Headlines
FCMAT provides links to California TK-12 news stories as a service to the industry. Some stories may require a newspaper subscription.
Apr 25, 2024
Dubbed the Halal and Kosher School Meals Act, a proposed bill in the California Legislature would require schools to provide kosher or halal meals if more than 5% of their students request such.
Apr 25, 2024
A Napa County Superior Court judge confirmed Wednesday, after hearing attorney arguments, that the court will move to strike down a second effort to prevent the Mayacamas Countywide Middle School from opening.
Apr 25, 2024
This year Summit School, based out of the same campus as Rock Tree Sky, has about 185 students. Almost all of that growth comes directly from a unique arrangement with Rock Tree Sky.
Apr 25, 2024
Days after her arrest, Trustee AngelAnn Flores' seat on the dais was empty at Tuesday night's Stockton Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting.
Apr 25, 2024
Billions of federal dollars to cushion the impacts of COVID-19 have been exhausted, school closures during the pandemic magnified declines in enrollment, chronic absenteeism has worsened, inflation is increasing operating costs, and the state budget is plagued by a huge deficit.
Apr 25, 2024
On Wednesday, April 24, the office filed a motion asking the court to make a final decision in its lawsuit against the district’s parent notification policy and is trying to block a revised policy approved by the school board in March.
Apr 25, 2024
Unionized teachers from Downtown College Prep, a charter school system in San Jose, issued a vote of no confidence in CEO Pete Settelmayer after he announced budget cuts and a school closure earlier this year.
Apr 25, 2024
In the spring of 2003, when Delaine Eastin was running California’s public schools, she faced a group of lawmakers trying to close a massive budget shortfall. Eastin had answers. It was her last day in office, but she served them up with the fire of someone who had just stepped into the job.
Apr 25, 2024
California law requires K-12 students to receive comprehensive sexual health and HIV-prevention education. Should that education include information about anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers?
Apr 25, 2024
The incident in an unincorporated neighborhood near South L.A. is adding fuel to a debate over campus safety in the nation’s second-largest school system and the reduced role of school police.
Apr 24, 2024
The ruling comes after the Napa Valley Unified School District sued the Napa County Office of Education board and county Superintendent Barbara Nemko in March, following the board’s approval of the charter school.
Apr 24, 2024
The Sausalito Marin City School District is exploring the possibility of placing a parcel tax on the ballot. Trustees voted on April 18 to retain Ann Tramutola, a consultant based in Oakland, through July 1 at a cost of $25,000.
Apr 24, 2024
Alvord schools chief Allan Mucerino will retire at the end of the school year and be replaced by an assistant superintendent. Resma Byrne will take over the Alvord Unified School District on July 1, the district announced in a Thursday, April 18, news release.
Apr 24, 2024
Sacramento City Unified has named Lisa Allen as its new superintendent. Allen has served as interim superintendent since July, when Jorge A. Aguilar left the post. Allen, who has worked in the district for 28 years, was formerly the deputy superintendent.
Apr 24, 2024
Assembly Bill 2999 would require school districts, county offices of education and charter schools to develop guidelines for K-12 students and would urge schools to be more intentional about “good,” or meaningful homework.
Apr 24, 2024
To determine which counties had the highest percentage of dropouts, Newsweek analyzed the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau which tracked the number of residents 25 and over with at least a high school diploma.
Apr 23, 2024
Despite soon becoming a state high school graduation requirement, Ethnic Studies classes offered at Fresno Unified schools are at risk as the district looks to put program expansion on hold amid planned budget cuts.
Apr 23, 2024
Murrieta schools’ transgender notification policy got another vote of support when the school board decided Thursday night, April 18, to keep the rule — for the second time in three weeks.
Apr 23, 2024
A grassroots movement propelled by small contributions from teachers and local residents ousted two board members from an Orange County school district who supported controversial causes.
Apr 23, 2024
The Superintendent of the Pleasanton Unified School District will leave his post this summer and return to Southern California to be closer to family, according to an announcement shared Monday.
Apr 23, 2024
The investigation into Del Norte High School’s softball program and allegations that the superintendent harassed its players has been completed after interviews with 41 witnesses and the review of a number of documents, Poway Unified trustees said.
Apr 22, 2024
Oak Park Unified School District trustees voted unanimously Tuesday night to appoint Anais Wenn, a longtime La Cañada Unified School District administrator, as the district's next superintendent.
Apr 22, 2024
In a statement, Verber Salazar said that Flores served notices to the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office, the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office, and Stockton Unified School District last week. She intends to sue all three.
Apr 22, 2024
Stockton Unified School District Trustee AngelAnn Flores was arrested on Friday following a months-long investigation into insurance fraud and theft of public funds, authorities said.
Apr 22, 2024
In return for the “historic” 9% across-the-board raise that Monterey Peninsula Unified School District announced earlier this year, the district said it would have to cut programming and layoff staff to account for that extra $10 million in expenditures.
Apr 22, 2024
The board voted unanimously on Wednesday to hire Godbe Research Inc. on a contract of up to $36,425 to conduct telephone polling of 400 district voters to gauge their appetite for an additional parcel tax.
Apr 22, 2024
After nearly 10 months without a permanent superintendent, the Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education unanimously voted Thursday to appoint Lisa Allen to the position.
Apr 22, 2024
Teachers can fly Pride flags and students can change their pronouns at school without parental notification, according to a union statement detailing a new agreement between school psychologists and Clovis Unified School District.
Apr 22, 2024
The last time Superintendent Al Mijares was present at an Orange County Department of Education meeting was in December 2022. He’s been on medical leave since August — and says he is hoping to make a return in full capacity to the department this August.
Apr 22, 2024
The term “school lunches” often elicits a memory of half-frozen pizzas and bags of limp carrots, but not for students in the Los Gatos Union School District. The district has been working with the Los Gatos-based nonprofit Plant-Based Advocates to incorporate more plant-based options into the district’s meal plans this academic year.
Apr 22, 2024
Last year, a district-hired inspector discovered dangerous levels of toxic vapors percolating in the soil at the proposed construction site, a parking lot on the northeast end of campus. Since then, state regulators have concluded the contaminants likely migrated underground from a dry cleaner across the street.
Apr 22, 2024
Now, advocates are charging that the Commission on Teacher Credentialing and its oversight body, the Committee on Accreditation, have failed their first test to stand behind those new standards.
Apr 19, 2024
Hrihaan Bhutani is already thinking about college. The Dublin High freshman is taking four Advanced Placement classes next year and has crammed his schedule with extracurricular activities to better his chances of getting into an Ivy League school.
Apr 19, 2024
Legislation that would remove one of the last tests teachers are required to take to earn a credential in California passed the Senate Education Committee unanimously Wednesday with little opposition.
Apr 19, 2024
California lawmakers recently voted down a bill requiring school boards to ban books with “harmful material” from libraries and classrooms, legislation that would have given parents the ability to sue those that did not comply.
Apr 19, 2024
A Northern California school administrator who lost a city post four years ago over controversial Covid remarks was accused of workplace bullying for putting a subordinate's desk on a roof, officials said Thursday.
Apr 18, 2024
The Napa Valley Unified School District held a meeting Wednesday where parents and guardians of the student body could ask questions and get some answers.
Apr 18, 2024
Fiscal Services Director Corbett Elsen said he would bring back a new lower-end total cost for the bond at the April 30 board meeting. Trustees at the meeting could then vote on whether to go ahead with a new round of polling in May.
Apr 18, 2024
When Beatriz Castro drives a van around the neighborhood to pick up students, parents recognize her. They call and text to let her know where they see children miss the school bus. Castro is not a bus driver.
Apr 18, 2024
San Diego Unified School District officials took a key step forward this week with their plan to help ease the local housing crisis by letting developers build large rent-restricted apartment complexes on excess school property.
Apr 18, 2024
Carolee Ogata has been selected as the new superintendent of schools for the Huntington Beach Union High School District. Pending negotiations, a formal appointment will be made at the May 14 board meeting.
Apr 18, 2024
Although many of the layoff notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given to tenured teachers — the practice is criticized by many for being demoralizing to teachers and disruptive to school systems.
Apr 17, 2024
California has launched two mental health apps for teens, young adults, children andparents — and they’re free to use.
Apr 17, 2024
It was unclear the scope of what officials said was a “potential cybersecurity incident.” Nor was it clear if there was a ransom demand or if sensitive files had been breached.
Apr 17, 2024
White and Brookwood Partners principal Alan Katz are on a not-to-exceed $135,000 contract with Novato Unified to produce a feasibility study to determine which district-owned properties have the potential for workforce housing development.
Apr 17, 2024
The Temecula school district has settled a lawsuit over its board president’s practice of ejecting people from public meetings who he deems to be disruptive, the plaintiffs’ lawyers announced Tuesday, April 16.
Apr 17, 2024
Modesto City Schools is updating its 8th-grade sexual education curriculum as its relationship with a faith-based organization is being questioned by the state Attorney General’s Office.
Apr 17, 2024
The aptly named Emerald High School in Dublin offers an image of what public education could be. The $374 million school sits on 23.5 acres, with a sprawling library, 137-seat lecture hall, three-story academic tower, student union with soaring ceilings and much more.
Apr 17, 2024
A Southern California school district that passed a policy last year requiring that parents be notified if their child uses different pronouns or a different name while at school will not enforce that policy.
Apr 16, 2024
In response to his daughter receiving a swastika on social media, a California Jewish lawmaker is pushing for a bill that would give school administrators authority to suspend or expel students if they cyberbully fellow students away from school and outside of school hours.
Apr 16, 2024
Gloria E. Ciriza will succeed Paul Gothold as the county’s superintendent of schools, becoming the first female superintendent in the San Diego County Office of Education’s 76-year history, the SDCOE announced Monday.
Apr 16, 2024
Murrieta schools won’t enforce a policy requiring parents to be told if their child identifies as transgender, according to an email sent to parents.
Apr 16, 2024
The Orange Unified School District is moving forward with filling two empty trustee seats through provisional appointments.
Apr 16, 2024
Supporters of a proposed November ballot initiative wanted the all-important title of their measure to reflect their beliefs, a name like “Protect Kids of California Act.” But Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta saw things differently when his office chose the name signature gatherers must use: “Restricts Rights of Transgender Youth.”
Apr 16, 2024
As fallout over the Israel-Hamas war grows, the head of the embattled Berkeley public school district is being summoned to Washington, D.C., to testify in front of congressional members amid allegations of antisemitism in her schools.
Apr 15, 2024
A Stockton Unified School District director was escorted off of district premises Thursday after sounding the alarm on student expulsions and enrollment at Stagg High School.
Apr 15, 2024
Throughout last school year, Stockton Unified School District’s bookkeeping lacked the checks and balances necessary to ensure the district’s financial statements accurately showed where money was, independent auditors found.
Apr 15, 2024
The California Department of Justice has announced that it will end the monitoring of Stockton Unified School District and the district's Department of Public Safety.
Apr 15, 2024
St. Helena United School District superintendent Rubén Aurelio this month announced he would leave the district once the current school year is done, bringing an end to his two-year term.
Apr 15, 2024
District Superintendent Elizabeth Kaufman and Julio Arroyo, the district’s operations director, plan to ask trustees to approve a $1.2 million, 10-year contract with Verkada Inc. at the April 25 board meeting.
Apr 15, 2024
After spending 12 weeks and $40,000 on a search that focused on internal candidates, the Fresno Unified School Board announced a new search that will be broader and include external applicants.
Apr 15, 2024
Supporters of a proposed November ballot initiative wanted the all-important title of their measure to reflect their beliefs, a name like “Protect Kids of California Act.” But Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta saw things differently.
Apr 15, 2024
The Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) provided an update on its negotiations with the California School Employee Association (CSEA) Friday.
Apr 15, 2024
In the black-and-white world of standardized tests, Hoover Elementary, located a few blocks from a freeway entrance in West Oakland, is failing its 300 students.
Apr 12, 2024
Julie Herdell was tasked with determining if petitioners sufficiently met conditions tied to the Napa County Office of Education’s March 5 approval of the countywide school.
Apr 12, 2024
The trouble began, she said, when the boy asked to follow her on TikTok. The 13-year-old girl, an 8th grader at Aliso Viejo Middle School, said the request popped up on her profile in February.
Apr 12, 2024
Murrieta’s school district must stop enforcing a policy that requires parents to be notified if their child identifies as transgender, the California Department of Education ordered after finding the policy discriminates against transgender youth.
Apr 12, 2024
For Nelly Vaquera-Boggs, the plastic tarps that cover strawberry fields in Monterey County when they are being fumigated with toxic chemicals offer little comfort — especially when those fields are close to schools.
Apr 12, 2024
A bill that would have required California teachers to use the “science of reading,” which spotlights phonics, to teach children to read has died without a hearing.
Apr 11, 2024
After an explosion in enrollment at virtual, online schools, data indicates kids are performing far worse than their demographics would normally indicate and their in-person counterparts. Though virtual schools are often touted as catering to struggling students, research suggests they’re not even doing that well.
Apr 11, 2024
In a sign that Californians might be tired of the culture wars rocking the nation, a new survey published Wednesday evening shows that a majority of Golden State residents, regardless of party, oppose local school boards banning books and support teaching students about slavery, racism and segregation.
Apr 11, 2024
An underused, little-known public school choice program allowing students to enroll in other districts that open their borders has been reauthorized six times in the past 30 years. Under a bill winding its way through the Legislature, it would become permanent, with revised rules.
Apr 10, 2024
An Elk Grove parent recently filed a lawsuit against the Elk Grove Unified School District accusing the district of discrimination, negligence and child abuse related to three incidents last year they say resulted in physical injuries and emotional distress to their son.
Apr 10, 2024
After the effort to recall Orange Unified School District Trustees Madison Miner and Rick Ledesma proved successful, the five remaining OUSD board members will decide how to fill the two vacant seats.
Apr 10, 2024
Los Angeles school officials are investigating allegations that inappropriate photos were “created and disseminated within the Fairfax High School community,” in what appears to be the latest alleged misuse of technology by students, a district statement said.
Apr 10, 2024
Among accusations of racism, intimidation and political play, ensuing from a March 20 decision by the Fresno Unified School District board to interview internal candidates first in the process to hire a superintendent, some district employees have faced harassment and threats.
Apr 10, 2024
High school junior Maya Shtangrud may have given up on her childhood dream of learning to play the violin — but now, serving as an arts justice fellow at the ACLU of Southern California, she remains steadfast in her advocacy for arts education.
Apr 09, 2024
Clovis Unified School District is on the verge of several major changes, on multiple levels, in preparation to integrate its latest creation: three new schools at the officially named Clovis South Area. Earlier this year, the Clovis Unified board voted to change how it elects members.
Apr 09, 2024
The Modesto Pregnancy Center was sent a letter from California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday morning demanding that it prove its sexual education given to area students is “medically accurate and unbiased,” according to a release.
Apr 09, 2024
When first grader Jordan Muñoz stopped going to school during the 2022-23 school year, his mother attributed it to depression, following the deaths of Muñoz’s great-grandfather and uncle. Some days, his mom couldn’t get him out of the house.
