San Diego Unified School District leaders were in Sacramento on Wednesday to advocate for education funding priorities.
“It’s not just San Diego County’s responsibility,” Interim Superintendent Fabiola Bagula said in an interview before the trip. “It’s actually the state’s responsibility to make sure that we have everything we need to continue to educate our students.”
The district is chipping away at a $112 million deficit.
Gov. Gavin Newsom released his budget proposals last month. They included a 2.43% cost-of-living adjustment for the state’s school funding formula.
Districts around the state had started developing their budgets around a 2.93% adjustment. That estimate came from the State Department of Finance last year.
Bagula said that may seem like a small reduction, but it’s not.
“It means six million more dollars,” she said. “That's significant when you're already making decisions that are cutting certain programs or certain people.”
Newsom also proposed reducing student-teacher ratios for universal transitional kindergarten (UTK) from 12 students to one teacher to 10 students to one, which would also reduce class sizes. District leaders are asking legislators to support that proposal.
Newsom’s budget also funds expanding eligibility for UTK to kids who turn 4 by Sept. 1. San Diego Unified already offers those kids access to UTK.
“We invested a lot of our own money before the state was even funding it, and providing UTK for all,” Bagula said. “I think it was a smart investment in our children.”
Funding for both of those statewide efforts could bring the district between $7 and $14 million, district staff said at a budget workshop earlier this month.
The district is also advocating for increased funding for students with disabilities. In 2022-23, there were 18,604 students enrolled in special education in the district, according to California Department of Education data. In 2023-24, that number went up to 20,423.
“Not only are we seeing an increase of population, but we’re seeing an increase of costs,” Bagula said. “We really don’t get much funding for students with disabilities, and they do need special support.”
Federal funding makes up 7% of the district’s budget. Within that, is about $27 million for special education. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) grant program has been “profoundly underfunded” for years, according to Sierra Cook, the district’s director of government relations.
“IDEA was established 50 years ago with a commitment to fund 40% of the additional cost of providing special education services,” she said at the budget workshop. “It has never reached near that level. And in fact, in San Diego Unified, it supports less than 7% of our special education costs.”
In Sacramento, Bagula and School Board President Cody Petterson planned to meet with staff for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire, Assembly Education Committee Chair Al Muratsuchi and others.
District staff will present the school board with another budget update in March.
