Systemic Inequity Breaks down ALL of society. Please show your support for accidentally unfunded Vulnerable Students with your support. Visit www.RISEPromise.org for further details.

CA Governor Gavin Newsom (July 2021) “California Roars Back” reimagines public schools. …the state is taking on the inequities laid bare by the pandemic, expanding our support for Californians facing the greatest hardships, increasing opportunity for every child."

In a valiant attempt to secure funds for schools to operate in the midst of the Pandemic, the California Budget Act of 2020-21 inadvertently caused HARM to California Rural School Districts caught by surprise when Californians did not leave the state, but relocated from Urban to Rural areas instead.

• The CA Budget Act of 2020-21 provided funding for schools based upon the prior years enrollment figures, despite the expectation of overall reduction in the student population. The "hold harmless" clause ensured that if a district experienced reduced enrollment, no repayment of overpaid ADA funding would be required, in effect increasing overall per pupil funding for many districts.
• However, the clause, "if actual enrollment exceeds budgeted enrollment, then affected districts will have to compensate for lost revenue," is causing unexpected and inequitable hardships afflicting the very districts and communities most in need of interventions to ensure equity.
• The unexpected "Great California Migration," is placing unprecedented pressures on our already underfunded and disadvantaged rural schools, whose students suffered significantly greater losses, academically, economically, and socially and emotionally from the Pandemic and rather than the promise to "hold harmless", these schools and these students now face, some a doubling of students, with no funding provided.
• Despite the funding language and intent to "hold harmless" school districts experiencing enrollment shifts, small rural schools' very existence is threatened by the expectation that they bear the financial burden of any increase in enrollment, with no provision for additional funding to follow the student.

Our Request:

We respectfully request on behalf of the disadvantaged students we serve:

• clarification of "hold harmless" meaning and intent
• action taken to ensure all students and schools are truly held "harmless," by meeting the Federal mandates to demonstrate "Maintenance of Equity" as a prerequisite to the acceptance of federal ARP ESSER education dollars by allocating full per pupil funding to high need districts experiencing significantly increased student enrollment
• We propose a simple mechanism in the form of an Executive Order, or its equivalent, removing the contradictory phrase, "affected districts will have to compensate for lost revenue," to eliminate the inevitable and unrecoverable "HARM" done if growth districts are unable to adequately serve high-need students with diminished funding.
• By increasing district funds to match the number of additional students, using the Fall Count, these schools have the opportunity to properly serve students most likely to be victims of inequity.

Sincerely,

RISE, Educators [ReImagining Student Equity], our students, our families, and our supporters who believe that every child has a right to a quality education to empower them to break through Opportunity Gaps, Achievement Gaps, Racial Inequities, Socioeconomic Cycles of Poverty, Digital Divides, Digital Cliffs, COVID Slide, and any other label that describes the vicious cycle of Inequity we fight against.