The Brief

This story is a collaboration between LAist and Open Campus . 

Shayna Meikle owns Pigeon’s Roller Rink in Long Beach, along with a nearby skate shop and another rink in Mission Viejo. She spends most days in front of a computer, tending to the minutiae of running a business, or updating her company’s social media.

But, a few times a week, Meikle throws on a pair of skates and teaches clients the basics.

“Bend your knees!” she instructs them. “And stick your butt out!”

Shayna Meikle takes a spin with Elliott Fromm, general manager of her skating rink in Long Beach.

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“Arms in front of you,” she adds, as she extends her own.

About a decade ago, Meikle’s life looked different. As part of a teacher-training program, she taught science to middle schoolers.

But the money Meikle earned wasn’t enough to cover her living expenses. To make ends meet, she had to work after work.

During the week, Meikle was at her assigned campus in the city of Bell by 7 a.m. At 3:30 p.m., she’d clock out and race down to Carson for her college classes. From 7 to 10 p.m., she did roller skating gigs across the South Bay, and ran her own roller derby league. Then, she’d head home to Long Beach, exhausted. On weekends she was either at games, or studying and lesson planning.

Her schedule was intense, but she enjoyed the work. “I love science, and I love[d] the students,” she said. “I could have done that my whole life.”

But halfway through the four-year program, Meikle quit to focus on skating full-time.

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Across the U.S., states are constantly in the midst of teacher shortages. California's teaching prep and residency programs are supposed to be part of the solution. But many hopeful teachers struggle to balance their passion with the risk of debt and high cost of living.

The cost of becoming a teacher in California. Who can afford to do it?

Across the U.S., states are constantly in the midst of teacher shortages. California's teaching prep and residency programs are supposed to be part of the solution. But many hopeful teachers struggle to balance their passion with the risk of debt and high cost of living.

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Meikle doesn't regret it. But in the context of ongoing teacher shortages in California, that choice speaks to a broader failure to create conditions that entice educators to enter, or stay in, the field — conditions that are further complicated in Southern California by the cost of living and getting around.

In 2022, half as many people graduated from California's teacher-prep programs as in 2004, the peak year, according to the Learning Policy Institute .

“I think most people don't understand what it takes to become a teacher, the hoops you have to jump through,” said Jarod Kawasaki, department chair of teacher education at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

On top of proving subject matter competence and passing a string of required testing, K-12 teacher candidates in California must complete at least 600 hours of time working in a classroom — more than many other states in the country. Often, that labor is unpaid.

But to cultivate a reliable and diverse teacher workforce, experts don’t recommend scaling back on those requirements. Instead, they call on policymakers and stakeholders to design programs that help prospective educators meet them without self-sacrifice.

Staying in the classroom meant saying no

Meikle graduated shortly after the Great Recession. And when the jobs she’d had her eye on evaporated, she had to pivot.

A teacher-prep program at Cal State Dominguez Hills promised to let her put her degrees in geology and ecology and evolutionary biology to good use. In exchange for a four-year commitment to teach science, the program would cover the cost of her university coursework. Meikle would also earn about $19.50 an hour and receive an annual $4,000 stipend.

“For me, straight out of college, I was, like: ‘Oh my god! Nineteen dollars and fifty cents an hour? This is amazing!’” she said.

Teaching "really prepared me for where I am. I wouldn't be here without it. I learned so much. I grew so much," Meikle told LAist.

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Meikle spent the summer of 2011 learning about classroom management. Three months later, she had a classroom of her own. The program didn’t assign her a mentor teacher, she said, so she sought one out for herself. All in all, the start of her teaching career felt like being a baby bird getting pushed out of its nest, she told LAist.

Her stipend went to classroom supplies and professional clothes. The bulk of her wages went to pay off student loans. There wasn’t much left after that.

Little by little, the skating gigs got bigger. “I was getting all these opportunities, and I was getting paid well,” she said.

Meikle also started seeing she was having a positive impact on adults.

Meikle recalled meeting a mother of five who had struggled with suicidal thoughts. After six months in the roller derby league, the woman shared with Meikle that skating made her feel "more alive than ever." Meikle didn’t doubt the importance of her work after that.

With time, Meikle started getting coaching gigs around the world. But to take on those jobs, she had to leave her students with substitutes — something she didn’t like.

Meikle also began to envision a life outside the classroom, one with more flexibility and less burnout: “I have to go be a professional skater, or stay here and say no to all of these opportunities,” she thought.

Are you a student teacher in the Los Angeles area trying to balance clinical hours with paying the bills? Share your story with us.

