Trump, Kristi Noem, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have had a good time opening up and celebrating an immigrant detention facility that they call “Alligator Alcatraz.” They boast that immigrants who try to escape will be killed by alligators or snakes in the Everglades.
A federal judge in Miami gave the state of Florida 60 days to clear out the immigrant detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz, handing environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians a win after they clashed with Gov. Ron DeSantis over the environmental impacts the makeshift site was having in the federally protected Everglades.
The ruling late Thursday from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, which forbids state officials from moving any other migrants there, deals a blow to what had become a marquee symbol of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy. The environmentalists who sued called it “a huge relief for millions of people who love the Everglades.”
“This brutal detention center was burning a hole in the fabric of life that supports our most iconic wetland and a whole host of endangered species, from majestic Florida panthers to wizened wood storks,” attorney Elise Bennett of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement. “The judge’s order came just in time to stop it all from unraveling.”
The state filed a notice of appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals less than an hour after the judge issued her order. DeSantis did not immediately comment.
Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Federal District Court in Miami found that the state and federal governments had violated a federal law that requires an environmental review before any major federal construction project. Judge Williams partly granted a preliminary injunction sought by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose members live in the area. The detention center is surrounded by protected lands that form part of the sensitive Everglades ecological system.
The detention center presents risks to wetlands and to communities that depend on the Everglades for their water supply, including the Miccosukee, Judge Williams found.
“The project creates irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area,” she wrote.
Her ruling is preliminary, as the case will continue to be litigated. The state is expected to ask that the ruling be stayed, or kept from taking effect, as it pursues its appeal.
The Trump administration had argued that a review under the National Environmental Policy Act did not apply because while the center houses federal immigration detainees, it is run by the state. At the same time, the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis argued that its authority to operate the detention center came from an agreement with the federal government delegating some immigration enforcement powers to Florida.
In her ruling, Judge Williams said federal immigration enforcement is the “key driver” of the detention center’s construction. Because it is subject to federal funding, standards and direction, it is also subject to federal environmental laws, she concluded.
In making that determination, the judge wrote, the court will “‘adhere to the time-tested adage: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck.’”
On Oct. 7, Gov. Gavin Newsom boldly vetoed a bill that purported to increase accountability for charter schools in high-needs communities that receive funding from the Charter School Facility Grant Program. The bill’s labor sponsors, the California School Employees Association and Assemblymember Mia Bonta claimed that this bill “will safeguard hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from wasteful and improper spending by charter schools.”
Despite passing through the Democratic party’s supermajority in both the Assembly and Senate, Gov. Newsom thoughtfully centered the needs of students and families in historically underserved communities over party politics and labor endorsements, and vetoed this bill, noting in his veto message of Assembly Bill 1604 that “provisions could have unintended consequences, including increasing facilities costs or limiting financial options for charter schools.”
Unlike school districts, charter schools cannot pass general obligation bonds to finance their facilities. Instead, charter schools that serve a majority low-income student population can access funding through the Charter School Facility Grant Program to invest in facilities in the communities they serve and secure necessary financing to modernize classrooms and make campus safety improvements. Assemblymember Bonta’s bill would have increased their facilities costs and limited their long-term financing capacity — and prevented students from having access to safe and equitable facilities. This was her second failed attempt at legislation against the charter school facilities program alongside her partners at CSEA (AB 2484 in 2022 was a similar bill that died in Senate Appropriations).
Under the current system, thoughtfully and thoroughly managed by the state treasury, charter schools can borrow money through the bond market for their facilities. The report from a 2022 audit of the Charter School Facility Grant Program noted the positive effect of the existing bond program and that the programs are “generally achieving their purpose of increasing charter schools’ access to facility funding” and did not find any improper use of the program. However, Bonta wanted to increase accountability and recoup public facilities funding in the event a charter school were to close.
Had this bill passed, charter schools would have faced the unfair burden of increased borrowing rates for facilities in high-needs communities, or it could have even made access to financing untenable. In Oakland specifically, the district Bonta represents, charter schools, unfortunately, do not have access to high-quality, safe and equitable facilities, and require access to these bonds for long-term community investment. Oakland’s charters already face barriers, often political, to getting Proposition 39 offers (a state law requiring districts to allow charters to share space in their unused facilities or classrooms) or funding under Proposition 51 to improve existing facilities (a grant program that allows for bond-funded improvements at available district facilities for charter schools).
