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  • Central Valley schools juggle extensive building needs with limited funds to fix them

    Central Valley schools juggle extensive building needs with limited funds to fix them


    Marshall Elementary Principal Jorge Estrada Valencia purposely placed posters over areas of the cafeteria where the wall is beginning to tear. A multipurpose room that serves as the cafeteria and a meeting space will be one of the school’s and Modesto Elementary School District’s priorities if a $85 million local bond passes this November.

    Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource

    The story has been updated with information on Central Unified School District.

    In Fresno Unified, the state’s third-largest school district with 71,000 students, the watchword for repairing schools is “worst, first.”

    Two-thirds of the 103 schools are more than 50 years old, and with age comes burst pipes, air conditioning on the fritz and other demands. Add a commitment to property owners in this largely low-income community to stabilize property taxes, and the result is tough decisions and compromises.

    Its neighbor Central Unified faces similar challenges to address the needs of aging buildings with limited resources.

    A small tax base per student limits the taxing capacity in many Central Valley communities. Modesto City Schools has been patiently addressing cramped quarters in its elementary schools one bond at a time. Eventually, every school will have a multipurpose room serving as a spacious cafeteria and auditorium so that every school can do assemblies. Measure X, if it passes, will mark another milestone toward that goal.

    In California, the list of school buildings needing attention is long and growing. This year, a record 252 school districts are seeking $40 billion worth of renovation and new construction projects, including classrooms for the youngest students, transitional kindergartners, and space for “maker labs” and innovative career explorations for high schoolers.

    Many of the districts are hoping to seek financial help from Proposition 2, a $10 billion state construction bond for TK-12 and community colleges that the Legislature also has put on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot. Passage would begin to replenish state assistance, which has run dry from the $9 billion bond passed in 2016, and create a new list of projects eligible for state help in the future.

    Fresno and Central Unified worry that property-wealthy districts, which can raise more taxes and can qualify for more matching state funding, will leave them behind in the competition for Proposition 2 dollars.

    This report is the last of a two-day look at a sampling of districts from different parts of the state that are asking their voters to pass local bonds. On Monday, we visited San Juan Unified and Wasco Union High School District. Now we learn about Modesto City Schools, Fresno Unified and Central Unified.

    Fresno Unified is chasing a $2.5 billion need with $500 million

    In the Central San Joaquin Valley, where dangerously high temperatures and scorching heat reign for much of the year, Fresno Unified schools lack proper infrastructure and ventilation systems to keep students cool. 

    Fresno Unified
    • Fresno County
    • 71,477 students
    • 88% low-income, foster and English learner students
    • $9,058 bonding capacity per student*

    * Bonding capacity per student is the maximum amount of general obligation bonds a school district can issue at a given time; a district can never go over the ceiling. For unified school districts, it is 2.5% of total assessed valuation; the median in California is $25,569.

    Fresno High School leaves open the doors of its oldest buildings, constructed in 1920, as well as the “newer” buildings, built in the ’50s, to increase air circulation and reduce the heat caused by inadequate or non-functioning air conditioning, students said during a tour of the campus. 

    More than 67% of the district’s 103 schools were built before 1970, making them 50 years old and older. Antiquated buildings mean outdated HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), water and sewer systems. 

    Some Edison High School buildings have modern AC units, but that doesn’t hide the fact that the buildings themselves need to be replaced, according to Alex Belanger, the district’s chief executive of operational services. No matter the condition of the AC, the children inside the old, poorly insulated buildings will feel the heat from outside. 

    “Things like that need to be replaced, and we have it all in the district,” Belanger said. 

    So far, the district has utilized $196 million in federal pandemic relief funding, plus other grants, to replace HVAC systems; still, the district is left with at least $470 million worth of replacements. And that’s just HVAC needs. Some heating and cooling systems operating in old buildings can’t be replaced unless the entire building is replaced. 

    In all, across 8 million square feet of buildings, Fresno Unified has identified $2.5 billion in unmet facilities needs, a need that keeps growing, Belanger said. 

    “By the time you fix something, something else is breaking, and it’s an ongoing thing,” he said about the need to repair old schools and upgrade facilities over time. 

    Measure H, a $500 million bond on the Nov. 5 ballot for the state’s third-largest school district, would fix HVAC, water, sewer and fire/safety systems, remove lead paint and asbestos and replace leaky roofs in old buildings; replace outdated portables with new classrooms or facilities; and modernize classrooms and libraries, among other priorities.

    School construction and repairs are paid for with bonds funded by property taxes. Aware that 88% of students are from low-income families, district officials say they will limit the size of the bond and spread out issuing them to minimize the increase in taxes. The $500 million bond, the largest the district has ever pursued, will increase taxes by $25 per $100,o00 of a home’s assessed value annually, upping the tax rate to $238.86.  

    “We are going after what we feel like is responsible to both the taxpayer as well as being able to address some of the highest need areas in the district,” said Paul Idsvoog, chief operations officer with operational services.

    Contingent upon board approval, the district plans to address the “worse first” who are “relying on funding,” starting with eight schools identified as “unsatisfactory” in a districtwide facilities assessment. Schools with poor conditions would follow before they lapse into the unsatisfactory category. 

    But even $500 million couldn’t repair everything that each school needs.

    “We have a $2.5 billion need, and we’re chasing it with only $500 million,” Idsvoog said. 

    If Fresno residents pass Measure H this November, the school system may qualify for matching funds from the state.

    “We’ll try to do that to leverage and be able to maximize the dollars because of our need,” he said. 

    For example, $15.9 million could replace the worst, but not all, classroom buildings at Norseman Elementary, an unsatisfactory site. 

    Bullard Talent, a K-8 school, classified as having poor conditions, has, since 2010, been recommended for improvements in areas such as its fire alarm and safety systems, but because there have been other schools with even greater needs, the district has focused its funding elsewhere — something the district must do often. 

    The district, for instance, has had to choose between updating campuses that are so outdated they don’t meet accessibility requirements for students and staff with disabilities and replacing pipes that were about to burst, Belanger said. 

    “You say, ‘Do I make the door wider?’ or ‘I have the sewer blowing up. What do I do?’” he said. “I fix the pipe.” 

    Regardless of whatever funding the district receives, it won’t have the same buying power as previous bond measures due to pandemic-induced inflation, district officials emphasized. 

    Plus, more than 90% of the district’s nearly 1,100 portables have surpassed the expected lifespan of at least 20 years, and 2% of portables are older than 60 years, The Fresno Bee reported.

    A key district goal is to ensure that every classroom experience is the same across Fresno Unified. To achieve that, the district must modernize classrooms and expand meeting and learning spaces to address overcrowding.  Belanger said that Proposition 2 funds could “help … us get to that point.”

    Not just the worst schools need modernization. “Because of deferred maintenance,” Idsvoog said, “most likely every school will probably get touched in some way, shape or form. It just won’t be equal values across those schools.

    “This still isn’t going to address the need. There’s more than enough need than there is money.”

    Some Modesto City schools are left to wonder when it will be their turn for facilities funding

    District leaders and staff in Modesto City schools often relish the fact that its campuses, built 50 to 90 years ago, are decades old, full of history, and located in established neighborhoods.

    Modesto Elementary School District
    • Stanislaus County
    • 15, 267 students
    • 86% low-income, foster and English learner students
    • $10,840 bonding capacity per student*

    * Bonding capacity per student is the maximum amount of general obligation bonds a school district can issue at any given time; a district can never go over the ceiling. For elementary school districts it is 1.25% of total assessed valuation; the median in California is $8,541 per student.

    But old schools mean outdated structures that no longer meet students’ needs. Modesto elementary schools such as Enslen and Marshall have old cafeterias that are not large enough to accommodate multiple groups of students at the same time. 

    None of the nearly 400 students in the 95-year-old Enslen Elementary, except those in transitional kindergarten and kindergarten, eat in the small cafeteria because space would be too tight, principal Melody Webb said. The school uses its outdoor seating even during the colder winter or blistering hot summer months. 

    And Marshall Elementary runs seven lunch periods throughout the day, a non-stop process, principal Jorge Estrada Valencia said. 

    “Move ‘em in, move ‘em out,” district spokesperson Sharokina Shams said about what schools must do to accommodate all the students. 

    Many schools got some relief in 2018, through now-depleted Measures D and E repair and modernization bonds passed by the community, to build multipurpose rooms that act as cafeterias and spaces for school assemblies and family engagement events, such as science or literacy nights. 

    Right now, such events at Enslen have to be planned for a time of the year that, weather permitting, families can enjoy them outdoors. 

    “We have so much parent involvement that we would love to do Christmas plays or winter celebrations. They can’t fit in there,” Webb said about the Enslen cafeteria. “We make it work, but it would be nice to have a spot.” 

    Large multipurpose rooms would be the priority for Enslen and Marshall if Measure X, the proposed $85 million bond, passes on Nov. 5 and the school board selects the schools for the funding. The schools are some of the oldest in the district and are likely to be prioritized, Shams said. 

    “They’ve made do with these for so long,” Shams said of the district’s old buildings that are “much too small for today’s population.”

    If Modesto residents pass Measure X, the bond will cost homeowners an estimated average of $23 per $100,000 of a home’s assessed value, based on a school board resolution on the bond measure. 

    Modesto City Schools has an elementary and high school district under its umbrella and two separate tax bases for each district. That structure limits the district’s ability to provide students with facilities comparable to a traditional unified school district, Shams said. The 2018 Measures D and E for the elementary district and a 2022 Measure L for the high school district were the first local bonds the district had since the early 2000s, causing Modesto City Schools to play catch-up, Shams said. 

    The district has an annual maintenance plan with allocated funding that addresses ongoing facilities needs. 

    For example, to accommodate more students this year, Enslen Elementary has turned its computer lab into a classroom and moved its music room to the cafeteria while additional portables are installed to address the growth. 

    At the nearly 75-year-old Marshall, located in a high-poverty area of Modesto, buildings have been painted, carpeting installed, and roofs with dry rot replaced this summer.

