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  • ‘Students are scared’: Border Patrol raids fuel fear in schools

    ‘Students are scared’: Border Patrol raids fuel fear in schools


    Denny Sicairos, 5, at a Bakersfield protest against an extensive Border Patrol operation held last week.

    Emma Gallegos/EdSource

    Advocates have called upon school leaders to take action to protect immigrants in the wake of an extensive operation by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Kern County last week.

    Immigrant families have been afraid to send their students to school in the wake of the extensive operation, some opting to keep them home.

    “Students are scared,” said Belen Carrasco, a middle school teacher at Bakersfield City School District, who reported an increase in student absences in her classroom over the last week. Students have told her that Border Patrol agents knocked on their doors, and in one case, detained a parent. Students are asking Carrasco for information on what they should do if agents approach them.

    One resident, Samantha Gil, said that her daughter’s immigrant friends at West High School in Bakersfield are “hidden in their houses. She is very sad for them.”

    The fear is so great that community members have been afraid to show up to school sites in rural communities where food is being distributed, according to Ashley De La Rosa, education policy director for the Dolores Huerta Foundation, a Bakersfield-based community advocacy organization.

    Advocates are encouraging immigrants to know their legal rights under the U.S. Constitution and to document any encounters with immigration officials. They are encouraging school leaders to get in touch with community groups that can provide this education or pass out cards with information about people’s constitutional rights, as Delano Union School District does. Above all, families are looking for assurance that schools are safe places that will not alert immigration authorities to their immigration status or address.

    “The parents are really looking to school districts to take action,” De La Rosa said.

    ‘There was a lot of terror’

    Firsthand accounts show that border patrol agents are broadly targeting immigrant communities, according to Rosa Lopez, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kern County. She works with the Rapid Response Network of Kern County — a group that offers a hotline for those who are a target of immigration enforcement or who may witness agents in the community.

    “What [agents] have done is terrorize communities and profile people who look brown, who look undocumented and who look like farmworkers,” Lopez said.

    The Rapid Response Network has also confirmed the presence of Customs and Border Patrol agents at gas stations and restaurants frequented by farmworkers and immigrants, pulling over farmworkers traveling to work, and even a Home Depot parking lot where day laborers look for work, Lopez said.   

    A video,shared by local NBC affiliate KGET showed a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent detaining a U.S. citizen and threatening to break the windows of his gardening truck, after slashing its tires. He was later released, KGET reported.

    Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector in Imperial County on the Mexican border of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol called this week’s raids Operation Return to Sender.  He posted photos on social media, stating that the operation was aimed at protecting communities “from bad people and bad things.” His posts about the operation included hashtags for Bakersfield, as well as Fresno and Sacramento. The agency did not respond to questions from EdSource.

    Bakersfield City Councilmember Andrae Gonzales said families he represents in Bakersfield were being “harassed,” “intimidated” and “terrorized” by Border Patrol agents.

    “All of last week, I’ve gotten countless calls from people who wondered what to do, what their plan should be; employers who saw their employees staying home; principals and teachers upset and concerned for their students because they all were hiding,” Gonzales said.

    There was a lot of chaos, particularly on social media, about where the Border Patrol was operating and whom they were targeting. De La Rosa said there were sightings of agents near schools.

    “There was a lot of terror — or just fear — that trickled into kids not going to school,” Lopez said.

    News reports, videos and posts on social media about immigration enforcement have caused many local immigrants to question whether it’s safe to send their students to school or even leave their homes at all. 

    Residents from across Kern County showed up in Bakersfield on Friday to protest the agents’ presence, saying they were there on behalf of terrified families and friends in their community — the undocumented, those in the midst of applying for asylum, green cards or citizenship — who are concerned about federal immigration enforcement.  

    Vanessa Acevedo, one of those protesters, said her sister-in-law, who is undocumented, is afraid to go to work or leave her house for any reason and has been relying on others to take her children to school.

    Many of the areas targeted by Border Patrol agents are frequented by Latin American immigrants, but the video of a citizen being detained sent shock waves into the local Sikh community as well, according to Raji Brar, co-founder of the Bakersfield Sikh Women’s Association. 

    Many immigrants in the Sikh community have green cards or are going through the asylum process, she said. Seeing an American citizen being detained was “jarring” to them and a shocking “abuse of power,” Brar said.

    She said the local gurdwaras, or places of worship, were empty over the weekend. Some parents have told her that they’re not going to work and that they’re keeping their children home out of an abundance of caution.

    “It was a wake-up call for all of us who happen to look a little different,” Brar said.

    Preparing for the second term of Donald Trump

    As state and local school officials prepare for the second term of Donald Trump, who promised unprecedented mass deportations of immigrants, California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently released updated guidance for how K-12 schools and colleges should respond to immigration enforcement agents. Some school districts have reiterated they are “sanctuary schools” — a stance many developed during Trump’s first term — and that they wouldstrictly limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

    But the operation conducted by the Border Patrol in Kern County seemed to come ahead of the expected schedule — Trump won’t become president until Jan. 20.

    “It’s really challenging, because I think we knew this was a possibility with this new administration,” De La Rosa said. “But (last week’s operation) caught everyone off guard.”

    Last week, Bakersfield City School District sent a message to its staff reminding them of guidance from the state attorney general and also a policy its board passed in 2017 called the Safe Haven Resolution, which designates schools as “protected areas” where immigration enforcement should not occur. District spokesperson Tabatha Mills clarified that no agents have visited the district’s schools.

    De La Rosa said that Bakersfield City School District is also planning to reach out to parents concerned about immigration enforcement through the district’s community engagement liaisons.

    This week, Delano Union School District plans to pass out cards to families, referred to as red cards, that have information about the rights everyone has under the U.S. Constitution, according to Assistant Superintendent April Gregerson.

    Delano is a rural community approximately 40 miles north of Bakersfield that is heavily populated by immigrants and farmworkers. The deaths of two residents fleeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in 2018, after dropping their daughter off at high school, led to community protests against ICE.

    An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent, and approximately 133,000 children in the state’s public schools are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

    A 2018 publication by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research reported that zealous application of immigration laws causes school enrollment to drop and can set back the education of young people, including many U.S. citizens. The study found that Latino enrollment dropped nearly 10% in communities where local law enforcement collaborated with ICE.

    State leadership

    The Border Patrol’s actions in Kern County have drawn condemnation from state leaders. The California Latino Legislative Caucus released a statement saying the unannounced raids are “sowing chaos and discord.” The group urged the Border Patrol to announce their raids and to avoid sensitive areas, including schools. 

