New legislation introduced in the state Legislature would create paid disability leave for public school educators in California.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond joined educators and members of the California Teachers Association on the west steps of the California State Capitol on Feb. 26 to announce the Pregnancy Leave for Educators Act.

The legislation was authored by Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Davis) and co-authored by members of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, including Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblymembers Mia Bonta (D-Oakland), Sabrina Cervantes (D-Corona), Liz Ortega (D-Hayward), Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-La Palma) and Pilar Schiavo (D-Santa Clarita). Thurmond and California State Treasurer Fiona Ma are co-sponsoring the legislation.

According to a news release, Assembly Bill 2901 would fix a broken system for public school educators who go without any paid disability leave related to pregnancy. In California — the fifth largest economy in the world — one of the largest (and predominantly female) workforces in the state is excluded from pregnancy disability leave. This longstanding practice disproportionately discriminates against women educators who are forced to deplete their leave balances to have children. On average, women earn almost $100,000 less in retirement than their male colleagues. This legislation will help address this massive gap in retirement for women educators and help retain educators during a historic educator shortage.

“Teachers must be able to afford to stay in the profession and start a family. By providing paid pregnancy leave for California’s teachers, we will take an important step toward achieving gender equity in teacher pay, and we will also make critical strides toward retaining great teachers to address the staffing crisis in California’s classrooms,” Thurmond said, in a news release. “The legislation that we announced today is an excellent step in providing greater support for our teachers and educators and, ultimately, the students of California.”

Erika Jones, a kindergarten teacher and the secretary-treasurer of the California Teachers Association, said this historic legislation would bring California into alignment with a worldwide, fundamental standard for reproductive rights in countries across the globe.

“As a new mom, physically recovering from pregnancy and birth while also caring for a newborn, it is unfathomable that most of us must consider whether or not we are going to get paid,” Jones said in a news release. “Educators devote their lives to their students. Yet, when it comes to their own families, they have to constantly sacrifice because of the lack of basic supports such as paid pregnancy leave. In a field that is primarily women, we need to do better.”

New data from the National Center for Education Statistics show 67 percent of U.S. K-12 public schools report having at least one violent incident and 59 percent of schools reporting one nonviolent incident during the 2021-22 school year.

The findings come from the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2021–22, a nationally representative survey of 4,800 K-12 public schools across the country. A report on the findings examines a range of issues dealing with school crime and safety, including the frequency of school crime and violence, disciplinary actions, the presence and activities of school security staff and school practices related to maintaining a safe school environment.

Selected findings from the survey include:

Surveyed school principals cited two factors that limited their efforts to reduce crime “in a major way:” inadequate alternative placements or programs for disruptive students (30 percent) and inadequate funding (27 percent).

Schools were also asked about factors that hindered efforts to provide mental health services to students, and cited inadequate access to licensed mental health professionals and inadequate funding (39 percent each) as the major causes.

Access the full report at nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2024043.

Student homelessness in California has risen to pre-pandemic levels with 246,480 young people experiencing homelessness at some point in the last school year, according to a recent blog post from the Public Policy Institute of California.

According to the Feb. 26 post, data from 2022-23 show that 4.1 percent of youth experienced homelessness, up from 3.7 percent during the pandemic. The authors note that while homelessness increased for all student groups, those who have been historically marginalized — migrant, English Learner and Black students — saw even higher rates of homelessness.

The increase may be attributed to rising cost of living or expiring housing protections, although better identification of student homelessness post-pandemic may also be driving up numbers, according to the authors.

“Support for students experiencing homelessness is limited — and becoming more so,” authors Brett Guinan and Julien Lafortune write. “Ongoing federal funding is minimal, restricted in how it can be used, and does not make it to most districts serving homeless students. Additional federal funding was issued during the pandemic — some specifically allocated for homeless students — but districts must spend all remaining funds by this September.”

Read the post at www.ppic.org/blog/student-homelessness-rises-to-pre-pandemic-levels.