برچسب: system

  • California looks to the health system to sustain mental health funds in schools

    California looks to the health system to sustain mental health funds in schools


    Credit: Photo: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    To create an education system that has stable funds for mental health, California educators and leaders are turning to the health system and launching a statewide behavioral health initiative to fill funding gaps in fluctuating, sometimes unpredictable school budgets.

    “The health systems and the education systems are not bound together successfully enough to make sure we engage in both prevention and treatment,” said David Gordon, a commissioner at the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission. “That’s particularly true for the most underserved communities.”

    Funding for mental health in California public schools typically has come from general education budgets, a reason funds have never been stable. As the need for more mental health services and specialists skyrockets, administrators and experts are turning to the health system to better serve needs that existing education budgets just can’t cover. 

    Schools bridge some gaps by placing nurses, social workers, school counselors and psychologists on campuses, but there’s never enough money to fully meet student mental health needs. Without a built-in, statewide system to fund mental health in schools, districts are left to figure it out themselves. 

    “We’re so used to trying to provide external funding to fund us to some sort of equitable level for every student,” said Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors. “It’s never been the general fund will cover us — it’s just sort of baked into the cake.”

    It’s been that way since at least the late 1980s, when Whitson began her education career, she said.

    The Local Control Funding Formula, legislation that changed the way education was funded in California, created more funds for mental health and “a more holistic view and review of schools,” Whitson said. “But if there’s not enough money to go around, then school district administrators need to make very hard decisions.”

    If districts have to rely on general fund money for mental health providers, it creates competition with funding for teachers and education programs, Whitson said. If budgets had more funds specifically for mental health, it would mean more money for education. 

    If we piecemeal it like it’s been, then we’re always trying to find money through categorical programs or grant funding.

    Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors

    California doesn’t mandate districts to provide school counselors, social workers, nurses or psychologists, but it is encouraged. Some experts say mandates could ensure there would be mental health specialists at every school. But that goes against the idea of local control, Whitson said, which allows districts to make decisions based on their community’s needs and resources. 

    Grants for mental health have helped, but it’s not sustainable, Gordon said. School districts will receive grants for a few years or even less, and when those dollars run out, the services or mental health specialists do too if districts don’t have money to keep them going. 

    Similarly, districts turned to pandemic relief dollars to boost staffing for school counselors, social workers, psychologists and nurses, but those funds expired in September. 

    Nonprofits and community organizations have stepped in to help fill needs at lower costs, put therapists on school campuses, and taken over doing burdensome paperwork. But if the services aren’t free to school districts, then most money for mental health has to come out of the education budget. 

    Blending two systems

    Gordon credits Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Children Youth and Behavioral Health Initiative for beginning to merge the health and education system. The goal for two major systems to come together is reachable, Gordon said, “but it will take a lot of coordination and collaboration.”

    A key component of the behavioral health initiative is to support partnerships between Medi-Cal managed care plans and schools to increase access for children receiving Medi-Cal — nearly 5.7 million kids in 2022. Another goal is to increase access to early interventions and preventative mental and behavioral health care.

    The behavioral health initiative was part of the Budget Act of 2021 and the governor’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health. The California Department of Health Care Services will invest $4.7 billion over multiple years in youth behavioral services.

    According to the master plan, more than 240,000 children cope with depression, and 66% don’t receive treatment. Suicide rates among 10-18-year-olds increased by 20% in 2019-2020.

    Efforts to implement the behavioral health initiative started in January 2022. So far, hundreds of millions of dollars in funding have been disbursed to dozens of organizations for training and retention of providers, loan repayments and scholarships to increase providers in underserved areas.

    But some of the funding is distributed as grants and won’t last long, Whitson said. 

    “I think it’s important to consider: How do we sustain this? A lot of programs come in as temporary programs, so seed money,” Whitson said. “We look at sustainable money as Medi-Cal a lot of times.”

    The amount of money school districts can bill to Medi-Cal recently increased, thanks to new legislation. The California Education Code was updated in January after AB-2058 passed, allowing districts to bill Medi-Cal for mental health services provided by school counselors.

    A 2018 statewide count of school counselors tallied about 11,000, Whitson said. She estimates there are about 14,000 now. 

    “School counselors are one of the biggest billing forces in the state. It should be bringing in quite a bit of money,” Whitson said. “It could be used to lower the caseloads on all levels — social workers, psychologists, school counselors.” 

    However, the process for school districts to bill Medi-Cal can be long and cumbersome. 

    Sometimes districts won’t get a full refund, and it could take a few years before the money is returned, said Marlon Morgan, founder and CEO of Wellness Together, a nonprofit that brings mental health providers to school campuses in California and New York. 

    “Schools are pretty reticent to use that billing option because they could end up spending $1 million but only get $500,000 back,” Morgan said. “If you’re on a school board and looking at ways to stabilize your budget and to know what to expect, that’s a huge wild card, and frankly one that doesn’t get used very often.”

    In Sacramento County, schools are partnering with the Sacramento County Health Department to have one mental health provider at every school, said Gordon, who is also the superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education. The partnership works well because the county health departments already manage Medi-Cal and Medicaid plans — which insure more than 60% of people in the county, he added.

    The purpose isn’t only to provide direct services at schools, but to have someone from the health system stationed at schools interacting with staff, students, and families every day, Gordon said. The goal is to have “centers of wellness and prevention, rather than a center of let’s go out and seek treatment for a problem that should’ve been caught many years ago,” he said.

    Some organizations are combining billing insurance and grant funding to bring providers to schools. Campus Clinic, which aims to remove barriers to health care access by putting providers at schools, has brought mental health providers and other physicians to 14 districts and more than 600 schools in California, said Thomas Shaffer, the organization’s founder and president. 

    Most districts haven’t had to foot the bill. Campus Clinic started paying for all the costs, Shaffer said, and was able to sustain its offerings through billing insurance, including Medi-Cal, and applying for grants. One burden Campus Clinic and other similar organizations lift from districts is handling the paperwork and billing.  

    “We aim to complete, not compete, with existing resources,” Shaffer said. 

    Still, the need for mental health services and providers is too great to catch up with demand. Campus Clinic is contracted with 28 more districts that are still in the planning stages, Shaffer said. 

    Campus Clinic also offers universal health screenings that allow schools to quickly identify which students are showing signs of anxiety, depression and risk of self-harm, Shaffer said. Schools can see responses through a dashboard that includes real-time notifications for students who are at risk of self-harm. Campus Clinic has teams that start reaching out to families to offer services. 

    But it doesn’t come without challenges. Building trusting relationships with families so they feel comfortable accepting services can be an uphill battle.

    ‘The cultural and trust piece’

    Officials at Feaster Charter School in Chula Vista saw immediate results after Campus Clinic gave universal mental health screenings to students in grades six through eight in May.

    Out of the 350 students, roughly 40% were identified as having some level of anxiety and depression, said Karen Haro-Esparza, community school coordinator.

    Teams at Campus Clinic started contacting families right away, Haro-Esparza said. Although it’s a huge help, it also created challenges  — “the cultural and trust piece.” 

    “Because they are not a regular part of our staff, when Campus Clinic communicates with families, they have a lot of questions,” Haro-Esparza said.  “Our challenge has been, ‘How do we educate families further to destigmatize and normalize the partnerships?’”

    The stigma around mental health — especially among people of color and different cultures — is one reason families or guardians don’t seek or access resources for students. Something most mental health experts working in education can agree on is the importance of maintaining trust among schools, providers and families. 

    “It’s not just putting money out to buy services. It’s working to try to put the systems together so that they’re relating and families will come to know and trust the medical system even though they aren’t located in their community.”

