Tagged With "EdSource"

By Louis Freedberg, EdSource, November 8, 2019 Exactly a quarter of a century ago, on Nov. 8, 1994, Californians went to the polls to vote on Proposition 187, an initiative to expel undocumented students from its public schools and universities. That was despite a Supreme Court ruling a dozen years earlier that schools were required to educate all students regardless of their immigration status. Among its many provisions was that schools officials would have had to identify all undocumented...

Vincent “Vinnie” Pompei is director of the Youth Well-Being Project of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights organization, and the chair of Time to Thrive, an annual national conference about LGBT student inclusion. He spent more than 10 years as a middle school teacher and high school counselor in the Paramount and Val Verde unified school districts in Southern California. Pompei is also a past president of the California Association of School Counselors. On Oct. 5 at the...

By Theresa Harrington, EdSource, March 16, 2020 This Q & A is being updated to reflect latest developments. It was last updated March 17 at 2:08 pm. Q:How many districts have closed schools in California? A: More than 99 percent of the state’s school districts (939 districts) announced they will close this week due to the coronavirus as of noon on March 18. Schools will be closed for at least 6,065,337 students in California, about 99 percen t of all K-12 students in the state. Gov.

By Sydney Johnson, EdSource, April 27, 2020 Never in his 25-year teaching career did Greg Platt imagine he would someday be working full-time through a computer screen. But much has changed in the last few weeks as schools around California closed their doors amid the coronavirus pandemic. “I never thought a switch would be flipped one day, and we would be doing this,” said Platt, an English teacher at Troy High School in Fullerton. “It’s extremely painful for teachers. It’s so difficult not...

By John Fensterwald, EdSource, November 6, 2019 In its first detailed examination of former Gov. Jerry Brown’s landmark school funding law, the California State Auditor sharply criticized the Legislature and State Board of Education for failing to ensure that billions of dollars have been spent on low-income children and other students targeted for additional state money. “In general, we determined that the State’s approach” to the Local Control Funding Formula “has not ensured that funding...

By EdSource, November 4, 2019 From Sonoma County to Simi Valley, fires forced hundreds of thousands of Californians out of their homes in October. In this week’s podcast, reporter Sydney Johnson shares what she found at evacuation centers in Santa Rosa and Petaluma, where she spoke with college students worried about how they will make up lost time. Also, with a big decline in out-of-school suspensions for disruptive behavior, some districts are looking at ways to transform how they handle...

By Jennifer Molina for EdSource Take a journey into rural Butte County, California where districts are confronting high rates of students missing school. [Read the accompanying article by David Washburn here. ]

By John Fensterwald, EdSource, April 15, 2020 The transition to distance learning has been a huge undertaking, and especially difficult for small districts. The Office of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools in California’s San Joaquin Valley has coordinated a common approach. All teachers and their students in participating districts — 22 out of 47 districts so far — will sign onto the same platform. There will be activities and lessons to choose from in every grade and every subject.

By Diana Lambert, EdSource, October 11, 2019 Increasing the number of teachers of color in California classrooms has been a top priority for State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond since he started the job in January. Now, he’s planning a statewide task force focused on improving teacher diversity in California schools. “The data shows when kids see a teacher who looks like them it makes a huge difference,” Thurmond said in an earlier EdSource interview. Hiring a diverse...

By Louis Freedberg and John Fensterwald, EdSource, March 31, 2020 Affirming a prediction that Gov. Gavin Newsom made exactly two weeks ago, California’s schools chief Tony Thurmond is recommending that the state’s public schools plan to provide distance learning to students through the end of their school year. “Due to the current safety concerns and needs for ongoing social distancing, it appears that our students will not be able to return to school campuses before the end of the school...

By Zaidee Stavely, EdSource, April 23, 2020 The stay-at-home order has upended some of California’s most crucial educational and health services for infants and toddlers — home visits and early intervention services — at a time when families may need them the most. Home visiting programs send nurses, social workers and other trained professionals to the homes of low-income parents to give health and early education advice. They also help children meet milestones, like crawling, picking up...

By Yuxuan Xie, Daniel J. Willis, and John Fensterwald, EdSource, September 24, 2019 California school districts need to significantly increase their education spending to ensure that students have adequate resources and support to provide the state’s content standards and meet its academic goals. Based on 2016-17 numbers, funding schools adequately to meet these goals would have required a 38 percent increase in spending, or $25.6 billion. That would mean an average increase of $4,686 per...

By Yuxuan Xie a nd Daniel J. Willis , EdSource.org View EdSource's interactive map showing the chronic absenteeism rates for school districts across California. The highest rates are clustered in rural areas. To see the interactive map, go to: https://edsource.org/2019/interactive-map-californias-chronically-absent-students-in-2017-18/613074 And here is an accompanying video: Take a journey into rural Butte County, California where districts are confronting high rates of students missing...

By Louis Freedberg, EdSource, May 28, 2020 Students should be encouraged but not required to use face coverings when California schools reopen for classroom instruction, according to a draft of “interim guidance” from the state obtained by EdSource. However, all staff should use face coverings, according to the document, which sources familiar with it say was drawn up by the California Dept. of Public Health in collaboration with the governor’s office. That is only one of the numerous issues...