    Even so, in both the elementary and high school districts, an estimated $750 million worth of needs exist, including addressing weak flooring that moves when stepped on, in a staff room at Marshall Elementary.

    Additional district priorities include multipurpose rooms, single points of entry and safer drop-off and pickup areas, according to Superintendent Sara Noguchi. Multipurpose rooms for the 12 remaining TK-6 schools that were not funded with the 2018 bond are estimated to cost millions more than the proposed $85 million bond. 

    El Vista Elementary, a 71-year-old school, received a new multipurpose room that serves as a cafeteria, has a stage for events and features a music room as well as other amenities through Modesto City’s 2018 bond measures. That left the even older schools of Enslen and Marshall out of the funding. 

    “The kids take more pride and ownership in having the school renovated. The upgrades beautify the neighborhood,” El Vista principal Adele Alvarez said about the impact of the school’s renovation, including how all the school’s needs have been met. “I want other schools to have this. I want every school to have a brand new MPR (multipurpose room), a brand new front office, or facilities where students … can take pride in.” 

    In order to address all needs at its schools, Shams said the school district needs to adopt an ongoing bond program like Elk Grove Unified’s, where every two or four years, there’s a bond measure on the ballot. Such a bold move would require the school board placing a bond on the ballot and the community approving the measure each time.

    “We’re trying to repair these really old schools, and if that’s going to be done well and students are going to get what they deserve, it will likely be through an ongoing bond program,” Shams said. “(Measure X) will not meet all the needs. There will be schools that will be very happy to get what they need.

    “There will be schools that will say, ‘Well, when is it our turn?’” 

    Central Unified’s ‘bandaid’ approach won’t address its needs

    Worn-out pipes, weathered roofs, dry rotted structures and outdated HVAC and public announcement systems are visible even to the naked eye at decades-old Central Unified campuses. 

    The district has several facilities that are at least five decades old and are in desperate need of updates to the electrical, mechanical, plumbing, HVAC, fire safety, security and emergency communications systems.

    Central Unified
    • Fresno County
    • 15, 955 students
    • 82% low-income, foster and English learner students
    • $10,840 bonding capacity per student*

    Bonding capacity per student is the maximum amount of general obligation bonds a school district can issue at any given time; a district can never go over the ceiling.  For unified districts it is 2.5% of total assessed valuation; the median in California is $25,569 per student.

    The district has filled spots that have dry rot and even updated some systems as far as funding allowed. 

    “We’re just kind of putting bandaids on them currently,” facilities planning director John Rodriguez said. 

    But the needs require more than a bandaid approach. Old schools in Central Unified still have structures and equipment with now-outdated safety standards, including accessibility requirements for students and staff with disabilities. For example, Herndon-Barstow Elementary, a TK-6 grade school built in 1953 in Fresno, has sinks, bathrooms and water fountains constructed in the 1950s, under safety codes from that time period. 

    Students in wheelchairs are unable to access most of the school’s bathrooms because the doors to the stalls are too narrow.  Visually impaired students run the risk of being injured around the school’s water fountains, constructed in the early 1950s or recently added in the early 2000s, because they lack proper railing. 

    A lack of access for students with disabilities isn’t the only accessibility issue. 

    Herndon-Barstow as well as Teague Elementary share their campuses with the district’s maintenance departments, leaving the schools little room for emergency vehicles such as a fire truck to navigate, jeopardizing students’ safety. 

    Herndon-Barstow and Teague Elementary, along with seven other old schools, will be first in line for Measure X, a $109 million bond measure on the November ballot.   

    With Measure X, the district can continue upgrading and modifying the aged facilities to ensure safety of students and staff. If Central Unified residents approve Measure X, the school district can also qualify for matching state funds through Prop 2,  which “needs to happen” alongside the local bond, Rodriguez said. The Measure will not raise taxes.

    If the district can get Prop 2 funds, he said, “our dollars go further.”

    Reflecting overall lower property values in the Central Valley, Central Unified’s assessed property per student – a measure of a district’s ability to raise property taxes – is less than a third of the state median of $1.4 million per student. Fresno Unified’s is about one-quarter of the state median per student, according to the Center for Cities+Schools of UC Berkeley.

    Larger districts with higher property values will have access to a larger share of the funding, Rodriguez said. 

    “Larger districts that have a higher tax base are more able to access Proposition 2,” he said. “For small districts like ours, it’s disproportionate. The access and equity just isn’t there.”

    With funding, Central Unified also wants to create more classrooms and build new multipurpose rooms to support student achievement, enhance security measures with fencing and additional cameras and construct or renovate transitional kindergarten classes. 

    Also on the priority list is the plan to replace portables with permanent structures at schools such as Central East High, where most of the campus is portables, many of which are at least 30 years old.

    In 2021, a year after the community passed a $120 million bond, the district estimated its total needs to be between $700 and $800 million. 

    Renovations that have been made over the years can only go so far in addressing needs. The district used millions in federal pandemic relief money and other funding to replace most schools’ outdated ventilation systems “as far as the money could take us,” Rodriguez said. 

    But Central East still operates an outdated chiller system for heating and air conditioning. A chiller has pipes that run chilled water from the chiller into rooms, producing cool air. A broken chiller would take out the AC in more than 20 classrooms versus updated AC units for individual buildings or classes that limit outages to buildings or rooms. Rather than install a new ventilation system that’s needed, the district had to make the cost-effective decision to update two of the school’s four chillers.  

    “Sometimes we’re not able to make those changes (that we need),” Rodriguez said. 

    While Rodriguez hopes that Measure X can mean continued improvements to the HVAC and other systems, he said the money won’t address all the needed repairs. 

    Some of the schools in line for money are so old that they were built with asbestos paint, which is now known to be a hazardous material if not encapsulated. Much of the funding for those schools would go towards asbestos removal. 

    “If we don’t get the funding, it would stop that cyclical process (of renovating, improving and upgrading aging facilities); it just stops that momentum,” Rodriguez said. “Our sites will deteriorate, and our students will be disadvantaged by that deterioration, that deficiency.”





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  • Report: How dual enrollment in California compares with other states

    Report: How dual enrollment in California compares with other states


    Students attend Sociology 101 at Aspire Ollin University Preparatory Academy, one of several dual enrollment classes offered at the school in partnership with East Los Angeles College this semester.

    Credit: Kate Sequeira / EdSource

    A national report finds that dual enrollment can be a powerful strategy for addressing equity gaps in college enrollment and completion rates, but that the students who most need dual enrollment — Black, Latino and low-income students — still struggle to access it.

    The problem of limited access to dual enrollment is true in California, as well as the rest of the nation, according to a report released Monday night by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University.

    The study followed students who began taking dual enrollment courses in 2015, typically high school juniors or seniors, through 2021 using data from the National Student Clearinghouse. Researchers say this report is the first look at college outcomes for dual enrollment students after they graduate from high school with results broken down by race, income and gender — at both the state and national level.

    This report demonstrates how California’s dual enrollment students fare in college compared with other states through a data dashboard.

    For instance, it shows that California students earning college credit in high school are about as likely to enroll in college in the year after high school as other dually enrolled students across the country: 80% compared with 81% nationally. However, dual enrollment students in California are less likely to complete any kind of college degree in the four years after high school: 34% compared to 42% nationally.

    According to John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center who is one of the report’s authors, the report raises questions about why some states have much stronger outcomes or better access than others.

    The report shows that some dual enrollment programs have great outcomes but may not have much access, while others have great access but not great outcomes. The best programs, Fink said, have both — the ability to open the doors widely and offer support to ensure students are successful. 

    That’s the best way to “fully realize the potential of dual enrollment to broaden college access and attainment and equity,” Fink said.

    Caliifornia’s Black, Latino and low-income students in dual enrollment lag behind their counterparts on metrics such as college-going rates or college completion, according to the report. However, these same students are much more likely to do better after high school than those students who are not in dual enrollment.

    In California, 25% of Black students in dual enrollment courses were able to attain a bachelor’s degree, compared to 17% of those who had no dual enrollment. Likewise, 20% of Hispanic students in dual enrollment received a bachelor’s degree four years after graduating high school compared to 13% who were never dual enrolled.

    Black students tend to be underrepresented in dual enrollment nationally, but nationally the students that do enroll are more likely to attend four-year colleges, enroll in more selective colleges and major in STEM fields, which have high-earning potential.

    “The implication is that we need to address the issues around access to dual enrollment for Black students and increase the supports, because we see here what the potential is for increasing postsecondary access and attainment,” Fink said.

    The report does not have specific data on why one state might perform better than another, but Fink noted that policies such as charging for classes, requiring certain test scores and other administrative hoops can limit access to dual enrollment for groups who could most benefit.

    California was notable in that it relied much more heavily on community colleges for dual enrollment: 87% of its dually enrolled students are taking classes through community colleges compared with 72% nationally.

    Students who took dual enrollment courses in California were more likely to continue at a community college after high school, 41% compared to 30% for the rest of the country.

    The report found that dual enrollment programs offered by four-year universities tended to have better outcomes, but these institutions under-enrolled Black, Latino or low income students. These programs were more likely to be restrictive and have barriers, such as having more eligibility requirements and not offering transportation.

    The year that the study began following students — 2015– was an important one for dual enrollment in California. That was the year the state passed the College and Career Pathways Act, which made it easier for colleges and K-12 schools to work together to expand access to college courses for high school students. The legislation specifically named dual enrollment as a strategy to improve outcomes for students who struggle with academics or are at risk of dropping out.

    Dual enrollment more than doubled between 2015 and 2021 in California. Though California is the most populous state, its dual enrollment numbers in 2015 were just a fraction of Texas’. Other states with better developed dual enrollment programs in 2015 include Florida and Ohio.

    Fink noted that while a lot has changed in dual enrollment since 2015, research has demonstrated that many of the problems highlighted by this study remain, such as persistent gaps in access for students who are Black, Latino and low-income.

    An analysis of data by EdSource in 2022 found that Black and Latino students were disproportionately underrepresented in dual enrollment classes.