What it takes to become a teacher

California offers multiple pathways toward completing the 600-hour requirement, including traditional teacher-prep programs and residency programs, which are modeled after medical residencies and usually provide some form of compensation.

Cathy Yun is deputy director of the Educator Preparation Laboratory , an initiative spearheaded by the nonprofit Learning Policy Institute and the Bank Street Graduate School of Education in New York City. The project has partners across the country, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. It aims to ensure that teachers enter the classroom ready to provide students with an education that fosters “deeper learning” skills, including critical thinking.

Yun has been studying teacher-prep programs since 2019. Before that, she started several residency programs at Fresno State.

Throughout the U.S, she told LAist, “fewer people are seeing teaching as a desirable or viable career choice.”

The shortages, Yun said, are especially pronounced in special education, dual-language instruction, math and science.

The 600-hour requirement is meant to give aspiring educators ample time in the classroom before they get a chance to lead one of their own, Kawasaki said. But the requirement can serve as a barrier, particularly at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where many students are either Pell Grant recipients (a federal award for students with “exceptional financial need”) or the first in their families to go to college (a trait associated with lower household income).

The semester before student teaching is often a “stopping point” for prospective educators, Kawasaki told LAist. Students will say: “I can’t quit my job, so I’m going to [take a] pause.”

Most students do come back, he said, but it can sometimes take years. In the meantime, students might save up to have money set aside while they complete their clinical hours. Others return to the program after landing coveted internships, which provide a salary .

“Is 600 hours great for learning? Absolutely,” Kawasaki said. “But [the requirement] assumes that you have the means to be able to do that without working.”

California requires more student teaching than many other states, including Arizona, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Texas.

But to attract more candidates to the profession, Kawasaki doesn’t believe it would be wise to lower California’s requirement. Spending a significant amount of time at a school, he said, allows aspiring teachers to see what it takes to help students grow. It also enables them to become part of the school community.

Middle school students walk around Young Oak Kim Academy in Koreatown.

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A teacher who stayed

Kevin Gutierrez is a middle school science teacher at Young Oak Kim Academy in Koreatown. He’s been at the school for eight years, including the time he spent student teaching.

Like Meikle, Gutierrez signed up for a teacher-prep program that fast-tracked him into the classroom. In 2016, immediately after earning a bachelor’s degree in public health at UC Irvine, he enrolled at UCLA. There, he worked toward a master’s degree in education and a preliminary credential in biology and general science. The program paid for most of his tuition — but Gutierrez still had to figure out how to pay for his living expenses.

During the week, Gutierrez used public transportation to move between Downey, where he lived; Koreatown, where he taught; and Westwood, where he studied. He paid using his UCLA TAP Card, which offered free unlimited rides. While he was in transit, he usually graded student work or caught up on sleep.

Shayna Meikle's commute as a student teacher. Not depicted: The jobs she'd take in and around the South Bay in the evening.

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Kevin Gutierrez's commute as a student teacher. The commute would be about 100 minutes without any traffic.

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After teaching all day and going to class, Gutierrez worked as an Uber driver, usually from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. He also picked up shifts on weekends.

Early on in his program, other challenges emerged. First, Gutierrez’s landlord renovated the apartment he shared with his family in Lynwood and used that as a reason to jack up the rent. Then, Gutierrez’s mentor teacher passed away.

What kept him going through this difficult time?

Gutierrez’s program paired him with another mentor, who was extremely supportive, he said. Plus, his colleagues at Young Oak Kim Academy were always checking in. They’d routinely pop by his class and ask: “Hey, do you need anything?”

Gutierrez also endured because of personal motivation. He wanted to honor his mother, who fled violence in El Salvador as a teenager and didn't get to go to high school.

Kevin Gutierrez in his classroom.

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He also thought about a child he met while volunteering as an undergraduate. The boy was in fifth grade, but he couldn’t add or subtract. Gutierrez was dismayed that the child had gotten that far in school without learning fundamental math.

He’d also noticed that there weren’t many Latinos leading classrooms. As someone who lost his father at a young age, he wanted to be a role model for others.

At UCLA, faculty learned about the challenges Gutierrez was facing and secured an additional grant to help him out. “It took so much weight off my shoulders,” he said.

Despite that grant, the tuition support and all the Uber rides, Gutierrez still had to take out a loan to get through school. “But it wasn’t huge,” he said.

Building a diverse workforce  

To attract more prospective teachers — and to make the profession more accessible to candidates from historically excluded groups — experts say it’s essential to consider the cost.

Kawasaki, the department chair at Cal State Dominguez Hills, has conducted research on the cost of becoming a K-12 educator , particularly for students from working class communities of color. For some of the California students in his research, getting through their prep programs required skipping meals to save money, or going without sleep so they could work.