Newsom’s veto should signal to Bonta and her labor partners that they should focus on more pressing educational issues that public school families care about, like increasing literacy rates, aligning investments in community school programming, improving public and school safety, and ensuring college readiness and career pathway completion.
It is not surprising that about half of the students in East Oakland, from the Fruitvale to the San Leandro border, choose charter schools. Over the last three years, Oakland’s charter high schools have had college readiness A-G completion rates of 67% for African American and Latino students, compared with 34% at district high schools. Bonta is well aware of this, given her previous role as CEO of the Oakland Promise, an organization that provides college scholarships to Oakland Unified and charter school graduates. Many in the Oakland community were confused as to why she was attacking charter schools and their access to facilities financing given the positive college readiness rates that charter high schools have shifted locally.
Many charter schools in Oakland exist to counter the systemic challenges of educational redlining — as children attending schools in the affluent hills receive a dramatically different educational experience and set of outcomes than children in the flatlands — and to give students and families quality public school options. A third of Oakland’s families exercise this choice and choose charter schools for their children. According to Oakland Enrolls, a nonprofit that helps families choose the best school for their child, in each of the last three years, there have been an average of 8,000 unique student applications to charter schools in Oakland.
The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the educational inequities that existed before the pandemic. Assemblymember Bonta’s repeated attempts to pass legislation that could harm charter schools are out of touch with the needs of students and families in Oakland and of high needs communities across California. However, the governor’s strong veto of AB 1604 is a welcome sign that he is committed to educational equity and to providing all students with access to high-quality educational opportunities, and recognizes that charter schools are a vital part of the educational landscape in California.
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Rich Harrison is CEO of Lighthouse Community Public Schools, which operates two K-12 public charter schools serving more than 1,600 students in East Oakland.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
School is back in session. In California, we ended the prior school year with promising data that student attendance rates throughout the state are rising from historic lows during the pandemic. While having students in seats is cause for celebration, we must ensure that we have enough teachers in classrooms.
The initiative we should be champing at the bit to implement is high-impact tutoring: tutoring in one-on-one situations or very small groups meeting at least 30 minutes, three or more times a week. Here’s why this is an effective, scalable way to provide students with high-quality educators:
You can’t argue with data. Research shows that high-dosage tutoring is one of the most effective ways to help students make academic progress. Yet few students actually receive it. A recent study from Stanford University demonstrated the many positive effects of tutoring, including increased reading and math scores, attendance and a feeling of belonging. Teach For America’s (TFA) tutoring program, the Ignite Fellowship, finds and develops tutors who connect virtually with students during the school day. Fellows, who are paid for their work, are supported by a school-based veteran educator to customize instruction. Seventy-one percent of the 3,500 students across the country being tutored by Ignite fellows meet their semester-long reading and math goals.
Tutoring is a pipeline to teaching. Teacher morale is an ongoing issue. Because teaching is so unique, it can be hard to fully prepare aspiring educators for what it’s like to lead a classroom. Tutoring serves as a way for college students to step behind the wheel, with a professional providing roadside assistance before they are given full control. This can be key to teacher recruitment and retention — before people fully enlist in becoming a teacher, they have the opportunity to see if this profession is right for them. AmeriCorps, which also invests in employing young people as tutors to help them jump-start service-oriented careers, has found that more than half of its tutors hope to pursue a career in education after their service. When teachers are more confident stepping into their classrooms, students are the ones who reap the rewards.
Tutors ease the burden for teachers. Tutors can focus on small groups or individual sessions with students — something that lead teachers don’t always have the capacity to do. This way, tutors can address specific learning gaps for individual students, meeting more individual and diverse needs, and allowing students to build authentic relationships with multiple educators/mentors. I have had teachers tell me they wish they could clone themselves so they could work with more students to meet different needs and speeds. In our reality, tutors may be the closest thing we have to clones.