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  • Turning out California student voters with quizzes, coffee sleeves and door-knocking

    Turning out California student voters with quizzes, coffee sleeves and door-knocking


    Cal Poly Pomona students host a voter registration table.

    Credit: Courtesy of ASI, Cal Poly Pomona

    Every Monday for the past few weeks, Cal Poly Pomona student Melvyn Hernandez has been manning a table outside the Bronco Student Center to register fellow students to vote. He comes prepared with snacks, prizes and a quiz testing students’ election year know-how.

    “When it comes to things like Super Tuesday, or what a swing state is, or even who the major candidates are for the elections, a lot of students don’t really have the time to be aware of that,” said Hernandez, an architecture major. “A lot of students — even with how publicized the different debates and everything are– they’re too busy to be following it.” 

    Hernandez and volunteers across California’s colleges and universities are trying to add something important to the endless to-do list of the typical college student this fall: A crash course in Elections 101. In a year when barriers to students voting in states like North Carolina and Arizona have made headlines, California students are getting out the word about key election deadlines and directing their peers to nearby polling places. They’re also raising awareness about down-ballot contests that directly affect students’ lives — such as a proposed minimum wage increase — but which could get lost in the noise of a contentious presidential race.

    Students and administrators involved in nonpartisan voter-turnout efforts at California State University campuses said their task this election cycle is to provide reliable information to a population that’s simultaneously pressed for time and overwhelmed by the volume of biased political messages. Students said another challenge is to galvanize potential voters disappointed by their options in the presidential race — and perhaps turned off from voting altogether.

    “That’s the point of why we’re here,” Hernandez tells students if they’re embarrassed to admit they don’t know much about nominees and ballot measures. “So that you are aware and you can go ahead and further pursue finding out more about the candidates.”

    Similar efforts are underway at many University of California (UC) campuses, community colleges and private schools.

    Youth voter turnout has historically lagged the rates among older voters. But recent elections have seen larger shares of young voters. The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University estimates that 50% of voters age 18 to 29 voted in the 2020 election, up 11 points from 2016. That rate still trailed voter participation among older voters, though; 69% of voters 35 to 64 and 74% of voters 65 and older turned out in 2020. 

    But young voters are not a monolith. Those with a bachelor’s degree or more tend to vote at higher rates than peers with a high school education or equivalent, according to a CIRCLE analysis. Which college a student attends matters, too, though not as much. A 2024 working paper by a group of higher education researchers reports that enrolling at a top-rated research university or a liberal arts college increases students’ probability of voting relative to students enrolled at a two-year college. 

    A recognition that colleges should play a role in supporting young voters is part of the impetus behind the California Secretary of State’s California University and College Ballot Bowl Competition, a program that seeks to harness intercollegiate rivalry to encourage voter registration. 

    Going Deeper

    You can look up the nearest polling place to you, including those on or near University of California and California Community College campuses, here. A list of early voting and vote-by-mail drop-off locations is here.

    On-campus voting locations are another way to ease what could be students’ first time filling out a ballot. This year, for example, all Cal State campuses are home to one or more ballot drop-off locations, and many also serve as vote centers.

    College students attending school outside their home county or state usually have a choice of where to register to vote. In California, students can register in the county where they’ve relocated for school or in the home county where their family lives.

    Jackie Wu, a former Orange County election official who has worked with Cal State Fullerton on civic engagement, said that university administrators shouldn’t settle for low voter participation on campus just as they wouldn’t pass up a chance to increase slumping graduation rates.

    College “is our last opportunity, in a structured system, to encourage voting and civic participation,” she said.

    Offering students ‘little hints and pebbles’ 

    Striking the right tone in an election awareness campaign can be a delicate balance for college administrators and student volunteers. 

    They’ve got to educate low-information would-be voters — the students who don’t know the answers to Hernandez’s questionnaire. Yet, they have to be mindful that omnipresent political advertising can leave students unsure of what to believe. And, of course, universities have to offer fastidiously nonpartisan messages, even in a polarized political climate saturated with sensationalist campaigning in the mad dash before Election Day.

    “There’s so much pressure put on everyone. You know, ‘The election is really important. Make sure you turn out to vote. The future depends on it,” said Wu. “A lot of times (students) may not feel like they know where to ask for help and who they can go to for help that isn’t trying to pressure them to vote a certain way.”

    The solution: Lots of voter education events and some casual nudges.

    Besides voter registration booths, Cal State students this fall have helped organize panels about ballot propositions and forums where students can mingle with candidates for local office. Cal State Fullerton student government even had a table at the weekly on-campus farmer’s market to register voters, Wu said.

    A custom coffee sleeve distributed at Cal Poly Pomona ahead of the 2024 election reminds students to vote.
    Credit: Courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona

    Small reminders help, too. Jeanne Tran-Martin, Cal State’s interim director of student affairs programs, said some schools encourage students to confirm whether they are registered to vote by placing a link in their online student dashboards. This year, Cal Poly Pomona ordered custom coffee cup sleeves with a QR code linking to TurboVote, a website where students can register to vote. 

    “We’re not trying to get in anyone’s face and saying, ‘This is so important. Why aren’t you doing this?’” said Michelle Ellis Viorato, the campus’s civic and voter empowerment coordinator. “We’re just trying to drop little hints and pebbles to get people to think about, ‘Oh right, this is coming up. I need to remember to do this.’”

    The low-key messaging could help Cal Poly Pomona to reach this fall’s voter turnout goal of 72%. That would be a slight increase from the school’s 70% voting rate in the last presidential election, according to a report by Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, which estimates voter participation by merging student records and voting files. (You can look up the voter turnout records of selected other campuses here.)

    For students already registered, breaking down the steps to cast a ballot can help to relieve some election-season jitters. 

    At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where about 94% of students were from outside the county and roughly 15% were from outside California as of last fall, voter registration volunteers have been fielding lots of questions about when and where students can find their ballots. 

    Tanner Schinderle, the secretary of executive staff at Associated Students, the school’s student government, said volunteers help students to think through their options, like getting absentee ballots, asking a parent to mail them their ballot or registering in San Luis Obispo County.

    Encouraging students to ‘look down your ballot’

    Voter registration has been a sprint at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which kicked off the fall term on Sept. 16, a late start compared with universities that operate on semesters rather than quarters.  

    Associated Students has averaged two to three voter registration drives per week, Schinderle estimates, thanks to more than 80 students trained on the process. Those students have been running a voter registration booth in the University Union Plaza. Volunteers also knocked on the doors of virtually every first-year student living on campus, Schinderle said, offering voter registration help. 

    The overall reaction has been positive, he added. But several students interviewed for this story said they’ve encountered peers frustrated with national politics.

    “There’s a common attitude of, ‘Pick the lesser of two evils,’” said Cade Wheeler, a mechanical engineering student who is Cal Poly Pomona’s student body president.

    Alejandra Lopez Sanchez, who serves as secretary of external affairs at Cal Poly Pomona Associated Students, said a few of the students she met at an on-campus voter outreach event in October remarked they weren’t sure if they would vote in this election. 

    “Especially for the presidential candidates, they’re like, ‘Who am I supposed to vote for if I don’t like either of them?’” she said.

    But voters who look past the race for the presidency will find statewide contests that could make a concrete difference in students’ lives. Proposition 2, for example, would authorize a $10 billion state construction bond for TK-12 schools and community colleges. And for students working minimum wage jobs, Proposition 32 would set higher wage floors.  

    Speakers from the Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College share a presentation about ballot measures at a university housing complex at Cal Poly Pomona.
    Courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona

    Weston Patrick, the secretary of external affairs at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Associated Students, finds the best tactic is to refocus students on local races in San Luis Obispo that influence public transit systems, housing and other areas important to students.

    “That was kind of a guiding principle, telling students, ‘Hey, if you’re not feeling thrilled about your choices at the top of the ballot’ — which we certainly did get some of that sentiment from some students — ‘look down your ballot,’” he said.

    That’s why Patrick was excited to see students strike up conversations with candidates for San Luis Obispo City Council at an event Associated Students hosted on campus. (It probably didn’t hurt that students could grab a free doughnut if they talked to one or more candidates.)

    Iese Esera, president of the systemwide Cal State Student Association, said he hopes strong campus voter turnout will influence legislators shaping legislation relevant to students, like how much the state invests in higher education. 

    “We are tax-paying citizens who also pay tuition, for example, who also have to afford the same cost of living that you do and that our parents do,” Esera said.

    Weighing the election’s impact on jobs and cost of living

    Students said their peers are most concerned about how the election could impact students’ tuition, cost of living and career outlook.  

    “In my generation, a lot of us talk about how expensive everything is, especially in California,” said Megan Shadrick, Cal Poly Pomona Associated Students vice president. “It can be pretty discouraging as we’re trying to move forward into our careers.”

    A national survey of more than 1,000 college students by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab in September found that 52% of respondents ranked the economy and cost of living as their top issue at the ballot box this year. 

    Efforts to make voting easier could benefit students who are short on time because they’re working multiple jobs or managing a long commute.

    One thing to know is that California voters can mail their ballots, drop them at any ballot box or deliver them to any polling place in the state. Similarly, Tran-Martin likes to remind students who plan to vote in person that if you are waiting in line to vote when the polls close at 8 p.m., you will still get to cast your ballot.

    And when all else fails, a little positive peer pressure can help.

    Bahar Ahmadi, a student studying environmental engineering at Cal Poly Pomona, volunteered at an election fair held on Oct. 10. Reached about a week later, Ahmadi, a first-time voter, said she might join a group of friends for moral support as they drop off ballots together. 

    “I feel like the first time doing it might feel intimidating alone,” she said.





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  • Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark

    Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark


    Oakland students rally for lead-free drinking water in their schools in front of city hall Monday, Sept. 30, 2024.

    Monica Velez

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    Oakland student Hannah Lau said she only discovered there were elevated lead levels in her school’s drinking water this year through her teacher. There wasn’t an announcement from the principal, nor was there an assembly to notify students.

    “I was really shocked and scared,” the 13-year-old said. “How long have we been drinking this water? Is it really bad? Is it in my body? How poisoned am I?”