In his work, Kawasaki notes that even teacher-prep programs with “frameworks that define teaching and learning around disrupting historical and current oppressive policies,” largely ignore the material needs of teacher candidates of color. “I, too, am complicit,” he wrote.

A 2023 report found that, nationally, more than 60% of all full-time, public school teachers have taken out student loans to pay for their education. Among them, more than one third reported working multiple jobs because of their student debt.

"Teaching is the best way for me to give back to my community, to give back to my people, " Gutierrez told LAist.

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“If we are really serious about addressing the [teacher] shortage, and especially addressing the shortage with a diverse workforce, then there has to be something that's done in terms of alleviating the financial burden that so many of our [teacher candidates] have to take on,” Kawasaki said.

Estela Zarate, dean of Loyola Marymount University’s school of education, noted that for many first-generation college graduates, “teaching is often the entry point to a middle-class job.”

“The cost of living has increased so much, particularly in areas like Los Angeles,” she said.

Incurring a loan to pursue teaching and then not being able to buy a home because you’re in debt is not going to draw more people to the profession, she added: “The math doesn't add up.”

In a May 2025 report , Yun and her colleague identified characteristics of high-quality teacher residency programs. These include a full-year of teaching experience alongside a mentor, coupled with the gradual release of responsibilities. Compensation for carefully-selected mentors and financial support for residents, they said, is also key.

To promote retention, the report also includes recommendations for policymakers. At the federal level, Yun and her colleague suggest covering teachers’ monthly student loan payments, so long as they remain in the classroom.

To encourage more people to join the profession at the state level, California Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, has introduced a bill to pay student teachers the same daily rate as substitute teachers.

The bill has advanced with bipartisan support through the Assembly and will be heard by the Senate’s education committee on June 25. But whether it’ll pass is anyone’s guess, given that California is grappling with a $16 billion decline in tax revenue .

Saying goodbye 

Leaving education, Meikle told LAist, is one of the toughest choices she’s ever made. “I cried about it. I went on long hikes by myself to think about it,” she said.

Before making her decision, she asked everyone around her for guidance. Meikle even asked her students to weigh in.

She polled her nearly 300 students: “Should I, your favorite teacher, leave you to do roller skating full time?”

All but one student said yes.

The rest told Meikle: “Go, Miss. Follow your dreams.”

Illustration by Olivia Hughes.

President Donald Trump has signed a bill to fund the government, bringing a close to the longest government shutdown in history, one that saw millions of Americans affected and ended with little political gain.

The bill passed Wednesday night despite Republicans' narrow margin in the House. Six Democrats joined their Republican colleagues to get the bill over the finish line 43 days after the shutdown began: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Adam Gray of California, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Tom Suozzi of New York.

Two Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida — voted no. The final vote was 222 to 209.

Trump signed the bill shortly after the House vote. He blamed Democrats for the shutdown at the signing event in the Oval Office.

"This was an easy extension but they didn't want to do it the easy way," Trump said. "They wanted to do it the hard way."

In addition to extending last year's spending levels through the end of January for most of the government, the bill provides funding for some agencies through the end of next September, including payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The program, which provides food aid to nearly 1 in 8 Americans, has been mired in a court battle because of the shutdown.

The bill includes a measure to reverse layoffs the Trump administration imposed during the shutdown, provides backpay for federal employees, and institutes protections against further layoffs.

But the central issue underlying the entire shutdown — extensions on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year — is not addressed in the bill.

Instead, as part of the deal reached with a bipartisan contingent of senators , Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to hold a vote in mid-December on Democrat-drafted legislation aimed at extending those subsidies.

That doesn't sit well with many Senate Democrats, who remain wary of the pledge.

"A handshake deal with my Republican colleagues to reopen the government and no guarantee to actually lower costs is simply not good enough," said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., who voted against the measure.

Even if a December bill addressing the expiring subsidies passes the Senate, it would need to go to the House. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has not made a guarantee to bring such a bill to the floor for a vote.

A lot of pain, not a lot of gain

Government shutdowns historically have not been effective tools for advancing a party's policy goals. The last six weeks proved that to be the rule, not an exception.

The decision by Senate Democrats not to fund the government before Oct. 1 was fueled, at least in part, by demands from the Democrats' political base to be a strong opposition party. The party homed in on a promise that they would not fund the government unless Republicans agreed to extend subsidies for people who buy health care through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

The decision came after key Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted alongside Republicans to avoid a shutdown in March. The result was a furious Democratic base, who demanded the minority party exert what little leverage it has to force a negotiation with Republicans in exchange for their votes to fund the government.

