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The Power Of Data Visualization
The Power Of Data Visualization – e-Learning Infographics
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University of California enrolled a record number of California residents in the fall
Student walk up and down the Promenade to Shields Library at UC Davis.
Credit: Gregory Urquiaga / UC Davis
The University of California increased enrollment of in-state students by more than 4,000 this past fall, keeping with demands from lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom to grow the number of California residents who get a coveted spot at the university system.
Not only did UC enroll a record number of Californians and its largest-ever class of California first-year students, but the rate of increase for those students was higher than in recent years, when UC has often seen only modest growth.
That freshman class had 42,058 Californians — or 2,094 more than the previous fall. In addition to the uptick in first-years, UC enrolled more returning in-state sophomores, juniors and seniors than the previous year. Overall, UC enrolled 194,571 California resident undergraduates — or 4,145 more than fall 2022, a 2.2% jump. That accounted for 83.4% of UC’s total undergraduate enrollment. Enrollment of out-of-state students declined, thanks to a drop in the number of returning international students.
The historic jump in California residents is a turnaround from last year when lawmakers were critical of UC for failing to meet their demands.
Campuses that welcomed an increase in California freshmen last fall are: Santa Cruz, Irvine, Davis, UCLA, San Diego and Santa Barbara. Berkeley and Merced saw only modest increases. When including returning students, the largest increases of California residents happened at the Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego campuses. UC officials cited higher retention rates as being among the main drivers of those increases.
“When we take a look at California resident students, this is the largest number that we’ve ever had,” Pamela Brown, UC’s vice president of institutional research and academic planning, said on a call with reporters this week.
Over the last several years, UC has faced pressure from lawmakers and Newsom to prioritize enrollment of California resident undergraduates. In 2022, Newsom implemented a multiyear agreement — or a “compact” — with the system. Under the agreement, Newsom pledged annual budget increases of 5% in exchange for increased enrollment of in-state students, among other things.
The system at times has struggled to keep up with those requests, with higher numbers of admitted California residents not always translating to enrollments in recent years.
UC officials maintain they are committed to continue growing enrollment of California residents, even though Newsom earlier this month proposed deferring $258.8 million in state dollars for UC until 2025. That includes the funding for a 5% increase to UC’s base budget that the system is supposed to receive as part of the compact.
“We’re all in on the compact,” Brown said.
UC also enrolled a more racially diverse student body this past fall. Across the undergraduate student body, the share of students from underrepresented racial groups — including Black, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander students — grew by 1.1% or 3,481 students. By far, the largest increase was among Latino students. UC enrolled 61,075 Latino students, 2,671 more than the previous fall, with California residents making up the vast majority of those students.
UC achieved the increases despite a small decline in California residents transferring from a California community college, with the number of first-time transfer students down by 72. That decline, however, was much more modest than the previous year, when the number of in-state residents who transferred from a California community college declined by more than 1,000 students.
Officials have attributed the drop in transfer students to declines in the number of students attending community colleges, which suffered massive enrollment losses during the pandemic. But with enrollment at the state’s community colleges now showing signs of recovery, those trends could be reversing.
“We feel that this is something that is going to continue to improve in the next few years,” Brown said.
UC’s optimistic estimates for in-state enrollment marks somewhat of a contrast from just a year ago, when UC told lawmakers it was behind schedule in increasing the enrollment of those students. UC estimated at the time that its enrollment of in-state students would decrease in the 2022-23 academic year, frustrating lawmakers who had asked UC to add thousands of California residents.
In fact, though, UC ended up increasing enrollment of California residents on a full-time equivalent basis by more than 1,500 students in 2022-23, officials said this week. That was because students took more classes in the spring and winter than UC had anticipated.
The full-time equivalent calculation is different from headcount enrollment, which is a simple count of the total number of students. The number of full-time equivalent students, which is how the state calculates enrollment for funding purposes, is based on the total number of credits that students take. Under the multi-year agreement with Newsom, UC is expected to have added 8,000 full-time equivalent resident undergraduates by 2026-27, with 2022-23 serving as the baseline.
UC won’t know its 2023-24 full-time equivalent enrollment numbers until the end of the academic year, but the increase in headcount enrollment in fall 2023 suggests that number is continuing to trend upward.
And even though UC is funded based on its full-time equivalent enrollment, lawmakers are just as concerned with ensuring the system continues to increase the total number of residents who attend.
The university’s plans for sustained enrollment growth does raise the question of whether its campuses have the capacity for that growth, particularly with some campuses already facing housing shortages.
During this week’s call with reporters, officials cited new housing projects that are underway at several campuses and noted that future new students may not all be attending UC’s traditional brick-and-mortar campuses.
“We are evaluating opportunities for students to pursue their degrees through things like our University of California in DC program, through our Sacramento program, which may not have direct footprints on campuses, but still allow them to have the in-person educational experience,” said Ryan King, a spokesperson for the system.
King added that UC will also look to increase online offerings.
Brown also noted that the compact with Newsom has provided the “stability of knowing what we’re getting” and will help support enrollment growth.
This year, under Newsom’s proposed budget deferrals, UC would be asked to borrow money to cover its compact funding — $227.8 million, plus another $31 million to increase resident enrollment and offset declines in the enrollment of nonresidents, who pay more tuition.
In his budget proposal, Newsom said UC would get reimbursed in next year’s state budget. In its analysis of Newsom’s budget, the Legislative Analyst’s Office warned that plan could be risky.
“Not only would this proposal increase the pressure on the state to provide these payments next year—despite continued deficits — but it also would shift fiscal risk to these entities in the event the state does not ultimately make these payments,” the LAO wrote.
Brown, though, said UC remains confident in the compact and noted campuses are already moving forward with their 2024-25 enrollment planning, when UC expects to further increase California resident enrollment.
“Campuses have set out targets that are helping us achieve the compact goals, and we’re continuing with those,” Brown said. “All our enrollment planning functions are looking to achieve the compact goals, and we are expressing great confidence that we’ll continue to get that support from the state.”
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The solution to California’s literacy problem needs to go beyond third grade
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
Third grade students in California’s lowest performing schools are doing better at reading, thanks to the Elementary Literacy Support Block Grant funding and a new focus on curriculum materials based on the science of reading.
That funding focused on improving education for students primarily in the youngest classrooms (K-2), with a stated goal of having all students reading by third grade.
While many California districts that received grants have been praised for providing student support such as tutoring or after-school programming, they are still focused on K-3. None of them have developed a comprehensive plan to address illiteracy among the older grades.
The most recent National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) stated that 68% of fourth graders lack key literacy skills. In California, the latest assessment of student performance shows fewer than half of eighth graders are proficient in English language arts. Many of these tweens and teens still have reading skills between a first and fourth grade level.
With literacy instruction traditionally focused in elementary school, middle and high school teachers are unequipped to support more than half of the students in their class who don’t yet have the literacy skills to access grade level text. The core problem is twofold: Educators are not trained to teach structured literacy in secondary school, and they do not have the right content for their older students reading far below grade level.
As one eighth grade teacher said, “I came here expecting to teach literature, but I soon realized I had to learn how to teach literacy first.”
Today’s middle and high school curricula assume that students beyond the fourth grade no longer need to learn how to read — instead, they should be able to read to learn. The reality is that many cannot.
