California's FY27 budget: What community school leaders need to know
May…a time for transition, a time for celebration, and a time for the state budget May Revision. What do CA school district leaders and site teams need to know about this year’s state budget so far?
Earlier this month, the May Revision to the Governor’s annual budget proposal came out; the budget negotiation process is coming to an end, and a clearer picture of the 2027 fiscal year is emerging.
Overall, state income tax revenue is up, and the budget proposal for Tk-12 looks good, especially for the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP). Of particular note, CCSPP is likely evolving from one-time competitive grant funding to a $1 billion annual allocation for eligible school sites (generally, with an unduplicated pupil percentage of over ~65%). This is a significant signal to districts that they should be building long-term community school systems, staffing, and partnerships.
In addition, there are opportunities for LEAs and site teams to leverage a reappropriation of CCSPP funding to get them – and their systems – ready for the upcoming accreditation process (anticipated to begin with self-accreditation ‘29-30). For example, districts can continue to strengthen partnerships with municipal agencies and with community-based organizations. It offers districts another chance to lean more fully into alignment across whole-child initiatives, especially important because the budget also includes increases for other education program priorities.
Notably, the May Revision includes a $2.4B increase to support a range of students and initiatives, including special education programs. Middle and high school redesign gets a bigger investment with explicit career pathway links. The Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant also gets an increase, and LEAs retain flexibility over how to spend these funds, within the state’s priorities. This is all genuinely good news for California schools. But to truly understand the proposed budget’s impact through a community schools lens, we need to look both broader and closer.
To really understand the full state budget picture, zoom out. Federal cuts hurt California families and communities, and that has significant implications for schools and school districts. Over the past 12 months, the Federal government has continued to strip away funding for social services, human services, and healthcare (among other things), seriously eroding the already-precarious safety net on which many families and communities rely. H.R.1, also known as The Big Beautiful Bill, was big, certainly, but not beautiful for families and communities in California. And while the cuts put forward in H.R. 1 felt like they were “in name only” for months, they are now becoming a reality and the full implications of the Federal government’s disinvestment in these supports are becoming clear.
Part of what we're seeing in the May Revision is the state attempting to absorb the impacts of these Federal cuts. But even with $16.5B more in revenue than originally projected, the state can only do so much to fill the gap. Communities should expect potential changes to Medi-Cal (including mobile crisis services, which could affect availability or services for students), to systems supporting foster youth, to child welfare programs, and to community supports more broadly.
Talking to community partners, community-based organizations, and other municipal agencies can shed light on what the specific impacts might be in your community, and the potential effects on students and families.
Why? Because these cuts will land at the school door, and districts should be engaging in conversations now — internally, with external partners, with other municipal agencies, and with school site teams — to develop strategic plans for how they will respond. LEAs may see more students needing Tier 3 interventions such as intensive behavioral supports, one-on-one academic support, or wraparound services, and fewer community resources available to help meet those needs. Schools and districts may face the difficult reality of redistributing resources that would otherwise support Tier 1 and 2 interventions — differentiated instruction, targeted academic supports, or whole-school social-emotional learning programs. This will require building new partnerships or strengthening existing ones with municipal agencies and CBOs, actively seeking alignment across goals and priorities, identifying areas of redundancy, and building internal capacity for improvement.
Schools are often the relational infrastructure on which students and families rely. In the face of cuts to other sectors, trust among families, schools, and partners — and coordination of effort — will matter more than ever. Strong partnerships are now critical, not "nice to have." Without them, safety nets will continue to fray.
The role of the county office of education has been pointing toward integrated systems of support for some time. Now is the moment to flex and strengthen those skills and relationships. Counties will be absorbing a massive compliance-related workloads driven by H.R. 1 — new requirements around Medi-Cal eligibility processing, CalFresh work requirements, immigration policy changes, and other administrative demands. The budget currently allocates $262M to help with this increased lift, but even so, the structural demand is enormous. Districts and community schools that have built relationships with county health and social service partners should plan for those partners to have less capacity for proactive collaboration.
This makes the COE's brokering role all the more important. COEs can accelerate partnership opportunities across county departments, create guidance and frameworks that help LEAs braid and blend resources, and establish patterns of alignment and coherence within and across county-wide and district-level initiatives. They can also look for opportunities to coordinate the administrative burdens across the county, so no single agency is carrying them alone.
The good news for the education budget is real cause for relief. But we can't go back to business as usual. The cuts imposed by H.R. 1 are going to hit our communities, and schools will be at the front line of trying to mitigate the impacts. This moment requires powerful leadership at the district and county levels.
District leaders need to look across their communities to understand how this budget affects students and families, even as the outlook for the education sector looks relatively strong. Leaders need to be clear-eyed about priorities and about the role that LEAs and sites can play in forging the partnerships that will matter most. County offices of education can step into the role of broker and connector, helping to align priorities and resources across county departments. All of it requires collaboration, transparency, open communication, and trust.
Community school practitioners center their work on student well-being — and we see well-being through a whole-child lens. That's what it takes to create schools where all young people thrive. When we look at the implications of the proposed FY27 budget, we know that education funding is only one piece of the puzzle. For students to thrive, all the pieces need to be in place.
Hayin Kimner is a practitioner, researcher and policy advocate with a focus on whole child, community school systems and partnerships that support the healthy development of youth and their communities.
Melissa Mitchell is a community school practitioner with more than fifteen years in the field. Her experiences range from Community School Coordinator to leading the Federation for Community Schools, a Illinois-wide capacity building and policy organization. Melissa has supported community school development in a variety of ways, from providing coaching and direct technical assistance to schools, districts, practitioners and community partners to working with legislators and policymakers to develop supportive-state level policies that advanced community school development across Illinois.
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