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  • Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic

    Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic


    Kindergarten teacher Carla Randazzo watches a student write alphabet letters on a white board at Golden Empire Elementary School in Sacramento.

    Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / AP Photo

    California’s students have struggled in the five years since the pandemic closed schools across the state. But kids in many schools are bouncing back, returning to pre-Covid achievement levels. What’s working? How have some districts innovated to turn kids’ learning curves upward once again?

    After analyzing student-level statewide data and visiting nine districts in each of the past three years, our team has made these discoveries:

    Mindful policies make a difference

    Nationwide, the pandemic erased nearly two decades of progress in math and reading. In California, average math proficiency decreased by 6.4 percentage points between 2019 and 2022, and reading proficiency dropped by 4 percentage points. Our work shows a modest positive effect of early reopening and federal recovery investments over this period. This highlights the importance of keeping schools open when it is safe to do so and prioritizing high-need students in reopening. Federal stimulus dollars also helped during this period.

    Our statewide work further shows that districts blended, braided and sequenced multiple funding sources to extend instructional learning time, strengthen staffing and provide learning supports.

    We also studied the impact of recovery investments and specific district recovery programs. We did not find that increased federal Covid funding to schools increased student test scores post-pandemic. However, districts that devoted funds to teacher retention efforts and extended learning time showed more improvement in student attendance, a key to improving academic outcomes.  

    Cross-sector partnerships advance whole-child development

    Prolonged school closure, social isolation, economic anxiety, housing and food insecurity, Covid-19 infection, and the loss of loved ones exacerbated a national mental health crisis already underway before the pandemic. In 2021, 42% of high school students nationwide experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 32% attempted or seriously considered attempting suicide. As schools reopened, educators found themselves dealing with not just academic learning, but also support for basic needs (such as food and health care), mental health, and life skills (such as relationship skills).

    Some districts pivoted to fostering whole-child development. For example, Compton Unified partnered with community health providers to offer health care services (such as vaccinations and check-ups), and Del Norte Unified leveraged Medi-Cal reimbursements to provide mental health counseling and therapy sessions. Educators will still need to deal with the academic, behavioral and life-skills needs for years to come. More cross-sector partnerships with public health, social services and housing would better equip schools to address these challenges.

    School innovations foster a rebound in learning

    Overall spending infusions have helped students rebound, but the impact has been relatively small. More important is how Covid relief funds were spent by districts. Our longitudinal case study of nine districts revealed some substantial organizational changes — reforms that may stick over time.

    One large structural reform was the investment in student well-being. Before the pandemic, student well-being was considered mostly secondary to instruction and academic achievement. However, the pandemic highlighted the need to integrate life skills into instruction. As a result, districts invested in new program materials and moved resources to hire counselors, social workers, psychologists, and increased student access to school-based supports. Some even built new community centers where students and families come together.

    A smaller scale, yet key, reform is districts’ investment in career pathways. Districts like Compton and Milpitas Unified offer a wide variety of pathways — from E-sports to computer science to early education — that are tied to on-the-job internships and certificates. These pathways have played an important role in engaging students and connecting them with employment opportunities.

    Districts also tried new approaches to the structure of schooling and classroom practices. For example, Glendale Unified shifted to a seven-period block schedule that allowed middle and high school students to add an elective course that sparked their interest. In Poway Unified, small groups of students meet with teachers and classroom aides to focus on specific skill areas.

    Digital innovations engage students, but gaps remain

    Many districts have turned to digital innovations to motivate kids. In Poway, coaches embedded in the classroom work with teachers to build learning stations, where stronger students work in teams, freeing teachers to provide more direct instruction to kids at risk of falling behind.

    Unfortunately, since the pandemic, the digital divide has narrowed, but it has not been eliminated. 

    In spring 2020, when schools abruptly shifted online, 40% of California households with school-age children did not have reliable internet or devices for distance learning. Over time, the state has made remarkable progress in device access, but not as much progress with internet access. The lack of progress could be attributed to multiple factors, including the absence of pre-existing infrastructure and affordability challenges. Federal and state governments provided unprecedented investments (such as the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program and California Senate Bill 356) to address barriers to universal broadband access; however, communities face significant challenges in building out infrastructure and improving affordability.

    The pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to rethink and restart public education. Given the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, learning disruptions will become the new norm for many communities throughout the U.S.

