The Brief

Schoolyards are hot and getting hotter, but only a tiny fraction of California’s grade school students can play in the shade.

Researchers and advocates are pushing the state to allocate money for green schoolyards, which can include trees, grass or gardens in place of the flat asphalt or rubber play surfaces at most schools.

With the help of more than $121 million in state grants, 164 schools already are on their way to either designing or building green schoolyards. Many more applied for the school greening grants, with requests totaling more than $350 million for projects they hoped to build.

The high applicant numbers highlight growing demand for greenery at schools as the climate gets hotter. But with California’s Green Schoolyards program depleted and a state general budget deficit of $56 billion over the next two fiscal years, where will the money for green school projects come from?

Some environmental groups are pushing for a proposed climate bond that would include $350 million for the green schoolyards program. They also are pushing for a $1 billion carve-out in a proposed $14-$15 billion school infrastructure bond that could go before voters this November.

Students from International Community Elementary and Think College Now Elementary play during recess in Oakland on April 29, 2024. Advocates say millions of children lack outdoor shade at California’s public schools.

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Laure Andrillon

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CalMatters

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“It is well known that our K-12 schoolyards, play structures and campuses are among the most dangerous climate liabilities currently facing the state — principally due to the deadly heat and flood potential our kids are being exposed to now,” environment groups wrote in a letter to authors of two school infrastructure bond proposals, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, and state Sen. Steve Glazer, a Democrat from Orinda.

Muratsuchi told CalMatters he is reluctant to dictate how schools should use bond money.

“I’m aware of their request, but we have many other requests to consider,” he said, such as funds for heating and air conditioning systems and solar energy on campuses. “But those priorities will be defined by local school districts.”

Students need outdoor shade

On a typical 90-degree day under full sun, grass can reach 95 degrees, while asphalt can hit 150 and rubber surfaced play areas can reach 165 degrees, according to research by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

Forget 90 degrees; other research predicts much of the country is on track for more than double the usual number of 100-degree days by midcentury. Fresno already averages 33 days of 100+ degrees each year, Sacramento has 19 and Riverside has 14, federal weather data shows.

Unrelenting sun and high heat are bad for kids, the Luskin Center says: “Playing outside in the heat can lead to dehydration, headaches, heat stroke and other health impacts.”

Shade from trees is one of the best ways

to cool things down, the researchers said, because it can reduce heat exposure to children by as much as 70 degrees.

But most of California’s schools lack tree canopy, and the trees that do exist on campuses are often around the perimeter, where students can’t access their shade during recess.

Green Schoolyards America, a nonprofit dedicated to building more green space on campuses, recently conducted a study of the tree canopy shading the state’s more than 10,000 public schools.

It found that an average of 6.4% of the school areas students access are covered by tree shade. More than 2.5 million students attend schools with less than 5% tree canopy in student areas.

That’s a far cry from what urban forestry and climate experts recommend. They say there needs to be enough trees to cover 30% of every city. Driven by that goal, Green Schoolyards America is pushing for ways to plant trees to cover at least 30% of each school area used by children during the day.

So far only 29,452 California students have that level of tree canopy, out of nearly 6 million students.

The schoolyard at the César E. Chávez Education Center in Oakland, prior to the creation of a ‘living schoolyard’. Advocates say most of California’s public schools lack trees or other outdoor shade sources, leaving millions of students vulnerable to heat and sun.

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Angela DeCenzo

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Trust For Public Land

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“This is a long-term infrastructure problem,” said Sharon Gamson Danks, chief executive of Green Schoolyards America.

“It’s not building a little garden in the corner. It’s actual infrastructure, on par with highway building. It’s an investment, and we want children to not be overlooked in preparing for climate and protecting their health.”

Most greening projects on school campuses include more trees, but they can also include mulch, grassy fields to replace asphalt, and wooden play and learning structures, said Šárka Volejníková, the Trust for Public Land’s program director for Bay Area parks.

The difference green space makes

At the César E. Chávez Education Center in Oakland, students — many from low income families — used to play on a yard that was 90% asphalt. The school is surrounded by freeways and industrial factories, and students suffer with high asthma rates, said Eleanor Marsh, the school’s former principal.