    “It is seemingly a rogue group of Border Patrol officers that just decided to take it upon themselves to hang out at where farmworkers hang out, hang out where day laborers hang out and decide to essentially round them up and do exactly what the Trump administration threatened that they were going to do,” said state Sen. Lena Gonzalez D-Long Beach.

    Gonzalez and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond have introduced a bill that aims to establish a 1-mile “safe zone” around schools and prohibit schools from allowing immigration authorities to enter a campus or share information without a judicial warrant. 

    Gonzalez, along with Thurmond, plan to reach out to educators for feedback on how best to craft and ultimately implement this bill so that families feel safe sending their children to school.

    Students who encounter any violation of their rights at their school — such as through harassment or bullying — can file a complaint through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights or the Uniform Complaint Procedure through their local district, De La Rosa said.

    She also encouraged parents who are concerned about detention or deportation to file affidavits to instruct school or health officials about who may make decisions about a student. This can be especially crucial for disabled students who have an individualized education program.

    “Families really need reassurance from their district leaders and their elected leaders,” said De La Rosa. “If that doesn’t happen, they have a right to file a complaint and hold folks accountable.”





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  • How federal cuts are already affecting disabled students in California

    How federal cuts are already affecting disabled students in California


    A special education class at West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    TOP TAKEAWAYS
    • Federal cuts are directly impacting programs designed to support students with disabilities in their transition to adulthood and programs that train special education teachers.
    • These cuts have caused significant concern from advocates and educators for disabled students.
    • Regional special education administrators in California are calling on Congress to rescind the cuts and for the state to fill the gap in the meantime.

    Jake, a 17-year-old junior, is beginning to think about life after he graduates from Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego County. 

    This is a daunting task for any teen, but his mother, Angela, says it’s been especially thorny for Jake, who is on the autism spectrum, has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and struggles with anxiety. 

    The prospect of getting a job one day soon has made him “suicidal,” said Angela, who asked not to share her family’s last name to protect her son’s privacy about his diagnoses. She said her son has told her, “I’m going to be homeless; I won’t get a job.”

    So Angela was thrilled when Jake was accepted into a new program at his school, Charting My Path for Future Success, which helps students with disabilities navigate into adulthood. In late January, Jake began to meet with a caseworker who seemed to understand his needs. At the time, Angela thought, “My prayers have been answered,” she said.

    That changed on Feb. 12, when Jake’s school district, Poway Unified, received a notice that the Trump administration had cut funding for the grant behind Charting My Path for Future Success.

    “We don’t have a clear understanding of why this decision was made or why this particular grant program was cut so suddenly,” said Stacey McCrath-Smith, director of special education at Poway Unified. “It was very upsetting to our staff. It was hard to explain to families and parents.”

    An email from the U.S. Department of Education said the grant was “deemed to be inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, Department priorities.” Representatives from the department did not respond to questions from EdSource.

    Educators and disability advocates in California are raising the alarm about federal cuts that are already affecting programs that support students with disabilities. That includes research like Charting My Path for Future Success, but also cuts to special education teacher training. 

    The disability advocacy community is in defense mode, said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy for The Arc, a national advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

    “There are many, many pieces that we’re concerned about,” Linscott said.

    Linscott and other advocates for disabled students worry that other Trump administration proposals, such as dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and cutting Medicaid, could further harm disabled students. But some cuts have already taken effect.

    The morning after the district was told its grant funding was cut off, Poway Unified notified four teachers being trained to help disabled teens transition to adulthood that they would immediately be reassigned to other positions in the district. This is despite early signs of success, such as one nonverbal student who had become highly engaged in sessions about career planning in a way he had never been in academic classes, McCrath-Smith said. 

    Jake will no longer receive training to help prepare him for college and employment. Now he will not receive mentoring or lessons on goal-setting, finding an apartment and other skills. His mother said he struggles with real-world topics like banking or how a resume works. She’s been looking for alternatives, but is unsure how her son will find help for his unique needs.

    “It was like a gut punch,” Angela said.

    Educators’ worries extend beyond the 420 students in California, including students at Sweetwater Union High and Mt. Diablo Unified school districts, who were a part of the national study.

    “The recent and abrupt elimination of critical funding and research developments will significantly impact important ongoing special education research and services to students, not only in our member [local education agencies], but in others who would ultimately benefit from the results of their research,” according to a letter written on behalf of the SELPA (Special Education Local Plan Area) Administrators of California, California County Superintendents, the Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education and the three districts hit by the cuts. 

    The March 21 letter calls on Congress to compel the U.S. Department of Education to reverse its decision, and for the California Legislature to bridge the immediate funding gap of $2.8 million for this “vital” special education research.

    A lawsuit filed on behalf of researchers against the U.S. Department of Education this month challenged whether the executive branch has the constitutional power to cut nearly $900 million from the Institute of Education Sciences. The suit called the department’s actions “dramatic, unreasoned and unlawful,” noting that the canceled grants left students with disabilities “in the lurch, with no time or help to even transition out of the Charting My Path Program.”

    Cuts to special education teacher training

    The Trump administration also abruptly terminated $600 million in federal teacher training grants, including programs to address the acute shortage of special education teachers who work with California’s nearly 840,000 students with disabilities.

    Three SELPAs in the state reported losing funding to create a pipeline of special education teachers, according to a March 25 letter sent to California state and federal legislators on behalf of the affected districts, SELPA Administrators of California and California County Superintendents.

    Under these cuts, the Tulare County SELPA reported that it will lose about $10 million, San Diego’s South County SELPA will lose $4.1 million and the West San Gabriel SELPA will lose up to $650,000. Those cuts are in limbo now as they’re also being challenged in court.

    Teacher shortages can impede the education of students with disabilities, said Tamara Schiern, executive director of the West San Gabriel Valley SELPA. When districts are unable to fill openings for these positions, they either hire teachers who are not fully credentialed or long-term substitutes. 

    According to a federal survey, there’s both a state and nationwide shortage of teachers with the appropriate special education credentials, with 40% of districts reporting in 2020-21 that they struggled to staff special education roles.

    The West San Gabriel Valley SELPA typically has 30 vacancies to fill each year in its 14 districts, and it would struggle to find credentialed teachers for eight to 12 of them, Schiern said.

    In one example, Schiern said a string of long-term substitute teachers was covering a class of elementary school students with autism. Parents complained, and then the district, which she declined to disclose, asked the SELPA for help. The agency was able to help set the classroom up and model instructional strategies, but when a new substitute teacher came in, the agency had to start from scratch again.

    “That’s what a teacher shortage looks like on the ground,” Schiern said.

    This is why the West San Gabriel Valley SELPA began a program to train teacher residents specifically in special education. Funding came from state and district sources, but districts with high-need students received federal reimbursement for their share. This year, the program supported 27 teacher residents; ultimately, the goal was to cover 40 residents. 