    By learning from the example of districts that have demonstrated resilience and success in pandemic recovery, we can better prepare for future disruptions and build a more resilient public education that supports all students.   

    •••

    Niu Gao is a principal researcher at the American Institutes for Research. Julian Betts is a professor at UC San Diego. Jonathan Isler and Piper Stanger are administrators at the California Department of Education.

    Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, was part of the research team and contributed to this report.

    This collaboration research is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305X230002 to the American Institutes for Research (AIR). Any errors or misinterpretations belong to the authors and do not reflect the views of the institute, the U.S. Department of Education or the California Department of Education.

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





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  • Community college bachelor’s degrees stall for years amid Cal State objections

    Community college bachelor’s degrees stall for years amid Cal State objections


    Santiago Canyon College is one of seven community colleges in the state that have yet to get final approval for bachelor’s degrees they proposed in 2023.

    Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College

    Rudy Garcia was excited when he learned that his local community college, Moorpark in Ventura County, planned to offer a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity and network operations.

    A father of four and the only source of income for his family, Garcia believed getting the degree would help him advance in his career in IT support. He had come to realize that more senior jobs typically required a bachelor’s degree. 

    Getting that degree at nearby Moorpark was appealing, especially because he had already finished an associate degree in cybersecurity at the college. 

    Rudy Garcia has two associate degrees from Moorpark College and hopes to enroll in a proposed bachelor’s degree program in cybersecurity.
    Rudy Garcia

    “Being able to add that to my resume, it would help me get a better job, better benefits and everything,” he said.

    But in the two years since Moorpark first proposed the degree, the college has still not received final approval. It’s one of seven degrees across California that received provisional approval from the state community college chancellor’s office in 2023 but remain in limbo because California State University has flagged them as duplicative of its own programs. The two sides have yet to come to a compromise.

    A 2021 law allows the state’s community college system to approve up to 30 new bachelor’s degrees annually, so long as the degrees support a local labor need and don’t duplicate what any of CSU’s 23 campuses or the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses offer. 

    Since the passage of that law, many community colleges have successfully launched new degrees: Thirty-two new degrees are now fully approved across the state, joining 15 that already existed as part of a pilot. Some of the most recently-approved degrees include drone and autonomous systems at Fullerton College, emergency services administration at Mission College in Santa Clara and water resource management at San Bernardino Community College.

    But due to disagreements over what constitutes duplication, some degree proposals have stalled.

    Resolution, however, could be coming soon. The seven degrees delayed since 2023 are currently being reviewed by WestEd, a nonprofit research organization that was selected to serve as a neutral, third-party evaluator.

    Some local community colleges have been under the impression that WestEd would render final decisions on the programs, but that is not the case, a spokesperson clarified. Instead, WestEd will evaluate the programs and share an analysis with the community college system’s board of governors that will “help inform the review process,” the spokesperson said. 

    The spokesperson shared the additional details about WestEd’s role on Tuesday morning. WestEd had previously declined an interview request prior to publication of this story. 

    Colleges have been told to expect the reviews from WestEd as early as this month, though it could take longer.

    Officials with the systemwide chancellor’s offices for both the community colleges and CSU also declined interview requests.

    For the community colleges, getting a verdict will be welcomed as they have grown increasingly annoyed that their degrees are being delayed. 

    “My frustration is on behalf of the students that are missing out on this opportunity,” said Jeannie Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, which got preliminary approval for a degree in digital infrastructure and location services. “We talk a really loud game about student success and being student centered. But right now, preventing these kinds of degrees from going forward is not student centered.”

    Although officials from CSU campuses declined to be interviewed, memos obtained by EdSource through a Public Records Act request show that those campuses cited a number of reasons for objecting to proposed degrees. 

    In some cases, CSU campuses objected only to a few courses where they believed there was overlap. For example, CSU San Bernardino’s objection to San Diego Mesa’s proposed physical therapy assistant degree came down to three upper-division courses focused on biomechanics, nutrition and exercise physiology that would be part of the Mesa program. San Bernardino staff argued those courses duplicate classes that they offer as part of a bachelor’s degree program in kinesiology. 

