EdSource

News Brief Tuesday, August 11, 2026 — 10:51 am August 11, 2026 Voters in Oakland Unified School District will no longer vote to renew a parcel tax, which would have extended current funding for educator raises, middle schools and other services, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond speaks at a Learning Policy Institute event in Sacramento on Feb. 21, 2019. (File photo) Photo: Andrew Reed/EdSource Top Takeaways State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond rejected an appeal by Sacramento City Unified to intervene in the district’s fiscal plan dispute. The Sacramento County Office of Education had rejected a district plan to save money by dipping into retiree health benefits and leaving vacancies unfilled.

News Brief Tuesday, August 11, 2026 — 10:46 am August 11, 2026 As the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign continues and schools prepare to reopen Wednesday, teachers in the Los Angeles Unified are calling for help from local communities to ensure students make it to and from school safely, LAist reported. The teachers also announced two upcoming training sessions, one of which is for employees and another for the community.

News Brief Tuesday, August 11, 2026 — 10:56 am August 11, 2026 Thirty-one state education agencies recently reported a 46% increase in the number of written state complaints for special education, according to K-12 Dive. The self-reported survey responses, collected by the Council for Exceptional Children and the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, included 7,907 written state complaints during the 2024-25 school year.

Top Takeaways More than 60 rising middle and high school students were immersed in math instruction all day for four weeks. The camp, through hands-on activities, taught fundamental math concepts, background knowledge and vocabulary. Happening on a university campus, the camp also exposed students to a higher education institution. In late July at UC Merced, a classroom of middle school students split into teams for a game of Jeopardy.

Robert Breazile 10 hours ago10 hours ago My daughter was improperly assessed at under 4 years old and placed in the ELPAC program before she started TK in the Redlands Unified School District. I answered the home language survey honestly by saying there was a language other than English spoken in the home, but stressed that her primary language was English.

News Brief Monday, August 10, 2026 — 10:40 am August 10, 2026 Students in the Oakland Unified School District are returning to classes with a new cellphone ban in place, KQED reported. In elementary schools, students will place their devices into classroom lockboxes. Middle school and high school students will place their phones in Yondr Pouches, according to KQED.

News Brief Monday, August 10, 2026 — 11:07 am August 10, 2026 Last week, Fresno became the first city in California to reduce school zone speed limits, ABC 30 reported, in an attempt to improve pedestrian safety for students and families getting to and from school, which districts have struggled with in recent years. About 800 speed limit signs have been replaced across the city to reflect the reduction from 25 mph to 20 mph, according to ABC 30.

News Brief Monday, August 10, 2026 — 10:43 am August 10, 2026 San Jose Unified parents say the district isn’t keeping promises it made when it decided to close five elementary schools earlier this year, The Mercury News reported. Among those promises were guaranteed transportation, priority for intradistrict transfer requests and transparency in communication, The Mercury News reported. The consolidations were projected to affect roughly 1,665 students.

Top Takeaways The California Department of Education published reclassification rates of English learners for the first time since 2020-21. School leaders, parents and advocates say the data will help show which schools need more support to help English learners. Experts urged deeper analysis to understand how long English learners have been enrolled in school and whether they are improving over time.