October 22, 2018
New resource to inform all stakeholders about school finance issues In an effort to support school leaders in their decision-making roles, the California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO) has prepared a new guide, “School Business and Finance in California: What Every Board Member and Candidate Should Know.” This valuable resource identifies important “must know”…
October 9, 2018
by Melinda Pure, Associate If your Kindergarten classrooms are undersized, lacking restrooms, or otherwise don’t meet Title 5 design requirements, a new state grant program could provide funding for retrofitting or new classroom construction to provide districts with Title 5-compliant Kindergarten classrooms. The program is a matching program that will fund the upgrading (40{310f4324ad65b0a2030a48dd153b38f905c81f5512720fdadc65be8f0797b958} match)…
October 9, 2018
A recent report from Stanford University and Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) concludes that for California’s elementary and secondary schools to reach academic performance goals, the state should expand education into early childhood, prior to kindergarten, and raise overall school spending by 32 percent. The report said that “while public schools in California spent…
October 9, 2018
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has unfunded liabilities of at least $168 billion, meaning it has just more than two-thirds of the funds needed to provide promised pensions — and that’s based on projections of future investment earnings that outside experts see as far too optimistic. Given this grim picture, one would assume…
A local school district’s unique idea to turn schools into teacher housing — an attempt to tackle the region’s dire housing shortage and retain fleeing instructors — is colliding with a massive backlash from neighborhood residents. Teachers in San Jose — and around the country — are struggling with low wages. And fast-rising home prices…
San Diego County’s annual Orchids and Onions competition was celebrated recently and Oceanside Unified School District was a big winner in the Orchid category. Oceanside High School’s new Performing Arts Center was a surprising example of money going to the arts in an inspiring, beautiful, and unique design from the typically cash-strapped public school system….
The Sacramento City USD is even more in the red than previously thought: By 2020, the district will have a structural deficit of $48 million by 2020 if cuts aren’t made, a gap that’s almost $12 million more than announced in June, and $8 million more than the district’s most recent estimates. The district’s previous…
October 9, 2018
Beginning next year, teachers and district personnel assigned to serve students with disabilities (SWD) will be restricted in the use of physical or mechanical restraint and seclusion, under legislation signed by the governor earlier this week. AB 2657 limits the use of seclusion and restraint to only situations where student behavior presents an imminent danger…
As some districts in CA struggle to expand their bilingual programs under a new state law, more than a dozen school districts and county offices of education have received state funding to increase the number of bilingual teachers — an effort that has been hindered by an ongoing teacher shortage. CA’s new law went into…
When CA voters lowered the threshold to pass school bonds nearly two decades ago, they opened the floodgates for $133 billion in taxpayer-funded spending to modernize campuses across the state. Crucial to the passage of Proposition 39 in 2000 was the requirement that citizen oversight committees in each school district would watch every dollar of…