companies will also be made available to CSU affiliates, including functions within software the university system already purchases, such as Microsoft Office and Zoom video conferencing. The system also plans to offer AI training modules to teach students, faculty and staff members skills like prompt engineering while guiding them on how to use the technology in a responsible way. Training provided by Nvidia will come with compute power so students can learn to work with GPUs, the electronic circuits used to train and deploy AI models, said Louis Stewart, the company’s head of strategic initiatives.
CSU officials are still determining the final lineup of the board, Clark said, but anticipate that it will include members of Newsom’s cabinet as well as representatives of Adobe, Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon Web Services, Instructure, Intel, LinkedIn and OpenAI. Clark said CSU-affiliated members will include Elizabeth Boyd, chair of the academic senate; Cynthia Teniente-Matson, the president of San Jose State University; Iese Esera, the president of the Cal State Student Association; and Clark himself.
Universities have varied in their embrace of artificial intelligence technology, with some eagerly hiring administrators and faculty knowledgeable about the field or updating policies around issues like academic integrity to account for AI.
CSU leaders have been contemplating the impact generative artificial intelligence will have on campuses for several years, including in the system-wide academic senate. A CSU committee in June released a list of recommendations for how the university system should incorporate AI.
The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU employees including professors, librarians and coaches, is seeking to add an article to its contract with CSU regarding the use of AI, citing concerns that adoption of the technology could “replace roles at the University that will make it difficult or impossible to solve classroom, human resources, or other issues” and otherwise negatively impact CFA members. Faculty unions outside CSU have voiced related worries.
California officials are giving students an extra month to meet the state financial aid priority deadline, saying fewer high school seniors have finished paperwork so far this year due to delays in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and uncertainty about federal education policy and immigration enforcement.
The California Student Aid Commission, whose executive director approved the 30-day extension from March 3 to April 2, reported a 25% drop in the number of California high school seniors who have completed financial aid applications this year compared with the same point in 2023.
The April 2 state priority deadline is the date by which students planning to attend a four-year institution must file applications for most state aid programs, including the Cal Grant. Students seeking Cal Grants to attend a community college can apply through Sept. 2. Students have until June 30, 2026, to complete the application for federal awards like Pell Grants.
The decline in completed applications is due in part to a two-month delay to the start of thefederal2025-26 financial aid application cycle, commission officials said. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, opened on Dec. 1 following the troubled rollout of the 2024-25 FAFSA. The form is typically available to students on Oct. 1.
People who work directly with students also say that concerns about the administration of President Donald Trump are giving some families pause about whether to file for federal student aid this year. The decision is especially fraught for students with undocumented family members in light of Trump administration rhetoric promising an unprecedented crackdown on unauthorized immigration. Federal law bars the use of data submitted through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, for any use other than determining financial aid, but both the National College Attainment Network and the California Student Aid Commission have cautioned mixed-status families that the federal form may not protect their data going forward. The California commission has recommended that families fearful of federal immigration enforcement complete the California Dream Act Application, or CADAA, a state financial aid program that does not share information with the federal government.
“Some of the parents are saying, ‘If they take me, they take me. But my kid is going to apply for financial aid for college’,” said Jasmin Pivaral, senior director of college culture at the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, an organization that works with five high schools in Los Angeles Unified. “It’s been really sad and really challenging to hear that parents are having to make this difficult decision, and we have no sense right now what kind of mental toll this is taking on students.”
The Trump administration has also threatened to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and pursued other efforts to freeze federal funding. Linda Doughty, the director of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Cal-SOAP Consortium, which works to boost college participation,said some families have mistakenly concluded that federal student aid will not be available next school year as a result.
“Our parents thought they canceled financial aid,” said Doughty, whose group is helping to organize several free financial aid workshops at area schools this weekend. “That’s misinformation.”
Doughty and her Cal-SOAP colleagues are among the organizations around the state working with the commission to host Cash for College workshops where students and their families can get advice from financial aid experts to file the FAFSA or CADAA. As of Thursday morning, there were 140 such workshops scheduled virtually as well as in person in cities including Bakersfield, Norwalk and San Bernardino.
EdSource reporter Zaidee Stavely contributed to this article.
Ending several months of uncertainty, the California State Board of Education on Wednesday chose new labels to describe how students perform on the four levels of achievement on its standardized tests.