Without the phonics and fluency skills, or background knowledge to make meaning from text, how can students analyze things like the author’s purpose and point of view, or use primary sources to write historical essays, or lab reports?
Students who struggle with reading end up falling behind across all subjects — from social studies to science to math — contributing to increased dropout rates.
The second problem is a deep lack of age-appropriate “learn-to-read” books for tweens and teens.
We cannot support and empower adolescent readers when their only choices for practice are stories like Dr. Seuss’s “Hop on Pop.” While these books are on their reading level, they are misaligned entirely with their interests. The content is boring and juvenile, even embarrassing, to a sixth or 10th grader, and the characters are not representative of students’ range of diverse backgrounds and identities. As a result, these students become disengaged and often stop reading altogether. For effective literacy instruction, we need to provide students with engaging opportunities for meaningful practice.
So how do we extend literacy instruction beyond the third grade, systematically?
- Equip teachers in higher grades with the skills and knowledge to support literacy growth. With additional training on literacy instruction, and access to resources to empower student reading practice, we can equip today’s middle and high school ELA teachers with the tools they need to drive growth for students, beginning wherever they are.
- Rethink the choices students have for reading practice. Until just a few months ago, there were no suitable or effective “learn-to-read” books written for older students. As more age-appropriate content becomes available, we need to create a new shelf in the library filled with books that are culturally inclusive, intriguing and accessible for students at any intersection of age and reading level.
We can transform literacy and access if we apply the science of reading in a relevant way to older students. They can catch up, but to help them do so, we must meet them where they are: reengaging reluctant readers with texts they can read and want to read — books that reflect their identities and experiences — and help them discover the joy of reading.
Instead of holding students back in grade three, as some districts have proposed, let’s think about how to propel them forward, starting wherever they are.
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Louise Baigelman is a former literacy teacher and CEO of Storyshares, a literacy organization dedicated to inspiring a love of reading across the globe.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
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Advice from former superintendents on retaining those still on the job
Dedicated mentorship, training for potential superintendents, and trust-building are some of the solutions to curb the growing number of superintendents in California who are leaving the job, according to panelists at Tuesday’s EdSource roundtable discussion, “Superintendents are quitting: What can be done to keep them?”
Some of the most cited reasons for exiting the profession include polarizing politics, division over the effects of the pandemic-related school closures, and stress.
“No matter what we may have thought, superintendents became the public face of the pandemic and, in most instances, they were merely following public health dictates,” said panelist Carl Cohn, former superintendent of the Long Beach and San Diego school systems.
Four out of the five panelists on the roundtable left their superintendent positions within the last four years. At least one cited the Covid-19 pandemic as his reason for leaving sooner than he planned.
They are far from alone: Superintendent turnover in California grew by nearly 10 percentage points between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school year, according to research by Rachel S. White of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. After the 2021-22 school year, over 18% of superintendents across the state stepped down.
“In many cases, it’s not just the divide, but it’s how people are treating each other,” said Chris Evans, who stepped down as superintendent of Sacramento’s Natomas Unified after 11 years. Evans left the position in 2023 after years of personal, hateful threats, some of which led the school board to agree to pay for security at his home.
It’s evident that much of the political divide seen at a national level is mirrored in California, some panelists said.
“Anybody who thinks that California is this special place that somehow isn’t part of this national partisan divide… it is really front and center,” said Cohn, now a professor emeritus and senior research fellow at Claremont Graduate University. “So I think we need to spend more time on these issues of who are the good people who can facilitate dialogue across interest groups.”
Agreeing with Cohn, Gregory Franklin, who served as superintendent of Tustin Unified School District in Orange County for 10 years, added that many superintendents have good relationships with their school board. But he noted that it’s often new school board members who aren’t always well-versed in the importance of a good relationship between the two.
“How do you bring on board these new board members so that they understand the roles that they’re stepping into, what the role of individual board members is, as well as the superintendent, so that they can try and work in service of children?” he asked, citing the Association of California School Administrators and the California School Boards Association as two potential resources for this issue.
Public division between superintendents and school board members, panelists said, has become a significant part of why school districts statewide are finding it difficult to attract new superintendents for the positions left vacant by those stepping down.
Particularly worrying to many of the former superintendents was the issue of potential state budget cuts.
Some pointed out that the high turnover rate of superintendents in just the last four years has resulted in lower overall experience in the role, just as school districts might begin facing years of financial instability. Their expertise, especially from those who served as superintendents during and after the 2008 recession, could be crucial at this time, they added.
To increase retention of current superintendents, the panelists suggested greater support for them in the form of mentorships.
Cathy Nichols-Washer, for example, said that “from Year 1 to Year 20” of her time as superintendent of the Central Valley’s Lodi Unified, “there were times when I needed someone to be a sounding board or even to give advice as a mentor.”
While she suggested “a veteran superintendent” or “someone in a like position that they can call on,” panelist Vivian Ekchian proposed looking beyond those in the same field.
That might look like “building cross-sector solutions with communities and community members to solve not just academic but resource, equity, enrollment challenges,” said Ekchian, who recently retired as superintendent of the Glendale Unified School District.
In addition to a support system, perhaps either the California School Boards Association or the state could offer “annual opportunities for members of the public who might consider running for a school board to come in and understand what the job’s really about,” said Evans of Natomas Unified.
Given that many superintendents have a background in education, panelists agreed they are often well-versed and trained in building trust and compromising.
“We know how to work with people, we know how to listen, we solve and come to compromises about differences in our interests, and we’re used to that,” said Franklin, the former Tustin Unified superintendent of Tustin Unified. “This new idea, though, where people are coming in with a set agenda and not interested in a conversation and not interested in reaching an understanding — it’s much more political science than it is social science.”
In his current role as professor of education at the University of Southern California, he said they have “retooled” many courses “in preparing superintendents to talk about politics and political strategy.”
Panelists also agreed that public support for superintendents by their school board is paramount in order to attract new talent. As Ekchian stated, public support is important both “in the best of times and also in the most politically charged elements that we see sometimes.”
That support leads to a strong team between the superintendent and the school board, added Nichols-Washer.
“It’s all about building a strong governance team; so, a board that is supportive, very clear with expectations, very focused on students and student outcome and student achievement as their priority, strong vision and mission, and ready to support the superintendent as they carry out the goals and directions of the board,” she said.
The shared expertise among the former superintendents on the panel also led to considering themselves as potential mentors for those currently on the job.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for retirees like us to get back in and help superintendents and chief business officers and cabinets and boards who haven’t gone through the budget reduction and the times they’re going to face … to be those coaches and mentors and help them manage what we all have done multiple times — and probably is why we all retired and some of us retired early, right?” said Evans.
And complex as the job of superintendent may be, the discussion ended with panelists offering advice for current and future superintendents. The insight ranged from having a coach built into their contract and relying on county offices for building relationships to forming affinity groups specific to superintendents’ diverse identities and focusing on listening.
“We’ve talked a lot about the challenges … but being a superintendent is the best job I’ve ever had, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything,” said Nichols-Washer. “The most important thing, I think, in being successful in this job is the relationship with the school board. If you have a strong, trusting relationship with your school board members, they will stand by you and they will back you and they will make it a joyful job.”
