For Elias Avalos, the pressure became especially heavy during his junior year of high school. Now 17 and a senior, he remembers feeling exhausted and stuck while trying to manage four Advanced Placement classes and the expectations he felt as the son of Salvadoran immigrants.

“I’ve been dealing with feelings of burnout and unbelonging for a while,” Avalos said. When those feelings build, he turns to skateboarding. The hobby, he said, helps him separate from schoolwork and clear his mind.

His experience reflects a broader concern across California. In the 2026 Children Now report card, 94% of Californians ages 14 to 25 reported having mental health concerns in an average month. Stress and anxiety were the most common issues cited.

California Health and Human Services lists crisis hotlines, wellness tools and youth mental health resources on its website. But families and advocates say help remains difficult to obtain. They point to insurance denials, the complexity of navigating mental health systems and the cost of care as barriers that too often keep young people from treatment.

Avalos interns at the RYSE Youth Center in Richmond, where he is part of a youth research team studying what affects teen mental health. He said young people in his community are dealing with neglect, limited coping tools and too few places designed with youth in mind.

“What I learned is that here in Richmond, we don’t have access to a lot of support systems, which leads youth to go down different paths,” he said. Avalos said he knows people who have experienced homelessness, sold drugs to help their families or lost their lives. “It’s a harsh reality that youth in Richmond really do face.”

Kelly Hardy, one of the lead authors of the Children Now report, said the findings show that young people’s mental health needs urgent attention. Services, she said, must be available in places where youth already spend time, including schools and community spaces.

Children Now, an Oakland-based nonprofit, supported a law that took effect in 2024 allowing minors 12 and older to consent to their own mental health treatment or counseling. This year, the organization is backing Senate Bill 363, which would require health insurers to report how often they deny or modify treatment requests. Supporters say the measure is intended to make therapy, counseling and other behavioral health services easier for young people to access.

Hardy said untreated mental health struggles can affect physical health and increase the risk that youth turn to substance use to manage symptoms. The response, she said, should be care and treatment rather than punishment.

Avalos said he never learned how to talk through difficult emotions at home. In some spaces, he did not feel safe opening up, so he learned to keep problems to himself. That is one reason, he said, he has never gone to therapy. Like many Latino youth, he worried that what he told a therapist might be shared with his parents.

“I didn’t want to be a burden to my family and friends with my problems because I didn’t want to add something extra,” he said. “Everyone is going through something. It’s just something I got to get out of myself.”

When relatives ask about his internship, Avalos said he keeps his answers general, focusing on the values he has gained rather than the painful realities he is researching. He said he was raised to observe more than to speak.

Dr. David C. Turner III, an assistant professor of Black life and racial justice at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and a senior adviser at the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, said the mental health struggles of Black and Latino boys cannot be separated from larger systems. He cited structural racism, the overcriminalization of Black children and long-standing problems in education as factors that contribute to poor outcomes.

Turner said harsh discipline and criminalization in schools can push young people away from education and leave them feeling devalued.

“It demonstrates to these young men that they don’t matter, their opinions don’t matter, how they learn doesn’t matter,” he said, adding that school can become a place where young people feel their spirit has been broken.

Turner said children of color are often expected to carry heavy burdens with few support systems. His work includes advocating for legislation that would expand mental health services in schools and efforts to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionately affects Black and Latino students.

In Los Angeles, 16-year-old Bryce Collins is trying to change conditions for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Collins, a high school junior, has worked since October with Students Deserve, an organization focused on ending the school-to-prison pipeline. He is also calling for more school-based spaces that support students’ mental health.

Collins said too many Black youth are dealing with racism, stress and anxiety on their own.

“Being a young Black male lets me know how I have to approach some of these areas,” he said. “I can’t do what everybody else do. I don’t got the privilege. I have to hold myself to a higher standard because that’s not how society views us typically.”

The youngest of seven siblings, Collins said his older brothers helped prepare him for the possibility of racial profiling. Around age 12, he began noticing people who were not Black watching him closely when he entered certain spaces. He believed it was because of his race.

More recently, Collins said, the pressures of being a young Black man, thinking about college and dealing with family responsibilities have added to his stress. Sometimes, he said, the weight of it causes him to shut down.

“My goal is to find better ways to manage my mental health besides going unresponsive to people,” Collins said. “I feel like I should come up with better ways instead of not talking or not letting people know what’s going on in my life.”

Original source: CalMatters

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Ten candidates are competing for the nonpartisan office, which oversees California’s roughly 10,000 public K-12 schools. The next superintendent will take office at a pivotal moment for education, as districts contend with artificial intelligence in classrooms, uncertain state funding, declining enrollment, uneven test scores and other pressures affecting schools from the Inland Empire to the Bay Area.

The future authority of the office is also uncertain. In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed changing California’s education governance structure in a way that would significantly reduce the superintendent’s responsibilities. Under the proposal, more decision-making power would shift to the 11-member State Board of Education, whose members are appointed by the governor, and to a new education commissioner. The superintendent would function more as a public advocate for education policy.

Newsom has said the change would simplify a bureaucracy he has described as cumbersome and difficult to navigate, while improving transparency and accountability. He has also argued it would bring California more in line with how most other states manage education. Candidates for superintendent have sharply criticized the idea, saying it would weaken voters’ influence and concentrate too much power in the governor’s office.

Both Newsom and current Superintendent Tony Thurmond are completing their terms this year.

The race has been notably quiet compared with previous contests for the office, which have often drawn major spending and sharp debates over charter schools. In an April statewide survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, no candidate had more than 10% support, and 32% of voters remained undecided. As of last week, no candidate had raised more than a few hundred thousand dollars.