The decision was difficult. The 90 minutes of presentations and discussions offered lessons in the subtleties of language and the inferences of words.
Board members said they were aware of the need to send the right messages to many parents, who had criticized the California Department of Education’s previous choices for labeling low test scores as vague euphemisms for bad news.
“Labels matter,” said board member Francisco Escobedo, executive director of the National Center for Urban Transformation at San Diego State. “Knowledge is a continuum, and how we describe students in different levels has a powerful impact.”’
Researchers have warned that parents are getting confusing messages, with inflated grades on courses and declining scores on standardized tests of how well their children are doing in recovering from Covid setbacks in learning. The new labels will apply to scoring levels for the state science assessments and for the Smarter Balanced English language arts and math tests.
Board members quickly agreed on “Advanced” for Level 4 and “Proficient” for Level 3 labels, the top two levels of scores. But their selection of “Developing” for Level 2 and “Minimal” for Level 1 differed from the consensus of parents, students and teachers who had been offered various options during focus groups in December and January.
They had preferred “Basic” for Level 2 and “Below Basic” for Level 1. The terms are clear, simple and familiar, a summary of the discussions said. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) classifies Basic as the lowest of its three levels, and California’s old state tests, which the state abandoned a decade ago to switch to Smarter Balanced, used Basic and Below Basic for scoring criteria as well.
But for some veteran educators on the board, familiarity has bred contempt, or at least bad memories, of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal law under the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Schools were under heavy pressure to increase their math and English language arts scores, or potentially face sanctions.
“I had a visceral reaction to the word Basic,” said board member and veteran teacher Haydee Rodriguez. “I remember NCLB and how finite that felt for students.” The feedback should be encouraging, not a label that discourages growth, as Basic did under NCLB, she said.
She and Kim Patillo Brownson, a parent of two teenagers who served as a policy director at the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, also pointed out that “basic” has a different connotation for students in 2025. It’s slang for a boring and uninteresting person.
“Calling a student Basic is an absolute insult in 2025,” said Rodriguez. “It could shut a child down.”
Board President Linda Darling-Hammond agreed. “If Basic is being used derogatorily, one can only imagine how Below Basic will be used. It is a real consideration; the meaning is different for adults.”
Board members turned to other words that had been presented to the focus groups. They agreed the choices should be frank, not Pollyannaish or dispiriting.
With Level 2, the purpose should be “trying to light a fire under parents to realize there is work to do,” said Patillo Brownson.
Stating that “Below Basic” says a student is failing, Escobedo preferred “Developing” for Level 1 and “Emerging” for Level 2. These terms are consistent with labels used for scoring the progress of English learners.
Patillo Brownson called Emerging “vague” and supported “Basic.”
Board Vice President Cynthia Glover Woods, who was chief academic officer of the Riverside County Office of Education before her retirement, favored “Minimum” for Level 1 because “it is important we are clear for students and parents that students scoring at the level have a minimal understanding of grade-level knowledge.”
Sharing the perspective of her peers, the student board member on the board, Julia Clauson, a senior at Bella Vista High School in Sacramento, recommended substituting “Approaching” for “Basic,” so as not to deter students from trying challenging courses. “Older students make academic decisions (based on what signals they get), so language matters,” she said.
The County Superintendents association also endorsed “Approaching” for Level 2 and “Developing” or “Emerging” for Level 1.
The board initiated what turned into a multi-month decision because of growing dissatisfaction with the labels that had been used since the first Smarter Balanced testing in 2015. They were Standard Not Met for Level 1, Standard Nearly Met for Level 2, Standard Met for Level 3 and Standard Exceeded for Level 4. Focus groups by the California Department of Education found that parents were confused about what “standard” meant. They found Standard Not Met as discouraging and Standard Nearly Met as unclear.
But a coalition of student advocacy groups, including Teach Plus, Children Now and Innovate Public Schools, along with the County Superintendents association and the Association of California School Administrators, criticized the labels for Levels 1 and 2 that the California Department of Education recommended as their replacements as soft-pedaling euphemisms for poor scorers. The department had proposed Inconsistent for Level 1 and Foundational for Level 2.
At its December meeting, the board told the department to try again with more focus groups.
Changing the labels to Advanced, Proficient, Developing and Minimal won’t change how scores are determined; the individual scores within each achievement band have remained the same in all the 18 member states that take all or some of the Smarter Balanced tests, which are given to students in grades three through eight and once in high school, usually in 11th grade.