With an eye toward the expiring subsidies and resulting skyrocketing premiums, Senate Democrats stood firm during the October shutdown, hoping their resolve, paired with the devastating impacts of the shutdown on millions of Americans, would bring Republicans to the negotiating table.

But the strategy ultimately didn't work. Republicans didn't budge and continued to hold regular votes to fund the government.

In the meantime, 42 million Americans who participate with SNAP didn't receive the food aid they rely on. Air traffic controllers and most Transportation Security Administration employees had to remain on the job without pay, leading to the Federal Aviation Administration's order to scale back flights . Millions of federal workers went without pay.

The group of seven Democrats and one independent senator who voted to end the shutdown acknowledged that waiting longer wouldn't bring about a different result.

"There was no guarantee that waiting would get us a better result, but there was a guarantee that waiting would impose suffering on more everyday people," Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told NPR.

The result is an end to a shutdown that does not address the core demand from Democrats on the subsidies. Instead they are left to defend the kind of handshake agreement that they once said was insufficient.

Thune's ultimate deal with Democrats aligns with his repeated statements throughout the shutdown that Republicans would be open to negotiating on the expiring subsidies only after the government was funded, not before.

Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, one of the six Democrats who voted for the bill in the House, said there is still an opportunity to address health care.

"Congress still has a window to pass bipartisan legislation to extend the ACA premium tax credits," Golden said in a statement. "In September, I joined a bipartisan coalition in the House to put forth legislation to extend the credits for one year and now, with the shutdown now over, I urge members of both parties who care about affordable health care to come back to the table so we can get the job done."

Another factor that didn't go Democrats' way is the president himself. President Trump has been known at times to upend Congressional Republicans' game plan. But he took a step back during the shutdown and let Thune drive the GOP strategy. He didn't take the bait from Democrats who repeatedly asked where Trump "the great negotiator" was in the discussions.

What happens now? 

Both parties have significant choices ahead that could lay the groundwork for their political successes and headaches through next year.

Senate Democrats have about a month to craft a bill that addresses the expiring ACA subsidies in a way that brings enough Republicans on board for passage.

If they're successful at getting an extension, Democrats will be able to start 2026 with a policy victory in hand that will shape their messaging going into the midterm elections. If Republicans don't support it, Democrats still have what they see as a winning issue — health care — to run on next year.

Some Republicans have shown interest in addressing the subsidies, but want to institute reforms like fraud prevention and income caps.

And both parties have to contend with the fact that the government is only funded for a few months. Congress will still have to pass nine other appropriations bills before the continuing resolution ends.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, and four co-conspirators were indicted Wednesday on 23 counts of bank and wire fraud, allegedly committed from 2022 to 2024, during her time working for the governor.

The indictment alleges that Williamson, a longtime Democratic strategist, worked with Greg Campbell, a prominent Sacramento lobbyist, and Sean McCluskie, the former chief of staff to former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, as well as two other unnamed co-conspirators to steal $225,000 from an unnamed former official’s dormant campaign account for McCluskie’s personal use.

“Collectively, they funneled the money through various business entities and disguised it as pay for what was, in reality, a no-show job,” FBI Sacramento Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel said in a news release.

Prosecutors allege that Williamson and one of the unnamed co-conspirators, described only as a former California public official who owned a political consulting firm, used their political strategy firms to funnel money out of a campaign account, believed to be Becerra’s, into an account controlled by McCluskie. They allegedly disguised the funds as payments for McCluskie’s spouse, who was described in the indictment as a stay-at-home parent.

Williamson is also accused of falsely claiming more than $1.7 million in business expenses on her taxes. She used the funds to purchase luxury handbags, chartered jets and a nearly $170,000 birthday trip to Mexico, the indictment alleges.

Williamson, who previously held a high-level position in Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, was well known for her negotiating ability. When she left his office, Newsom said in a statement that he would miss her "insight, tenacity and big heart.”

The indictment indicated that Becerra had no knowledge of the scheme, and he confirmed as much Wednesday afternoon in a written statement via his spokesperson, Owen Kilmer.

“The news today of formal accusations of impropriety by a long-serving trusted advisor are a gut punch,” said Becerra, a prominent candidate to succeed Newsom in next year’s gubernatorial election. He added that he had fully cooperated with the U.S. Justice Department and would continue to do so.

“As California’s former Attorney General, I fully comprehend the importance of allowing this investigation and legal process to run its course through our justice system.”

Williamson was scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday afternoon.

A spokesperson for Newsom distanced the governor from his former top aide.