That is a sharp contrast with the 2018 race between Thurmond and Marshall Tuck, a former charter school executive, which drew more than $50 million in contributions.

This year, one of the biggest surprises has been the alignment of two groups that have historically been on opposite sides of California’s education battles. The California Teachers Association and the California Charter Schools Association both endorsed Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified School District board member who was not widely known outside San Diego before the campaign. Both organizations cited his record on the school board and his support for public education.

The joint endorsement reflects a shift in the politics surrounding the superintendent’s race. For much of the past two decades, charter schools dominated campaigns for the office and helped drive millions of dollars in spending. This year, the issue has received far less attention, likely because charter school enrollment appears to have leveled off and both charter and traditional public schools are facing many of the same challenges.

Another closely watched candidate is Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified School District board in San Bernardino County. Shaw drew statewide attention in 2023 after clashing with Thurmond over privacy rights for transgender students. She has centered her campaign on policies opposing LGBTQ+ protections in schools. In the April poll, Shaw was tied with Barrera.

Other prominent candidates include Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a former chair of the Assembly Education Committee; Josh Newman, a former chair of the Senate Education Committee; Anthony Rendon, a former Assembly speaker and longtime early childhood education program administrator; Nichelle Henderson, a member of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees; and Ainye Long, a teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District.

The state superintendent position is nonpartisan and pays $210,460 a year.

Original source: CalMatters

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Ten candidates are running for the nonpartisan office, including several longtime state lawmakers and local education leaders. The top two vote-getters will move on to the November election.

The race comes at a difficult moment for public education in California. School systems are facing budget uncertainty, declining enrollment, uneven academic performance, questions about artificial intelligence in classrooms and other pressures affecting campuses from San Bernardino and Riverside counties to Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego.

The future of the office itself is also uncertain. In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a major restructuring of California’s education governance system that would reduce the superintendent’s authority. Under his plan, most decision-making power would shift to the governor-appointed State Board of Education and a newly appointed education commissioner, while the superintendent would serve more as a public policy advocate.

Newsom has said the change would make the state’s education bureaucracy more transparent and accountable while bringing California closer to how many other states oversee schools. Candidates in the race have criticized the proposal, arguing it would weaken voters’ role in choosing education leadership and give too much power to the governor’s office.

Newsom and current Superintendent Tony Thurmond are both termed out this year.

Unlike past superintendent campaigns, this year’s contest has been relatively quiet. An April poll showed no candidate with more than 10% support, while 32% of voters remained undecided. As of last week, no candidate had raised more than a few hundred thousand dollars. That is a sharp contrast to the 2018 race between Thurmond and former charter school executive Marshall Tuck, which drew more than $50 million in contributions.

One of the most notable developments this year has been the shared endorsement of Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board member, by both the California Teachers Association and the California Charter Schools Association. The two groups have historically been on opposite sides of some of the most expensive and bitter education campaigns in the state.

Their joint support reflects a shift in the politics surrounding charter schools. For much of the past two decades, charter school policy was a defining issue in superintendent races and a major source of campaign spending. This year, it has drawn far less attention, as charter enrollment appears to have leveled off and traditional public schools and charter schools face many of the same statewide challenges.

Also drawing attention is Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified School District board in San Bernardino County. Shaw became a prominent figure in statewide education politics in 2023 after clashing with Thurmond over policies involving transgender students’ privacy rights. She has centered her campaign on opposition to LGBTQ-related school policies. In the April poll, she was tied with Barrera.

Other leading candidates include Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a former chair of the Assembly Education Committee; Josh Newman, a former chair of the Senate Education Committee; Anthony Rendon, a former Assembly speaker and longtime early education administrator; Nichelle Henderson, a Los Angeles Community College District board member; and Ainye Long, a teacher in San Francisco Unified.

The state superintendent’s job pays $210,460 a year.

Original source: CalMatters

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The controversy began in late April, when members of the Temecula Valley High School water polo team attended a baseball game between swim meets.

While cheering on their classmates, the boys, who had painted the letters B-E-A-R-S on their chests, dropped their pants to reveal school-colored brown and yellow swimwear.

A photo of the moment was posted on the baseball team’s Instagram account with the caption “Our fans > better than yours. GO BEARS,” The Press-Enterprise reported.

The post caught the attention of Temecula Valley Unified School District Board President Dr. Joseph Komrosky and board member Jennifer Wiersma, both part of the board’s conservative majority elected in late 2022.

“Speaking of dress code…are our teams now an ‘OnlyFans’ crew? Hats off to the kids that kept their pants on,” Wiersma wrote in an Instagram story that reposted the image, though with black covering the boys’ swimsuits.

Wiersma later apologized, saying that she hadn’t understood the circumstances of the swimsuit display.

Komrosky took to his own Instagram account, writing that if the water polo players wanted to support the baseball team, they should do so while looking like professionals.

“My concern is that I do not want them to look like they’re in a sexually provocative strip tease, looking like they’re one step close to the Chippendales,” he wrote. “We don’t need that in our school district, in our community.”

While some comments on his post agreed with the sentiment, Instagram user Stephanie Berry pushed back, writing, “If this is the jump, you shouldn’t be around kids. As a parent, it looks like swim boys being silly and supporting friends. I’ll pray for your deviant minds,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Sharon Sardina, whose 17-year-old son was in the photo, said she was furious when she learned about the school board members’ comments. She and her husband, Brian Sardina, are now calling for the two board members to resign.

