Headlines
FCMAT provides links to California TK-12 news stories as a service to the industry. Some stories may require a newspaper subscription.
Feb 07, 2023
It is called Mending Matters and, while privately run, it’s designed to meet students where they are — on their school campuses. The therapy program started in two public schools in San Diego County in 2014, long before the pandemic added to teen anxiety and isolation.
Feb 07, 2023
Orange Unified School District brought back its digital library, Sora, after temporarily suspending the app following concerns of age inappropriate books being available to younger students.
Feb 07, 2023
The Clovis Unified school board recently approved $17.3 million in raises and benefits for employees, but the district’s unionized psychologists will be missing out for the foreseeable future.
Feb 07, 2023
Rock Creek Elementary School in Auburn is set to close by the end of the school year due to a lack of funding. The school closure will mainly impact Hispanic and Latino families in Placer County.
Feb 07, 2023
The latest sign that California is easing out of the pandemic and into the endemic phase: The state has dropped its plan to require the COVID-19 vaccination for K-12 students as the state of emergency comes to an end Feb. 28, after nearly three years.
Feb 07, 2023
New research that tracked high school juniors in Los Angeles Unified found that those who took math as seniors — from algebra to advanced calculus — were better positioned to enroll and stay in college than those who didn’t.
Feb 06, 2023
This academic year alone, [the teams have] made more than 3,600 home visits. School officials credit their work for reducing the district's chronic absenteeism rate to 33.74% through January 2023.
Feb 06, 2023
The Tamalpais Union High School District has been hit with its third lawsuit over a former tennis coach convicted of molesting his players.
Feb 06, 2023
Although Marin COVID-19 cases are generally declining, four elementary schools have temporarily reinstated indoor mask mandates in individual classrooms after small clusters of cases were reported, officials said.
Feb 06, 2023
A group of parents plan to gather outside the Lodi Unified School District Board of Education meeting Tuesday in protest of a plan to close Houston School due to declining enrollment.
Feb 06, 2023
Eureka City Schools received a $5 million grant in December from the U.S. Department of Education’s School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program.
Feb 06, 2023
Former students and parents at the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA), one of the country’s most prominent art schools, are demanding the Orange County Board of Education investigate allegations of sexual misconduct at the charter school.
Feb 06, 2023
A group of Clovis Unified parents is asking the district to transport a small number of students with several medical needs to a specialized therapeutic afterschool program. The parents say the facility is the only one in the region that provides the specific services these eight or so students require.
Feb 06, 2023
All 1.3 million K-12 public school students in Los Angeles County will soon have access to free virtual therapy sessions in a new effort to tackle the youth mental health crisis head on. Several districts, including LAUSD and Compton Unified School District, have already begun implementation.
Feb 06, 2023
Every year at the end of the work season, thousands of California farmworker families pull their children out of school and move at least 50 miles away. The annual journey persists, even though the state has fewer and fewer migrants and more and more farmworkers who want to settle permanently.
Feb 06, 2023
California’s student COVID-19 vaccine mandate — which has been on hold since April — has been quietly dropped as the state prepares to end emergency pandemic restrictions later this month, public health officials confirmed.
Feb 06, 2023
Students who were once English learners but are now proficient in English do better on average on California’s standardized tests than students who only speak English. Some district leaders and advocates for English learners celebrate this achievement as a sign that districts are preparing English learners well.
Feb 03, 2023
Nine school districts in Riverside and San Bernardino counties claimed a 2022 Gold Bell Award for excellence in education, presented by the California School Board Association at the Dorothy Inghram Learning Center in San Bernardino on Jan. 30.
Feb 03, 2023
All 1.3 million K-12 public school students in Los Angeles County will soon have access to free virtual therapy sessions in a new effort to tackle the youth mental health crisis head on.
Feb 03, 2023
Deanna Swearingen, who joined BUSD as its chief business official in February 2020, began what's currently set to be a three-and-a-half-year tenure as the Barstow school system's superintendent on Wednesday, one day after the planned retirement of now-former Superintendent Jeff Malan took effect.
Feb 03, 2023
Suspensions for defying school rules may become a thing of the past in California public and charter schools. Legislation introduced Wednesday by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, would ban such suspensions while aiming to understand what is causing the children to act out and treating it.
