S1: Welcome to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Brack. It's back to school time in San Diego County and across much of the state.
S2:
S1: Then artificial intelligence is making its way into the classroom. But has its implementation been too much too soon ? Plus , we hear about other stories from the week on the roundup. That's all I had on KPBS roundtable. And. Believe it or not , the first day of school for many San Diego students is Monday. San Diego , Unified's early start date this year comes as many other schools across the state are opening their classroom doors sooner than in years past. The new school year brings with it promise and also a good deal of questions regarding grades and test scores , the long term impacts from the pandemic , and financial challenges facing local school districts. Here to talk more about what we can expect from the new school year is Jacob McWhinney. He's the education reporter with the Voice of San Diego. Jacob , welcome back to roundtable.
S2: Hey , thank you so much for having me , Andrew.
S1: Great to have you back on. So it's still pretty early in August and some districts are already starting back up. In many cases it's , you know , earlier than in previous years. Why is.
S2: That ? Yeah , it's been an interesting progression to watch. You know , I went to school in San Diego. I was born and raised here. And so I'm , I'm used to the kind of norm of September. But over the years that has kind of slowly crept earlier and earlier. As you mentioned , San Diego Unified starts on Monday , the second week of August. And over the past couple of years , um , you know , that's that's been getting earlier last year , they started the last week of August and as you mentioned , uh , you know , there's been some good reporting about how statewide it's it's really been a trend. Um , schools are beginning to start earlier and earlier , I believe , in their view , to better align with existing holidays like winter break , you know , finishing the semester before winter break so that there's not this big , uh , space in between that allows kids to , you know , uh , maybe forget some of the stuff they've learned. And some districts have gone even further than August , uh , Sweetwater Unified , actually , or Sweetwater Union down in South County started in July. And that actually aligns with a lot of the elementary school districts down there as well. So I gotta say , I have some sympathy for you. For you , I'm sure it's a confusing change to have to deal with.
S1: Well , yeah. As you mentioned , I have two kids in San Diego Unified , so they do start Monday. But yeah , like you , I always associated Labor Day with the end of summer vacation.
S2: Times change. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So what are some of the pros and cons to an earlier start to the school year ? I mean you mentioned kind of balancing the , the , the calendar out with holidays.
S2: And so for some kids , school has been going on. You know , there wasn't much of a summer to speak of. And I think a lot of that is because the Covid pandemic put kids , you know , back , we're still trying to dig ourselves , ourselves out of the hole that the pandemic put us in. And it's an unfortunate situation. But luckily , I think there are a lot of schools that are trying to do their best to get kids back to where they need to be.
S1: Now , on that pandemic hole that you referenced there , I think the big question for a lot of folks is , what do we know about the long term impacts from those pandemic era school closures.
S2: You know , it's it's kind of an unsatisfying answer , but that is still sort of an open question. Um , you know , we do know , obviously kids were negatively impacted by school closures , but I think it would be kind of presumptuous to say that we know , you know , a whole lot about what the long term impact will be. Uh , the top line numbers are that student test scores , which are , to be clear , kind of an imperfect metric to judge how students are doing for a whole lot of reasons. But it is one of the best that we have. We do know that test scores have consistently been lower after the pandemic than they were before the pandemic. Over the past couple of years , since the pandemic , sort of , you know , ended or at least kids came back to school in person. There have been modest gains , but kids are still behind where they were during the pandemic And those test scores , in my view , don't tell the full story of the pandemic removed a whole generation of kids from schools for an extended period of time , and they did attend online. But despite district's best efforts , it was a really messy situation. Simply put , virtual school is not the best way to teach large swaths of kids , and especially the younger ones. You know , I don't know how old your kids are , but just imagine trying to teach a classroom of like second or third grade kids over the computer. It sounds , um , chaotic to say the least. One of the big unknowns is just kind of how much that extended , uh , removal from classrooms altered kids understanding of school as being very really necessary and how much it it damaged their ability to develop on a social , emotional level. And both of those things , obviously are really necessary for kids to succeed in school. One of the shocking things I found digging into into grades at San Diego Unified is that the number of kids who received good marks in English and math topics last school year is almost unchanged from the numbers in the 2018 and 2019 school year. Uh , it's it's a surprising finding , and I think that what we're going to see is kids start to , you know , pull themselves out. But again , it's really hard to tell exactly what the long term impacts will be.