“It’s flat out sexual harassment no matter how you look at it,” Brian told KTLA’s Chris Wolfe. “What if those were females? This would be a totally different subject as well.”

Sharon said that if a teacher was to talk about a student in the way the board members did, they would be placed on a leave of absence until everything was investigated.

“I think sexualizing these minors is wrong in so many ways,” she told KTLA.

At a May 12 school board meeting, Sharon submitted a public comment calling for the resignations of Wiersma and Komrosky. She urged board members to recognize the seriousness of their remarks and said the incident underscored why many parents in the district feel they cannot trust the board’s leadership.

“For the last two weeks, I have watched son carry the weight of comments made by adults,” she told board members.

In a statement to KTLA about the incident, Komrosky said:

“A few young men from our TVHS Water Polo team were supporting their fellow baseball team and posed in a picture on a parent-sponsored page associated with TVHS. I thought it was inappropriate and that their attire didn’t align with the district’s dress code administrative regulation.  As a result, the site admin spoke with the students, removed the post, and reminded them of our current dress code. That said, in showing their team spirit to other students, I’m sure these are amazing kids and that they didn’t intend to cause harm with this post.  In the end, I would encourage them to “dress for success,” as they will be our future leaders when they leave TVUSD.”

Wiersma also provided KTLA with a statement, saying:

“I support the administration’s decision to remove the photo in question and stand behind our ongoing efforts to ensure all district-affiliated social media platforms remain aligned with TVUSD’s established policies and community standards.”

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For decades those were often the only options. But in recent years, California has expanded opportunities for teachers to get paid training for work at high-need schools, namely through special grants and through programs known as teacher residencies. This fall, the state will launch its first registered apprenticeship program for teachers, which means it gives students a chance to earn a wage and a teaching credential at the same time.

These programs are promising, but they’re set against a troubling backdrop, said Mary Vixie Sandy, the executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, in a state hearing last month. “More teachers are entering the profession, but too many are leaving,” she said, adding that there is a “continued reliance on underprepared personnel, emergency-type permits, and substitutes to fill persistent vacancies.”

In the last academic year, almost 16,000 teachers in the state entered the classroom underprepared, about 5% of the total teacher workforce, according to the most recent report by the commission. It’s a significant increase compared to the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years. Areas in California’s Central Valley, the far north, and rural parts of the state, such as near the Sierra, have some of the highest rates of underprepared teachers.

Being a teacher is burdensome and for many, cost prohibitive, even in areas with a lower cost of living. California requires teachers to get a credential, which can cost over $30,000, in addition to a bachelor’s degree. Students also have to spend at least 600 hours in a classroom, often unpaid. As a result, many teachers carry student debt for years, according to an analysis from the Learning Policy Institute, an education research nonprofit.

While cheaper education and training programs exist, and some teachers in high-need areas are granted temporary permits to work without a full credential, it can take years to pay off the college debt. Starting salaries for teachers are low, often around $63,000 a year. Many new teachers quit, and retention rates are especially low for those who lack the proper credentials.

Nationally, both Democrats and Republicans have supported teacher apprenticeship programs. In his gubernatorial campaign in 2018, Gov. Gavin Newsom promised he’d create 500,000 apprenticeships over the next 10 years, many of them in fields where apprenticeships didn’t exist before, such as teaching. President Donald Trump said he’ll expand apprenticeships, too.

Still, to be recognized as an apprenticeship program by the state, employers and local agencies must go through complicated planning and vetting. The Tulare and Santa Clara county offices of education spent roughly two years setting up the first teacher apprenticeship programs, which will serve just eight students in the first year.

A teacher prep program with ‘divisive’ ideologies

In 2024, the Biden administration awarded the Tulare County Office of Education roughly $18 million to expand and improve teacher training, including designing future residencies and apprenticeships.

The Trump administration abruptly cut that funding last year, saying the grants promoted “ divisive ideologies,” such as diversity, equity and inclusion that no longer fit the U.S. Education Department’s “priorities.” The Hanford Joint Unified School District, about an hour south of Fresno, was one of many school systems affected by the federal cuts. Hanford has about 55,000 people, surrounded on all sides by dairy, nut and fruit farms or manufacturers who support them. Most people in Hanford have never finished college, making it particularly difficult for the district to find qualified teachers.

The district often temporarily waives the education and training requirements for new teachers, in some cases allowing them to take on a classroom alone with no prior experience. These emergency-style waivers or permits are especially common for teachers in math, science and special education.

The federal grant would have provided a pipeline for teacher residents in Hanford. Residents get full training and mentorship before they are in charge of a classroom and, as a result, have significantly higher retention rates than teachers with emergency-style permits or waivers, said Melanie Leung-Gagné, a researcher with the Learning Policy Institute.

Of the teachers who started at the Hanford school district without the proper training during the COVID-19 pandemic, about half have since left, according to local teacher data reviewed by CalMatters.

An easier hire but at what cost

Hanford West High School is a collection of long, single-story concrete buildings near the train tracks, which run north-south through the town. In Luis Garcia’s special education classroom, long chains of colored paper and posters cover his wall — his students recently decorated the classroom to celebrate his Teacher of the Year award.

But Garcia’s excellence is an exception in more ways than one. When he started teaching in 2018, he didn’t have the proper qualifications. For the first few years, such underqualified teachers are often called interns but are treated similarly to regular employees — handling an entire classroom on their own —- complete with a full-time salary. They are expected to simultaneously enroll in a program to gain their teaching license.

“In a pinch it’s much easier to hire an intern but at what cost,” said Brooke Berrios, who oversees some teacher preparation programs at the Tulare County Office of Education, including many at Hanford West High.