Feb 03, 2023
New software powered by artificial intelligence is the latest technology shaking up school campuses. In November, a San Francisco-based research laboratory called OpenAI launched ChatGPT, which has the unique ability to generate human-like text on command.
Feb 03, 2023
Half the funds would be split between public health programs for pandemic preparedness and local education agencies, for improvements to school facilities to limit disease transmission.
Feb 03, 2023
In 2020 the LAUSD School Board slashed the school police budget by 35%, and while some community members say the cuts didn’t do enough to address the concerns of Black and brown students, others say they went too far.
Feb 02, 2023
The Police Free LAUSD Coalition recently released a report entitled, “From Criminalization to Education: A Community Vision for Safe Schools in LAUSD,” which outlined recommendations for the district to invest in community alternatives to policing.
Feb 02, 2023
Curtis Creek Elementary School in Standard now has a safer, more reliable water supply following the completion of a $2.2 million project in collaboration with Tuolumne Utilities District and California State Water Resources Control Board.
Feb 02, 2023
The History/Social Science Ad Hoc Committee’s role is to recommend a textbook to the Ramona district’s Board of Education.
Feb 02, 2023
Concerns of censorship are arising in the Orange Unified School District after the newly hired superintendent shut down a library app that some parents said contained books that were inappropriate for children.
Feb 02, 2023
A sharply divided Temecula school board voted Tuesday night, Jan. 31, to hire special legal counsel after another tense meeting that showcased the continuing struggle between the board’s Christian conservative majority and its critics.
Feb 02, 2023
The California Department of Public Health hasn’t made an announcement, but officials told EdSource that the end of the state’s Covid-19 state of emergency on Feb. 28 effectively ends its current plan to add Covid-19 vaccinations to the list of 10 vaccinations children are required to have to attend school in person.
Feb 02, 2023
A California public school district is facing calls to stop reciting a Christian prayer before each of its board meetings. The Gateway Unified School District (GUSD) Board of Trustees voted to open each of its meetings with prayer last month. The Gateway Unified School District (GUSD) Board of Trustees voted to open each of its meetings with prayer last month.
Feb 02, 2023
The move, announced to school board members in a message from Supt. Alberto M. Carvalho, comes amid continued alarm about the dangers of illicit fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has been consumed unknowingly by teens in counterfeit pills that look like Xanax or OxyContin.
Feb 02, 2023
Black Students of California United, a Fresno-based nonprofit, is a network of hundreds of Black middle and high school students throughout the state who meet regularly to brainstorm about policy and take action on issues affecting them – from mental health to gun violence to substance abuse to school funding.
Feb 01, 2023
An initiative announced this week aims to create a data link that aerospace employers would use to inform schools when positions become available, along with specific information on what skills, certificates or degrees the jobs require.
Feb 01, 2023
The board unanimously approved $1.1 million in Title I funds — a federally funded program for improving academic achievement that, in part, pays for professional development — to send over 500 district teachers, principals and staff to bring back knowledge from the education extravaganza in the desert.
Feb 01, 2023
After months of controversy, a Marin panel voted unanimously to accept withdrawal of a territory transfer petition involving school families in a section of Corte Madera that is within the Reed Union School District boundaries.
Feb 01, 2023
Modesto High School Principal Jason Manning remains on paid administrative leave nearly two months after The Bee reported that he and a certificated employee were under investigation for alleged inappropriate conduct on campus.
Feb 01, 2023
Community and student activists on Tuesday relaunched a campaign to eliminate the Los Angeles School Police Department, calling instead for expansion of mental health and academic programs, college and career counseling and job and life-skills training.
Feb 01, 2023
Amid looming economic uncertainty and fears of recession, the governor has proposed cutting $1.2 billion of one-time discretionary funding for arts and instructional materials in his pared-back 2023-24 state budget, which responds to a projected $22.5 billion budget shortfall.
Feb 01, 2023
With nearly 60% of California children not meeting state reading standards by the third grade, strong parent-teacher partnerships and a statewide shift toward evidence-based reading strategies are crucial in helping students learn how to read.
Jan 31, 2023
The Kern County Superintendent of Schools debuted its first electric school bus Monday morning. It’s one of three zero-emissions vehicles that the county got from a one-million-dollar grant awarded by the California Energy Commission.