    The Oakland Unified School District is one of the few districts in California that has continued to test lead levels in drinking water years after it was no longer required by state law. In 2017, an extension to the existing law (AB-746), also known as the California Safe Drinking Water Act, required districts to sample water from at least five faucets in every school and report the findings to the state by July 1, 2019.  State funding for lead testing ended after the deadline.

    The law resulted in school districts getting a snapshot of lead contamination in their drinking water at that time. But because of the one-time requirement that districts test only a small sample of faucets, and exemptions for charter and private schools, there are no statewide records that offer an accurate representation of lead presence in California schools currently.

    Seven years after the law went into effect, school districts and communities, including Oakland, are still grappling with how to keep lead out of drinking water.

    “We know there’s lead in the plumbing, and even if it is a low value (of lead concentration), we know it’s persistent,” said Elin Betanzo, a national drinking water expert and founder of Safe Water Engineering. “If a kid is drinking water every day at school, that lead is always there. That lead can get into any glass. The studies show that the low-level exposures have a disproportionately high impact on the brain.”

    An EdSource analysis of school district data of lead concentrations in Oakland Unified water in 2019 and 2024 shows many inconsistencies. In some cases, the same water fixtures that were tested both years yielded completely different results, with lead concentrations below the state’s threshold of 15 parts per billion (ppb) in 2019, and in 2024, some fixtures reached triple digits. 

    “We know that this happens,” Betanzo said. “We have extensive records of data that if you sample the same tap at a school you can get a low value that would appear safe one day and could get an extremely high, concerning level the next day.”

    Lincoln Elementary School, between downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt, had some of the highest levels of lead in Oakland Unified after the district tested there earlier this year. 

    A drinking fountain at Lincoln with the highest lead concentration tested at 930 ppb in June. That same fountain was tested in 2019 at 2.1 ppb, which is under the state and district threshold for safe water. The Safe Drinking Water Act only required faucets that tested above 15 ppb to be fixed. However, Oakland Unified adopted a stricter policy in 2018 that says if levels are higher than 5 ppb, the issue requires remediation.

    California’s lead action level was set at 15 ppb following the recommendation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s lead and copper rule. On Oct. 8, less than a month before the Nov. 5 election, that limit was lowered to 10 ppb by the Biden administration to ensure that drinking water is safe throughout the country. Some states, but not California, had already adopted lower limits prior to the change.

    Without the district’s follow-up testing in 2024, Oakland Unified officials wouldn’t have discovered the faucet that was once deemed safe is dangerous. It’s not an isolated incident. Another drinking fountain at Lincoln tested 3.3 ppb in 2019 and in June tested at 410 ppb. 

    “This happened in my children’s elementary school,” Betanzo said. “So it does happen. It is normal. We know all about it. And yet the requirements that states have put together for school drinking water don’t acknowledge the science of this.”

    The release of lead in water is sporadic, and testing results from the same fixtures are often inconsistent, Betanzo said. 

    “Schools have been doing these one-time samples, and if they get a low sample (value), they say, ‘Hey, the water is safe,’” Betanzo said. “And that’s not true. We have lead throughout our plumbing,” referring to school districts in general.

    In schools, water doesn’t run for long periods on weekends and during breaks, Betanzo said, and it doesn’t allow the corrosion control that is more common in houses. There needs to be a constant turnover of water for corrosion control to work, she said. 

    Faucets with elevated lead levels have been taken out of service, according to Oakland Unified spokesperson John Sasaki. Often, the faucets are fixed by replacing filters and are retested before they are back in service. 

    “With regard to inconsistencies between lead levels found in 2019 … and now, our estimation is that because most of our schools are relatively old, and the features including the plumbing are old, there has been degradation of some aspects of the systems since 2018, which has led to the elevated levels we have recently found,” Sasaki said in an emailed statement.

    The inconsistencies in lead samplings aren’t unique to Lincoln. Similar examples occurred in Edna Brewer Middle School, Cleveland Elementary, Crocker Highlands Elementary, Horace Mann Elementary, Bella Vista Elementary, and Fruitvale Elementary. The lead levels recorded in 2019 were all either under 5 ppb or 15 ppb at all of these schools and higher in 2024.

    “It’s terrifying at a personal level,” Oakland parent Nate Landry said. “It’s terrifying at a collective level.”

    Failures of the Safe Drinking Water Act

    The state’s drinking water law didn’t require districts to do follow-up testing, which is part of the reason schools that haven’t tested lead levels since 2019 have no way of knowing if students and staff are still being exposed to elevated lead levels in drinking water. 

    The law exempted thousands of private and charter schools on private property from testing for lead levels. Not every faucet or drinking fountain was required to be tested. And schools that were built after 2010 were also not required to test lead levels.

    California has more than 10,000 public schools, including about 1,300 charters, and it’s possible thousands of fixtures have yet to be tested for lead. 

    State law required faucets — not valves — to be changed in fountains with lead levels exceeding 15 ppb, said Kurt Souza, an enforcement coordinator for the division of drinking water at the State Water Resources Control Board, which could be why lead levels were inconsistent between 2019 and 2024. Valves are used to control the water flow and are usually placed under the sink.

    “Never change out an old faucet without changing the valves,” Souza advised.

    Critics of the state drinking water act have said the 15 ppb limit for lead in drinking water was too lenient. Some school districts, including Oakland, have set lower limits. 

    According to the EPA’s website, “There is no safe level of lead exposure. In drinking water, the primary source of lead is from pipes, which can present a risk to the health of children and adults.”

    The EPA has also said the 15 ppb level is not a measure of public health protection, Betanzo said. 

    “15 ppb was selected as an engineering metric,” said Betanzo, who formerly worked at the EPA. “It is an indicator of corrosion control effectiveness. So, if a water system looks at the 90th percentile of its sampling results, and it’s greater than 15 parts per billion, it tells them they have an out-of-control corrosion situation that needs to be addressed.”

    Other districts that have tested for lead levels after 2019 include San Francisco Unified, San Diego Unified, Laguna Beach Unified, Castro Valley Unified, Encinitas Union Elementary, La Mesa Spring-Valley, and San Bruno Park Elementary.

    “Did you find every spot that has a high lead? Probably not,” said Souza. “Some schools probably had a hundred faucets and then we only sampled five of them. I thought it was a really good start, and it showed some schools had problems, which then did more samples and, and did more things to it.”

    There’s currently no directive under the state or the federal Environmental Protection Agency to test lead levels in school drinking water, said Wes Stieringer-Sisneros, a senior environmental scientist for the drinking water division at the State Water Resource Control Board. 

    Since the state requirements for lead testing ended, there have been efforts to pass state legislation that would have required follow-up testing, AB-249, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill in 2023. The following year, another bill, AB 1851, which would have created a pilot testing program, was introduced but held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

    “It was another blow,” said Colleen Corrigan, health policy associate for Children Now, a statewide research and advocacy organization that co-sponsored both bills. “We hope that Proposition 2 will pass, and we really want to make sure that that distribution of money is equitable and accessible.”

    Voters passed Proposition 2 on Nov. 5, and that will provide, among other things school-related, up to $115 million to remove lead from drinking water in schools.

    How Oakland is getting the lead out

    Although Oakland district officials have made progress in repairing faucets since the most recent testing results in the spring, some people have lost trust and confidence in the district. 

    Shock waves burst through the Oakland community at the start of the school year when educators, parents, and students discovered the district was withholding testing results that showed elevated levels of lead in water in dozens of schools. Some lead testing results were available in April and families didn’t start to receive notices until August.

    “The scope of their (Oakland Unified) failure to communicate pretty crucial public health information was shocking,” parent Landry said. 

    District officials did acknowledge they did not properly communicate with families about elevated lead levels. 

    During a rally in front of Oakland City Hall last month, parents, students, educators and community organizers urged the school board and City Council to do more to get the lead out of school drinking water, even though the district is already doing more than most.

    The Get the Lead Out of OUSD coalition, which includes the Oakland teachers union and other community partners, has a list of demands, the first being instating a new, highly ambitious threshold of lead levels of zero parts per billion. Other demands include testing all water sources at Oakland schools immediately and annually, testing all playgrounds, gardens and outdoor areas, facilitating free blood testing for students, teachers and community members, and completing infrastructure repairs.

    District officials also said they will continue to do more lead testing through the end of the year and promise more transparency.

    “We have instituted improved protocols to ensure we are more transparent and more consistent in our communication with our families and staff,” a statement said. “We will inform you before any testing begins at your school.”

    A priority has been to install more FloWater machines, which are filtered refillable water stations, the statement said. Most schools have at least two, and 60 additional machines were installed this school year. The district plans to install 88 more.

    Lau said she and her classmates were given reusable water bottles and told to only drink from purification water stations or bottled water. If a student forgets to bring a water bottle to school, there are extras, but not always, she said. The last resort is asking a friend for a drink from their water bottle or purchasing bottled water.

    “Please fix this issue,” Lau said. “I don’t want to be drinking lead. I don’t want lead anywhere near me. I want to be safe; I want to grow up safe.”





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  • Cal Maritime’s merger with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo approved

    Cal Maritime’s merger with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo approved


    The California State University board of trustees discusses a proposal to merge Cal Maritime and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Nov. 20, 2024.

    Credit: Amy DiPierro / EdSource

    This story was updated on Nov. 21 following a Cal State board of trustees vote approving the merger.

    California State University approved a merger uniting the financially troubled Cal Maritime in Vallejo, its smallest campus, with the university system’s most selective institution, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

    The full board of trustees greenlighted the merger proposal Thursday, a decision designed to keep the maritime academy in operation following enrollment declines that threatened its financial viability as an independent institution. The decision followed Wednesday’s unanimous vote for the merger by the trustees’ Joint Committee on Finance and Educational Policy.

    System officials argue that combining the two Cal State locations will ultimately benefit both universities. Cal Poly will gain access to maritime academy facilities including a $360 million training vessel and pier; Cal Maritime hopes to boost the number of students seeking merchant marine licenses. 