In retrospect, Garcia said more robust training, such as the residency or apprenticeship model, would have better prepared him for the job. “It was difficult because I was on my own,” he said while tidying the decorations before class one morning last month. He mentors both residents and interns now and said he can see clear differences in the quality of their training.

Trump cuts put a student’s future in flux

Unlike during Garcia’s internship, resident teachers aren’t responsible for a classroom their first year. Students co-teach with the help of a mentor while enrolled in a teaching preparation or graduate program. Residents receive a stipend of up to $40,000 during their first year of training. The new apprenticeship program will work similarly, at least in its first year. The main difference is that apprentices will also have jobs as substitute teachers, allowing them to earn more money on top of their stipend.

Last spring, Hayden Pulis was finishing his bachelor’s degree and helping coach football at the University of Central Oklahoma when he decided to return home to Hanford and become a teacher. “I didn’t have any teaching experience before,” he said, stepping away from his class and letting his mentor supervise the students. “Personally, I wasn’t ready to take over a classroom.” He applied to join the residency program at Hanford High School, 2 miles on the other side of the railroad tracks from Hanford West High, where Garcia teaches.

But a few weeks later, he learned in a meeting that the money was cut, putting his future in flux. In an average year, the Tulare County Office of Education supports about 20 residents, said Berrios. With the federal grant, the office was planning to serve almost 100 students, including Pulis, in collaboration with other county offices.

For weeks the district scrambled to find a solution for its incoming class. Using other state funds, Berrios said the school district was able to fulfill its commitment to Pulis, though his stipend was reduced to $35,000.

It was a “weight off my chest,” Pulis said. If the program hadn’t come through, he said he’d probably still be coaching football.

An opportunity to build wealth

All told, California has spent roughly $2.1 billion over the past decade to address teacher shortages, often through grants to make credentialing programs cheaper and make the training better. The largest pot of state funding goes toward residency programs, including the stipends.

There’s also the Golden State Teacher Grant, which gives students up to $10,000 toward the cost of their teaching credential. In return, aspiring teachers commit to working in schools, such as Hanford West High or Hanford High, where the students are majority low-income, English learners or foster youth. Pulis used the money to cover much of his tuition. The grant program is set to end this year, unless state lawmakers approve new funding in the upcoming budget.

Starting this summer, the state is launching a new grant that pays student teachers $10,000 for the hundreds of hours of classroom work during their preparation.

For Pulis, just thinking about the impact of these programs on his life makes him emotional. The grants allowed him to get a head start on building wealth, he said, speaking for himself and his wife, who is working as a waitress while in nursing school. In the past year, Pulis got married and moved to California — major expenses that would have been much harder to bear, he said, if not for the Golden State Teacher Grant and the $35,000 residency stipend.

Many of these grants and programs didn’t exist when Garcia was starting as a teacher in 2018. The internship was the only feasible route financially, he said, since other programs required him to study or work without a salary.

Internship programs, such as the one Garcia did, often pay more than more rigorous training programs, such as residencies, though Berrios said she intends to continue bringing those costs down.

Garcia still has about $30,000 in debt from the graduate-level teaching program he enrolled in as an intern. He also has another $50,000 in debt from his bachelor’s degree at Sacramento State.

Still, he said he had no regrets and was proud of his recent Teacher of the Year award. “Am I rich? No. But it’s nice that your colleagues see your hard work and your students praise you.”

When asked if the award came with a cash prize, he laughed and said no. “I’ll gladly take a donation.”

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Since Tuesday, Jan. 27, student-led walkouts to rally against Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity were reported in cities including Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and Ontario.

About 200 students from Poly High School in Riverside walked out of classes Thursday, Jan. 29. Students were seen moving along Central and Victoria avenues outside the campus, holding signs and collectively chanting “ICE out.”

“Stop pretending your racism is patriotism,” one student’s sign read.

Riverside Unified School District spokesperson Andrew Shortall said students returned to class shortly after 11 a.m.

While students take to the streets to voice their opinions, backers of Trump’s immigration policy say the deportations are needed to remove violent criminals who pose a threat to others and to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.

In Rancho Cucamonga, videos posted to TikTok showed students from Etiwanda, Alta Loma and Rancho Cucamonga high schools protesting on the corner of Foothill and Day Creek boulevards on Tuesday, Jan. 27. Some waved flags, another had a cardboard cutout of Trump.

“Three rival schools protested together,” the TikTok post said.

More protests are planned for Friday, Jan. 30, during a “nationwide shutdown” urging activists not to show up for classes, work, and calling for an end to funding immigration enforcement. Protests have erupted in Minneapolis and nationwide, with many calling for for an end to ICE tactics after the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

An action guide put together by Somali and Black student organizations in Minneapolis encourages students to walk out Friday “to protest ICE terror in our communities.”

“While Congress is debating giving ICE even more money, it’s time to take our movement to the next level. ICE has kidnapped our neighbors and classmates; they do not make our communities more safe. We demand ICE out for good,” the guide states. “Students are always at the heart of movements for justice across the world.”

A letter from officials in the Coachella Valley Unified School District encourages parents to speak with their children “about making thoughtful and responsible choices during the school day.”

It was unclear if other Inland school districts had sent similar messages to parents and community members.

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On a breezy July morning in South Seattle, a dozen elementary-aged students ran math relays behind an elementary school.

One by one, they raced to a table, where they scribbled answers to multiplication questions before sprinting back to high-five their teammate. These students are part of a summer program run by the nonprofit School Connect WA, designed to help them catch up on math and literacy skills lost during the pandemic. There are 25 students in the program, and all of them are one to three grades behind.