    David Gordon

    Campus Clinic providers aim to become part of the school community, Shaffer said. One strategy Campus Clinic providers use is to rotate through different classrooms to speak with students about health and wellness for 15 minutes to become more familiar and create connections. 

    Wellness Together is investing in interns to diversify the workforce and build trusting relationships between communities and mental health providers, Morgan said. Before mental health professionals receive their licenses, they need to complete hundreds of hours that typically are unpaid — some programs won’t even allow future providers to have paid internships. 

    Morgan, who started his career as a school counselor, said he’s seen dozens of people never get their licenses because they can’t afford to work for free. It contributes to the lack of diversity in the behavioral health workforce, he said. Now, the nonprofit has more than 30 partnerships with universities in California to ensure interns are paid liveable wages and receive benefits. 

    Wellness Together pays interns working toward their licenses to be social workers, clinical and mental health counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, and a pupil personnel services credential. 

    “The biggest challenge is finding staff and making sure the staff reflects the communities they’re serving,” Morgan said. “By paying interns and paying associates, we now have an option and an opportunity to really hire the best person for the job and often hire a person who is local and from the community.”





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  • Cal State System reaches tentative agreement with faculty on salary

    Cal State System reaches tentative agreement with faculty on salary


    California Faculty Association.

    California Faculty Association

    Faculty in the nation’s largest public university system agreed to end their historic strike against the California State University system late Monday evening.

    The faculty union, which represents more than 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians and coaches, agreed to a 5% general salary increase retroactive to July 1, 2023, and a 5% general salary increase on July 1, 2024, as long as the state does not reduce Cal State’s base funding this summer.

    Monday marked the first day of a planned one-week strike. The system’s nearly 450,000 students saw many of their classes canceled as faculty protested. However, the new agreement means all faculty will return to campuses and their classes on Tuesday.

    “The collective action of so many lecturers, professors, counselors, librarians and coaches over these last eight months forced CSU management to take our demands seriously,” said Charles Toombs, president of the California Faculty Association, the union. “This tentative agreement makes major gains for all faculty at the CSU.”

    The agreement would raise the salary floor for the lowest paid faculty by increasing minimum pay by about $3,000 retroactive to July 1 and raising it again by $3,000 this summer. It also expands paid parental leave from six to 10 weeks.

    Other highlights from the agreement include improved access to gender-inclusive restrooms and lactation spaces, increased protection for faculty who have negative interactions with campus police officers, and additional support for lecturers.

    The agreement extends the current contract for 2022-24 one year to June 30, 2025.

    “I am extremely pleased and deeply appreciative that we have reached common ground with CFA that will end the strike immediately,” CSU Chancellor Mildred García said. “The agreement enables the CSU to fairly compensate its valued, world-class faculty while protecting the university system’s long-term financial sustainability. With the agreement in place, I look forward to advancing our student-centered work — together — as the nation’s greatest driver of social mobility and the pipeline fueling California’s diverse and educated workforce.” 

    The university system is encouraging students to look for messages from their instructors about adjusting their classes this week. Faculty will vote to ratify the new agreement in the coming weeks.

    “This historic agreement was won because of members’ solidarity, collective action, bravery, and love for each other and our students,” said Antonio Gallo, an instructor on the Northridge campus. “This is what People Power looks like. This deal immensely improves working conditions for faculty and strengthens learning conditions for students.”

    The agreement marks another victory for education laborers, the union said, especially following similar strikes at the University of California and the University of Southern California.





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  • California’s new cradle-to-career system can illuminate student pathways

    California’s new cradle-to-career system can illuminate student pathways


    Cal State Northridge

    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    From our smartwatches giving us metrics on our last workout, to utility dashboards helping us meet our environmental conservation goals, we are living in an increasingly data-driven world. But when it comes to figuring out an education or career path, it can be hard to find useful information to make sound decisions.

    Where do young people from my city go after high school? What education or training programs can help me earn livable wages? How do I figure out college applications and get financial aid? These are all questions that have been difficult for Californians to answer as they decide what jobs to pursue and whether to attend college.

    But California recently took a big step toward making data available in tangible, easy-to-access ways. The new California Cradle-to-Career Data System (C2C) connects the dots from early and K-12 education, to higher education and the workforce. It’s a new, longitudinal data system that can enable people to make more informed decisions about their lives. As early as 2024, Californians will have access to C2C’s first planned dashboard.

    The longitudinal data system will illuminate the journey from cradle to career. A guidance counselor wonders whether her former students stayed in college. Universities working to help students succeed can’t see what K-12 supports students did — or didn’t — receive.

    The C2C system can stitch together data that can tell those stories across time. Those connections and transitions become visible only when the data from multiple education systems is linked together.

    How will people be able to use that data that stretches over time? Before the data system launched, the system’s data providers worked together with members of the public to map out priority topics for specific data dashboards. Each one will create a “data story” focused on topics like:

    • student pathways from high school to college and career.
    • the experiences of community college students aiming to transfer to a four-year university.
    • employment outcomes illuminating paths to jobs with livable wages.

    We’re prioritizing the needs that communities have voiced before developing useful tools. The California Legislature took bold action in passing the Cradle-to-Career Data System Act. It wrote into state law that the data system must prioritize the needs of students and families. This means listening to communities first, and then working to build data tools people will actually use.

    What have Californians shared? Right now, the most requested feature is the ability to break down the data by geography and demographics. People want to know, “What story does the data tell in my community?”

    What challenges are Californians in rural areas facing in their education and workforce sectors? What needs are not being met to ensure educational success and individual prosperity? People with lived experiences in these communities can best answer these questions. 

    To get input from across the state, C2C hosts community conversations where people can voice their priorities, both online and in-person. Recent events were held in Sacramento and Oakland, and the Central Valley and Southern California are up next. Building the country’s most inclusive data system requires collaboration, and that is top of mind for the Cradle-to-Career data system.

    Launching an intentionally inclusive data system has taken a historic, governmentwide effort. Those of us in the Legislature are working with the Newsom administration to break down the silos that can make it hard to share data with the public. Champions of the data system understand that data works for individuals when it empowers them to make decisions about their futures. Informed decisionmaking is key to ensuring every Californian has the freedom to succeed, and that starts with a reliable and actionable statewide longitudinal data system.

    •••

    Mary Ann Bates is the executive director of the Office of Cradle-to-Career Data.
    Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin represents California’s 42nd District.
    Sen. John Laird represents California’s 17th District.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Layered levels of support boost student achievement, reduce suspensions — let’s fortify the system

    Layered levels of support boost student achievement, reduce suspensions — let’s fortify the system


    Students work on homework during an after-school program in Chico, the largest city in Butte County. (File photo)

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    For nearly a decade, the Orange County Department of Education and the Butte County Office of Education have had the privilege of co-leading the implementation of the California Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) — a statewide framework that’s transforming how schools serve students academically, socially, emotionally and behaviorally.

    This work began with a simple but urgent goal: to ensure that every student in California — no matter their ZIP code, background or circumstance — has access to a responsive and coordinated system of supports that meets their individual needs. 

    Today, that vision is being realized in thousands of schools across the state, where educators are reporting measurable gains in academic performance, reductions in suspensions and absenteeism, and stronger alignment with initiatives like Universal Pre-kindergarten, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program and Community Schools.

    In short, California MTSS is working. And now is the time to sustain and expand its impact.

    For those unfamiliar with the framework, the California Multi-Tiered System of Support is based on three levels of support: 

    1. Universal instruction and strategies for all students.
    2. Targeted help for those who need more.
    3. Intensive interventions for students with the greatest needs.