    “Please do not think of this as a contraction of the system,” said Chancellor Mildred García in remarks following the committee vote. “This is indeed an expansion — an expansion of opportunity for current and future students, of authentic and equitable access,” she said, as well as a benefit to the maritime industry.

    The system will face a tight timeline to unite the two institutions under the same administration by July 1, 2025. After that deadline, the combined university plans to continue under the Cal Poly name, and Cal Maritime will be rechristened Cal Poly, Solano Campus. The intent is for all students at the newly merged university to be enrolled as Cal Poly students starting in fall 2026.

    The Solano campus will be led by a vice president and CEO reporting to Cal Poly’s president. A superintendent with the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Maritime Service will lead the maritime academy, which will remain in Vallejo. 

    Cal State envisions a blitz of activity as 2025 and 2026 deadlines approach, including navigating accreditation processes and updating the curriculum. Perhaps the biggest challenge is to revive the number of students earning their merchant mariner licenses, programs which will be housed at a renamed entity called the Cal Poly Maritime Academy pending approval from the U.S. Maritime Administration and other agencies. Merchant marines are the civilian workforce responsible for operating commercial shipping vessels; they also supply U.S. military ships and bases. 

    The maritime academy is due to receive a new, 700-student training vessel in 2026, but the school’s interim president, Michael J. Dumont, has warned that without a merger, Cal Maritime “is not going to be able to operate that ship because it won’t have the people to do it. It won’t have the budget to support it.”

    Cal Maritime has 804 students enrolled this fall. To boost that number, Cal State officials have said “substantial investments in recruitment and marketing” at high schools must begin now. 

    Officials have said cratering enrollment — headcount tumbled 31% between the 2016-17 and 2023-24 school years – and rising operating expenses are to blame for Cal Maritime’s difficult financial position.

    Dumont said in an email to the campus in August that the campus expected to notch a $3.1 million budget deficit in the 2024-25 school year, counting deficits in both its general operating and housing funds. This fall, the campus laid off 10 employees as the school year started.

    Steve Relyea, Cal State’s chief financial officer, and Nathan Evans, the system’s chief academic officer, framed the merger choice as one between combining the two institutions quickly or preparing to close the maritime academy. Presentations to the board co-led by Dumont and Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong also note that Cal Maritime’s situation has been worsened by a flurry of departures among important campus leaders, among them its chief financial officer. Cal Maritime has tried to cover for those positions by striking agreements with Cal Poly, Cal State officials said in September, creating “the problematic misperception that leadership is moving ahead with the integration before board action in November.”

    Cal State formed 23 workgroups to study issues relevant to the merger, which it has since reorganized around a handful of themes like academics and enrollment. 

    Both faculty senate and student government representatives are already contemplating what it will take to knit the two institutions together, including questions about how to blend existing governance structures and distribute fees that support student government, according to a memo summarizing the process. Faculty additionally have been tasked to identify “overlapping, adjacencies and duplication in academic programming and curricula,” the memo said.

    Dustin Stegner, chair of the English department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a statewide senator in the Academic Senate of the CSU system, said he was amazed by the committee members’ enthusiasm for the proposal.

    “This was born out of a financial crisis of Cal Maritime not being sustainable, and it is being described as a great opportunity for the whole system,” he said. “It certainly seems like making a lot of lemonade out of a lot of lemons.”

    Stegner, who has served on one of the workgroups assembled to provide feedback on the integration proposal, said he is still waiting for the board of trustees to address questions about whether faculty members’ job security could be impacted by the merger. He said there are also open questions about whether the combined university will offer more online courses in order to reach students on both campuses and whether students who switch majors may also be permitted to switch campuses. 

    Cal State representatives have not yet decided which metrics the system should use to gauge the merger’s progress. Financially, Cal State will be eying anticipated cost savings and also checking to make sure absorbing the maritime academy “does not become a financial burden to Cal Poly,” according to a memo to the board. Updates on areas like how many students are enrolling in programs that yield a merchant mariner license and the student body’s diversity are also expected. CSU officials anticipate a report updating the board on the merger’s progress next May.

    The university system has hired consulting firm Baker Tilly as an adviser to guide the merger effort and monitor its success based on the to-be-determined accountability metrics. System records show the chancellor’s office inked a $500,000 contract with the firm in September. 





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  • First forecast for 2025-26 school funding: More money with a twist

    First forecast for 2025-26 school funding: More money with a twist


    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

    Higher revenues than Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators predicted will likely produce a modest increase in funding in 2025-26 for TK-12 schools and community colleges, the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected on Wednesday. 

    The growth in revenues will also pay down a big portion of the state’s debt to education, with enough to sock away money into a rainy day fund for education that was depleted by the Legislature last year. But at the same time, a rarely invoked constitutional provision would deny schools and community colleges billions in funding that they would otherwise get, the LAO said. 

    The LAO’s annual state budget forecast is the first hint of how much funding schools and community colleges can expect when Newsom releases his budget in early January. How to spend the new funding amid pressure from competing interest groups — always a challenge — will be up to Newsom and the Legislature.

    The LAO is projecting only a $1.5 billion increase (1.3%) for 2025-26 above the $115.3 billion approved in June for 2024-25 for Proposition 98, the quarter-century-old voter-approved formula that determines the minimum amount that must go to schools and community colleges. It comprises 40% of the state’s annual general fund.

    But combined with an additional $3.7 billion freed up from expiring one-time costs and Proposition 98 adjustments, schools and community colleges can anticipate a 2.46% cost-of-living-adjustment for programs like the Local Control Funding Formula, the primary source of spending for TK-12. That will leave $2.8 billion in new, uncommitted spending. (The LAO suggests using a piece of that to wipe off $400 million in “deferrals,” late payments to schools that will be carried over from year to year unless paid off.)

    Even though California’s economy has been slowing and the unemployment rate is higher, the 2024-25 Proposition 98 level is projected to be $118.3 billion, $3 billion more than the Legislature set in June; however, none of the increase will go to the pockets of school districts and community colleges. All of it, by statute, will be deposited into the Proposition 98 reserve account unless the Legislature overrides the law.

    “I think that’s the element of our forecast that will surprise school groups the most,” said Ken Kapphahn, principal fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO. “I think many people do understand revenue is up in 2024-25. What isn’t as well understood is that the increase is going into the reserve and not available for them.”

    “Building reserves is a good use of one-time funding,” he said. “We just saw how valuable those reserves can be when we went through $9.5 billion from the reserve. That was a big reason why the state didn’t have to cut ongoing school programs last year. In some ways, making a deposit makes sense right now; it’s an opportunity to rebuild that reserve.”

    A big increase in tax receipts from capital gains income, which governs when and how much is deposited into the rainy-day fund, is the source of the money, the LAO said. Much of it is from stock options and reflects the wealth gap between well-compensated high-tech employees and other workers.  

    There’s also expected to be enough money by the end of 2024-25 to pay off nearly two-thirds of the $8 billion debt to schools and community colleges in 2022-23, caused by a revenue shortfall resulting from a short Covid-19 recession.

    The Proposition 98 debt to schools is called a “maintenance factor.” Repaying it becomes the top state priority once more revenue becomes available — to the extent of capturing 95 cents of every new dollar in the general fund.  The LAO projects that the maintenance factor will be lowered $4.8 billion this year, leaving $3.3 billion unpaid.

    Proposition 98 is a stunningly complex formula, and the higher 2024-25 funding level will add a new twist. Usually, the Proposition 98 level from one year becomes the base funding level for the next year. But the increase in 2024-25 is expected to be big enough to trigger a rarely used “spike” protection, limiting the increase in 2025-26; without that restriction, Proposition 98 would be $4.1 billion higher than LAO’s forecast. 

    The rationale behind its adoption is to create stability in the non-Proposition 98 side of the general fund. Education advocates view it differently, as a way to fund schools at the minimum constitutionally required level — and no more.

    “The maintenance factor payment increases Prop. 98 on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, the state is making the spike protection adjustment to slow the growth in Prop. 98,” said Kapphahn. “Both of those different formulas are part of the constitution, and they happen to be working in opposite ways.”

    The “spike” clause has been triggered several times before during years of unusual growth in Proposition 98. What would be different this time is that 2025-26 funding of $116.8 billion would be $1.5 billion less than LAO’s projection for 2024-25.

    TK-12 revenue is tied to student attendance, which has been declining in most districts. Attendance statewide fell by nearly 550,000 (9.3%) from 2019-20 to 2021-22 during the height of the Covid pandemic, and has recovered gradually. The LAO expects overall attendance to increase slightly by 12,000 students (0.2%) in 2024-25 and 26,000 (0.5%) in 2025-26 due to the expansion of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds. The LAO projects attendance will drop each of the three years after that by about 60,000 students primarily because of a smaller school-age population due to lower births.





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  • Trump nominee for education secretary would come backed with detailed policy agenda

    Trump nominee for education secretary would come backed with detailed policy agenda


    Linda McMahon, former administrator of Small Business Administration, speaking during the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee.

    Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

    President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of a close ally and the co-chair of his transition team indicates that education could be a major priority of his administration, even though it did not feature prominently in the 2024 presidential campaign.

    Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, is a leading financial backer Trump has been close to for decades. She is also chair of the board of the little known America First Policy Institute, sometimes referred to as a “shadow transition operation” or “White House in waiting.”

    The institute has issued a detailed education policy agenda that is likely to serve as a guide for McMahon, and the Trump administration in general, should she be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

    For those reading the political tea leaves, it was notable that in nominating McMahon, Trump did not explicitly charge her with shutting down the U.S. Department of Education, and that the agenda of the America First Policy Institute does not call for it either. Instead, Trump called on her “to spearhead efforts to send education back to the states” an expansive and undefined charge, especially because by law education is already mostly a state and local function.

    Regardless of the fate of the department, the contrast between President Joe Biden’s and Trump’s education agendas — and between McMahon and current Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona — could not be wider. 

    Cardona is a lifelong educator, becoming secretary after a career as a teacher, principal, district administrator, and state commissioner of education. McMahon spent most of her career building the WWE, founded with her husband, Vince McMahon. 