Apr 08, 2024
The Paradise Unified School District governing board will consider establishing development fees at its regular meeting April 16 at 6:30 p.m. The district proposes fees of $5.17 per square foot on residential construction and reconstruction, and 84 cents per square foot on new commercial or industrial construction.
Apr 08, 2024
At a special meeting Wednesday, the Fresno Unified School District board bowed to community pressure and postponed already scheduled interviews of district employees vying for the superintendent job. The boardroom was packed, standing-room-only, with parents, students, staff and other community members.
Apr 08, 2024
Before a graduating high school senior can even consider going to a four-year school in either the California State or University of California systems, he or she must take some specific classes. Dubbed the “A-G requirements,” the courses represent more than what’s needed for a high school diploma.
Apr 08, 2024
It’s a debate districts are having across the Bay Area and the country, given increasing concerns over grade inflation, racial inequities on report cards and at the most basic level, whether an A means students actually mastered the subject matter or simply showed up and didn’t make waves.
Apr 05, 2024
In a swift, unanimous vote Thursday night, the tiny Kenwood School District became the first to formally oppose consolidation with Santa Rosa City Schools under a plan that would fold nine elementary feeder districts into the county’s largest district.
Apr 05, 2024
Fresno Unified school board voted 5-2 on Wednesday to suspend planned interviews of several internal candidates for the open superintendent job.
Apr 05, 2024
Two days a week, Vern Rustrian knocks on the doors of students who have given up on school. This might seem like a simple assignment. But at Ida B. Wells High School, few things are straightforward.
Apr 05, 2024
California’s largest teachers union has moved to put the brakes on legislation that mandates instruction, known as the “science of reading,” that spotlights phonics to teach children to read.
Apr 04, 2024
The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees announced it will hire former Bearcat Jennifer Loftus to succeed the retiring Curt Dobost. If confirmed, Loftus, who graduated from Paso Robles High School in 1992, would start on July 1.
Apr 04, 2024
Morningside High School is in a highly valuable location, sitting approximately two blocks from the Clippers’ new $2 billion arena, the Intuit Dome, and the $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium property.
Apr 04, 2024
At a special board meeting on Wednesday evening while students and staff are on spring break, the Coachella Valley Unified School District Board of Education accepted the resignation of Superintendent Luis Valentino, effective June 30, 2024, in a 5-2 vote.
Apr 04, 2024
As Fresno Unified kicks off its superintendent hiring with interviews of interested district employees, trustee Claudia Cazares seemed to flip sides overnight under public pressure and now supports including external candidates in a national search for the district’s next leader.
Apr 04, 2024
They spoke at Tuesday’s school board meeting in response to controversy mustered by conservative parents and organizations who thought the student lunchtime group — called a UBU (short for You Be You) Club at Pleasant Grove — was inappropriate for elementary-aged students.
Apr 04, 2024
A new report calls for several improvements in charter school practices to prevent potential financial fraud, including training for charter schools and their parent organizations on conflicts of interest and audits and other measures.
Apr 04, 2024
Lost in the hubbub surrounding California's new $20-per-hour minimum wage for fast food workers is how that raise could impact public schools, forcing districts to compete with the likes of McDonald's and Wendy's for cafeteria workers amid a state budget crunch.
Apr 03, 2024
Despite public outcry for more transparency, the Fresno Unified School District has announced closed-door interviews with internal candidates for the next superintendent.
Apr 03, 2024
The state and individual school districts have launched initiatives to recruit teachers of color, but educators and advocates say more needs to be done.
Apr 03, 2024
A battle over the rights of charters to use Los Angeles Unified school campuses has moved to the courts with the filing of a lawsuit Tuesday targeting a recently approved district policy.
Apr 03, 2024
Laguna Beach High School administrators have launched an investigation after a student allegedly created and circulated “inappropriate images” of other students using artificial intelligence.
Apr 02, 2024
In February, the district board approved a list of $5.85 million in budget reductions for 2024-25. At the time, officials said the list was tentative until the final budget is approved in June. Since then, a new influx of student enrollment in the elementary schools has increased revenue projections, along with a higher-than-expected amount of interest income booked for the district in the Marin County treasury.
Apr 02, 2024
Hours before a walkout, administrators at the Pleasanton Unified School District coughed up a 10% pay hike earlier this month to keep teachers from hitting the picket line. But teachers aren’t the only ones benefiting from a salary boost.
Apr 02, 2024
The Lodi Unified School District superintendent revealed they've seen a steady decline in student population since before the pandemic and haven't seen enrollment recover. The district purchased plots of land to build new schools in the future, but those will have to wait until attendance and population pick up.
Apr 02, 2024
Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District Superintendent Chris Van Schaack will retire in June after 30 years with the district, LVJUSD announced Friday. Van Schaack began his career with LVJUSD in 1994 as a high school teacher and baseball coach, according to the district.
Apr 02, 2024
In the 2020-21 school year, the most recent year data is available, 3.8% of all teachers in California were Black, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Black students made up 5.2% of the state’s student population that year.
Apr 02, 2024
Students at San Mateo’s Abbott Middle School were struggling last year. There were frequent fights, a lot of disengaged kids, too many behavioral problems and kids pulled the fire alarm six times, disrupting classes, school officials said. Parents were concerned.
Apr 02, 2024
Powerful unions have joined forces with former Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner to call for state intervention to stop what they allege is the misuse of voter-approved funding to expand arts education in California.
Apr 01, 2024
The center, which debuted on Thursday, offers individual and group counseling along with outreach and educational programs, according to a news release from the San Luis Obispo County Behavioral Health Department.
Apr 01, 2024
School districts for 2,600 Tuolumne County kindergarten through 12th grade students, close to 45% of the county’s enrolled K-12 students, are looking at sharing bus drivers in an effort to better ensure daily transportation for their students and to address what they describe as a national shortage of bus drivers.
Apr 01, 2024
Dozens of charter schools and a couple of school districts in San Diego County do not post all the information about the decisions their school boards make, an analysis by The San Diego Union-Tribune found.
Apr 01, 2024
California and other states have been trying to recruit and retain Black teachers for years, but the numbers aren’t improving. Among the factors impeding this goal, along with the cost of teacher preparation, is a lack of support and respect for Black teachers.
Apr 01, 2024
According to Thursday’s release, the California Lottery has raised an estimated $63 million for public schools. The Mega Millions jackpot reached more than $1.1 billion Tuesday night, and one lucky Southern California resident nabbed a winning ticket.
Apr 01, 2024
A Southern California school district has agreed to pay $27 million to settle a lawsuit by the family of an eighth grade boy who died after being assaulted by two other students at a middle school four years ago.
Apr 01, 2024
Jason Vassar, 50, was detained for a mental evaluation after the threats were reported in November. He has not been prosecuted because current law requires a showing of intent to carry out the violence.
Apr 01, 2024
Jorge Armando Contreras used the money he stole from the Magnolia School District to finance a lavish lifestyle, including a $1.5-million house in Yorba Linda, a $127,000 BMW and $190,000 in cosmetic surgery, according to federal prosecutors.
Mar 28, 2024
District Superintendent Neil Young says Lodi Unified isn’t as large as it once was. A few years ago, student population was over 30,000, but today it’s less than 27,000, according to Chelsea Vongehr, the district’s public information officer.
Mar 28, 2024
Oakland parent Stephisha Ycoy-Walton is outraged by what she sees in the city’s public schools: Most kids can’t read or write at grade level. Math? Fewer still. On Thursday, she and an army of other parents are declaring war on that status quo.
Mar 28, 2024
In response to a multi-million dollar budget shortfall, the Morgan Hill Unified School District has announced a series of cuts to school staff.
Mar 28, 2024
More than 200 students at DCP Alum Rock High School, a small charter school in San Jose, will have to transfer when the campus closes this summer — a victim of declining enrollment and a hefty budget deficit it cannot overcome and keep the campus open.
Mar 28, 2024
A now former Encinitas middle school employee accused of molesting a 12-year-old student had texted with “multiple” students and asked them to delete the messages so he would stay out of trouble, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Mar 28, 2024
In an interview with The Press Democrat on Wednesday, Santa Rosa Mayor Natalie Rogers said the holdup boils down to a stew of unanswered questions.
Mar 28, 2024
Murrieta’s school board could revise — if not scuttle — a policy requiring parents to be told if their child identifies as transgender seven months after passing it.
Mar 28, 2024
In recent weeks, Coachella Valley Unified School District issued — and rescinded some — reduction in force notices to educators due to the district’s decision to cut positions funded by expiring pandemic relief grants, known as ESSER.
Mar 28, 2024
The district also assumes parental consent, allowing all students to approach any club, unless parents submit a written statement or exclusion form requesting their child not participate in a specific club.
Mar 28, 2024
Since 2015, the number of special education teacher vacancies in Stanislaus County has increased 42%.
Mar 27, 2024
Santa Rosa City Schools trustees have a lengthy to-do list for Wednesday night’s board meeting, where they will discuss changing the names of two schools, consider a resolution supporting a cease-fire in Gaza, and vote on a new campus safety position.
Mar 27, 2024
“We will reduce the program to three hours and 20 minutes daily,” Superintendent Treewater said during a presentation on $1.28 million in budget cuts the district is planning for 2024-25. “That is the minimum required by the state.”
Mar 27, 2024
Voters ousted Rick Ledesma and Madison Miner from the Orange Unified School District’s board, election results show.
Mar 27, 2024
Some Clovis parents say a Christian group is trying to indoctrinate their children during lunchtime, lured to pray and talk about Jesus Christ by being offered free pizza.
Mar 26, 2024
Tara Taupier, superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District, said notices from the county’s public health division have been sent to all parents at Tam High in both English and Spanish.
Mar 26, 2024
Frustrated parents have kicked off a recall, citing Omar Medina’s opposition to bringing back school resource officers, arguing his ideology is standing in the way of keeping their children safe.
Mar 26, 2024
Max Edwards' idea for improving fire safety in California’s schools caught the eye of District 12 Assemblymember Damon Connolly. He chose Edwards’ pitch as the winner among 300 submissions for his second “There Ought to be a Law” contest.
Mar 26, 2024
Six months after a Lake Elsinore middle schooler collapsed during PE and died hours later at a nearby hospital, new legislation has been introduced focusing on extreme weather guidelines for all California schools.
Mar 26, 2024
After more than seven years of collaboration, district officials and partners cut the ribbon for the new Sun King Apartments Monday and vowed this would be the first of many structures to come.
Mar 26, 2024
Dozens of educators in the West Contra Costa Unified School District will be laid off in the upcoming school year, including grant-funded positions the district can’t afford to absorb.
Mar 25, 2024
While some said it was too soon to tell, the nail in the coffin might have been voter perception in the Ross Valley that San Anselmo’s Archie Williams High School would be getting the short end of the stick.
Mar 25, 2024
The district board voted unanimously to appoint Valerie Pitts, who retired in 2017 after 11 years with the Larkspur-Corte Madera School District, as interim superintendent through mid-June.
Mar 25, 2024
Beth Kelly was reading a classroom aide’s notes to prepare for a meeting about her 8-year-old autistic son’s special education plan in early November 2022 when she learned something that shocked her: On at least two occasions, school staff had shut him by himself in a place called the “sensory room” in response to behavioral episodes.
Mar 25, 2024
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon at Miller Middle School in San Jose, kids were rushing in and out of the cafeteria giddy with excitement. The lunch menu was popular on this day. There was a chipotle chicken salad, fresh strawberries, and best of all, hot slices of pizza.
Mar 25, 2024
Over 3.6 million school-aged children across the state qualify for at least $500 in savings with the California Kids Investment and Development Savings program (CalKIDS), a state initiative to help children from low income families save money for college or career.
Mar 22, 2024
A $5 million contribution to the Community Foundation for Monterey County from Montage Health will create a new Montage Health Fund for Teachers. Each school will determine the official start dates for their teachers with funds being available to any teacher working in private or public K-12 schools in Monterey County.
Mar 22, 2024
Napa Valley Unified School District leaders are predicting they’ll need to make budget cuts in response to California’s projected budget deficit and other financial clouds lingering on the horizon.
Mar 22, 2024
“It is a great honor to announce that Jill Southern will be the new superintendent for Coast Unified School District,” Scott Smith, the current superintendent, wrote in an email to parents and others after Southern was appointed by the district’s board of directors March 14.
Mar 22, 2024
The rollout of Proposition 28, which gives $1 billion for arts education every year, has caused confusion among districts throughout California as many look to expand opportunities available to students.
Mar 22, 2024
The federal case is considered to have set the stage for the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education case seven years later that said segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
Mar 22, 2024
Fresno High is the latest school in the district to roll out the 5 Star Students app to regulate student trips outside classrooms during instructional periods. Students are limited to two seven-minute bathroom breaks during the day.
Mar 22, 2024
In recent weeks, Anaheim Union High School District trustees voted to potentially cut more than 100 teaching positions — and AUHSD isn’t the only school district grappling with layoffs on the horizon.
Mar 21, 2024
The translator is one of seven positions being cut as Oak Grove Union trustees attempt to address a dire budget shortfall. The layoffs are paired with a slew of program cuts.
Mar 21, 2024
The current process for introducing educational technology in district schools typically involves a pilot process to determine effectiveness, according to school district spokesperson Julie Bordes.
Mar 21, 2024
More than five years after the state issued a desegregation order against the Sausalito Marin City School District, authorities have demanded information on the district’s compliance.
Mar 21, 2024
At a special meeting Tuesday, the La Mesa-Spring Valley School Board voted unanimously to issue a notice of violation to Sparrow Academy due to concerns about its finances, facilities, special education compliance and more — the first step toward potentially revoking the school’s charter and forcing its closure.
Mar 21, 2024
The Los Angeles Unified School District board narrowly adopted a policy to limit which of the school district’s campuses can be shared for use by charter schools — an arrangement called “co-locating” — on Tuesday, March 19.
Mar 21, 2024
Los Angeles Unified School District students will soon have their own individualized AI tool, a “personal assistant,” to help them with everyday tasks and remind them about school work when they forget.
Mar 20, 2024
A body found Tuesday in the Calaveras River is confirmed to be the Stagg High School student who went missing after jumping into the waterway last week. The student has been identified by the San Joaquin County Medical Examiner's Office as 15-year-old Xavier Martinez.
Mar 20, 2024
Students and residents in two North Orange County school districts are raising concerns about the loss of teachers and potentially top administrators. But district officials say there has been no mass firing of school administrators and chalked up the concerns to “misinformation.”
Mar 20, 2024
More than 62,500 Fresno Unified students qualify for the $500, yet only 6.72% of eligible students have claimed the free money, data from the State Treasurer’s Office shows. That’s little more than 58,300 students missing out on the free money set aside to ease their financial burden.
Mar 20, 2024
Sacramento City Unified School District students may attend eight extra days of classes each of the next two years to make up for lost instruction time after an eight-day strike shut down campuses in 2022 and to avoid a $47 million state-imposed penalty.