S1: So again , as you mentioned , it's still kind of an incomplete picture there. Another big issue for schools in recent years I know you've you know , you've reported on this is chronic absenteeism. Can you explain what that means.
S2: So chronic absenteeism has been kind of top of mind in my reporting for over a year. Uh , chronic absenteeism is when a student misses at least 10% of instructional days in the school year. And after the pandemic , the rates of chronic absenteeism just rocketed up. They nearly tripled across the county. And in my view , it's the most important and pressing issue facing schools not only throughout the county , but but throughout the country. Chronic absenteeism puts kids at risk for a whole bunch of of negative , you know , downstream effects. Obviously not doing well in school as one , but dropout rates increase , um , rates of involvement with law enforcement increase. Uh , and it may confuse people , but , you know , schools can implement all of the academic interventions. They'd like to try to get kids to catch up , extra tutoring , summer school , you know , all of those things I mentioned. But none of it does a bit of difference if kids , you know , don't show up in school. So the first thing schools need to do is make sure that kids show up again. And , you know , like with academics , one of the things you learn very early on when you start to report on education is that schools mimic all of the socio economic realities that exist outside of them , right ? So if you were to show me the median income of of two different areas in the city , I could tell you with a pretty high degree of certainty which one has higher test scores. And it's the same thing with chronic absenteeism. You know , though chronic absenteeism increased at similar rates throughout the county. Um , schools were already at a very , very different place , uh , with chronic absenteeism. Schools in poorer areas had much higher rates than schools in richer areas. So , you know , just an example to visualize this. Um , Rodriguez Elementary in Barrio Logan and Bergerac Elementary and Pacific Beach , which had the same , you know , proximate increase in rate , like they both tripled , basically , um , where they ended up was was very , very different right after the pandemic. So in the 2021 school year , 76% of Rodriguez students were chronically absent , while only around 13% of students were. And again , they both increased by about three times. But the good news is that schools have made a lot of progress. You know , Rodriguez , for example , cut its chronic absenteeism rate by about half between the 21 and 22 school year. But there is still , you know , a frighteningly high level of chronic absenteeism. And one of the reasons schools have had success is because they've worked pretty hard on the issue. San Diego Unified , for example , hired a team of attendance specialists to work with each district. Um , other districts have , you know , done events like giving up backpacks before the first day of school. A whole lot of districts are reconfiguring the way they do attendance checks so that they're a little less punitive and a less sort of accusatory and , you know , more reassuring and trying to figure out what kind of resources they can provide. Parents whose kids are chronically absent , whether that , you know , is something like a backpack or something like a bus pass. Um , and the county even launched this really , this really great network , uh , that connects schools with experts to try to help them , you know , implement research based strategies. One of the big reasons schools have worked so hard on this is that it not only impacts how kids are doing , but it impacts their bottom line , right ? So schools get get funded based on average daily attendance. So if there are less kids going to school , they get less money coming in.
S1: And on that note of attendance , what does overall school enrollment look like ? Do we have that picture this year ? I think in recent years , at least , San Diego Unified has seen some declines , right ? Yeah.
S2: So school enrollment has been declining for a long time , right ? About about a decade. And it's essentially become a structural issue at this point. And there are a whole lot of demographic reasons for that. I mean , many people are just having fewer kids. That's just kind of the the reality of the situation. But in a place like San Diego , Cost of living is another huge issue. Some families have had to relocate because it's just too expensive to live in this region. The pandemic kind of supercharged this trend , right ? Rates of enrollment decline increased over the pandemic countywide. The good news is that rates of enrollment decline have started to slow since kids have returned in person. Um , and one factor in this is kind of the rollout of universal transitional kindergarten , which is essentially created a brand new grade for four year olds and allowed districts to reach out to a whole new pool of kids to try to enroll them in their districts. And some districts have really tried to take advantage of this. You know , though , the state gave districts this four year period to roll UWC out , or they started bringing younger and younger four year olds in each year. San Diego Unified just jumped in and opened up its UK classrooms to four year olds from the first year that they started this rollout , and the district's hope was that it would start to turn around this this systemic enrollment decline problem. Right. They would they hoped that not only would they get to get this whole new group of kids that could use enrollment , but by getting them in early and hopefully showing them , you know , a great experience in their UWC classrooms that parents and kids would want to stick around with the district.
