CSBA is striving to find a resolution that will ensure hungry students are fed and that participation in school meal programs continues, while also ensuring LCFF funding and accountability provisions are met.
The report that suspensions are down in California schools is welcome news to educators, students and their families—and a focus on alternative disciplinary strategies is getting the credit. A reduction in the number of actions for willful defiance (called student defiance in the official report) and a shift to programs like restorative justice that promote respect and personal responsibility have helped reduce expulsions by 12.3 percent and suspensions by 14.1 percent during 2012-13, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced last week.
One hundred and sixty governance teams from across the state converged in Sacramento Jan. 16 to tell their stories and comment on the Local Control and Accountability Plan template and Local Control Funding Formula regulations.
Gov. Jerry Brown presented his 2014-15 budget proposal on Thursday, Jan. 9. The governor’s word of the day was prudence. His budget proposal continues a focus on paying down the state wall of debt. That being said, the budget does provide a Proposition 98 level of spending that is more than $6 billion above the enacted 2013-14 level. Total Prop 98 spending comes to $61 billion—this is about $5 billion more than the level of Prop 98 in 2008-09. Under the governor’s proposal, per-pupil funding from all sources comes to $9,194 in Prop 98 funds and $12,833 when all funds are considered, including federal money.
After what Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg called the most intensive Rules Committee hearing during his tenure, the full Senate confirmed Gov. Jerry Brown’s nomination of Sue Burr, Ilene Straus and Nicolosa Sandoval to California’s State Board of Education on Jan. 13.