However, additional work is needed to communicate the changes to parents and students. The department and its testing contractor, ETS, will spell out the differences between performing at the various levels in each subject and grade and the level of improvement needed to raise scores.
Tony Alpert, executive director of Smarter Balanced, pointed out that performance differences are a continuum with students showing gaps in some grade-level skills but not others. A student scoring at Level 1 may have answered some questions showing knowledge at grade level. As scores progress from Levels 2 to 4, students demonstrate increasing accuracy and complexity in their knowledge and skills.
Students who reach Level 3 have the knowledge to succeed in future coursework. Research has determined that for California high school students, Level 3 correlates with preparation for first-year courses at California State University.
The state board hoped that the label changes and new explanations would be ready for this spring’s testing results. Instead, they will take effect in 2026.
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices in the rain recently on the campus in Rohnert Park. Division II sports are on the chopping block to save money.
Credit: Amy DiPierro / EdSource
On the soccer pitch, inthe physics classroom and in the office of a trusted professor, students at Sonoma State University are confronting a demoralizing challenge: What happens if my program gets cut?
The Rohnert Park campus, 50 miles north of San Francisco, has announced a contentious proposal to close a $24 million budget deficit by nixing six academic departments entirely, eliminating about two dozenmajor degree programs and cutting all NCAA Division II sports, among other measures.
Sonoma State’s experience is the most dire example of the cost reductions at many of the 23 Cal State campuses, which in total serve more than 450,000 students around the state. The university system’s leaders say cuts are prompted by an anticipated decrease in state funding, rising costs and, on some campuses,slumping enrollment figures. The number of students at Sonoma State has plunged dramatically, from 9,400 students in 2015 to a nadir of about 5,800 in2024.
On a recentvisit to the campus, an EdSource reporter spent time with students, faculty and coachesdirectly impacted by the expected cuts. The most defiant promised to fight for reprieves or backed state legislators’ demands for a turnaround plan. This month, some students sued to try to block proposed cuts.
But mostly, students and faculty expressed worry that this could be the last time a Sonoma State undergraduate sees the advanced math explaining why light moves more slowly in air than in a vacuum, ponders the differences between second and third wave feminism or masters the subtle finesse of playing one-touch soccer in the rain.
Geology: ‘All of that will be gone’
Jackson Kaiser grew up at the foot of Mount Konocti in Lake County, part of a volcanic field three hours north of San Francisco that feeds what is reckoned to be the largest geothermal complex in the world. “I had a lot of questions that I didn’t know how to answer,” he said. And that’s why he majored in geology at Sonoma State University.
But the department that has turned Kaiser’s curiosity into a promising career may soon disappear.Kaiser could be among the last 40 or so Sonoma State geology majors, according to a professor in the department, if the university goes ahead with plans to eliminate the department. Sonoma State spokesperson Jeff Keating confirmed that all tenured and tenure-track geology faculty have received layoff notices, though several may be asked to teach temporarily.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Kaiser reverently held his favorite rock samples in theclassroom where geology majors take most of their classes. “The idea that that place won’t be here to come back to, that I won’t have an alma mater — it feels like our administration doesn’t want me to be a proud Seawolf,” he said,referring to the campus mascot.
Student Jackson Kaiser, who grew up fascinated by a volcanic field near a large geothermal complex north of San Francisco, laments that he may be among the last geology majors at Sonoma State.Amy DiPierro
Kaiser, 36, was working in the produce department of a Safeway grocery store when he found himself researching the chemical formulas of minerals. He marveled at their straight lines and geometric forms, so elegant they appear unnatural. He wanted to know more.
So around 2022,Kaiser, his partner and their two children, now 4 and 6, started commuting an hour and half or more every weekday from Lake County to Sonoma State, sending the kids to the Children’s School on campus while both parents took undergraduate classes. These days, Kaiser bunks with classmates from Monday to Friday, returning home to his family on weekends. “It’s not great,” he said. “But I’m working towards a better future, where I’ll have a real career and not just be working in a grocery store.”
His chosen career can have high stakes. After all, Kaiser said, it was a careful geological study in the 1960s that ultimately blocked a plan to build a nuclear power plant just 30 minutes from campus on a site traversed by the San Andreas Fault. A geological assessment is often a necessity for construction projects, especially in a region where debris flows can follow climate change-fueled wildfires. But geologists worry their numbers are waning despite growing demand for their skills.