Mar 20, 2024
Advocates are calling for $13 million in dedicated state funding and for the adoption of a bill that would support homeless students and youth exiting foster care as schools face the expiration of significant pandemic-era federal funding this year.
Mar 20, 2024
A sweeping new report recommends more than two dozen legislative and policy changes to address weaknesses in California’s charter school laws that have been highlighted by recent cases of charter fraud and abuse.
Mar 20, 2024
A decade after California revolutionized the way it funds schools, nearly everyone agrees the initiative has done what it was meant to do: improved math and reading scores and brought more resources to students who struggle the most.
Mar 19, 2024
Loera represents Area 2, which includes schools that will be closed as part of the district’s reconfiguration plan amid declining enrollment. Loera has declined to issue a statement about the recall bid.
Mar 19, 2024
A former student of El Camino Fundamental High School and their mother have filed a lawsuit against San Juan Unified School District where they report that staff failed to stop physical assault.
Mar 19, 2024
A former principal at Carmel Creek Elementary School won $186,711 in damages after a jury agreed that the Solana Beach School District illegally removed her from the position based on her childcare needs.
Mar 19, 2024
Alum Rock Union School District Superintendent Hilaria Bauer has been ousted after a rocky, decade-long tenure in which her handling of a series of controversies put her at odds with school board members — but also won the support of some parents who defended her when her job was rumored to be at risk.
Mar 19, 2024
Three of five seats on the Temecula Valley Unified School District board will be on the Nov. 5 ballot, setting up a monthslong fight that could see faith-rooted conservatives retake their board majority or lose to a coalition that’s vowed to make local government meetings “boring again.”
Mar 19, 2024
The fourth round of negotiations on an updated contract between the Santa Barbara Unified School District and the California School Employee Association saw a series of proposals and counterproposals from both organizations.
Mar 19, 2024
An end to billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds, declining enrollment, staff raises, hiring binges and stagnant state funding should combine over the next few months to create steep budget shortfalls, with low-income districts affected the most.
Mar 19, 2024
Since “The Last Repair Shop,” a film featuring Bagmanyan and three other instrument technicians, won an Oscar for best documentary short film at the Academy Awards on March 10, people across the country have been donating to a fund to boost instrument repairs and school music programs in Los Angeles.
Mar 18, 2024
The Bellflower Unified School District has its third leader in less than two years – and could soon have a fourth – after recently parting ways with Superintendent Ben Drati and installing an interim successor.
Mar 18, 2024
Though the process is routine, California Teachers Association President David Goldberg said tentative layoffs have dramatically increased this year. “This year, we are already aware of almost 1,400 positions on the chopping block — about five times more than last year, with more to come.”
Mar 18, 2024
Access to graduation may now be easier for students in the Santa Rosa City Schools district after the board of trustees approved a new set of waivers Wednesday night.
Mar 18, 2024
The Novato Unified School District has selected an Oakland real estate development firm as a consultant for its workforce housing program. A district committee chose Brookwood Partners, which has completed similar projects at other Bay Area school districts, from a group of potential candidates.
Mar 18, 2024
When San Francisco said March 16, 2020, that it would lock down a day later due to the spread of COVID-19, then-teacher Cassondra Curiel was given less than 48 hours to clear out of her Visitacion Valley Middle School classroom.
Mar 18, 2024
The effort is one of several around the district that parents, students and community members have launched in recent years to remove the names of historic figures now widely understood to have perpetuated racism in the U.S.
Mar 18, 2024
Voters in the city of Orange appear to have ousted two conservative school board members who had spearheaded policies widely opposed by advocates for LGBTQ+ youth in a recall election viewed as a local bellwether for the culture wars in education.
Mar 18, 2024
It’s the second year of California’s uneven four-year rollout of universal transitional kindergarten, an ambitious, multibillion-dollar initiative to make high-quality education available to each of the state’s 4-year-olds — an estimated 400,000 children.
Mar 18, 2024
Kevon DeLeon wandered off from school on Sept. 22, 2021; three days later, the 17-year-old boy was dead after having multiple seizures and going into cardiac arrest.
Mar 18, 2024
The same strategy that combats racial intolerance among K-12 students also produces schools where children are less likely to be bullied or feel alone, research has shown.
Mar 15, 2024
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed on Tuesday for the county’s sheriff’s office to provide 25% of the funding for a community resource officer (CRO) at Sonoma Valley Unified School District campuses and in unincorporated areas adjacent to Sonoma.
Mar 15, 2024
Modesto City Schools teachers looking for healthcare coverage for themselves alone can expect to pay as much as $6,476.40 per year or as little as $1,377.84 per year, depending on the plan they select.
Mar 15, 2024
Despite strong protests from teachers and parents, Miller Creek School District authorized staff this week to send out preliminary layoff warning notices to 21 temporary teachers and 14 permanent staffers for next school year.
Mar 15, 2024
The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education approved a fiscal stabilization plan and second interim budget that will include eliminating nearly 200 positions as the district looks to “rightsize” amid enrollment declines and financial constraints.
Mar 15, 2024
In the 1974 case Lau v. Nichols, the court decided that students learning English had a right to fully understand what was being taught in their classrooms, and that schools must take steps to make sure that they could, whether through additional instruction in English as a second language or bilingual education.
Mar 15, 2024
Several recent court rulings in Southern California have contradicted findings at the California Department of Education (CDE), which reported that a Placer County school district violated state Education Code with its parental notification policy, saying it discriminated against a protected group.
Mar 15, 2024
School closures in San Francisco and Oakland look even more likely after district officials on both sides of the Bay concluded this week that their dire fiscal outlook is now worse. Both districts have been overspending for years.
Mar 14, 2024
A community group complained Tuesday night, March 12, about sexual and violent content in several books on the library shelves of Redlands campuses, asking the school board to create a policy to protect children.
Mar 14, 2024
During public comment at the Modesto City Schools board meeting March 4, Modesto High teacher Aimee Shepherd-Matlock and others spoke about how health insurance is a major out-of-pocket expense that should be considered when talking about teacher compensation.
Mar 14, 2024
Nearly 200 Pasadena Unified School District staff will learn if they’ll still have their jobs next school year, as the Board of Education votes on finalizing a fiscal stabilization plan and sending out layoff notices at its Thursday, March 14 special meeting.
Mar 14, 2024
The State Board of Education is moving forward with plans to add the state’s science assessment to the California School Dashboard, making it a new piece of the statewide school accountability system.
Mar 14, 2024
A 16-year-old sophomore at Calabasas High School says she was mortified when she learned a former friend allegedly spread images that she claims were manipulated to show her in nude, compromising and even pornographic positions.
Mar 13, 2024
A San Diego jury on Monday found Coronado Unified School District negligent in the employment of an assistant girls basketball coach who pleaded guilty to having a sexual relationship with one of his players and awarded the former student $5 million in damages.
Mar 13, 2024
California is moving closer toward requiring all public school students to learn how to manage their money — read a pay stub, balance a checking account, use credit cards wisely, save for the future and avoid scams.
Mar 13, 2024
The days of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in California schools may be numbered. A new bill aims to ban from public schools food products that contain artificial dyes, including the ingredient that makes Cheetos pop with their signature yellow and red colors.
Mar 13, 2024
After two years of controversy, the Ross Valley School District could reach a deal within weeks to sell its Deer Park property to supporters of the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center. “I can confirm we are having a board meeting on March 27 to address a purchase offer and sale,” Terry Tao, the district’s attorney.
Mar 13, 2024
Former Carmel High School Vice Principal Debra Puente recently pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of failing to report child abuse. The District Attorney’s office charged Puente with failure of a mandated report to report child abuse or neglect on Jan. 29.
Mar 13, 2024
A violent threat posted to social media targeting Taft High School in Woodland Hills led to panicked students streaming off campus on Tuesday, March 12, with some jumping fences to leave as quickly as possible.
Mar 11, 2024
More than 100 high school students from the Fontana Unified School District have signed up to join a tour of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. ... The Fontana Unified School District ... will cover the costs of airfare, lodging and meals, according to a news release.
Mar 11, 2024
Mill Valley School District officials confirmed this week that they will build a new middle school at the same site as the current school. According to estimates provided Thursday, the two-story building design would cost approximately $130 million and the one-story campus would run about $125.9 million.
Mar 11, 2024
Pacific Grove Unified School District outlined how its schools plan to move toward inclusion and equity in the next year, with an emphasis on community engagement, diverse education materials and training.
Mar 11, 2024
In an announcement posted Sunday on the department’s official Facebook page, police Chief Ron Nelson said the decision to place officers at the school was made even though officials believe the threats are “not credible.”
Mar 11, 2024
Looking to save money, Fresno schools board voted to eliminate more than 100 positions in the next school year at a savings of $7.5 million. A resolution approved by the Fresno Unified board at its Wednesday night meeting cites funding issues and workload as reasons for the planned reduction.
Mar 11, 2024
A California assemblywoman has introduced a bill to address the poor literacy rates of California students. Data show 60% of children in California can’t read by third grade, according to a policy brief co-authored by the EdVoice Institute in December.
Mar 11, 2024
The Chino Valley Unified School District school board voted Thursday to adopt a revamped version of its transgender notification policy, which LGBTQ+ advocates fear would help the district withstand court battles and propel the case to the United States Supreme Court.
Mar 11, 2024
More tentative agreements were recently reached between the Santa Barbara Unified School District and the California School Employees Association (CSEA), including increases in wages during a time when layoffs loom on the horizon.
Mar 11, 2024
A one-classroom school in El Dorado County has just eight students. Indian Diggings Elementary was founded in 1856 in the area of Omo Ranch. The name Indian Diggings came after prospectors found Miwok Indians panning for gold in a nearby river.
Mar 11, 2024
A Southern California school district sued by the state has updated its policy requiring staff to notify parents that a student is using a different pronoun or bathroom designated for another gender and now will only mention that a child has requested a change to their student records.
Mar 11, 2024
Sophia, an eighth grader at Monroe Middle School in San Jose, was trying to get through her first class, but her anxiety was making it impossible to calm down. She couldn’t focus on the lesson and worried she would get so upset that she’d cause a scene.
Mar 11, 2024
Both Los Angeles Unified School District students are featured in “The Last Repair Shop”, which has been nominated for the documentary short prize at the 2024 Academy Awards. The film tells the story of the technicians who repair LAUSD students’ musical instruments.
Mar 08, 2024
Monterey Peninsula Unified School District is no longer facing litigation over the district’s stadium improvements project, the district announced Thursday.
Mar 08, 2024
Napa Valley Unified School District officials fulfilled their promise to sue the Napa County Office of Education board should it approve Mayacamas Countywide Middle School.
Mar 08, 2024
The five member Roseland School District board of trustees voted unanimously Wednesday night to cut 18 staff positions, including intervention specialists, counselors and custodians.
Mar 08, 2024
Novato Unified School District will issue preliminary layoff warning notices to more than 30 classified workers and about 45 teachers and other certificated employees due to the expiration of one-time pandemic relief funds.
Mar 08, 2024
The two sides are at an impasse over the proposed salary increases for the current 2023-24 school year. The teachers are asking for a flat $9,000 annual increase per teacher to bring them up to par with other Marin teachers unions.
Mar 08, 2024
An incident that involved a Fresno School teacher with a disability who was forced to crawl on her stomach to get on a bus rather than delay a field trip with her elementary school class is being investigated by the district.
Mar 08, 2024
A Folsom High School student sued the school district after he was partially blinded while playing with inflatable bubble body suits. The student was participating in a school event involving the suits provided to students by the district, according to the lawsuit filed Feb. 13 in Sacramento Superior Court.
Mar 08, 2024
A California assemblywoman has introduced a bill to address the poor literacy rates of California students. Data show 60% of children in California can’t read by third grade, according to a policy brief co-authored by the EdVoice Institute in December.
Mar 08, 2024
Two prominent California advocacy organizations for English learners are firmly opposing a new state bill that would mandate that reading instruction be aligned with the “science of reading,” saying it could hurt students learning English as a second language.
Mar 08, 2024
The Beverly Hills Unified School District board of education voted at a special meeting Wednesday evening to approve stipulated agreements of expulsion with five students.
Mar 07, 2024
Clovis schools’ former orchestra director says he was put on administrative leave this year and later fired after what he says was a playful interaction with his students and not a “fight club” as the school administration alleges.
Mar 07, 2024
The California Department of Education found that the Rocklin Unified School District violated state education code when it passed a parental notification policy in September, according to a letter the CDE wrote to the district on Feb. 1.
Mar 07, 2024
Education programs largely avoided steep cuts in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2024-25 budget. There are reductions, notably in aid to schools, colleges and some other education programs.
Mar 07, 2024
The Modesto City Schools board has approved a resolution to lay off classified and classified management services staff for the 2024-25 school year Monday night. Around 30 positions will be affected by these eliminations.
Mar 07, 2024
Alameda’s Measure E, a parcel tax benefiting the city’s public schools, was winning Wednesday morning by slightly more than the two-thirds majority needed to pass, according to Tuesday’s election results from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.
Mar 07, 2024
The Lakeport Unified School Board on Wednesday night voted to begin notifying several employees of the potential for layoff as part of district leadership’s plan to address a budget shortfall.
Mar 07, 2024
Wednesday Primary election results from the OC Registrar of Voters, Orange Unified School Board Trustees Rick Ledesma and Madison Miner were on track to be removed from office as a majority of voters cast ballots in support of a recall.
Mar 06, 2024
Measure A, the $517 million bond measure in the Tamalpais Union High School District, drew a slim lead but not enough to reach the 55% majority needed for passage in preliminary returns on Tuesday night. With 100% of precincts reporting, Measure A had 8,932 yes votes, or 52.18%, compared to 8,186 no votes, or 47.82%.
Mar 06, 2024
Dozens of Lodi Unified School District classified employees spent the last two afternoons protesting what they consider an unfair one-time pay disbursement. ... Desiree Wise, the union’s president, said she and fellow members want the district and its board of education to allocate some $15 million in one-time funds equally among all employees.
Mar 06, 2024
San Diego Unified officials said an estimated 240 certificated and classified employees are expected to be laid off later this spring after the school board approved cutting the equivalent of more than 480 jobs Tuesday to shrink the district’s financial shortfall.
Mar 06, 2024
San Ramon Valley Unified is one of many school districts across the state targeted by anti-LGBTQ rhetoric at board meetings over the past few years, often led by members of the national conservative group Moms for Liberty.
Mar 06, 2024
The Los Angeles school board candidates with the most money behind them generally were holding leads in early returns, including two strong contenders whose campaigns became turbulent in the final weeks of the race.
Mar 06, 2024
San Francisco voters sent a clear and decisive message to the city’s school board Tuesday, demanding through Proposition G that the district bring Algebra 1 back into middle schools. The result was evident from the first election returns, with nearly 85% backing the measure.
Mar 05, 2024
The union is demanding an 8.2% cost of living salary increase, while the school district has said they can only afford a 2% increase, Paso Robles Public Educators Association President Bernadette Boddington said.
Mar 05, 2024
An end to billions of dollars in federal Covid relief funds, declining enrollment, staff raises, hiring binges and stagnant state funding should combine over the next few months to create steep budget shortfalls, with low-income districts affected the most.