    But federal cuts to the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant mean that the annual stipend for the residents will be slashed from $37,000 to $27,000; the coordinator for the program was cut, and only half the number of teacher residents can be supported, Schiern said.

    In the meantime, the letter from special education administrators and superintendents asks California’s congressional delegation to pressure the U.S. Department of Education to reinstate the funding and the state legislators to cover the $14.9 million shortfall.

    “The sudden loss of federal funding for teacher residency grant programs will have a significant and profound impact on an already fragile system,” reads the letter.

    The San Gabriel Valley is a community that is ethnically and racially diverse, with a large population of immigrants and English learners. The region’s SELPA looks to parents and paraprofessionals to recruit special education teachers who can reflect that demographic diversity, Schiern said, adding that representation matters in education for both students and parents — a point backed by research. 

    This made the program attractive for California to fund, but it also may have made the program a target for the Trump administration, which has canceled contracts for programs that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion.

    “I can’t help but feel that that could be part of the issue,” Schiern said. “A lot of what California does is at odds with the federal government right now.”

    We want to hear from you

    A new administration always brings change, and education is once again at the center of the national conversation. As we track these developments, we want to hear from you. What policies are you interested in reading about? What questions do you have about how federal decisions might shape education in California? How will this change affect disabled students in California?

    Your input will help inform our coverage.





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  • For former foster care students, college help exists long after exiting the system

    For former foster care students, college help exists long after exiting the system


    Deborah Vanessa Lopez, left, is a program manager that works with students formerly in the foster system at Rio Hondo College. She has worked with Faylen Bush, right, who is set to transfer out of Rio Hondo College this year.

    Credit: Faylen Bush and Deborah Vanessa Lopez

    When Faylen Bush returned to college in 2023 after being laid off from work, he planned to pursue construction management to build on the skill set he had acquired over several years in that field as a concrete carpenter and protect himself from future layoffs.

    He was married and had three young children, and he had little time to spare as he pursued a more stable future for his family. He knew that to succeed in college, he needed to remain more focused on his career goals than he was when he had been in college about a decade earlier, when he was first entering adulthood after leaving the foster system amid a cycle of housing instability and juvenile detention.

    Faylen Bush

    And so, when a program at his school, Rio Hondo College in Los Angeles County, reached out to Bush with resources for students with experience in the foster system, he paid little attention. He was unsure that the resources would apply to him at all because he was in his early thirties.

    But the program, Guardian Scholars, was persistent. They tried to reach him multiple times until he finally decided to go to their office and learn more. He learned that Guardian Scholars is a chapter-based organization across California’s college campuses that supports students who have foster care experience. It is an organization that, since its inception in 1998 at Cal State Fullerton, has sought to increase college enrollment, retention, and graduation rates among former foster youth as a pathway toward overall stability in their lives.

    “I can honestly say that stepping into the office, sitting with Deborah, and having that conversation opened up a whole world of opportunities for me,” said Bush of his first meeting with Guardian Scholars staff.

    “Deborah” is Deborah Lopez, a Guardian Scholars program manager. She and her team connect students with access to counselors who are trained to support former foster youth, grants to purchase textbooks, meal vouchers, on-campus jobs, access to conferences to further students’ professional networks, and more.

    “Our students experience a tremendous amount of trauma even if it was one day or 15 years of their life” in foster care, Lopez said. This thinking serves as the foundation for their program: They extend support to every single Rio Hondo College student with experience in the foster system, no matter when or how long their experience was.

    Bush said he is aware of the statistics he is up against given his upbringing. According to a national 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, far fewer students with experience in foster care have a bachelor’s degree — nearly 5% for men and about 9% for women, than students without foster experience, about 31% for men and close to 36% for women.

    Deborah Lopez

    These rates persist despite several studies showing that the majority of current and former foster youth report an interest in attending and graduating from college.

    But Lopez knows the statistics of the students who have received support targeted to their foster care background. For example, across the California community colleges, students are more likely to enroll in credit-bearing courses and to remain enrolled in school if they are enrolled in foster-specific support programs, according to a 2021 report from John Burton Advocates for Youth, an influential nonprofit that advocates for California’s homeless and foster youth.

    “One of the things that has worked for us as a program is consistency,” said Lopez, who has worked with the program for nearly a decade.

    While many of their students have graduated and transferred from Rio Hondo, some have needed to cut back on classes or drop out altogether. “But eventually, they come back, and we’re here,” said Lopez.

    With the support he has received, Bush has not only remained on track to transfer to a four-year university later this year — he has applied to several Cal State and University of California schools, though he is particularly interested in UCLA. His career goal has also changed in the year-and-a-half since he returned to school. He is now pursuing psychology and a career in counseling, and, while the career change might seem abrupt, it’s a return to the goals he had about a decade ago.

    Foster youth also need a blueprint

    As Bush tells it, the consistent instability throughout his childhood played a critical role in how his life unfolded as he entered adulthood.

    “The system is trying to help … and it’s providing homes, but I still feel like a necessary component is to provide that blueprint for success after you age out,” said Bush of the foster system.

    He went on to describe the blueprint that a teenager without foster experience might have: If their parents went to college, they might also attend college; if their parents were part of the workforce, they might decide to pursue a similar path after high school.

    “Someone who has experienced the foster system, they don’t have that blueprint and, sadly, the statistics show there’s a small percentage of success stories,” he added.

    He was around 10 years old when both of his parents died, leaving him and his sister in the foster system. Their maternal grandmother was near them in Lancaster, a city in northern Los Angeles County, but she was caring for her own young children plus some of her grandchildren and couldn’t take them in.

    They remained in foster placement for two years until an aunt in Louisiana reached out and requested they be placed with her.

    Thus began Bush’s experience with kinship in which a child in foster care is placed with a family member. He was living with family once again, but his life was no more stable than before.

    “I can honestly say she tried her best, but she didn’t really have the resources to fully cater to our needs. To her it was more like, OK, you guys live with me now,’ and that’s it,” Bush said. “But there was trauma that needed to be addressed. There was, for both of us, abandonment issues that needed to be addressed.”

    By the time he was 14, Bush was regularly suspended from school, eventually missing enough days to become truant and land in juvenile detention.

    “That set a course for me, going in and out of juvenile corrections,” he said. He continued getting into trouble, eventually spending over a year inside.

    Once released at 16, he returned to his aunt’s home, but he had developed resentment toward her because she had not visited him during his time inside. He learned that she continued receiving payment as he was still officially under her care, and so began a cycle of housing instability as he began to stay at friends’ homes and hotel rooms rather than sleep at his aunt’s home.

