February 2024 Vol. 30, 2
Many areas of California are experiencing declining enrollment due to lower birth rates and young families moving to locations with less expensive housing. A decline in student attendance results in reduced future revenue to budgets already impacted by the reduction in state revenues and the end of federal and state COVID relief funding in January 2025, putting immense pressure on school districts to reassess their staffing needs. March 15, a pivotal point in the academic calendar, becomes critical for decision-makers to re-evaluate staffing levels based on evolving financial constraints and student enrollment trends.
In December, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) released its 2024–25 Fiscal Outlook, projecting the state’s budget deficit over the three-year fiscal period of 2022–23, 2023–24 and 2024–25 at $68 billion with a drop in the Proposition 98 Guarantee by $21 billion. On Jan. 10, 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the three-year budget deficit sitting at $37.86 billion — a nearly $30 billion difference. Referring to his January Budget Proposal as a “normalization” and a “correction” of the “distortions” seen in prior year budgets during the pandemic, the Governor proposes to fully fund the Proposition 98 Minimum Guarantee at $109.1 billion.
Troy Flint | tflint@csba.org
Editorial Director:
Kimberly Sellery | ksellery@csba.org
Staff Writers and Contributors:
Alisha Kirby | akirby@csba.org
Heather Kemp | hkemp@csba.org
Barbara Laifman | blaifman@csba.org
Bode Owoyele | bowoyele@csba.org
Christa Matthews | cmatthews@csba.org
Director of Graphic Design & Branding:
Kerry Macklin | kmacklin@csba.org
Senior Graphic Designer:
Amanda Moen | amoen@csba.org
Albert Gonzalez | Santa Clara USD
President-elect:
Bettye Lusk | Monterey Peninsula USD
Vice President:
Debra Schade | Solana Beach SD
Immediate Past President:
Susan Markarian | Pacific Union ESD
CEO & Executive Director:
Vernon M. Billy
News and feature items submitted for publication are edited for style and space as necessary.
President’s Message: Albert Gonzalez
As trustees, we can’t operate strictly in a reactive mode, coping with whatever dictates come down from Sacramento or Washington, D.C. Instead, we must play a role in shaping policy and creating the conditions needed to strengthen schools and support students at the local level. That advocacy can take many forms: educating local stakeholders, organizing demonstrations, urging community members to contact with their representatives about important TK-12 issues, or taking part in email or text campaigns. To that end, I encourage everyone to sign up for advocacy alerts from CSBA (text CSBA4kids to 52886 to join). Once you do, you’ll receive a call to action when your voice is needed to support or oppose the most important bills being considered in the Legislature.
Academic categories remain stagnant
The 2023 California School Dashboard, released by the state Department of Education in December, reports performance measures for schools and local educational agencies on multiple state and local indicators. This year marks a return to the color-coded ratings after years of only displaying current year, or status only, data due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
LEAs and schools receive one of five color-coded performance levels on the state indicators. From highest to lowest, the five performance levels are: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. The color rating is generated using current year results (status) plus the change in performance from the previous year (change). Results are available for individual schools and districts, as well as statewide averages. Data is further disaggregated by student groups at all levels.
Since that time, participating local educational agencies have been making strides toward developing systems that will lead to continuous improvement for underserved students in their communities.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in November released new civil rights data from the 2020–21 school year, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) since the 2017–18 school year. Accompanying the data are seven data reports and snapshots, including A First Look: Students’ Access to Educational Opportunities in the Nation’s Public Schools, which provides an overview of these data and information.
OCR administers the CRDC and uses the data to enforce civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex and disability. It is also a valuable resource for other federal agencies, policymakers and researchers, educators and school officials, parents and students, and the public.
A Jan. 23 CSBA webinar featured expert tips from local educational agency leaders on best practices for crisis communications before, during and after a safety incident.
Whether handling an anonymous threat through social media, email or other means or the presence of a trespasser or suspicious object on a school campus, every LEA — no matter its location, size or resources — should have plans in place to address crisis situations.
“Our schools are under more pressure than I’ve ever seen before and quite honestly, we’re dealing with things that are born out of new technology, so we’re hearing about things that are posted to social media anonymously,” explained Trinette Marquis, executive director of the California School Public Relations Association (CalSPRA). “Is it a real threat? We don’t know, but we always have to treat it as if it is. There are so many incidents and the worst thing about that is it gets in the way of student learning.”
Students enrolled at the school of their choice are more likely to attend, be engaged and succeed academically. Nevertheless, situations arise that call for a student to be involuntarily transferred from one district school to another. The law permits a district to do so, but only in three limited circumstances: when a student is convicted of a violent felony or misdemeanor related to possession of firearms, when a student is transferred to a continuation education school within the district, and when the student is transferred to a community day school within the district. (It is important to note that these involuntary transfers are different than involuntarily transferring a student to a school outside the district, such as a school operated by the county office of education.) Even when it is possible to involuntarily transfer a student in one of these limited circumstances, districts are advised to use involuntary transfer only as a last resort. When it is used, districts must do so in a nondiscriminatory manner.
Two recently released reports outline past and potential future enrollment trends in California.
With enrollment declines taking place in almost three-quarters of California school districts in the last five years and the trend expected to continue in the next decade, Factors and Future Projections for K–12 Declining Enrollment and its corresponding brief published by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) explore the reasons for declining enrollment in K-12.
Among the findings, the report warns that enrollment declines could stir up competitive pressures between neighboring districts as they seek to attract students.
In the 2022–23 school year, 7.3 million students were enrolled in rural school districts, or about 14 percent of all pupils, according to Why Rural Matters 2023: Centering equity and opportunity, the 10th in a series of reports from the National Rural Education Association. The authors note that the number of students in rural schools exceeds that of solely rural districts, and estimates there are more than 9.5 million students attending rural schools, which “means that more students in the United States attend rural schools than attend the 100 largest U.S. school districts combined.”
The report analyzes the contexts and conditions of rural education in each state in the U.S., spotlighting for policymakers the rural education issues that need to be addressed. As the first report to come out since the pandemic, it adds new indicators related to well-being, equity and the impact of COVID-19 on rural areas.
Kicking off the first State Board of Education meeting in 2024 on Jan. 18, the board moved ahead on items related to assessment, instructional materials, guidance for local educational agencies and more — with a particular focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
Artificial intelligence guidance, math and science
California Department of Education staff provided an update on the state’s artificial intelligence (AI) guidance and support for districts, including a practitioner’s perspective.
San Diego COE’s 16 school districts, 11 single-site charter schools and four multi-charter school organizations have implemented the toolkit to develop or enhance their unique suicide intervention protocols. In that time, nearly 1,500 suicide-risk screenings have been conducted, with schools using the toolkit reporting an increased comfort level, confidence and capability among staff when talking with students about suicide risk, explained Heather Nemour, coordinator of student wellness and school culture for the COE.
What Executive Assistants and Board Presidents Need to Know About the Brown Act
The Role of the School Board in Achieving Equity Through Strategic Budgeting
Thanks for reading our February 2024 newsletter!