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California agrees to target the most struggling students to settle learning-loss lawsuit
Students work together during an after-school tutoring club.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
In an agreement ending a 3-year-old lawsuit brought by families of 15 Oakland and Los Angeles students, the state will target billions of dollars of remaining learning-loss money to low-income students and others with the widest learning disparities.
State officials have also agreed to pursue statutory changes that would commit districts and schools to measure and report on student progress using proven strategies, like frequent in-school tutoring, in ways that the state hadn’t required in other post-Covid funding. If the state reneges or the Legislature fails to follow through, the plaintiffs can revoke the deal and return to court for trial.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Mark Rosenbaum, director of the Opportunity Under Law project for the nonprofit law firm Public Counsel, said he was optimistic that won’t be necessary.
“The state stepped up in focusing on those kids who have been hardest hit,” Rosenbaum said. “The urgent vision of this historic settlement is to use strategies that not only recoup academic losses but also erase the opportunity gaps exacerbated by the pandemic.”
Districts are receiving the state block grant based on the proportion of low-income students, foster children, and English learners enrolled, although they can currently use the funding for all students. The program lists various possible uses to “support academic learning recovery and staff and pupil social and emotional well-being,” including more instructional time, learning recovery materials, and counseling. The money can be spent through 2027-28.
The settlement covers what’s remaining of the $7.5 billion Learning Recovery Block Grant, which Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature reduced to $6.3 billion in the current state budget. The largest Covid pot of relief money for districts — $12 billion from the federal government under the last phase of the American Rescue Act — expires on Sept. 30.
The settlement would limit funding to the lowest performing student groups and chronically absent students, including Black and Hispanic students, and would narrow the list of permitted uses while requiring strategies backed by evidence that they are effective. Districts would create a plan for the money, which is not currently required, and track the outcome of at least one strategy over the following three years.
Newsom kept the remainder of the block grant intact in his proposed 2024-25 budget, although he based the budget on optimistic revenue forecasts. To guard the block grant from future cuts, the settlement would guarantee a minimum of $2 billion will be protected.
“One of the reasons that animated our settlement was, we didn’t want to go to trial and then, at the end of the trial, get a decision and then find that the cupboard was bare,” Rosenbaum said.
In a statement on behalf of the Newsom administration, State Board of Education spokesperson Alex Traverso called the agreement’s use of one-time dollars “appropriate at this stage coming out of the pandemic.”
“We look forward to engaging with the Legislature and stakeholders to advance this proposal and focus learning recovery dollars on serving the students with the greatest needs,” he wrote.
Did the state fail its constitutional duty?
Public Counsel and the San Francisco law firm Morrison Foerster filed Cayla J. v. the State of California, State Board of Education, California Department of Education, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond in November 2020, eight months after Covid-19 forced a statewide shutdown of schools and a quick transition to distance learning. The state was slow to provide computers and connections, and the Legislature, anticipating a recession, initially included no extra funding for them. Billions of federal and state dollars specifically for learning loss came later.
The rollout of distance learning and equipment was uneven among districts. The quality and extent of remote learning also varied widely among districts initially and when schools restarted in the fall.
The lawsuit charged that “the delivery of education left many already-underserved students functionally unable to attend school.”
“In addition,” it said, “students are being harmed by schools that fail to meet minimum instructional times, which the state has done nothing to enforce.”
The lawsuit pointed to then 8-year-old twins Cayla J. and her sister Kai J., from a low-income family and attending third grade in Oakland Unified. They had remote classes only twice between March and the end of school in 2020. Because some of the students in the class lacked the equipment for remote learning, the teacher told their mother that classes were canceled for the other students, according to the lawsuit.
Oakland and Los Angeles Unified had among the fewest minutes of live daily instruction during distance learning and were among the last districts to return to in-person learning in spring 2021. Los Angeles Unified students missed 205 in-person days, and Oakland students missed 204 days.
In subsequent court filings, as the case dragged on, the California Department of Education pointed to the massive state and federal Covid aid for districts, the minimum daily minutes of instruction that the Legislature set, and the many webcasts and guidance that the department gave on strategies for remote instruction and learning recovery. It cited districts’ authority to make decisions under local control and the transparency requirements for reporting spending through their Local Control and Accountability Plans.
Rosenbaum told EdSource when the lawsuit was filed that the state was shirking its constitutional obligation to prevent education inequality. “The state cannot just write big checks and then say, ‘We’re not paying attention to what happens here,’” he said. “The buck stops with the state. The state’s duty is to ensure that kids get basic educational equality and that the gaps among the haves and the have-nots do not widen.”
Providing expert testimony for the plaintiffs, Lucrecia Santibañez, professor at UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies, wrote, “Our decentralized school system in California, and the minimal guidance that was received from the state appears to have left many (districts) to their own devices.”
“Data collection was minimal to non-existent, and monitoring of the learning and continuity plans was superficial at best,” she wrote.
Dispute over test scores
Meanwhile, chronic absences soared to set new records in 2022-23, and test scores fell sharply. In 2022-23, 34.6% of students met or exceeded standards on the Smarter Balanced math test, which is 5.2 percentage points below pre-pandemic 2018-19. Only 16.9% of Black students, 22.7% of Latino students, and 9.9% of English learners were at grade level.
There was a similar drop in English language arts results by 2022-23: 46.7% of students overall met or exceeded standards. Only 29.9% of Black students and 36.1% of Latino students were at grade level, compared with 60.7% of white students and 74% of Asian students.
The key issue in the case was whether the pandemic effects were disproportionate and whether the digital divide contributed to it. State officials acknowledged the impact of the pandemic but asserted that the declines were similar, within one or two percentage points, for all groups. In rebuttal, Harvard University education professor Andrew Ho, a nationally known psychometrician, charged that the state intentionally used “a biased calculation of achievement gaps” that led to the finding it sought.
The state used the method displayed on the California School Dashboard that compares the percentages of student groups that met a single pre- and post-pandemic target — scoring at or above meeting standards from one year to the next. Ho wrote that it should have compared individual students’ losses and gains in scale points, a more refined measure that other states use.
Using that methodology, Ho wrote, “California test scores show that racial inequality increased in almost all subjects and grades. Economic inequality also increased.” An independent analysis of state test data by EdSource corroborated that finding.
Advocates for a more precise system of measuring students’ growth on test scores have also called for the use of scale scores. In a move that could accelerate that adoption in California, the settlement calls for using scale scores to determine which student groups will be eligible for the block grant funding.
Last August, in a decision that prompted negotiations to settle the case, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case and ordered the parties to go to trial. He concluded that the state had not established that it made adequate and reasonable efforts to respond to the pandemic’s impact and that Ho’s finding on increased learning disparities was credible. Under the settlement, the state would pay $2.5 million in attorneys’ fees.
Credit to local nonprofits
During the summer of 2020, Cayla J. and her sister turned to a nonprofit for help the district didn’t provide. Calling The Oakland REACH “a lifeline” for the two girls, the lawsuit said it “provided a safe space for learning and community advocacy” while offering enrichment online summer courses. Its family liaisons helped keep Cayla J. and Kai J. from falling further behind, it said.
Oakland REACH’s counterpart in Los Angeles, the Community Coalition, provided similar services. Both signed on as plaintiffs.