“While we are still learning details of the allegations, the governor expects all public servants to uphold the highest standards of integrity,” said Izzy Gardon, Newsom’s spokesperson, in a written statement.

“At a time when the president is openly calling for his Attorney General to investigate his political enemies, it is especially important to honor the American principle of being innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of one’s peers,” the statement said.

Patel, the special agent in charge, said in a news release that the charges were “the result of three years of relentless investigative work.”

“The FBI will remain vigilant in its efforts to uncover fraud and corruption, ensuring our government systems are held to the highest standards.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

After more than two years of discussion and debate, the Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to significantly lower annual rent increases in most of the city’s apartments.

L.A.’s current rent control rules guarantee landlords the right to raise rents at least 3% every year. Increases can be as high as 10% in some apartments during periods of high inflation.

But under the reforms passed by 12 of the council’s 15 members, rent increases would be capped at 4% annually, and an additional 2% increase for landlords who cover utilities would be eliminated. The exact rate each year would be equal to 90% of the change in the region’s consumer price index, a government measure of economic inflation.

“We need to make a change to this formula,” said Nithya Raman, chair of the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee ahead of the vote. “Extraordinary rent increases are driving people out of the city.”

The rules passed by the majority of councilmembers would set a new floor of 1% in years of low inflation. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and John Lee voted against the changes, and Councilmember Curren Price recused himself from the vote because he is a landlord.

This is the first overhaul of the city’s rent increase formula since 1985. Tenant groups have long argued that the current rules increase costs faster than incomes for many renters, pushing some toward eviction and potential homelessness.

Landlord groups decried the changes, saying the city is further clamping down on their ability to keep up with skyrocketing insurance premiums and steep maintenance costs.

Before the new rules take effect, they still need to be drafted by the City Attorney’s Office and returned to the council for a final vote.

‘We would end up homeless’

The changes represent a step toward but not a full adoption of the demands for a 3% cap at 60% of inflation from tenant groups. Humberto Altamira, an unemployed cook living with his wife in L.A.’s downtown Fashion District, said his family’s rent went up about $50 per month earlier this year, and they would struggle to afford another increase of 3% or more.

“We would end up homeless and living on the street,” Altamira said, speaking in Spanish.

Humberto Altamira and his wife stand in front of L.A. City Hall ahead of a City Council vote on rent control.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the city banned increases for nearly four years . The new cap, while comparable to caps in many other Southern California cities, does not reflect the rising costs property owners face, said California Apartment Association spokesperson Fred Sutton.

“Reject arbitrary magic numbers,” Sutton said. “These changes will not create a single new home, but they’ll make it even harder to build, making the housing crisis worse for everyone.”

Where LA rent control applies

The city’s rent control rules generally cover apartments built before October 1978, as well as new units that replace demolished rent-controlled units or are attached to older buildings.

Nearly two-thirds of L.A.’s residents live in rental housing. And because most of them live in older properties, the city’s rent control rules affect about 42% of all L.A. households.

Some councilmembers, including John Lee, said stricter rules would run counter to other local policies to spur housing development, such as Mayor Karen Bass’ executive directive to speed up the approval of affordable housing projects.

“Just as we are gaining momentum, we are considering a change,” Lee said. “This sends the message, ‘Do not build here. Do not invest in Los Angeles.’”

Other councilmembers said getting rental costs under control is key to addressing homelessness. At last count , about 43,500 people lack housing in the city.

“We have an eviction-to-homelessness pipeline,” Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said. “We get calls constantly from property owners about people experiencing homelessness around their buildings.

“We are struggling to deal with that crisis,” Hernandez continued. “We can’t house the number of people every year that are falling into homelessness. And a majority of that is because they can’t afford it.”

To build or not to build?

Renters and landlords crowded into City Council chambers to give public comment ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

Megan Briceño, who owns eight rent-controlled apartments, told LAist she has building permits to construct an accessory dwelling unit on her four-unit property in Mid-City L.A. Because the unit will be rent-controlled, she said the city’s changes could halt her building plans.

“I don't know how much longer I can continue to do business in a city that constantly feels like I'm fighting for my basic property rights, for a basic fair return,” Briceño said.

The process of reforming L.A.’s rent control ordinance was kickstarted in October 2023, when councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Bob Blumenfield asked for an in-depth review of the city’s rules.

LAist obtained the city-commissioned report produced in that process and was the first to publish it in September 2024.

Among other observations and recommendations, the report argued for eliminating an additional 2% annual increase landlords can impose if they pay for a tenant’s electricity and gas service. The report found that over time those increases can eclipse the entire cost of providing those utilities.

The reforms passed Wednesday include the elimination of this utility bump.