    San Diego Mesa officials believe they may have been able to find common ground if they had more time to negotiate. Their only live interaction with San Bernardino staff was a 30-minute Zoom meeting last year, according to Cassandra Storey, dean for health sciences at Mesa. “We never really had the discussion on those three courses,” Storey said. “I would like to think that we could have a conversation and negotiate this.”

    Other proposals faced stronger objections. Moorpark faces duplication claims from seven CSU campuses over its proposed cybersecurity program. One campus, CSU San Marcos in San Diego County, wrote in a memo that the proposal “substantially overlaps” with its own cybersecurity degree. “Almost all cybersecurity issues are directly or indirectly related to network operation. The proposed program description is a typical cybersecurity degree,” San Marcos staff wrote.

    In the view of Moorpark officials, however, there are fundamental differences between its degree and what San Marcos offers. Whereas degrees like the one offered at San Marcos prepare students for engineering and computer science careers, Moorpark would train students to be technicians and work in cybersecurity support, said John Forbes, the college’s vice president of academic affairs.

    “We understand we need more engineers in this world across every type of engineering, and we need good computer scientists that understand coding,” Forbes said. “But our labor force also needs the people that aren’t authoring and designing and engineering. They need the technicians that are using this stuff.”

    Moorpark’s program would not be a calculus-based STEM degree, he added. The San Marcos degree does require a calculus course and other math classes as prerequisites. 

    That itself is a positive for students like Garcia. If he were to attempt a CSU bachelor’s degree, he would essentially have to start over and take several lower-division courses to be eligible to transfer to a CSU campus and potentially pay more in tuition. At Moorpark, he would need only upper-division credits to get his bachelor’s degree and have to pay $130 per credit. On average, community college bachelor’s degrees in California cost $10,560 in tuition and fees over all four years, much less than attending a CSU or UC campus. Much of Garcia’s tuition would also get covered by financial aid, he said. 

    “So that’s a big plus for me,” he said.

    The other major selling point for Garcia is that the Moorpark campus is just a short drive from his house. He’s hoping it will get approved soon and he can start taking classes in the fall. 

    “The college is like four exits from my house,” he said. “I would totally jump on that.”

    Some students are place bound and can’t attend colleges outside their hometown, the community colleges emphasize. But the law does not mention location, allowing CSU campuses to bring objections even if they aren’t located in the same region as the college proposing the degree. 

    Moorpark, for example, has faced objections from CSU campuses other than San Marcos, including Sacramento State and three San Francisco Bay Area campuses: Cal State East Bay, Sonoma State and San Jose State. 

    Those campuses may be worried about losing potential students to community colleges. Sonoma State in particular has seen its enrollment plummet in recent years. Staff at San Jose State, where enrollment has flattened, wrote in a memo that they are concerned the Moorpark program would “draw from the same pool of students” as their bachelor’s degree in engineering technology. 

    Forbes said he understands those worries but believes they may be misguided. “We are big fans of the CSU system, and we want our students to be successful there, and we’re doing everything we can to help them on the transfer end. But for this program, these are not students who would be going to CSU,” he said. 

    Forbes and other community college officials around the state are eager for resolution. “We’re hopeful, with the smart people we have in California, that rational minds can come to the table and figure out a better path forward,” Forbes said.

    This article was corrected on Jan. 21 to include further detail and clarification about WestEd’s role in the review process.





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  • Five years after Covid shuttered schools, parent empowerment lives on

    Five years after Covid shuttered schools, parent empowerment lives on


    Five years ago, when Esti Iturralde’s daughter was in the first grade, the little girl struggled with learning to read. The teacher told her mother not to worry, Winnie just wasn’t ready yet, but Iturralde knew in her heart something was wrong. 

    She blamed herself, until the pandemic hit, the schools shuttered, and remote learning gave her a chance to peek inside the classroom. What she saw opened her eyes and shocked her into action. 

    “It really wasn’t until the school closures that I began to understand what she was missing,” said the Piedmont mom of two. “I got to see up close what was wrong with the lessons.”

    Five years after Covid shuttered schools, the parent empowerment it sparked is going strong. While the pandemic inexorably disrupted everyone’s lives, parents faced a double whammy. Amid heated debates over masks, vaccines and school shutdowns, many parents found themselves on the front lines of hot-button issues on an almost daily basis. In that time of crisis, some families lost trust in the ability of the schools to meet the needs of their students. 