Jan 31, 2023
If approved by two-thirds of voters, the tax would be renewed at the rate of $251 per parcel for a term of eight years. Measure A does not include any automatic annual increases or additional tax beyond what property owners are already paying.
Jan 31, 2023
At a marathon, contentious, six-hour board meeting on Jan. 19, both parents demanded that the Orange Unified School District do a better job policing content on library apps used by students. Orange Unified finds itself as a microcosm of a national civil war over public education.
Jan 31, 2023
San Diego Unified students are missing school at a dramatically growing rate. Many students are now considered chronically absent. The district points to sickness, mental health, housing and food insecurities, lack of transportation and inflation as the causes.
Jan 31, 2023
Amid looming economic uncertainty and fears of recession, the governor has proposed cutting $1.2 billion of one-time discretionary funding for arts and instructional materials in his pared-back 2023-24 state budget, which responds to a projected $22.5 billion budget shortfall.
Jan 31, 2023
The election of an Oakland school board candidate who officials say was incorrectly certified the winner could be overturned after an Alameda County judge ordered a partial re-examination of the results.
Jan 30, 2023
A report addressing potential fraud at Stockton Unified School District will be ready for the Board of Trustees to review at a Feb. 14 meeting, a California education official confirmed. Michael Fine, chief executive officer of the state’s Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), said their audit of SUSD is nearly complete.
Jan 30, 2023
Another Fresno County superintendent is leaving her post at the end of the school year. After serving Sanger Unified students for 36 years, five of which were in the district’s top seat, Superintendent Adela Jones, 61, is retiring to spend more time with her family.
Jan 30, 2023
Temecula school board trustees are set to discuss hiring special lawyers Tuesday, Jan. 31, almost two weeks after a special meeting on the topic ended abruptly when trustees couldn’t agree on what to talk about.
Jan 30, 2023
Over the past few years, enrollment in public schools across Oakland and most parts of California has been declining—often a result of families choosing different schooling options during the pandemic, or moving to less-expensive areas.
Jan 30, 2023
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced a new partnership at a press event Thursday between the California Department of Education (CDE) and California Volunteers, Office of the Governor, to promote new pathways for California Volunteers service corps members.
Jan 30, 2023
Irma Rodriguez, a freshman from the farming community of Salinas, had struggled in school for years — academically, socially, every which way. But when she enrolled in her local alternative high school, things took an upward trajectory. Literally.
Jan 27, 2023
Stockton Unified School District’s time for transparency on their nearly $242 million in COVID-19 relief funds fell short for some trustees and an audience looking for answers.
Jan 27, 2023
Teachers in the Novato Unified School District have ratified a one-year contract with a 13.26% pay bump for the current school year, officials said. The contract is retroactive to July 1.
Jan 27, 2023
In a Jan. 20 letter, the Eureka City Unified School District threatened to sue the Fortuna Union High School District for control over the Academy of the Redwoods, a high school located on the College of the Redwoods campus.
Jan 27, 2023
After rescinding a controversial plan to close schools, Oakland Unified’s newly seated school board is facing a new challenge: balancing a budget that will now cost at least $87 million more than anticipated.
Jan 27, 2023
The Winters California School Employees Association (CSEA) Chapter 694 submitted a letter and asked the Superintendent and Trustees to consider approving their request for an increase in their wages at the Jan. 19 Winters Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting.
Jan 27, 2023
Madison Klovstad Miner ran for the Orange Unified school board with financial backing from conservative groups, signaling her ideology with phrases like “parent first” and “education fundamentals.”
Jan 27, 2023
As California dishes out $4.1 billion to school districts through 2031 to transform thousands of campuses into full-service community schools, teachers are demanding that parents, community leaders as well as educators have a say in how a district’s allocation is spent and that the initiative is sustainable in the long-term.
Jan 26, 2023
Parlier Unified just got a new superintendent — but one board member is questioning whether the appointment was done ethically. At a special Dec. 15 meeting, trustees voted 4-1 to appoint Rafael Iñiguez to the district’s top administrative office with a base salary of $198,919.
Jan 26, 2023
The West Contra Costa Unified School District launched an investigation this week after a video posted Monday appeared to show a student attacked by a substitute teacher at Richmond High School.