“In lower income areas the schools have more concrete,” Marsh said. “That is just the reality. And in higher income areas, kids have more natural play structures that have been fundraised for by PTA’s. It becomes an equity issue around mental health and access to core academics.”

The school received a $1.2 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency’s Urban Greening program and worked with the Trust for Public Land in 2020 to completely renovate the schoolyard, adding more greenery, trees and play structures that would be cooler and more academically enriching.

Students were part of the process, taking the temperature of the asphalt and rubber playground and recommending alternatives.

First: José Luis Rodriguez teaches fifth-grade students about gardening. Groups want more outdoor shade at schools. Last: Students plant succulents at the César E. Chávez Education Center’s living schoolyard in Oakland on April 29, 2024.

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Laure Andrillon

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CalMatters

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Now students take outdoor gardening classes and play and run through their new “river” made with bricks, which doubles as a stormwater runoff system on rainy days.

There’s no lack of enthusiasm for greening projects among educators, said Marsh, now principal at San Pedro Elementary School in San Rafael.

“Every public school in California is up against huge budget cuts,” she said. “There is no money at the school site level to improve the physical space for students. So we are really relying on support from the state.”

Where the money could come from

The time to dedicate more funding to green schoolyards is now, said Manny Gonez, director of policy initiatives for the Beverly Hills environmental group TreePeople.

The latest proposals for a climate bond, which would be paid off over many years, includes an ask for $150 million for an urban greening grant, which doesn’t exclusively fund school greening programs but has in the past. TreePeople also supports the request for $1 billion in the proposed school infrastructure bond.

Traditionally school bonds are for new school construction or renovation. School districts can apply for the state bond funds for projects and must provide local matching funds. There is money set aside for financially strapped districts that can’t provide as much of a local match.

“This is a small down payment to really scale up the work that the state has been doing with these 164 schools,” Gonez said, referring to schools that already have green schoolyard grants.

The Trust for Public Land wants money set aside for green schoolyard projects and for the most needy schools to get priority, said Juan Altamirano, the group’s director of government affairs.

Earmarking the funds in the proposed school bond would boost support for the measure overall, Altamirano said. California voters — even those without children — support more green schoolyards, an April survey of 800 voters by the Trust for Public Land showed.

Some legislators were noncommittal when discussing the request.

Muratsuchi said he has been an environmental champion in the Legislature and understands the need for more green school funding. But in this case, it’s not up to him to define that as a priority in the school infrastructure bond.

“Ultimately the priorities for school facilities funding should be driven by educators and not by the environmental lobby,” he said.

Students in International Community Elementary and Think College Now Elementary play soccer during recess on an unpaved surface at the César E. Chávez Education Center’s living schoolyard in Oakland on April 29, 2024. Unpaved surfaces let water filter into the ground and reduce air temperature. Groups also want more outdoor shade at schools.

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Laure Andrillon

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CalMatters

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Glazer denied Calmatters’ request for an interview, saying he is not directly involved in the decision making of this issue.

California already has committed to increasing the tree canopy on schoolyards on paper, but how that will happen is unclear.

In the state’s Nature-Based Solutions Climate Targets published in April, officials said the state would prioritize greening schoolyards through its School Facility Program, “ensuring greening schoolyards is not just a consideration but an integral expectation when local educational agencies undertake new school construction projects and modernization projects.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not answer questions about plans to fund greening school projects. Alex Stack, a Newsom spokesperson, said “No other governor has done as much as Gov. Newsom to protect people from extreme heat.”

Stacks said the green schoolyard grants already allocated are part of Newsom’s 2022 Extreme Heat Action Plan, funded by $52.3 billion in the California Climate Commitment budget.

Newsom cut the climate budget, and other parts of the budget, by more than 7% in his May revised proposal.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is preparing for possible “Super El Niño” storms that could damage schools and lead to closures, the district announced in a media release Tuesday.

District staff are clearing drains, trimming trees and checking roofs, windows and doors. LAUSD is also testing emergency equipment, including pumps and emergency lighting systems, and stocking supplies such as flashlights and drinking water.

“Preparing for severe weather starts well before the first raindrop,” Superintendent Andrés Chait said in a statement. “We can’t control the weather, but we can take steps now to protect our students and employees and help our schools stay ready.”