    Like Iturralde, some came to the conclusion that they had to fend for themselves. That’s one reason the pandemic became a watershed moment for a generation of parents. It shifted the dynamics between communities and schools, and, for some families, shook their faith in the school system in a lasting way.

    “When schools remained closed for far longer than any other institution or business,” said Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers, “this broke the social compact that schools are compulsory for children because it is a critical function of civil society. It left parents in the lurch.”

    That rude awakening spurred some parents to question all aspects of their child’s education, from the length of school closures to how reading is taught and how parental notification policies should work. Parents from all over the ideological spectrum, from people of color fighting for equity to conservative parents upholding traditional values, began to push for change. That surge of parental empowerment may be one of the lasting impacts of the pandemic.

    “Parent empowerment and engagement certainly reached a peak during Covid school closures,” said Megan Bacigalupi, co-founder of CA Parent Power, an advocacy group. “The academic, social and mental health harms done to kids by those lengthy closures kept many parents engaged in their districts long after they reopened. One of the silver linings is that parents got a window into the classroom.”

    All sorts of school governance issues that had long been taken for granted came under intense scrutiny, sparking a shift in thinking about public education. Some families got fed up. Instead of waiting for the system to adapt to their needs, they took matters into their own hands. 

    The dawning realization that Winnie was being taught to read by looking primarily at pictures, instead of words, was a red flag for Iturralde, who has a doctorate in behavioral science. 

    Esti Iturralde and her daughter Winnie read “Harry Potter” together at home in the living room while their dog Roscoe hangs out in August 2022.
    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    She decided to teach her kiddo to read at home, to see if she would bloom with more phonics, which she did. Winnie was soon reading above grade level. That showed Iturralde that sometimes you have to take charge of your child’s learning. 

    “Before, I was content to just trust and trust, and now I’m less trusting,” said Iturralde, who shared some of her lessons on YouTube to help other parents. “It’s like the curtain gets pulled away, and you see, all of a sudden, there’s no wizard out there.” ​​

    To be sure, Lakisha Young had long walked the do-it-yourself path, but the Covid era gave her new fire. She believes the pandemic merely highlighted the ways public education has always failed to meet the needs of low-income children of color. Nearly 70% of Oakland students failed to meet the standard for reading on the state’s Smarter Balanced test in 2023.

    “Nobody is coming to save us,” said Young, the co-founder and CEO of Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy group. “The system is broken. Black and brown kids are typically already behind their white peers before they even get to kindergarten, and then those gaps just get bigger. The reality is, we keep seeing generation after generation failing. Somebody’s got to stop the bleeding.”

    Young has worked with families where illiteracy has been passed down from one generation to the next, like an heirloom. She has tried to empower parents, to put families in the driver’s seat.

    “We’re freeing our families from the system,” said Young. “We’re liberating them from the system. If a parent shows up, does her part or his part, their kid’s going to get what they need.”

    During lockdown, Young connected families to everything from laptops and cash assistance to a virtual academy. Now REACH is a hub for parent and caregiver tutors, which they call “liberators,” who go into classrooms, teaching reading and math in partnership with Oakland Unified.  

    “These babies have to learn how to read and do math,” she said. “We have to empower families to make sure their kids don’t get left behind.”

    Left to their own devices at the kitchen table, many in the dyslexia community also experienced the pandemic as a lightning rod. 

    “People were frustrated their children were not getting the services they deserved,” said Megan Potente, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, an advocacy group. “There was a lot of learning happening among parents, who may have left things up to school if it weren’t for the unprecedented times of the pandemic and heightened feelings of urgency associated with seeing your child struggle at home.”

    Many parents first organized out of frustration with extended school closures, she said, but then parlayed that momentum to push for education reforms, such as evidenced-based reading instruction, amid the state’s deepening literacy crisis.

    “California schools are failing at their core function: teaching,” said Moore. “How many decades of data — showing less than half of students achieving proficiency in language and math — are needed before big innovation occurs?”

    Lakisha Young
    Credit: Courtesy of Oakland Reach

    Emboldened by having to step up in a crisis, many parents began to demand a voice. Parents Supporting Teachers (PST) in Los Angeles began as a Facebook group during the LAUSD teachers strike in 2019 but gained momentum during the pandemic as parents began asking questions about how the district uses its funding.