Efforts by The Oakland REACH evolved into a novel early literacy and early math tutoring partnership with Oakland Unified, employing trained community members and parents. In a nod to both nonprofits’ good work, the settlement calls for amending the education code to encourage districts to contract or partner with community-based organizations “with a track record of success” for services covered by the block grant.
Michael Jacobs, a partner with Morrison Foerster working pro bono on the case, called the provision an important and landmark element of the agreement.
“We saw during the pandemic that community-based organizations filled critical needs,” he said. Pointing to The Oakland REACH, he said, “Now the evidence is in that the services made a significant difference in educational achievement.”
Lakisha Young, CEO and founder of The Oakland REACH said she has been speaking with community partners in other districts about their work “building solutions for our kids to be reading proficiently.” She called the agreement a “historic win” and praised the families involved in the lawsuit for “the courage to step forward, not knowing their voices would make a difference.”
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Aspiring bilingual teachers gain new perspectives by crossing the border
The U.S.-Mexico border is a fraught topic in political debate in Congress and between presidential candidates. But crossing it is a key part of training for some prospective bilingual teachers in California to get insight into their future students’ lives.
The dual language and English learner education department at San Diego State University has taken student teachers on four-day trips to visit schools in Tijuana for about 10 years. The goal is for the prospective teachers to learn about some of the experiences that students from Mexico and other countries in Central and South America face and how those experiences might affect students in the classroom.
“We want them to understand, basically, the students we share. Sometimes there could be a student in Tijuana that the next day is in a classroom in San Diego,” said Sarah Maheronnaghsh, a lecturer in the department who helps organize the trips.
She said the opposite is also true. San Diego State students have also met children in Tijuana who had previously been living and attending schools in California but have since been deported.
“A lot of the issues are the same on both sides,” Maheronnaghsh said. “Knowing and having a deep understanding of the kids and where they’ve come from and what they’ve been through is only going to help them in the classroom.”
The San Diego State bilingual credential program was identified by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing as a model for preparing bilingual teachers. The department offers both online and in-person classes and boasts having the largest graduating class of bilingual teachers in the state.
During the latest trip in November, student teachers visited and taught classes in English and Spanish at three different schools — a school in a very low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, another that has a program for blind students, and a third school inside a migrant shelter. They also visited a local university and watched a documentary about children who travel through Mexico on the top of a cargo train to reach and cross the border.
“We want them to understand, basically, the students we share. Sometimes there could be a student in Tijuana that the next day is in a classroom in San Diego.”
Sarah Maheronnaghsh, SDSU lecturer
The experience was powerful for Erika Sandoval, who was born in a small town in the state of Jalisco in western Mexico and migrated to California when she was 9 years old.
“I cried a lot because it kind of made me connect to what I encountered as a kid, leaving my country and coming here to start over again,” Sandoval said. “I was once that child.”
Sandoval, who is 39, is enrolled in San Diego State’s online bilingual credential program part time, while also working as an aide with special education students in Saugus Union School District in Santa Clarita, in Los Angeles County. She first heard about the program through her son’s kindergarten teacher.
“I knew I wanted to be part of the program, especially because it gave me an opportunity of using my Spanish,” Sandoval said. “Within my friends’ circle, I’m one of the only ones who continues to speak Spanish to my kids. Even my niece and nephew I’m starting to see the language be forgotten and it kind of makes me sad.”
The trip to Tijuana highlighted for her why it’s important for schools to provide resources and support for immigrant children and families.
“A lot of the kids that come to the United States have a story and a reason why they left their country, and because of those reasons they are going to struggle when they go to school,” Sandoval said. “A lot of them didn’t know how to read or didn’t go to school because they were working at a young age.”
She said the trip was also a reminder to not make assumptions about children’s home lives.
“A lot of times we assume that every child has a mom and a dad. But that’s not the reality for a lot of us. A lot of us have left so much behind to be in this country,” Sandoval said.
Aspiring bilingual teachers and professors from San Diego State visit a school in Tijuana. Credit: Courtesy of Rick FroehbrodtAnother student in the bilingual teacher program, Clarissa Gomez, said her parents and grandparents migrated from Mexico, and she grew up in the Central Valley with many other immigrant families around her. Still, she said meeting the children and families at the migrant shelter was eye-opening.
Many of the students were fleeing violence in other parts of Mexico or in Central America, and some had to leave family behind. One young girl said she was about to cross the border to the United States the next day.
“We had a student who said, ‘Tomorrow we wake up and we make a long journey. I feel so sad that I’ve met you guys and tomorrow I have to leave. I’m scared,’” Gomez said. “That was heart-wrenching.”
Despite all that the children had endured, Gomez said they were eager to learn and share their own knowledge.
She said visiting the shelter and hearing about the children’s experiences will help her as a teacher to understand her students. She’s currently student-teaching at an EJE Academy, a dual-language immersion charter school in El Cajon, in San Diego County.
“I’m expecting that some of the students that I did meet at the shelter will most likely be the students in my classroom,” Gomez said.
Overall, she said, the visit was a reminder of the importance of learning about and respecting students’ cultures and life experiences.
“I know that getting down the standards is important, but there’s so much we can implement by building this culture of, ‘You’re welcome in my classroom and I respect you and your family and your family dynamic,’ and that’s me respecting you as a person.”
Student teachers prepare lessons to teach on the trip, but they also have to be ready to change plans at a moment’s notice. For example, Sandoval and a group of her peers had prepared to teach second grade, but ended up teaching fifth graders at one school and preschoolers at another.
It’s crucial for teachers to learn that they have to be flexible, said Rick Froehbrodt, a lecturer in the department who helps organize the trips.
Aspiring bilingual teachers work with children at a migrant shelter in Tijuana. Credit: Courtesy of Rick Froehbrodt“With this experience, something always happens, something changes,” said Froehbrodt. “It’s understanding that this is not, ‘Here’s my lesson plan, here’s what I’m going to teach, this is how it’s going to go from start to finish,’ understanding there are so many factors involved that you always have to be prepared.”
Sandoval said at one school, they were able to tour the campus and see fruit trees that staff planted for kids to learn outdoors, as well as Day of the Dead altars that gave her ideas for how to celebrate the holiday at her own school in California.
She said she was struck by how much teachers and children were able to do with the few classroom supplies they had.
“The few things that they have, they make use of them to the best of their ability, and they’re not concerned about sharing their things,” Sandoval said. “Seeing that community was really nice, and it makes you wonder how come a lot of our students in the United States struggle to give much to each other. With the abundance of supplies, they still have such hesitation to share even a pencil with a classmate.”
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Strategic, sustainable residencies can help solve the teacher shortage
Teacher candidates in the Claremont Graduate University teacher residency program spend an entire year working with a mentor teacher in Corona Norco Unified classrooms.
Courtesy: Claremont Graduate University School of Education Studies
Public schools in California are facing historic staffing challenges: rising rates of dissatisfaction and burnout within the current workforce and unprecedented shortages of future teachers, as increased housing and education costs deter potential teachers from entering the field.
But university teacher preparation programs and school districts can create more effective partnerships to meet these demands.
Historically, the partnerships between teacher preparation programs and school districts have been transactional: teacher preparation programs place student teachers in districts for short periods of time without considering district needs. To change this dynamic, teacher preparation schools launched residency programs to ensure new teachers better understood the communities they were serving. Residencies are similar to student teaching models, but differ in that they are for a full year. Within a residency, aspiring teachers take on increasingly more responsibility in the classroom alongside a mentor teacher for the entire year, gain familiarity with the ebbs and flows of the school year, and assume full teaching responsibilities by the end of the year.