A geology classroom on the campus of Sonoma State University on Feb. 12,Amy DiPierro
Kaiser, who will graduate at the end of the summer, has been collecting business cards from potential employers like geologic consulting firms. Thanks to the department’s frequent field trips, he’s had opportunities to practice skills like mapping, sample collection and paleontology.
He’s also taken part in department traditions, like feasting on watermelon at the summit after mountainous hikes or visiting the mammoth fossil that Sonoma State students excavated in 1981. “I hate the thought,” he said, “that all of that will be gone.”
Soccer: ‘Play all the way through’
The weather was lousy, but there they were in the rain at 9:15 a.m., the Sonoma State University men’s soccer team, lacing up their boots and stowing their belongings in white garbage bags to keep them dry. They had come from nearby Santa Rosa and far away Kapolei, Hawaii, to attendthe university. Together, they navigated the difficult reality that this could be their team’s last season,no matter how well they played.
There was Carson Sterling, a freshman center back from 18 miles north in Windsor, whose father and mother played soccer for Sonoma State before him. There was defender Cameron Fisk, a junior from Los Angeles studying business marketing, who had rebounded from injuries to play this fall.And, of course, there washead coach Marcus Ziemer, leading the Seawolves for the 34th year.
Ziemer watched the players warm up, his eyes shielded from the drizzle under a black baseball cap and glasses. Since he started as head coach in 1991, the men’s soccer team has won eight conference championships and earned its first and only national title in 2002.
But now things are grim. The university announced on Jan. 22 that it planned to eliminate men’s soccer along with the school’s other NCAA sports, among other austerities.
“It’s a very difficult kind of limbo right now,” he said. “We’re fighting hard to try and save the program and some of the other majors as well, trying to get them to reconsider.”
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices recently in Rohnert Park. With the school’s whole Division II sports program potentially being cut, some team players are looking to transfer through the NCAA portal.Amy DiPierro
Ziemer himself is in limbo, too. Unless efforts to save the Sonoma State Division II sports programs succeed, his contract will end on June 30. He would probably retire rather than seek another coaching job.
In the meantime, Ziemer and his four assistant coaches have advised players who wish to continue their collegiate soccer careers to enter the NCAA transfer portal,expressing interest in moving to other schools. A few already have offers.
“I’m just grateful that with everything going on, we have coaches like them that are willing to help us and see other opportunities,” said Fisk, who has entered the transfer portal while the Sonoma State team’s status is uncertain.
But for now, the team’s focus was on preparing the Seawolves for a challenging spring season, including matchups against NCAA Division I and semi-professional sides. Practice started with dynamic stretches, then a frenetic game of keep-away and a shooting drill to loosen quads grown stiff in the damp.
“The energy is still really high,” said Sterling, who is in talks with soccer programs at other schools. “Obviously, it’s a kind of bad situation, and we’re just hoping for the best. But we’re going to play all the way through no matter what, and we’re going to play hard for each other.”
The squad split into teams for a scrimmage, an assistant coach barking urgent encouragement as they played. He called a time-out. “What does it take? Communication. Thinking one pass, two passes, three passes ahead. Moving, adjusting, being aware,” he yelled, his voice booming over the slick turf. “So because we’re struggling, should we say, ‘Ehh, f— it, move on.’? Or should we grow through it? Let’s grow through it — let’s grow through it together!”
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices in the rain recently in Rohnert Park.Amy DiPierro
Women’s and gender studies: ‘I didn’t get that anywhere else’
Under the fluorescent lights of a windowless basement classroom, Xochilt Martinez Balladares and about 20 other students eagerly awaited a discussion on queer and trans theory. But before they could unpack works by critical heavyweights like Adrienne Rich, they trained their attention on an issuecloser at hand: the plan to dismantle the Sonoma State University Women’s and Gender Studies Department.
If the proposal goes forward, Sonoma State will offer the last women’s and gender studies classes in spring 2026. That could mark the end of a more than 50-year run that started with the founding of the program in the early 1970s and evolved into the Women’s and Gender Studies Department in 2001. Several students said the plan compounds their feeling that historically marginalized groups are under attack as the Trump administration seeks to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Martinez and her classmates also argued that the department teaches skills central to future careers, while providing community when they need it most. For Martinez, a women’s and gender studies major and Chicano and Latino studies minor, the long-term goal is to go into immigration law. In the short-term, she is considering a social work degree so she can work with at-risk youth and families.