    To route the payment to himself and pay for housing, Bush figured out how to emancipate himself at 17. It’s a process that Lopez noted few of their students go through given its difficulty.

    Bush knew he had a path forward: football. After his time in juvenile detention, his football coach continued to invest in him, sending him to university training camps. But his behavior landed him in trouble again, and he was in a fight so bad during the summer going into his senior year of high school that the coach ended the relationship.

    “I would always wind up in situations where I’m in trouble. I always used to ask myself when I was in front of the principal, when I was in front of the judge, ‘Why am I here?’ said Bush, reflecting on his youth. “And then I learned over time, it’s the decisions that I’m making.”

    “Before, there were a lot of things that were happening that were out of my control,” he continued. He slowly learned there were things he had control over, such as his path toward emancipation, but without the proper, stable guidance of an adult through his upbringing, he was often unclear on how to properly use that newfound power.

    Unable to play football after the fight, he reached out to a former foster parent in California who agreed to take him in so he could start fresh in his home state.

    With his high school requirements complete, he attended Southwest College in Los Angeles, playing football for the team and eventually landing a scholarship to continue playing the sport in Oklahoma.

    He had dreams of continuing his studies in psychology, eventually earning a doctorate in the field and becoming a school counselor.

    But the pressure of supporting his family took center stage once he and his now-wife had their first child, so he declined his university scholarship. “It was such a big transition at that time, and I felt the need to support my family,” said Bush.

    From then through the fall of 2023, Bush worked odd jobs and eventually secured stable work in the construction industry as he and his wife had two more children. His return to school was prompted by his layoff, but he was also keenly aware of the harsh reality of working in such a physically demanding field.

    “The longevity for a Black carpenter isn’t that long. I have to figure out how I’m going to maneuver within this industry so that I can make it for at least 15 years,” he said of his thinking at the time.

    It wasn’t long after landing in the Guardian Scholars office that he began thinking more deeply about his goals. What began as a return to school to secure job stability in a field he’d entered solely to provide for his family has since become a path back to the goals Bush had long before he had the level of support he has found with Lopez and her team at Guardian Scholars.

    “My daughters and my son,” he said. “I feel they are the best thing out of my whole life. I’m trying to put myself in a position where I can be the best example and the best provider for them. I know now, at 33, with all my life experiences, this is what seems clearest to me.”





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  • How Oakland Unified is helping immigrant students fill education gaps

    How Oakland Unified is helping immigrant students fill education gaps


    Teacher Shannon Darcey helps a student interpret a graph.

    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    In her home country of Guatemala, Maribel attended a one-room schoolhouse for two years, but the teacher was often absent, causing class to be canceled. She never learned how to read. The school closed during Covid, and she never returned to class until last year, when she moved to Oakland.

    Now 11 and enrolled in middle school, she is learning English and at the same time filling gaps in her education — how to read, interpret graphs and acquire other skills she never learned before.

    Maribel’s school, Urban Promise Academy, is one of four middle and high schools in Oakland trying out a new curriculum developed just for students who did not attend school for years in their home countries. School staff asked EdSource to only use middle names to identify students because they are recent immigrants. There is heightened fear among immigrant students and families because of the Trump administration’s promises to ramp up immigration enforcement.

    In Maribel’s classroom, though, no fear was palpable. Instead, there was joy.

    On one recent morning in her English class, Maribel and her peers were analyzing graphs showing favorite colors, favorite foods, favorite sports and home languages among students in a class. They were practicing marking the x-axis and y-axis, pronouncing numbers in English and talking about what the graphs meant.

    “How many students like pizza?” asked teacher Shannon Darcey.

    “Eight students like pizza,” responded a student.

    Teacher Shannon Darcey teaches new immigrant students skills like interpreting graphs at the same time as they learn English.
    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    About 3,300 students in Oakland Unified this school year — close to 10% of the total student population — immigrated from other countries in the last three years. Of those, at least 600 had more than two years in which they did not attend school in their home countries. These students are often referred to as students with interrupted formal education, or SIFE.

    The reasons students missed school vary. Some lived in rural communities far from schools, for example. For others, it was dangerous to attend school because of gang violence or war in their communities. Other students simply had to work.

    When students haven’t yet mastered academic reading, writing, or math in their home language, they have a lot more to learn in order to grasp middle or high-school level material, even as they are learning English. But if the materials or curriculum are designed for younger students, it can be boring or seem too childish for teenagers.

    Before this school year, Darcey taught English to recent immigrant students with a huge range of academic knowledge. Some students were reading at seventh or eighth grade level in Spanish, for example, while others could not read at all. She remembers some students being frustrated.

    “I had one kid … Every single day for six months, he was like, ‘I can’t read. Why are you giving me this?’” Darcey said. “He felt like, ‘Everyone else in here knows what is happening, and I have no idea what this is. Why are you telling me to have a book in my hands?’”

    For years, Darcey tried to access curriculum designed especially for students who have had big gaps in schooling. She had heard about a curriculum called Bridges, developed by researchers at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. But when she tried to get materials from them, she was told they were only available for teachers in New York.

    Julie Kessler, director of newcomer and English language learner programs in Oakland Unified, said many teachers she has worked with in Oakland Unified and San Francisco Unified were frustrated at not being able to access the Bridges curriculum.

    “And so it’s like, who’s got a bootleg copy of it?” Kessler said. “And it’s just been inaccessible to the field.”

    She said she has often seen students with big gaps in schooling disengaged in class.

    “They are experiencing sometimes an alternate assignment, sometimes sitting with like a Disney book or a children’s book, when even the scaffolded newcomer curriculum is inaccessible to them,” Kessler said. “We were seeing a lot of that because teachers didn’t have a way to connect them to what was happening.”

    Last year, though, Kessler was able to secure funding from the California Department of Social Services’ California Newcomer Education and Well-Being program, to develop a new curriculum considering the needs of Oakland’s newcomer population and aligned to the California English Language Development standards. She worked with some of the authors of the Bridges curriculum, who now have an organization called the SIFE Equity Project.

    The resulting Curriculum for SIFE Equity is open source, available to all teachers anywhere on the internet. And Kessler said there are teachers in San Rafael, Elk Grove, San Diego and Vista using it, in addition to Oakland. Outside of California, the curriculum is also being used in New York City and Prince William County, Virginia.

    “We’re hearing a lot of gratitude from teachers who are like, ‘Oh my God, finally something that I can use with this group of students that feels worthy of their time, that feels respectful of them and feels like it’s doing the skill building that we know that they need,’” Kessler said.

    The curriculum currently includes about 50 days of instruction — less than a third of a school year. Kessler said the district is now trying to get more funding from the Department of Social Services to develop a full 180 days, so it can be used for a full school year.