Mar 05, 2024
The reductions aim to help the district, which has more than 12,000 employees, bridge a $94 million unrestricted budget gap for next school year that district officials identified last month. More than 90 percent of the district’s unrestricted budget goes to staffing costs.
Mar 05, 2024
Teachers from prekindergarten through high school rallied outside the Modesto City Schools board room Monday afternoon, calling for a fair contract for the 2023-24 school year.
Mar 05, 2024
A bill that would require schools to notify parents or guardians of the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, career technical education and dual enrollment courses at their student’s campus has been introduced by Assemblyman Juan Alanis, R-Modesto.
Mar 05, 2024
The expiration of one-time COVID-19 funds has been the final nail in the coffins of school budgets throughout California, and Santa Barbara Unified is no exception. Last Tuesday, February 27, the district announced they would be notifying employees of layoffs by March 15.
Mar 05, 2024
United Teachers Los Angeles on Monday night rescinded its endorsement of school board candidate Kahllid Al-Alim in the wake of revelations that he reposted or “liked” social media posts with content that was antisemitic, pro-gun or pornographic.
Mar 04, 2024
Though child labor most recently peaked in 2001 and fell steadily until about 2015, it’s been booming ever since. Federal data shows that illegal child labor – including cases of forced child labor trafficking – nearly tripled from 2015 through 2022.
Mar 04, 2024
The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education approved moving forward with drafting two measures for the November presidential election that would put a bond and parcel tax on the ballot for voters to decide on.
Mar 04, 2024
A federal complaint was filed against the Berkeley Unified School District on Wednesday, alleging the district failed to protect students and hold teachers accountable as antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric was spread across district campuses.
Mar 04, 2024
Part of the “earn-and-learn” model, these positions offer on-the-job training as well as mentorship that often appeals to candidates who may not be able to afford to enter a conventional teacher-preparation program. That may help diversify the ranks.
Mar 04, 2024
At some rural schools construction projects are left undone, teaching jobs are unfilled and students who need specialized services don’t get them. Despite the hardships, superintendents said, state political leaders rarely consider the needs of these districts when crafting policies.
Mar 04, 2024
After two years and $34 million trying to make a disastrous payroll system work, San Francisco school officials are giving up and are ready to pay another $5.6 million to start over with another company.
Mar 04, 2024
District officials have concluded that San Francisco has more public schools than it needs and if all goes as planned, there will be fewer by the fall of 2025, they told the Chronicle. What parents and educators have long feared is now being said out loud: Schools are going to close.
Mar 04, 2024
If an eighth-grader in California shared a nude photo of a classmate with friends without consent, the student could conceivably be prosecuted under state laws dealing with child pornography and disorderly conduct.
Mar 01, 2024
According to the Monterey County Office of Elections, after reviewing all of the individuals’ information, the text on the recall was compared to government regulations for a recall. In the case of the Carmel district notices, the recalls also call for an election for a successor. That line of text is no longer required by the law, thus nullifying the notices.
Mar 01, 2024
Leo Kostelnik, the interim superintendent for the Bolinas-Stinson Union School District since July 1, has been offered a full appointment. Kostelnik will continue to receive his half-time salary of $120,000 annually through the end of his one-year contract in June.
Mar 01, 2024
Marcos Hernandez lived in a garage for years when he first came to this country from El Salvador as a refugee at age 11. He left his small pueblo of San Gerardo alone, fleeing a country ravaged by war, seeking a better life.
Mar 01, 2024
Administrators at Berkeley Unified School District failed to stop teachers and students engaging in “severe and persistent” harassment and discrimination against Jewish children, according to a federal civil rights complaint filed Wednesday.
Feb 29, 2024
After postponing a decision to cut over 30 employees, the board voted unanimously on its new plan to lower that number to 20.
Feb 29, 2024
The protest came as the district prepared to face on Friday the 1-year anniversary of the fatal stabbing of a student at Montgomery High.
Feb 29, 2024
Between a parent-led rally for safety and a vote on layoffs because of budget shortfalls, Wednesday’s meeting of the Santa Rosa City Schools board had all the makings of a long night.
Feb 29, 2024
On Friday, Montgomery High School will mark the one year anniversary of the stabbing death of a student on campus with what they are calling “Roots of Resilience.”
Feb 29, 2024
After weeks of tense discussion, threats of litigation and outcries from public factions, Mill Valley School District officials said they would eliminate the Friends Field recreation area as a potential site for a new middle school.
Feb 29, 2024
As two leading Los Angeles school board candidates grapple with blows to their campaigns, outside groups continue to flood races with spending to win influence over the nation’s second-largest school system.
Feb 29, 2024
Shortly after Alberto Carvalho became superintendent of LAUSD two years ago, he created a 100-day plan and named the district’s top 100 priority schools.
Feb 29, 2024
A judge says a Riverside County school district can require teachers to notify parents when a student identifies as transgender, the latest in a set of diverse rulings that are headed for higher courts.
Feb 28, 2024
A $6.2 million deal to sell the former Moorpark Community High School campus collapsed last week after five months of review, leaving the property owned by Moorpark Unified School District in limbo.
Feb 28, 2024
The proposed cuts may be the district’s only choice to keep from fiscal ruin in the next two years.
Feb 28, 2024
Should a lawsuit move forward, it would mark the second time the district took legal action in opposition to a Mayacamas charter school approval.
Feb 28, 2024
Laura Shain, the principal and superintendent of Lagunitas School District who led its elementary programs through a challenging merger over the past year, will retire in June. Shain, 66, a resident of San Anselmo, has been Lagunitas School principal for 13 years.
Feb 28, 2024
Nearly 200 Mill Valley leaders and residents signed a letter of concern this week directed to the committee monitoring the city’s $194 million in Measure G school bond funds.
Feb 28, 2024
Almost every campaign for city, county and state government in Orange County has a limit on how much donors can spend on their favorite candidates. But one big outlier in Orange County is the county Board of Education.
Feb 28, 2024
High school students will write the menu, prepare and serve the food and manage the finances for the truck operations — just about everything but actually drive the truck.
Feb 28, 2024
While a Southern California school board met Tuesday to discuss declaring June as Pride Month, a brawl broke out among the hundreds of protesters assembled outside.
Feb 28, 2024
Frustrated with teachers and administrators, students at a local high school staged a walkout Tuesday to draw attention to alleged antisemitic incidents they say they’ve experienced on campus.
Feb 27, 2024
In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.
Feb 27, 2024
An argument over money ended with one Nogales High School student stabbed with a kitchen knife and another student arrested on Monday morning. The stabbing happened in the boys restroom. ... The victim is being treated for an injury which was reported to be “non life-threatening.”
Feb 27, 2024
Santa Rosa City Schools employees will be laid off in the following weeks. In a Parent Square message to the school district community Monday night, Superintendent Anna Trunnell announced the layoffs due to gaps in order to meet their legal budget requirements.
Feb 27, 2024
The Santa Barbara Unified School District and the California School Employee Association announced Monday the groups have approved a tentative agreement over health and dental benefits as they negotiate a new labor contract.
Feb 27, 2024
Temecula Valley Unified School District’s decision to block critical race theory instruction in its classrooms will continue for now, a Riverside County Superior Court judge ruled Friday.
Feb 27, 2024
Last week, officials and parents at Beverly Vista Middle School in Beverly Hills were shocked by reports that fake images were circulating online that put real students’ faces on artificially generated nude bodies.
Feb 26, 2024
A jury has awarded $13 million in emotional distress damages to a young woman who said she was molested by an aide at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Lake Balboa during the 2014-15 school year, when she was a 14-year-old freshman.
Feb 26, 2024
Four Carmel Unified School District board members were served with recall notices – the first step in an effort to remove them from their elected positions. ... The next step in the recall process will prepare the recall petition for circulation. After circulating, the petition will be made available for a 10-day public examination period.
Feb 26, 2024
The Sausalito Marin City School District has approved a campus restructuring plan that would trim the equivalent of more than 12 jobs and save almost $1.9 million. Superintendent LaResha Huffman said the district submitted the fiscal solvency plan to the Marin County Office of Education by the deadline on Friday.
Feb 26, 2024
The district and the teachers association have failed to reach a compensation settlement that would “attract new educators with competitive salaries and benefits during the current 10,000-teacher shortage in California,” the California Teachers Association said in a statement released Thursday, Feb. 22.
Feb 26, 2024
San Diego Unified officials shed more light Friday on how they plan to bridge what they now expect is a $93.7 million budget gap for next school year — a plan that includes cutting dozens of central office staff positions and spending down district reserves.
Feb 26, 2024
Officials say it’s the first program of its kind in San Diego County where public schools pay for temporary housing for students and their families experiencing short-term or long-term homelessness.
Feb 26, 2024
The Hart school district is facing a budget shortfall because of declining student enrollment and decided at its board meeting on Wednesday to lay off more than 50 teachers and counselors and about 30 staff members.
Feb 26, 2024
Los Angeles school board candidate Graciela Ortiz has been removed from her job as an L.A. Unified counseling administrator pending a confidential investigation, school district officials confirmed.
Feb 26, 2024
More than a dozen Bay Area school bond measures and parcel taxes are slated for the March 5 ballot this year, aiming to secure a minimum of $1.9 billion over the course of several years to improve school facilities and student learning outcomes.
Feb 26, 2024
In a Feb. 15 report, the LAO forecast that further erosion of state revenues will likely reduce state funding for TK-12 by an additional $5.2 billion – $7.7 billion in 2023-24 and $2.7 billion in 2025-26.
Feb 26, 2024
When an intruder hopped the fence and landed in the playground of a San Francisco elementary school a week ago, teachers scrambled to get kids inside as the principal ordered someone to call 911 and announced a lockdown over classroom phone speakers.
Feb 23, 2024
The San Luis Coastal Unified School District cannot be held liable for sexual harassment, it claimed in a recent court filing in the lawsuit against the district and former San Luis Obispo High School basketball coach Jeff Brandow.
Feb 23, 2024
A salary increase and one-time payout for Lodi Unified School District administrators has been delayed after labor groups questioned why the amount for each employee was so high.
Feb 23, 2024
The layoffs and position eliminations are necessary in part because of the sunset of one-time COVID funds; years-long declining enrollment, which has shrunk state and federal funding; and constraints within the state education budget, according to a PUSD announcement.
Feb 23, 2024
The Eleanor Roosevelt High School principal charged with failing to tell police about suspected child abuse by a teacher investigated the allegations on his own and — in violation of the law — kept quiet after deciding no crime had occurred, a Riverside County sheriff’s investigator said.
Feb 23, 2024
Modesto City Schools will launch an ethnic studies course in fall 2025. The semester-long course will be required for all students during their freshman year and will incorporate part of Modesto’s local history.
Feb 23, 2024
The influential Los Angeles teachers union has suspended its campaign on behalf of school board candidate Kahllid Al-Alim amid rising criticism over his social media posts and likes that expressed antisemitism, glamorized guns and celebrated pornographic images, officials announced early Friday morning.
Feb 23, 2024
By the time Valley View Principal Aurelia Buscemi walked through the empty woodshop during her first-year orientation in 2022, she said she immediately wanted to figure out a way to revamp the space.
Feb 23, 2024
Newly proposed legislation sponsored by the California Teachers Association would eliminate all performance assessments teachers are required to pass, including one for literacy that it supported three years ago.
Feb 22, 2024
Consolidation would save millions of dollars in administrative costs, unify programs and services, and potentially close underutilized school sites.
Feb 22, 2024
School districts across the Bay Area are following Pittsburg’s lead as they slowly transition their fleets to a greener mode of transportation.
Feb 22, 2024
A new California bill would require K-12 schools statewide to have at least one armed officer, also known as a school resource officer or SRO, on campus during regular school hours and other times students are present.
Feb 22, 2024
As the new school year kicks off, several California school districts are finding creative ways to provide housing for teachers who are being priced out of the neighborhoods they serve.
Feb 22, 2024
A public-interest law firm threatened Wednesday to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom and state officials unless they create a fairer system of subsidizing the costs of school facilities.
Feb 21, 2024
Bellevue Union School District board members, in a unanimous 5-0 vote Tuesday night, postponed a vote on a controversial proposal to cut 30 staff positions across the district’s four elementary schools.
Feb 21, 2024
More than a dozen parents and their families protested outside a West Covina elementary school on Tuesday, Feb. 20, where the removal of a substitute teacher accused of viewing inappropriate material in class prompted demands for an apology. ...
Feb 21, 2024
In a 6-1 vote Tuesday, the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education agreed to explore four alternatives to its current citywide elections following a petition claiming the district was in violation of the California Voting Rights Act of 2001.
Feb 21, 2024
“The initial results should alleviate everybody’s concerns about the cell towers,” Upneet Dhaliwal, who said her engineering career started in the cell phone and telecom industry, told the school board Feb. 6.
Feb 21, 2024
The Orange County Classical Academy has struck a deal with the Orange Unified School District to take over a section of the former Peralta Junior High School property for up to 25 years to add a high school.
Feb 21, 2024
Los Angeles school board front-runner Kahllid Al-Alim — who is endorsed by the influential teachers union — is under fire for social media activity that has prompted accusations that he agreed with antisemitic content, glamorized guns and celebrated pornographic images.
Feb 20, 2024
At its first ever stop on the Central Coast, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Caravan Tour awarded more than $2 million in scholarships to students in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District.
Feb 20, 2024
The topic is familiar for Santa Rosa residents and school district officials who have contended that unification could save money amid declining enrollment, but more importantly improve student success by standardizing instruction.
Feb 20, 2024
California schools must use $2 billion of the federal and state money they received for COVID-19 relief to help students who experienced learning setbacks due to the pandemic.
Feb 20, 2024
Modesto City Schools, Turlock Unified and Ceres Unified — the three largest school districts in Stanislaus County — have a majority of Hispanic students but have not reached parity in teacher staffing.
Feb 20, 2024
According to the district, students reported the teacher had allegedly been "viewing inappropriate images on his cell phone while on school premises," resulting in him being "immediately removed from the classroom setting as well as the school."
Feb 20, 2024
The Salinas City Elementary School District announced in a message sent to parents and schools that the school board would no longer support overnight education programs.
Feb 20, 2024
A recent legal settlement directs $2 billion to California schools to help students recover from learning loss. The lawsuit claimed remote learning was so ineffective that thousands of students were denied their right to an education.
Feb 16, 2024
The board of trustees voted 5-2 on Tuesday to approve a $15.9 million bid from Harris Construction to construct the school’s new pool and associated locker rooms. The district will use part of the remaining $31.9 million in Measure M bond funds to finance the construction.
Feb 16, 2024
Carmel Unified School District’s governing board meetings will look a lot different in coming months, as the board shakes up its agenda structure. Wednesday’s board meeting revealed a new revised agenda order and plans to revamp the public comment section at future meetings.
Feb 16, 2024
Carmel Unified School District’s governing board approved Sharon Ofek as the district’s new superintendent at its board meeting Wednesday. Ofek’s contract as superintendent runs until June 30, 2026 and starts her base salary at $285,000 a year.