Over the last five years, California has dedicated more than $350 million for teacher residencies to better prepare future educators and help diversify the workforce. Research shows candidates who go through a residency become more effective teachers more quickly than those launching their careers through other pathways, and they are likely to remain in the profession longer. It costs a district roughly $20,000 to hire a new teacher; by reducing turnover, residencies are not only good for new teachers and K-12 students, but also for school district budgets.
Unfortunately, budget cuts and day-to-day needs have limited districts’ capacity to develop residency programs, and aspiring teachers have avoided them because the full-year commitment and small or nonexistent stipends offered by many programs renders them unaffordable to most.
One promising avenue to meet these challenges is by creating mutually beneficial partnerships between university teacher preparation programs and school districts to help place and nurture new teachers in the field. These partnerships require transparency, a clear vision, and shared investments. With these elements in place, they have the opportunity to meet districts’ staffing needs and teacher preparation programs’ enrollment goals while surrounding new teachers with systems of social and professional support. These partnerships also provide stipends and embedded professional development that enrich existing teachers’ work with new avenues for leadership as mentors to new teachers.
One example of a creative and effective partnership can be found between Claremont Graduate University and Corona-Norco Unified School District. The university and the district had worked together for many years, with Corona-Norco hiring many Claremont alums, but they had never formalized a partnership. With a foundation of mutual trust and understanding, the district shared data about their current and anticipated staffing needs, and the faculty of the Claremont teacher education program shared insight into their students’ experiences, strengths and needs entering the profession. Understanding the benefits that a residency program provides to veteran teachers, students and the district as a whole, the district committed to paying residents a living stipend from reallocated budget dollars.
A shared vision is key to a successful partnership. For example, both the university and the district have a strong commitment to diversity. This is visible in the diverse participants recruited by Claremont’s teacher education program, who are drawn to its deeply rooted commitment to social justice and humanizing relationships. It also reflects Corona-Norco Unified’s mission to foster the wellness of their students by cultivating an educator pool that better reflects the diversity of its students and communities. This mutual commitment to what teaching can and should be created pathways for recruiting experienced mentor teachers from the district interested in professional development with the university that leveraged and built from their knowledge and expertise. Research shows that grouping mentors in community with other experienced teachers and giving them opportunities to engage not only as practitioners but also as intellectuals helps fend off burnout and gives them a renewed sense of purpose.
The teacher residencies that have come out of this partnership buffer participants from the overwhelm and burnout so many other new teachers face by embedding them within a community of support that includes university advisers and faculty alongside mentor teachers and advisers at the district. The residents not only learn from their university classes and experiences in their mentor teachers’ classrooms, but also from opportunities to work with colleagues to support students who are struggling academically, working with small groups of students, analyzing students’ work with department teams, and interacting with parents and caregivers at drop-off and during teacher conferences. The breadth and depth of these experiences give residents confidence that when they step into their own classroom, they’ll be ready to meet the needs of students and have colleagues to call upon when they need support.
District leaders are ready to hire their residents after they earn their master’s degree and credential and eager to have more residents at their school sites. School principals note that residents provide data-driven, hyper-personalized instruction to students that they otherwise would not be able to offer. Students love residents, often running up to them during lunch and recess for hugs. And parents and caregivers appreciate having more people around who care about their kids. Having more adults on campus who know and are known by more students benefits everyone.
With more partnerships like this, the possibilities to innovate and strengthen learning for everyone at our schools grow exponentially. This story is just the beginning.
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Rebecca Hatkoff, PhD, is the interim director of teacher education at Claremont Graduate University.
Debra Russell works as part of the California Educator Preparation Innovation Collaborative team at Chapman University to promote strategic teacher residency models across the state.
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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Trauma, upheaval, fear: Students and families caught in the crosshairs of immigration enforcement
Teacher Laura Brown, second from right, speaks at a rally for Miguel Angel Lopez, alongside teacher Betsy Wilson, Lopez’s wife Rosa Lopez, and son-in-law Jimmy Silva.
Courtesy of Becca Esquivel Makris
Top Takeaways
- Some schools across California report that parents — and sometimes students — have been detained by immigration officials.
- Teachers and other school staff are stepping up to help families get the resources they need.
- When a parent is detained or deported, students may become eligible for homeless services.
The day before final exams started at Granada High School in Livermore, special education teacher Laura Brown got word that a student’s father had been detained by immigration officers.
Brown didn’t hesitate. She immediately called the student’s mother, Rosa Lopez, and went over to her house that night. She had known the family for 12 years, ever since the oldest son had been her student. The youngest, who just finished his sophomore year in high school, stops by her classroom regularly just to say hi.
Together, Brown and Lopez wrote a message calling for help. Within hours, they had contacted their local congressional representative, mayor and local activists. Another teacher, Betsy Wilson, helped organize a rally to protest Miguel Angel Lopez’s detention. Days later, he was deported to Tijuana. As his wife travels to Mexico to help him, Brown and Wilson are still trying to support the family.
“That’s the call of a teacher,” Brown said. “Your students need you and that’s it.”
She would do the same for any student, she said.
“Right now, if a student has anyone in their family that has an unknown legal status, it would be really hard for us to expect that their brains are going to be capable of learning and taking in content when they’re in such a traumatized and fearful state,” Brown said.
SUPPORTING IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids ramp up across California, so have reports of students grappling with trauma, upheaval and fear after family members — and sometimes students themselves — are detained.
A fourth grader in Torrance and his father were sent to a detention center in Texas after an appointment with federal immigration officials on May 29. They were later deported to Honduras.
In San Francisco, at least 15 people, including four children, were detained by ICE at scheduled immigration check-ins on June 4, according to advocates. In May, a first grader in the district was deported with his mom to Nicaragua after attending an immigration appointment as part of their application for a visa.
“There was no chance for them to return home to get any of their belongings or to say goodbye,” said Maggie Furey, a social worker in the district. “The first grader left school Friday not knowing that they were never going to see their friends, teacher or community again.”
Furey said the child’s deportation hit his classmates and teachers hard.
“A lot of the adults were extremely distraught, and we saw heightened anxiety in our community because we have other families that have immigration appointments coming up and were really fearful,” Furey said. “The kids really missed the student, and you’re having to have really big conversations on a first-grade level with kids.”
She said the child’s teacher set up an international video call so his classmates could say goodbye.
We’ve had to call upon our therapists, our social workers at our school site to be able to have those heart-to-heart conversations with their students when they’re feeling anxious, stressed or very worried
Efrain Tovar
In Los Angeles, dozens of people have been detained by ICE in recent days, and raids on businesses near schools have sparked fears that immigration agents may target graduation ceremonies. A Los Angeles Unified School District high school sophomore was detained last week, alongside her mother and sibling. She has since been sent to a detention center in Texas.
The effects on students extend beyond the communities where the most publicized raids have occurred. Efrain Tovar, who teaches English language development to English learners and immigrant students at Abraham Lincoln Middle School in Selma, in the Central Valley, said he’s seen an increase in fear and uncertainty.
