{"id":122626,"date":"2026-01-06T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T21:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/122626\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T21:12:09","slug":"as-it-tries-to-close-a-large-budget-gap-lbusd-urges-students-to-attend-class-long-beach-post-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/122626\/","title":{"rendered":"As it tries to close a large budget gap, LBUSD urges students to attend class \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Empty seats are straining Long Beach Unified\u2019s already-thin wallet. Now, amid staff cuts<\/a> and cost-saving measures<\/a> aimed at shrinking a large deficit, the school district is also trying to boost attendance, hoping to recoup state funds it\u2019s left on the table in recent years.<\/p>\n

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, attendance hovered around 95% to 96%, the district said in a recent budget update<\/a>, and one in eight students was chronically absent. During and immediately after the pandemic, LBUSD attendance plummeted and chronic absenteeism skyrocketed, reflecting a national trend.<\/p>\n

Attendance has improved since then, but numbers never rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n

The district is adjusting to a new normal, where a quarter of students were chronically absent the last two years, according to the California Department of Education<\/a>. As pressure mounts to increase attendance, educators say they\u2019re being pushed not just to teach but to make sure students are attending class. District leaders, meanwhile, are advocating for changes in the state\u2019s school funding formula, arguing the current system disadvantages large urban districts like Long Beach.<\/p>\n

Chronically absent students, who miss at least 10% of instructional days, are a major drag on districtwide attendance, which sits at 93.4% this school year. That\u2019s only a couple of percentage points lower than historic averages, but even seemingly small dips in attendance have big implications. With each percentage drop, the district loses $8 million annually in state funding, according to Superintendent Jill Baker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Low attendance is compounded by decreasing enrollment (LBUSD has lost more than 16,000 students \u2014 and significant state funding \u2014 in the last decade<\/a>). Now, the district is operating at a $70 million deficit and searching the couch cushions for change. Attendance is \u201cthe most positive and effective means of addressing the District\u2019s financial situation,\u201d Baker and Yumi Takahashi, the district\u2019s chief business and financial officer, said in a recent memo addressed to members of the board of education<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new \u201cYou Belong!\u201d campaign \u201ccenters on the message that students belong in school every day\u201d and includes competitions and rewards to incentivize attendance, as well as an interactive attendance tracker<\/a>, a spokesperson for the district said. The messaging is intended for students and parents, she said, yet teachers said they\u2019re urged to boost attendance, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hearing it at every staff meeting,\u201d said a special education teacher who requested to remain anonymous for fear of blowback. She regularly sends notes home, emphasizing the importance of kids being present, but \u201cit\u2019s so frustrating\u201d to be \u201ctasked with\u201d boosting attendance, she said, because \u201cI have zero control over whether a kid comes to school on a given day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some schools have begun offering incentives to students with high attendance. But the students winning awards are already present, the special education teacher said, while those who most need support, \u201cthe person who\u2019s really, really struggling to get their kid here on time on a regular basis,\u201d won\u2019t even be in the running.<\/p>\n

Repeatedly telling students to show up does not seem to be working, she said and floated the idea of an attendance policy \u201cwith more teeth.\u201d Yet punitive truancy policies of the past may not be productive, she said: \u201cThe old teeth don\u2019t really fit anymore.\u201d Nor are they legal. A new state law<\/a>, which took effect this month, removes jail time and fines for parents of truant students.<\/p>\n

Susan Scott, a first-grade teacher at Fremont Elementary, described what she called a \u201cmonumental shift\u201d after the pandemic: \u201cThe public\u2019s mind is that it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re at school every day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Teachers are under enormous pressure to get kids in school, but that pressure is \u201cin the wrong place,\u201d said Scott. Teachers have little control over whether kids attend, Scott said, yet their pay and resources are affected as a result of tightening budgets. In California, schools receive a cost-of-living adjustment from the state, but the state withholds some money when attendance is below 100%. \u201cThe whole funding mechanism needs to be changed,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n

In December, the Public Policy Institute of California<\/a> published a report examining potential updates to the state\u2019s school funding formula. The report\u2019s authors found that allocating funds by enrollment rather than attendance would benefit high-need districts.<\/p>\n

That same month, superintendents of eight major urban California school districts (including Long Beach Unified) sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> urging him to increase funding to public education. The letter expressed concerns over decreasing enrollment, disruptions from immigration raids, federal funding cuts and economic hardship, which the superintendents said their districts are feeling acutely.<\/p>\n

Yet the state\u2019s nonpartisan policy advisor, the Legislative Analyst\u2019s Office, recommended<\/a> continuing to allocate funds based on attendance.<\/p>\n

At the local level, improving attendance could recover state money the district \u201cleaves on the table\u201d due to low numbers, teachers union president Gerry Morrison said. In its recently ratified contract, the union created an attendance committee with the district, whose response to absences has been inadequate, Morrison said. He proposed collaborating with city agencies to encourage students to show up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Empty seats are straining Long Beach Unified\u2019s already-thin wallet. Now, amid staff cuts and cost-saving measures aimed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-122626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}