Jan 26, 2023
A few weeks before winter break, 17-year-old Kaden Hyatt sent a mass email to his Oakland high school, College Preparatory. He had just stumbled across a new artificial intelligence platform called ChatGPT.
Jan 26, 2023
School districts across the country are increasingly turning to four-day school weeks to save money, increase student attendance and recruit new teachers. But the trend isn’t taking hold in California.
Jan 26, 2023
Assemblyman Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, has introduced legislation that would prohibit homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools, daycare centers, parks, and libraries.
Jan 26, 2023
As the district evaluates the high cost and low attendance of the winter learning days, some officials, teachers and parents are questioning whether millions more should be spent on a similar effort during the first two days of spring break.
Jan 25, 2023
Dozens of Ojai Unified School District teachers, parents and children crowded the corner of Bristol Road and Ojai Avenue Monday night to protest the district's handling of its budget.
Jan 25, 2023
On Tuesday, January 24, members with the Bakersfield Elementary Teachers Association came out in numbers to ask for an increase in wages and better working conditions.
Jan 25, 2023
The food served at the suburban San Francisco school system, Mount Diablo Unified, reflects a trend away from mass-produced, reheated meals. Its lunch menus are filled with California-grown fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meats and recipes that defy the stereotype of inedible school food.
Jan 25, 2023
A plan by Gov. Gavin Newsom to increase oversight of all low-performing student groups and focus additional money on the state’s poorest schools has angered a coalition of Black education and civil rights organizations that had pressed him for extra state funding to help Black students.
Jan 25, 2023
When is an independent-study class overcrowded? That’s the gist of an ongoing dispute in Selma, where the teachers association is accusing the school district of exceeding class-size maximums — up to 50 students in one independent-study class at one time.
Jan 25, 2023
Within the next couple of months, Fresno County’s second-largest school district will find its newest superintendent through a subcommittee of three board members rather than hiring a consultant or search firm.
Jan 25, 2023
Despite pleas from many parents to keep the status quo in the top leadership role, a new president will now run the board after a close vote Tuesday night, although the board split the ticket, giving the second seat to one of the more moderate members.
Jan 24, 2023
Ojai Unified School District trustees approved a last-minute draft plan Friday night to save $3.8 million over three years by laying off more than a dozen employees and closing two schools.
Jan 24, 2023
“The whole program is being built back,” said Marcus Omlin, SUSD’s emergency service and school safety program coordinator. Omlin was rehired in September 2022 — through a one-time funding source. The district had eliminated his position in 2021 to cut costs.
Jan 24, 2023
A civil rights law firm filed a complaint against the San Francisco Unified School District today for inability to address the needs of multilingual and disabled students at Marina Middle School, following an investigation by The Examiner on the school’s disciplinary and staffing problems.
Jan 24, 2023
A civil rights law firm filed a complaint against the San Francisco school district over the “staffing chaos” at Marina Middle School, describing the conditions as the worst they’ve seen in over 20 years.
Jan 24, 2023
A plan by Gov. Gavin Newsom to increase oversight of all low-performing student groups and focus additional money on the state’s poorest schools has angered a coalition of Black education and civil rights organizations that had pressed him for extra state funding to help Black students.
Jan 24, 2023
The Oakland school board’s decision this month to keep five underenrolled and low-performing schools from closing at the end of the school year will have dire financial and academic consequences on classrooms across the district, according to a staff analysis of the last-minute reversal.
Jan 23, 2023
Sweeping consolidation entails financial risk, and would first appear on a ballot measure for voters to decide.
Jan 23, 2023
The Claremont Unified School District board this week appointed Hilary LaConte to fill the seat vacated by Steven Llanusa, the former board president who resigned Dec. 10.
Jan 23, 2023
The Long Beach school district’s dual-enrollment program, through which 11th- and 12th-graders can take college courses, has proven highly successful, officials say – but not all that popular.
Jan 23, 2023
When is an independent-study class overcrowded? That’s the gist of an ongoing dispute in Selma, where the teachers association is accusing the school district of exceeding class-size maximums — up to 50 students in one independent-study class at one time.
