New state mapping data details California’s school-reopening divide, in which hundreds of school districts — mostly smaller and rural or inland — are offering in-person instruction to elementary students while many of the state’s largest, urban districts remain indefinitely in remote learning. But the divide between public and private schools is much starker: Eleven months […]
Ricardo Cano, CALmatters
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Teacher Vaccinations in California Determined by Luck, Location
How soon teachers can expect to get vaccinated depends largely on where they live and could determine whether the bulk of California’s students return to campuses this spring — or next fall. Teacher vaccinations have emerged as a central point of contention in California’s charged debate over reopening schools as unions representing teachers and school […]
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What Prop. 15’s Defeat Means for California Schools
Voters narrowly defeated Proposition 15, the tax measure that aimed to eliminate decades-long protections for commercial properties – dashing hopes of billions of dollars flowing into California’s cash-strapped public schools and community colleges in the coming years. In the second-most expensive ballot fight this election, Prop. 15 supporters said the measure would help right what they […]
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Behind the ‘Wild West’ of School Reopenings
An academic year in which public education will intersect with public health has created back-to-school shopping lists unlike any other for California’s schools as they attempt to transition toward in-person instruction once they have the state’s blessing. Bakersfield’s Panama-Buena Vista Union School District plans to hire a manager to handle contact tracing for a system […]
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Nearly All California Schools Ordered to Shut Down
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today that more than 5.5 million California students will not be allowed to attend school for in-person education this fall. Instead, all education for at least 90% of the state’s children must be held online. Under the requirements, California school districts cannot reopen campuses until their counties stabilize coronavirus infections and […]
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Some California Schools Delay In-Person Classes as Coronavirus Surges
In the first week of June, a food services employee in the El Centro Elementary School District in Imperial County tested positive for coronavirus. By early July, about a dozen nutrition and transportation workers had been infected. The positive test result briefly halted the meals distribution many low-income students and families depend on and was […]
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Schools Face Prospect of Layoffs, Furloughs as State Budget Gets Slashed
California’s public schools, physically closed since mid-March and strapped for cash, are coming out of a frying pan and into a financial fire. The fire comes in the form of a $6.5 billion cut to schools’ main source of funding as well as other reductions in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget that, if enacted, would mean […]
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Confusion Reigns as Families Tackle COVID-19 Homeschool
Mornings this week have started as always for Ray Ortega and his second-grade daughter: They wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, and prepare for their day at school and work. Except, this week, the classroom is their Sacramento home office, and the teacher is Ortega, who, with his wife, is juggling his job with homeschooling […]
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With New CA Charter School Rules Official, Here’s the Latest on Incoming K-12 Laws
The most significant set of revisions to the state’s charter-school law in more than two decades was signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, putting new curbs on a segment of public schools that has grown over time, particularly in cities, to enroll more than 600,000 California kids. Negotiated over months among lawmakers, charter school advocates […]
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Charter Schools, Unions Call a Truce in an Epic Battle as Newsom Brokers a Deal
Gov. Gavin Newsom brokered an agreement Wednesday on a high-profile charter-school regulation proposal at the center of this year’s contentious battle between teachers unions and charter advocates, removing a key hurdle for its passage this session. The compromise on Assembly Bill 1505 comes after months of lobbying by the state’s two most influential education interest […]
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Cheer for the Rams But in California High Schools, Fewer Kids are Playing Football
If the Golden State has a rooting interest in the Super Bowl on Sunday, it won’t just be because the Los Angeles Rams will be on the field. Roughly one player in six on the Rams’ and New England Patriots’ active rosters is a product of California high schools. Year after year, California has churned […]