COVID wreaked havoc on California schools and students. Here’s how they can recover

Last year, California schools finally received a level of funding closer to what one would expect from a world-class economy. Unfortunately, it took a once-in-a-century global health crisis to get their financial support to that point.

Despite all the attention paid to the recent increases in education funding, however, two years of emergency spending doesn’t make up for decades of underinvestment in public schools.

Much of the revenue in recent education budgets took the form of one-time funding, but the challenges facing our schools are ongoing. Student need is greater than ever, and schools are asked time and again to take on additional challenges within their communities. And it’s clear that the impact of the pandemic is not limited to one or two years; it’s generational in scope.

As schools work to recover learning, support student well-being and tackle challenges that predate COVID, now is the time to redouble our support for education — not to retrench.

California should augment ongoing school aid to help learning recovery, increase mental health support, address staffing shortages, implement transitional kindergarten, fund cybersecurity and internet infrastructure, offer meaningful cost-of-living adjustments to salaries and cover employer pension contributions so districts can redirect money to student services.

But whether the governor and Legislature will find the will to do so is an open question.

The pandemic wreaked havoc on student learning, and now schools face a new threat. The state’s elected leaders are turning their attention to the 2023–24 budget amid a sharp decline in revenues. The Legislative Analyst’s Office is projecting a $25 billion budget deficit, and, as usual when times are tough, some would like to make up the shortfall at the expense of schools.

That kind of shortsighted decision could set back recovery efforts at a critical period for students. To avoid that, Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators should expand student access to mental health services by expediting existing Medi-Cal reimbursement of school districts and county offices of education for school-based health care.

California also needs to protect student privacy by supporting county offices of education, school districts and charter schools in improving cybersecurity and guarding against ransomware attacks.

Furthermore, we must attract retired teachers and classified staff back to campuses by removing salary caps on retirees’ earnings and ending the requirement that retirees wait 180 days before returning to work.

State officials should also increase funding to account for the new transitional kindergarten grade level so schools can effectively implement TK without reducing the per-pupil funding available for students in other grades.

And Newsom and the legislature must channel non-Proposition 98 money to the state’s pension funds to help ease the fiscal burden on districts, which use about 16 cents of every dollar to fund rising pension contributions.

California students have endured nearly three years of hardship, and the state’s elected leaders and policymakers have taken some important steps to overcome the lasting impact of the pandemic. But now is not the time to become complacent about supporting schools and students.

The deficits on the horizon may be daunting, but the uncertainty makes this the most important time to invest in our schools, our students and our future.