    What makes it so powerful isn’t just its flexibility or scalability — though those are important — but its ability to help schools work together more effectively and break down silos across California’s education system. 

    Our state has made historic investments in mental health, early learning, expanded instructional time and more. The multitiered system doesn’t replace those efforts — it ensures they work together. In other words, it’s the delivery system for every promise we’ve made to our students.

    Consider these scenarios, drawn from real-life practices, to see how the framework can support students across different educational settings:

    At an elementary school, a student who is reading below grade level benefits from universal supports built into the classroom for all learners. The teacher uses strategies like visual scaffolds — including maps, illustrations and diagrams to aid comprehension — along with flexible grouping based on reading levels and multiple ways for students to demonstrate understanding. These tools, part of a schoolwide commitment to Universal Design for Learning, help the student stay engaged and make steady progress without needing to be pulled out or referred for separate services.

    In a middle school, a student who begins to withdraw socially and fall behind in assignments is connected with supplemental support. A school counselor checks in weekly, and the student joins a small group focused on building organization and self-regulation skills. With these added layers of support, the student regains confidence and starts participating more actively in class.

    At an alternative high school, a student returning from an extended absence receives more intensive support. A personalized plan is created that includes one-on-one counseling, a flexible academic schedule, and regular collaboration between school staff and the student’s family. Over time, the student re-engages with learning and builds toward graduation.

    As county leaders, we’ve seen firsthand how California MTSS helps schools weave together fragmented programs and services into a single, integrated system that responds to the whole child. 

    In some schools, that has meant fewer students being referred to special education thanks to earlier, research-based interventions. In others, it has led to improved school climates, stronger teacher-student relationships and higher graduation rates.

    Crucially, this work has taken hold in settings as diverse as the state itself. California MTSS is driving progress in large urban districts, small rural schools and alternative education programs that serve some of our most vulnerable youth. 

    In Butte County, where educators often juggle multiple roles and resources are limited, the framework has provided structure and tools to meet local needs while maintaining alignment with statewide goals. These strategies have become a blueprint for many rural communities across California. 

    Meanwhile, in Orange County, the multitiered framework is helping schools tackle chronic absenteeism, expand mental health supports and ensure students are not just seen, but supported and successful.

    California has emerged as a national leader in this work. Our state was the first to embed social-emotional learning and mental health into the multitiered system of support framework, and we’ve launched online certification modules to build capacity for administrators, teachers, counselors and even higher education faculty. The annual California MTSS Professional Learning Institute, which draws thousands of educators each summer, has become a hub for sharing evidence-based practices and building cross-county collaboration.

    Yet like any systemic improvement effort, the long-term impact depends on sustained commitment. The current phase of statewide funding is set to conclude in 2026. Without additional investment, we risk stalling momentum — or worse, losing the progress we’ve made.

    That’s why we’re jointly requesting a new round of funding — approximately $18 million annually over four years — to ensure that the framework continues to evolve and expand. Two-thirds of every dollar would go directly to schools, districts, county offices and fire-impacted regions to support coaching, trauma-informed practices and professional development. It would also fund large-scale research efforts and deepen implementation in classrooms, where it matters most.

    The data speaks for itself. Recent studies show statistically significant improvements in reading and math scores in schools implementing the framework. Educators in rural communities report stronger collaboration and better outcomes. And thousands of students — including those with disabilities, those in foster care and those experiencing homelessness — are getting the supports they need, when they need them.

    We believe the foundation is strong. Now is the time to build on it.

    •••

    Stefan Bean, Ed.D., is Orange County’s superintendent of schools. Mary Sakuma, Ed.D., is Butte County’s superintendent of schools.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • How California’s juvenile justice system changed since shutdown of state facilities

    How California’s juvenile justice system changed since shutdown of state facilities


    Santa Clara County has maintained near-zero rates of incarceration for girls and young women for several years. Soon, four new counties will follow suit.

    Photo: Santa Clara Probation Department

    In the months since California closed the last of its juvenile facilities, some of the counties now managing the new system have funded new higher education programming for incarcerated students, while others have spent much of that time addressing basic safety concerns inside their facilities.

    It is impossible to declare the juvenile justice system’s transition an outright success or failure. What is evident is that some counties are struggling much more than others to move toward the promises that came with closing the state facilities.

    The system’s transition from the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice, known as DJJ, to counties on June 30 last year was met by some with hope that the state’s long-troubled juvenile justice system might finally be on its way toward reform. Others, however, still remain doubtful that issues that were persistent under the state’s management, including a well-documented history of violence and low educational outcomes, would disappear immediately, if ever, with the transition.

    The promise of county control — and its limitations

    For years, advocates in support of the DJJ closures decried the state facilities as subjecting generations of California youth to “inhumane conditions and lasting trauma,” according to a 2019 report by the Center on California Juvenile and Criminal Justice, a nonprofit organization that pushes to reform the system.

    “By placing youth in prison-like conditions at large institutions, DJJ exposes them to the trauma of incarceration, risking their immediate safety and limiting the possibility of rehabilitation,” wrote the report’s authors, Maureen Washburn and Renee Menart.

    In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 823 into law, requiring the state’s youth prisons to shut down by June 30, 2023, and disallowed counties from sending youth to DJJ as of July 1, 2021.

    SB 823 called for counties to provide the “least restrictive appropriate environment.” Such an environment would be as minimally punitive as possible while remaining appropriate and safe for the youth, the staff and the surrounding community. The bill also sought to “reduce the use of confinement by utilizing community-based responses and interventions.”

    Today, all youth remain in their home county or nearby, if their county does not have a juvenile facility, which is often the case in smaller counties with few, if any, incarcerated youth.

    Youth who were formerly sent to DJJ facilities — those adjudicated for serious crimes, such as burglary, assault, homicide and other crimes — are instead housed in secure youth treatment facilities, or SYTF, in their local counties. These facilities are separate units with a more restrictive environment than youth who are considered less risky. As of March 2023, 36 of the state’s 58 counties had facilities for SYTF youth.

    The average daily population of all juvenile halls statewide was 2,793 in 2023, according to state data. This includes both SYTF and non-SYTF youth. During the fourth quarter of the same year, Los Angeles County had the highest average daily population at 508. The next highest was Kern County, with 182 youth.

    At the helm now is the Office of Youth and Community Restoration, or OYCR, the state office leading the juvenile justice system in place of DJJ.

    The office is clear about the limitations of its role: “OYCR is not a regulatory agency and does not have the authority to require local probation departments to make changes,” Katherine Lucero, director of the rate office, wrote in a recent email to EdSource. “Instead, our role is to provide guidance, share best practices and connect probation departments with resources, including grants.”

    In that capacity, OYCR seems to be pushing forward on some of the changes promised in this system transition: a forthcoming database to improve transparency on incarcerated students’ academic outcomes, the development of a “literacy intervention curriculum for older learners” that would be “based on their length of time in custody and special education needs,” and funding toward programming in environments that are less restrictive than juvenile detention centers.

    The office also coordinates an educational advisory committee that meets monthly and includes probation officers, county offices of education, the State Board of Education, Rising Scholars, Project Rebound, the Department of Rehabilitation, and the nonprofit Youth Law Center.

    Additionally, OYCR has pursued collaborations in support of incarcerated students’ access to higher education. Rising Scholars, for example, provides access to college courses for incarcerated youth, sometimes in person on a local community college campus. The program can currently be found in least 10 counties, including Kern, Humboldt and Santa Clara.

