Headlines
FCMAT provides links to California TK-12 news stories as a service to the industry. Some stories may require a newspaper subscription.
May 06, 2026
Layoffs consist of the full-time equivalent of 12.8 certificated positions (including 10.8 teaching jobs), 21.6 classified jobs and 4.6 vacant classified posts. The reductions will save the district an estimated $3.25 million annually in employee salaries and benefits.
May 05, 2026
An anonymous Facebook post claimed that students in the Paso Robles school district were “found drugged in the bathrooms” — but the school district said the allegation is untrue.
May 06, 2026
The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education on Thursday, May 7, is scheduled to vote on more than 280 layoffs as part of an ongoing budget reduction process.
May 06, 2026
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating the Los Angeles school district for allegedly reassigning — rather than removing — teachers who have been accused of sexual misconduct, including those who have had “romantic relationships” with students.
May 06, 2026
When Tania Rivera’s son with autism ran out of school and into the street, no one noticed he was gone. Not the teacher or any school official. Rivera said she found out from another parent who saw him.
May 05, 2026
District administrators, including Abbasi, Superintendent Monica Anzo and former Superintendent Jim Koenig first presented the idea to the Board of Trustees in June 2023. The project is estimated to cost approximately $8 million, utilizing money from the District’s general funds, construction funds and a music and arts block grant.
May 05, 2026
It may come as a surprise to Californians who know the state has consistently ranked low in how much it spends on students compared to other states: California’s ranking has soared to the 13th-highest in the nation for how much it funds education per student.
May 04, 2026
Declining enrollment, standardized test scores and campus safety were the topics of conversation April 30 as the three candidates for Ventura County Superintendent of Schools engaged in their first debate. Incumbent César Morales, appointed in 2021 and elected for his first full term in 2022, faced off educator Maggie Marschner and school board member Karen Sher.
May 04, 2026
Tuolumne County voters will decide in the June 2 primary election between sticking with incumbent Superintendent of Schools Zack Abernathy for the next four years, or going in a different direction with challenger Gabe Wingo, marking only the second competitive bid for the county’s top education position in recent memory.
May 04, 2026
Sausalito Marin City School District teachers are seeking answers after a draft document surfaced offering the superintendent a new contract in exchange for dropping allegations of a hostile work environment.
May 04, 2026
Criminal charges filed against a teaching assistant at Sunset Elementary School accused of molesting a 4-year-old girl on the campus were dismissed Thursday due to insufficient evidence, officials said.
May 04, 2026
Milpitas Unified School District (MUSD) last month celebrated the groundbreaking for the final phase of its Innovation Campus.
May 01, 2026
Voters in La Verne and San Dimas will decide on Measure A, which would add $59 per $100,000 of assessed value of properties to tax bills. For the bond to pass, 55% of voters would have to be in favor.
May 01, 2026
A water polo coach with the Redlands Unified School District who is suspected of sexual crimes with a 15-year-old student was arrested Wednesday, April 29, Redlands police and school district officials said.
May 01, 2026
A 26-year-old school employee has been arrested on suspicion of child molestation and possession of child pornography, the Bakersfield Police Department reported Thursday.
May 01, 2026
The Napa Valley Unified School District isn’t seeing the rapid pace of enrollment drop-off it saw in prior years, and a recent report predicts those declines will continue at a slower pace.
May 01, 2026
A Napa County judge this week rejected claims the Napa Valley Unified School District made in a 2024 lawsuit that sought to effectively close a downtown Napa charter school.
May 01, 2026
Longtime Sacramento City Unified School District employee Cancy McArn was named the district’s permanent superintendent following a unanimous vote Thursday evening.
May 01, 2026
The Los Angeles Unified School District has agreed to pay $30.5 million to 19 more students who said they were victims of Mark Berndt, a convicted serial child molester, bringing the amount the district has paid out in connection with his crimes to more than $200 million, attorneys said Thursday.
May 01, 2026
San Francisco schools will revamp its loathed student assignment lottery system and consider closures by fall 2030 under a new plan to address two of the district’s most contentious issues.