Jan 23, 2023
An intrusion into the computer systems of the Los Angeles school district began more than a month earlier than previously disclosed and likely exposed confidential information, including Social Security numbers, of more than 500 people who worked for district contractors, according to information filed with the state.
Jan 23, 2023
Last year, a bill would have directed more funding to the student group with the lowest standardized test scores, which would have been Black students. Instead, the governor is proposing extra money for high-poverty schools, not Black students specifically.
Jan 23, 2023
According to reports, Sarnia Shoman with the San Mateo Union High School District sent an email in 2021 to the California State superintendent, Tony Thurmond, arguing against proposed changes to the ethnic studies curriculum.
Jan 20, 2023
Clovis Unified Superintendent Eimear O’Brien is retiring at the end of the school year after six years as the high-achieving school district’s leader.
Jan 20, 2023
Kimberly Berman, the Mill Valley School District superintendent since July 2019, will depart the post at the end of the school year on June 30.
Jan 20, 2023
New data on LAUSD’s first ever “acceleration days” reveals that while the optional school days reached thousands of students with a high need for learning support, the actual attendance rates were lower than initially reported.
Jan 20, 2023
Several parents addressed the board during the meeting at Marigold Elementary School’s multi-purpose room regarding the perceived existence of a “parental secrecy policy” that precludes school officials from communicating with parents about certain matters involving students.
Jan 20, 2023
Four hundred miles south from San Francisco lies a school district comparable in size, demographics and socioeconomics to The City. It, too, suffers from severe teacher shortages, student disciplinary issues and chronic absenteeism.
Jan 20, 2023
A federal appeals court will reconsider a decision requiring a school district in San Jose, California to recognize a Christian student group over its objections to a policy the district says discriminatorily bars LGBTQ students from serving as club leaders.
Jan 19, 2023
In October, the district received a two-year, $500,000 grant from the California Department of Education to tackle student homelessness and provide resources to other districts statewide on how to replicate its program.
Jan 19, 2023
Two Marin County education agencies were each awarded $200,000 state grants to enhance inclusivity and diversity in programs involving staff, students and curricula over the next three years.
Jan 19, 2023
The school’s Environmental Club has a program called the Precious Plastics Upcycling Workspace and Marketplace — specifically designed to generate revenue through sales of these recycled and repurposed plastics. The club received a $45,000 grant from the Chico-based Foor Foundation, allowing the school and club to fully fund an on-campus site for the processing and sale of these plastic items.
Jan 19, 2023
With Orange Unified School District’s superintendent and assistant superintendent reportedly out of the country, the School Board voted 4-3 Thursday night to fire the top administrator and place the second on paid administrative leave pending an audit.
Jan 19, 2023
The highly unusual vote occurred in front of more than 200 people who packed the Temecula Valley Unified School District Conference Center in what shaped up to be another showdown in the ongoing fight over efforts by the board’s new conservative majority to reshape the district.
Jan 19, 2023
Sonoma Charter School is facing financial challenges to maintain a positive cash flow projection, prompting the Sonoma Valley Unified School District, which provides financial oversight for the school, to call attention to the issue.
Jan 19, 2023
Plaintiff Aurora Regino alleges that in early 2022, her daughter told a counselor she "felt like a boy." The daughter, the suit claims, felt "pressured" by the counselor to adopt male pronouns and socially transition to a male identity.
Jan 19, 2023
Palo Alto Unified teachers and other employees will be getting a 7% raise retroactive to the start of this academic year as a result of union agreements that the school board approved on Tuesday, Jan. 17.
Jan 18, 2023
Ojai Unified School District is at "high risk" of insolvency and is on track to "deplete all cash" by July 2024, according to a pair of warnings delivered to the district by state and county education officials last week.
Jan 18, 2023
Monterey Peninsula Unified School District will hold a virtual forum for staff on Jan. 18 at 4:30 p.m. to discuss the district’s potential staff housing project.
Jan 18, 2023
The district, which completed a facilities master plan update last year, would use the bond measure to upgrade aging and deteriorated buildings on its campuses. In November, the board approved architect design services for two of the key upgrades — each estimated to cost about $42 million — at Tamalpais and Redwood high schools.
Jan 18, 2023
Vallejo City Unified School District students’ performance was poor or very poor in every metric, well below statewide standards in both English language skills and math, as the district had an absenteeism rate and suspension rate double the statewide average.