    A recent report compiled by Forward Change, a consulting firm for OYCR, sums up the shifting perspective: “Youth who were once seen as incarcerated people can now be seen as college students with bright futures.”

    Still, it is also clear that the Office of Youth and Community Restoration understands the paradox in the current state of California’s juvenile justice system because, in the same report, they noted the difficulty of overcoming the poor educational outcomes that students are up against.

    “Per some interviewees, a significant hurdle is the academic readiness of the incarcerated youth. Many students in confinement facilities who are still pursuing a high school education may not be academically prepared to handle college level coursework,” the report said.

    Student preparation, particularly for those who remain incarcerated for lengthy periods of time, largely comes down to the counties. That is, most often, where plans for academic achievement are either advanced or start to unravel before they can be implemented.

    “What’s available to young people in detention facilities in L.A. for the most part has sort of stayed the same,” said Megan Stanton-Trehan, a senior attorney at Disability Rights California. Most recently, she was the director of the Youth Justice Education Clinic at Loyola Law School, which provides special education advocacy and legal representation for many in the foster system or detained in L.A. County juvenile facilities.

    How Los Angeles and Alameda have handled the shift

    Los Angeles and Alameda offer real-time case studies of how two counties are changing the way they manage incarcerated youth.

    Los Angeles County is often cited negatively by advocates who have concerns about the safety of youth committed to their juvenile facilities — a worry that has only strengthened since the state transition. This is due to the county Probation Department continuing to face disciplinary actions for offenses ranging from a lack of documentation showing how and when youth are confined to their rooms, to inconsistent recreational programming, to high rates of student tardiness.

    Because of these infractions, four units across three juvenile facilities in L.A. County have been deemed “unsuitable for the confinement of minors” in the last year alone by California’s Board of State and Community Corrections. The first two units were at the Barry J. Nidorf facility in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights. Nidorf’s SYTF unit remained open because the state board did not have oversight power at the time.

    Youth detained at those facilities were transferred last year to the county-run Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, which had been shut down in 2019 after allegations of abuse by staff.

    But many of the same issues with noncompliance, including those related to educational programming that had caused the other closures, quickly surfaced, adding to reports of high levels of violence, drug abuse and an escape attempt.

    In February, Los Padrinos was similarly found “unsuitable for the confinement of juveniles,” but the state oversight board allowed it to remain open, citing that “outstanding items of non-compliance” had been sufficiently remedied less than two months later.

    “Would I be like, ‘Let’s reopen DJJ?’ No,” said Stanton-Trehan. “But I think there needs to be some real changes made here to improve what’s happening because it’s really almost worst-case scenario at this point.”

    Additionally, cases of violence and drug use have spiked inside the county’s facilities, leading to several overdoses, including one fatality. The result is an environment in which public conversation is centered on staffing issues and violence, rather than youth education and rehabilitation. Eight probation officers were placed on leave in December for standing by while a group of young people assaulted a peer. Last month, four more officers were placed on leave.

    The department’s chief, Guillermo Viera Rosa, said in a statement that the decision is “part of a comprehensive push to root out departmental staff responsible for perpetuating a culture of violence, drugs, or abuse in County juvenile institutions.”

    Staffing issues have persisted in other ways. The county Probation Department has been out of compliance with staffing requirements, with many officers assigned to juvenile hall not showing up for work. Most recently, several officers were reassigned to juvenile halls in order to meet staffing requirements, but advocates and families of incarcerated youth fear the reassignments will be temporary.

    Staffing is pertinent to students’ access to education. “All programming in juvenile halls and longer-term detention facilities is dependent on the availability of probation staff to escort students around the facility,” according to the recent OYCR report.

    “Due to staff shortages, classes are frequently canceled, student attendance is inconsistent, and probation staff in facilities are often unfamiliar with the youth in the facility due to temporary and rotating assignments,” the report stated.

    More broadly, an ongoing challenge in meeting the education needs of youth detained statewide is an apparent disconnect between the various agencies involved in the daily operations of juvenile facilities, particularly probation departments and the county offices of education.

    That disconnect is not unique to Los Angeles County.

    Last year, for example, library staff working inside an Alameda County juvenile detention facility emphasized the difficulty of teaching students how to read when the staff aren’t privy to details regarding students’ court cases. Interruptions are common in students’ educational programming, staff stated. A court date might be scheduled during a time slotted for a visit to the library, for example, which might be a student’s only opportunity during the week to check out a book. And if there is a lockdown at the facility, a student might be unable to visit the library for an extended period.

    Atasi Uppal, an attorney and the director of the Education Justice Clinic at the East Bay Community Law Center, said she has begun to see a small but positive change in bridging the disconnect since the shift to county control of the juvenile justice system.

    For example, the county has hired additional staff to provide new post-secondary options for incarcerated high school graduates.

    “We have seen a renewed interest from Probation, the DA’s office and community providers in understanding education rights and options for students who are incarcerated,” said Uppal, who recently co-authored a report that states that the five largest county offices of education in California lacked the transparency required to evaluate the quality of education being offered because of a lack of “clear public-facing information about curriculum or student support systems.”

    That disconnect has often resulted in the disruption of “students’ participation in instruction during incarceration due to perceived safety or disciplinary concerns,” Uppal said in a recent email. “As an outsider to the system, this disruption seems arbitrary and without coordination with the Alameda County Office of Education.”

    Down in Los Angeles County, Stanton-Trehan shared a similar concern.

    She said she works with people at the county’s Office of Eucation who “try to advocate and do the best they can for our clients.” But when there are delays in implementing a student’s individualized education plan, or IEP, student progress is further delayed.

    It’s a cycle Stanton-Trehan often finds herself pushing against when legally representing incarcerated students, even now after the shift to county control.

    “A client who isn’t getting their accommodations and they try to request those accommodations and then they’re told, ‘No, you don’t have those’ — they get agitated and upset. And then that’s a behavior problem, so they’re removed from school when they were just trying to advocate for themselves,” Stanton-Trehan said.

    Labeling a student as having behavioral problems that require specific support creates an entirely new academic issue to confront.

    Stanton-Trehan provided the example of a client with a 17-page-long discipline log. That student, whom she did not name for privacy reasons, had an IEP that did not include a behavioral plan, despite well-documented behavioral challenges.

    Complicating the local efforts to improve educational access and outcomes is the limited access to academic data that young people attending court schools have. At times, this is due to a lack of documentation by probation staff. Other times, it comes down to censoring data to protect privacy, such as when there are fewer than 10 students at any given data point, which is often the case in many court school classrooms.

    “Of course, I believe in confidentiality for young people, but how are we supposed to look at whether these systems are improving or able to improve?” said Stanton-Trehan, echoing what many advocates say regarding data transparency for this student population.

    Hope for the future?
    For its part, OYCR said it will soon make available an interactive map that includes school data for court schools in every county. It is being “designed for easy access for parents, families and community members,” Director Lucero wrote n a recent email.

    According to Lucero, the map will include Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation status, dashboard performance, local control and accountability plans, local control funding formula budget overviews, school accountability report cards, and Rising Scholars support resources.

    It remains to be seen whether these measures will provide the transparency that advocates of incarcerated students have called for. The state’s juvenile justice system is historically tied to reforms that have fallen short of significant change. Even so, OYCR seems steadfast in its messaging.

    As OYCR’s recent report states, “California is presented with an unprecedented opportunity to vault to the forefront of national juvenile justice practice by transforming its youth incarceration system from one focused overwhelmingly on punishment to one that can offer youth in confinement genuine opportunities to dramatically improve their lives.”

    This story has been updated to reflect Megan Stanton-Trehan’s employment at the time of publication.





