Editor’s Note: This article focusing on emergencies and their impact on education published back in September is part of the “Disaster Days” series and is presented here as part of our year in review edition. Written by Ricardo Cano, the article focused on a CalMatters study of public school closures and their impact on students throughout the state.
Each year, millions of Californians send their children to public K-12 classrooms, assuming that, from around Labor Day to early summer, there will be one given: A school day on a district’s calendar will mean a day of instruction in school. But that fixed point is changing, according to a CalMatters analysis of public school closures.
From massive wildfires to mass shooting threats to dilapidated classrooms, the 21st century is disrupting class at a level that is unprecedented for California’s 6.2 million students. Last year, the state’s public schools closed their doors and sent kids home in what appear to be record numbers, mainly as a result of sweeping natural disasters. It was the third significant spike in four years.
The trend largely tracks the rising frequency and severity of climate-fueled wildfires, with big bumps in 2003 and 2007, the years of San Diego County’s huge Cedar and Witch fires, and then, in recent years, a more sustained but equally dramatic climb with the historic wine country fires and Camp Fire of 2017 and 2018.
Local bonds are the driving force behind school facilities funding in California, as the amount local school districts are able to raise through voter-approved bonds significantly influences how much funding a district receives in state bond funds that mostly rely on matching funds.
Of the remaining 115 school districts in this group, 75 had less than the average per-student amount – about $19,000 per student – in funding from local bonds.
Lawmakers are playing catch-up.
After the 2017 Tubbs Fire in California’s wine country displaced nearly 1,500 students and 250 educators in school systems across Sonoma County, legislators started extending existing school funding protections for districts particularly impacted by wildfire. School funding, which is tied to attendance, was protected for three years in Santa Rosa, and, after the 2018 Camp Fire, in Paradise.
But state and local education officials say more comprehensive solutions — and more assistance — are needed. Suggestions made in interviews with CalMatters include:
- Require schools to make up at least some instructional days lost to emergency closures. Right now, that’s optional, and make-up days cost school districts money. CalMatters’ analysis found that some districts — in the Lake County community of Middletown, for instance — have lost five weeks of school time over the past four years.
- Protect state funding for schools shut down by disasters more uniformly, and for longer periods. Schools affected by wildfires say the impact is far more intense than Californians realize, and lasts longer because fires are more fierce and frequent. Fourteen of the 20 most destructive fires in state history have occurred in the last 12 years. Though the state has extended financial aid to the hardest-hit districts, assistance has been case-by-case, and so far only for up to three years. Paradise’s superintendent, for instance, has already said schools will need a longer grace period to avoid steep cuts to services and programs.
- Get serious about school-based mental health, especially in wildfire country. It isn’t just about funding, though that’s a big part of it, school officials say. Mental health professionals can be hard to find in rural parts of the state, where recent fires have done some of the most damage. Climate-driven crises appear to be happening closer together. And long after schools reopen after a disaster, teachers and students say they continue to struggle for normalcy.
