Morning report: AI in SD schools

Artificial intelligence has quickly found its way into virtually every area of ​​our society, and the San Diego Unified School District is no exception.

Earlier this month, our own Jakob McWhinney wrote that San Diego Unified teachers are already using AI platforms to grade their students’ work. Even some district board members were surprised to learn that an AI product had already been approved in a contract last year.

District officials do not currently have an AI policy, but after realizing how prevalent AI is in the district, they are now working on one. Officials say they are putting together a task force of school staff and community members to create a policy that they hope to have in place by early next year.

In this month’s progress report, our attempt to examine schools trying new things, McWhinney writes that many teachers have already begun integrating AI into their teaching, using it for lesson planning, grading, or even lecturing on AI itself.

This has also caused some concern.

Read the progress report here.

Water in San Diego is getting (slightly) more expensive

After hours of debate, San Diego’s water importer (since the region must buy most of its water from outside the county) decided to raise prices just a little bit — and postpone the worst part of the planned water price increase until next month.

Why? Well, many representatives of local water utilities (there are 33 of them) didn’t agree with the way the City of San Diego (the region’s largest and most powerful water buyer) was trying to fend off even bigger price increases. And the city, which has the power to push through whatever it wants, hit the pause button instead.

How we got here: San Diego County Water Authority staff initially proposed a 22 percent rate increase effective January 1, for a variety of reasons you can read about here. That amount was later negotiated down to 18 percent – still huge compared to water rate increases over the past few decades. The actual water prices paid by residential and business consumers wouldn’t necessarily increase that much, but local water districts would have to pay for those rate increases somehow.

Then the water authority scraped together a $19 million grant from the government to reduce the price increase to about 15 percent.

Not good enough: The city of San Diego, at the urging of Mayor Todd Gloria, was still not satisfied. At the water authority’s board meeting on Thursday, Nick Serrano, Gloria’s vice chairman and deputy chief of staff, called on the authority to pass a 14 percent rate increase. That sent water authority CEO Dan Denham and his finance team back to the proverbial locker room to come up with a new plan to make it happen.

Later that afternoon, Denham’s team told the full board that the water authority could offer a 14 percent rate increase, but would have to use $9 million from its emergency fund (of which only $25 million remains).

Fees and debt manager Pierce Rossum laid out a plan with some scary red “x”s indicating what reduced fee revenue would mean for the authority’s future: This plan would not be consistent with the board’s cash policy, it would take money from the contingency fund and it would further damage the water authority’s already weakened credit rating.

That was enough to create cold feet. “Stop pushing for 14 percent. That’s not going to happen,” was the mood in the room. The city of San Diego withdrew its demand. The board went into recess.

When the board returned, San Diego Board Director Fern Steiner threw a spanner in the works for the city. She asked the board to instead approve a 4 percent increase so the water authority could pay its bills to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California – San Diego’s lifeline to all its major water sources. The board would take up the rest later – at its July 25 meeting.

Another city, another camping ban for the homeless

The Escondido City Council approved a new camping ban on Wednesday to combat homeless encampments in public spaces.

The new restrictions make it illegal to camp on public land if a shelter is available there. They also ban camping near schools, shelters, transport hubs and tram tracks, regardless of whether a shelter is available there.

The ordinance could soon see some changes, depending on a highly anticipated ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court case brought by a small Oregon town seeking more leeway in clearing encampments. The case is titled Grants Pass v. Johnson, and a ruling is expected any day.

Memory: Escondido has the highest number of homeless residents in North County, with 401 people, according to this year’s count, a 32 percent increase from last year.

The city has only two homeless shelters: one with 49 beds and another family shelter that can accommodate 12 families each.

You can read the whole story here.

Around the Empire:

• The wildfire that broke out Tuesday in the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve flared up again Thursday after firefighters thought it was under control. (FOX 5)
• More housing was built in San Diego County in 2023 than in the past 17 years, according to a study by the Construction Industry Research Board. Multifamily housing, such as apartments, condos and townhomes, make up the majority of building permits examined by the board. Accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, outpaced the construction of new single-family homes. (Union-Tribune)
• Mpox, a contagious skin disease that causes rashes and blisters, is on the rise in San Diego County. The county health department is aware of seven new cases of the disease, transmitted through close personal contact with skin lesions and bodily fluids from an infected person. There is a vaccine called JYNNEOS that can reduce symptoms but cannot prevent the disease. (Union-Tribune)
• A male inmate at the Men’s Central Jail downtown died in custody, the sixth in 2024. According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, officers found the man dead on the floor of a shower. He was believed to be a homeless person and was charged with intent to defraud, drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia. (Union-Tribune)
• The North County Transit District received a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to expand passenger rail between Palomar College and the Escondido Transit Center. The $65 million grant is part of President Joe Biden’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity Act. (Union-Tribune)

The Morning Report was written by MacKenzie Elmer and Tigist Layne. It was edited by Scott Lewis.