    Darcey said the curriculum has made a huge difference. She now has separate English classes just for students who have gaps in their education.

    A student’s “identity map,” used to organize information that will later be used in a slideshow.
    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    The class began the school year with a unit on identity. Studens learned how to say their names, how old they are, where they are from, what language they speak. They later put together “identity maps” with their name in the middle, and information about their hometowns, their ages, their responsibilities, families and what they like to eat and do for fun written in spokes all around. Then they created slideshows with the information and added photos.

    Fourteen-year-old Anallely’s map shows that she likes salad, fish and marimba music, that she speaks the indigenous language Mam in addition to Spanish, and her hometown is in the mountains and forest of Guatemala, where it is hot and rainy.

    Anallely only attended school in her hometown until third grade. After that, she stopped going so she could work with her father, planting and harvesting coffee on a farm. 

    She said she had never learned about graphs or maps to organize information before coming to school in Oakland. 

    “It’s very useful, because you can use them to define how many people like something or which is their favorite, or where they are from,” she said in Spanish.

    She hopes to someday become a doctor to help babies and people who are sick. She’d also like to travel the world.

    Most of Darcey’s students are new to reading in any language, so Darcey also works with them in small groups to teach them letter sounds, and how to sound out syllables and one-syllable words like tap, nap and sat, using a curriculum called UFLI Foundations, adapted for recent immigrant students by teachers at Oakland International High School.

    Teacher Shannon Darcey works with new immigrant students on sounding out syllables.
    Zaidee Stavely / EdSource

    Another student, Arturo, never attended school in his life until he enrolled at Urban Promise Academy at 14 years old.

    “In previous years, a kid like that in my class, I would’ve felt like, ‘Oh my God, they’re like totally lost, and it feels like they’re just sitting there 80% of the time,’” Darcey said. But she doesn’t feel that way about Arturo. “He is engaged, he’s trying. Can he read the words on the page yet? No. But he’s still able to follow what’s happening.”

    Darcey is grateful to work with these students.

    “They bring such an eagerness and excitement, a willingness to try new things that maybe other kids their age are not as enthusiastic about,” Darcey said. “They often bring a work ethic that I think can really help a lot of them be successful in school.”

    Giving these students skills to navigate the world is important, Darcey said, because they are already part of our society. 

    “We’re going to prepare them to be successful in their lives,” she said.

    Maribel, the student who only attended two years of school in Guatemala, said she was afraid to come to school in the U.S. at first, but now she looks forward to it.

    “The teacher speaks some Spanish and she always helps us if we need anything,” Maribel said. “I can write some words in English now, and I’m writing more in Spanish, too. And I’m learning to read.”

    A previous version of this article incorrectly named the literacy curriculum Darcey uses as SIPPS. She uses UFLI Foundations.





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  • Cal State unveils artificial intelligence tools for students

    Cal State unveils artificial intelligence tools for students


    Credit: Pexels.com

    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 use AI 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. 

    Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023 signed an executive order directing the state to study the impact of AI on California’s workforce and, in August, announced an agreement with Santa Clara-based Nvidia to offer AI certificate programs and workshops at community colleges.

    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.





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  • Do California college students regret their chosen majors?

    Do California college students regret their chosen majors?


    “I transferred as a political science student but added a double major for social welfare with the impending changes of the administration, because I wanted to protect the same welfare programs that raised me,” Ghotra said.

    She transferred to UC Berkeley from community college as a political science major after investing two years to prepare for completing the major. Following the shift in the federal government’s priorities, she wanted to protect welfare programs, and bridge the knowledge gap between those who would benefit from welfare programs and the programs themselves.

    “I learn about welfare programs at the federal and the California level,” Ghotra said. “So I look at CalFresh, for example, and EBT. That’s actually a project I’m working on, is: How do we make that more accessible, more understandable for immigrant communities that may not be more familiar with English or hide away from bureaucratic processes?”

    By Kelcie Lee

     





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  • Drama class helps Compton students find themselves on stage 

    Drama class helps Compton students find themselves on stage 


    Catherine Borek’s drama class working on a scene.

    Credit: Courtesy of Catherine Borek

    Catherine Borek first came to Compton’s Dominguez High School intending to spend a few years with Teach for America before becoming a professor. That was 29 years ago. Hired to teach AP English literature, the newbie teacher quickly jumped into the fray as a drama teacher as well. 

    A theater kid back in high school, she knew instinctively she needed to bring classical texts to life for her students by lifting the words off the page and into the spotlight. The experience has changed her life and the lives of many of her students.

    “You find yourself when you’re up on that stage,” said Borek, a tireless educator who was named a California Teacher of the Year in 2023. 

    Alas, there was no stage, no rehearsal space and no fundraising. All she had going for her was chutzpah. The cash-strapped school had not put on a play in 20 years. That’s when Borek discovered her “MacGyver mode.”

    Catherine Borek

    “You take what you have, and you make something out of that,” said the 50-year-old mother of two. “We put on plays; we put on operas; we put on poetry slams.” 

    The unstoppable teacher can make theater magic happen in a computer lab. She can put on a show without a cent from the school budget. She can get teenagers to put their phones away and enjoy being social. She helps them ignite the ingenuity in each other. 

    “There’s something about creativity that’s almost religious to me,” as she puts it. “It’s the space to almost be divine, you know? And we use theater to get us there.” 

    Borek joined Teach for America — a nonprofit that recruits graduates from top universities to serve at least two years teaching in low-income schools — right out of Reed College. She had intended to be a teacher only temporarily, but quickly fell in love with her vocation.

    She believes that students from the hardscrabble Compton district, a place where gunshots are as much a part of the environment as graduation, deserve every bit as much cultural enrichment as children of privilege. She often refers to her students as “scholars,” preferring to discuss their merits instead of her own.

    “It lifts you up,” she said with customary modesty. “The students have a different energy here. They’re so gung-ho and excited and enthusiastic that it helps dispel some of the melancholy that we see around the world right now.”

    That’s why, over the years, she has empowered her students to be cultural ambassadors, combating long-held stereotypes of Compton. They have completed the LA Marathon, collaborated with the LA Opera, made it to the regional level of the Poetry Out Loud competition, starred in a Keurig commercial and started a rugby club. A 2003 documentary about Borek’s first class play, “OT: Our Town,” a staging of the Thorton Wilder famous paean to small-town life, captures the raucous creativity of a student ensemble tackling a masterpiece on a makeshift stage in the cafeteria.

    In that documentary, Ebony Star Norwood-Brown, the 16-year-old playing the narrator, wryly noted that the arts is one way to battle tired “Boyz n the Hood” tropes. 