“I almost dropped out twice because I felt very out of place,” said Martinez, 32. But she persevered thanks to a women’s and gender studies instructor who “talked to me on a personal level and made sure that I could continue my education. I didn’t get that anywhere else.”
The department typically attracts 25 to 35 majors a year, said Don Romesburg, the professor who teaches the theory course, but many more students who aren’t majors take its classes. Campus spokesperson Keating confirmed that all the department’s professors have been laid off, but said the university “will continue to support and encourage the teaching of courses that support women’s rights and the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Janis Phillips, 46,an education graduate student, said the loss of the department makes her question whether the university shares her commitment to students’ social and emotional learning.
“When students feel safe and seen and heard on campuses, that is one of the best predictors of academic success,” she said, facing her classmates around the circle of desks. “So to take a bunch of students and make them feel like they are not seen and not heard will be detrimental to their academic success.”
Students said the major prepares them for careers as psychologists, marriage and family therapists or health care providers. Because majors have to complete a community service requirement, students work with local organizations that help unhoused families, prevent sexual assault and support LGBTQ youth. “We’ve really taken seriously this question that parents often ask their students, which is, ‘What would you do with that degree?’” Romesburg said.
Despite the uncertain future of the department, students are doing the reading, Romesburg said, mindful that those who come behind them might not get the same opportunity. “They’re ready to roll up their sleeves and do project-based work, where they’re really generating ideas and reflections and engaging with the material,” he said.
A flier is posted to a bulletin board on the campus of Sonoma State University.
Physics: ‘Watching something that you love die’
The physics students filing into Scott Severson’s 9:30 a.m. optics class brightened with the wide-eyed surprise of children peeking at a gift: a sturdy wooden crate.
“It’s Christmas in our labs,” Severson said, gesturing toward the crate, which was filled with professional-gradelaboratory hardware. “We ordered this in better days,” he added, and a few students chuckled.
The Sonoma State Physics and Astronomy Department has indeed seen better days. Its alumni have gone on to lead companies, earn advanced degrees and become professors themselves. One of the department’s proudest moments came in 2016, when professor Lynn Cominsky was part of the team that documented a phenomenon called gravitational waves, an achievement that won three of her collaboratorsthe Nobel Prize. Cominsky said she has raised more than $43 million in grants for Sonoma State.
Such prestige has not shielded the Physics and Astronomy Department from cost-cutting plans. Though the department will avoid total elimination, Sonoma State plans to phase out its physics major. It is giving 30 majors two years to graduate and leaving 10 first-year students to find another degree or transfer, Severson said. After that, physics faculty memberswill only teach physics courses for students in other programs, like biology or engineering.
Already, one of the department’s lecturers has received a layoff notice, according to the university. Severson said he and three other remaining tenured faculty will cover the teaching load as the physics degree winds down. He doesn’t anticipate that tenured faculty will lose their jobs, but said some may seek work elsewhere or retire.
Troy Wilson and Jeffery Reedy at Sonoma State University demonstrate an experiment created as part of a program aimed at introducing middle and high school students to STEM fields on Feb. 12.Amy DiPierro
Ending the physics major also could reverberate at Cominsky’s EdEon STEM Learning program, which creates educational materials aimed at inspiring middle and high school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
EdEon’s work depends on Sonoma State undergraduates, Cominsky said, and currently employs between 15 and 20 students in fields including physics. “None of the research grants I write would have been possible without physics majors,” she said.
Meanwhile, the students in Severson’s optics class watched as he played them a video illustrating the spiral of two black holes.
“I want you to notice the colors of this,” said Severson, who has taught at the university since 2007. “The brighter the red, the greater the distortion of spacetime as this is happening.”
Among the optics students was Madison Ambriz, who plans to graduate at the end of fall 2025.Ambriz spent the summer learning to assemble circuit boards as part of a collaboration to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider, a famed particle accelerator used to test physicists’ theoretical predictions. “I had such a blast with it,” she said, but her enthusiasm has been tempered by the feeling that it’s too late to save the major.