“We’ve had to call upon our therapists, our social workers at our school site to be able to have those heart-to-heart conversations with their students when they’re feeling anxious, stressed or very worried,” said Tovar. “It’s a reality that our students are facing, and students cannot learn when these types of events flare up in the classroom.”
He said, in addition, many immigrant students are unsure of where they will be next school year, which makes it hard for them to plan for high school or the future.
“There’s this feeling among the newcomers that ‘we don’t know if we’ll be back next year.’ As we end the school year, there’s a lot of what-ifs,” Tovar said.
Jesús Vedoya Rentería, who teaches English at Hanford West High School in the Central Valley, said in response to the fear among their peers, some of his students have decided to pass out “know-your-rights” cards outside Mexican markets or at the swap meet on weekends. He said it makes them feel more empowered.
“They were concerned a lot of raids were going on and said we owed it to our immigrant population to make sure they’re informed,” Vedoya Rentería said.
School staff are anxious to know what they can do to help students and families, said Ana Mendoza, director of education equity and senior staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California. She said the organization has worked with several school districts to provide presentations on students’ and families’ rights regarding immigration enforcement and training for school employees.
“Schools have the obligation to ensure families know that students have the right to attend California public schools,” Mendoza said.
Federal law gives all children the right to a free public education, regardless of immigration status. Under California law, school districts must notify parents and guardians of that right. The state attorney general recommends that schools also work with parents to create a plan for who should have custody of the child if parents are detained, and that school staff connect families with legal help or other resources.
A family separated
When Granada High School teachers stepped up to help Rosa Lopez, the mother in Livermore, it meant a lot, she said.
“If it wasn’t for them, I would [have] probably be[en] home with my arms crossed just waiting for Miguel or the lawyer to call,” said Lopez. “That really motivated me and hyped me up, because I was like, ‘OK, I got this and I know I can do this, and we’re going to bring Miguel home.’”
Lopez said her husband’s detention and deportation have deeply affected her kids, who are 24, 23 and 17 years old.
“We’ve never been apart from each other,” she said. “He is the one always making sure we’re OK.”
Miguel Angel Lopez (center) with his daughter Stephanie, wife Rosa and sons Julian and Angel. Credit: Courtesy of the family Courtesy of Rosa LopezHer youngest son, Julian, had to take final exams the day after his dad’s detention, but it helped that his teachers knew what he was going through, she said.
“My oldest son, he doesn’t know how to express his emotion, but I can see the sadness in his face, and he said he feels like the house isn’t home because his dad’s not here,” she said.
The couple’s granddaughter, who is 3 years old, doesn’t understand why her grandfather isn’t home. “She grabs his picture and says, ‘I want to go with Papa,’” her name for her grandpa, Lopez said.
Lopez, who is a U.S. citizen, said she applied for her husband to become a permanent legal resident after getting married in 2001, but the government initially denied the application, and the couple has been battling that decision in court for years. She said her husband was originally taken to a detention center in McFarland, but early Saturday morning, he called her from Tijuana and told her he was left there by immigration authorities without his Mexican passport or his California driver’s license.
“I lost it when he told me,” Lopez said. “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.”
She immediately booked a flight to Mexico to bring her husband clothes and his birth certificate and help him complete paperwork to get a new Mexican passport. She plans to continue to fight the deportation in court.
Students may be eligible for McKinney-Vento resources
Mendoza, from the ACLU, said after a family member is detained, school staff should check if a student’s housing situation has changed, which could then make them eligible for services for homeless students, under the federal law known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
If a student’s parent or guardian is detained, they may have to live with a new family member, for example, or the loss of income of one parent may require a student’s family to move to a new home. In that case, students have the right to stay in the same school even if they have moved farther away, and they may need help with transportation to get to school, Mendoza said.
“Stability is really important,” said Mendoza. “But if they [school staff] don’t inquire about why an address has changed, they might miss that it’s a housing instability that would then trigger McKinney-Vento.”
School personnel at a school district in Ontario, outside of Los Angeles, said they were recently approached by a grandmother who was caring for her grandchildren and needed food and clothing for them. Only after inquiring about their living situation did the district learn that the children’s parents had been detained by ICE. Their particular situation qualified them for homeless assistance resources.
“I think there’s this hesitancy to talk about ‘what does this mean for our immigrant students?’ But I think it’s even more important now because we never know who students will feel comfortable sharing that information with,” said Karen Rice, a senior program manager at student-advocacy organization SchoolHouse Connection.
So many of our members want to know, what do I do in the event that ICE does get past the office and into the classrooms?
Yajaira Cuapio
At Coachella Valley Unified School District, an uptick in fear of immigration enforcement is contributing to homelessness among families. Karina Vega, a district support counselor, said immigration-related changes in students’ lives vary widely. Some parents have had to temporarily leave the country as part of the residency process; others have a deported parent, leaving the remaining parent struggling to make ends meet on their own; others are constantly moving to stay off the radar of immigration officials.
The information from the state attorney general about how to help immigrant students and families is not always getting to teachers, said Yajaira Cuapio, a social worker with the San Francisco Unified School District. She said the teachers union, United Educators of San Francisco, is asking the district to include training on sanctuary policies in the teachers’ contract.
“So many of our members want to know, what do I do in the event that ICE does get past the office and into the classrooms?” Cuapio said. “What are our rights? What do I do as an educator?”
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Most California high school seniors shut out of even applying to the state’s universities
Christian Robinson always planned to go to college, but when she graduated from Adelanto High School in California’s High Desert, she felt aimless. Without a plan or preparation for higher education, she decided to go to work instead.
She regrets that now.
“I wish I would have gone straight into college because I would have had everything done, finished and over with,” said Robinson, who at 20 is now enrolling at Victor Valley College.
Currently, Robinson juggles two jobs, working for a security company and serving fast food. She wishes she had received more guidance about attending college from her school.
Robinson’s story was typical for Black students at Adelanto High School, where over 8 out of 10 Black students graduated in 2020 without the college prep courses — known as A-G — required for admission to California’s public universities.
The path has been different for her younger brother MarQuan Thornton, currently a high school senior at Adelanto. Months away from graduation, Thornton is one of a small group of students deciding not whether he will go to college, but which one.
MarQuan Thornton is a senior at Adelanto High in California’s High Desert. He credits the Heritage Program at his school, aimed at Black students, for helping to keep him on track for attending college. Emma Gallegos/EdSourceThornton has worked hard but recognizes that the key difference between his trajectory and his sister’s is the support he’s getting from school that did not exist during his sister’s time there.
Three years after his sister graduated, his high school began the Heritage Program, which is aimed at ensuring that Black students, like him, are on track to complete their A-G requirements.
Thornton knows he’s on track to meet the requirements that will make him eligible to attend a state university.
“If she (Christian Robinson) had this type of chance when she was in high school, she probably would have been where I am at,” Thornton said. “I can see the difference.”
While the vast majority of students in California — 86% of seniors in 2023 — graduate from high school, most — 56% in 2023 — do not complete their A-G requirements, according to an EdSource analysis of data from the California Department of Education. EdSource’s analysis found that Black and Latino students are the hardest hit.
In 2023, 68% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet A-G requirements, compared with 26% of Asian students and 48% of white students, according to EdSource’s analysis.
The highest non-completion group is foster students at 88%, followed by disabled students at 85% and English learners at 82%.