Feb 16, 2024
California high school students experiencing physical or mental health crises would be exempted from additional graduation requirements beyond those prescribed by the state under a bill introduced by Assemblyman Damon Connolly.
Feb 16, 2024
The Shoreline Unified School District and a former superintendent convicted of a sex offense have been sued by the victim’s mother. Robert Raines was arrested in 2021 on allegations of inappropriate contact with the child of a district employee.
Feb 16, 2024
A civil lawsuit filed last month alleges Orange County Board of Education trustee Ken Williams Jr. attacked a 20-year-old driver on a street in Silverado, throwing him to the ground and choking him. Williams said he’s being attacked for his stances on education.
Feb 16, 2024
Students of color seeing themselves reflected in their K-12 teachers has been shown to have a positive effect on learning, graduation rates and college enrollment. But despite schools in Stanislaus County hiring a greater percentage of teachers of color, most districts don’t have faculty that represent the diversity of their student populations.
Feb 16, 2024
Immigrant students’ schoolwork and experience in the classroom often suffer in the presence of immigration enforcement — with 60% percent of teachers and school staff reporting poorer academic performance, and nearly half noting increased rates of bullying against these students, UCLA-based researchers found.
Feb 16, 2024
A conservative school board president’s attempt to censure his colleague backfired Wednesday night, as nearly 100 community members showed up at an Auburn Union School Board meeting in support of embattled trustee Jamie Ross.
Feb 15, 2024
Buck Roggeman explained Thursday that the district has partnered with the National Coalition Building Institute – a $7,800 partnership – and the Black Leaders and Allies Collaborative to develop a series of professional development trainings for the district’s administrators.
Feb 15, 2024
The Santa Rosa Police Department’s gang unit served a search warrant Wednesday morning on the Santa Rosa teen, who was under investigation for illegally 3D printing firearms, said Sgt. Patricia Seffens.
Feb 15, 2024
Full-time staffers at SLO County public school districts made an average of roughly $77,400 per year, according to the latest salary data available from the California Department of Education.
Feb 15, 2024
The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District’s Board of Trustees voted to relocate its dual immersion Spanish-English program to a school across town from the program’s current location during a meeting Tuesday evening.
Feb 15, 2024
The Goleta Union School District (GUSD) is currently grappling with California’s “major fiscal crisis” — a $37.9 billion deficit — and the loss of pandemic-era funding, which, this year, translates into layoffs.
Feb 15, 2024
California has grand ambitions for ethnic studies. By 2025, the state’s public high schools — about 1,600 of them — must teach the subject. By 2030, students won’t be able to graduate high school without it.
Feb 15, 2024
Algebra 1 will once again be back in San Francisco middle schools starting this fall, the school board decided Tuesday, but many of the parents fighting to get it there remained angry and frustrated at what will be a three-year rollout.
Feb 14, 2024
Assistant Superintendent Bob Marcucci said there would be no full-time teacher layoffs, but that the district would let go of some of the intervention and counseling specialists who were hired during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Feb 14, 2024
The Los Angeles Unified School District school board voted 4-3 Tuesday to adopt a policy that would prevent charter schools from sharing a campus with the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools, community schools and priority schools.
Feb 14, 2024
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Board of Education will finish off its first round of discussions related to addressing disproportionality in special education during its Thursday meeting.
Feb 14, 2024
Culture wars have always had a presence in American public education. But heated debates concerning book bans, parental rights and the safety of LGBTQ students flared last year inside some California classrooms.
Feb 13, 2024
A community furor over a potential option to build a new middle school at Friends Field in Mill Valley intensified this week. ... The trustees voted unanimously Thursday in favor of a $130 million “hard costs” construction budget for the new middle school.
Feb 13, 2024
The Sausalito Marin City School District is facing calls to take a closer look at consultant spending amid a proposal to use layoffs to address a $1.4 million budget deficit. Superintendent LaResha Huffman is under pressure to present a list of $1.4 million in reductions.
Feb 13, 2024
The 2019 death of a Marin County child has fueled state legislation that proposes stronger safety guidelines for large, rolling gates across the state. If the bill is adopted, then any vehicular gate or wheeled gate that’s more than 4 feet wide and 7 feet high must meet new safety standards.
Feb 13, 2024
Monterey Peninsula Unified’s governing board will vote to approve Marina High School’s field project at Tuesday’s board meeting, as well as a 10% salary and benefits increase for district faculty and staff.
Feb 13, 2024
District of Choice, a state program that allows a student to transfer to another district if the family believes it would have better opportunities, is set to sunset in 2028, but legislation in Sacramento would extend the program indefinitely.
Feb 13, 2024
The Sonoma Valley Unified School District’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Thursday to eliminate 24 certificated positions — including seven full-time secondary school teachers and six full-time elementary school teachers — as well as 12 classified positions in the 2024-25 school year.
Feb 13, 2024
Typically, the district is required to pursue some form of competitive construction contract bidding for contracts over $60,000. But there’s an exception to those rules in case of emergency, when there’s insufficient time to carry out the bidding process.
Feb 13, 2024
When Gov. Newsom presented his budget to the California Legislature, it confirmed what school districts were already bracing for: Funding is tight and districts will have to be smart with their finances for the 2024-25 school year.
Feb 13, 2024
During the 2011-12 school year, the county's K-12 public schools suspended students more than 14,592 times and expelled 217 students. Last school year, those totals plummeted to 6,909 suspensions and 144 expulsions.
Feb 13, 2024
Power of 100 Women, a local organization, has provided Inspire’s School of Arts and Sciences with $10,000 which is set to go to leadership training. A press release issued Friday by the school said 20 students will be going to the Disney Imagination Campus leadership training with help from the new funding.
Feb 13, 2024
Republicans have long held a majority on the board which mainly oversees the county’s department of education budget and charter school applications. In their campaigns, the incumbents say they’ll protect parental choice and local control of schools.
Feb 13, 2024
Two Patterson Joint Unified School District officials were able to steal more than $1 million because the district did not have controls in place to prevent the fraud, Superintendent Reyes Gauna said in an interview.
Feb 13, 2024
California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing approved long-awaited revised Standards for the Teaching Profession on Thursday that emphasize culturally responsive teaching, social-emotional learning and family engagement.
Feb 13, 2024
The Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets student, who is not identified in court records, alleges Juan “John” Colon began abusing her when she was 15. Neither school nor district officials did anything to intervene and actively worked to cover up Colon’s conduct, the lawsuit alleges.
Feb 13, 2024
A long-running feud between a Bay Area attorney and a rival lawyer in Southern California is spilling over into San Francisco politics, potentially triggering huge changes to the city’s public school system.
Feb 13, 2024
Christian Robinson always planned to go to college, but when she graduated from Adelanto High School in California’s High Desert, she felt aimless. Without a plan or preparation for higher education, she decided to go to work instead.
Feb 13, 2024
Sacramento City Unified School District and its largest teachers union have agreed to raises for teachers and to lower class sizes as part of a two-year contract agreement announced Friday night.
Feb 09, 2024
Two small elementary districts say they don’t have enough funding to support Gov. Newsom’s five-year plan for universal transitional kindergarten.
Feb 09, 2024
Judge Thomas Wills of the Monterey County Superior Court issued an order Feb. 2 denying the plaintiffs’ request for attorneys’ fees and costs in the case of Preserving the Peace v. Monterey Peninsula Unified School District.
Feb 09, 2024
Officials at the Sausalito Marin City School District are proposing deep cuts in staffing for 2024-25 to offset a $1.4 million budget deficit. Huffman is under pressure to present a list of cuts that would reconcile the deficit, while preserving at least a 5% reserves fund balance.
Feb 09, 2024
Voters could decide whether to oust Temecula school board President Joseph Komrosky before the school year ends in early June. Komrosky uses a soccer-style yellow and red card system to eject people from meetings whom he believes violate board meeting rules.
Feb 09, 2024
Apprentices complete their bachelor’s degree and a teacher preparation program while working as a member of the support staff at a school. They gain clinical experience at work while taking courses to earn their teaching credentials.
Feb 09, 2024
The East Bay teacher who publicly questioned spending $250,000 on an anti-racist teaching training program was placed on administrative leave Thursday, days after he shared his concerns over Woke Kindergarten in the Chronicle.
Feb 08, 2024
Officials have put in motion a plan to assess Novato Unified School District properties for use as affordable housing for employees. The district will recruit a consultant to conduct a feasibility study of several of the 33 district properties in Novato.
Feb 08, 2024
Tamalpais Union High School District trustees this week approved an ethnic studies course to launch in the 2024-25 school year. The course, which will be a graduation requirement by state law as of the class of 2030, is launching a year earlier than the state requires.
Feb 08, 2024
As frustration grows over sprawling homeless camps up and down California, a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers is pushing a new bill to ban encampments on sidewalks and near schools and bus stops.
Feb 08, 2024
The San Francisco Unified School District is used to its share of political upheaval and court battles, but the legal hand grenade tossed at the district demanding a change to how school board members are elected sent shock waves across the city.
Feb 08, 2024
A veteran legislator who taught elementary school for 16 years introduced comprehensive early literacy legislation Wednesday that would impose requirements on reading instruction and add urgency to the state’s patchwork of reading reforms.
Feb 07, 2024
Officials have put in motion a plan to assess Novato Unified School District properties for use as affordable housing for employees.
Feb 07, 2024
Attendance rebounded at Los Angeles Unified School District campuses on Tuesday, despite continued rain, while Malibu schools were set to reopen Wednesday.
Feb 07, 2024
A group of parents, teachers and community members launched efforts to start a recall election against the two trustees after the board called a special meeting in January 2023 to abruptly fire Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen and put an assistant superintendent on paid leave.
Feb 07, 2024
Assembly Bill 873 directs California’s Instructional Quality Commission to add media literacy into four core subjects — English language arts, science, mathematics, history and social science — the next time curriculum frameworks are revised.
Feb 07, 2024
Legislation being introduced by Assemblymember Marc Berman would require that all public high schools in California offer at least one computer science course and would establish computer science as a high school graduation requirement.
Feb 07, 2024
In the years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, WCCUSD is struggling to recruit interns and fill vacant school psychologist positions. This means psychologists, considered essential pieces of school environments, are carrying larger case loads and working longer hours, leading to burnout.
Feb 07, 2024
A Bay Area attorney is demanding that San Francisco school officials make the seismic shift from citywide board elections to smaller district races by November or face a massive and expensive legal battle that could result in paying millions of dollars in legal fees.
Feb 06, 2024
The tree damaged the roof of the school’s administrative office, and heavy rainfall began flooding into the school. The Fort Ross Fire Department, made up entirely of volunteer firefighters, rushed to the school and tried to divert the downpour from the school’s main building.
Feb 06, 2024
Even with a 9.9% pay bump and a 0.54% increase to cover health benefits costs in the 2022-23 school year, Ross Valley teachers are still among the lowest paid in Marin, Karen Tesitor, president of the 112-member Ross Valley Teachers Association said.
Feb 06, 2024
The grand opening of the new school gymnasium in Scotia was held on Friday, Jan. 26th with school students, staff and members of the community joining in. It was a celebration five-and-a-half years in the making.
Feb 06, 2024
A California lawmaker has introduced a bill to address the rising rates of sexually transmitted infections among teens. Sen. Caroline Menjivar, who represents the San Fernando Valley, authored Senate Bill 954 — also known as the Youth Health Equity and Safety Act.
Feb 06, 2024
The California Department of Education found that the Rocklin Unified School District violated state education code when it passed a parental notification policy in September, according to a letter the CDE wrote to the district on Feb. 1.
Feb 06, 2024
Los Angeles students and school employees soldiered through a challenging, drenching Monday — with about 63% of students and about 90% of teachers and other staff making their way to campuses as the city worked through the 10th wettest day ever recorded locally.
Feb 05, 2024
A new potential site for Mill Valley Middle School was unveiled Thursday at a special board of trustees meeting before more than 200 parents, teachers and community members who crowded into the school library.
Feb 05, 2024
The Covina Valley Unified School District has launched an investigation into the handling of the SGV Bowl all-star football game that local coaches were involved with hosting at Covina District Field last month.
Feb 05, 2024
The Career Technical Center, which opened Thursday, will house classes on media communication and residential construction, providing students new opportunities for career development.
Feb 05, 2024
The highest-paid K-12 superintendent that year was technically San Dieguito Union High School District’s Cheryl James-Ward — but only because she was paid an additional year’s salary due to being fired by the board. She was paid $496,616, or $527,912 including benefits.
Feb 05, 2024
The action comes as a law firm is investigating the Del Norte High School softball program following allegations that Superintendent Marian Kim Phelps harassed members of the team following an end-of-season awards banquet in May.
Feb 05, 2024
In high school, Jamie Cutter sat through lectures on abstinence in a city that had one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in California. Nearly two decades later, she teaches the sex-ed class she wishes she’d taken back then.
Feb 05, 2024
The U.S.-Mexico border is a fraught topic in political debate in Congress and between presidential candidates. But crossing it is a key part of training for some prospective bilingual teachers in California to get insight into their future students’ lives.
Feb 05, 2024
A Hayward elementary school struggling to boost low test scores and dismal student attendance is spending $250,000 in federal money for an organization called Woke Kindergarten to train teachers to confront white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression and remove those barriers to learning.
Feb 05, 2024
California schools will have to spend $2 billion of their remaining Covid relief funds on tutoring and other measures to help high-needs students recover from learning loss, according to a legal settlement announced this week.
Feb 05, 2024
San Francisco middle schools would once again offer Algebra 1 to eighth-grade students starting in the fall under a proposal heading to the school board for a vote later this month.
Feb 02, 2024
In the early 1990s, rumors traveled through the halls of Pomona High School that a group of coaches were plying young cheerleaders and track stars with weed and alcohol in their offices, and sexually abusing them on and off campus.
Feb 02, 2024
Two Central Valley school officials pleaded guilty Thursday in a scheme that officials say bilked the Patterson Joint Unified School District out of more than $1 million that was used to remodel homes and purchase cryptocurrency, computers and vehicles, including a Ferrari sports car.
Feb 02, 2024
The Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School district board on Jan. 30 voted 4-0 to ask voters in the district to increase the tax from $49 to $128 per parcel. The issue will be decided by mail-in balloting; the measure must be approved by at least two-thirds of voters to pass.
Feb 02, 2024
The author of a vaguely defined proposed constitutional amendment to require the state and school districts to “provide all public school students with high-quality public schools” has decided to postpone the campaign two years.
Feb 02, 2024
The superintendent of a one-school Alameda County district that’s been in turmoil since a controversial decision to ban the Pride flag last year will retire in June, a decision attributed largely to the chaos.
Feb 02, 2024
The new rules, presented at a school board meeting Tuesday, Jan. 30, prevent charters from being sited in campuses that have been identified as serving vulnerable students, accounting for roughly 350 of about 770 school buildings in the district.
