Seven-year-old Cordelia Costa eagerly awaited her first day at Thomas Kelley Elementary, experiencing a mix of excitement and uncertainty about going back to school.
“I feel a little scared,” she said. “I'm gonna have different people in my class.”
But her anticipation about getting back into the classroom was palpable.
“I might get to see [my friends] at the popsicle meet and greet,” said Costa. “That’s when you meet your teacher.
Similar emotions brew for school staff, administrators and school board members, who anticipate challenges for the coming year and enter the new school year with renewed enthusiasm.
Significantly, seven out of the 13 K-12 districts in Sacramento County are asking for local bond money from voters in November for facilities updates.
CapRadio's education reporter Srishti Prabha connected with the six largest districts in Sacramento County to gather insights into their school board’s plan for the coming year.
Here’s what to know now that the school year has officially kicked off.
San Juan Unified School District
San Juan Unified is the eighth largest district in the state with over 49,000 students across its schools, and started the year on Aug. 15.
School board President Pamela Costa said she’s deeply invested in the San Juan Unified School district, and added that she has a particular affinity for the system as her granddaughter Cordelia Costa and her grandson start school in the district.
“I've been part of the San Juan district for more than 50 years,” she reflects. “From being a student, to a teacher, to a principal, to a director of schools, to the board of education and a parent — and now a grandparent with [grandkids] in San Juan.”
One of the board's primary objectives is the expansion of the district's transitional kindergarten, or TK, program.
"My grandson is going to be in one of those programs,” said Costa. “So, I have a great interest in seeing what is going to benefit him as he goes through his school career.”
Currently, 42 of the district's 48 elementary schools offer a TK program. The board is working to ensure that all schools will have a TK program by the 2025 school year, in line with a 2022 state mandate.
In addition to expanding TK, the board is prioritizing improved teaching practices, including the introduction of a pilot program to lower class sizes in select schools. This initiative aims to gauge the impact of reduced class sizes on student learning.
Six campuses are participating in the program: Encina High School, San Juan High School, Arcade Middle School, Katherine Johnson Middle School, Kingswood K-8 and Starr King K-8.
The district is also planning improvements to special education, the addition of new career and technical pathway programs, and significant facilities upgrades.
“We added a new pathway last year at Mira Loma High School in the area of aviation and that will expand this year,” explained Costa.
To support these goals, the district has recently passed a resolution to put a $950 million bond on the November ballot.
"We are really excited to have the opportunity to take this forward to our voters," said Costa.
However, she acknowledged that the bond would only address a portion of the district's estimated $3 billion in needed repairs.
Looking ahead, Costa predicts that budget challenges will be a significant issue in the coming year. Despite the district's history of fiscal responsibility, she expressed concern about the tough choices that lie ahead.
"We have done an outstanding job of being fiscally solvent, but I think that with diminished funds, we're going to have to make hard decisions about what we're going to cut next year," she said.
Natomas Unified School District
The district started its school year Aug. 8, and Superintendent Robyn Castillo marked the new school year with the opening of a Welcome Center for its 16,400 students and their families.
The Welcome Center, located on Arena Boulevard, aims to be a comprehensive resource hub for families. Castillo described the center as a "one-stop shop" where families can enroll students, access immunization clinics, and connect with various district services, including support for foster and homeless students.
“If they need help with technology, transportation, after-school programs — families can go and receive any of those services and get connected," she explained.
The Welcome Center operates Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., providing a convenient location for families to access essential services.
Despite the excitement around the new center, Castillo acknowledged ongoing challenges, particularly the teacher shortage, which is acutely felt in special education. To address this issue, the district is launching a teacher residency program this year, designed to attract and train special education teachers within Natomas Unified.
"We're actually starting a teacher residency program this year where teachers can be trained in our district and part of their schooling is paid," she said.
The superintendent also identified a significant concern: literacy rates within the district. The number of students not meeting state literacy standards has risen sharply, from 35% in 2020 to 59% in 2023. To combat this, the district is focusing on improving literacy instruction by providing targeted interventions for students who are falling behind.
"First, we want all students to receive strong literacy instruction, but for those who have gaps in their learning, we are training our teachers in research-based interventions to meet those student needs," Castillo said.
To better track student progress, the district has introduced a diagnostic tool called I-Ready, which will be used to assess student learning at multiple points throughout the year. This tool is expected to help teachers identify and address problem areas more effectively.
Although fiscal challenges persist, Castillo expressed confidence that the district’s proactive budgeting will prevent any program cuts this year. Natomas is one of the few districts in the state with a TK program at every school.
Sacramento City Unified School District
The fourteenth largest district in the state is home to 43,000 students, and began Aug. 19th — 10 days earlier than its original start date to avoid a $40 million fine.
But the same early start date contributed to 300 students being turned away on the first day of school. The district said the new schedule combined with a change in internal processes and insufficient documentation from parents was the reason for the backlog.
Jasjit Singh, vice president of the Sacramento City Unified school board, noted that one of the biggest hurdles the district faces is meeting the needs of its diverse student body.
One of the most diverse districts in the region, 72% of its students identify as Hispanic, Black, or Asian. To better support this diverse population, the district has secured a Community Schools state grant aimed at addressing the unique needs of specific school sites.
"The Community Schools agreement is anchored in the desire to build an inclusive learning environment at our schools,” said Singh. “It’s a five-year grant to 18 different schools, and I think a lot of them are some of our schools that struggle more. My own high school, Hiram Johnson, is on that list.”
In addition to its diversity, Sacramento City Unified is also one of the oldest school districts west of the Mississippi River. Recognizing the need to update its aging facilities, the board approved placing a $543 million bond measure on the November ballot. If approved by a 55% majority, this bond would provide the necessary funds to continue making improvements to the district’s campuses.