“It doesn’t matter what we say, doesn’t matter how heartbroken we are, doesn’t matter what the numbers say, they’re still going to cut the [major],” Ambriz said. “And it’s just watching something that you love die, and it’s horrible.”
Wisconsin Public Radio reported that State Superintendent Jill Underly has announced that the state will not comply with a letter from U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in which she directed states to agree with the Trump administration about stamping out diversity, equity, and inclusion. Trump wants to eliminate DEI, which would involve reversing compliance with existing civil rights law. In addition, although McMahon may not know it, she is violating federal law by attempting to influence curriculum and instruction in the schools.
Thank you, Superintendent Underly!
WPR reported:
Wisconsin school districts won’t comply with a directive from the Trump administration to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs until districts have more information.
On Wednesday, state Superintendent Jill Underly asked the U.S. Department of Education for clarification on both the intent and legality of an April 3 directive that schools sign a letter acknowledging they’re following the government’s interpretation of civil rights laws.
This school year, Wisconsin received about $216 million in Title I funds. About $82 million of that money went to Milwaukee Public Schools.
Underly said the request from the Department of Education potentially violates required procedural steps, is unnecessarily redundant and appears designed to intimidate school districts by threatening to withhold critical education funding.
“We cannot stand by while the current administration threatens our schools with unnecessary and potentially unlawful mandates based on political beliefs,” Underly said in a statement. “Our responsibility is to ensure Wisconsin students receive the best education possible, and that means allowing schools to make local decisions based on what is best for their kids and their communities.”
On Feb. 14, the U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter giving educational institutions 14 days to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal funding.
At that time, the state DPI issued guidance to school districts encouraging a “measured and thoughtful approach, rather than immediate or reactionary responses to the federal government’s concerns.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has not clearly defined what the administration considers a violation of civil rights law. The February letter said institutions must “cease using race preferences and stereotypes as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, scholarship.”
In a related document addressing frequently asked questions about how the administration would interpret Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the agency said: “Many schools have advanced discriminatory policies and practices under the banner of ‘DEI’ initiatives.”
The document went on to say that schools could engage in historical observances like Black History Month, “so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination.”
Lynn Chan-Nguyen and Faith Ballesteros, two resident assistants at Sacramento State, at the Public Employment Relations Board office in Sacramento. They back unionization for about 1,400 RAs at CSU campuses.
Credit: Courtesy of the California State University Employees Union
Takeaways:
The union wants to absorb 1,400 or more resident assistants, who do everything from organizing karaoke nights to navigating health crises. They want more guidance about responsibilities.
Cal State opposes the bid,claiming it“would have detrimental effects for students.”
Student RAs typically don’t get paid, but receive benefits like free or reduced-cost housing.
To be a resident assistant (RA) in a college dorm is to be many things at once. The person who hosts university-approved events — and cleans up after nonsanctioned revelry. The person who builds community among students— and mediates between feuding roommates. The designated friend — and emergency first responder to a freshman spiraling into a mental health crisis.
That’s why the students behind the currentpush to unionize an estimated 1,400 resident assistants in the 23-campus California State University system argue they deserve better workplace protections and stronger guidelines defining their positions. If their bid succeeds, RAs would add to the more than 17,000 other student workers who joined the CSU Employees Union last year.
But CSU is opposing the move. In a letter to state labor authorities, a CSU representative said allowing RAs to join a union would “would have detrimental effects for students” and argued RAs should be considered “live-in student leaders,” not employees.
An RA’s role can include everything from organizing karaoke nights to making sure students know how to apply for food stamps. At CSU, they help manage dorms that encompass more than 67,000 beds. RAs receive no salary but get benefits like free housing or access to a campus meal plan.
“Sometimes we are (students’) therapists, and we’re essentially sitting there and connecting with students, one on one, and we’re talking them through really difficult times,” said Yasamean Zaidi-Dozandeh, an RA at CSU Dominguez Hills. “Sometimes we’re their doctors. We’re sitting there calling 911 for them.”
And it’s a position that can vary widely depending on the dorm’s size and the students it serves. An RA in one building might sleep peacefully while another is jolted awake by middle-of-the-night calls.
The union points out other reasons resident assistants could benefit from labor protections. Because RAs live in dorms, they risk losing their housing if dismissed unfairly, it says. Students interviewed for this story said RAs would be more willing to voice concerns to housing administrators, too, with union backing.