Feb 01, 2024
Marci Trahan, superintendent of the Ross Valley School District, will retire at the end of the school year in June. Trahan, who has worked for the district for 32 years, was appointed superintendent in 2020 after the retirement of Rick Bagley.
Feb 01, 2024
In an agreement ending a 3-year-old lawsuit brought by families of 15 Oakland and Los Angeles students, the state will target billions of dollars of remaining learning-loss money to low-income students and others with the widest learning disparities.
Feb 01, 2024
Future teachers, educators and civil leaders gathered on a gloomy Tuesday afternoon, at the Mendez Tribute Monument Park in Westminster, to remember the landmark Orange County case that ended segregated education in California.
Feb 01, 2024
The agreement brings an end to sweeping litigation that dates to the fall of 2020, when students were learning remotely from home, with campuses closed because of safety concerns.
Jan 31, 2024
The Napa County Office of Education board on Feb. 6 will hold a public hearing to gather input on a new charter school petition that would allow the Mayacamas Charter Middle School to restructure as a countywide school.
Jan 31, 2024
Voters in the Antioch Unified School District will soon be asked to support a $195 million school bond measure to upgrade their aging schools. Measure B on the March 5 primary ballot needs at least 55 percent of the vote to pass.
Jan 31, 2024
The California Center on Teaching Careers has launched a campaign to recruit support staff for schools. The Be Their Joy campaign encourages people to take classified staff positions that include jobs as custodians, cafeteria workers, crossing guards, bus drivers, yard supervisors, teaching aides and mental health staff.
Jan 31, 2024
The Los Angeles Unified School District school board drew a mix of gratitude and frustration from communities throughout the region during its discussion of a policy that prevents charter schools from sharing a campus with its 100 priority schools, Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools and community schools.
Jan 31, 2024
Dedicated mentorship, training for potential superintendents, and trust-building are some of the solutions to curb the growing number of superintendents in California who are leaving the job, according to panelists at Tuesday’s EdSource roundtable discussion, “Superintendents are quitting: What can be done to keep them?”
Jan 31, 2024
A CBS News investigation revealed that at least 8,500 American schools are at risk of similar outbreaks as vaccination rates drop below the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended 95% for student bodies, hundreds of which are located in California.
Jan 31, 2024
Berry Accius of the Sacramento community advocacy group Voice of the Youth was busy on the phone Tuesday as news spread of a shooting at Grant Union High School. He was frantically calling Grant High students who are in his group’s mentorship program.
Jan 30, 2024
Who wants to help oversee a public school district with 33 schools, more than 2,000 employees, roughly 28,000 students and a $408 million annual budget? The Temecula Valley Unified School District isn’t saying, at least for now.
Jan 30, 2024
The Stanislaus County Office of Education is being sued by two of its employees whose attorneys allege SCOE failed to provide them with paid vacation and holidays in violation of the state Education Code.
Jan 30, 2024
At a time of declining public school enrollment in L.A. and throughout the state, this campus is overcrowded — the only one in the nation’s second-largest school district that is full and turning away families.
Jan 30, 2024
As guests check out of El Capitan Hotel in downtown Merced, a group of students wearing Merced County Office of Education (MCOE) shirts or lanyards enter recently vacated rooms to strip the beds, empty the trash bins and vacuum.
Jan 30, 2024
That law, Senate Bill 291, defines what “recess” really means: free, unstructured time to play and socialize. It also requires that elementary students receive at least 30 minutes every day and makes it illegal for educators to take that time away as punishment.
Jan 30, 2024
California’s attorney general issued a strong statement to the Oakland Unified school District Monday, saying that any planned school closures will be monitored by his department to ensure that civil rights laws aren’t violated.
Jan 29, 2024
In the latest twist in the debate over the presence of police on Santa Rosa City Schools campuses, detectives were turned away from Elsie Allen High School as they prepared to arrest four juvenile suspects in a robbery and stabbing that was believed to be gang related.
Jan 29, 2024
Monterey Peninsula Unified School District partnered with Colgate to provide free dental checkups for more than 800 students this week. The district pointed out that for some students, the program’s checkups are the first time they have received any type of dental care.
Jan 29, 2024
Alisal Unified School District added a sixth coach to its growing fleet of electric school buses this month, retiring yet another classic old diesel rig for a shiny new yellow e-bus. Alisal used grant funds to purchase the buses, each costing upward of $300,000.
Jan 29, 2024
The current district policy banning student smartphone use in class is 20-years-old, and it isn’t enforced. So teachers and principals have gotten creative in establishing new rules to keep the phones and distraction out of their classrooms.
Jan 29, 2024
Months after the Ocean View School District decided to consolidate Spring View Middle School, the district now has to decide what to do with its surplus property.
Jan 29, 2024
New data from the state shows Modesto City Schools with the highest average teacher salary in the Modesto metropolitan area — higher than the statewide average — and Patterson Joint Unified at the low end.
Jan 29, 2024
Faced with an ongoing teacher shortage, many California arts education advocates have been championing the use of career technical education (CTE) to attract new arts teachers to help fulfill the state’s historic arts mandate.
Jan 29, 2024
Tentative layoffs for about 23 employees and additional non-teaching positions have been approved by the Riverside school board. Across California, school districts are reviewing staffing needs ahead of the state’s March 15 deadline to notify employees of possible layoffs.
Jan 29, 2024
A generation of children who learned to write on screens is now going old school. Starting this year, California grade school students are required to learn cursive handwriting, after the skill had fallen out of fashion in the computer age.
Jan 29, 2024
After hours of test taking last May, Karen Ramirez perked up when she saw a district leader and a camera crew walking onto her high school campus. She had a hunch good news awaited.
Jan 26, 2024
The governing board voted 4-1 to appoint Sharon Ofek – who has been acting as the district’s superintendent since April – during Wednesday’s board meeting.
Jan 26, 2024
After more than three years of school district and community meetings, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District’s Board of Trustees has decided to close an elementary school campus.
Jan 26, 2024
The Oakland Unified School District in California is being sued over a back-to-school event that was allegedly only made available to "Black, Brown and API [Asian/Pacific Islander]" students.
Jan 26, 2024
When you drive past a California school, you might notice a sign that reads “Speed limit 25 when children are present.” But what exactly does that mean? How “present” do children have to be for that speed limit to be in effect?
Jan 26, 2024
For years, students in San Francisco’s public schools have not been able to take Algebra 1 until high school. But after years of parent pushback, the school district is expected to revamp its Algebra 1 policy next month.
Jan 25, 2024
Board members opposed two recommended lists of layoffs presented by administrators. School officials said the recommendations resulted in part from the “undue financial hardship” that the Moreno Valley Unified School District faces.
Jan 25, 2024
Saying that officials at Roseville High School and its district did not do enough to deter hate speech, the mother of a Black Inderkum High wrestler called for systemic changes and the expulsion of a student spectator who derided her son with racist slurs last week.
Jan 25, 2024
Usually, word of a new after-school program giving elementary school students a chance to explore art, science and technology would hardly make a ripple. But when it comes to a new club preparing to launch in San Clemente, supporters and critics alike seem to agree: the devil’s in the details.
Jan 24, 2024
The Pomona Unified School District must pay $35 million to a woman who sued the district and accused a Pomona High School coach of raping her in the 1990s, a jury ruled. The district in its own statement accepted liability.
Jan 24, 2024
A local nonprofit organization has donated more than 2,000 boxes of Narcan – the brand name for naloxone, the medication used to treat narcotic overdose in an emergency – to the Clovis Unified district.
Jan 24, 2024
How kids are taught to read in Berkeley is slowly starting to shift. Teachers are studying the science of reading. More students are learning phonics, sounding out words by letters and syllables.
Jan 24, 2024
Richard Tree, director of Transportation and Sustainability for the district, says they already have six electric buses carrying students. They will add 35 more zero-emission buses to their fleet.
Jan 23, 2024
Fresno Unified School District Superintendent Bob Nelson is stepping down from the job July 30 for a tenure-track faculty position at Fresno State. The district announced the move in a news release Monday.
Jan 23, 2024
The dreams of Ethel I. Baker Elementary School fourth-grade students ranged in depth and complexity when shared aloud during a Thursday morning discussion: one boy sought to end world violence, while another simply wished his mother could get more work.
Jan 23, 2024
Temecula school board President Joseph Komrosky will face a recall election sometime this year after organizers gathered enough signatures to make the ballot, a victory for a coalition determined to push back against a Christian conservative agenda pursued by Komrosky and his allies.
Jan 23, 2024
Gov. Gavin Newsom buoyed the hopes of school district and community college educators this month when, despite a sizable three-year decline in state revenue, he promised to protect schools and colleges from cuts and to uphold future spending commitments.
Jan 23, 2024
There’s a new after-school program at Truman Benedict Elementary in San Clemente — and it’s caused quite a ruckus among parents, particularly on social media. The “After-School Satan Club,” run by the Satanic Temple, has its first meeting at Truman Benedict scheduled for Feb. 12.
Jan 22, 2024
A criminal trial for a former employee of Pope Valley Union Elementary School accused of sexually abusing children and teenagers is scheduled to start in Napa Superior Court on Monday. Multiple allegations of child molestation go back as far as 2010.
Jan 22, 2024
The district was charged approximately $37,000 for the two weeks at the end of the year when five officers and one sergeant were split among the district’s five high schools and five middle schools.
Jan 22, 2024
District Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh explained that the board has two options for filling Miramontes’ seat, either by special election or by appointing an individual. According to the district, a special election could cost anywhere from $100,000 to over $300,000.
Jan 22, 2024
Trustees of the Ross Valley School District voted unanimously Friday to direct their attorney to initiate eviction proceedings against the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center. Since Aug. 31, the center has stayed at the property and continued to pay rent — but the district has returned the rent checks unopened.
Jan 22, 2024
Novato Unified School District trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a three-year, $728,000 state grant to support counseling services for students on the courses needed and the deadlines to achieve so-called “A-G eligibility.”
Jan 22, 2024
For the first time ever, Clovis residents will be hosting district-based elections instead of an at-large voting process when electing their next school board representatives. Registered voters will only be able to vote for their specific district representative.
Jan 22, 2024
Fresno High social studies teacher Peter Beck has been trying a new approach to prevent his students from being distracted by phones during class. He spent last year’s teaching material budget on three chargers, each with ten USB ports, and some cords.
Jan 22, 2024
The first round of testing measurements for the year show the local school district generally on par with past results, including a perpetual underperformance of students who are not native English speakers. An annual report from the California Department of Education, the California School Dashboard shows district performance and progress in 13 different areas.
Jan 19, 2024
The Oakland teachers union, one of the city’s most powerful political forces, has won a significant battle against the Oakland school district after a state labor board found that the union’s 2022 labor strike was legal.
Jan 19, 2024
The organization, also known as MAPS, offers free presentations, inviting guests in the fields of science, math and technology to help give students better understandings of the subjects by adding a factor of entertainment.
Jan 19, 2024
Modesto City Schools again is exploring putting a bond measure before voters to repair and upgrade schools. It would be the fourth measure in six years, following the approval of Measures D and E in 2018 for K-8 facilities improvements and Measure L in 2022 for high schools.
Jan 19, 2024
Teacher pay in California rose sharply last school year as educators demanded their salaries keep up with rising inflation. Average pay for teachers in California public schools rose to $95,160 in the 2022-23 school year, an increase of 7.5% from 2021-22, new state data show.
Jan 18, 2024
Superintendent Tom McCoy said Oxnard Union High School District's online course program has been key to those efforts. The district began developing the program a year or two before the pandemic but has since increased offerings to over 100 courses.
Jan 18, 2024
A 14-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of two felony charges of assault likely to cause great bodily injury and robbery. An investigation is ongoing, including determining a possible motive for the attack.
Jan 18, 2024
The deputy will address situations that arise on and near Sonoma Valley Unified School District campuses. Sonoma Police Chief Brandon Cutting said that previously, school-related incidents requiring law enforcement response were handled by patrol deputies within the department’s “minimum staffing.”
Jan 18, 2024
Early estimates of the cost of rebuilding Mill Valley Middle School have overshot the spending limit the district had planned from its $194 million Measure G bond. Also at issue is whether to include at least $10 million in anticipated proceeds from a state infrastructure bond measure for schools.
Jan 18, 2024
Charter school leaders who’d hoped to run a high school out of a Costa Mesa office building — a move challenged by public school district officials who claimed they were not properly notified of such intentions — will have to look elsewhere.
Jan 18, 2024
As students waited for a bus in front of Roosevelt High School last September, a vehicle crashed into the bus stop, injuring 11 of them. The next day, a mom was walking her four children to school when a driver ran a traffic light, hitting the mom and dragging one of her children.
Jan 18, 2024
A pair of Orange County school districts have reached a combined $4.8 million settlement with six young women who alleged abuse by Bahram Hojreh, a prominent local water polo coach who was sentenced to prison last year for sexually assaulting numerous female players.
Jan 17, 2024
At least 14 schools within the Fresno Unified School District have social media accounts dedicated to school fight videos, the Bee has found. Most of the Fresno accounts were registered in the second half of 2023.
Jan 17, 2024
Families are leaving the Oakland classrooms in droves this school year, with nearly 1,000 students granted a transfer to another nearby district, a significant increase over years past. The numbers were likely boosted by Jewish families leaving the district.
Jan 17, 2024
Storer Transportation of Modesto got a $3 million state grant to install 37 chargers for electric school buses. The California Energy Commission awarded the money as part of its effort to cut climate-harming emissions.
Jan 17, 2024
The new recommendations, issued last week, reflect a more relaxed approach to isolation and testing, allowing people who test positive for COVID-19 but do not have symptoms to return to work and school.
Jan 17, 2024
Education programs largely avoided steep cuts in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2024-25 budget. There are reductions, notably in aid to schools, colleges and some other education programs.
Jan 16, 2024
California school districts should not force staff to out transgender students to their parents, Attorney General Rob Bonta warned in a legal memo sent out Thursday. The alert was sent to every school district and charter school board and superintendent in the state.
Jan 16, 2024
Ross Valley School District trustees will meet this week to discuss an offer from the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center to buy the property it rents from the district. The center is offering $1,561,500, or roughly half of the $3 million appraisal for the property.
Jan 16, 2024
Five high schools in the Tamalpais Union High School District would be modernized if voters approve a $517 million bond on the March 5 ballot, advocates say. Measure A, which needs at least a 55% majority to pass, would impose a tax of $30 per $100,000 of assessed valuation per property annually.
Jan 16, 2024
A Riverside County school district censured for violating federal law and failing to protect students from sexual misconduct now faces a lawsuit alleging district officials neglected to prevent a former teacher from molesting two students and report him to police.
Jan 16, 2024
What follows are excerpts of conversations and public statements. We will seek other voices as budget negotiations between Newsom and the Legislature, tempered by revenue updates, continue through the budget’s passage in June.
Jan 16, 2024
Despite a newfound national focus on the science of reading, states, including California, aren’t doing enough to support and train teachers to effectively teach literacy, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
Jan 16, 2024
More than 1,000 people took to the grassy area in front of the Miller Park Amphitheater in Fontana on Saturday, Jan. 13, to protest against school district policies they say socially transition children without parental consent.
