Nearly 40 percent of special education teachers and more than 30 percent of school-based nurses and counselors considered leaving their role in the past 12 months, according to a recent survey of 1,000 school employees across the U.S. conducted by Soliant Health, a healthcare staffing provider.
State Board of Education finalizes new assistance criteria and discusses alignment efforts for state support
Following months of discussion, stakeholder meetings and study sessions, the California State Board of Education (SBE) adopted new performance criteria for determining differentiated assistance (DA) eligibility during its July 8 meeting.
California ranks 33rd among states for child well-being
Measures of children’s well-being — including education, health, economic conditions and family and community — at the national and state levels are included in the 2026 Kids Count Data Book published in June by The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Access to summer programming is an issue, California parents say
The Afterschool Alliance in May released the results of its household survey on the kind of programming parents want their children to participate in during summer and common barriers to entry.
New study reflects on the impact of pandemic and culture war issues on school governance
A new report published on June 5 by the Brookings Institution, Local control, national conflict: School boards in the COVID 19 and cultural war era, analyzes what happened during the turbulent first half of this decade.
College readiness, access and value in California
A trio of fact sheets released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) in April give a snapshot of college readiness, access and value in the state.
Small Schools, Big Ideas: Nuview Union SD Beyond the Bell
Nuview Union School District (NUSD) is a small local educational agency in Nuevo, an unincorporated area in Riverside County nestled between the City of Riverside, Palm Springs and Temecula. According to district leaders, NUSD serves about 2,200 students — 90 percent of whom are English learners, foster youth or are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. As the largest employer in Nuevo — a town of under 7,00 people — NUSD’s emphasis on its Beyond the Bell programming is even more valuable, as the district prioritizes hiring from within the community, thereby allowing it to invest back into the community it serves.
CTC approves steps toward system to address teacher misassignments
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) met June 26 and approved recommended staff actions related to teacher misassignment monitoring sanctions — a proposal for a new intervention system of school-level teacher misassignment identification, support and improvement to increase placements of fully credentialed teachers in their relevant credential areas — despite objections from CSBA and other organizations during public comment.
Survey sheds light on the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth at school
Thirty-two percent of respondents to The Trevor Project’s 2025 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People reported experiencing verbal harassment in the past year while at school because people believed they were LGBTQ+.
Research provides recommendations to improve outcomes for youth served in alternative education settings
California’s alternative education system — particularly its Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS) schools — is a vital but often overlooked pathway for historically marginalized and vulnerable students. A recent report from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools analyzes 2022–23 data from 894 DASS schools, representing 150,009 students, to evaluate the effectiveness of these settings.