S1: And on transitional kindergarten , I think , you know , San Diego Unified rolled out its TK program a couple years back. This year , they still have a few hundred spots left , according to a recent KPBS story.
S2: And so they faced a lot of very full classrooms and a lot of frustrated teachers who felt that the curriculum just wasn't meeting kids needs. So a little bit more about kind of transitional kindergarten. It is basically this new grade for four year olds that is supposed to prepare kids for kindergarten. And because you're dealing with four year olds , it can't be this really academically rigorous thing , right ? It has to be play based. It has to kind of meet kids where they're at. And when San Diego Unified launched transitional kindergarten that first year of the rollout , a lot of teachers were concerned that the curriculum wasn't doing what it needed to. Uh , there have been some ironing out of things , as you mentioned. Uh , there now have extra slots in their transitional kindergarten programs , which was not the case , uh , early on , which was not the case early on. But , you know , again , UWC was was a really big step for schools. And , you know , undoubtedly for a lot of parents of of young kids , it was it was a huge relief. You know , parents have been squeezed really , really hard by high prices and , and low availability of private preschool options. Right. So you think at the same time as being relief has also kind of exacerbated those high prices and low availability of preschool options. It in essence kind of siphoned kids out of private preschools , especially these four year olds , obviously , and unfortunately for private preschools , four year olds are their most profitable age group because they require less adult supervision than younger kids. And so it kind of toppled the whole model of the private preschool. And , and , um , while at the same time offering parents something free and reliable.
S1: I think the last time we had you on roundtable was to talk about the end of federal pandemic aid for for schools and kind of how that might impact their budgets going forward. Can you talk about what the impacts have been ? We had heard a lot about seeing a unified's budget deficit.
S2: You know , what a lot of people might not realize is that over the pandemic , money was flooding into schools. You know , whether it was federal grants or state grants. A lot of schools were getting funded at a level that they had never seen. Uh , and so the ending of some of these grants , particularly the federal Esser grants that were meant to help schools recover from the pandemic , uh , has been a big blow. And so budgets have been have been very , very tight. As you mentioned , San Diego Unified had to shave off a lot of stuff throughout its budget deficit kind of negotiations and ended up issuing a whole lot hundreds of of layoff notices. One of their strategies was to rely on attrition. So that means maybe encouraging folks to retire. Maybe you're encouraging them to retire a little early and then not filling positions that are empty that they may not need filled through that process. They were somehow it still doesn't make entirely make sense to me. Uh , they were able to rescind a lot of those layoff notices , pretty much all of those layoff notices. But one thing that hasn't been talked about enough is the fact that San Diego Unified , while it projected a big budget deficit for this year and had to make those economic fixes for it , it's projecting an even bigger budget deficit next year. And so this year we're going to see San Diego Unified in particular , having , I would imagine , a pretty hard time figuring out how to fill those gaps , and especially since they rescinded a lot of layoffs and and now have those people on the books again. And so , you know , it's going to take a lot of work. And I think it's something that we should all be really paying attention to , especially because kids are not yet out of this pandemic hole. And a lot of the programs that they implemented to try to help kids get out of that pandemic hole , maybe on the chopping block.
S1: So definitely something to follow as the school year progresses there. So , you know , we talked a lot about kind of the challenges here , but I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about what's going well in San Diego County schools.
S2: That fever is beginning to break. And I think that parents are are , you know , looking at schools in a way that is kind of less toxic than they used to and they should. Schools are working hard , teachers are working hard. Districts are working hard to make sure kids are ready for whatever's next. And , you know , one of those ways , as I mentioned , is , is all of the myriad ways that they're trying to combat chronic absenteeism. There's a lot of hard work going on at the county level and at the district level , and even at the school level to try to make schools places that kids want to be. One of those things is community schools. I'm sure that you guys have talked about this before , but community schools are essentially this designation and and this effort to make schools kind of the center of a community and to provide resources that that may be lacking in a community. So maybe that's a food pantry , maybe that's a , you know , a closed closet that kids can , you know , grab a jacket out of if they're cold. Uh , maybe it's a washer and dryer for kids who may not have access to that. Maybe it's , you know , some vision or dental care. All these things that that try to minimize the socioeconomic factors that really , really impact student success but are really tricky for schools to deal with. Ultimately , schools are tasked with trying to right all of the wrongs in society in , you know , a school day. And that's just not something that's ever been realistic. But with the advent of things like community schools and with their spread , there's been a lot of adoption throughout the county. Maybe some of those things might be able to be chipped away.