Jan 16, 2024
Post-pandemic California continues to struggle to support the personal and educational needs of its children, according to the 2024 California Children’s Report Card, a biannual study conducted by Children Now, a nonprofit that examines the impact of statewide measures and grades their effectiveness.
Jan 16, 2024
In 1943, Sylvia Mendez and her brothers were turned away from a school in Westminster and told to attend a “Mexican school.” Now, legislators want to ensure their story — and the subsequent court ruling in Mendez v. Westminster that led to the repeal of segregation laws in California — are taught in schools across the state.
Jan 12, 2024
An effort to recall four members of the Lamont Elementary School District board of trustees is halted for now because not enough valid signatures were collected to place the matter on the ballot. Adam Clark, a spokesman for the Kern County Elections Division, said Thursday that the verification process has been completed.
Jan 12, 2024
"There are a lot of projections in this report," board member Marilyn Nemzer said after a presentation about the Fairfax school at the board meeting on Tuesday. “It’s really difficult to evaluate and approve this based on projections for two years — and not having those compared to reality.”
Jan 11, 2024
At least three Marin school districts and one charter school will be hit hard by the 2024-25 budget’s drop in the state’s cost of living adjustment to 0.76%, which is down from an 8.22% in the current year. The COLA is added to the per-pupil state subsidy, known as the local control funding formula, or LCFF.
Jan 11, 2024
In the wake of the arrest of Medeiros Elementary School campus supervisor John Snoke on charges related to child pornography, several community members are calling for the resignation of Turlock Unified School District Superintendent Dana Trevethan and Medeiros Principal Anna Ellerson.
Jan 11, 2024
Gov. Gavin Newsom would protect schools and community colleges from the brunt of an $11.3 billion projected drop in state revenue for education, under a proposed 2024-25 state budget he released on Wednesday.
Jan 11, 2024
As California faces a $38 billion deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed cuts to clean transportation and building decarbonization programs designed to help the state confront the worsening effects of climate change.
Jan 10, 2024
Based on preliminary estimates, the damage will cost more than $40,000, Wright Elementary School District Superintendent Lisa Saxon said, which they’re hoping will be covered by insurance. School officials do not yet know who did it or why.
Jan 10, 2024
Under the grant, School Garden Network Farm-to-school Program Manager Courtney Delello spends 45 hours a month at Piner, teaching students and providing mentorship to school officials on how they can bring the garden to its full potential.
Jan 10, 2024
The district’s board approved a $736,650 agreement with Weston Miles Architects in July 2022 to design the multi-use field, which will include new bleachers, scoreboards, field lighting, a synthetic turf field, improved storage and renovations to the existing baseball field.
Jan 10, 2024
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 16 other attorneys general filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging the Chico Unified School District's policy regarding parental notification of disclosing a student’s transgender or gender-nonconforming status without the student’s consent.
Jan 10, 2024
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday will reveal his plan to cover a staggering budget deficit as the nation’s most populous state weathers a revenue downturn that could have major consequences for 5.8 million public school children.
Jan 10, 2024
Pregnant in high school, 14-year-old first-year high school student Giselle Meza said she feared she’d be judged by her peers. She was one of only two pregnant teens at her school and felt isolated. She missed a lot of classes, falling behind.
Jan 09, 2024
The Dan Albert Stadium renovation is budgeted for an estimated $12 million and consists of creating a lower softball and multi-use field, a multi-purpose weight room, added visitor bleachers, a new press box, improved accessible seating and stadium lights.
Jan 09, 2024
A former superintendent for the Shoreline Unified School District was sentenced to jail Monday for engaging in lewd conduct with a child. Robert Patrick Raines, 69, of Petaluma was ordered to serve 210 days at the Marin County Jail as well as a year of probation.
Jan 09, 2024
Thousands of students from the Los Angeles Unified School District returned to class Monday after winter break, and district officials issued an update on attendance rates, student safety and funding.
Jan 09, 2024
The state’s public employees labor watchdog recently called out Clovis Unified School District for financially supporting the Faculty Senate, a district-sanctioned group of teachers that is supposed to function as a representative of the district’s educators.
Jan 09, 2024
Despite statewide efforts, California is still struggling to support the personal and educational needs of its students, according to the 2024 California Children’s Report Card conducted by the organization Children Now.
Jan 09, 2024
On Monday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that California will receive $88 million to purchase buses in districts across the state, with $19.75 million going to the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Jan 08, 2024
Napa’s Mayacamas Charter Middle School ran into a fiscal bump after opening for the first time last fall, under the haze of a legal decision that threatened to close the school, because enrollment was much lower than projected.
Jan 08, 2024
For years San Diego Unified students have pressed for more recognition and a louder voice on the district’s board of education, noting that they are by far the largest constituency that the board’s decisions affect directly.
Jan 08, 2024
Brandon Mendoza was a senior at UC Berkeley when he first saw the flier: Get paid to try out teaching in your community. Mendoza, who had always hoped to become a teacher, was curious — he didn’t realize he could test the career before jumping in.
Jan 08, 2024
Cursive is making a comeback amid concerns that learning to use a keyboard had superseded handwriting skills that are important for intellectual development — and also that a new generation of students could not write or read the flowing words of historical documents, old letters and family recipes.
Jan 08, 2024
While many arts education advocates are championing the use of the CTE credential as the state struggles to attract new staff to teach the arts in the wake of Proposition 28, the state’s historic arts mandate, there’s a big hitch for those who want to teach elementary students.
Jan 08, 2024
San Diego Unified officials are pondering how to cut their budget to close a projected $70 million deficit in the school district’s general unrestricted fund for next school year, as public schools across California grapple with the double whammy of a major state budget shortfall and expiring pandemic recovery money.
Jan 05, 2024
Monterey Peninsula Unified School District’s first subsidized preschool program in Monterey opened Thursday. The center is the district’s fourth preschool program and the first state-funded preschool program in Monterey attached to a school district.
Jan 05, 2024
The Sausalito Marin City School District, hit with a barrage of unexpected costs since adopting its 2023-24 budget in July, now has a fiscal shortfall of about $1.5 million — not counting the cost of the recent teacher contract settlement.
Jan 05, 2024
As students return to school after holiday travel and festivities, respiratory illnesses are at high levels in Los Angeles, with many suffering from a mix of Covid and the flu.
Jan 05, 2024
The controversial proposal would require California schools to notify parents if their child might be transgender, or begins to identify as a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth.
Jan 05, 2024
If a school board member has a social media account, would it be wrong for them to block someone and delete their comments? That’s a question the Supreme Court has decided to take up.
Jan 04, 2024
Santa Cruz County’s public schools are set to see enrollment drop by more than 21% over the next decade, the steepest decline of any county in California, according to recent projections by the state.
Jan 04, 2024
“Hold on,” ever-wise Ms. Fensters interrupted. “Why would anyone read a New Year predictions column if you make them feel like jumping back in bed and pulling the covers over their head for the next 362 days?”
Jan 04, 2024
The state’s Instructional Quality Commission will consider adding content highlighting Asian American, Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian communities in its next revision of the statewide history-social science curriculum.
Jan 03, 2024
Calls for accountability may be catching up to the board of trustees, as they’ve considered taking on two major projects in the new year: a pilot SRO program and expansion of alternative education programs.
Jan 03, 2024
“The district is not currently ‘in the red,'” Superintendent Becky Rosales said in a Dec. 20 note to parents about the budget. “We are deficit spending and will need to make adjustments for the 2024-25 school year to continue to meet the reserve levels required for in the multiyear projection.”
Jan 03, 2024
More than a year after a Southern California school district banned the teaching of critical race theory, some Temecula Valley Unified students say it's resulted in more racism. About 4% of the district's students are Black.
Jan 03, 2024
A parent was suing the superintendent of the Chico unified school district over an alleged “parental secrecy” policy, the reporter said, claiming a school counselor had encouraged her fifth-grader to adopt a new gender and that the school had withheld that information.
Jan 03, 2024
In 2019 San Diego prosecutors proved how two men got $400 million of state money to run fraudulent schools in what has become one of the largest fraud scandals in the 31-year history of California’s charter system.
Jan 03, 2024
When your child is an English learner, it can be confusing and difficult to understand whether they are progressing normally toward proficiency in the language and what they need to do to be reclassified as fluent and English proficient.
Jan 03, 2024
The four boys come bounding into Eva Jablonsky’s otherwise quiet living room. Missy, her mini poodle, marks their arrival with a chorus of barks, but her yips are soon drowned out by the cacophony of children.
Jan 03, 2024
Sierra Rivera and her older sister, Dahlia, were thrilled at the idea of baking up a batch of their grandmother’s pumpkin cookies for Thanksgiving, but when their dad gave them the handwritten recipe, they froze.
Jan 03, 2024
Emery Unified, a small district tucked between Berkeley and Oakland in the east Bay Area, saw its Black students — who make up 45% of the student population, one of the highest rates in the state — show dramatic gains from 2022.
Dec 27, 2023
FCMAT will resume posting headlines on Wednesday, January 3, 2024.
Dec 22, 2023
Oxnard School District trustees voted Dec. 12 to appoint longtime administrator Anabolena "Ana" DeGenna as the district's permanent superintendent.
Dec 22, 2023
Rocklin Unified School District is one of a handful of school districts in California now offering a full-day program for 4-year-olds. And enrollment is right around the corner.
Dec 22, 2023
In the two years he has done the 13 episodes, he said the aim has been to properly inform families about what SCOE is doing to support teachers who might face the challenges he discusses.
Dec 22, 2023
San Diego County public high schools have been graduating students at some of their highest rates yet since the pandemic, but many of those graduates may not be ready for college or career, according to new state data.
Dec 21, 2023
Initial findings from a study of a closely watched Oakland Unified program that recruits parents and neighbors as tutors show intriguing potential for other low-income school districts struggling to teach kids to read.
Dec 21, 2023
Temecula’s school board will try to appoint someone to fill the seat vacated by Danny Gonzalez’s resignation in hopes of avoiding a potentially costly special election.
Dec 21, 2023
Simply, there are three options that OUSD could pursue, per the district’s bylaws: call a special election right after the March primary results are announced, wait until the regular election in November to fill the vacancies or task the board with immediately appointing new trustees.
Dec 21, 2023
California spent billions of dollars in 2023 to help students rebound academically as well as emotionally from the pandemic, with mixed results. While test scores remained stagnant, efforts to lure students back to the classroom appeared to be working.
Dec 21, 2023
Groups of Christian parents were packing school board meetings, complaining about sex education and “Critical Race Theory,” a graduate-level system of thought that is not part of high school curricula but is a constant topic of discussion on Fox News.
Dec 20, 2023
he Eureka City Schools Board of Education voted unanimously on Thursday to authorize the district to enter into escrow for part of the former George C. Jacobs Junior High School campus with a developer, AMG Communities Jacobs, LLC.
Dec 20, 2023
Following a series of reported threats involving McKinleyville High School that sent the school in multiple lockdowns, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said evidence is pointing to a single individual that aimed to disrupt students and announced they have identified a suspect.
Dec 20, 2023
A third woman has come forward and filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Carmel Unified School District – this time over allegations against Carmel Valley High School’s principal.
Dec 20, 2023
Sara Aminzadeh, a gubernatorial appointee who lost a close race for the Assembly in November 2022, has been provisionally selected for a Kentfield school board seat.
Dec 20, 2023
The Woodcreek Junior Timberwolves members practiced in Roseville on Tuesday, masking the trouble and fighting between board members. The program's future is in question.
Dec 20, 2023
When Sunny Lee’s son was ready for kindergarten in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic had just begun. His school in Pleasanton, an eastern suburb of the San Francisco Bay, was holding classes online, like most others.
Dec 20, 2023
Parents and guardians of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District offer mixed reviews of the nation’s second-largest school district, scoring it low on how it disseminates information and considers parents’ perspectives.
Dec 19, 2023
LAUSD’s winter academy provided both an opportunity for older students to catch up on work and offered relief to parents struggling to find child care for the youngest students during the district’s three-week long break
Dec 19, 2023
During the chaotic period when California families were running scared, public schools were shuttered and playgrounds off-limits, an estimated 152,000 California children went missing from classrooms, according to a collaboration between Stanford professor Thomas Dee and The Associated Press.
Dec 19, 2023
A school district in San Mateo County has joined the parade of lawsuits accusing Facebook, Instagram, Google and other social media platforms of designing their systems to addict youngsters, harming the youths and their schools while boosting the companies’ advertising revenues.
Dec 18, 2023
The Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California announced this week that it has suspended charitable donations to the Sonora Union High School District over concerns about the handling of recent allegations of misconduct by school employees toward students.
Dec 18, 2023
Less than a year after the Chino Valley Unified school board agreed to rotate leadership roles among its members, a majority of the board has rescinded the policy and given Sonja Shaw a second year as board president.
Dec 18, 2023
California released on Friday its annual performance ratings of school districts and charters, and for San Diego County, they show improvements in chronic absenteeism since last year but little change in other areas such as high school graduation and test scores.
Dec 18, 2023
The ACLUs of Southern and Northern California along with more than 20 other civil rights and LGBTQ+ rights organizations have issued an amicus brief to halt the enforcement of Temecula Valley Unified School District’s policies that censor instruction on race and gender as well as its transgender policy.
Dec 18, 2023
To create an education system that has stable funds for mental health, California educators and leaders are turning to the health system and launching a statewide behavioral health initiative to fill funding gaps in fluctuating, sometimes unpredictable school budgets.
Dec 18, 2023
Superintendent Judy Flores announced she will retire at the end of the 2023-2024 school year after nearly 40 years in public education. The Shasta County Board of Education noted Flores’ last day will be June 30, 2024.
Dec 18, 2023
The California School Dashboard is back in full color for the first time in four years. The dashboard, which the California Department of Education will release on Friday, is the state’s academic accountability and improvement tool designed for parents and educators.
Dec 15, 2023
The new Central Academy of Arts and Technology is expected to open in the downtown Bakersfield area — an exact site isn't finalized — for students in transitional kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Dec 15, 2023
A five-member majority favored bringing campus officers back, but a launch timeline is unclear as district officials say it will take more conversations with the city.
Dec 15, 2023
Locking all of the doors at Pacific Grove Middle School is just one of the steps the district is taking to upgrade security in the wake of a man wandering onto multiple Pacific Grove campuses last month, raising questions of campus safety.
Dec 15, 2023
Schools in Fresno are offering free meals to all children and teenagers ages 1 to 18 this winter break.
Dec 15, 2023
Each Jurupa Unified School District elementary campus is receiving a book vending machine as part of the district’s Literacy Without Limits campaign.
Dec 15, 2023
California enrolls a far lower percentage of English learners in bilingual education programs than other states, according to a report released in October from The Century Foundation.
Dec 15, 2023
New school board presidents took the helm this week for the Coachella Valley's three public school districts.
Dec 14, 2023
Many of those in attendance were adamant that school board members address school safety concerns, which have intensified over the past two weeks after a stabbing at the district’s largest high school campus and a lockdown at a middle school after a student brandished a knife in class.