A successful union drive would put Cal State students in the company of RAs who have already organized at Boston University, Wesleyan University, Grinnell College and Georgetown University, among others. Though some colleges have voluntarily recognized such bids, others have resisted. The American Council on Education similarly argued against resident assistant unions in a 2016 amicus brief in a case before the National Labor Relations Board involving RAs at George Washington University.
“RAs often are required to be available around the clock to attend to emergencies. If universities and colleges had to bargain about the ‘hours’ of RAs, it is entirely possible that any agreed-upon hours limits would conflict with real-life emergencies,” an attorney representing the council and other higher education organizations wrote. “Could an RA rely on a union contract’s hours limitation to refuse to assist a depressed student in the middle of the night?”
The board ultimately gave George Washington’s resident assistants the go-ahead to form a union, though a union election planned for 2017 was later canceled.
At CSU, the employee union wants to absorb RAs into its existing unit of student assistants, who include part-time workers at places like campus health centers and libraries. Early last month, the union filed papers arguing that resident assistants share a “community of interest” with student assistants, meaning they have similar working conditions and job duties. CSU is currently negotiating its first contract with student assistants.
In opposing the bid, CSU says the housing and meal credits RAs receive are effectively financial aid, not wages. It argues that converting RAs to employees will jeopardize “peer-to-peer relationships” with student residents. It warns that RAs would need to pay taxes on in-kind perks that can reach nearly $30,000 in value. And it says blending RAs into the existing student assistants unit would “overly complicate ongoing negotiations.”
Finally, CSU argues that one of the reasons some RAs favor a union — a lack of consistency in their duties — is a better reason to reject the union’s claim that they share a community of interest with student assistants. “There are no set ‘duties’ or expectations nor set hours for RAs as a whole. In fact, the only uniform characteristic of RAs is that they live on campus alongside other students,” the letter says.
CSU’s opposition means that RAs will likely have to wait for a few more steps to unfold before state labor officials make a decision on the petition. A union spokesperson said the union disagrees with CSU’s response and expects a hearing before state labor officials to be set.
‘No clear distinction in what our role is’
Lynn Chan-Nguyen decided to work as a resident assistant for one reason: “I really could not afford to go to school without the job.”
Chan-Nguyen, a third-year student at Sacramento State majoring in nutrition, grew up an hour’s drive south in Stockton. If not for the meal plan and housing she gets by being an RA, she probably would have stayed closer to home and taken classes at a local community college rather than enrolling at Sacramento State.
But Chan-Nguyen has found noneconomic reasons to love being an RA, too. She enjoys hosting activities like ice cream socials, which help the upper-division, international and transfer students in the apartment-style housing where she works make new friends.
Still, parts of the position she could do without, like cleaning up vomit or trying to defuse physical altercations. “There’s just no clear distinction in what our role is,” she said. “And a lot of the times, when people do get hired, or when people are first starting off from the job, it is not defined what we’re going to be doing.”
First-time resident assistants only start to grasp how emotionally taxing the role can be during a two-week training at the start of the school year, Chan-Nguyen said.
It’s then that RAs realize they might face a life-or-death test of their counseling skills if called on to help a resident experiencing suicidal ideations or a similar health crisis. A 2019 study found that RAs who encountered a resident engaging in self-harm experience higher levels of burnout than RAs who didn’t have those interactions.
CSU Monterey Bay students move into campus dorms in August 2021.Credit: Monterey Bay/Flickr
Resident assistant Zaidi-Dozandeh at Dominguez Hills, who supports the union drive,said her first-year on-campus housing experience prompted her to become an RA.
The university’s housing department mishandled an escalating conflict among the students in her three-bedroom apartment, Zaidi-Dozandeh said. As an out-of-state student, however, she felt she had no choice but to return to university housing the following year. She shared her concerns with a staff member — who suggested she use that passion to become an RA.
Zaidi-Dozandeh, a fourth-year computer science major, enjoys connecting student-residents to resources like the school’s food pantry. But the work of an RA can also be vaguely defined, she said, creating miscommunication, inconsistencies, and, ultimately, a worse experience for students who live on campus — a problem as CSU campuses experience enrollment declines.
“The question really is, why are these students leaving housing,” she said, “when in some cases they really don’t have anywhere else to go?”