"If that actually goes through, it would give us additional funding to continue making improvements to our facilities because that's what those bonds are for. And importantly, it would not increase property taxes," Singh explained.
Beyond facilities and diversity, he highlighted the district's efforts to improve relationships with union partners, including the California Teachers Association. Over the past year, the district has focused on strengthening these partnerships to ensure high-quality education through the retention of credentialed teachers.
"We know that in order to give our children a high-quality education, we need to have good, credentialed teachers in our classrooms,” said Singh. “And I think with the relationship we're building with folks, we're definitely on a trajectory to continue improving that.”
The district's special education program is under scrutiny for not complying with state mandates.
“I've seen that the board is moving very quickly and being a lot more responsive to what we can do to actually help a specific child in need,” said Singh. “Improving the special education space has become a very important priority in the district.”
The Black Parallel School Board is leading these efforts, and after their proposal is approved by the board, the district is under a 5-year clock to make the necessary changes.
Crispin, the SCUSD mascot, greets students before the first day of school at John Sloat Elementary School in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
Twin Rivers Unified School District
Right behind Sacramento City Unified, Twin Rivers Unified is the fifteenth largest school district, according to the California Department of Education.
Trustee Basim Elkarra expressed enthusiasm for the new school year, which begins with the opening of the Northlake TK-8 school campus and the newly upgraded Rio Linda High School campus.
"We're one of the older school districts, so we have some more facilities that need updating and modernization,” he said. “And so we are going all out to make sure that every school is modernized.
To address this, Twin Rivers placed Measures J and K on the 2022 ballot, later approved as $120 million and $150 million bonds, respectively, to finance further improvements.
Over the past two years, Twin Rivers has invested more than $100 million in various projects, with an additional $287 million allocated for this school year.
Beyond facilities, the district is also focused on improving graduation rates. Over the past decade, Elkarra said that graduation rates have risen from 75% to 91.8%.
"It's one of the tough districts in the region, and we've worked really hard to close the achievement gap,” he noted. “We have 30% English learners in Twin Rivers.”
As the district moves forward, Elkarra emphasized the importance of engaging parents in the decision-making process. He underscored the district’s efforts to encourage parent participation in various committees, including the bond oversight committee, which plays a key role in how funds are allocated.
"We're trying to think of different innovative ways to make [parents] aware of all the different types of meetings that happen in the district and that they're welcome to participate,” said Elkarra. “We want them to participate. We want their feedback.”
(Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story included data relating to charter schools. The information has been removed pending review.)
Elk Grove Unified School District
Classes began on Aug. 15, 2024, for some of the 63,000 students in Elk Grove Unified School District, the largest district in Northern California.
A significant change this year is the implementation of a state law preventing suspensions for willful defiance. However, Superintendent Chirstopher Hoffman reported that Elk Grove was already ahead of the curve, having taken steps to address disciplinary disparities years before the law was enacted. This follows a 2021 report highlighting the district’s disproportionate suspension rates, also from the Black Parallel School Board, for Black and brown students.
"We've been focused on reducing exclusionary discipline for years and have actually made significant progress,” he said. “We still have gaps and disproportionality within our special needs kids, foster youth, and Black and brown students.”
Since 2018, targeted training for staff has contributed to a decrease in the suspension rate for Black students, which dropped from 14% to 10.7%.
"We all have our implicit biases that we bring to the table.” Hoffman added, “The more we’re individually aware of those things and the more we know about the people that we're engaging with, the better chance we have of coming to a better outcome for everybody.”
In addition to focusing on discipline reform, the district is launching a campaign to tackle chronic absenteeism, a challenge that has persisted since the pandemic. Hoffman acknowledged that getting back to pre-pandemic attendance levels has been difficult.
"The reality is the interactions and the things that happen in the classroom on a daily basis, you can't recreate those," he said.
For the 2022-2023 school year, 23% of Elk Grove’s students were chronically absent, a statistic the district is determined to improve.
Beyond these immediate concerns, Elk Grove Unified is uniquely confronting growth, as most districts in the state face a decline in enrollment.
"[The district covers] 320 square miles. [There are] 68 schools today, and we have 60 more schools to build,” said Hoffman.
To address the need for new facilities, Elk Grove Unified is placing a facilities bond on the November ballot. The district’s facility master plan identified a $1.9 billion need, and the bond is for $542 million.
Hoffman said the district is banking on supplemental funding from Proposition 2, a statewide education facilities bond also on the November ballot, which could help bring the district closer to meeting its financial requirements for new schools.
Folsom-Cordova Unified School District
Folsom-Cordova Unified was the first district in the county to start the school year. Its 20,000 thousand students started on August 8, 2024.
In an email, district spokesperson Angela Griffin outlined the district's mission to ensure all students achieve high levels of learning.
Despite efforts, over 70% of Black and brown students in the district are not meeting state math and literacy standards, a statistic that has remained unchanged since the pandemic began.
To address these concerns, Folsom-Cordova Unified, similar to Sacramento City Unified, received a state grant aimed at supporting community schools. This model fosters partnerships between families, local organizations and school staff to address barriers to learning, overall wellness, and graduation rates.
Griffin noted that while the district aims to implement this model across all schools, current funding limits the initiative to six schools over the next five years, supported by $10 million in allocated funds.
Additionally, like several other districts, Folsom-Cordova Unified has placed measures R and S on the November ballot, seeking $144 million from voters. The funds are intended for teacher retention, classroom repairs and safety improvements. Financial constraints have also led the district to reduce its bus routes, cutting 42 stops due to budget limitations.
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