“These kinds of numbers should be treated as a five-alarm fire,” said Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of P-16 research for Ed Trust-West, a nonprofit that advocates for justice in education.
Valenzuela-Stookey said high school graduates are being shut out of affordable four-year public college options, because they are not getting the support they need to complete the A-G coursework.
“Our education systems urgently need to invest more in our students of color,” Valenzuela-Stookey said.
As Robinson neared graduation in the early days of the pandemic, she said everyone, even teachers, seemed to lose track of how to prepare students for college and life after high school.
But long before the pandemic, the district was struggling to prepare Black students to meet their A-G requirements and be ready for higher education, according to Ratmony Yee, assistant superintendent of educational services for Victor Valley Union High.
Robinson’s mother, Crystal Francisco, says that she is proud of how hard her daughter works to earn her own money. But she concurs that if Heritage had been around, Robinson might have gone straight to college.
“She probably would have gone a different way,” said Francisco.
Snapshot of California
Of 1,766 high schools in California, about half graduated more than 56% of students lacking the required college preparatory courses.
Fewer than 2 out of 10 students met A-G rates in 2023 in many northern counties, such as Lake, Del Norte, Plumas, Lassen, Nevada, Tehama, Trinity. Just 3 out of 10 students in Kern, Merced, Tulare and Kings counties met the requirements. That compares to the Bay Area in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Marin counties where more than 5 out of 10 students met A-G requirements.
Improving low A-G completion rates has been a longtime goal of both educators and state policymakers, but it’s a problem that resists easy answers or quick fixes, said Sherrie Reed, executive director of the California Education Lab at UC Davis and a researcher with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), an independent research nonprofit affiliated with several California universities.
The idea of simply aligning the state’s minimum high school requirements with A-G requirements hasn’t gained steam because of the concern that it would result in fewer students graduating, said Mayra Lara, the director of Southern California partnerships and engagement with Ed Trust-West.
What are A-G requirements?
The details of A-G requirements can be arcane, especially for students and parents who are not familiar with the college admissions process.
The state requires students to complete a minimum of 13 courses to receive a high school diploma.But to attend a UC or CSU requires that a student takes 15 courses in seven areas: history, English, math, science, foreign language, arts and an elective. Each category has its own letter, A-G, which is where the requirements get their name.
These courses overlap with high school requirements, but they are also more rigorous. For instance, three years of English are required to graduate from high school, while A-G eligibility requires four years. Only one of those years can include English as a Second Language or English Language Development — courses that English learners are often enrolled in.
Low grades are a common way students fall off the A-G track. A “D” is considered a passing grade for a high school diploma, but A-G classes require at least a “C” to count as eligible.
The state, instead, has offered carrots for districts working on improving poor A-G rates, especially those that have a large marginalized student population, such as those who are low-income, English learners, homeless or have a disability. In 2021-22, the state set aside over $547 million for the A-G Completion Improvement Grant Program. The state has also pushed dual enrollment and career technical education to the high school curriculum, both of which can help students meet their A-G requirements.
Progress has been slow. The number of students who have met A-G requirements statewide has ticked up just shy of four points over the last six years.
Understanding why any given student may or may not meet A-G requirements requires examining what is happening in a particular region or district, as well as disparities within schools.
“The answer is that it is all of that,” said Reed. “No one factor accounts for it.”
Some students said that graduating without meeting A-G requirements sent them the message that they were not college material.
Brock Wooster-Mills, 20, said he felt “doomed to fail” as a student with a disability attending Liberty High School in Bakersfield, where 49% of students do not meet A-G requirements.
Partial hearing loss had affected Wooster-Mills’ ability to speak and follow lessons in elementary school. But even when his hearing improved, his counselors in the Kern High School District wouldn’t allow him to transfer into required A-G courses such as French and geometry.
He remembers one special education teacher telling his class that they likely wouldn’t even attend a community college, but Wooster-Mills said he always knew he was capable of more. He enrolled in Bakersfield College in 2021, the fall after he graduated.
He’s now in his sixth semester, but his lack of academic confidence and inadequate preparation continue to dog him. In high school, he had never been taught how to write an essay. He had never studied a foreign language, which made Spanish daunting. He failed the first time he took it.
“I feel like I’m still behind,” he said. “I wasn’t taught what I was supposed to be taught.”
College increasingly important for economy
Researchers say that preparing students for college is increasingly important for the American economy. By 2031, 72% of jobs will require a college degree or post-secondary education such as an associate degree, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
Most high schools in the state — 91.4% of traditional district schools, according to PACE — do offer a full slate of A-G coursework that put them on track for college. But the degree of access students get to those courses or support, once they have enrolled, varies greatly, resulting in wide disparities between groups of students.
Interactive Map
View the map to see the percentage of students in each high school who graduate without A-G required courses.
PACE released a series of briefs and reports on the A-G completion rates in summer 2023, noting that access to rigorous coursework — whether dual enrollment, Advanced Placement or other college preparatory courses — can profoundly change the trajectory of a student’s life. These courses not only set students up for admission to college, but make it more likely that a student will pursue college in the first place.
Researchers found that some high schools do not offer the full range of A-G courses. In 2018-19, 2.5% of schools offered no A-G courses, and another 6% only offered some A-G courses. The list also includes small and rural schools that struggle to hire teachers who are qualified to teach A-G required classes in fields such as math, science or foreign language.
But 84% of schools that do not offer a full range of A-G courses are charter schools focused primarily on credit recovery for students at risk of not graduating from high school. Charter schools tend to be outliers in both directions; schools with the highest and lowest A-G rates — where fewer than 40% or greater than 80% of students meet A-G requirement — tend to be charters.
Changes in high school can help
Adelanto High is a part of Victor Valley Union High School District, which serves communities in the High Desert, including Victorville. Cheap, abundant land attracts residents priced out of the Southern California housing market, but there is little economic opportunity. Unemployment is high, and so is the poverty rate.
“The kids get stuck here, because there’s a cycle of poverty,” said Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, the coordinator of the Heritage program at Adelanto High.
Educators in Victor Valley Union High say that beyond ensuring that students have all of their options open to them upon graduation, it is not their role to choose a path for students. Military or trade school are options celebrated at the school, but educators tell students that a bachelor’s degree will be key for most students who aim to earn better wages and escape the cycle of poverty.
“Money talks,” said Yee, assistant superintendent of instructional services for Victor Valley Union High.
District leaders say ensuring that students meet their A-G requirements opens up two key options for students: being eligible to apply for a CSU or UC school, and also having the preparation to succeed at a community college.
Like much of inland California, the rate of students completing their A-G is low in Victor Valley Union High. In 2016-17, 13% of students in the district completed their A-G coursework, but it has been improving: that number rose to 29% last year.
Victor Valley Union High has been making districtwide changes that administrators say are key to putting more students on track for A-G completion.
Scheduling is important, Yee said. Creating a master schedule that prioritizes disabled students or English learners ensures these students aren’t missing A-G coursework because of a scheduling conflict. Some schools also build tutoring into daily schedules for struggling students.
The district studied students’ transcripts to figure out how to improve their chances of meeting A-G requirements. For instance, they found that students who took foreign language classes as freshmen or sophomores were more likely to fulfill this requirement, because they had time to retake classes to make up for any poor grades. Students are now required to begin their foreign language courses by sophomore year.