    Cardona’s net worth is estimated by Forbes magazine to be $1 million, most of it tied up in his principal residence, retirement savings, and a 529 college savings account for his children. By contrast, Forbes places McMahon and her husband’s net worth at $2.5 billion. 

    The only thing they seem to have in common is that they are both from Connecticut. 

    But even though McMahon has a slim resume regarding education, she is not entirely an education neophyte. She studied to become a French teacher in college. She has been a trustee of Sacred Heart College, a Catholic college in Fairfield, Connecticut, for years. She was appointed to the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009, although she left after a year to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and again in 2012 — both times unsuccessfully.  

    McMahon is more of a traditional conservative Republican than several of Trump’s other Cabinet nominees. In some ways, she is more similar to Betsy DeVos, another billionaire, who was Trump’s first secretary of education. But unlike DeVos, she has had experience in government, as head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.   

    In 2019, she left that post, not under a cloud or fleeing vitriol from Trump like many others in his administration, to head the America First PAC, which raised funds for Trump’s re-election bid in 2020. 

    On the explosive issue of “school choice,” publicly, at least, she has mostly called for expanding charter schools, rather than taxpayer-funded vouchers. “I am an advocate for choice through charter schools,” she declared in her 2010 campaign for Senate. 

    She also has some bipartisan instincts, even getting support from the Democratic senators she had previously run against, when they had to approve her nomination to head the Small Business Administration. Sen. Richard Blumenthal called her “a person of serious accomplishment and ability,” and Sen. Chris Murphy described her as a “talented and experienced businessperson.”

    As SBA administrator, she drew high praise from some Democrats for increasing loans to women-owned businesses, and for making the agency more efficient, including from then-Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the ranking member of the Small Business and Entrepreneur Committee.

    Another sign of her bipartisan inclinations came in a September commentary in The Hill newspaper, when she argued for a radical revision of the Pell Grant, the main form of federal student financial aid. 

    While most Pell grants go to full-time students, McMahon argued that the grant should also be available to students enrolled in “high-quality, shorter-term, industry-aligned education programs that could lead to immediate employment in well-paying jobs.” 

    To that end, she endorsed a bill known as the Workforce Pell Act, sponsored by lawmakers usually on far opposite sides of the political aisle — Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., Bobby Scott, D-Va. 

    Arguably one of her key qualifications is that she and Trump have a positive relationship. Unlike many who served in his first administration and left reviled by their former boss, when she stepped down as SBA administrator, Trump praised her as a “superstar.” “Just so smooth,” he said. “She’s been one of our all-time favorites.”

    But her most important credential may well be her role as chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, which she helped start.

    Its 150-person staff includes well-known Trump staffers like Kellyanne Conway and its executive director, Chad Wolf, the former secretary of homeland security. Pam Bondi, the head of the institute’s legal arm, was just nominated by Trump to be attorney general in place of Matt Gaetz, who withdrew his nomination.

    Like Project 2025, the conservative blueprint issued by the Heritage Foundation, which Trump has disavowed and says he had no role in crafting, the America First Policy Institute has also drawn up a similar detailed policy framework, including one on education. Yet the institute has not done much to publicize its proposals, which Trump has reportedly appreciated.  

    The institute draws a sharp contrast between its “America First” polices and what it calls “America Last” policies championed by Democrats.

    “America Last” policies, it argues, “prioritize radical ideologies and failing public schools.” These include promoting “transgenderism” and “radical ideologies over core subjects,” while fighting “school choice expansion,” and parent notification policies regarding curriculum and gender identification. 

    The institute calls for reinstating Trump’s 1776 Commission to promote “patriotic civic education” and removing critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion from what it alleges are requirements for federal grants.

    And instead of supporting “leftist teachers unions” and teacher tenure, it advocates for “reduced union influence, and increasing flexibility in hiring and firing.”

    For these and other reasons, it is to be expected that key education groups would oppose McMahon’s nomination. 

    “Rather than working to strengthen public schools, expand learning opportunities for students, and support educators, McMahon’s only mission is to eliminate the Department of Education and take away taxpayer dollars from public schools,” said President Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the U.S.

    But for conservatives like Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, McMahon is an unknown quantity when it comes to education, and he made a pitch for approaching her nomination with an open mind. “I’m looking forward to learning more about her views and approach to the role in the weeks to come,” he said. “I’d avoid gross assumptions based on biography. Those seeking reflexive celebration or condemnation should look elsewhere. “

    Controversy has already surfaced about her nomination. Media reports point to an October lawsuit in Maryland alleging McMahon and her husband failed to stop a prominent WWE ringside announcer in the 1980s and 1990s from sexually abusing 12- and 13-year-olds known as “ring boys” who were hired to do errands in preparation for wrestling matches.

    What is still an open question is whether Trump will move to eliminate the Department of Education, or how aggressively he will do so. His administration may decide that it is more important to keep the department intact for any number of reasons, including transforming its influential Office of Civil Rights into a weapon to impose his education agenda onto states or schools.

    And it is possible that McMahon will continue to voice her praise for teachers, and for public schools, including charter schools. “We have a very good system of public and private schools,” she said in an interview a decade ago. “I’ve watched some masterful teachers who are innovative and who are reaching kids who are below grade level in many of the subjects.  To see how they get turned around is heartwarming and astounding.”





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  • These Native tribes are working with schools to boost attendance

    These Native tribes are working with schools to boost attendance


    Nationwide, Native students miss school far more frequently than their peers, but not at Watonga High School shown on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma.

    Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo

    As the Watonga school system’s Indian education director, Hollie Youngbear works to help Native American students succeed in the Oklahoma district — a job that begins with getting them to school.

    She makes sure students have clothes and school supplies. She connects them with federal and tribal resources. And when students don’t show up to school, she and a colleague drive out and pick them up.

    Nationwide, Native students miss school far more frequently than their peers, but not at Watonga High School. Youngbear and her colleagues work to connect with families in a way that acknowledges the history and needs of Native communities.

    As she thumbed through binders in her office with records of every Native student in the school, Youngbear said a cycle of skipping school goes back to the abuse generations of Native students suffered at U.S. government boarding schools.

    Indian education director Hollie Youngbear poses for a portrait at Watonga High School on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma. Youngbear and her colleagues work to connect with families in a way that acknowledges the history and needs of Native communities. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)
    Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo

    “If grandma didn’t go to school, and her grandma didn’t, and her mother didn’t, it can create a generational cycle,” said Youngbear, a member of the Arapaho tribe who taught the Cheyenne and Arapaho languages at the school for 25 years.

    Watonga schools collaborate with several Cheyenne and Arapaho programs that aim to lower Native student absenteeism. One helps students with school expenses and promotes conferences for tribal youth. Another holds monthly meetings with Watonga’s Native high school students during lunch hours to discourage underage drinking and drug use.

    Oklahoma is home to 38 federally recognized tribes, many with their own education departments — and support from those tribes contributes to students’ success. Of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, Oklahoma was the only one where Native students missed school at lower rates than the state average, according to data collected by The Associated Press.

    At Watonga High, fewer than 4% of Native students were chronically absent in 2022-23, in line with the school average, according to state data. Chronically absent students miss 10% or more of the school year, for both excused and unexcused reasons, which sets them behind in learning and heightens their chances of dropping out.

    About 14% of students at the Watonga school on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation are Native American. With black-lettered Bible verses on the walls of its hallways, the high school resembles many others in rural Oklahoma. But student-made Native art decorates the classroom reserved for Eagle Academy, the school’s alternative education program.

    Students are assigned to the program when they struggle to keep up their grades or attendance, and most are Native American, classroom teacher Carrie Compton said. Students are rewarded for attendance with incentives like field trips.

    Compton said she gets results. A Native boy who was absent 38 days one semester spent a short time in Eagle Academy during his second year of high school and went on to graduate last year, she said.

    Alternative education director Carrie Compton poses for a portrait in her classroom at Watonga High School on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma. When students do not show up for school, Compton and Indian education director Hollie Youngbear take turns visiting their homes. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)
    Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo

    “He had perfect attendance for the first time ever, and it’s because he felt like he was getting something from school,” Compton said.

    When students do not show up for school, Compton and Youngbear take turns visiting their homes.

    “I can remember one year, I probably picked five kids up every morning because they didn’t have rides,” Compton said. “So at 7 o’clock in the morning, I just start my little route, and make my circle, and once they get into the habit of it, they would come to school.”

    Around the country, Native students often have been enrolled in disproportionately large numbers in alternative education programs, which can worsen segregation. But the embrace of Native students by their Eagle Academy teacher sets a different tone from what some students experience elsewhere in the school.

    Compton said a complaint she hears frequently from Native students in her room is, “The teachers just don’t like me.”

    Bullying of Native students by non-Native students is also a problem, said Watonga senior Happy Belle Shortman, who is Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho. She said Cheyenne students have been teased over aspects of their traditional ceremonies and powwow music.

    Senior Happy Belle Shortman, who is who is Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho, poses for a portrait at Watonga High School on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Watonga, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)
    Credit: Nick Oxford / AP Photo

    “People here, they’re not very open, and they do have their opinions,” Shortman said. “People who are from a different culture, they don’t understand our culture and everything that we have to do, or that we have a different living than they do.”

    Poverty might play a role in bullying as well, she said. “If you’re not in the latest trends, then you’re kind of just outcasted,” she said.

    Watonga staff credit the work building relationships with students for the low absenteeism rates, despite the challenges.

    “Native students are never going to feel really welcomed unless the non-Native faculty go out of their way to make sure that those Native students feel welcomed,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

    Associated Press writer Sharon Lurye in New Orleans contributed to this report.





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  • Resource officers’ ‘position of trust’ with students sometimes exploited

    Resource officers’ ‘position of trust’ with students sometimes exploited


    Students walk to class during passing periods at Pacifica High School, which is part of the Oxnard Union High School District.

    Credit: J. Marie / EdSource

    Last year, a Washington Post investigation identified more than 200 school police officers across the country “who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022.”

    There are at least two ongoing court cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct against former school resource officers in California. 