    “Compton is home of gangster rap and gangsters,” said Norwood-Brown. “That’s all people know about Compton. That’s all people think about Compton. … We’re way different from what you think we are.”

    Drama has also become an antidote to a world dominated by screens where teens sometimes miss out on the magic of human connection, the bond between students and teachers that can make a lesson spark. Fist bumps and check-ins are part of her curriculum.

    “One of the most heartbreaking parts of the pandemic is that we became an online learning community instead of a human, face-to-face learning community,” she said wistfully. “Pre-pandemic, it wasn’t quite as sedentary, and I don’t remember computers being the No. 1 source of knowledge and information.”

    Borek prefers to frame learning as a cathartic experience, so that lessons resonate more deeply amid our short-attention span culture. She once had her class, a generation scarred by the pandemic, make scary movies to help them confront their fears. 

    “Borek’s approach to instruction and lesson building is a reminder of what the last few years have demonstrated to be most important in education: people and the bodies we occupy,” said Caleb Oliver, principal of Dominguez. “When technology fails and funds are low, these endure as the conduit to learning that has stood the test of time. We learn best through action and others.”

    Catherine Borek, center, in a yellow top, relaxes with some of her drama students.
    Credit: Courtesy of Catherine Borek

    The veteran teacher soon realized that many of her students needed drama, not just to become more creative, but also to help them cope with the pressing mental health issues that mark their generation. This is theater as exposure therapy. 

    “While so many of our students are struggling with anxiety and depression, theater is one of the best forms of therapy,” she said. “It offers exposure bit by bit. We expose them to good stress, and we help them strengthen their wings so that they can fly.”

    She recalls one student so paralyzed by anxiety that he couldn’t even get up onstage when he started. He wanted to drop the class. But she convinced him to stick with it until he could stand his ground in the spotlight.

    “Communication, teamwork and a positive attitude are among the skills that we strive to leave our students with to be ready for college and the workplace,” Oliver said. “Borek’s students always return years later crediting her with igniting these skills within them in her class.”

    Two other students, new immigrants, were shy because they didn’t speak much English and felt awkward with their peers. During the semester, they became emboldened enough to perform a poem onstage. 

    “They worked together not just to say the poem, but to become the poem,” Borek said. “These words became movements, these young women worked through language barriers to communicate beyond words. That is the power of the arts.” 

    Drama can also provide an escape valve for students feeling crushed by the stress of trying to get into their dream college amid a sea of valedictorians.

    “There’s a lot of pressure on kids in high school right now,” she said. “It’s sort of an unforgiving, relentless punch in the face. And even if parents aren’t telling them they need to be perfect, they’re hearing it from everywhere else. You’ve got to get straight As.”

    Feeling overwhelmed by the world can make some young people wall themselves off. Drama can help break down those barriers.

    “I honestly do feel like it changed my life,” said Nathalie Reyes, 17. “I used to be super shy, and speaking up in class felt nearly impossible, but drama gave me a space where I could experiment with my voice. It taught me how to take up space, be confident in my ideas, and not overthink every little thing.”

    Steeping in the wisdom of the past is one way to shield yourself against the worries of the present. That’s why unlocking the universality of literature is the heart of Borek’s mission. 

    As the narrator in “Our Town,” puts it: “There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”

    To her great chagrin, when her English students first read Arthur Miller’s iconic tragedy “Death of a Salesman,” it just didn’t click with them. The trouble was they loathed Willy Loman, the has-been traveling salesman. 

    Never one to give up easily, Borek took them to see a revival of the play in Burbank. It was a light bulb moment. The production opened their eyes to Miller’s piercing insights into the dark side of the American dream. One of her students even realized that Loman reminded him of his own father. Tears were shed.

    “It was gobsmacking for them,” she recalls happily. “I can’t tell you how many students came up to me and they’re like, ‘Man, I related to that, the frustration between that father and son.’ It was their first time at the theater, and they were crying.”





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  • The community college creating a home base for transition-age foster students

    The community college creating a home base for transition-age foster students


    Sky Celine Page, 20, in her subsidized home, which recently opened as part of a collaborative effort between Pasadena City College, Pasadena Community Foundation and First Place for Youth. “If I wasn’t here, and I didn’t have the opportunity to not pay rent, I probably wouldn’t be in school,” she said.

    Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales

    Sky Celine Page was not so sure that school was for her. She had spent the end of middle school ditching class and high school catching up on assignments as she moved between foster homes, and she was ready to quit college after performing poorly her first two semesters.

    “There was so much going on in my mind, and I was always so stressed out that I couldn’t just sit there and focus on schoolwork,” Page said.

    Nearly three years ago, she was couch surfing after leaving a foster home, and with nowhere to sleep consistently, school was placed on the back burner.

    Page is one of Los Angeles County’s transition-age youth — a term used to describe young adults aging out of the foster system. About 1,000 young people, 18 to 24 years old, age out in L.A. County each year, according to a 2024 report from the California Policy Lab. The same report also found that, in Los Angeles County, about 500 housing slots, including 206 housing vouchers, are available at any given time for youth who are no longer in care and have a closed case with the Department of Family and Child Services. This availability is likely insufficient to meet housing needs, and it doesn’t account for the challenges with accessing such resources, such as the difficulty of navigating complex public agencies.

    Studies have shown that transition-age foster youth have a higher risk of homelessness, but there is no reliable count of how many currently are. Housing instability, which at times includes changing schools often, disrupts relationships that students may form with classmates and educators, all of which has been linked to negative impacts on test scores and high school graduation rates, according to multiple studies, including a 2015 brief from the National Education Policy Center.

    A collaboration between Pasadena City College, Pasadena Community Foundation and First Place for Youth, an organization that supports successful transition of foster youth to adulthood, is providing housing to transition-age foster youth like Page, 20, who now lives in one of their units.

    A six-unit rent-subsidized apartment complex near Pasadena City College, where Page is now a student, opened last August. Ten additional units are being built next door.

    “Many of our students were going from group home to group home, carrying their stuff in a trash bag,” said David Sigala Gomez, educational adviser at the college’s program for students with experience in foster care, who provides case management to Page and her neighbors. “A lot of our students didn’t have much because they were moving around so much. So having the means to now buy new clothes, wear new shoes, it just brings a whole different perspective.”

    Page’s new, fully-furnished studio apartment is decorated in various shades of pink, with books and school supplies spilling out of her desk that doubles as the dining table where she enjoys journaling. She lives a short drive from her college campus, where she will soon earn an associate degree in health sciences as she pursues nursing.

    Page is finally stable and, as she put it, she is healing. Her life now is a paradigm shift from her life just a few years ago, when she was 18 and couch surfing. It is even further from her life at 14 when she first entered the foster system.