S1: Finally , you know , we've heard a lot about the effort to ban smartphones in schools over the past several months. Some school districts , like Los Angeles , have already announced a ban for this year. There are also other efforts underway at the state level for a statewide ban , potentially.
S2: As you mentioned , L.A. unified last month passed a ban on cell phones on its campuses. And this is a really fascinating ban because it goes beyond cell phones and classrooms. They are proposing to ban cell phones , you know , during breaks , during lunches. And it I think it really speaks to their goal with this ban. It's not just to minimize the distractions that cell phones pose in class. It's also to minimize the damage that research has shown. Cell phone usage can can lead to in kids , you know , social and emotional damage. And as you alluded to shortly after that ban , Governor Gavin Newsom released a statement saying that he was he was in favor of figuring out some cell phone bans , you know , statewide. So I got curious about that , and I contacted board member Cody Patterson at San Diego Unified Board President Shanna Hazen had had signaled to me that she was interested in potentially doing something like this , but but Pederson was even more explicit , and he said the board had already started to do what he called a deep dive into research on cell phones in the classroom and and what damage they may , you know , lead to , and that he expected there will be some movement next year. Um , he wouldn't say exactly what any sort of proposed ban would look like , but he said , and I quote , the likelihood is very strong that there will be some form of cell phone exclusions from some settings. So it may not go as far as La Unified's ban on cell phone use. You know , across the campus. But it may certainly look like cell phone bans in classrooms. And he said they're still figuring out exactly what the research will tell them , and exactly what they think will be necessary to ensure that kids not only can succeed in class , but potentially don't have to deal with some of the negative impacts of cell phone usage usage in their personal life.
S1: Definitely a story to watch there sounds like might be a question of when , not if. They're for San Diego Unified , and we'll keep watching your reporting on that. I'm sure there's more to come there. I've been speaking with Jacob McKinney , education reporter with the Voice of San Diego. Jacob , thanks so much for joining us and sharing some of your reporting with us today.
S2: Yeah , it was my pleasure , Andrew. Thanks for having me.
S1: When roundtable returns , how artificial intelligence is affecting students , teachers and school districts in San Diego County and across the state.
S3: I think it's still an open question whether AI that's used for something like grading should be considered high risk , and therefore subject to more scrutiny or testing before it's used in the classroom.
S1: That's ahead on roundtable. Welcome back to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. In November of 2022 , ChatGPT was released , bringing the term generative AI to the forefront. Since that time , ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools have begun to transform our workplaces and lives , and schools are no exception. Calmatters tech reporter Carrie Johnson has been covering the use of AI in the classroom , with a focus on Southern California. Carrie , thanks for being here on roundtable.
S3: Thanks for having me.
S1: So much of the attention of AI in schools has been on students using tools like ChatGPT to do homework or help them write research papers , But your recent reporting has focused on how schools and teachers are using the technology.
S3: And , you know , to me , I started reporting on it and found that multiple surveys were showing that teachers were using the technology in their classrooms already to do things like send correspondence to parents or write , you know , newsletters or , um , you know , for classroom material and that they were using the technology as often and then sometimes , uh , more often than students. And so it just felt like it was , um , the idea that students would , you know , cheat , got a lot of attention. But I feel like there's a lot of questions to ask about teachers using the technology as well.
S1:
S3: And so , you know , some of the teachers that I've spoken with said that they felt like it was overblown , that concern. Um , and also , you know , something that I value from the conversations that I had with educators is that , you know , more than one told me that teachers know their students. And so if somebody comes into class with , uh , you know , an essay that doesn't sound like them and takes great leaps forward , and what a teacher expects from a student and the rate at which they might be able to progress and advance in their abilities , um , then that's , you know , a red flag that the teacher is likely to detect. You know , subsequently , I think there are also methods and tools that exist. You know , aside from using AI to detect whether somebody used AI to write a paper , just , you know , version history on Google Docs will show you if somebody's , you know , copy and pasted a giant chunk of text all at once , then you can tell that they didn't write that paper. Um , over time.
