Of the roughly 43% of California unified school districts that responded to the 2024 Safe and Supportive Schools Report Card, few reported having adopted all of the LGBTQ curriculum standards required by a state law that went into effect in 2012. At best, more than half had done so for at least one age cohort in either the elementary, middle, or high school level.
Known as the FAIR Act, the law added "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans" to the list of topics public school districts in the Golden State are to teach about to K-12 students in their history-social science classes. But as the California Department of Education notes on the webpage explaining Senate Bill 48, it was left to local districts to determine how the instructional content is included.
In 2016, the state agency updated its guidelines for how school districts could integrate the LGBTQ content into classroom instruction. But as it notes on its FAIR Act webpage, "the law provides a great deal of flexibility on how it is implemented."
There is nothing on the webpage about a hard deadline for when school districts were to have begun teaching the LGBTQ content at all grade levels. It simply states "instruction in history—social science should include" doing so. Nor does it mention any penalties for those districts that fail to do so.
Thus, of the 146 school districts that took part in the biennial report card compiled by the Equality California Institute, the educational arm of the statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization Equality California, just 37% reported that they had adopted FAIR Act compliant instructional materials in social studies and history for all grades.
When asked if they had adopted FAIR Act compliant instructional materials in all four minimum required topics: history, government, social studies, and English language arts, only 31% of the districts said that they had done so. Nearly 60% have adopted FAIR Act compliant instructional materials in social studies and history for at least one of the school-age cohorts.
"It is concerning," EQCA Institute spokesperson Jorge Reyes Salinas told the Bay Area Reporter when asked about the small percentage of public school districts that reported meeting the FAIR Act curriculum requirements.
"This report highlights what is the obstacle for certain districts. Is it lack of staffing, funding, or the growth of the school district not matching financially what it needs?" noted Reyes Salinas.
The office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was unable to provide by the B.A.R.'s press deadline comment about the latest EQCA schools report card, the third it has released since 2019. In a letter included in the 72-page report, Thurmond wrote that he hopes it fosters "connections across districts to share successful approaches and address challenges."
He also noted, "the insights and recommendations provided in this report will help us identify critical gaps and elevate successes as districts across the state work to support positive school climates not just for LGBTQ+ youth but for all students."
According to the report card, it "is vital" for every student to learn about the contributions and history of LGBTQ+ individuals. It calls for increasing shared resources on LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum and instructional materials in order to facilitate continued improvement of them.
"When looking at inclusive curriculum in other areas of study, the results are underwhelming, with many districts still struggling to meet the requirements of the FAIR Act," notes the report card. "Accessibility of inclusive curricula in all subjects will require further collaboration and resource sharing. Adoption of LGBTQ+ inclusive textbooks and educational materials must be more consistent across districts."
Highest response rate so far
This year's report received the highest response rate of the three so far released. Five years ago, 130 of the state's 343 unified school districts filled out the voluntary questionnaire sent to district administrators. The number dropped to 118 two years ago as unified school districts were still dealing with disruptions brought about by the COVID pandemic.
"It is something, we of course, always talk about," said Reyes Salinas about the disappointing response rate. "The report card is really there to highlight the challenges and the opportunities of improvement. In an ideal world, we would have all school districts prioritizing this enough to provide information that down the line will help them fill the gaps they have to fulfill these mandates by the state and to support LGBTQ students, which is what this is really highlighting."
School districts that only have high schools, or both middle and high schools, are not asked to participate. And more than half of the districts sent the report card continue not to fill it out, including the state's largest such district, Los Angeles Unified School District.
It currently has 540,000 students at over a thousand school sites. LAUSD's communications office did not respond to the B.A.R.'s query on why it had for a second time not taken part in the report card.
It had filled out the inaugural one released in 2019. At that time it reported the contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals are taught in history and social studies classes. The district also said its high schools were required to begin using textbooks and/or other instructional materials that include references to LGBTQ+ Americans and other under-represented groups.
But it did not respond to a question on if the district had adopted the use of LGBTQ+ inclusive textbooks and/or other instructional materials for history and social studies classes for its different grades.
The 2024 report card grouped districts into 11 regions across California. Most of the nine-county Bay Area was included in Region 4, but Sonoma County was included in Region 1 with other North Coast counties and Santa Clara County was put in Region 5 with Central Coast counties.
Of the 42 school districts in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Solano counties, only 17 responded with the average score being 43.4 out of a high score of 62.
"We are fortunate more districts have filled it out," said Reyes Salinas. "But it is upsetting to have school districts in areas you noted, like the Bay Area and even LAUSD, the largest unified school district that serves a large amount of students, not fill it out."
With issues concerning LGBTQ students coming under attack by local Republican officials and conservative parent groups across California in recent years, Reyes Salinas said it is more important than ever for school districts to take part in the report card. The point isn't to "shame" or "reprimand" school districts, stressed Reyes Salinas, but to begin conversations on how they can better meet the needs of their LGBTQ student populations.
"If we are not able to have frank conversations about where our school districts are at at the moment, we are just putting a band aid on some of these critical issues," he said.
While the actual report card, which can be downloaded at https://schools.eqca.org/report-card/, just lists the responding districts' scores, the website includes a searchable database to see why a certain district received the score that it did.
For example, the San Francisco Unified School District, which just saw the ouster of its superintendent amid public uproar over a now-scrapped plan to close or merge 11 of its schools due to declining enrollment, received a score of 51.75, putting it among the better performing districts on the report card. It lost points because not all of its middle and high schools have a Gender and Sexuality Alliance or GSA club for LGBTQ students and for not tracking the number of LGBTQ students who are formally disciplined.
It was also dinged for not having at least one easily-accessible all-gender bathroom for students at each of its school sites. SFUSD also saw deductions for the length of time it takes to review textbooks, not having a district-wide group for LGBTQ staff, and not mandating employees have LGBTQ+ specific training nor suicide awareness and prevention training. Its suicide prevention program isn't mandatory or taken by all of its staff.
EQCA plans to release a fourth report card, Reyes Salinas confirmed, and is hopeful of seeing the number of school districts responding continue to increase.
"As of now, yes, we plan to roll out the next one in 2026," said Reyes Salinas.
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