    James Louis, who worked as a resource officer at Rodriguez High School in Solano County, was arrested on March 8, 2024, after parents told police that he had texted sexual images and messages to two students. 

    Solano County prosecutors charged Louis with “sending, distributing, or exhibiting harmful or obscene material to a minor,” court records show. Louis is free on bail. His attorney declined to comment. The Fairfield Police Department, which had employed Louis and assigned him to the high school, would not say whether he resigned or was fired after his arrest.

    In Orange County, former deputy sheriff and resource officer Justin Raymond Ramirez pleaded guilty in 2023 to misdemeanor charges that he showed students at Trabuco Hills High School a video of a couple having sex that ended with a woman’s violent death. One of the students and her family are now suing Ramirez, the county, and the county sheriff for extreme emotional distress.  

    The state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission stripped Ramirez’s policing certification last year, a move that permanently bans him from working as a law enforcement officer in California.

    After Ramirez’s arrest, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer issued a statement saying, “School resource officers are in our children’s schools to ensure a safe learning environment and help build trust between law enforcement and our community. Ramirez had no business being in a position of trust around children, and he abused that position of trust in a truly disgusting way.”

    The county and Sheriff Dan Barnes are also defendants in the lawsuit. Neither responded to requests for comment, and attempts to reach Ramirez were unsuccessful. Court records show he does not have an attorney for the civil case.

    In December, after the Washington Post published its investigation, the U.S. Justice Department revised its recommendations for school resource officer programs and called for schools and law enforcement agencies to “develop clear policies and procedures about interpersonal contacts” between resource officers and students, including about touching, social media contacts, emails, cards and after-school interactions. 

    The Justice Department also recommends that “officers should take extra precautions to avoid any appearance of impropriety.”

    A spokesperson for the National Association of School Resource Officers, which provides training for law enforcement, said that it is updating its recommendations to reflect the Justice Department’s recommendations.





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  • California school districts spend millions on policing, with little scrutiny

    California school districts spend millions on policing, with little scrutiny


    Many California school districts pay cities and counties millions of dollars a year to put law enforcement officers on campuses, moving tax dollars allocated for education to policing with little oversight by elected school boards, an EdSource investigation found.

    Not every district has what are commonly called school resource officers. Many call 911 if they need help, and 20 have their own police departments. Others contract with cities and counties, which provide resource officers from the ranks of local police, sheriffs, and probation departments.

    California doesn’t collect data on school policing. Using public records act requests, EdSource obtained policing contracts from 89 districts, nearly 10% of the state’s total.

    Those districts provided a combined 118 contracts, entered into between 2018 and 2024, with some paying as many as three cities and counties for resource officers. The agreements, along with school board agendas and videos of meetings, show that district leaders rarely scrutinize the spending publicly. 

    School boards routinely approve policing contracts without discussion, often bundling them with routine items, such as field trips and cookies for staff meetings, into a single vote. The practice, known as using a “consent agenda,” alarms government transparency experts. EdSource found some boards approved hundreds of thousands of dollars for school resource officers using consent votes.

    Although the federal government recommends that school districts review their policing programs annually, most of the contracts EdSource reviewed did not require yearly evaluations. In the few districts that required written reports on officers’ activities, police agencies didn’t submit them — and school officials rarely asked to see them.

    The state Education Department offers no guidance to districts on policing contracts, said Elizabeth Sanders, an agency spokesperson.

    “Consent items can be horrifically abused.”

    David Loy, legal counsel for the First Amendment Coalition

    The contracts EdSource obtained show districts spending at least $85 million on school resource officers. But their total costs are likely much higher. Roughly 20% of those contracts don’t include specific dollar amounts.

    Instead, they mention unspecified charges based on law-enforcement union contracts negotiated by cities and counties. As a result, school boards sometimes approve contracts without a clear record of how much public money they have agreed to spend.

    EdSource found that many districts are not only paying for officers whose positions are already funded by local governments, but also for using police cars, uniforms and cellphones.

    The costs to schools surprised policing experts and public watchdogs.

    “It’s protect and serve — and profit,” said retired state Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell, who also served as San Jose’s independent police auditor from 2010 to 2015.

    She said cities and counties should provide resource officers to schools without charging.

    “Shame on them for making this into a money-making operation,” Cordell said.

    ‘An enhanced service’

    In many districts, the cost of a contract for a resource officer often exceeds the salary of a mid-career teacher.

    The Holtville Unified School District in Imperial County has a one-year contract with the county for a sheriff’s deputy not to exceed $192,038.40. 

    That’s enough money to fund the salaries of nearly two teachers, according to teacher pay disclosure forms filed with the state.

    The contract requires the district to pay for the officer’s “training, equipment, uniform, vehicle, supplies and employee benefits,” Undersheriff Robert Benavidez wrote in an email. Holtville Superintendent Celso Ruiz did not respond to questions about spending on officers.

    Some districts spend more than a million dollars a year on resource officers. 

    The Elk Grove Unified School District has 67 schools and 62,000 students, and pays the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office $8.5 million over three years to provide six deputies.

    The contract, which expires in June, includes nearly $648,000 for patrol cars and $15,000 for cellphone bills, and guarantees deputies five hours of overtime per week. The district also pays the city of Elk Grove $951,000 over three years for three officers.

    Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a sheriff’s office spokesperson, said the district is “paying for an enhanced service,” requiring deputies to spend all day in schools.

    Asked whether deputies assigned to the district were counted in the sheriff’s annual budget funded by the county, Gandhi replied, “Yes, for regular sheriff services.” 

    But when deputies work in schools, he said, they provide a service for which the sheriff’s entitled to charge.

    “These are not officers that are simply responding to emergencies,” Gandhi said. “They’re on campus. That’s their full-time assignment. They’re helping the administration. It’s a presence issue. It’s something we value.”

    If Elk Grove Unified were to end its contract with the county, which it could do with 30 days’ notice, the deputies would “be assigned to regular, other, sheriff functions, in patrol, investigations, corrections, whatever,” Gandhi said, noting that the sheriff’s office has a large number of vacant, budgeted positions. 

    ‘Double taxation’

    Many districts pay more than half or all of the salaries for officers whose positions are already funded by cities and counties.

    In Ventura County, the Oxnard Union High School District currently has contracts with two cities and the sheriff’s office. The largest is a $2.23 million deal with the city of Oxnard for five police officers, which includes 75% of the city’s costs for the officers’ salaries and benefits.

    The district pays for the full costs of one deputy as part of its three-year, $625,000 pact with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. It also has a deal with the city of Camarillo for police services. 

    Oxnard Union board member Karen Sher, who describes herself as an advocate for school resource officers, told EdSource that charging districts for officers whose positions are already funded amounts to “double taxation.”

    “The taxpayer’s paying twice for the same services,” Sher said.

    “I really don’t understand how this is not a bigger issue. I have asked the question publicly. I can’t even tell you how many times, and I have never gotten an answer,” she said. 

    Former Oxnard Police Cmdr. Louis Mc Arthur was in charge of school resource officers before being elected as the city’s mayor in November 2024.
    Credit: J. Marie / EdSource

    Oxnard Mayor Luis Mc Arthur, who, until taking office on Dec. 8, was the Oxnard Police commander in charge of school resource officers, said the city can’t afford to provide the officers without charging the school system. The department’s 2024-25 budget is $105 million, records show. 

    “We’re strapped financially and also short-staffed,” McArthur said.

    “We can argue philosophically if it’s the responsibility of police to fund” resource officers, but the charges will likely continue, he said.  

    Districts should not fund officers who are already on government payrolls, said David Kline, vice president of communications for the California Taxpayers Association, which advocates for limiting taxes. 

    “If taxpayers are paying for two police officer positions, they should be getting two police officers,” Kline said. “They shouldn’t be paying twice for the same officer.”

    Not all municipalities charge for providing resource officers.

    Last year, voters in the Central Valley cities of Manteca and Lathrop passed sales-tax measures funding a range of services, including resource officers for the Manteca Unified School District, which supported the measures.

    “We don’t believe in double taxation,” said Victoria Brunn, the district’s chief business and information officer.

    But the Manteca district also has a two-year, $274,000 contract with the Stockton Unified School District, which has its own police department, for one officer.

    Cost-sharing is common across the country, said Mo Canady, executive director of the Alabama-based National Association of School Resource Officers. The percentage of an officer’s salary that districts pay varies widely, he said. “Some may pay 25%, while others will pay 100%.”

    Canady recommends that school boards review policing contracts annually. “You get to the end of the school year and no one thinks, ‘Hey, we need to take an hour or two here and sit down with people that are going to be making decisions and at least review this thing.’”

    ‘In case of an armed intruder’

    A poll released earlier this month by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that 4 out of 5 public school parents are worried about a mass shooting at their local school, and nearly as many support having at least one armed police officer on campus while school is in session.

    The contracts EdSource obtained rarely mention the role armed officers play in student safety.

    The Anderson Union High School District’s three-year contract with the Shasta County Probation Department does not mention school security. But Superintendent Brian Parker said that’s why the district is paying $1.6 million for three resource officers through 2027.

    Anderson Union High School in Anderson in Shasta County.
    Credit: Thomas Peele / EdSource

    “The main reason our board and our community want officers on campus is to provide security in case of an armed intruder,” Parker wrote in an email. “Thankfully, that hasn’t happened in our district.”

    Many contracts require officers to divide their time between several campuses, which could reduce their ability to respond quickly to a shooting.

    According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there were about 24,900 school resource officers in 2019. The federal government does not collect data on school shootings, but according to a Washington Post database, there have been at least 428 school shootings in the United States since 1999, including 72 in California. 

    Whether the presence of school resource officers makes schools and students safer remains the subject of research and debate. In 2024, policy analysts  at the Rand Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, reviewed dozens of studies and found, “the presence of SROs (school resource officers) may reduce some types of crime and increase the detection of weapons and drugs on campus.”

    But, the Rand analysts wrote, “research has also shown that the presence of SROs inflicts costs on students. Students at schools with SROs are more likely to face disciplinary action by school administrations and more law enforcement contact in general. Black and Latino students may be particularly affected.”