Apr 30, 2026
They said 13 of the victims were students at Santa Paula Unified School District’s McKevett Elementary School, where Braff worked as a counselor from 2015 through 2019. He resigned seven months after the district placed him on paid administrative leave, according to previous reporting.
Apr 30, 2026
Del Norte Water Company, founded over a century ago, has provided the Mesa Union School District with water since its campus was built in 1939, officials said. While the school was not within Del Norte's service area, it reportedly started providing water to the campus on an emergency basis and later continued to do so.
Apr 30, 2026
Valladares, 41, was arrested in March after an investigation by the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. He allegedly entered an office on campus, got the PTA checkbook from a safe and wrote a check to himself for $7,000, sheriff’s Lt. Brennan Collins said.
Apr 30, 2026
To offset the rising costs, the program has been infused with new funds, including additional tax revenue — pending final approval of an expenditure plan — and some buy-in from schools to help maintain the service.
Apr 30, 2026
Voters in La Verne and San Dimas will decide on Measure A, which would add $59 per $100,000 of assessed value of properties to tax bills. For the bond to pass, 55% of voters would have to be in favor.
Apr 30, 2026
Valley of the Moon Teachers Association members have approved a tentative contract agreement with Sonoma Valley Unified School District that would provide certificated employees with a salary increase of 1%, retroactive to July 1, 2025, and an additional 1% increase, retroactive to Jan. 1.
Apr 30, 2026
The Central Unified school board voted Tuesday to oppose the Southeast Development Area (SEDA) plan backed by Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, making it the school district in the area to take a public stance on the mega-development plan.
Apr 30, 2026
The Little Lake school district in southeast Los Angeles County and its teachers union reached a tentative agreement Monday night, ending one of the longest teacher strikes in state history after its 200-member union walked out over significant issues straining districts throughout California.
Apr 30, 2026
Nearly two years after California voters approved billions of dollars in bond money to repair aging schools, demand has outstripped the available funds.
Apr 30, 2026
Education is not a central issue in California’s crowded governor’s race, but the candidates addressing it offer sharply different visions, from expanding school funding and free college, to stricter teacher accountability and restrictions on transgender students in sports.
Apr 29, 2026
Monterey County Office of Education breaks ground on a $42 million conference center on April 28, 2026, in Salinas, Calif. The state-of-the-art center will replace aging portables and be a hub for professional development and house preschool and migrant services.
Apr 29, 2026
Tehachapi school officials face legal accusations they failed to properly screen or duly report the misdeeds of a physical education teacher who has been criminally charged with sexually inappropriate activity with several of his students.
Apr 27, 2026
A Westlake High School teacher is suing Conejo Valley Unified School District, alleging she was placed on leave after raising concerns about how the administration handled students’ reports of sexual assault.
Apr 29, 2026
In the wake of a deadly shooting at Natomas High school in mid April, parents, students and local officials in the North Sacramento community are mourning the death of a Black teenage boy and looking for solutions surrounding campus safety.
Apr 29, 2026
Sacramento City Unified School District’s sustainability manager is pushing to make electric buses 80% of the district’s fleet within five years — a goal she says will save money and cut emissions.
Apr 29, 2026
Dozens of Oakland school principals, warning of dire conditions in classrooms, urged district leaders this week to stop stalling and do what has to be done: Close schools and pick a permanent superintendent.
Apr 29, 2026
Student enrollment in the Clovis Unified School District has reached a record high, making it the 11th largest school district in California, according to enrollment data released by the California Department of Education.
Apr 29, 2026
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to shift control of the Department of Education from the state superintendent of public instruction to a new education commissioner under future governors’ authority passed its first test in the Legislature last week — but probably not the way Newsom expected.
Apr 28, 2026
For the first time in 20 years, the San Francisco Unified School District will update its history and social-studies textbooks for elementary and high school students.
Apr 28, 2026
Just a few months after California overhauled the way it teaches children to read, a new bill takes on math education — and may be just as controversial.
Apr 28, 2026
Administrators at an affluent Marin County high school district appear to have twice recently violated a state law that protects the First Amendment and free press rights of student journalists at an award-winning newspaper, the Redwood Bark.
Apr 28, 2026
A draft of the 2026-27 Local Control and Accountability Plan will be the focus of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees during its study session on Tuesday, April 28.