Victor Valley Union High also rolled out two programs aimed specifically at groups of students that were struggling the most: Black students and long-term English learners.
Homing in on groups who need the most help
The Heritage program, aimed at Black students like MarQuan Thornton, was piloted in 2022-23 at Adelanto High. Beginning sophomore year, every Black student in this High Desert school is automatically enrolled in this program that ensures students are prepared for graduation as well as college and a career.
Thornton said the program has helped him, even ensuring that he made up classes he struggled with his sophomore year. He now boasts a 3.7 GPA.
A-G completion rates for Black students at his high school improved. In 2021-22, 6% of Black students met their A-G. The following year, when Heritage began, that number jumped to 26%.
Because of its early success, the program is not only being rolled out at other campuses in the district, but is being used as a model for Legacy, a program aimed at long-term English learners.
Students in both Heritage and Legacy are sorted in four groups. Level 1 students are on track to graduate from high school with A-G requirements, while Level 4 students may be in danger of not graduating from high school at all. The coordinators hold monthly sessions with each group on topics ranging from how to fill out the FAFSA form or make up failed classes to basic life skills that students approaching adulthood need. Students also visit college campuses.
Parents are invited for workshops to school so that they can understand the importance of A-G classes and learn how to support — and perhaps badger — their children into staying on track.
Heritage coordinator Jackson-Jarrell said that having a background similar to her students’ helps her connect with them. She dropped out of high school when she was younger. She tells students that earning degrees — starting with an associate degree and ultimately obtaining a doctorate — helped her go from making $4.25 an hour to making six figures.
Her counterpart at Silverado High, Jose Velasco, teaches Spanish and runs the Legacy program. Like many of his students, Velasco is a child of immigrants whose first language was Spanish. He checks in to make sure students have access to bilingual aides so that they can understand the content in their college preparatory classes, such as geometry or history.
When Heritage first began, Jackson-Jarrell experienced pushback from non-Black teachers, parents and students questioning the need for a program focused solely on one group of students and pointing to other programs such as AVID, that focused on college and career readiness.
“We were hit with questions like, ‘Why is this program just for Black students? It’s not fair,’” she said.
Jackson-Jarrell would tell them that the data was showing that overwhelmingly, Black students need the most support meeting A-G requirements and that they have unique needs and challenges that Heritage addresses. When students visit college campuses, they try to imagine themselves fitting in. Not seeing Black students on campus can reinforce the idea that they don’t belong on a college campus.
“They’re looking for themselves,” said Jackson-Jarrell. “They feel like they don’t belong.”
So, Heritage will often ensure that when they visit campuses, they can meet directly with students from the Black student resource centers. This upcoming spring, Heritage students are invited on a tour through the American South, visiting historically Black colleges and universities. Legacy makes a point of visiting with Latino student groups on campus for similar purposes.
Jackson-Jarrell said that programs like Heritage and Legacy are important for the economic development of the community and hopes to see more programs like them in other districts in the High Desert.
Superintendent Carl Coles concurs. Increasing the rigor of students’ coursework and preparing them for higher education doesn’t just set students up for success, it improves the prospects of their families and the larger community. The district’s renewed focus on A-G requirements, he said, goes right to the core of why education is so important.
Coles said, “It really is so that every kid can live a life of purpose.”
This post has been updated to clarify a source’s statement
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Orlando: A Tribute to the 49 People Murdered at the Pulse Nightclub in 2016
Nine years ago, a lone gunman entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, armed with a high-powered weapon, and slaughtered 49 people. The victims were dancing, relaxing, partying. It was not the worst massacre in the U.S. (that was the one in Las Vegas in 2017, when 58 people were murdered by a lone gunman firing from a hotel room above a concert; two more died from their injuries). But it was nonetheless horrific.
The Orlando Sentinel published these thoughts about that grim day. It is a moving tribute to the love that survives tragedy.
The story of what happened in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, began with gunshots, pain and terror. Forty-nine lives lost, dozens more injured in bodies and souls. The violence unleashed by a single gunman at Pulse nightclub left scars on this community that will never disappear. And at long last, local leaders have a plan for a fitting memorial to that tragedy.
But that is not the end of this story, and that memorial will not be the most important way the Orlando area honors the legacy of Pulse.Even before the sun set on that fateful day, Central Floridians were building their own monuments, written in flowers, candles, prayers and tears. In public spaces across the region, people gathered, strangers coming together to reassure each other that this ugly act did not represent what this community stood for. And before the eyes of the world, that steadfast insistence made a difference. Orlando rebutted any suggestion that it provided a haven for hatred — by responding to ugly violence with love, kindness and solidarity.
That response was anchored in common but often unspoken knowledge. Even before the Pulse massacre, Orlando was known as a place where members of the LGBTQ community could live in relative peace, even though homosexuality was a crime in Florida until 2003, and same-sex marriage was only legalized in 2015. It was also recognized as a haven for people from all over the world — not just tourists, but those who came to this country looking for a new start, even if they didn’t speak perfect English. Clubs like Pulse provided safe spaces for people regardless of sexuality, national origin or skin color to come together in safety, to dance, to celebrate their common humanity instead of focusing on their differences. But many of Orlando’s neighborhoods, businesses and houses of worship also worked to ensure that all were welcome.
That made Central Florida unusual, particularly in the South. But what happened after Pulse made it extraordinary.
Even as the shock of the massacre reverberated, there was little tolerance for intolerance. We’re certain that there were people who attempted to preach the massacre as the wages of this area’s acceptance of alternative sexualities, or who attempted to use the Islamic ideology of the killer (who also died that night) as a wedge for anti-Muslim hatred. But those voices were barely heard — even when they came from presidential campaigns. Instead, the Orlando LGBTQ community quickly forged an alliance with local Muslim leaders and Latino organizations, standing together against the kind of persecution that each community had far too much experience with.
This is the legacy of Pulse, and one that we need today more than ever.
Over recent years, Americans have seen their state and national leaders attempt to exploit ugly prejudice for political gain. In Florida, elected leaders tried to parlay angst about drag queen story hours and overly “woke” teachers to distract attention from their attempts to weaken the strength of public schools and erase history lessons that underscore the toll that hatred extracts from today’s society. More recently, unfounded antagonism against immigrants is being used to sow fear across many Orlando-area communities.
The goal seems obvious: Every attempt to divide our communities makes us more vulnerable, more easily manipulated, more vulnerable to acts of political aggression that can easily flower into actual violence. That reality also hit hard locally in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol: The revelation that many of the ringleaders and their misguided followers hailed from Central Florida was a gut check, but that knowledge was tempered by the understanding that these groups, who called themselves “Oath Keepers” and “Proud Boys,” were in fact too ashamed of their own hateful ideology to embrace it publicly.
Within a year, Orlando residents will see the new Pulse memorial taking shape at the corner of Kaley Street and Orange Avenue, and it will be beautiful: A stirring, color-shifting tribute to the 49 angels who died that morning, and the community that is still brought to tears by their memory. But residents don’t need to wait for architects or builders to remember those victims, or to protect their legacy. We honor the victims of Pulse by rejecting attempts to divide us, by celebrating our shared humanity, and by remaining Orlando United — not just today, but every day.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
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