S1: And in your reporting , you tell the story of one San Diego English teacher , Jen Roberts , and how she introduced AI into her classroom. Tell us about her and how she began using some of these new technologies. Yeah.
S3: Yeah. Jen Roberts is an English teacher at Point Loma High School. And , you know , she's been teaching for about 30 years , and she is someone who describes herself as tech forward. She's not afraid of using different sort of tech tools in her classroom. And so she went to a training provided by San Diego Unified School District last year around this time , and started using a tool called Writeable in order to grade writing assignments and provide feedback on writing. And she was really happy with the results in that they reduced her sense of burnout. You know , she described being able to go see her son on the weekends and things like that , that , you know , if you assign an essay to , you know , more than 100 students and it can take a long time to get them those essays back. And so she was describing how this really sped that process up for her and how it reduced her sense of burnout.
S1: And I think you're reporting mentioned that also , while she says it can be helpful , she did mention kind of some downsides to that came up in your story.
S3: But when it came to outliers , um , students who tend to excel or students who are in need of , you know , catching up , The grades were inaccurate at times. And so , you know , something that's really common. I think in the age of AI being spread throughout society is that regulators and governments say , you know , we really need to keep a human in the loop in terms of determining whether a decision that's made by an AI model is accurate. and you know that that makes a lot of sense. But , you know , humans are still susceptible to something called automation bias , which is when you over trust the decisions that are made by an AI system. So even when there is a human in the loop determining how grading might go or other uses of AI and in society , professionals , teachers included , but professionals in any setting are susceptible to over trusting decisions that are made by AI models.
S1:
S3: But what I can tell you is that Jen Roberts , you know , said that of her 30 years in the classroom that , you know , this was , um , you know , her favorite and that she really saw advances in her , um , students writing at a quicker rate. And something that was really important that she pointed out was that when she's giving feedback to her students and she's not able to do that in a timely fashion , then the relevancy of that feedback can decline or degrade. But when she's able to do that quicker , um , she's able to , you know , avoid getting burned out , avoid losing weekends , and provide relevant feedback in a timely fashion to her students.
S1: And on those concerns of automation bias and some of the other concerns that come up with these new technologies.
S3: You know , different school districts have adopted some form of AI policy. Some haven't. Uh , San Diego Unified , it's my understanding , plans on adopting some sort of AI policy on how the technology is used next year. So , you know , the California Department of Education provides AI guidelines. Currently , these are only prescriptive. We should say , though , because the school districts make the final decisions , not the Department of Education. So it's not very well regulated , I would say. And I think it's still an open question. Uh , whether AI that's used for something like grading should be considered high risk and therefore subject to more scrutiny or testing before it's used in the classroom.
S1: And you mentioned that term high risk there.
S3: They really rely on determining whether or not an AI model should be considered low , medium or high risk. And if a model is considered high risk , then you know , in the EU , for example , it is put on a registry so that members of the public know that it's in use. Um , but generally speaking , you know , it it can mean that , you know , the AI is subject to more scrutiny , more testing before it's used , and more ongoing monitoring of the results to ensure that it doesn't harm people in the process. Because if you are automating inequality , uh , that that that's dangerous. We don't we don't want that.
S1: In your reporting. You also tell the story of LA Unified School District's project , where they created this chatbot ad the chatbot.
S3: And , um , something that really sticks out to me when I think about that is the extent to which , you know , smaller school districts don't have those resources. The two biggest school districts , um , probably do , and they still made mistakes. But back to your question about Los Angeles. Uh , Ed is a personalized chat bot that was made to do things like , uh , make recommendations to students on the types of learning material that might help them , uh , advance in their reading level. For example , if their behind Ed was intended to be the best personalized AI assistant to students the world has ever seen , that's effectively what , uh , Superintendent Carvalho in Los Angeles promised. And within three months and spending nearly $3 million , it was shelved. And there's a lot of unanswered questions as to why it was shelved. Um , you know , we've reached out to , uh , L.A. unified for , um , answers and we're told , uh , in some instances , like on the bot's performance , um , you know , that they declined to respond. Uh , but it's , um , a noteworthy example of an instance where overpromising what AI is capable of doing , um , is not helpful.
