Efforts by California’s government to help students recover from the pandemic go back to its earliest days, with the state investing more than $36 billion to deal with pandemic impacts. The funding has gone to Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grants, expanded teacher recruitment, literacy specialists and much more.

Around the Capital Region, schools are still working to recover socially and academically from the COVID-19 pandemic. Test scores have been affected, as has school attendance. A new wave of behavioral issues has unfolded, too. Now, a variety of people are working to help students catch up.

The influx of immigrants and refugees from a multitude of different countries has created an opportunity and a challenge for Capital Region architects to design educational spaces with greater cultural sensitivity that provide a sense of belonging for new students and families.

With less funding in the current budget, the management of public lands is likely to change substantially, and this may have massive and unforeseen consequences for Californians. 

It was a year that started with much promise for Sacramento State with a Top-10 preseason ranking, talk of a new stadium and the hope that Sacramento could use a new facility to position a move from the FCS’ Big Sky Conference to an upper division conference such as the Pac-12.