“We saw during the pandemic the crucial role that county boards and superintendents play, but that service is not limited to times of crisis,” CSBA President Dr. Susan Heredia said during her address to the CCBE General Membership meeting on Sept. 10, capturing a theme present early and often throughout the three-day event. “The spirit of collaboration between county offices and local districts that grew during the pandemic must persist as we address learning recovery, equitable education, student mental health, staffing shortages and the myriad other challenges we face.”
One of the highlights of the conference was the Fiscal and Economic Forecast panel with California Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), who chairs the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Education, and California Department of Finance Budget Manager for Education Systems Christopher Ferguson. The panelists praised several positives from the 2022–23 budget — one of the stronger enacted budgets in recent memory. While highlighting a number of policy areas where CSBA led the legislative push — such as home-to-school transportation, increased base funding, attendance relief to counter the impact of the pandemic, additional support for school nutrition programs, and increased resources for facilities expansion and renovation to accommodate universal transitional kindergarten — panelists also acknowledged some of the challenges ahead.
Ferguson pointed out that California ended the 2021–22 fiscal year down $2.5 billion from initial projections and started the first months of the current year down $1 billion from projections. If that holds, it will result in a $12 billion negative impact on the Proposition 98 guarantee for fiscal 2022–23. “We’re not going to have a budget this year like we did the last two years,” Laird said. Laird, who was also presented with CCBE’s Outstanding Legislator of the Year award for 2021 during the Sept. 10 luncheon, is the author of a 2022 CSBA-sponsored election legislation, Senate Bill 1061. The bill aims to preserve funds for school districts by making it easier to combine a special election (when needed) with another state or local election.
Mental health issues also featured heavily throughout the three-day conference. A Sept. 10 panel, California’s Student Mental Health Crisis, examined a number of tools, best practices and actions for county boards of education, while staff from San Diego COE’s Student Wellness & School Culture Department dove into the department’s model and several evolving strategies that promote collective well-being.
The Sept. 11 keynote panel comprised Elizabeth Estes, executive director of the California Institute on Law, Neuroscience, and Education; Katherine Lucero, California Office of Youth and Community Restoration director; Toby Ewing, California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission executive director; and Jason Okonofua, a professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley. The discussion focused extensively on mental health — including the role of county offices of education in implementing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative.