REPORT/RECOMMENDATION TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
AND RECORD OF ACTION
November 17, 2026
FROM
TED ALEJANDRE, County Superintendent, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools
SUBJECT
Title
Williams Settlement, 2025-26 Annual Report
End
RECOMMENDATION(S)
Recommendation
Receive the Williams Settlement 2025-26 Annual Report, pursuant to the state of schools in the county that are identified for monitoring based on the criteria set forth in section 1240(c) of the Education Code.
(Presenter: Ted Alejandre, County Superintendent, 386-2406)
Body
COUNTY AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER GOALS & OBJECTIVES
Promote and Fulfill the Countywide Vision.
Create, Maintain and Grow Employment Opportunities and Economic Value in the County.
Provide for the Safety, Health and Social Service Needs of County Residents.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
Approval of this item is non-financial in nature, and therefore, does not impact Discretionary General Funding (Net County Cost).
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Williams Settlement, reached and enacted into law in August 2004, set the standard for equitable educational opportunity in San Bernardino County and throughout California. It gave county and district superintendents a shared framework for supporting schools that have not had equal access to the basic conditions of learning.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed Williams v. California in 2000 on behalf of nearly 100 students from San Francisco County, as a class action against the State of California and its educational agencies. The complaint alleged that public school agencies failed to provide students with equal access to instructional materials, safe and clean facilities, and qualified teachers. Equity for disadvantaged and minority students, particularly in large and urban districts, was the crux of the case.
The settlement covers four areas:
• Instructional materials. All students, including English learners (EL), must have sufficient access to standards-aligned instructional materials or textbooks in all core subjects for use in class and at home.
• Facilities. All schools must be safe, clean, and in good repair.
• Teacher credentialing and assignment. Teachers must be appropriately certificated for the assignment, including EL authorization.
• Public reporting. Schools must report instructional materials sufficiency, facility condition, and teacher misassignments and vacancies in the School Accountability Report Card (SARC). Schools, other than charter schools, must post a classroom notice of the right to file a Williams complaint on materials, facilities, and teacher vacancies or misassignments.
In fiscal year 2013-14, the Local Control Funding Formula left the Williams requirements in place and made them the first of eight state priorities that must be addressed in Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs). This means all schools (monitored and those that are not) must continue adhering to the Williams Settlement legislation requirements and all districts must identify and address actions that will be taken each year to achieve and/or correct any deficiencies related to Williams Settlement compliance in their LCAPs.
In fiscal year 2021-22, Assembly Bill 599 replaced the Academic Performance Index as the basis for identifying schools for County Superintendent monitoring. The criteria are schools identified for Comprehensive Support and Improvement or Additional Targeted Support and Improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act, and schools where 15 percent or more of teachers hold a permit or certificate less than a preliminary or clear California teaching credential. Under Education Code section 1240, the State Superintendent re-establishes the list every three fiscal years. The 2025-26 fiscal year is the first year of the current cohort.
This is the first year of the sixth cohort. Two hundred thirty-four schools in the county were subject to review and received at least one site visit, compared with 133 in the prior cohort. The increase reflects the AB 599 criteria, the lasting effects of COVID-19 and chronic absenteeism, and the inclusion of charter schools. Legislative efforts to keep the list size more predictable were unsuccessful.
Education Code section 1240 allows a county office monitoring more than 200 schools to schedule visits beyond the first four weeks of the year. The San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools used that flexibility as visits are conducted by managers in addition to their assigned duties. Phase 1 covered the first four weeks of school. Phase 2 covered the four weeks after winter break, in January and February. Any instructional materials shortage(s) identified during a visit were resolved within the required timeframe.
Of the 234 schools subject to review, facilities were generally in good repair. Review teams identified 15 emergency facility findings - 14 in Phase 1 and one in Phase 2. Four were remedied before the end of the site visit. The 15 were nine fire-safety findings (seven non-functioning emergency exit signs, five of them at one campus, and two fire-extinguisher deficiencies), three hazardous-materials findings (improper chemical or flammable storage and sharp objects accessible to students), and three non-working air-conditioning systems. The most common good-repair deficiencies, in order, were sinks, fountains, or bottle fillers not working; unsecured items stored too high; fire extinguishers out of date or missing a monthly inspection; restrooms not stocked with menstrual products; and cleansers not stored properly. A zero in the tables means the school was reviewed and no deficiencies were identified.
A separate review compared each monitored school’s SARC with the instructional materials and facility findings. Districts and schools were given the inaccuracies and a resolution deadline. Seven schools had not resolved the inaccuracies by the end of the review period.
Teacher assignment monitoring is conducted through the California Statewide Assignment Accountability System (CalSAAS). Education Code section 44258.9, as amended after 2019-20, replaced a same-year review of selected local educational agencies with a 90-day review of certificated assignments in districts and teaching assignments in charter schools countywide. Because CalSAAS is built from the prior year’s Fall 2 census, assignment findings in this report are one cycle behind the site visits.
This report presents CalSAAS findings for 2024-25 assignments, reviewed from August 1 through November 14, 2025. The 2025-26 review will be reported next year. These findings are not drawn from the 234 schools on the 2025-26 Williams list. The 2024-25 assignment review for Williams purposes covers the prior cohort. Schools added for 2025-26 were not Williams assignment-monitored in 2024-25. Their first Williams assignment results will appear after the 2025-26 CalSAAS review.
Findings include vacancies (no contracted teacher) and misassignments (a teacher present but not authorized for the assignment). Vacancies are also counted as a type of misassignment.
The Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) has not published the 2024-25 Assignment Monitoring dashboard. The CTC stated that the data are transitioning to another department and could not provide a timeline for availability. Countywide and statewide comparative figures for 2024-25 are therefore not available. The Class II comparison below remains the last published year, 2023-24.
At the Williams schools on the prior list, vacancies fell from 101 in 2023-24 to 75 in 2024-25, and misassignments fell from 517 to 427. Of the 2024-25 vacancies, 55 were filled, and 70 misassignments were corrected during the review. Countywide and statewide comparisons for 2024-25 are not available.
2024-25 Findings - Williams schools on the prior list
|
Metric |
Williams-monitored Schools (133 total) |
Countywide |
Statewide |
|
Vacancies |
75 |
Not yet published by CTC |
Not yet published by CTC |
|
Misassignments |
427 |
Not yet published by CTC |
Not yet published by CTC |
2023-24 Findings - last year published by CTC
|
Metric |
Williams-monitored Schools (133 total) |
Countywide (563 schools) |
Statewide |
|
Vacancies |
101 |
1,332 |
22,012 |
|
Misassignments |
517 |
4,129 |
82,888 |
Since 2020-21, the largest share of misassignments in San Bernardino County and statewide has been in core academic subjects. For 2024-25, the areas with the most misassignments, in order of frequency, were electives, self-contained classrooms, math, science, and English. The concentration of misassignments in these areas reflects the ongoing difficulty of recruiting and credentialing teachers for these assignments. Among Class II counties (average daily attendance of 140,000 to 749,999), San Bernardino ranks high for misassignments and vacancies but continues to show improvement during the correction window. In 2023-24, San Bernardino’s 4,129 misassignments were 4.981 percent of the statewide total - lower than Class I counties such as Los Angeles - while vacancy patterns still track other large counties. The comparison below is countywide, not limited to Williams schools, and ends with 2023-24 because 2024-25 has not been published.
Total misassignments in Class II counties as a share of the statewide total
|
Class II County |
2020-2021 |
2021-2022 |
2022-2023 |
2023-2024 |
|
|
Total MA |
% of State |
Total MA |
% of State |
Total MA |
% of State |
Total MA |
% of State |
|
Alameda |
7,440 |
10.446% |
7,691 |
11.057% |
8,962 |
11.777% |
10,337 |
12.471% |
|
Contra Costa |
2,389 |
3.354% |
2,627 |
3.777% |
2,554 |
3.356% |
3,118 |
3.762% |
|
Fresno |
2,258 |
3.170% |
2,679 |
3.852% |
2,502 |
3.288% |
2,492 |
3.006% |
|
Orange |
4,835 |
6.788% |
3,477 |
4.999% |
2,419 |
3.179% |
2,754 |
3.323% |
|
Riverside |
2,574 |
3.614% |
1,982 |
2.850% |
2,490 |
3.272% |
2,215 |
2.672% |
|
Sacramento |
2,519 |
3.537% |
2,488 |
3.577% |
3,633 |
4.774% |
4,380 |
5.284% |
|
San Bernardino |
3,517 |
4.938% |
4,904 |
7.051% |
4,252 |
5.588% |
4,129 |
4.981% |
|
San Diego |
2,960 |
4.156% |
2,913 |
4.188% |
3,834 |
5.038% |
3,781 |
4.562% |
|
San Joaquin |
2,464 |
3.459% |
2,043 |
2.937% |
2,614 |
3.435% |
3,008 |
3.629% |
|
Santa Clara |
2,644 |
3.712% |
2,803 |
4.030% |
2,986 |
3.924% |
3,845 |
4.639% |
|
Statewide |
71,225 |
69,555 |
76,096 |
82,888 |
A recent survey of local educational agencies attributes recent stabilization to mentorship programs, online job boards (including EdJoin), job fairs, and partnerships with higher education. The most frequently cited vacancy and retention drivers were low salaries and high benefit costs.
The Williams Settlement remains the foundation for monitoring instructional materials, facilities, teacher assignments, and public reporting in San Bernardino County. This year’s report covers two cycles: 2025-26 site visits for the current list of 234 schools, and 2024-25 teacher assignment findings for the prior list of schools.
PROCUREMENT
Not applicable.
REVIEW BY OTHERS
This item has been reviewed by County Counsel (Julie Surber, Principal Assistant County Counsel, 387-5455) on October 30, 2026; and County Finance and Administration (Valerie Clay, 387-3076, Deputy Executive Officer, and Eduardo Mora, 387-4376, Administrative Analyst) on November 1, 2026.