One 11-year-old boy couldn’t do two-digit subtraction. Thanks to the program and his mother, who has helped him each night, he’s caught up. Now, he says math is challenging, but he likes it.

Other kids haven’t fared so well.

Across the country, schools are scrambling to catch up students in math as post-pandemic test scores reveal the depth of missing skills. On average, students’ math knowledge is about half a school year behind where it should be, according to education analysts.

Children lost ground on reading tests, too, but the math declines were particularly striking. Experts say virtual learning complicated math instruction, making it tricky for teachers to guide students over a screen or spot weaknesses in problem-solving skills. Plus, parents were more likely to read with their children at home than practice math.

The result: Students’ math skills plummeted across the board, exacerbating racial and socioeconomic inequities in math performance. And students aren’t bouncing back as quickly as educators hoped, supercharging worries about how they will fare in high school and whether science, tech and medical fields will be available to them.

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The Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms, is documenting the math crisis facing schools and highlighting progress. Members of the Collaborative are AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times.

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Students had been making incremental progress on national math tests since 1990. But over the past year, fourth and eighth grade math scores slipped to the lowest levels in about 20 years, according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”

“It’s a generation’s worth of progress lost,” said Andrew Ho, a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

At Moultrie Middle School in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Jennifer Matthews has seen the pandemic fallout in her eighth grade classes. Her students have shown indifference to understanding her pre-algebra and Algebra I lessons.

“They don’t allow themselves to process the material. They don’t allow themselves to think, ‘This might take a day to understand or learn,’” she said.

And recently students have been coming to her classes with gaps in their understanding of math concepts. Basic fractions, for instance, continue to stump many of them, she said.

Using federal pandemic relief money, some schools have added tutors or piloted new curriculum approaches in the name of academic recovery. But that money has a looming expiration date: The September 2024 deadline for allocating funds will arrive before many children have caught up.

Like other districts across the country, Jefferson County Schools in Birmingham, Alabama, saw students’ math skills take a nosedive from 2019 to 2021. Leveraging pandemic aid, the district placed math coaches in all of their middle schools.

The coaches help teachers learn new and better ways to teach students. About 1 in 5 public schools in the United States have a math coach, according to federal data. The efforts appear to be paying off: State testing shows math scores have started to inch back up for most of the Jefferson County middle schools.

In Pittsburgh’s school system, which serves a student population that is 53% African American, special education teacher Ebonie Lamb said it’s “emotionally exhausting” to see the inequities between student groups. But she believes those academic gaps can be closed through culturally relevant lessons, and targeting teaching to each student’s skill level.

Lamb said she typically asks students to do a “walk a mile in my shoes” project in which they design shoes and describe their lives. It’s a way she can learn more about them as individuals. Ultimately, those connections help on the academic front. Last year, she and a co-teacher taught math in a small group format that allowed students to master skills at their own pace.

“All students in the class cannot follow the same, scripted curriculum and be on the same problem all the time,” she said.

Adding to the challenge of catching kids up is debate over how math should be taught. Over the years, experts say, the pendulum has swung between procedural learning, such as teaching kids to memorize how to solve problems step-by-step, and conceptual understanding, in which students grasp underlying math relationships.

“Stereotypically, math is that class that people don’t like. … For so many adults, math was taught just as memorization,” said Kevin Dykema, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “When people start to understand what’s going on, in whatever you’re learning but especially in math, you develop a new appreciation for it.”

Teaching math should not be an either-or situation, said Sarah Powell, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who researches math instruction. A shift too far in the conceptual direction, she said, risks alienating students who haven’t mastered the foundational skills.

“We actually do have to teach, and it is less sexy and it’s not as interesting,” she said.

In Spring, Texas, parent Aggie Gambino has often found herself searching YouTube for math videos. Giada, one of her twin 10-year-old daughters, has dyslexia and also struggles with math, especially word problems. Gambino says helping her daughter has proved challenging, given instructional approaches that differ from the way she was taught.

She wishes her daughter’s school would send home information on how students are being taught.

“The more parents understand how they’re being taught,” she said, “the better participant they can be in their child’s learning.”

Even at a nationally recognized magnet school, the lingering impact of the pandemic on students’ math skills is apparent. At the Townview School of Science and Engineering in Dallas, the incoming ninth graders in Lance Barasch’s summer camp course needed to relearn the meaning of words like “term” and “coefficient.”

“Then you can go back to what you’re really trying to teach,” he said.

Barasch wasn’t surprised that the teens were missing some skills after their chaotic middle school years.

The hope is that by taking a step back, students can begin to move forward.

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PHOENIX (AP) — By the time Aaliyah Ibarra started second grade, her family had moved five times in four years in search of stable housing. As she was about to start a new school, her mother, Bridget Ibarra, saw how much it was affecting her education.

At 8 years old, her daughter did not know the alphabet.

“She was in second grade and couldn’t tell me any of the letters. I would point them out and she didn’t know,” Bridget Ibarra said. “She would sing the song in order, but as soon as I mixed them up, she had no idea.”

“I just didn’t know what letters were which,” says Aaliyah, now 9. “I know them now.”

The family’s struggles coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic that forced Aaliyah to begin her school experience online. Unfamiliar with a computer, Aaliyah was regularly kicked out of the virtual classroom, her mother said. Teachers complained she was not looking at the screen and took too many breaks.

Zoom school was especially difficult for Aaliyah because she was homeless — and like thousands of students nationally, her school didn’t know.

