There is inconsistent and inadequate capacity within Bay Area school systems to support science education in elementary schools.

District and county offices lack capacity to provide professional development opportunities critical to the teaching force described above. There is a lack of both federal and state funding for elementary science education improvement efforts; thus, there is a current environment where there is minimal investment in and greatly diminished capacity for improving science education. Bay Area County Offices of Education offer limited support in some counties, and none in others. Just over half (52%) of school district respondents indicate they do not have capacity in their district office to support science education. The very small amount of district staff time assigned to support elementary science education is also evidence of inadequate system capacity.

District respondents specify: 23% have no one assigned to support elementary science, 39% have less than .5 FTE, 38% have over .5 FTE or some other arrangement (Figure 4). At the same time, almost half (47%) of the district respondents indicate that they do not think their students are likely to encounter high quality science instruction in their district’s elementary school classrooms. The few county or district offices that report high quality support point to the influence of a science “champion.”

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