Jan 18, 2023
EdSource asked a range of early education practitioners, providers, experts and others to share their thoughts on how well Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2023-24 budget proposal meets their priorities for supporting early learning.
Jan 18, 2023
A conservative legal group has filed a lawsuit against the superintendent and school board members for the Chico Unified School District, alleging that a district employee helped a fifth grade student transition their gender identity without informing the child’s parent.
Jan 17, 2023
After several reports, two previously failed proposals and hours of public comment, the Central Academy of Arts and Technology has won approval to become Bakersfield’s newest charter school.
Jan 17, 2023
Long-awaited financial transparency from Stockton Unified School District on how officials have spent $241 million in federal COVID relief funds is happening later this month.
Jan 17, 2023
Closing and consolidating schools, as well as reconfiguring grade distributions on campuses, are among the options the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees may consider implementing in the next few months to address dwindling student enrollment.
Jan 17, 2023
The Clovis Unified School Board could create a new school — at least on paper — as soon as next week, but the students probably won’t notice any changes. On Wednesday, the board will vote to convert the Garfield Center — a special education site for medically fragile students — into a new school.
Jan 17, 2023
A new grading program at Ceres Unified that is designed to help marginalized students succeed. Instead of receiving the letter grades A, B, C, D and F, elementary students in grades four through six at Walter White Elementary School in Ceres now use numbers, zero to four.
Jan 17, 2023
Many Los Angeles parents are navigating another troubling winter of health worries. Not only do they remain deeply concerned about ongoing COVID school outbreaks, but rampant flu cases and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, have compounded their fears.
Jan 17, 2023
Becoming a substitute teacher in California has become easier and more financially lucrative in the last few years. California school districts have struggled to find enough substitute teachers to take over classrooms for absent teachers since the Covid-19 pandemic closed school campuses.
Jan 13, 2023
The Clovis Unified School Board could create a new school as soon as next week, but the students probably won’t notice any changes. On Wednesday, the board will vote to convert the Garfield Center into a new school.
Jan 13, 2023
The new board’s reversal in a 4-2-1 vote could place the financially strapped district in a sticky situation with state legislators who had promised to provide $10 million in annual bailout funds if it closed a number of campuses and sold the properties.
Jan 13, 2023
A retired Southern California school superintendent living in Idaho took the helm of Orange Unified this week following the abrupt firing of the district’s top administrator.
Jan 13, 2023
A year after voting to close several schools to address overspending and empty classrooms, a new majority on the Oakland school board reversed the decision this week, arguing that shuttering the sites wasn’t financially necessary and was opposed by much of the community.
Jan 12, 2023
Miki Inbody has been chosen to replace former Fontana Unified School District Superintendent Randall Bassett, district officials have announced.
Jan 12, 2023
According to the district, at schools where administrators have adopted the program, it has a 100% success rate. The student getting bullied has to rate the amount of bullying they’re dealing with, on a scale from zero to 10, on a regular basis, and the program continues until the student rates the bullying a zero.
Jan 12, 2023
The storms sweeping through California have kept crews statewide busy trying to restore power, including in Sacramento where some schools still don't have power. The Sacramento City Unified School District on Tuesday kept students of out five of its campus.
Jan 12, 2023
Since August 2021, San Francisco Unified’s Marina Middle School has lost almost a third of its staff, seen the departure of its longtime principal, and descended into what some educators familiar with the 670-student institution in one of The City’s wealthiest neighborhoods describe as barely controlled chaos.
Jan 12, 2023
As a new school board member, Joshua Brown is prioritizing special education in his rural Northern California district. But his perspective is unusual: He has firsthand experience with the district’s special education program — as a student.
Jan 11, 2023
Critics of the Mill Valley School District are sounding off after the district was billed $4,415 for the first of eight leadership workshops designed to help the school board operate more effectively.
Jan 11, 2023
The board has been mired in controversy for years, with critics saying it spends too much time meandering into issues such as renaming schools and removing murals while ignoring crucial district issues such as reopening schools as the pandemic eased and addressing the payroll fiasco.