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  • California prepares to launch first phase of new education data system

    California prepares to launch first phase of new education data system


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

    Credit: Kirby Lee / AP

    California has long lagged behind most other states when it comes to education data systems, choosing to focus on compliance rather than program improvement, but that could change later this year when the first phase of the Cradle-to-Career Data System is expected to go live.

    The goal of the new statewide longitudinal data system, known as C2C, is ambitious. It will link data from multiple state departments and education institutions, from early learning through higher education, along with financial aid and social services. The data system is expected to provide resources for students planning for college and careers, as well as data to inform state leaders about effective educational strategies.

    States have a responsibility to ensure that everyone has access to timely data to help them to understand how people are navigating education and career pathways, said Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, president and chief executive officer of the Data Quality Campaign, a national education advocacy organization. 

    The first phase of the rollout later this year will be a student dashboard that will allow anyone to look at student information, including demographics; number of homeless youth, foster children and students with disabilities; English learner status; drop-out rates, parent education levels; and age of entry into school. The dashboard will not include information about individual students, but can be disaggregated by region, district and state, according to the Cradle-to-Career website.

    Another dashboard will follow, reporting on teacher preparation, credentialing, hiring, retention and educator demographics. The data will be provided by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

    “This is an exciting moment because we are right on the cusp of seeing the value of connecting these data in one place,” said Christopher Nellum, executive director of The Education Trust-West, a social justice and advocacy organization. “We are going to see very soon the value in individual data providers sharing their data. And that will result in these two dashboards that are coming online very soon.”

    Nellum was appointed to the C2C governing board by Gov. Gavin Newsom, but chose to be interviewed for this story as the director of EdTrust-West. 

    C2C could make state a data leader

    When the Cradle-to-Career Data System is built out, there will be query builders, interactive tutorials and videos, and a library of tables, reports and research. Eventually, researchers will be able to request more comprehensive data from C2C staff. 

    The data system is housed and managed by the California Government Operations Agency, which was established in 2013 to improve management and accountability of government programs.

    “I don’t have any doubt they can get this done,” said Paige Kowalski, executive vice president of the Data Quality Campaign. “They’re well staffed. They have been doing a great job.”

    The Data Quality Campaign has been critical of California in the past for its siloed approach to data collection and reporting, but its leaders are optimistic about the new data system.

    “I think the work that the state has done on Cradle-to-Career since 2019 has been absolutely flawless and phenomenal, and I just cannot say that about any other data effort I’ve ever seen in any state over the last 20 years,” Kowalski said.

    C2C will not only allow the state to play catch-up with the rest of the nation, but could make it the leader in linking data from early education to employment, she said.

    Cost of project unclear

    It’s not entirely clear how much the Cradle-to-Career Data System will cost. The program has spent $21.4 million so far, with another $10.4 million committed to future work, but not yet spent, according to C2C staff.

    During the planning process that began in 2019, the state allocated $2.5 million to plan the data system and another $100,000 each to 15 state departments, universities and other organizations participating in the effort. It’s not clear if all that money was spent, or if some was returned to the state. 

    The state also increased annual funding to some state departments that provide data and other services to the Cradle-to-Career Data System, including $1.7 million to increase staff at the California Department of Education. It’s unclear how many other departments have received budget increases tied to C2C.

    Sixteen partners to share data

    The state has gotten key players to sign data-sharing agreements with C2C:  The California Department of Education, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, University of California, California State University, California Community Colleges, Department of Social Services, Employment Development Department, Department of Industrial Relations, Department of Developmental Services and private universities.

    The agreements are voluntary, with no penalty for departments or agencies that fail to provide data in a timely manner. So far, all the data has been submitted on time, according to board members.

    “From 2022 to now, C2C has been working diligently with its data providers and its stakeholders to build a strong foundation to support a secure data linkage process given the scope of data C2C is bringing together,” said Angelique Palomar, deputy director of communications. “This includes establishing legal agreements across 16 entities, building the data infrastructure to securely receive and integrate the data across those partners, and the first submission of that data in October 2023.”

    Data was submitted again in March, which will be the month partners will share annual data with C2C going forward, Palomar said.

    The California Department of Education (CDE), which has fallen behind in providing up-to-date data on its website over the last seven years, will contribute about 70% of the data for C2C, according to CDE staff. It will use the additional state funding to hire more staff to help deliver the data for the project.

    Bell-Ellwanger is hopeful all the partners will contribute data in a timely manner.

    “These are data that belongs to taxpayers, not to one agency, or any person within the agencies,” she said. “And, so Californians, including researchers, journalists and the public, all deserve access to it.” 

    California is playing catch-up

    C2C was a long time coming. California was one of only 11 states that did not have a data system with formal connections across two or more of the four core areas — early learning, K-12, post secondary and workforce — in 2021, according to the Education Commission of the States.

    The Kentucky Center for Statistics is the nation’s gold standard when it comes to education-to-employment data systems, according to Kowalski. California looked to Kentucky when designing the California Cradle-to-Career data system, she said.

    California has rolled out several education data systems over the last 30 years, but they have offered siloed information that couldn’t track whether students were successfully moving from school to the workforce. 

    In the late 1980s, California began to collect school-level data through the California Basic Educational Data System, known as CBEDS, a program still in use today.

    In 1997, the state launched the California School Information Services (CSIS) system to streamline the collection and reporting of education data. But the system was obsolete less than five years later when No Child Left Behind became a federal law. CSIS lacked a unique identifier for each student, which the new law required to track student achievement.

    In 2009, the state launched the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, also known as CALPADS. It includes K-12 student-level demographics, enrollment, grade level, course enrollment and completion, program participation and discipline data, according to the California Department of Education. A 10-digit number is linked to each K-12 student in California, but individual information on students is not made public.

    Its companion data system, the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System, or CALTIDES, never went live. The data system would have tracked educator data to facilitate assignment monitoring and to evaluate programs, according to the CDE website.  In June 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the $2.1 million the Legislature had put in the budget for CALTIDES, which forced the state to give back the $6 million federal grant it had received for the new database.

    “He had a belief that Sacramento could not add much value to what districts were doing, and that data was definitely one of those things that was better left to locals,” Kowalski said of Brown. 

    Instead, CALPADS was built out to a basic level and put in maintenance mode, Kowalski said. But researchers kept beating the drum for data that was useful to people, she said. These are things other states have had for a decade.

    Public included in planning

    Gov. Newsom, having different views than his predecessor, made the Cradle-to-Career Data System part of his campaign for governor. In 2019, the Legislature passed the Cradle-to-Career Data System Act, which called for the creation of a data system to create support tools for teachers, parents and students; enable agencies to optimize educational, workplace and health and human services programs; streamline financial aid administration; and advance research on improving policies.

    The state legislation included public engagement in the planning process and required that the 21-member advisory board include members of the public. The California law that mandated the data system also requires an annual survey of students and their families to ensure their voices and experiences guide the work, according to C2C.

    This year, C2C officials are holding community meetings across the state to discuss what pieces of information should accompany the dashboards and how they should be displayed.

    In Sacramento, community members asked for data disaggregated geographically, possibly by school district. Sacramento’s residents also want informational videos to help train people to use the dashboards. Oakland’s residents were interested in breaking the data down by demographic and educational factors.

    “A few years ago, Gov. Newsom and the California Legislature really made it clear through their legislation around California Cradle-to-Career that they wanted this access that we’re talking about for students, families, educators, researchers and the public,” Bell-Ellwanger said. “So I do believe that they are aspiring for this type of transparency that we’re talking about that will also help to build trust in that data.”





