West Contra Costa School Board leaves $4.3 million in funding for high-needs students on the table

Contact: 

Rigel Massaro, rmassaro@publicadvocates.org; 707-7615672

Isabel Alegria, ialegria@publicadvocates.org; 415-4317434
Marie Condron, mcondron@publiccounsel.org; 213-925-9605

West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) has missed the deadline to allocate over $4.3 million in funds for high-needs students in time to include those funds in its annual Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), which it must submit to the Contra Costa County Office of Education by July 1. Parents, students and community organizations listed below will attend the district’s board meeting tonight to pressure WCCUSD to create a transparent process for allocating the money as soon as possible.WCCUSD received notice of this additional funding in May as a result of Governor Jerry Brown’s budget revision, which increased the amount of education funding districts received from the state. The money is intended to support programs for high-needs students, including low-income students, English language learners, and foster youth; around three-quarters of WCCUSD’s student population fall into one of these three categories. Community groups asked WCCUSD to commit funds to new programs to serve these students for next year by today when the Board will approve the LCAP, but the District has not done so, despite having the money on hand. Other large districts, including Oakland USD, Antioch USD, and Sacramento City USD, allocated their additional funds before finalizing their annual plans. As a result, high-needs students in those districts will see improvements in their education starting in the fall of 2015.

The district can amend its plan over the summer, provided it holds public hearings before doing so. But summer is a difficult time for parents and students to attend meetings, and so a coalition of community groups from West Contra Costa will attend the Board meeting tonight to ask the Board to make sure parents and students have a meaningful opportunity to comment on the Board’s allocations. Thanks to legislation passed in 2013 creating a new planning process, school boards must take local priorities into account when allocating funding. The coalition hopes to ensure that WCCUSD will act in a spirit of transparency and listen to the needs of the community.

• Who: Parents, Students, ACLU Berkeley/North East Bay Chapter, Healthy Richmond, The Latina Center, Public Counsel, Public Advocates, The California Endowment, Youth Together
• What: West Contra Costa County USD Board Meeting at DeJean Middle School
• When: Wednesday, June 24; 6:30PM
• Where: DeJean Middle School, 3400 Macdonald Ave, Richmond, CA 94805
• Why: Pressure the WCCUSD Board to act in a spirit of transparency and adopt a plan to allocate $4.3 million in unspent funding for high-needs students according to local priorities