Jan 11, 2023
The drama and intrigue over who will be the next San Francisco school board president will have to wait two weeks after the board failed Tuesday night to achieve a super-majority to elect the next person to lead the seven-member body.
Jan 11, 2023
Asuccession of significant storms downed trees and overflowed waterways, causing the closure of hundreds of California schools Monday, postponing the return to school from winter break for many students and sending others home midday.
Jan 11, 2023
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday pledged to provide naloxone — the overdose reversal drug — to every middle and high school, a low-cost but pressing need in a proposed education spending plan that would sustain school budgets but largely end a massive recent expansion of K-12 and college funding.
Jan 11, 2023
Funding for schools and community colleges will fall next year for the first time in a decade, under the first pass at the 2023-24 state budget, which Gov. Gavin Newsom released Tuesday. B
Jan 10, 2023
Governor Gavin Newsom will present a proposal for the California state budget Tuesday, including how he plans to patch a projected $25 billion deficit. The spending plan kicks off a six-month budget process during which Newsom and legislative leaders will decide how to spend the state’s tax dollars.
Jan 10, 2023
Parents in the Orange Unified School District are asking how four of their elected school board members agreed to oust two top district bosses without any prior discussion with their other colleagues. In just 24 hours.
Jan 10, 2023
Fresno Unified graduating seniors have the chance to earn up to $5,000 in college scholarship money, thanks in part to a $20 million donation from billionaire philanthropist Mackenzie Scott.
Jan 10, 2023
Redlands Unified school board member Patty Holohan directed a campaign worker to confiscate campaign signage belonging to an opponent in the Nov. 8 election, according to Redlands Police Department records.
Jan 10, 2023
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona was back in California this week, his latest trip to the state as he visited Los Angeles for a series of events honoring teachers.
Jan 09, 2023
Six months of tense negotiations finally wrapped Tuesday when Ventura Unified School District trustees approved 10% raises for the district’s teachers and classified employees, according to a district news release.
Jan 09, 2023
The Stockton Unified School District Board of Trustees terminated its legal services agreement with Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP at a special meeting on Friday.
Jan 09, 2023
Sacramento City Unified School District will not impose an indoor mask requirement when students return next week from winter break, officials confirmed Friday morning, following a recent decline in local coronavirus case numbers.
Jan 09, 2023
A new battle may be brewing over who will lead the San Francisco school board this year, after a close election changed the balance of power on the board and put a progressive majority back in the driver’s seat after less than a year of moderates running the show.
Jan 09, 2023
Kevin Gordon, a prominent California education lobbyist, said he does not anticipate education funding increasing much more than the required cost of living adjustment.
Jan 09, 2023
A day after the Orange Unified School Board fired its superintendent during a surprise special session, the biggest question was “why.” In announcing its 4-3 behind-closed-door vote, Board President Rick Ledesma offered no public reason for firing Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen and placing a second administrator, Cathleen Corella, on administrative leave.
Jan 09, 2023
Public schools across the U.S. have found that around one million children are experiencing homelessness, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Not all those students, however, live in homeless shelters or are on the streets — most of them are “doubled-up."
Jan 09, 2023
With one day’s notice during winter recess, a conservative majority on the Orange Unified school board fired respected Supt. Gunn Marie Hansen with no explanation after a closed-door meeting Thursday night.
Jan 06, 2023
With Orange Unified School District’s superintendent and assistant superintendent reportedly out of the country, the School Board voted 4-3 Thursday night to fire the top administrator and place the second on paid administrative leave pending an audit.
Jan 06, 2023
Café L.A., the food services division of the Los Angeles Unified School District, serves more than 107 million meals a year. It’s a feat that requires an army of cooks, kitchen managers and nutritionists coordinating across more than 1,000 schools.
Jan 06, 2023
Two Los Angeles Unified School District administrators who were convicted of criminal charges for failing to report sex crimes by a science teacher are being sued along with the district by a former stud
Jan 06, 2023
It won’t be an easy year — that’s a cinch to predict. The magnetometer of school board tensions is amping up — over pay negotiations, the politics of race and gender, staff shortages.
Jan 05, 2023
San Francisco public schools don’t have the resources they need to address high rates of chronic absenteeism, so the state’s Department of Education is stepping in.