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  • How Cal State’s first Black woman trustee influenced the university system

    How Cal State’s first Black woman trustee influenced the university system


    Donna J. Nicol, author of a book about Claudia Hampton, the first Black woman to serve on the Cal State board of trustees.

    Credit: Courtesy of Donna J. Nicol

    It was the photo of a Black woman dressed in university regalia that caught Donna J. Nicol’s eye. 

    “Trustee Claudia Hampton,” the caption read, “appointed by Reagan.”

    Nicol, an associate dean at Cal State Long Beach who studies the history of racism and sexism in higher education, was stunned. Ronald Reagan, as governor, opposed mandatory busing as a tool of school desegregation and, as president, attempted to undo affirmative action policies in the workplace. How could it be, Nicol wondered, that he appointed the first Black woman to sit on the California State University board of trustees? And what did Hampton do once she got there?

    Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action”, Nicol’s recent book, answers those questions and others about Hampton’s two-decade stint on the board of trustees that governs the 23-campus public university system. Prior to her appointment at CSU, Hampton worked to enforce desegregation orders in the Los Angeles Unified School District and earned a doctoral degree from the University of Southern California. She rose to the CSU board when an opportunity to meet then-Gov. Reagan’s education secretary turned into an informal vetting process for a board seat. (She met Reagan only once, as far as Nicol can tell, an encounter Hampton described as pleasant.) 

    The book tracks Hampton’s emergence as a master tactician and a skillful diplomat on the Cal State board of trustees. Initially excluded from the informal telephone calls and meetings in which fellow board members discussed CSU business outside of regular meeting times, Nicol writes, Hampton traded votes with trustees to earn influence. Eventually, she began hosting board members for dinner to ensure she had a voice in important decisions, a practice she continued as board chair. Hampton also withstood subtle (and not so subtle) racism to win support for policies benefiting low-income students of color. 

    Though at first skeptical of Hampton’s approach to board politics, Nicol came to understand her as a pragmatist who worked within the period’s racial and gender norms to wield power on a board dominated by white, wealthy and conservative men. 

    “I realized how genius she was,” Nicol said. “When she became board chair, she had a strategy of letting her supporters talk first, and then her opponents had to play defense later. Everything was strategic.”

    Nicol also details Hampton’s work to implement, monitor and ensure funding for affirmative action programs. Soon after Hampton’s death, California voters passed Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot measure that bans state entities from using race, ethnicity or sex as criteria in such areas as public education and employment.  

    But Hampton’s legacy is still felt in CSU and beyond, Nicol writes. CSU created the State University Grant program after Hampton argued that increases to student fees should be offset by more need-based aid. A student scholarship named in her honor is aimed at underserved Los Angeles-area students. The California Academy of Mathematics and Sciences, a prestigious public high school that was her brainchild, continues to operate on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills.

    Nicol counts herself among the many students to have benefited from Claudia Hampton’s advocacy. She attended an enrichment program for African American high school students at Cal State Dominguez Hills and received a State University Grant to pursue her master’s degree at Cal State Long Beach. Today, Nicol is the associate dean of personnel and curriculum at Long Beach’s College of Liberal Arts. She spoke to EdSource about the book and Hampton’s legacy.

    This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.   

    You write about a couple of incidents in which Hampton used some savvy diplomatic skills while on the Cal State board of trustees. Would you mind walking us through an example or two of those strategies?

    She was silent (at board meetings) for her first year. She didn’t talk, because she used that time to assess who were the power players, who were the people who had the capital. And so when she identified them, she said, “I have to trade votes with them.”

    One of her first appointments was to be on the Organization and Rules Committee. People treated it as a throwaway committee, but she was the chair, and so she decided, “I’m going to learn all of the board policies inside and out.”

    Before she passed away in (1994), she asked for a very specific rule, which is to hold presidents accountable for the implementation of affirmative action. What she wanted to ensure was that someone besides the middle manager, who would be the affirmative action officer, would be held accountable to make sure that they didn’t fall short on their affirmative action goals. 

    Claudia Hampton faced both subtle and overt racism that challenged the legitimacy of her role on the board. What are some examples of the discrimination that she experienced and how she was able to overcome that opposition?

    She was kind of presumed incompetent, because she was a Black woman coming into the board — even though she actually had a doctorate degree coming in.

    You had a trustee by the name of Wendell Witter. This is a few years in. They’re discussing affirmative action. And he yells out, “Oh my God, there’s a n— in the woodpile.” So she is taken aback by all of this, and all the men on the board, she says, are upset, too. And Wendell Witter is looking around like, “Well, what did I do? It’s just an expression.” 

    Hampton had a lot of experience in administration in (Los Angeles Unified), and she worked explicitly on race relations within the K-12 setting. When she got to the board, instead of yelling at Witter for what he had said, she told the board chair at the time, “I’ll talk to him individually. You keep going with that meeting.” And so the men on the board started to rally around her, because they viewed her as a political moderate, because she had every right at that moment to tell him off for the statements.

    Help me to understand the victories that Hampton ultimately won with regard to affirmative action and related policies.

    California Gov. Jerry Brown was actually kind of an opponent of affirmative action. He would say he supported it, but then when it came to funding, he would support (Educational Opportunity Programs, or EOPs, which help low-income and other underrepresented students attending a CSU campus), but he would not (fund) student affirmative action (in admissions) or faculty and staff affirmative action (in hiring). Hampton put a lot of pressure on Jerry Brown. She would call him out in meetings and say, “What about your commitment to these principles?’” (Hampton ultimately used her board position to ensure funding for student affirmative action pilot programs during a period of budget cuts in the late 1970s.)

    There was an update in the admission standards for students (in the 1980s). And she told people, ‘Yes, we’re going to increase the admission standards, but what we’re going to do is make sure that there’s enough EOP money that would prepare students in low-income areas in order to make sure they could meet those standards.’ She was particularly focused on the fact that L.A. Unified and San Francisco Unified had these large numbers of students of color and low-income students, but they weren’t getting access to things beyond reading, writing and arithmetic. They didn’t have access to a drama club or all those sorts of things. So she made sure that the CSU put funding aside to help support (that programming).

    Hampton and other affirmative action advocates’ success was short-lived because of the passage of Proposition 209, which prohibited state and local governments from considering race and other factors in public education. What were the forces that brought about Proposition 209?

    You have the recession that happened in the 1990s. Wherever there’s a recession and an economic downturn, you see an uptick in either racial violence or racial animus. So that’s one big part of it. The other part is the L.A. riots of 1992 because folks are like, ‘Well, they don’t deserve affirmative action, because look at how they’re behaving in the streets.’ That’s the idea. And then you also have, in 1994, Proposition 187, which has to deal with undocumented students.

    So you take all of those things – the recession, the LA riots, Proposition 187. Then, on top of that, you have (University of California regent member Ward Connerly, who championed Proposition 209) as this Black man who becomes a public face of the anti-affirmative action movement. (Connerly has said he has Native American, Black and white ancestry.) He’s kind of supercharging the debate over whether affirmative action is a good thing or not. So that’s really what led to its falling apart.

    We find ourselves now in a moment when a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision has effectively ended the practice of race-conscious college admissions. Are there lessons from Hampton’s life that you feel are even more relevant today in that context?

    I think that having diversity in our boards is really important because diversity leads to better policy. Too often we think of diversity as a feel-good thing — to make people feel included and inclusive. We talk about representation, but representation is more than just having two or three people from this group here; It’s really about having different perspectives so that you can write better policy.

    If you look at the CSU board, it is more diverse than it was, but is it reflective of what’s happening on the ground with students? I’m at CSU Long Beach, and we have a much larger Latinx population than what is represented on the board.

