Recent standardized test scores from students in the San Diego Unified School District showed only a slight improvement from the 2022-23 school year to the 2023-24 school year, indicating that the impacts of pandemic-era learning are still lingering.
During Covid, students and teachers had to commit to fully virtual education, resulting in significant and widespread learning loss among students.
Our Jakob McWhinney reports that the district spent the past three years funding programs to help students make up the academic ground they lost during Covid. But that funding came from federal Covid-relief money that has now run out.
And still, students’ test scores are not where they were before the pandemic started.
There’s more: San Diego Unified is also dealing with a budget deficit that’s projected to reach $176 million next year. That means significant budget cuts are likely on the horizon, which could further strain pandemic recovery efforts.
Despite this, some district leaders remain optimistic that students will make more progress moving forward as the district begins to implement new initiatives.
San Diego Unified isn’t the only one: Test scores in school districts countywide remained almost unchanged from the 2022-23 school year to the 2023-24 school year.
Ex-Border Patrol Chief Says He Was Pressured to Hide Migrants
At a recent hearing, former San Diego Border Patrol Sector Chief Aaron Heitke revealed that the Biden administration had pushed him at the time to move migrants being held in a space between the border walls out of sight of news cameras.
“It looked bad, and they wanted them moved,” Heitke said at the hearing.
Voice contributor Kate Morrissey writes that Heitke’s revelation confirms what many humanitarian volunteers have feared: that people in need of aid are being pushed to areas where they can’t be seen.
A immigration official denied Heitke’s claims. U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Morrissey that agents prioritize migrants based on vulnerability and transport them as quickly as possible for processing.
But volunteers who bring migrants food and water say they are still watching individuals, and children, wait for long periods in between the border walls.
Newly Homeless San Diegans Continue to Outnumber Newly Housed
For the past 30 months in a row, the number of people becoming homeless in San Diego County has outpaced the number moving into homes.
The Regional Task Force on Homelessness reports that 1,328 people became homeless for the first time in September and 1,081 exited homelessness.
A tragic math problem: Local efforts to house homeless residents aren’t keeping up with the flood of people losing their homes.
Picture Fills in on Arena Offer to SDSU
In the middle of the contest the city hosted to redevelop its nearly 50 acres of land at the Sports Arena site, one of the arena building bidders abruptly dropped out.
The U-T’s Jenn Van Grove revealed Monday a document released by the California State University system regarding a pitch for a new full-sized arena on San Diego State’s Mission Valley land.
Why it matters: The document fills in some details of what the arena builder Oak View Group offered SDSU but the university’s president, Adela de la Torre, was not interested.
What the university said: “While SDSU officials were aware of a concept related to an arena project being discussed by those outside the university, we determined that such an idea was misaligned with SDSU Mission Valley’s site plan, the vision for the site as the future of our campus, and what voters approved through Measure G. To be clear, no employee of SDSU had the documents released this week by the CSU,” a spokesperson wrote.
Scott Lewis wrote about the backroom battle this offer caused among SDSU insiders.
Correction: We’ve updated this section to correct that the document was released by the CSU system and to include more information from the university.
In Other News
- The county Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board has twice requested documents from county officials related to accusations of possible misconduct by probation officers, but those requests were denied and the cases were dismissed. (Union-Tribune)
- San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and Police Chief Scott Wahl highlighted the “effectiveness” of Smart Streetlights (video cameras in public areas) and automated license plate readers on Monday as the police department prepares to ask the City Council to move some of the cameras. (KPBS)
- The University of San Diego is seeking to more than double its housing capacity on its campus in Linda Vista from its current capacity of 2,600 to 5,701. The city’s Planning Commission has already OK’d it. Next, the City Council will review it, possibly by the end of the year. (Union-Tribune)
- The San Diego City Council approved stricter regulations on downtown pedicaps Monday, including a ban on amplified music. (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.