    ‘We wanted to look at everything’

    Last year, the Folsom Cordova Unified School Board decided to examine its policing contracts with the city of Folsom and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, which totaled $502,000. Those contracts had remained largely unchanged for 12 years, said board President Christopher Clark.

    Christopher Clark, president of the Folsom Cordova Unified School Board.
    Credit: Folsom Cordova Unified

    “What we wanted to do as a school district is be transparent. We wanted to look at everything in the contract,” Clark told EdSource.

    At a board meeting last May to discuss the contracts, speakers expressed concerns about the impact police officers had on Black and Latino students.

    Van Merrill, a student board member, said he worried about having “armed police officers on campus.” He said the district has many students who come from groups that “have been historically discriminated against and arrested and killed by police.”

    Earl F. Smith, a parent who attempted to speak to police about a problem with his daughter at school, told the board that a Folsom High School administrator described him to a resource officer as “an angry, raving black man.” 

    “I’m scared to go to Folsom High School,” Smith said. He referred to the 2018 fatal shooting of a 22-year-old unarmed Black man by two Sacramento Police Department officers who said they mistook his phone for a handgun.

    “It’s easy to make wrong decisions. It’s hard on the officer. It’s hard on the community,” Smith said. “ I would like the board to consider the perspective that maybe only a certain amount of students would feel comfortable with an officer.”

    In a telephone interview, Smith said, “I don’t think there should be an officer at a school walking around with a gun.”

    Clark, the board president, who is Black, told EdSource that Smith “absolutely” voiced valid concerns. “I’m speaking as an African American,” said Clark. “We are stereotyped. Oh, yeah. I’ve been stereotyped by a police officer.”

    The board eventually approved a change to the contract, requiring officers to spend more time patrolling the areas around schools and to respond to emergencies in schools when needed.

    “What works for me is that these officers are actually patrolling the area,” Clark told EdSource. “If there happens to be an emergency, the response time is within three and a half minutes. I believe in safety for our kids.”

    ‘Unaware’ of requirements

    The U.S. Justice Department recommends that law-enforcement agencies and school districts “conduct an annual assessment” of resource-officer programs to ensure that they are adequately addressing all expectations, successes, and challenges.”

    Both school and police leadership should review law enforcement data and records to help determine whether officers “are using their law-enforcement powers judiciously,” according to the department’s recommendations.

    But many school districts don’t seek or receive such data even when they require it by contract. 

    The Manteca Unified School District in San Joaquin County has a one-year, $125,000 contract for a resource office with the Stockton Unified School District, which has its own police department. The contract requires officers to document “the type, nature and/or description of activities performed each shift” to help school officials evaluate the program’s effectiveness. The reports are to be provided quarterly.

    The contract also requires Stockton Unified Police to provide “copies of incident, crime, service and other police-generated reports, search warrants and other public documents which concern substantial actual or potential criminal activity.” 

    But EdSource found that Stockton Unified police gave no such documents to Manteca. Asked why the reports weren’t provided, Stockton Unified Chief Mayra Franco said she didn’t know anything about them.

    “We were unaware of this requirement,” she wrote in an email, adding that her department would start providing the documents. 

    Brunn, Manteca Unified’s chief business officer, called the failure of Stockton Unified to provide the documents “very unfortunate.” But she also said no one in her district asked for them. 

    ”We had employee changes during that time frame. It’s not what we would have preferred to have happened,” she said.

    Parker, the Anderson Union High School District superintendent, said its contract with the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, which used to provide school resource officers, required deputies to prepare quarterly activity reports on their activities and provide them to the district “upon request.”

    But the district “never requested them,” Parker said, and no longer has a contract with the sheriff’s office. The district’s current contract with the Shasta County Probation Department doesn’t include any reporting requirements. 

    Canady, of the school resource officer association, questioned whether reports are necessary.

    “What would go in a report?” he said. “I don’t think it’s something that school districts have been demanding. If you’re in a good partnership with the law enforcement agency, there shouldn’t be any need for reports.”

    Last year, during the debate about law enforcement contracts for the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, school board member Kara Lofthouse said that reports are crucial to understanding the effectiveness of policing programs.

    They are needed “so that we can determine whether or not it’s a smart decision” to continue to pay for police. Without them, Lofthouse added, “we cannot make a sound decision on what’s best for our district.”

    She said officers should write reports to “show the schools that they’re going to, even if they’re doing nothing, even if they’re checking in with the principal and they have lunch with a couple of kids. That’s really the report I want to see. I want to see what their time is being spent doing.”

    The Tracy Unified School District’s contract with the city of Tracy requires police to provide “statistics related to crime if requested.” But the district told EdSource that it did not have any documents with that data. It also did not respond directly to questions about how it determined whether policing services were successful.

    “Our district works extremely closely with our officers and Tracy Police. We communicate through in-person meetings, phone calls, etc.,” Bobbie Etcheverry, a district spokesperson, wrote in an email. 

    Consent votes

    Some school boards approved hundreds of thousands of dollars for resource officers using catch-all consent votes, records show.

    Policing contracts require more scrutiny and “should not be on consent agendas,” said Barbara Fedders, a University of North Carolina law professor who has written about school policing in California and is a school board member herself.

    “Your contract language for a playground provider doesn’t implicate your values as a school district in the same way that a (contract) with the police does,” Fedders said.

    “Consent items can be horrifically abused,” said David Loy, legal counsel for the First Amendment Coalition, which advocates for government transparency and press freedoms.

    Loy said that two school board votes identified by EdSource may have violated the Brown Act, the state law requiring local legislative bodies to conduct open and transparent meetings.

    The agenda for Elk Grove Unified’s board meeting, section VI.10, specifies that the contracts on the attached list “are under the bid limit of $99,100.

    In June 2022, Elk Grove Unified’s school board approved its current contracts with the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office and the city of Elk Grove on a consent vote.

    The meeting’s consent agenda stated that all the items under consideration cost no more than $99,100. But the contracts with the Sheriff’s Office and the city included payments for $2.7 million and $317,000, respectively.

    The list referenced by the agenda includes two law enforcement contracts worth a combined $3 million, both well over the stated $99,100.

    “If an agency says, ‘Don’t worry, nothing to see here, everything on the consent agenda is under $99,100,’ and in fact, what’s on the consent agenda is more than $99,100 over the life of the contract, that is itself a Brown Act violation,” Loy said. “I would argue strongly in court you cannot mislead the public.”

    Kristen Coates, the district’s deputy superintendent, wrote in an email that the district did not violate the Brown Act because the law contains “no requirement to agendize items based on dollar figures.”

    She declined multiple requests to be interviewed. Board President Michael Vargas did not return messages.

    A vote in San Joaquin County also raises questions about how boards approve police contracts.

    In 2022, Tracy Unified’s board voted for a consent agenda that included “routine agreements, expenditures, and notices of completions.” As part of that vote, the board approved a $900,000 contract with the city of Tracy to provide three resource officers.

    The contract was not listed on the consent agenda. A report attached to the larger meeting agenda said the contract was for $450,000 over two years. The board did not discuss the contract before voting.

    “The public obligated $900,000, not $450,000,” Loy said. “As a best practice, these things should not be on consent. The public has a right to know what the total obligation is for the life of the contract.”

    In an interview, Tracy Superintendent Robert Pecot did not explain why the agenda misstated the contract’s cost. “We’re not hiding anything,” he said. “People are welcome to come to our meetings.”

    Loy said lawmakers need to amend the Brown Act “to limit the use of consent agendas.” Items such as school policing contracts should be debated, he said. “You should go through the full democratic process. It definitely cries out for significant policy reform.”

    Bret Harte Union High School in Angels Camp in Calaveras County.
    Credit: Thomas Peele / EdSource

    ‘Sloppy’ practices

    Some school boards wait months or even years to ratify contracts for resource officers and, in a few cases, long after those contracts have taken effect or expired, EdSource found. Under state law, school superintendents can agree to contract terms, but those agreements aren’t valid until school boards approve them, a process known as ratification.

    The Bret Harte Union High School District in Calaveras County has a one-year policing contract with the city of Angels Camp with a start date listed as July 2, 2024. The district’s board voted to ratify that contract on Feb. 4, 2025. By that time, the city had billed the district more than $35,000 for a resource officer, records show.

    Long ratification delays are “an extremely bad budgeting practice,” said Kline of the California Taxpayers Association. “What happens if the school board votes ‘no’ on a contract seven months after it’s been signed?” 

    It’s “a huge transparency issue,” he added. “The taxpayers haven’t had their notice and chance to voice their opinions.”  

    Bret Harte’s board also didn’t ratify a separate contract with Angels Camp until two years after it had expired, voting only after EdSource raised questions about it.

    Superintendent Scott Nanik initially claimed that the district couldn’t produce a policing contract for the 2022-23 school year. But Angels Camp records show the city billed the district nearly $45,000 for policing services for that school year.

    Nanik had signed the document on Aug. 2, 2022.  Last month, the board voted without comment to retroactively ratify the deal.

    Byron Smith, a lawyer for the district, wrote in an email that the late ratification vote was taken under a portion of state law allowing school districts the “flexibility to create their own unique solutions” and to spend money “not inconsistent with the purposes for which the funds were appropriated.”

    Bret Harte leaders “are committed to doing things the right and legal way,” Smith said.

    Professor David Levine of UC Law San Francisco said the board likely voted to ward off any potential litigation by making the contract “a proper expenditure.”

    “Imagine if you had a gadfly saying it wasn’t a proper use of public funds,” and suing because there was never a vote, Levine said. The district had been “clearly sloppy,” he added.  

    School boards “should be approving contracts before the related work begins, not afterward,” said Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association.

    EdSource found another school board, Benicia Unified in Solano County, that had not voted to ratify a $225,000 policing contract with the city of Benicia for the 2023-2025 school years.

    In response to a reporter’s questions, Benicia Superintendent Damon Wright acknowledged the district made a mistake. “The contract should have been formally brought back to the board for final approval,” he said.

    On April 10, three months before the contract expires, the board approved the agreement, without discussion, on the consent agenda.





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