Vernon M. Billy CEO & Executive Director

Dear CSBA Members,

For as long as anyone can remember, students have been tasked with learning the “three Rs” — reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. Yet, the context in which students are expected to master these skills is more challenging than ever. Although we’re through the worst of COVID-19, the cloud from the pandemic still hovers over most aspects of public education. And as school trustees work to facilitate learning recovery and student well-being, they are being tested on their own “three Rs” – resilience, resourcefulness and reinvention.

Fortunately, 2022 offered many examples of school district and county office boards demonstrating the ingenuity required to navigate the end stages of pandemic, address its lingering impact, and confront longstanding issues that predate COVID-19. In the face of a historic crisis, school leaders focused on strengthening schools to meet the challenges of the day and facilitate students’ academic and social-emotional recovery. In every corner of California, schools invested in before- and after-school programs, summer learning, expanded instructional days, high-dose tutoring, academic support, mental health interventions and other critical services.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

architect, inventor and philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller, Your Content Goes Here

It’s clear that as we emerge from the triage stage of the pandemic, California schools are not content to resume business as normal. While the policy work required to reinvent schools may go unnoticed by the general public, it hasn’t escaped our attention at CSBA. To highlight the resourcefulness that district and county boards have demonstrated during a time of great change and uncertainty, CSBA unveiled its 2022 School Boards in Action campaign. The School Boards in Action initiative sought to humanize school trustees, create a better understanding of the work school boards perform, and elevate the steps you’ve taken to support students. The campaign used video storytelling, Q&As, feature articles, blog posts, interviews and advertising to show how trustees have transformed the disruption caused by COVID-19 into an opportunity to strengthen schools, increase services and expand programs for students.

CSBA illustrated how local educational agencies have invested in students with a series of reports analyzing the various ways in which school districts and county offices of education are allocating COVID relief funds. While there have been concerns in the media about LEAs not spending these funds promptly or appropriately, the data in our reports and responses from a CSBA survey of superintendents and school business officials provided a clear rebuke of that assessment. What emerged was a picture of school districts and COEs rising to the challenge under difficult circumstances.

At CSBA, we have tried to match the urgency and creativity we see exhibited by district and county boards throughout the state. In 2022, we flexed our muscles through legislative and legal advocacy, enhanced our member training, expanded our business services offerings and increased our profile in the media and public arenas. A vision years in the making came to fruition when school trustees and superintendents from across California traveled to Washington, D.C., as part of Coast2Coast, the inaugural CSBA and Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) federal advocacy trip. The three-day event offered education leaders a chance to communicate directly with their representatives in the nation’s capital, learn from some of the country’s top policymakers and political experts, and make the case for additional resources, improved policy and new legislation to address pressing issues for California’s K-12 schools.

Back home in California, CSBA advocacy recalized a host of legislative achievements highlighted by a historic agreement to increase home-to-school transportation funding. Because of CSBA’s persistent pressure on this issue, the state will — after 40 years of substandard funding — pay 60 percent of home-to-school transportation costs for all LEAs. That’s double the current average of 30 percent and equal to $637 million dollars in 2022–23, with an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in years to come. As a result, students will benefit not only from a bus ride to school, but also from higher attendance, increased access to instruction and services, reduced traffic, lower pollution and safer transport.

School busing was just one of the marquee items on a long list of 2022 triumphs. The final budget recognized CSBA’s push for additional ongoing revenue to implement the universal school meals mandate with a $612 million allocation. It also included a CSBA-ACSA proposal to help schools grapple with declining enrollment and lower attendance. The COVID-ADA relief plan lets LEAs count attendance data from 2019–20, the last pre-pandemic year, when calculating the three-year average for state funding, saving schools $2.8 billion and creating a softer landing after the pandemic. The COVID-ADA relief was a welcome addition to an even bigger ticket item — a double-digit increase to Local Control Funding Formula base funding. Building the base was a top CSBA priority and the 2022–23 budget raises overall LCFF funding by 13 percent – the largest increase in the program’s history

Although 2022–23 school funding set new records, CSBA’s support for boards extended well beyond the budget process. In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a pair of CSBA-sponsored bills, Assembly Bill 2584 authored by Assemblymember Marc Berman, and Senate Bill 1061 written by Senator John Laird increase transparency and accuracy in special elections, while ensuring that recalls better reflect the will of the public. Together, these measures protect voters, taxpayers and schools, and preserve money for the classroom and student services that would otherwise be diverted toward redundant special elections.

While elections were a closely watched topic in 2022, school staffing shortages and the housing crisis also generated headlines and angst for CSBA members. In response, CSBA collaborated with cityLAB at the University of California, Los Angeles; the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley; the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley; and the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation on Education Workforce Housing in California: Developing the 21st-Century Campus, the definitive report on education workforce housing in the state. We also co-sponsored AB 2295, a bill that addresses two crucial issues — affordable housing and teacher recruitment and retention. Authored by Assemblymember Richard Bloom, AB 2295 allows LEAs to develop affordable housing for staff more quickly and efficiently.

Without question, 2022 was one of CSBA’s most remarkable years. We achieved concrete victories that will support LEAs in the areas of academic achievement, student conditions, funding and finance, and good governance. Yet, even after a successful season of advocacy, we can’t afford to rest on our laurels, and neither can the state. In 2023, CSBA will urge the Legislature and Governor to augment ongoing resources that aid in learning recovery, provide increased mental health supports, address staffing shortages, strengthen cybersecurity and internet infrastructure, pay down employer pension contributions and allocate the resources needed to effectively implement transitional kindergarten.

We accomplished so much together this year and more victories are waiting in 2023 if we continue to exhibit the capacity for resilience, resourcefulness and reinvention that served us so well in 2022.