Earlier this week, our Jakob McWhinney wrote about the potentially profound impacts the Trump administration’s freezing of millions of dollars in federal education grants could have on local districts.
The grants funded everything from services for English language learners to professional development for teachers to before- and after-school care. They were also frozen one day before they were supposed to have been distributed, so many districts had already built the funds into their budgets.
But exactly how hard each district would be hit was unclear. Now, we have a price tag: $50,400,472.
More than half of those funds were supposed to have been sent to the San Diego County Office of Education and the San Diego Unified School District. Another six districts were set to receive more than $1 million in the funds.
What comes next is anyone’s guess. State and local education officials have pledged to fight to get access to what they call the “illegally impounded” in court. But representatives from the Trump administration have also dished out fighting words, saying the grants had been “grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”
Related: Imperial County School Districts are facing some of the same financial woes we’re anticipating in San Diego County.
Imperial County is home to the highest percentage of English learner students and the second highest percentage of migrant students in California. And some of the federal grants at stake are funds for those students.
Overall, school districts in Imperial County are looking at a hole of $10 million.
Administrators from districts like Calexico Unified, home to the county’s highest concentration of English learner students, are on the edge of their seats, reports Voice intern Tessa Balc.
Chula Vista: Slow Down E-bikers
Chula Vista City Hall on July 10, 2025. / Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego
The Chula Vista City Council on Tuesday voted to adopt San Diego County’s strictest electric bicycle regulations, responding to an outpouring of community anger over children and teenagers rampaging through the city’s master-planned eastern neighborhoods on high-powered e-bikes.
Videos posted by residents to online community forums show kids, some appearing as young as 10 and 11 years old, popping wheelies through traffic, taking over roadways, riding straight at oncoming cars and nearly knocking over pedestrians on sidewalks.
The city’s new rules, expected to take effect next month, bar children under age 12 from riding e-bikes, require youth riders to wear helmets, ban riding on sidewalks in business districts and prohibit teens from carrying passengers on their bikes.
Police will issue warnings to violators during an initial 60-day grace period. After that, police can write tickets that start at $25 and escalate as high as $250 for repeat violations. Police may also confiscate violators’ bikes.
Also in the Report: Chula Vista connects its redeveloping bayfront to the rest of the city via a free electric shuttle. And pirates are coming to National City’s Pepper Park (in kids’ imaginations, that is.)
Read the South County Report here.
Why San Diego Police Are Sometimes at ICE Raids
File photo of a San Diego Police vehicle in Hillcrest on Dec. 20, 2022. / Photo by Gabriel Schneider for Voice of San Diego
Our Public Matters partners at KPBS set out to explain this week why San Diego police officers are sometimes on scene during immigration raids.
KPBS reporter Jake Gotta writes that they provide “scene security,” so basically help other law enforcement agencies that request assistance, such as ICE and DHS.
“If ICE, DHS, they’re doing something in our area, maybe we’ll get a common courtesy,” SDPD told KPBS. “But, even then, if we get that, that doesn’t mean that we’re getting involved. And it doesn’t mean that we are going to assist, or going to take part in any way.”
In Other News
- Rep. Sara Jacobs, one of the top 15 wealthiest members of Congress, proposed a bill Thursday that would lower the estate tax exemption’s threshold. A move that would impact her own finances if it were to pass. (Mother Jones)
- Local Jewish groups are organizing their own “J Pride” after pulling out of San Diego Pride due to controversy surrounding the festival’s headliner Kehlani. (NBC 7)
- So, is democracy actually dying? KPBS gathered the thoughts of those who study government and law to give a temperature check on the United States’ trajectory.
- A 71-year-old volunteer legal observer was detained by ICE agents at San Diego’s federal immigration court Wednesday and was held for over eight hours after ICE accused her of pushing an agent. (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney, Tessa Balc, Jim Hinch and Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.