Category Archives: Education and Training

Education and Training

Teachers nationwide show strong support for mental health, SEL focus to improve school safety

22 Aug
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African-American teacher
As the nation’s schools begin a new academic year, a survey finds that most teachers say the majority of their students do not feel very safe at school. And to have the biggest impact on improving school safety, educators surveyed by the Education Week Research Center said none of their top three choices include “hardening” measures such as security cameras or police officers. Instead, all three focus on students’ social-emotional well-being and mental health. Education Week’s 2019 Safety and Social-Emotional...

Leaders dive deep into equitably expanding computer science offerings

19 Jun
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Faced with stark data showing 61 percent of California’s high schools don’t offer any computer science courses, district and county office administrators attended a June 18 workshop aimed to help them equitably implement such classes. Ensuring access and inclusion for all students and teachers was key to the 2019 Summer of CS program hosted at the Sacramento County Office of Education, which also included a policy luncheon featuring an array of speakers representing industry, the Legislature and students. This annual...

Enthusiastic Capitol crowd calls for Full and Fair Funding of California’s public schools

23 May
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From Humboldt County, Monterey, San Diego and beyond, school leaders converged on Sacramento by the busload on May 22 to make their voices heard and to fight for Full and Fair Funding of California’s public schools. About 200 school board members took that fight to the steps of the State Capitol, where they joined thousands including CSBA staff, the California Teachers Association and other education partners in an afternoon Day of Action Rally for Education. Whether teacher, administrator, school employee,...

State Board clarifies, adopts health education guidance before large crowd

9 May
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After nearly 200 people spoke on the contentious issue at its May 8 meeting, the California State Board of Education unanimously approved the 2019 Health Education Curriculum Framework for California Public Schools. The 741-page document provides guidance for teachers and administrators on how to teach the state’s 2008 Health Education Content Standards. Many parents and grandparents expressed concerns about exposing young children to sexually explicit images and information found in several of the resources listed in the draft framework, which...

CSBA’s first Equity Network concludes with deep conversations, action plans

7 May
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Returning to their districts with a lens focused on equity and action plans in hand, a group of 20 school board members from across California completed their CSBA Equity Network experience on April 26–27 in West Sacramento. The two days of deep reflection and discussion on critical public education equity issues capped a series of in-person and online sessions dating back to August 2018. CSBA’s inaugural Equity Network was funded through generous planning and implementation grants from the Stuart Foundation....

California’s teaching force continues to grow but can’t keep pace with demand

26 Apr
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African-American teacher
State also sees slight drop in percentage of fully credentialed educators California’s slow but steady stretch of issuing more teacher credentials continued in fiscal year 2017–18, according to a new Commission on Teacher Credentialing report. Prospects may also appear slightly brighter for districts struggling to fill positions, as about 2,500 more teacher candidates enrolled in preparation programs in 2016–17 than in 2015–16. Despite the continued growth and outlook, the report found an estimated slight decrease (from 96 percent to 95.7...

Report finds increased funding and access but low standards for California pre-K programs

19 Apr
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California increased its early childhood education funding and enrollment in 2017–18, but fell below the national average for meeting minimum quality standards, according to “The State of Preschool 2018” annual report from the National Institute for Early Education Research. The pre-K programs — composed of the State Preschool Program, Transitional Kindergarten, Head Start and special education — enrolled 242,297 children in 2017–18. More than 15 percent of all U.S. children in state-funded early education programs are in California, the research...

Record number of board members advocate for education on Legislative Action Day

20 Mar
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More than 260 board members and superintendents representing more than 150 school districts and county offices of education across California met at the Capitol on March 12 to advocate for the state’s K-12 public schools and its more than 6 million students — with Full and Fair Funding a central theme. Opening Legislative Action Day, CSBA President Emma Turner stressed the call for schools to receive more state funding to improve and expand programs, serve all students, and close opportunity...

What districts should know about first run of optional California Spanish Assessment

19 Mar
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A new, optional test will be administered for the first time when the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress testing window opens April 1, 2019. The California Spanish Assessment will be offered to third- through eighth-grade and high school students seeking a measure of their reading, writing, mechanics and listening skills in Spanish. The California Department of Education intends it to be especially useful for the more than 1.2 million students who speak Spanish as their primary language, but...

Report: K-12 cybersecurity incidents, risks growing across the country

14 Feb
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K-12 local educational agencies nationwide experienced both more frequent and more significant cybersecurity incidents in 2018, according to a new report from The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center. Data suggests the incidents did not discriminate by district type, location or size. There were 122 publicly reported K-12 cyber incidents in the U.S. in 2018, or about one incident every three days. A map on the center’s website shows the location of every reported cyber incident since 2016, in addition to a...