After July 1st, 2027, K-12 schools in California may lose free access to many research materials, potentially leaving thousands of students without resources to do reports, projects or homework assignments without notice to schools or librarians.

The legislature recently canceled $5.5 million that pays fees for thousands of online materials used by students and teachers, including the Encyclopedia Britannica New York Times, PBS videos such as Ken Burns documentaries, and scientific journals.

The service, called compass, is an online database of research and curriculum materials that have been vetted by teachers and librarians, and mainly used at K-12 schools.

Students use compass for classroom assignments as well as for recreation.

Many of the materials are available in multiple languages.

Among the more popular features are National Geographic Kids, Pebble Go Science, which includes hundreds of science activities for younger students, and Alexander Street, which offers videos of cultural performances such as the Joffrey Ballet and Royal Shakespeare Company.

Compass is especially important at a time when fewer schools have libraries or librarians to help students with research.

Compasses available free to all schools in California.

If schools were to subscribe individually to Compass Materials, they'd spend more than 216 million annually, according to a state Library report.

A typical medium sized school district might pay $100,000 or more for the services annually, in expense that lower income districts are less likely to have money for.

Instead, $5 million of the funding will go toward the state's new Dyslexia Screener, and the remainder will go toward technical support for an online lesson sharing platform called California Educators Together.

Newsom's office said that the recently passed state budget includes billions in new funding for K-12 schools, plenty of money to cover the subscription costs.

Meanwhile, librarians are launching an aggressive campaign to save the program.

For CalMatters, I'm Carolyn Jones.