    ‘If I wasn’t here … I probably wouldn’t be in school’

    Page was 6 when her mother died. She and her brother were sent to Palmdale in northern Los Angeles County to live with their father and stepmother, whom Page described as “a horrific person.”

    Page tried to ignore both how her stepmother would lash out and make inappropriate comments about her and the silence from her father, who most often “turned the other cheek” during arguments, she said.

    At 14, Page hit a breaking point. She was in school, but would ditch class often and walk the hallways “trying to make sense of everything that was going on” at home. She made the decision to open up about her disruptive home life to a teacher, who called the Department of Family and Child Services.

    “After that, I never went back home,” Page said.

    A series of short-term placements later, she was living in a foster home in the Pasadena area, the city where she still lives. She struggled with the transition into foster care and with every move from one placement to another.

    “I look at that time and my heart was so broken … because I didn’t understand. I felt like I was being punished; I was trying to get help and now I’m around all these people I don’t know,” Page said. “I just didn’t realize at that time that it would be for the better, but it was hard. It was definitely a hard transition.”

    The constant moves also weighed on her academically.

    It’s an experience that Sigala Gomez, the educational adviser at Pasadena City College, noted is common among foster students. “I have really high-functioning students; their goal is a master’s degree, I have students who struggle just because of instabilities, moving from different schools,” he said, referring to the students he supports through the Next Up and STARS programs, both for foster youth. “For them, we really have to break it down: ‘Hey, you went to class two weeks in a row. That’s success. That’s a goal.’”

    Page enrolled in high school but felt self-conscious about how often she moved and because she “didn’t have the nicest things,” she said. So, she opted to enroll in Pasadena Unified School District’s virtual academy.

    It was there that she developed an interest in the sciences after completing an internship with the Huntington Medical Research Institute. When she fell behind on assignments in school, her teachers allowed her to catch up by turning in items late.

    Despite the disruptions to her education, Page knew she wanted to graduate from high school. She was aware of the stigma that some foster youth feel when they are unable to complete high school, and she was determined to avoid giving “anybody more of a reason to make them think that I was uneducated,” she said.

    It was around this time that she could no longer stay at the foster home where she had been living, so she put her items into a storage unit, and for the next half-year, couch surfed and worked two jobs.

    The social worker she was assigned to didn’t appear to understand that she needed help urgently, Page said, so Page reported her — the first time she had taken such an action.

    The next social worker quickly connected Page with First Place for Youth, an organization that seeks to break cycles of poverty among young adults aging out of foster care by providing housing.

    Page was housed in Alhambra within weeks of making that connection. By this time, it was the fall of 2022. She decided to continue her studies, leaning on her love of learning that she couldn’t tap into for so many years. She struggled, but still enjoyed learning. The commute to Pasadena City College wasn’t helping, especially using public transportation.

    She was unaware at the time that the same organization that had housed her was working on a collaboration to convert existing structures into housing near her campus.

    The effort included an initial $2 million housing loan agreement with Heritage Housing Partners, the project developer, approved by the City Council’s finance committee in 2022, upped to nearly $2.4 million in 2023, plus $200,000 from the Pasadena Community Foundation and $10,000 from California Community Foundation.

    The conversion was completed in August 2024, with First Place for Youth and Pasadena City College providing case management. The college also subsidizes the rent cost via Lancer Care, which is their basic-needs department, in conjunction with Extended Opportunity Programs & Services’ foster programs. The amount subsidized is $1,000 per unit, per month, said Sigala Gomez, and students must be transition-age nonminor dependents to qualify for a unit.

    Since moving into her new apartment, Page is feeling more confident, her grades have improved, and she now has the freedom to reflect on her childhood.

    “I’ve lived double the life experience,” said Page, contrasting herself with the average 20-year-old. “I’m figuring out, ‘OK, this is what 20-year-olds do. This is normal … this was not normal … this is part of my trauma.”

    Page has spent the past two years adjusting to life on her terms. She sees her current housing as her chance at being able to focus solely on school without the burden of unstable housing or the high cost of living in her neighborhood. And that was precisely the point of these housing units, Sigala Gomez said.

    With rent, utilities and most school costs covered, Page and her new neighbors have just one primary task: focusing on themselves as they enter adulthood.

    “It allows me to go to school without having to worry and stress about cost,” said Page of her housing. “If I wasn’t here, and I didn’t have the opportunity to not pay rent, I probably wouldn’t be in school.”





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  • What parents and students need to know about LAUSD’s cellphone ban

    What parents and students need to know about LAUSD’s cellphone ban


    Credit: Pexels

    The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted 5-2 to develop its new cellphone ban last August — placing the district more than a year ahead of the state’s requirement for districts to limit the use of smartphones by July 1, 2026.  Students should expect to have their cellphones off and tucked away starting on Tuesday. 

    District officials hope that keeping students away from their phones will both boost academic performance and support their mental health. 

    “Kids no longer have the opportunity to just be kids,” said school board member Nick Melvoin, who authored the initial resolution, in a statement released by the district. “I’m hoping this resolution will help students not only focus in class, but also give them a chance to interact and engage more with each other — and just be kids.” 

    Here’s what parents and students need to know about what lies ahead. 

    Where will students’ phones be kept?

    It depends on how each campus plans to implement the district policy. 

    In some schools or classrooms, students might simply have to turn off their phones and put them into their backpacks. In other schools, students will have to place their phones into a storage unit, including pouches that are sealed magnetically. 

    Are there any exceptions to the rule?

    Yes, students who need access to their phones for health-based reasons — or because they have an individualized education program or 504 plan — will be able to hold on to their devices. Students who need help with language translation will also be excused from the policy, along with students who have any other local needs. 

    What about cases where there is an emergency? 

    Whether students can access their devices during emergencies has been one of the larger concerns of parents and other community members.

    In short, if there is an emergency, students will be granted access to their devices if staff members decide it is safe for them to have them. 

    But, if a student asks to use their cellphone because they believe there is a potential threat, they won’t immediately be able to do so. Instead, the school will have to complete a threat assessment and develop a safety plan; depending on what they find, students may be granted access. 

    Can my child have devices other than cellphones? 

    No. The ban also applies to other devices that “provide similar smartphone functionality,” according to a district presentation. These devices include earbuds, smartwatches and smart glasses. 

    Will phones have to be tucked away all day — or just when learning is taking place?

    Yes, cellphones and similar devices will have to be tucked off and away throughout the school day, including during lunch and any other breaks. 

    Students will be allowed to use their phones on campus before and after school hours, however. 

    What are the ramifications for students if they don’t comply?