    I always say that the American project has been built on racism, and we don’t reconcile that. And Hampton just approaches the problem in a different way than others. I was raised in the Black radical tradition. So I had to come to terms with this pragmatic side — that we need the pragmatic and we need the radical at the same time. You need the radical to raise the consciousness of people, but you need the pragmatic in order to turn it into policy and something that has a legacy. 

    I also think that Hampton — her story, her life, what she did for the board— really demonstrates, in a lot of ways, people’s ignorance about how the trustees work. They’re super powerful, but they are super unnoticed. They are appointed by governors, and they are not held to account by the public.





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  • Cal State system braces for possible cuts in classes, sports due to budget problems and enrollment decline

    Cal State system braces for possible cuts in classes, sports due to budget problems and enrollment decline


    At Sonoma State University, lower enrollment is worsening financial cutbacks.

    Credit: Ally Valiente / EdSource

    When Kaitlin Anderson committed to play golf for Sonoma State University, she posed proudly in a Seawolves sweatshirt. But last week, school officials announced that they plan to end all NCAA sports next year, part of a bid to balance the school’s budget amid sliding enrollment and anticipated cuts to state funding. Anderson, a business marketing major from Peoria, Arizona, now is thinking that she might leave the campus.

    “I will not be coming back here” if the golf program is eliminated, said Anderson, a first-year student. “I think this school will not do well after doing all this because half the reason we have so many people is because of athletics.”

    Sonoma State, one of the 23 campuses in the California State University (CSU) system, is perhaps the most extreme example of how public universities in the state are tightening their belts in the wake of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal and troubling enrollment drops at some campuses. The governor’s plan calls for a nearly 8% reduction in state funding in 2025-26 for both CSU and the University of California (UC), while also deferring previously promised budget increases of 5% until 2027-28.

    The governor’s proposal is not final, and later revisions could paint a rosier financial picture for higher education. But CSU leaders have warned that the plan, if implemented, could result in fewer course sections and larger class sizes, along with some cuts in student services.

    Sonoma State has been taking in less money from tuition and fees as its student body has shrunk 39% over the past decade due to changes in local demographics and some continuing fallout from wildfires in the region. In addition to the sports closures, it is also planning to close six academic departments and eliminate two dozen majors in an effort to plug a nearly $24 million budget deficit. 

    Several other CSU campuses are warning about possible impacts of the governor’s proposal. Stanislaus State, which serves more than 9,000 students in the San Joaquin Valley, could face a $20 million deficit after accounting for the January budget proposal, a Jan. 22 email from the president’s office said. Sacramento State, with a student body of more than 30,000, anticipates making a $45 million one-time cut. CSU Channel Islands officials have outlined plans to permanently reduce the Ventura County campus’s budget by $17 million in recurring expenses in 2025-26, saying that expenses per-student exceed the state average by thousands of dollars.

    Reduced state support could be missed most at schools like Sonoma State, one of 11 CSU campuses where enrollment has dropped over the last decade, reducing revenue from tuition and fees. Enrollment this fall was also a mixed bag, rising year-over-year at 15 CSU campuses and falling at eight. 

    At the Sonoma State campus in Rohnert Park, students responded to the news about the end to NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports and academic cuts with a mixture of anger and disbelief. A video published by the Press Democrat newspaper in nearby Santa Rosa shows an emotionally charged town hall meeting among student-athletes, coaches and university leaders. “So you think that we’re easily replaceable?” one attendee asked interim President Emily Cutrer. (“No, that’s not what I was saying,” she replied.) As tensions escalated, students erupted into bitter laughter and shouted interjections. “Do we get our money back for the semester?” one student asked, prompting applause.

    A group called Save Seawolves Athletics has filed a federal civil rights complaint arguing that Sonoma State’s plan to end the school’s NCAA Division II athletics program will impact minority students disproportionately, spokesperson and assistant men’s soccer coach Benjamin Ziemer said. The group is also considering filing a lawsuit.

    Signs of belt-tightening were also common this fall at San Francisco State, where enrollment is down 26% over the decade. Students and faculty members in December protested academic job cuts by staging a mock funeral march. Earlier in the fall, the university’s J. Paul Leonard Library announced that it expects to trim its budget 30% over the next two years, reducing its spending on resources like books and journals. The university offered 443 fewer course sections in fall 2024 than in fall 2023, a decline of nearly 11%, according to university data. President Lynn Mahoney said in a December message to the campus that the school is planning for “significant reductions in the 2025-26 budget” totaling about $25 million.

    Leaders at California State University, Dominguez Hills — where enrollment has fallen a slighter 3% since 2015, but 20% from its peak in fall 2020 — have already whittled $19 million from the school’s base budget since the 2023-24 school year. If state funding is slashed in 2025-26, campus officials have outlined plans to shave another $12 million, and have contemplated reducing the number of course sections, among other things.

    “I don’t want to cut out Psych 101, but if we have a thousand less students here, then maybe I don’t need 20 sections of Psych 101; maybe I only need 12,” President Thomas A. Parham said at a Nov. 7 budget town hall. “What we are trying to do is reduce the number of sections and, in some cases, fill those higher, so that instead of 15 students there might be 25 in them. But we are still trying to keep the academic integrity intact, even as we work smarter around the limited resources we have.”

    Some faculty and students at Dominguez Hills are worried. Elenna Hernandez, a double major in sociology and Chicano studies entering the last semester of her senior year, said the tighter finances have been evident at La Casita, a Latino cultural center where she works on campus. She said La Casita, which receives campus funding, isn’t staying open as late as it has in the past and received less funding for its Day of the Dead celebration. The center is important to her because it runs workshops where students can learn about Latino history and culture.  

    “A lot of students don’t have access to this education,” she said, noting that more than 60% of the student body is Latino. “The classroom doesn’t teach it, necessarily, unless you’re in an ethnic studies class.” 

    Stanislaus State University President Britt Rios-Ellis said last week in an email to the campus that the university is considering several ways to balance its budget, including reducing the number of courses and looking to save money on utility costs.

    Miranda Gonzalez, a fourth-year business administration major at Stanislaus State and president of the school’s Associated Students student government organization, said she initially was surprised that CSU would need to trim its budget at all in light of a decision to increase tuition 6% each year starting this past fall and ending in the 2028-29 school year. Full-time undergraduate students currently pay $6,084 for the academic year, plus an additional $420 per semester if they are from out of state.

    “It was kind of a shock that the CSU was going to be cutting their budget when they just raised tuition as well,” she said, adding that lawmakers and campus leaders should remember that any reduction “ultimately impacts the lives of our students, faculty and staff.”

    State funding is not the only source of revenue for the CSU and UC systems, which also get money from student tuition and fees, the federal government and other sources like housing, parking and philanthropies.

    The revenue picture is not gloomy at every Cal State campus.

    Cal State Fullerton, which has the largest student body in the system, saw enrollment grow 4% to roughly 43,000 students between 2023 and 2024. The steady growth provides the campus with a revenue cushion that has potentially saved jobs, campus President Ronald S. Rochon said. 

    “We are at a record enrollment, and because of the enrollment, we continue to have the kind of revenue to keep our lights on, people employed and our campus moving forward,” Rochon said in a Nov. 7 presentation to the university’s Academic Senate. “This is something that we all should be taking very, very seriously. We should not rest on our laurels with regard to where we are with enrollment.”

    The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU employees including tenure-track faculty, lecturers and librarians, argued last spring that the university system should tap its financial reserves to balance shortfalls. CSU officials, however, say that reserves leave them only enough money to cover 34 days of operations systemwide.  