The district will monitor weather patterns using information from the National Weather Service and local emergency officials, it said.

LAUSD encouraged families to update their contact information to ensure they receive district calls, texts and emails. Families should also monitor weather alerts, follow emergency officials’ instructions, avoid flooded roads and review safe routes to and from school, according to the release.

“Preparing for a storm is a shared effort — from the crews maintaining school buildings to the principals reviewing emergency plans and the families making sure they can receive critical updates,” LAUSD said in the release. “By taking these steps before the rain begins, Los Angeles Unified is working to help students and employees stay safe and keep school communities as prepared as possible for the winter ahead.”

Southern California is likely in for a solid dose of rain this week, just days after heat and Santa Ana winds helped fuel several wildfires across the region.

Forecasters expect the bulk of the rain to roll into the Los Angeles basin Wednesday night and continue into Thursday morning, with a small chance of thunderstorms and hail.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and coastal areas across L.A. and Orange counties could get around an inch over the next few days. Hills and mountains could get up to 3 inches.

“We could see some pretty high rain rates,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “It's a good storm for this time of year — it's a little stronger than what we would see normally.”

The possibility of significant rain in the mountains raises concerns about flooding in areas recently burned in wildfires, particularly around the Bryson Fire burn scar near Malibu, which is only a few days old. Burn scars can’t absorb heavy rainfall and are susceptible to landslides.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding communities from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. That means heavy rain there could flood streets, creeks and rivers. The flood watch area includes both the Bryson Fire and Palisades Fire burn scars.

This will also be the first nontropical storm of the season, meaning it’s moving into the region from the north. Most storms that hit Southern California follow a similar path, especially during the winter, unlike the tropical storms that formed off the coast of Mexico and brought muggy weather to the region this summer.

Nontropical storms also bring cold air to the region. On Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters expect highs in the 60s and 70s. High elevations will be even cooler.

The science research institute that would likely receive $4.2 billion in public taxpayer money if voters approve Proposition 38 this November had only three employees as of last month — far fewer than the 51 staffers it planned to have hired by last year.

Public statements and public records CalMatters obtained raise questions about how well prepared the institute is to shepherd so much money if the bond measure passes.

Prop. 38 would allocate up to $8.4 billion in bonds for scientific research on diseases and cures concerning the immune system, with an emphasis on finding treatments for Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease. The ballot language stipulates that a single, unnamed research institute would receive half the bond’s money to conduct research and partner with other researchers if it meets highly specific criteria. Bonds are a type of debt that must be repaid.

Previous reporting by CalMatters found only one institute in California currently meets those criteria: the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The institute’s principal funder is billionaire Gary K. Michelson, who wrote Prop. 38 and is by far the largest donor to its political campaign.

Backers of the proposition said state bond money is needed to stabilize research funding after President Donald Trump repeatedly attempted to cut existing and future federal science grants.

The measure’s critics say Prop. 38 is well-intentioned but poorly designed because it overlooks the many established public and nonprofit university and hospital research labs in California. They also say California should not subsidize subsets of scientific research and instead should support research more broadly.

CalMatters obtained documents that included the five-year business plan of the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The plan was part of the formal affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute, which the two parties signed in August 2024. Among other details, the agreement requires the institute to pay UCLA 7.5% of the net revenue of any drugs and technologies developed by the institute’s staff. The institute is one of the founding tenants at a UCLA-owned research park in West Los Angeles, where the institute is leasing 235,000 square feet of research space, the institute says.

Far fewer employees than plan called for

Between summer 2024 and summer 2025, the institute committed to hiring “approximately” 51 employees, including six executives, five “world-class” scientists who can lead research labs, and 40 other employees, such as data scientists, lab technicians, biologists and administrative personnel. Between 2025 and 2027, the institute would hire roughly 90 more workers, including 10 research lab leaders, according to the agreement.

But John Mazziotta, a senior UCLA official who also serves as a board member of the immunology institute, last month said the institute has hired just three employees: a chief operating officer, a general counsel, and a scientific advisor, and “they're well into the search” for a director. Mazziotta, the CEO of UCLA Health and vice chancellor for health sciences at UCLA, made his comments during the Sept. 16 UC Regents meeting.