Homeless students often fell through the cracks during the tumult of the pandemic, when many schools struggled to keep track of families with unstable housing. Not being identified as homeless meant students lost out on eligibility for crucial support such as transportation, free uniforms, laundry services and other help.

Years later, the effects have cascaded. As students nationwide have struggled to make up for missed learning, educators have lost critical time identifying who needs the most help. Schools are offering tutoring and counseling but now have limited time to spend federal pandemic relief money for homeless students, said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a national homelessness organization.

“There is urgency because of the losses that have occurred over the pandemic — loss in learning, the gaps in attendance and the health crisis,” she said. Many education leaders, Duffield said, don’t even know about federal money earmarked for homeless students — and the programs expire next year.

The number of children identified as homeless by schools nationwide dropped by 21% from the 2018-2019 school year to the 2020-2021 school year, according to federal data. But the decrease, representing more than 288,000 students, likely includes many kids whose homelessness was unknown to schools. Federal counts of homeless people living on the street or in shelters also appeared to decrease in 2021 due to pandemic disruptions, but by 2022, those numbers shot up to the highest in a decade.

In Bridget Ibarra’s case, she chose not to tell the school her kids were homeless — and she says teachers, disconnected from students by a screen, never asked. She was worried if officials knew the family was staying in a shelter, and the school was obliged by law to provide transportation, the family would face pressure to enroll in a different school that was closer.

She knew how hard the disruptions were on her kids.

“I know they didn’t enjoy moving as often as we did. They would say things like, ‘We’re moving again? We just moved!’” Ibarra said.

“When I moved, I missed my friends and my teacher,” Aaliyah said.

The stigma and fear associated with homelessness also can lead families not to tell anyone they lack secure housing, Duffield said.

“If we don’t identify children proactively, we can’t ensure that they have everything they need to be successful in school and even go to school,” she said.

Before the pandemic, Ibarra and her two children moved in with her brother in Phoenix because she was having trouble making ends meet. Then her brother died unexpectedly. At the time, Ibarra was pregnant with her third child and couldn’t afford the rent with what she earned working at a fast-food restaurant.

The family spent the next six months at Maggie’s Place, a shelter in North Phoenix that caters to pregnant women. The four of them, including Aaliyah’s infant brother, moved next to Homeward Bound, an apartment-like shelter for families, where they were living when the pandemic hit a few months before Aaliyah started kindergarten.

Aaliyah’s school, David Crockett Elementary, stuck with online learning her entire kindergarten year. Aaliyah and her older brother, joined by several other children, spent most of their school days on computers in a mixed-grade makeshift classroom at the shelter.

“It was like she wasn’t even in school,” Ibarra said.

While the shelter helped the family meet their basic needs, Ibarra said she asked the school repeatedly for extra academic help for her daughter. She blamed the struggles partly on online learning, but she also felt the school was giving all their attention to Aaliyah’s older brother because he already was designated as a special education student with an individualized education program, or IEP.

The principal, Sean Hannafin, said school officials met frequently with the children’s mom. He said they offered the support they had available, but it was hard to determine online which students had needs that required intervention.

“The best thing we could do was take that data and flag them for when we returned in person, because you need a certain amount of time to observe a child in a classroom,” he said. “The online setting is not the place to observe.”

A federal law aimed at ensuring homeless students have equal access to education provides rights and services to children without a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.”

Many students aren’t identified as homeless when their parents or guardians enroll them. At school, teachers, cafeteria staff, aides or bus drivers often notice other students whose well-being may need looking into. Students may have unwashed clothes, or many late arrivals or absences.

But with children learning online, teachers and staff often didn’t see those things.

Overall, the drop in the student homelessness count began before the pandemic, but it was much steeper in the first full school year after COVID-19 hit. The percentage of enrolled students identified as homeless in the U.S. dropped from 2.7% in 2018-2019 to 2.2% in 2020-2021.

Over that timeframe, Arizona had one of the biggest drops in the number of students identified as homeless, from about 21,000 to nearly 14,000. But there were signs many families were in distress. KateLynn Dean, who works at Homeward Bound, said the shelter saw huge numbers of families dealing with homelessness for the first time during the pandemic.

Eventually, Bridget Ibarra had to enroll Aaliyah in a different school.

After getting kicked out of low-income housing last year when their property owner sold the building, the family lived with Ibarra’s mother before finding another low-income unit in Chandler, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Phoenix.

Once the family moved, enrolling in school was far from easy. Aaliyah missed the first three weeks of the school year last fall because of delays obtaining transcripts, and Ibarra insisted she not start the year without a plan to address her delays in reading and writing. Aaliyah spent that time playing and sitting around the house.

“Honestly, Aaliyah said she didn’t care how long, because she didn’t want to go to that school anyway,” her mother said. She said Aaliyah missed her friends and was tired of moving.

At Aaliyah’s new school, Frye Elementary, Principal Alexis Cruz Freeman saw for herself how hard it was to keep in touch with families when children were not in classrooms. Several students disappeared altogether. But she said families have started re-engaging with school. The state of Arizona reported more than 22,000 students were identified as homeless in the last school year — twice as many as the year before.

Ibarra said she tried to shield as much discomfort about their living situation from her kids as possible. It worked. Aaliyah doesn’t remember much about the places they’ve stayed except the people that surrounded her family.

Aaliyah has gained ground academically at her new school, Cruz Freeman said. She still has trouble pronouncing and recognizing some words. But by the end of the school year, she was able to read a text and write four sentences based on its meaning. She is also performing at grade level in math.

The principal considers her a success story in part because of her mother’s support.

“She was an advocate for her children, which is all that we can ever ask for,” Cruz Freeman said.

