Arcadia celebrates Dodger Day Arcadia Unified School District held a Dodger Day to celebrate Game 1 of the World Series on Oct. 25. Students throughout the district were encouraged to sport their Dodger blue and share photos on social media with the tag, #ausddodgerday. There were even lessons and pep rallies about the Dodgers. The Los Angeles Dodgers went on to beat the New York Yankees in five games, claiming the World Series title. This wasn’t the first time Arcadia rallied support for the Dodgers. According to AUSD Chief Communications Officer Ryan Foran, Arcadia High School’s marching band performed at Game 4 of the 1981 World Series on Oct. 24, 1981, when the Dodgers beat the Yankees 8-7 to tie the series at two games apiece.

Students vote in local school board elections for first time In a historic first for California, 16- and 17-year-olds in Berkeley and Oakland were able to vote in local school board races on the November 2024 election.

Voters gave young people the right to vote on school board races after they passed local measures in Berkeley in 2016 and in Oakland in 2020.

“Young people are directly affected by the decisions made by their local school boards,” said Oakland USD Board of Education President Sam Davis. “Lowering the voting age to 16 ensures that their perspectives are represented in the democratic process and will compel local politicians to address their concerns.”

The Alameda County Registrar of Voters is using California’s pre-registration system — which allows 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote in California as a whole — as the system to register 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in their local school board races in Oakland or Berkeley.

The technical capability enabling youth to vote in this election is the culmination of years of work by the Registrar of Voters with support and direction from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the four involved local jurisdictions (City of Oakland, City of Berkeley, Oakland USD and Berkeley USD), the team from Runbeck Elections Services, Inc. (the vendor for Alameda County’s election management system), and community-based advocacy organizations. It was a complicated process in which every aspect of the election — from voter registration to ballot mailing to ballot counting — needed to be mapped, programmed, and tested specifically for youth voters. This process, while lengthy, was necessary to ensure the integrity of the election for both youth voters and traditional voters.

State leaders host student smartphone policy town hall Two state senators recently hosted a virtual town hall on the topic of smartphones in schools, which discussed ways for school leaders to manage device use during school hours.

Under recently enacted state law (Assembly Bill 3216), student smartphone policies will be mandatory for all districts and county offices of education beginning July 1, 2026. However, the topic of regulating smartphone use has been front and center for several years, particularly after students returned to in-person learning following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sen. Henry Stern (Ventura) and Sen. Josh Becker (San Mateo) hosted the meeting, which featured guest speaker First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and a panel of presenters, including school leaders Yvonne Shiu, principal at San Mateo High School, and Deidre Monarres, Ventura Unified School District’s director of secondary education.

Monarres shared how her district engaged extensively with the school community to develop their student smartphone policy, which also includes Air Pod use, and find solutions to help both teachers and students navigate appropriate use during the school day.

The town hall recording is available at sd13.senate.ca.gov/videos.

Data partnership aims to improve pathways for students Five educational institutions in the Sacramento area are embarking on a new data-sharing partnership that will enhance education-to-career pathways across the region.

The Sacramento Regional K16 Collaborative announced an agreement among the Elk Grove Unified School District, the Sacramento County Office of Education, the Los Rios Community College District, Sacramento State and UC Davis allowing for the seamless sharing of data among the partner institutions.

“Our collaborative effort is a critical step towards working together on behalf of our region’s students,” said Los Rios Community College District Chancellor Brian King, in a news release. “This partnership allows us to ensure that students transition seamlessly throughout our educational systems so that we can ensure they are prepared for opportunities in STEM-related careers, particularly in health care, engineering and computing.”

Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools and K-16 Collaborative Chair David W. Gordon said that the K16 Collaborative “demonstrates what’s possible when diverse institutions unite, leveraging data to achieve equitable outcomes for every student.”

“Bringing our data systems together is essential to ensure that we have the information needed to make strategic decisions for our students’ futures,” Gordon said.

Unlike traditional one-to-one data sharing agreements between educational institutions, this first-of-its-kind agreement will connect the entire educational ecosystem in the Sacramento region. Once fully implemented, other K-12 and higher educational institutions in the capitol region will be invited to join.

Officials say the agreement will provide the school district and county office with critical data about their students’ post-graduation success so that they can continue their work to ensure students are prepared for college and career. The higher education institutions will also receive valuable information about their students’ past educational experiences so that they may better serve current, future, and returning students and connect them with appropriate support and resources.

For more information about this initiative, visit sacramentok16.org
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Districts succeed at reducing kindergarten absenteeism As kindergarten chronic absenteeism continues to soar in California, three districts are showing promise in engaging some of their youngest learners to come to school.

Livingston Union, Cypress School District and Kings Canyon Unified were featured as bright spots in a recent fact sheet from the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, Attendance Works and the UC Davis School Policy, Action and Resource Center (SPARC). All three districts have chronic absenteeism rates for kindergarten below the state average of 36 percent.

Following in-depth site visits in each district, researchers found a set of three common conditions at each district that supported reducing absenteeism:

The fact sheet provides recommendations based on practices in each district, including establishing a formal attendance team and examining data in real time.

Read the full fact sheet at content.acsa.org/attendance-achievers-chronic-absenteeism-in-kindergarten.