Apr 27, 2026
The Little Lake City School District governing board on Sunday unanimously approved Monica Johnson as the district’s interim superintendent, just days after the district’s top administrator announced his retirement amid a teachers strike now heading into its third week.
Apr 27, 2026
That process comes as the district faces serious enrollment declines, rising costs, economic uncertainty and a $30 million structural deficit that have already led to staff cuts and stark warnings from the Los Angeles County Office of Education, an oversight agency.
Apr 27, 2026
The San Francisco Board of Education on Tuesday will vote whether or not to approve Superintendent Maria Su’s proposed effort to overhaul classroom instruction and replace outdated curricula with learning materials that reflect more recent 21st century developments.
Apr 27, 2026
Meanwhile, members of SEIU Local 99 will start voting today through early May. That union represents bus drivers, cafeteria workers, classroom aides and other school support staff. The tentative deal promises to bring their 30,000 members a 24% pay increase and expanded healthcare access.
Apr 27, 2026
Union officials said the contract includes a 12.15% wage increase over two years, “along with landmark workload protections, including a defined 8-hour workday, a reasonable 40-hour workweek, and flex time with notice and no pre-approval.”
Apr 27, 2026
On the California Department of Justice’s website, which is designed to help families know their rights, schools reported 2,700 incidents of sexual assault, 17,000 allegations of sexual harassment and 350 incidents of rape or attempted rape in a single academic year.
Apr 27, 2026
Despite protections in a 1977 landmark state law, the Student Free Expression Act, which prohibits administrators from interfering with the gathering and publication of news, student reporters and their journalism advisers have encountered censorship attempts in recent years, including efforts to punish advisers for students’ stories and to remove content.
Apr 27, 2026
Administrators at an affluent Marin County high school district appear to have twice recently violated a state law that protects the First Amendment and free press rights of student journalists at an award-winning newspaper, the Redwood Bark.
Apr 27, 2026
The Fresno Unified school board approved an $80,000 expenditure to renew its board leadership coaching contract for the next two years.
Apr 27, 2026
Sacramento City Unified School District’s former Chief Business Officer Janea Marking alleges in documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee that the board of trustees knowingly approved an “unaffordable” teachers union contract despite repeated warnings about its fiscal consequences.
Apr 27, 2026
As concerns loom for school funding amid an uncertain state budget, the candidates also debated how education is funded now — and how it should be.
Apr 24, 2026
But the new, positive budget certification that came in the wake of the latest round of deep job cuts, sweeping program changes and loss of key student support services was met with a show of force and sharp criticism from the district’s teachers and other unionized school staff.
Increasingly organized groups of parents advocating for an immediate return to class are emerging as a potent political counterweight to teachers unions.
The teachers union in Sacramento City Unified School District released its framework for reopening for in-person learning on Tuesday, and the plan prioritizes offering the COVID-19 vaccine to all of its 4,500 district employees.
Experts have found that remote instruction falls far short of classroom learning. But surveys have shown that a majority of Black and Latino parents in Los Angeles are still hesitant about sending their children back into schools.
Some teachers are reluctant to return to classroom settings as Orange County students resume at least some in-person learning. So substitute teachers might be in demand more than ever before.
Santa Clara County schools have the green light starting Wednesday to usher in a phased return to real face-to-face lessons. But the vast majority are opting instead to stay the course through the rest of the semester.
At Lucerne Valley Elementary in Southern California’s high desert, hundreds of students have returned to in-person learning and a dramatically different school day.
Pleasanton is the latest city to take a hard look at the role of police in the community and schools — and how to respond to mental health calls. The city agreed to revise its police use of force policies and possibly remove school resource officers.
Rescue Union School District, home to 3,700 students at its five elementary schools and two middle schools, is able to open since the county has remained off of the state’s monitoring list and complied with the long list of requirements to reopen.
Masks will be required at every level. In elementary schools, half of students will end their day at lunchtime, before the other half arrives. Middle and high school kids will trade off and spend two days a week on campus.
At the June 23 Oceanside Unified School Board meeting, Trustee Mike Blessing asked staff to present an option for “100 percent return” in the fall, District Communications Director Matthew Jennings said.