Headlines

​Modesto City Schools’ Board of Education voted 5 to 2 to approve a plan to lay off 75 district employees as part of an estimated $10.6 million budget reduction. Around 36 classified employees are expected to be laid off at the end of the current school year, down from the 54 that was originally proposed. In addition, layoffs are to include 22 certificated staff and 17 management positions.

Affected employees will include teachers, paraprofessionals, MTSS (Multi-tiered System of Support) site coaches, campus supervisors, student support administrators, school support managers and school secretaries.

​​The fear rippling through undocumented communities has only intensified since Trump’s victory. The former president campaigned on the promise of mass deportations, and on Monday confirmed he plans to use the U.S. military to assist in immigration enforcement.​

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is nominating Linda McMahon, a billionaire professional wrestling mogul and small-business champion with minimal schools experience, as secretary of Education.

Trump, in his announcement, touted McMahon’s “decades of leadership experience” and said she would work for what he called parents’ rights, including the ability to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to allow children to attend any school, public or private.

A California law that required school districts to test drinking water for lead failed to include provisions that would’ve provided an accurate representation of lead presence in schools.

The law exempted thousands of private and charter schools on private property from testing for lead levels. Not every faucet or drinking fountain was required to be tested. And schools that were built after 2010 were also not required to test lead levels.

Education has never been a top priority of President-elect Donald Trump’s, but that doesn’t mean schools — or students — will be immune from Trump’s agenda in the next four years, education experts say.

Trump may slash school funding, cut civil rights protections and gut the U.S. Department of Education, based on his previous statements and the visions outlined in the Republican platform and Project 2025, a conservative manifesto reimagining the federal government.

But students may experience the most devastating effects. Trump has threatened mass deportations of undocumented residents and crackdowns on LGBTQ rights, which could lead to higher absenteeism, higher rates of bullying and greater anxiety generally on school campuses.

​​A Bay Area school district has settled a lawsuit claiming that Black students and English learners were denied a proper education and were disproportionately suspended, expelled or funneled into special education classrooms offering poor instruction.​ 

California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond vowed on Friday to fight President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, which he said represented a “clear threat to what our students need to have a good education and a great life.”

The U.S. has many places to see fossils, but no one ever thinks of looking under a school in California. When construction began at San Pedro High School in Los Angeles in 2022, no one expected to uncover one of California's most significant paleontological discoveries.