Jan 05, 2023
Attorney Jason Bell filed the lawsuit on behalf of the student and his guardian on Dec. 22, seeking unspecified damages for the child’s mental and physical pain and negligence on the district’s part.
Jan 05, 2023
In a surprise move, the Orange Unified School Board is poised to decide the future – and possible firing – of its superintendent and an assistant superintendent during a special meeting called for Thursday, Jan. 5.
Jan 05, 2023
Teachers from the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District (LVJUSD) argued for pay increases beyond the three percent offered by the district at the district’s Dec. 13, 2022, board meeting.
Jan 05, 2023
An atmospheric river storm brought heavy rain and snowfall and high winds to California over the New Year’s holiday weekend. The result was flooding, downed trees and power outages that threatened to delay the reopening of school after the winter holiday break.
Jan 05, 2023
The parents of seven Latino elementary school students are suing the Pasadena Unified School District for discrimination after the district’s 2019 closure of three elementary schools with a large Latino enrollment.
Jan 04, 2023
More than half a century after starting her education career as an instructional assistant, Mary Jane Burke is ending it as the superintendent who faced down a pandemic. Burke, 70, of Novato relinquishe[d] her post at the Marin County Office of Education on Monday after a 28-year run.
Jan 04, 2023
Leaders of two Marin environmental nonprofit groups are urging the Sausalito Marin City School District to take a slower pace and a more considered approach to a design for a new $32 million elementary school in Sausalito.
Jan 04, 2023
Nearly 40 Long Beach high school students recently got to take a trip to Louisiana during their fall break and visit and experience life on HBCU campuses — part of the local school district’s ongoing efforts to improve equity and academic achievement for Black students.
Jan 04, 2023
The guardian of the student knocked to the ground by ex-Fresno Unified principal Brian Vollhardt in a June 7 incident caught on camera is now suing the school district and Vollhardt.
Jan 04, 2023
Seven new parks are under construction, and 12 more are slated to be built soon as part of San Diego’s campaign to speed the creation of parks across the city by partnering with local school districts.
Jan 04, 2023
According to the District Readiness Index, which compiles data to assess California school districts’ ability to improve student outcomes, San Francisco Unified School District lacks the foundations needed to keep students in the classroom and learning.
Jan 04, 2023
Troubles began right away. In 2017, gunfire after school left a passerby wounded as bullets struck the school’s main pedestrian gate, leaving shell casings scattered on the ground.
Jan 04, 2023
During the past decade, California has leapfrogged a dozen states in per-student funding, and its system for distributing the money to high-needs students is now among the most equitable in the nation.
Dec 25, 2022
Our offices will be closed December 26-27, 2022 and January 2-3, 2023. Headline News items will resume January 4, 2023.
Increasingly organized groups of parents advocating for an immediate return to class are emerging as a potent political counterweight to teachers unions.
The teachers union in Sacramento City Unified School District released its framework for reopening for in-person learning on Tuesday, and the plan prioritizes offering the COVID-19 vaccine to all of its 4,500 district employees.
Experts have found that remote instruction falls far short of classroom learning. But surveys have shown that a majority of Black and Latino parents in Los Angeles are still hesitant about sending their children back into schools.
Some teachers are reluctant to return to classroom settings as Orange County students resume at least some in-person learning. So substitute teachers might be in demand more than ever before.
Santa Clara County schools have the green light starting Wednesday to usher in a phased return to real face-to-face lessons. But the vast majority are opting instead to stay the course through the rest of the semester.
At Lucerne Valley Elementary in Southern California’s high desert, hundreds of students have returned to in-person learning and a dramatically different school day.
Pleasanton is the latest city to take a hard look at the role of police in the community and schools — and how to respond to mental health calls. The city agreed to revise its police use of force policies and possibly remove school resource officers.
Rescue Union School District, home to 3,700 students at its five elementary schools and two middle schools, is able to open since the county has remained off of the state’s monitoring list and complied with the long list of requirements to reopen.
Masks will be required at every level. In elementary schools, half of students will end their day at lunchtime, before the other half arrives. Middle and high school kids will trade off and spend two days a week on campus.
At the June 23 Oceanside Unified School Board meeting, Trustee Mike Blessing asked staff to present an option for “100 percent return” in the fall, District Communications Director Matthew Jennings said.