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PHOENIX (AP) — America’s schools say kids are hungry — just as pandemic-era benefit programs have lapsed. There is growing concern about the effects on kids’ ability to learn.

Congress temporarily made school meals free to all American schoolkids, but since that ended last fall, the need has only seemed to grow.

Soaring food prices are adding strains on families who are seeing reductions in multiple kinds of financial assistance. One federal program that ends this month had given nearly 30 million Americans extra food stamps during the pandemic.

School cafeterias typically don’t turn away a hungry kid, but debts for unpaid school meals have been rising — showing the level of need, and raising questions about how schools will keep feeding everyone, without federal money to do it. The neediest kids are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, as before the pandemic, but qualifying for those benefits requires applications that haven’t been necessary for several years.

“Programs that provide direct food assistance are hugely critical and we are going to see the effects of not having them over the next couple of months,” said Megan Curran, policy director for Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.

In the last academic year, with nearly all schools back operating in person, the number of school meals served to students jumped dramatically, and was slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to a report Thursday from the Food Research & Action Center. Already, it said, states now are reporting drops in the number of meals served.

More than 34 million people, including 9 million children, in the United States are food insecure, according to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, meaning they lack consistent access to enough food for every person in their family to be healthy.

Children in such households are more likely to struggle academically and repeat grade levels, among other challenges, according to researchers.

For fourth-grader Fabian Aguirre, it’s hard to think about math equations when he’s sitting in class with a growling stomach.

When he arrives in the morning, Fabian eats breakfast served by the school in South Phoenix, but he can get hungry in the classes before lunch. On days he doesn’t eat at home first, even the meals offered by the school aren’t enough to keep him feeling full.

“It’s hard to focus in class when I’m hungry. Food helps me pay attention to what I’m learning,” said Fabian, 10.

At his school, V. H. Lassen Academy of Science and Nutrition, all students are eligible to receive free meals. The Roosevelt School District, where 80% of students are Hispanic and 12% are Black, covers the meals with aid from a federal program for low-income school communities.

To reach students who might be embarrassed about not having eaten at home, the school recently changed how it distributes free breakfast. Carts filled with prepackaged breakfast meals are rolled outside by the entrance to the school, instead of being kept in the cafeteria.

“We realized that a lot of our students were going straight to the playground and not going into the cafeteria to eat before school, from the 7 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. timeframe,” said Jessica Padilla, a sixth-grade math and science teacher.

While they lasted, the universal free meals addressed several concerns about student hunger. There was no paperwork involved. And kids who needed them didn’t have to worry about stigma because they were available to everyone. Some states including California are using state money to continue these programs, but most have gone back to charging all but the neediest kids for meals.

When the free meals for all came to an end, “families were left scrambling and confused,” National PTA President Anna King said. They weren’t prepared for the paperwork after two years without it — and many families with young kids had never filled them out.

It can be difficult for parents to ask for the help they need, said Jillien Meier, director of No Kid Hungry. Immigrant parents, she said, might also avoid filling out forms requesting free or reduced-price meals out of concern it could bring unwanted attention if they are in the U.S. illegally.

Teachers often are the ones to pick up on chronic hunger in students.

Martissa Moore, a teacher at Bainbridge Middle School in Bainbridge, Georgia, recalls a seventh-grade student who had his head on his desk during class, picked arguments with other students and struggled to keep up academically. Moore sensed he wasn’t getting enough to eat.

Each day that year, she brought him whatever her daughter had for breakfast and slowly saw progress in his reading skills.

“You just do what you have to do for your students because you don’t want them hungry,” Moore said.

Hilary Seligman, senior medical advisor with Feeding America, said it shouldn’t be up to teachers to address child hunger.

“Because we have so much food insecurity among children, we shift that responsibility to the schools,” she said. “But normal childhood development is having access to food at home. That is part of creating for families in America a stable environment where kids are ready to learn when they arrive in school.”

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CECILIA, Ky. (AP) — For fourth-grader Leah Rainey, the school day now begins with what her teacher calls an “emotional check-in.”

“It’s great to see you. How are you feeling?” chirps a cheery voice on her laptop screen. It asks her to click an emoji matching her state of mind: Happy. Sad. Worried. Angry. Frustrated. Calm. Silly. Tired.

Depending on the answer, Leah, 9, gets advice from a cartoon avatar on managing her mood and a few more questions: Have you eaten breakfast? Are you hurt or sick? Is everything OK at home? Is someone at school being unkind? Today, Leah chooses “silly,” but says she struggled with sadness during online learning.

At Lakewood Elementary School, all 420 students will start their days the same way this year. The rural Kentucky school is one of thousands across the country using the technology to screen students’ state of mind and alert teachers to anyone struggling.

In some ways, this year’s back-to-school season will restore a degree of pre-pandemic normalcy: Most districts have lifted mask mandates, dropped COVID vaccine requirements and ended rules on social distancing and quarantines.

But many of the pandemic’s longer-lasting impacts remain a troubling reality for schools. Among them: the harmful effects of isolation and remote learning on children’s emotional well-being.

Student mental health reached crisis levels last year, and the pressure on schools to figure out solutions has never been greater. Districts across the country are using federal pandemic money to hire more mental health specialists, rolling out new coping tools and expanding curriculum that prioritizes emotional health.

Still, some parents don’t believe schools should be involved in mental health at all. So-called social-emotional learning, or SEL, has become the latest political flashpoint, with conservatives saying schools use it to promote progressive ideas about race, gender and sexuality, or that a focus on well-being takes attention from academics.

