A task force that will help combat declining student enrollment rates throughout the state was announced Thursday by Tony Thurmond, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The task force’s goal is to tackle the problems surrounding dropping enrollment by offering recommendations and technical assistance to districts to help offset challenges being faced.
Co-chairs will be Public Policy Institute of California Vice President Lande Ajose, California Federation of Teachers President Jeff Freitas, Association of California School Administrators Executive Director Edgar Zazueta and California Association of School Business Officials CEO Tatiana Davenport.
“I am committed to supporting the needs of all our schools and school districts and while each school and community has its own unique history and conditions, declining enrollment is something that we are facing together,” Thurmond said in a press release.
Thurmond and the co-chairs will focus on data analysis to better understand trends related to the enrollment decline which includes seeing which districts students are leaving from and where they are going.
The task force also plans to investigate birth rates, immigration status and housing costs in the area, specifically urban areas that have previously influenced population fluctuations.
“For many communities, this is not a new challenge, but after two years of a pandemic, the impacts feel amplified and the future seems daunting,” Thurmond said.
Nationwide data from the California Department of Education indicated that decreases in student enrollment have affected public schools throughout the nation, not just in the state.
According to a press release from the California Department of Education, California is a control state meaning that local communities have a bigger role in shaping local spending and program decisions.
Some legislation Thurmond is pursuing includes AB 1614, which would increase the base of funding schools received through the Local Control Funding Formula, as well as SB 830 that would provide an increase in funding for schools based on their enrollment as opposed to their attendance numbers.
These bills are believed to be able to assist districts in accessing immediate resources to help with enrollment issues, according to the press release.
30 comments
(slowly raises hand)
Um, I’ll save the committee some time, commit to mask free in person enrollment and stop with the woke nonsense to focus on education.
100% spot on. As a longtime public school parent about to exit the district, I could not agree more.
Perhaps the public school system could concentrate on teaching basic skills instead of indoctrination of woke ideologies.
Yessssssss!
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The CA Department of Education needs to adjust its base budget based on enrollment forecasts rather than seeking a “bailout” strategy for hard and soft costs.
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I counted no less than five bond measures on our property tax bill. To what end?
We certainly cannot keep doing “business” in the same way or playing with distributions/allocations in maintaining the current numbers.
ADJUST AND ADAPT!!!!
In this article, declining enrollment is automatically assumed to be a problem and a challenge but without explanation. It is an assumption. Perhaps they could say why declining enrollment is a problem. Clearly this was a much better state 10 million residents ago, a time without overstretched water and electrical resources and wildfires and tent cities and traffic congestion and sky-high house prices. Already completed studies blame the declining public school enrollment on the move to private schools, home schooling, and long-time residents fleeing the problems of California. Most likely this task force will come to the predictable conclusion that we need more illegal immigration because that’s their agenda, which dovetails with their shockingly racist beliefs that it will also keep lettuce prices down and create easily led Democrat voters.
I take it they will be issuing free gift cards………..
The school board is fighting to get more funding as always. They’ll say, with more money we’ll fix the problem.
They screw up the schools with garbage being taught and wonder why enrollment is down. Then some poor parents have to pay big money at private schools or home school. There are so many things going wrong in our country right now it is hard to keep up. I really don’t have the confidence in voters to correct it.
Not sure what they think they will find. Maybe this will help, my kid has 12 close friends in school, now only 2.
5 left the state and 5 went to private schools.
But in the end MDUSD lost 10 families.
It really doesn’t matter what the study will show or what the problem might be. Their solution will always remain the same. “We need more money”.
We need school vouchers more than ever. Teachers are not teaching useful life skill but rather pushing garbage woke propaganda. Parents are voting with their feet and getting their kids out of leftist reeducation camps disguised as schools before it’s too late.
A task force is needed for this? Sounds like a giant waste of money and therefore exactly something the state would do.
Anyone paying attention understands why people are leaving the state in droves and that most parents want public schools to focus on teaching basic skills, not indoctrinating kids with their woke ideology.
The schools have always wanted something like SB 830. They want to be paid based on enrollment, not on the number of kids who actually show up.
If funding is based on enrollment, the schools will do absolutely nothing to ensure the kids actually show up.
This is what they always wanted.
… overhaul MDUSD to start … charter and private schools are the only way Cali kids will get a real not dumbed down education
Generally I agree with you but Clayton Valley Charter is a disaster. The amount if corruotion amongst the first director and the worship of sports there puts a stain on the charter movement being the savior if education.
Charters can be good but they can also be just parasites. The benefit is that they aren’t forever when they are horrible – they can get shut down at some point.
And look at Eagle Peak- they are still mandating masks, for crying out loud! Apparently, charters in the Bay Area are crap too! Private schools, all the way.
Private school, online classes and homeschooling, unless they moved out of state.
My theory is people are leaving CA for better education.
Haha – if they can’t figure out why enrollment is declining, then they’re too stupid to be employed in education.
I think Tony Thurmond Thermond should give up his job to Marshall Tuck and there will still be a chance to save California public schools.
The solution is simple.
Make schools learning centers.
Not indoctrination centers.
Stop having woke strategies in schools. The idea of school not wanting to suspend a kid or enforce schools rules because they don’t want to upset the kids need to change. Guns, drugs and increase of violence is occurring on these campuses all while admin is to afraid to upset the student and or parents. You parents can’t have it both ways. The other issue are these school board members who are protecting their friends job that are responsible for corruption with in the district. People need to start going to jail when funds go unaccounted for. This is happening in several Bay Area school districts. Start here and change will happen.
How about remembering that the parents and their kids are customers and should be treated as such. The feeling I get from far too many administrators and teachers is that they are in charge of your family and you are there for their benefit. It’s the exact opposite. You change that attitude in education and you wouldn’t have the mass dis-enrollment. Mandate that educators and admin must call or write back parents within 48 hours or be docked pay and more families would stick around. Instead now, it seems among far too many, that there is no accountability to anyone. Last point, I’ve seen this attitude in both private and public schools. Many teachers and admin are great but the ranks of those that are not is climbing.
Four “co-chairs” for a task force that is supposed to figure out a way to “combat declining public school enrollment.”
Four co-chairs?????? Wtf????
I can guarantee that NOTHING of substance will be accomplished by this “task force.”
Just another useless bureaucracy that’ll pretend to be doing something.
I see there are no parent organizations invited to participate on the task force. Seems like that would be the first place to start.
Yep, makes you wonder how much; if any, effort was made to contact the departed family parents to ask why they left.
One of my flies tells me that many of the families that bailed on MDUSD went back to Mexico during the covid shut down and didn’t return.
We must remember that Thurmond is a lifetime politician; never an educator. Questioning his motives is always a good idea.
1. Families can’t afford to live here.
2. The schools shut down for so long people gave up on the system.
3. They mask forever and people are rightly outraged at that.
4. Due to the 2 and 3, it’s now obvious to more people that the schools are really serving to benefit their employees first, students somewhere way down the list.
5. Woke lunacy. I would like to think this is a big reason for lots of families, but I suspect 1-4 are more important as factors.
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