State officials describe emergency steps to keep students learning after Southern California wildfires

State education and finance officials told the Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 1 on Education on March 13 that emergency actions are in place to protect school funding and get students back into classrooms after recent Southern California wildfires.

The testimony focused on short‑term protections for average daily attendance (ADA), interim school sites for displaced students, and longer‑term facility funding and reconstruction. Jessica Holmes of the Department of Finance said the governor’s office has proposed intent language to provide “an additional year of ADA hold harmless for fire‑impacted schools,” and Rebecca Kirk, executive officer of the Office of Public School Construction, said interim school sites were identified and students had resumed instruction by Feb. 14 in the eight public schools that had been displaced.

Why it matters: ADA determines how much state funding districts and charter schools receive under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), so sustained drops in attendance can reduce revenue. Many of the students displaced by the fires attend charter schools, which generally are paid on current ADA and do not automatically receive the same multi‑year protections as most school districts. Committee members and witnesses warned that without clear, timely state action, affected schools risk budget and staffing instability in coming years.

Officials described a three‑phase response. First, the California Department of Education (CDE) has used the J13A emergency ADA waiver process to fund lost ADA in the current year; Jessica Holmes said that process “ensures that schools are funded for any emergency‑related lost ADA or declines in enrollment.”…