S1: And as you note there , with the $3 million spend not always cheap either. Right ? So no tech technology can can be pretty expensive to implement. Yeah yeah , yeah. Do you get a sense you know , you mentioned that a lot of this has been left up to the individual school districts and schools.
S3: There's a bill working its way through the California legislature that would require the state Superintendent of Instruction , Tony Thurmond , to create a working group and provide additional guidance to school districts on the safe and effective use of artificial intelligence.
S1: And finally , as the new school year kicks off for many students next week , what do you think students and parents need to keep in mind when it comes to AI in the classroom.
S3: I think , you know , there's a couple of different things that students and parents can keep in mind. You know , one is determining whether or not your school district has any policy about how the technology is used. As I said , I think it's still , um , an open question in a lot of places. Um , how to effectively or safely use the technology ? We're still waiting on , uh , guidance. You know , in some places , too , I think understanding the risks associated with the use of artificial intelligence are helpful. Um , you know , a text to image model can create hypersexualized imagery of young , you know , women. Um , women in general. Um , it can create , um , imagery that excludes people of color. Um , and I think that that's not helpful and potentially harmful to students. And so I think it's important for people to recognize that , um , large language models and text image models are capable of creating toxic , uh , imagery or language , and , uh , filters are put in place by the companies that create them at times. But it still things can break through. And , you know , it's worth questioning whether you want things from , you know , the root of a , you know , effectively a poisonous tree. Um , you know , and then , you know , I think it's important to question if the AI models that are in use have been tested , if , in particular , if you feel like it deserves something like a high risk label. Um , school districts , nonprofits that work with them or , you know , state bodies. It's possible that they could have tested it themselves and it would be , um , you know , helpful to to know what the results were , something that was very important , I think , in the piece that I finished recently is , you know , one of the people who I spoke with , Steven Aguilar , who runs a center at University of Southern California , you know , says that you don't need to be an expert in AI to be critical , to have critical analysis of the technology. Um , and if anybody is trying to sell you something , um , and they can't answer plain English questions about it. Uh , then they may be using the technology to as a veil to hide , you know , their ability to sell it , basically. And then the last thing is , you know , being literate in how the technology , um , can operate , how an AI model , um , is trained on data and then produces an output. Um is really important for everyone. And , you know , knowing that it's not magic , that it's a series of predictions and recommendations effectively is what an AI model is doing is important to everyone for protecting your own rights , uh , protecting your family and protecting your community.
S1: Well , it's just so fascinating how far we've come in just a couple of years with these new technologies and how integrated they are and things like our schools. We really appreciate you breaking down some of what you found in your reporting. Carrie Johnson covers technology for Calmatters. Carrie , thanks so much for being here today. Absolutely.
S3: Absolutely. Thanks , Andrew.
S1: When we come back , we hear all about dogs , pandas , art , and more on the roundup that's ahead on roundtable. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. It's time now for the Weekly Roundup. And back with us is KPBS web producer Laura McCaffrey. Hey , Laura.
S4: Hey , Andrew.
S1: Great to have you back.
S4: It's kind of a bummer. This is the record number of dogs that they've had in their care. And obviously this is a huge problem for many reasons. Some of the consequences overcrowding , they can't take in new animals that need help. And I saw they paused their low cost spay and neuter program. So that's just like another resource that impacts people that might already have pets that need extra help. So they're putting out another call to the public to help out , either adopting , fostering , donating and just spay and neuter your own pets so they don't go around and create more pets and more overcrowding. Yeah.
S1: And this is I mean , it seems to have been going on for several months now , but these kind of record levels , right ? I think there was even a San Diego Magazine article maybe last month , kind of looking into some of the reasons behind this , this crisis that they're facing. And a lot of it kind of came down to cost , I think , and also like lack of veterinary veterinary care. But one thing that jumped out to me as a dog owner is like just the big increase in the cost of veterinary care , too.
S4: Yep , yep.
S1: And I think they're seeing like a lot of , you know , these larger breeds , especially in shelters , more to , like , affected more in the shelters. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. I mean , it's also a national trend. There's just a lot of shelter animals in general. Um , and that's , you know , basically high cost of living , just like in San Diego. This is also happening at a national level. So do you think you need another dog ? Andrew. That is the question.