But at schools like Lakewood, educators say helping students manage emotions and stress will benefit them in the classroom and throughout life.

The school, in a farming community an hour’s drive south of Louisville, has used federal money to create “take-a-break” corners in each classroom. Students can rifle through a “self-regulation kit” with tips on deep breathing, squishy stress balls and acupuncture rings, said school counselor Shelly Kerr. The school plans to build a “Reset Room” this fall, part of an emerging national trend to create campus sanctuaries where students can go to decompress and speak with a counselor.

The online student screener Lakewood uses, called Closegap, helps teachers identify shy, quiet kids who might need to talk and would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Closegap founder Rachel Miller launched the online platform in 2019 with a few schools and saw interest explode after the pandemic hit. This year, she said, more than 3,600 U.S schools will be using the technology, which has free and premium versions.

“We are finally beginning to recognize that school is more than just teaching the kids reading, writing and arithmetic,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of the national School Superintendents Association. Just as free lunch programs are based on the idea that a hungry child can’t learn, more and more schools are embracing the idea that a cluttered or troubled mind cannot focus on schoolwork, he said.

The pandemic magnified the fragility of mental health among American youth, who had been experiencing a rise in depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts for years, experts say. A recent report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 44% of high school students said they experienced “ persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness ” during the pandemic, with girls and LGBTQ youth reporting the highest levels of poor mental health and suicide attempts.

If a silver lining exists, the pandemic raised awareness of the crisis and helped de-stigmatize talking about mental health, while also bringing attention to schools’ shortcomings in handling it. President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced over $500 million to expand mental health services in the country’s schools, adding to federal and state money that has poured into schools to cope with pandemic-era needs.

Still, many are skeptical schools’ responses are enough.

“All of these opportunities and resources are temporary,” said junior Claire Chi, who attends State College Area High School in central Pennsylvania. Last year, her school added emergency counseling and therapy dogs, among other supports, but most of that help lasted a day or two, Chi said. And that’s “not really a mental health investment for students.” This year, the school says it has added more counselors and plans mental health training for all 10th graders.

Some critics, including many conservative parents, don’t want to see mental health support in schools in the first place. Asra Nomani, a mom from Fairfax County, Virginia, says schools are using the mental health crisis as a “Trojan horse” to introduce liberal ideas about sexual and racial identity. She also worries schools lack the expertise to deal with student mental illness.

“Social-emotional well-being has become an excuse to intervene in the lives of children in the most intimate of ways that are both dangerous and irresponsible,” Nomani said, “because they’re in the hands of people who are not trained professionals.”

Despite the unprecedented funding, schools are having trouble hiring counselors, mirroring the shortages in other American industries.

Goshen Junior High School in northwest Indiana has been struggling to fill a vacancy of a counselor who left last year, when student anxiety and other behavioral problems were “off the charts,” said Jan Desmarais-Morse, one of two counselors left at the school, with caseloads of 500 students each.

“One person trying to meet the needs of 500 students?” said Desmarais-Morse said. “It’s impossible.”

The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per school counselor, which few states come close to meeting.

For the 2020-21 school year only two states — New Hampshire and Vermont — achieved that goal, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Some states face staggeringly high ratios: Arizona averages one counselor to 716 students; in Michigan, 1 to 638; and in Minnesota, 1 to 592.

Also in Indiana, the School City of Hammond won a grant to hire clinical therapists at all 17 of its schools but has not been able to fill most of the new jobs, said Superintendent Scott Miller. “Schools are stealing from other schools. There just aren’t enough workers to go around.” And despite more funding, school salaries can’t compete with private counseling practices, which are also overwhelmed and trying to hire more staff.

Another challenge for schools: identifying struggling children before they’re in emotional crisis. At the Houston Independent School District, one of the largest in the country with 277 schools and nearly 200,000 students, students are asked each morning to hold up fingers showing how they feel. One finger means a child is hurting deeply; five means she or he feels great.

“It’s identifying your brush fires early in the day,” said Sean Ricks, the district’s senior manager of crisis intervention.

Houston teachers now give mindfulness lessons, with ocean sounds played via YouTube, and a Chihuahua named Luci and a cockapoo named Omi have joined the district’s crisis team.

Grant-funding helped Houston build relaxation rooms, known as Thinkeries, at 10 schools last year, costing about $5,000 each. District data show campuses with Thinkeries, which sport bean bag chairs and warmly colored walls, saw a 62% decrease in calls to a crisis line last year, Ricks said. The district is building more this year.

But the rooms themselves are not a panacea. For the calming rooms to work, schools must teach students to recognize they feel angry or frustrated. Then they can use the space to decompress before their emotions erupt, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, a nonprofit that helps schools bolster mental health services.

In the last days of summer vacation, a “Well Space” at University High School in Irvine, California, was getting finishing touches from an artist who painted a mural of a giant moon over mountains. Potted succulents, jute rugs, Buddha-like statuettes and a hanging egg chair brought an un-school-like feel. When school starts this week, the room is to be staffed full-time with a counselor or mental health specialist.

The goal is to normalize the idea of asking for help and give students a place to reset. “If they can re-center and refocus,” said Tammy Blakely, the district’s director of student support services, “they can then, after a short break, go back into their classrooms and be prepared for deeper learning.”

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This story has been updated to restore first name and title of Tammy Blakely, the Irvine, California, director of support services.

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For more back-to-school coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/back-to-school

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Gecker reported from San Francisco. Associated Press reporters Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Arleigh Rodgers in Indianapolis; Brooke Schultz in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Kavish Harjai in Los Angeles contributed.

Rodgers, Schultz and Harjai are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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