    Verbal reminders and referrals to a counselor or other campus designee would be given to students who are seen with a device. School administrators could also contact a student’s parent or guardian. 

    Will individual campuses be able to tweak things as they see fit? 

    Local School Leadership Councils throughout the district — composed of school personnel, parents, students and community members — will work to determine how best to implement the policy at their sites. 

    LAUSD’s policy requires each school to hold a Local School Leadership Council meeting while the cellphone policies are being implemented. 





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  • Fresno Unified teachers condemn district for plan to cut extra class time for students

    Fresno Unified teachers condemn district for plan to cut extra class time for students


    Fresno Unified School District will cut its Designated Schools program that provides 30 additional instructional minutes to over 24,000 students each day. Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla and around 100 educators protested the decision on Wednesday.

    Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource

    About 100 Fresno Unified educators slammed the state’s third-largest school system for its “unilateral” decision to eliminate a decadelong initiative for underserved students during a news conference Wednesday evening. 

    The district’s decision-making is being challenged as leaders face pushback for getting rid of a student-focused program that, from the district’s perspective, isn’t consistently meeting the needs of those students. 

    The district will cut its Designated Schools program, an initiative to improve student achievement through additional daily instruction. The district announced in January that the program, affecting about 40 schools, 24,000 students and over 1,250 educators, will end after this school year.

    Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla said educators feel devalued and disrespected because eliminating the Designated Schools program without input from the school community is not a classroom-centered decision as it takes money away from the classroom, from teachers and from much-needed resources. 

    “It is a huge cut to trust,” Bonilla said. “It is a huge cut to respect and to value in this district. And we’re here to say, ‘We’re not going to put up with it.’”

    For the superintendent and district staff, the main consideration in the decision to eliminate the program is its effectiveness: “Are we getting the return for the investment that we’re making?” asked interim Superintendent Misty Her. 

    “While we have gotten some results, they’ve not been consistent,” Her said. “We’ve not had consistent (growth) year after year.” 

    What are Designated Schools?

    At Designated Schools, which are intended to close academic gaps at a faster pace, students have 30 extra minutes of instruction each day, teachers have 10 additional work days for professional training, and campuses have a full-time teacher on special assignment to assist with reading or math intervention, costing the district $30 million annually.

    Designated Schools are typically located in neighborhoods with large numbers of students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. They serve vulnerable student populations that often start behind other groups. The extra time and resources are meant to catch students up by focusing on foundational skills they’re missing, teachers told EdSource. 

    Those students are going to lose 30 minutes of instruction every day, Bonilla said, equating the time to 90 additional instructional hours each year. 

    For example, during that 30 minutes of intervention time, teachers divide their classes into small groups by proficiency level and target students’ weak points. Teachers have the assistance of support staff who provide enrichment activities and targeted instruction.

    “Having that 30 extra minutes makes such a difference for these students, and we can see the gains, and we can see the growth that they make,” said Kate Hooper, a first grade teacher at Wilson Elementary, a Designated School.

    What does the decision mean?

    Designated School teachers are paid for the extra time and extra days they work, so eliminating the program means less pay for them. 

    Bonilla said the decision forces teachers to take a 12% pay cut, ranging from $651 to $1,150 each month. 

    District spokesperson Nikki Henry asserts that district officials stand behind their decision to end the $30 million program, but that much of what’s been communicated by the teachers union is “blatantly false” and “fear-based rhetoric.” 

    Nearly two-thirds of Designated School teachers will not see a pay reduction because there are already pay increases planned in their salary schedules, Henry said. In 2023, when the school district and teachers union reached a “historic” contract, the district agreed to 4.5% educator raises with a 2.5% bonus next school year. The remaining one-third of impacted teachers will see about a 2% decrease over two years. 

    Rather than keeping money in classrooms, Bonilla accused the district of wanting to pad its reserves and put the money toward consultants who, teachers say, don’t help them or students. According to Bonilla, the district’s reserves currently sit at about $234 million.

    Most of the money is already tied up by the district’s financial obligations, Henry said, explaining that only about 7%, or $121 million, belongs to the unrestricted reserves that can be used. The district plans to spend the reserves to a projected 4% in the next two years, she said. 

    Fresno Unified is in its second year of budget cuts with at least two more years of “tough decisions” ahead. Though cuts were at the district level for this school year, they will likely touch the classroom next school year, including consultant contracts, Henry said. 

    Much like other California school systems, the district is facing declining enrollment, less funding due to lower average daily attendance, and lower than expected cost of living adjustments from the state — all of which contributed to the decision to end the program. Now the district must add the volatility at the federal level to that, district officials said. 

    Is funding the only reason for the decision?

    The Designated School program seemingly includes all the components necessary to better student outcomes: more time with kids, more time for teachers’ professional learning and more support staff. 

    Henry said that in evaluating student growth over time, regardless of where student proficiency started, Designated Schools perform about the same as non-designated schools. 

    “You put $30 million a year into a program, and they perform similarly to non-designated schools,” she said. “There’s not a bigger growth.”

    And there should be, Henry said. The Designated Schools initiative was meant to show that with extra investment, schools make academic gains faster. 

    An analysis of the program, conducted by Hanover Research in the 2020-21 school year, also found that evidence of the program’s effectiveness on academic outcomes is mixed.

    “It’s just, more than anything, disheartening, coming from people who haven’t been in the classroom in a very long time,” Hooper, the Wilson Elementary teacher, said. 

    She and other teachers say they see the gains students are making. Devyn Stephens, another Wilson Elementary teacher, said she had a first grader who didn’t know their letters or sounds on the first day of school and is now able to read at a kindergarten or early first grade reading level, adding that she can’t imagine that being possible “without that 30 minutes.”

    Wilson Elementary third grade teacher Jessica Avila said the time is needed to ensure her students know how to read since the third grade curriculum is to read to understand, not learn to read. 

    There are “a few bright spots” in the data, the district admits, but not enough. The district did not provide the school-specific data it used to make its decision.

    Henry said after-school programs, which include homework help and intervention, will absorb the students who will no longer have 30 extra minutes of instruction in the classroom. Fresno Unified will also look to other programs that can make a difference.

    Since eliminating the program is a superintendent and staff-level decision, district staff won’t be recommending the program’s continuation in next year’s budget. Technically, the school board has the discretion and authority to add it back. 

    To many, that process is the problem. 

    “It’s not just the teachers that are suffering in regards to this lack of leadership, a lack of direction and student-focused decisions,” Bonilla, the teachers union president, said about a decision that affects tens of thousands of students. “They have not gone to our community whatsoever to have a discussion.”

    “If the district wants to own this, they need to come out and be real leaders and talk about it with the community.”





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