Dec 14, 2023
The Auburn Union School District Board of Trustees voted late Wednesday night to retain the district’s diversity, equity and inclusion statement after heated debate and a surprise vote from one trustee.
Dec 14, 2023
A charter school focused on computer programming and game design has been given the green light to take over a middle school in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District.
Dec 14, 2023
Despite a few of Drobnick’s friends dropping out of the accreditation program he attended at Stanislaus State, he’s motivated to stay in the classroom for the foreseeable future to motivate and teach his students about the world.
Dec 14, 2023
Fifteen different classes participated in Holiday Boutique, including classes from Stockton Unified, Lincoln Unified, Lodi Unified, Manteca Unified, Tracy Unified, and County Operated Schools and Programs.
Dec 14, 2023
Santa Rosa Police officer Luigi Valencia was on campus as an interim school resource officer, according to the Santa Rosa Police Department, which touted his presence as one of the reasons for the incident’s quick resolution.
Dec 14, 2023
Campus safety concerns have been amplified in the past two weeks after a stabbing on the district’s largest high school campus and a lockdown at a middle school just a week later after a student reportedly brandished a knife.
Dec 14, 2023
The Auburn Union School District Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote Wednesday evening on whether or not to rescind the district’s diversity, equity and inclusion statement.
Dec 14, 2023
A Marin County Superior Court judge on Wednesday postponed the sentencing for a former school superintendent who was found guilty of lewd conduct with a minor. Robert Patrick Raines could face a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for his misdemeanor conviction.
Dec 14, 2023
The new COLA, said Kate Lane, deputy superintendent in the Marin County Office of Education, is forecast to be a 1.27% increase, down from an 8.22% increase in the current school year. This will cut into the local control funding formula-financed districts’ per pupil subsidy.
Dec 14, 2023
Pervasive pornography, erotica and “inappropriate vulgarity or profanity” are banned from instructional materials under policy changes passed by Temecula’s school board Tuesday night, Dec. 12.
Dec 13, 2023
AngelAnn Flores, who has been under fire recently for potentially misusing the district's credit card, was voted from her leadership role at the Board of Trustees' last regularly scheduled meeting of the year.
Dec 13, 2023
More than a year after a lawsuit was filed against Monterey Peninsula Unified School District over its high school stadium improvements project, the court has dismissed the district from the lawsuit entirely.
Dec 13, 2023
The veteran public official — who was also on the Los Angeles City Council and in the state Legislature — will end her elected political career as school board president, helping to guide the nation’s second largest school district.
Dec 13, 2023
A campus security supervisor at a California high school, who was arrested in June and charged with making and selling explosives on social media, pleaded guilty on Monday, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced.
Dec 13, 2023
Los Angeles Unified has enacted a targeted hiring freeze and may consider closing or consolidating schools as it faces the loss of federal pandemic aid and declining enrollment, superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in an interview last week.
Dec 12, 2023
Close to 200 people participated in another round of school safety demonstrations at Santa Rosa’s two largest high schools Monday, with many Montgomery High School teachers and students calling out sick.
Dec 12, 2023
After months of talks, the Kentfield School District has reached a tentative agreement with its support staff union. The one-year contract, which is retroactive to July 1, calls for a $2.75 per hour raise for members of the Kentfield Education Support Professionals Association.
Dec 12, 2023
The so-called Protect Kids of California Act of 2024 would ban gender-affirming care for minors, require school faculty to out students to parents, and repeal pre-existing protections for trans students.
Dec 12, 2023
San Francisco schools are facing a massive deficit created by years of overspending as well as recent raises, leaving the district with no choice but to cut staffing by more than 900 already vacant positions, according to district officials.
Dec 12, 2023
In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring cursive handwriting instruction mandatory in first through sixth grades effective Jan. 1. Modesto City Schools is preparing instruction for this school year.
Dec 11, 2023
A judge recently ended a lawsuit from two parents trying to stop Conejo Valley Unified School District's sexual education curriculum. The ruling does not allow the plaintiffs to further amend their complaint.
Dec 11, 2023
Santa Rosa’s top government administrator has written to the city’s school chief about rising concern over campus violence in the district and called for a host of measures that could include the return of campus officers.
Dec 11, 2023
The district’s focus with the center will be improving and adding to agriculture-related career and technical education programs. That effort will be helped along by a $755,500 grant from California’s K-12 Strong Workforce Program.
Dec 11, 2023
Amid rising consternation over violence on Santa Rosa school campuses, school district administrators announced Sunday afternoon that police officers would be present at high schools for the two weeks leading up to a winter break.
Dec 11, 2023
With the recent rise in hate speech — including antisemitic, racist, homophobic or Islamophobic incidents — Marin schools are including restorative circles to determine the most appropriate reaction to each incident.
Dec 11, 2023
Officials addressed the concerns of parents frustrated with the six lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders following threatening phone calls at a news conference on Friday afternoon. After each threatening phone call deputies canvassed the school and found no threats to safety.
Dec 11, 2023
Superintendent candidates are in the driver’s seat in California, where openings are plenty and fewer veteran candidates are interested. The result is higher salaries, better perks and less experience required.
Dec 11, 2023
Inspire, a home school charter network that once served tens of thousands of students statewide, for years lacked records to justify its claims for state funding and tens of millions of dollars in transactions among its schools and related organizations, a new state audit found.
Dec 11, 2023
Next month, a panel of University of California professors in the sciences and math will give their recommendations on the contentious issue of how much math high school students should know before taking a college-qualifying course in data science.
Dec 08, 2023
In the fall term, high school students from Aspire Public Schools learned about engineering, and got a head start in college. It was made possible by the Pacific Prep pilot program — an initiative launched by the university to help pre-college students get hands-on, real-world learning experience.
Dec 08, 2023
A large push by a parent group to have SROs reinstated on SRCS campuses is driving the conversation around the role cops should, or should not have, among Santa Rosa's youth. Ultimately, the decision lies in the hands of trustees.
Dec 08, 2023
Three 13-year-old Santa Rosa students were arrested Thursday morning, following a fight where one student brandished a knife. Investigators say the fight had suspected gang ties.
Dec 08, 2023
Frustrated Herbert Slater Middle School teachers rallied outside the school Friday morning, joined by parents and students, to demand safer schools following a violent outburst Thursday which led to a 2-hour-long lockdown and three students arrested.
Dec 08, 2023
Cyberattacks on K-12 schools have increased in recent years, disrupting educational instruction and school operations and jeopardizing the personal information of students, families and staff members.
Dec 07, 2023
About 50 people attended a Sonora Union High School District board study session Monday evening in the school’s auditorium that was intended to help people understand laws protecting transgender students and all students.
Dec 08, 2023
A former Clovis North High School chemistry teacher is suing Clovis Unified School District claiming retaliation after she complained to school officials that she was being pressured by her supervisor to change students’ grades on multiple occasions.
Dec 08, 2023
The California Public Employee Relations Board found Clovis Unified school district violated state law and employee’s rights after an investigation into multiple allegations over the last three years.
Dec 08, 2023
Modesto City Schools proposes cutting nine campus supervisor positions at its middle and high school campuses as the district phases out programs in light of COVID-19 funds running out.
Dec 08, 2023
California school superintendents have been leaving their jobs in large numbers this year. EdSource interviewed five who either recently left or are leaving to better understand what compelled them to step down.
Dec 08, 2023
Schools and community colleges likely will face a $19 billion, three-year state funding deficit, the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Thursday. The funding for TK-12 this year is $108 billion.
Dec 08, 2023
As California faces a ballooning deficit — now up to a staggering $68 billion — the state must act to balance its budget, including potentially reducing funding for schools and community colleges, the Legislative Analyst’s Office said in a report Thursday.
Dec 07, 2023
The political action committee hoping to oust the Temecula school board’s conservative majority turned in signatures to the Riverside County elections office Wednesday, Dec. 6, in hopes of forcing a recall election of board President Joseph Komrosky.
Dec 07, 2023
A series of anonymous phone calls threatening violence caused two lockdowns and a shelter in place at McKinleyville High School on Tuesday, ultimately sending students home early.
Dec 07, 2023
The White House is distributing free COVID-19 tests to public schools in an effort to get ahead of a possible winter surge. Flu season and increased holiday travel make health experts cautious, but UCSF epidemiologist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong says cases remain manageable.
Dec 07, 2023
California is pushing schools to get rid of their air-polluting diesel buses and swap them for battery-powered ones. In California’s vast northern rural school districts, with their mountain passes and long, snowy winters, the typical electric bus’ range is not nearly enough.
Dec 07, 2023
Defying district leaders and disciplinary threats, about 100 educators took part Wednesday in a teach-in across Oakland Unified School District, bringing a curriculum focused on the Palestinian “liberation struggle” to students ages 4 to 18.
Dec 06, 2023
San Luis Obispo High School officials considered promoting teacher and coach Jeffrey Brandow months after obtaining records showing he had acted inappropriately toward a student, newly released emails from the San Luis Coastal Unified School District show.
Dec 06, 2023
A field trip for Woodland Joint Unified School District students and staff took a turn Tuesday after a bus driving back to campus on Interstate 5 caught on fire, causing “heavy damage” to the vehicle, according to school and fire department officials.
Dec 06, 2023
The Redondo Beach Police Department announced that Redondo Union High School went into lockdown on Tuesday at around 9:30 a.m. local time following reports that a student had a weapon on campus.
Dec 05, 2023
The lingering effects of the pandemic on children's behavior has made for stressful times in many preschool classrooms.
Dec 05, 2023
While anecdotal evidence suggests an increase in youth gang activity, the city has no hard data because Santa Rosa Police Department’s Gang Crimes Unit was disbanded in 2019 due to staffing issues.
Dec 05, 2023
Increasing the district’s cultural proficiency and creating a safe and accessible environment for students has been one of the district’s main goals for the past few years.
Dec 05, 2023
KIPP SoCal Public Schools, which operates 23 charter schools, will close three campuses, a reversal of fortunes for an organization that had grown steadily and is considered a leader in the field.
Dec 05, 2023
The number of California school superintendents leaving their jobs is climbing, despite increased salaries and benefits. Some have reached retirement age or are moving to less stressful jobs. Some are being pushed out by newly elected school board majorities.
Dec 05, 2023
California’s $53 million investment in teaching its youngest and lowest-performing students to read has shown dramatic — and relatively fast — results, researchers at Stanford have found.
Dec 05, 2023
Research by Stanford University found that 75 of the lowest-performing California elementary schools that received funding from an out-of-court settlement made significant progress on third-grade state Smarter Balanced tests this year.
Dec 05, 2023
The Oakland Unified School District is pushing back against what it has called an “unsanctioned” teach-in centered on the “Palestinian struggle for liberation,” on Wednesday, and organized by Oakland educators.
Dec 04, 2023
A lingering lack of confidence remains among some parents, rooted in years of discord within the district serving 43,000 students. That conflict was manifested most clearly in a pair of teacher strikes and a years-long public relations war between the district office and the unions.
Dec 04, 2023
Rocky Herron spent years taking down drug traffickers, seizing methamphetamine and illicit pills coming across the border and investigating doctors who wrote prescriptions in exchange for money. Now he talks to schoolchildren.
Dec 04, 2023
California is failing to provide a high-quality education to students in the juvenile justice system by not addressing the inadequacies of academic data collection practices, according to a recent report from the national Youth Law Center.
Dec 04, 2023
A group of Oakland teachers is calling for educators to swap out district-recommended curriculum for a teach-in Wednesday that would educate students about “the Palestinian struggle” amid the war in Gaza.
Dec 01, 2023
A sheriff’s warrant provided to The Record revealing why deputies searched the home and seized possessions of the Stockton school board president this month was disclosed by accident, officials said this week.
Dec 01, 2023
The law firm suing Temecula’s school district over its critical race theory ban announced Thursday, Nov. 30, it is seeking a court order to stop the district from enforcing that ban as well as a policy requiring parents be told if their child identifies as transgender.
Nov 30, 2023
A student was treated Wednesday for injuries that were not considered life threatening following a fight with another student who was armed with a kitchen knife, school officials said. According to police, the victim had been targeted and the stabbing was an “isolated incident.”
Nov 30, 2023
Former Superintendent William Brown said in an interview shortly after the board’s decision that he was bound by confidentiality agreements and could not divulge the reason the board gave him for the move. Likewise, the district office has not revealed the reason and will not do so.
Nov 30, 2023
Even Los Angeles Unified, the country’s second-largest school district, has foundered in its attempt to hire more mental health workers, a recent Times investigation found.
Nov 29, 2023
Jayden Pienta’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Santa Rosa City Schools in September. The district’s attorney filed a cross complaint against the defendant in the case.
Nov 29, 2023
As California’s fund to fix crumbling schools dwindles to nothing, lawmakers are negotiating behind the scenes to craft a ballot measure that would be the state’s largest school construction bond in decades.
Nov 29, 2023
If the measure passes, property owners will continue to pay the same amount in taxes that they pay now, and the taxes will continue to help the AUSD maintain quality schools.
Nov 29, 2023
The lawsuit filed Monday gathers into one 93-page document a host of accusations that have been publicly leveled by parents, students and coaches against Phelps and other Poway Unified leaders in recent weeks.
Nov 28, 2023
The search — and the underlying investigation detailed in the newly-unsealed documents — targeted alleged misuse of a school district credit card by Board President AngelAnn Flores, and other alleged misconduct.
Nov 28, 2023
The likelihood that a San Diego County high school student is enrolled in an Advanced Placement course varies significantly based on their race and on which school they attend, an analysis of nationwide educational civil rights data released this month shows.
Nov 28, 2023
After a contentious road to approve a new set of statewide guidelines on teaching students math, California officials must still figure out how to support school districts with implementation.
Nov 28, 2023
Sonja Shaw is a devoted mother, motivated by an unstable upbringing to be a tigress when it comes to defending the welfare of her own young daughters and taking on a public school system that has strayed from its educational mission.
Nov 27, 2023
A California network of online charter schools that pays tens of millions of public dollars a year to one for-profit company is under pressure from its teachers union to explain exactly how that money is being spent.
Nov 27, 2023
Last month, the California legislature unanimously passed and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring the teaching of cursive or “joined italics” handwriting in grades one through six.
Nov 27, 2023
After a contentious road to approve a new set of statewide guidelines on teaching students math, California officials must still figure out how to support school districts with implementation.
Nov 27, 2023
Jason Vassar, 50, claimed to be the messiah and made racist and anti-government statements in documents reported Tuesday by the Union Democrat newspaper.
Nov 27, 2023
A court-ordered statewide task force charged with studying reforms to prevent future cases of charter school fraud will convene for the first time in San Diego on Monday afternoon.
Nov 27, 2023
A growing number of states require media literacy lessons for K-12 students. California just joined that list. At a time when online misinformation is booming, experts say these lessons are essential.
Nov 27, 2023
As California’s fund to fix crumbling schools dwindles to nothing, lawmakers are negotiating behind the scenes to craft a ballot measure that would be the state’s largest school construction bond in decades.
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.