The Yes on Prop. 38 campaign has repeatedly refused to comment on whether the bond was written specifically for the immunology institute. Claudia Briggs, a spokesperson for the campaign, told CalMatters in July that whichever nonprofit receives the $4.2 billion portion of the bond fund should be a sophisticated one that “is prepared to accelerate lifesaving research immediately while maintaining the highest standards of scientific quality, accountability, and stewardship of public funds.”

At a September press conference, a Yes on Prop. 38 spokesperson appeared to confirm CalMatters’ findings that only one institute currently qualifies to be the one to receive half the bond money. “It is very likely that CIII, which is a research institute affiliated with UCLA, will qualify for half of the funds under the current criteria,” said Robin Swanson. CIII is the initialism for the immunology institute.

According to the five-year plan, the institute was supposed to spend $25 million on personnel between 2024-25 and 2025-26 and $45 million total on operating expenses in that time, including maintenance, utilities and rent. It was also supposed to spend an additional $167 million in that time on capital expenses, such as construction and demolition. However, Mazziotta told UC regents that the institute had so far spent a total of $20 million on “operating expenses, hires” and other expenses.

The Yes on 38 campaign refused CalMatters’ request to interview Michelson for this story, as did Michelson himself in a separate email. A spokesperson for the institute, Becky Warren, sent a written statement that didn't answer CalMatters' questions about employing far fewer people than the five-year plan laid out. Instead, she highlighted the promise of the institute and a few of its milestones, including signing the affiliation agreement with UCLA and clearing a state environmental review of its forthcoming research facility.

The institute won’t get state bond money if it isn’t ready to begin work, “plain and simple,” wrote Swanson, the Yes on 38 spokesperson, in an email. She stressed that though the institute very likely qualifies, the ultimate decision to award half the bond funding is up to the California Department of Public Health.

Institute facility will be built by 2028

The UCLA research park that houses the institute isn’t slated to be fully built until at least late 2028, according to the agenda item of the September UC regents meeting. The research park is a former mall UCLA acquired in late 2023 that’s now undergoing major retrofitting.

But the 2024 affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute anticipated this. The agreement permitted the institute to use UCLA health research space on another campus property on an interim basis. Mazziotta told regents that research is underway there.

Mazziotta also told the regents the institute's construction costs are not fully funded — it still needs roughly $100 million. He said UCLA was in serious talks with a donor to provide about $50 million to the institute.

If Prop. 38 passes, the bond funding would be provided in increments based on how often the institute requests new money that senior state officials approve. If all the funds are depleted, Californians would repay the bond at a rate of $500 million to $600 million annually for about 20 years.

Institute would be exempt from public records act

CalMatters submitted the public records request to UCLA, which must comply with the California Public Records Act. The institute, as a private nonprofit, does not have to comply. And while Prop. 38 would channel billions of dollars in taxpayer money to the institute, the proposition’s language specifically exempts the nonprofit that will receive the $4.2 billion from state public meetings laws, political reform laws and the public records act. The other half of the funds would go to a council that’ll pick projects led by researchers from a limited pool of universities and nonprofits. The council would generally be governed by the state’s political reform act, which prohibits financial self-dealing.

Briggs defended the institute’s exemption in Prop. 38, writing that applying state transparency laws to existing private organizations would “not fit well with how private entities are organized and operate.” Instead, she noted the selected nonprofit institute would be required to publish annual reports on its research progress and financial plans plus commit to annual state audits, among other disclosures written into the ballot measure.

Still unclear to the UC regents is the relationship between UCLA and the institute on matters of public disclosure. Four senior UCLA officials sit on the institute’s board. So is a document held by those UCLA officials public because it’s related to UCLA affairs or private because it’s related to the institute’s affairs? UC’s general counsel couldn’t explain where that dividing line is after a regent member asked him. The regent member, Michael Cohen, said he wants more clarity when the regents meet again in November.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic Party endorsed Prop. 38, as have dozens of patient and research advocacy groups, plus the state GOP. The union of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, whose pay often relies on science research funding, has also endorsed the proposition. The union doesn’t represent faculty.

Money raised in support of Prop. 38 now exceeds $66 million, including at least $61.2 million in contributions from Michelson and his policy institute. Roughly $14 million of that includes loans from Michelson. The no camp has raised about $8,800

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