    UC’s fiscal outlook is less dire. Enrollment is stable across its 10 campuses and is even increasing at several. Some campuses, like UC Berkeley, may not have to make cuts at all to department budgets. A Berkeley spokesperson cited increased revenues from investments and noted that Berkeley will benefit from a systemwide 10% tuition hike for out-of-state students that kicks in this year. Berkeley enrolls about 3,300 undergraduates from other states and another 3,200 international students.

    Other campuses, however, likely would have to make cuts under Newsom’s proposed budget, including to core academic services. The system as a whole faces a potential $504 million budget hole, due to the possible drop in state funding paired with rising costs. “I think this budget challenge does require us to focus more on some campus budgets than we have perhaps traditionally,” Michael Cohen, who chairs the finance committee of UC’s board of regents, said at a meeting last week. 

    UC Riverside has already saved some money on salaries because of retirements and other employee turnover, said Gerry Bomotti, vice chancellor for budget and planning at the campus. Still, the campus could face a deficit next year because of increasing compensation costs on top of possible cuts in state funding. Bomotti said the campus will try to minimize any harm to academic units if reductions are needed.

    “Our priority obviously is serving students and supporting our faculty and our enrollment. We tend to always give that priority,” he said.

    California’s 116 community colleges, which enrolled more than 1.4 million students as of fall 2023, could face a more favorable 2025-26 budget year than the state’s two university systems. The colleges would get about $230 million in new general funding through Proposition 98, the formula used to allocate money from California’s general fund to K-12 schools and community colleges.

    By some measures, the past decade has seen more state and local dollars flowing into California’s public colleges and universities. State and local spending on higher education in California has been at a historic high in recent years on a per-student basis, hitting $14,622 per full-time equivalent student in 2023, up from $10,026 in 2014, according to an analysis by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, which takes into account funding for both two-year and four-year institutions. Looking at four-year schools alone, the association calculated that California spent $3,500 more per student than the U.S. average in 2023. Living costs and salaries, however, are often higher in California than in many other states.

    Marc Duran, a member of the EdSource California Student Journalism Corps, contributed to this story.

    This article has been updated with the correct spelling of Kaitlin Anderson’s last name and to clarify her plans if the golf program is eliminated.





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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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  • California launches first phase of long-anticipated Cradle-to-Career data system

    California launches first phase of long-anticipated Cradle-to-Career data system


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

    Credit: Kirby Lee / AP

    Top Takeaways
    • The Cradle-to-Career data system links education, workforce and social service data.
    • The Student Pathways dashboard, released Tuesday, will help students decide on a college and career path.
    • California is one of the few states that make educational data easily accessible to the public.

    California introduced the first phase of its ambitious Cradle-to-Career data system Tuesday, making it one of the few states with education data accessible to everyone.

    Now, parents, students and others can go to the Cradle-to-Career (C2C) website to learn how many graduates from each school district earned a bachelor’s degree each year, how long it took to achieve that goal and how much, on average, they earned after graduation.

    Cradle-to-Career links data sets from school districts, institutions of higher education, workforce organizations and social services to help students plan their education and careers.

    The first phase, the Student Pathways dashboard, explores pathways to and through college, college enrollment, awards and diplomas, time to graduation or certificate, and earnings during and after college.

    “With the C2C Student Pathways Dashboard now live, Californians can visualize their futures by seeing disconnected data from across sectors and previously unavailable insights, all in one place,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement released Tuesday. “The Golden State is once again leading the way in innovation, connecting our education system to the workforce to ensure everyone has the freedom to succeed.”

    How it works

    The website uses charts, guiding questions and pull-down menus to make the information accessible and easy to use. The pull-down menus allow users to compare their child’s school to other schools, the state average or legislative districts. They can also compare the pathway progress of different student populations, said Ryan Estrellado, director of data programs for C2C.

    Each chart in the dashboard has links with instructions to help users interpret it, and includes links to underlying data that can be downloaded and used by the public to create their own charts and reports.

     “What’s so exciting about what California has done is they’re putting the information out to everybody,” said Paige Kowalski, vice president of the Data Quality Campaign, a national nonprofit advocacy organization. “It’s out there for the community folks, for schools, for parents, for kids looking at colleges. And, this is their first step, right? It’s not everything. It’s not all of it, but it is the first step, and it’s a really good one.”

    Future C2C dashboards will focus on early education, primary school, college and career readiness, transfer outcomes, financial aid, employment outcomes, and teacher training and retention. 

    This year, the data team will work on launching additional dashboards and completing a secure data enclave to allow researchers to use underlying data, said Mary Ann Bates, executive director of C2C. 

    Access to centralized data about education and workforce outcomes is necessary to understand whether efforts to improve student success are working, according to a media release from C2C. The dashboards will not include information about individual students.

    A community effort

    The website follows years of community meetings, open meetings of the 21-member C2C board and feedback from residents, advocates, policymakers and researchers. The most requested feature from the public, Bates said, allows users to break down the data by both geography and student populations.

    “We hope that when the public uses this, they will see that the questions and the feedback that they had are represented here,” Estrellado said Monday. “The most exciting part for me is that we invite them to continue that conversation with us as we improve this tool. I can’t wait to get it to the public.”

    C2C data will eventually be available in three ways — through accessible data stories and charts, through aggregated data files that use query builders, and through a data request process for approved research projects.

    Launch delayed

    The initial launch was originally expected to happen late last year. 

    “We prioritize securing the data system, ensuring privacy protection and ensuring linked information is accurate and reliable before working to make our tools publicly available,” said Bates when asked about the delay.

    The data for the website is submitted each March by partners that have signed data-sharing agreements with C2C, including the California Department of Education, California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, University of California, California State University, California Community Colleges, Department of Social Services, Employment Development Department, Department of Industrial Relations, Department of Developmental Services and private universities.

    The data from all partners was linked by the end of the year, Bates said.

    “We’re really proud of being able to have moved from the linkage of the underlying data system to releasing a public tool just a few months later,” Bates said. “Few (states) have prioritized creating dashboards like this for the public. And many of those have done so after more than a decade of working on building their data systems.”

    Six years in the making

    In 2019, the Legislature passed the Cradle-to-Career Data System Act, which called for creating a data system to support teachers, parents and students; enable agencies to optimize educational, workplace and health and human services programs; streamline financial aid administration, and advance research.

    The state legislation included public engagement in the planning process and mandated that the data system also require an annual survey of students and their families to ensure their voices and experiences guide the work, according to C2C. By the end of 2023, the program had received its first batch of data.

    The price tag for the project, which includes direct costs like contracts, as well as relevant staff time, is $24.2 million, Bates said, and current spending is still below that.

    There is also an ongoing line item in the state budget to fund the operation of the office and to pay the salaries of its staff, including $15 million this fiscal year.

    Federal cuts to education data collection are not expected to impact the Cradle-to-Career IT project, which is entirely funded by California. It is not clear if data collection from any of the state’s data partners will be negatively impacted by federal cuts.

    “Regardless of what happens in the federal context, we remain committed to ensuring that we’re building a data system that answers the needs of Californians and remains true to California’s values,” Bates said.

    Kowalski is hopeful that the work California has done can be replicated in other states.

    It took a great deal of political will, resources and expertise to make the California data system a reality, Kowalski said.

    “Data tells us what kind of job we’re doing, how we fared as a political leader, as an agency head, as a system leader,” Kowalski said. 

    “And when you put that data out there, whether you’re sharing it with another agency, or you’re putting it out in the public, or you’re handing it over to a researcher, you are giving them the power to look at that data and judge you.”





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