Santa Clara County Education Digest

Hoping to revive the city's languishing effort to rebuild Cubberley Community Center, Palo Alto City Manager Ed Shikada is proposing a 55-year lease with the school district that would give the city more land for redevelopment.

With the growing use of AI, campus officials are trying to set clear guidelines for college application essays.

The Milpitas Unified School District Innovation Campus has opened the first phase of a project designed to provide business development and hands-on learning opportunities to students of all ages.

By July of next year, it will be illegal for public schools in California to suspend students for low-level behavior issues after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation banning “willful defiance” suspensions among TK through 12th grade.

Residents within the Los Altos School District boundary area may have already received a ballot in the mail for the Nov. 7 special election, which includes only one item – the Measure A parcel tax. If Measure A is adopted, the current parcel tax benefiting LASD, set to expire in 2025, would be renewed at $295 per parcel, a $72 increase from the current rate of $223.

The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) is using a property tax windfall to plug a budget hole and fund teacher and other staffing positions.

As Santa Clara County prepares to approve new policies for Stanford University's growth, Palo Alto and the university are at loggerheads over a key question: Can the university's campus accommodate most of its future housing needs?

Seeking to hang on to a valuable and secure source of funding for school services, the Mountain View Whisman School District plans to pursue a ballot measure to replace its expiring $191 parcel tax.

Eliminating honors classes in ninth grade isn’t hurting high achievers, and it may be helping other students to succeed at college-acceptance-level courses, a Sequoia Union High School District report has found.

East Side Union High School District Superintendent Glenn Vander Zee has agreed to establish a school safety task force comprised of teachers, administrators, parents, students and board members to identify ways to make campuses safer districtwide.

Student workers at the 23-campus system say their pay is low, their hours are restricted and they get no sick pay. They are hoping to join the employees union to fix that.

A member of the elected Sequoia Healthcare District apologized to his fellow board members for sending an email to the Sequoia High School District that may have looked like a threat to cut funding to the school district.

The District’s CAASPP (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress) test scores have taken a dip in mathematics. The district investigated the costs of maintaining its campuses and sites, predicting that there will be about $30.4 million in facilities expenditures over the next two years.

Supporters of a censured Franklin-McKinley School District trustee showed up in force at a board meeting, but some say they are outsiders pushing an agenda. Informed Parents of Silicon Valley members spoke out at the school board meeting.

To qualify for financial aid, students must maintain a certain grade-point-average, but many don’t. A bill on Gov. Newsom’s desk would make it easier for students to keep their aid and stay in college.

The jackpot, which has been growing for more than two months, now stands at an estimated $785 million for Monday night's draw. There have been 28 consecutive drawings without a top-prize winner.

After a historic decline in community college enrollment during the pandemic, students are returning to school again, according to the state’s most recent data. But students between the ages of 20 and 30 are lagging behind.

The tuition increases were forecast earlier this year, when a Cal State task force concluded the system needs at least $1.5 billion annually in new revenue to afford student services and bolster its academic offerings.

Despite pushback from students, teachers and others, the California State University system will see tuition hikes.

The Mountain View City Council voted to terminate an agreement for the joint operation of campus fields, while also giving the school board a one-time chance to accept terms to create a new agreement.

The Palo Alto Unified School District is moving to adopt an ethnic studies graduation requirement starting with the Class of 2029.

After numerous trespassers assaulted students and staff at an East San Jose high school, outraged teachers and parents are demanding immediate security changes. Two separate, life-threatening incidents have rocked James Lick High School in the East Side Union High School District.

Eight community colleges in California are testing out a new education model, one that defines success by the skills a student learns, not the time they spend in a classroom. But changing the traditional education system isn’t easy.

The plan, if approved, would begin at UCLA, with other campuses added later. But not everyone is on board with the latest version of this bill.

In a sign of further fraying relations, the city is considering terminating a more than six-decade agreement with the Mountain View Whisman School District for the joint operation of campus fields.

Bellarmine College Preparatory, a prestigious private Catholic boys high school in San Jose, is planning for several updates to facilities and expansions on its campus.

The Mountain View Whisman school board voted to fence off portions of Monta Loma Elementary School, but not without disagreements among board members about the three-year process that led them there.

Nanci Kauffman resigned as head of Castilleja School, concluding a 13-year term that was in many ways defined by the school's contentious plan to redevelop its Bryant Street campus.

Nearly a third of K-12 students statewide were chronically absent in 2020-21, more than three times the pre-pandemic rate. Some school officials fear that pattern is becoming the new normal.

A June budget deal required community colleges to raise their own money to build affordable student housing. Some campuses said that plan prevented them from building the dorms, even with help from the state to pay the debt.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks proposed legislation to help get around a court's rejection of a UC Berkeley housing plan. But even if the law is approved, its fate is in the hands of the state Supreme Court.

The federal student loan payment pause is coming to an end. Here’s how to get ready to make payments again.