S1: Oh , man , my kids would love it. I'll just leave it at that. But I'm not sure we can sustain it. But yeah , it's really sad. I mean , um , I think so many of us value some of these dog spaces in San Diego , and we know that the cost of living is always kind of , you know , an issue that crops up. But we do have , I think I saw even like on the list of like top dog beaches , dog parks , that Fiesta Island was on the list of one of the top in the nation. You know what I mean ? We do have , like , kind of some dog friendly spaces or pet friendly places.
S4: Yeah , totally. Yeah , there's definitely a lot of good places for dogs. I don't always think San Diego's like the best place for renters to have pets , but I think there's a new bill moving through the California legislature that's going to make that a lot easier for.
S1: People , right ? Yeah.
S4: So yeah.
S1: Yeah , that'll be interesting to follow. Um , and kind of a related story , uh , CBS had the story last month that I noticed that said San Diego has the most fleas of any city in the country , really. And I think , you know , um , some of it has to do with climate. Obviously , we have warmer weather so that the fleas can survive , but that that kind of jumped out to me. And definitely I've , you know , we've struggled with fleas at times. And that article from CBS eight kind of made the note , you know , you want to brush them off in and then keep an eye out for those those little black spots.
S4: Oh yeah. Yeah. Flea dirt or whatever. Yeah. I've heard like some , some flea medicine does not work on San Diego fleas. At least my vet has told me that. So , you know , make sure you got something that works , y'all. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Well , staying again with animals here , there's also , you know , one of the bigger stories this week that I think it's been hard to avoid , frankly , is the pandas are back at the zoo. Oh , yeah. And this is something , you know , we've talked in in roundups in the past or the plans to bring them back. They came , you know , a few weeks ago now and were kind of like getting acclimated. But as of Thursday , the Panda Ridge exhibit is is open to , you know , people going to the zoo. So , um , I think there's plans for a lot of traffic and a lot of interest in this this weekend.
S4: Yeah , I've heard that Saturday traffic is probably going to be the worst. So if you do go see the pandas plan for that , maybe take the bus , I don't know , lift whatever. Or you can just go at a later time. The pandas are still going to be there.
S1: I mean , I hate to make this analogy , but I'm kind of treating it like when the new Star Wars thing opened at Disneyland. Like I might wait a few months before checking it out. Yeah.
S4: Yeah.
S1: That awful. The same. Uh.
S4: Uh. It's fine. They'll be there. I'll catch them eventually. Um , you know , also this weekend , I'm personally interested in something that doesn't involve panda traffic. Um , I'm excited about compressed , which is this music and art festival. Um , it's being held at the Central Library downtown , and it's a collaboration between Bernal Books , which is this little print shop. They have a storefront in North Park. Um , and then particle FM , which is this internet radio station. Um , and it's all about zines , music , arts and celebrating DIY. Do it yourself.
S1:
S4: I'll just put that out there. Um , but it's just a little magazine that you create yourself without much financial backing or , you know , having to put it through a publisher or whatever. Right.
S1: Right. And then my memory of it , that's what I was wondering if it was kind of changed , but it was like the Xerox kind of aesthetic of it too. And you're right , like the collage piece. So it's still pretty , like organic and analog , for lack of a better term. Exactly.
S4: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that's going to be 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow , um , at the Central Library. So see you there then.
S1: An alternative to the pandas this weekend. Yes. Lara McCaffrey's web producer with KPBS. Laura , thanks so much for joining us today. And have a great weekend.
S4: Thanks , Andrew. You too.
S1: That'll do it for our show today. Thanks so much for listening. You can listen to KPBS roundtable anytime. As a podcast. KPBS roundtable airs on KPBS FM at noon on Fridays again Sundays at 6 a.m.. If you have any thoughts on today's show or ideas for a future one , feel free to email us at roundtable at PBS.org. You can also leave us a message at (619) 452-0228. Roundtables. Technical producers this week have been Ben Red Hlasek and Brandon Truffaut. The show was produced by Jacob Air. Brooke Ruth is Roundtable's senior producer and I'm Andrew Bracken. Thanks again for listening and have a great weekend.