    “It’s important that we parents have a seat at the table when it comes to our children’s education,” said Vicky Martinez, a mother of three Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) students and member of PST. “We know our kids best. You empower yourself with knowledge and ask questions and do some research and don’t be afraid. We need to be a part of the process so we can support our kids.”

    Many hope that parental empowerment will remain robust even as the Covid years recede into memory. They are optimistic that families will continue to push for more transparency about academic standards and practices in the wake of falling test scores and widening achievement gaps. 

    “People want a fair shake, for themselves and their children,” said Moore. “Education is seen as the main vehicle for upward economic and social mobility. Yet the reality is, California’s education system only does well for those born into privilege, and it fails most everyone else.”

    Many parents will continue to play a more active role in the education of their children. Iturralde, like most parents, has “bad memories” of the pandemic years and struggling to get her daughter what she needed, but all that effort has paid off. 

    She used what she learned about the science of reading, from the need for phonics to the importance of background knowledge, to tutor her younger daughter, Lorea, as well. She now also coaches Winnie on math, a subject in which she is poised to skip ahead a year. 

    “What I try to advise parents to do is to take care of your kid and advocate for your kid, but also try to think about the community,” she said. “When I make a fuss about something, I’m doing it because I think there are other kids whose parents are not going to be able to help them. You’ve got to zoom out and think about the big picture.”





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  • At community colleges, online classes remain popular years after pandemic

    At community colleges, online classes remain popular years after pandemic


    Ricardo Alcaraz is taking three of his five courses online this semester at Santa Ana College: an anthropology class, business calculus and business law. It’s a course schedule that reflects a new reality and shift toward distance learning across California’s community colleges, largely sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

    Taking classes online, though, isn’t ideal for Alcaraz, who is majoring in business administration and plans to transfer to Cal State Fullerton this fall. He enjoys in-person classes because he likes to arrive early and ask questions of his professors. His online classes, on the other hand, are asynchronous, meaning there’s no live instruction, and he has to direct his questions via email.

    But like hundreds of thousands of other students in California, Alcaraz opts to enroll in many online classes because they fit better into his schedule. While enrolled at Santa Ana, he has worked up to 20 hours a week at the college’s Undocu-Scholars Center, a resource center for the college’s undocumented students. He’s also the student trustee for the Rancho Santiago Community College District, requiring him to be at board meetings and many campus events.

    “It’s been hard to adapt to online classes. But due to how busy I’ve been and needing to be present in different areas, I feel like it’s been very helpful in a way,” he said.

    During the pandemic five years ago, a significant majority of California community classes shifted online. Despite some early confusion and bumps in adapting to online education, distance education has firmly taken hold in the years since.

    More than 40% of community college classes remain online statewide as of this year, about double what it was before the pandemic, and a much higher rate of remote education than exists at the state’s four-year universities. That includes hybrid classes, which mix online and some required in-person instruction. Some colleges also offer HyFlex courses, which give students the option of attending online or in person. The vast majority of the system’s online classes, however, are taught fully online and asynchronously. 

    Many campuses also have no choice but to cater to students to stabilize their enrollments and finances. Enrollment across the state plummeted during the pandemic — dropping 19% statewide — and is still below pre-pandemic levels. 

    College leaders and instructors say online education has proven an effective enough teaching and learning method, especially for general education classes, the lower-level coursework students take before diving into much of their major studies. Statewide, students pass both synchronous and asynchronous online courses at only a slightly lower rate than students pass in-person courses. 

    Still, officials acknowledge that many students benefit from face-to-face instruction and social interactions with their peers. Such interactions are less common now than they were pre-pandemic, with many campuses quieter and noticeably less crowded. Some colleges have begun to consider how they can entice students to return to campus. 

    “For a lot of students and a lot of instructors, the preference is to be in the classroom,” said John Hetts, executive vice chancellor for the statewide community college system. “That regular personal contact matters. I think a lot of students feel it, but the challenge we have as a system is that the vast majority of our students work.

    “So how do we balance that? I think that’s going to be the challenge for our institutions, to support students getting what they need to thrive, but also what they need to be able to work,” he added.

    Los Angeles City College

    Just prior to the pandemic, 21% of community college classes were online. That rate ballooned to nearly 70% of classes in 2020-21. 

    Some hands-on programs, like respiratory care and other health programs, were taught in person even during the pandemic because they met the state’s definition of essential education. Beyond those, most community colleges required other classes to be held online throughout the 2020-21 academic year. The next year, colleges began reopening in-person classes, with vaccine mandates in place.

    Taylor Squires, a second-year technical theater arts student at Saddleback College in Orange County, takes as many of her general education classes online as possible, and sometimes other courses too. This past fall, her entire course load was online.

    “It depends on the semester, but the reasoning is pretty much the same: it frees up time in my day to go do other things,” Squires said. 

    The state’s four-year university systems are also offering more classes online now than they did pre-pandemic. They offer them at a lower rate than the community colleges, but many of their students take at least one class online every semester or quarter. At the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses, 6.4% of course sections were fully online in 2023-24, up from 1.8% in the year leading up to the pandemic. That percentage does not include hybrid classes.

    Before the pandemic, online classes were a rarity at the 23-campus California State University. More than 90% of course sections were taught in person in each school year between 2016-17 and 2018-19. Then, the start of the pandemic supercharged what had been a gradual trend toward virtual learning.

    Cal State campuses have not fully reverted to the pre-pandemic norm now that their campuses are no longer subject to restrictions on in-person gatherings. In the 2023-24 school year, 73% of course sections were taught face-to-face, and 75% of students took at least one course online. The percentage of courses offered in a hybrid format has more than doubled between 2016-17 and 2023-24.

    At community colleges, some hands-on classes and programs need to be taught face-to-face because of the nature of the work, like science labs or trade programs such as welding or construction.

    Otherwise, most community colleges and their academic departments decide on instructional delivery methods based on what will bring the most enrollments. At the state’s largest district, the nine-college Los Angeles Community College District, between 40% and 50% of classes are now taught online each semester. Before the pandemic, between 10% and 15% of classes were taught online.

    “Based on our assumption of student demand, we may plan that 40% of our classes need to be online and 60% need to be in person. And if that 60% doesn’t materialize, we may shift some of that to online to give students more time to enroll,” said Nicole Albo-Lopez, the district’s deputy chancellor.

    At the communication and media studies department at Folsom Lake College, department chair Paula Cardwell said the “North Star” is to offer classes the way students want them. 

    Cardwell has been teaching online classes since 2007, much longer than most, and said she finds it can be done “really, really well.” She said students in her public speaking classes tend to give each other even better feedback in Zoom chats than they do in person because they are less worried about hurting one another’s feelings.

    Cardwell added, however, that there are challenges, especially with the proliferation of artificial intelligence and the likelihood of students using it to write their assignments. “So we are rethinking which classes we teach online or how we teach them because of that,” Cardwell said.

    Foothill College in Santa Clara County has also been rethinking its approach, hoping to ease isolation and improve student mental health. The college, where about half of the classes were remote even before the pandemic and 55% remain online, is actually seeing face-to-face enrollment increase at a faster rate than courses taught online. This quarter, enrollment is up about 19% for in-person classes, said Kristina Whalen, the college’s president.

    The college has opened new in-person facilities, including a wellness lounge where students can relax in massage chairs, meditate or talk to staff about getting connected to mental health services. 

    “Students are looking for that social interaction and the services that a campus affords,” Whalen said.

    But Foothill still relies heavily on distance education and is constantly trying to refine its online instruction, Whalen said. The college this year began requiring additional training to ensure faculty teaching online are still engaging with students, such as by providing prompt and personalized feedback on student coursework.

    “Up and down the state, I think colleges are asking and answering that question about how they are monitoring their online instruction to ensure that it’s of a quality that matches our on-ground instruction,” Whalen said. 

    Hetts, the executive vice chancellor for the community college system, noted that the chancellor’s office provides a rubric to ensure online classes are high quality. But he added that much of the training and review of those classes happens locally.

    At the Los Angeles district, faculty are required to be certified to teach online as part of their union contract. Most faculty opt in to additional training, such as one focused on using artificial intelligence in the classroom, said Albo-Lopez. Faculty are regularly looking to build new skills because they know distance education is their new normal, she added.

    “It’s here to stay because it’s created a new niche of flexibility both for our students, but also for our workforce,” she said. “And I think that that’s something that is going to be really difficult to change back.”

    EdSource staff writer Amy DiPierro contributed reporting to this article. Abby Offenhauser, a member of the EdSource California Student Journalism Corps, also contributed reporting.





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