Prioritizing diversity. To provide a diverse experience for our nation’s students, we must have their educators — their role models — reflect them. This means we should prioritize recruiting and retaining teachers of color. Throughout California’s public schools, 77% of the K-12 population is composed of students of color, whereas only 37% of educators identify as people of color. This kind of ratio is true for Los Angeles, where I am based. That’s why I’m excited to be welcoming the Ignite Fellowship to schools throughout Los Angeles (and expanding even further throughout California) this year, helping bring more diverse and locally rooted teachers into classrooms. People of color face historically more hurdles than white people in the workforce, and this is even more extreme in the teaching profession. Tutoring is a way to expand the diversity of the teacher pipeline and can increase students’ access to educators from diverse backgrounds. Virtual programs like Ignite also allow for more flexibility and accessibility, meaning fewer hurdles for aspiring teachers to become tutors, and more opportunities for students to connect with tutors and mentors.
The school year may already be underway, but the reality is that schools will be fighting to staff their classrooms all year. Anything we can do to mitigate the detrimental effects that understaffed schools have on students should be a priority. Investing in tutors is an actionable way to help staff schools with diverse educators, with an added benefit of creating a pipeline of tomorrow’s teachers.
We have the proof that it will help our students, so what are we waiting for?
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Lida Jennings is the executive director of Teach For America Los Angeles and San Diego.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
As enrollments drop, city after city is facing pressure to close half-empty schools. Fewer kids means fewer dollars. Consolidating two schools saves money because it means paying for one less principal, librarian, nurse, PE teacher, counselor, reading coach, clerk, custodian … you get the idea. Low-enrollment schools end up on the chopping block because they’re the ones that typically cost more per pupil.
But there is another way to cut costs without closing underenrolled schools.
First, it’s worth noting that small schoolsneedn’t cost more per pupil. Our school spending and outcomes data include examples of small schools all across the country that operate on per-pupil costs comparable to their larger peers — some even delivering solid student outcomes.
But here’s the catch: These financially viable small schools are staffed very differently than larger schools.
There’s a 55-student school near Yosemite that spends about $13,000 a student—well under the state average. How do they make it work? One teacher teaches grades two, three, and four. There’s no designated nurse, counselor, or PE teacher, and rather than offer traditional athletics, students learn to ski and hike.
A quick glance at the many different financially viable small schools across different states reveals that staff often wear multiple hats. The principal is also the Spanish teacher, or the counselor also teaches math.
Also common are multi-level classrooms. When my kids attended a small rural high school, physics was combined with AP Physics, which meant both my 10th and 12th graders were in the same class, but with different homework.
Sometimes schools give kids electives via online options, send students to other schools for sports, or forgo some of these services altogether. Some have no subs (merging classes in the case of an absence). Sometimes the schools partner with a community group or lean on parents to help in the library or coach sports.
Done well, smallness can be an asset, even with the more limited services and staff. Whereas a counselor might be critical in a larger school to ensure that a student has someone to talk to, with fewer students in a small school, relationships come easier. Teachers may have more bandwidth to assist a struggling student.
What isn’t financially viable? A school with the full complement of typical school staff but fewer kids. These aren’t purposely designed small schools, rather they’re underenrolled large schools (sometimes called “zombie schools”). Los Angeles Unified School District, for instance, has a slew of tiny schools spending over $30,000 per pupil. Such schools vary in performance, but all sustain their higher per-pupil price tag by drawing down funds meant for students in the rest of the district. In the end, no one wins.
With so much aversion from parents to closing schools (witness, for example, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Pittsburgh or Denver) we might expect more districts to adopt these nontraditional staffing models as a way to save costs and keep families happy.
In some cities, it’s the charter schools that are offering just that: smaller nontraditional programs that make it work without extra subsidies.
Some will argue that nontraditional schools (including charters) won’t work for every student. Districts must take all comers, including English learners, families needing extra supports, those wanting a full athletics program, specialty autism services, and so on. That said, the idea here is that larger districts needn’t offer those services in every school, provided they’re available elsewhere in the district.
But it’s these larger districts that are the most wedded to the uniform staffing structure. It’s so deeply embedded in job titles and union rules, as well as program specifications and more.
Tolerating small nontraditional schools would mean letting go of some of that rigidity and accepting the idea that schools can be successful without all those fixed inputs. And it might mean reducing some staff who believe their roles are protected when enshrined in a staffing formula. On the flip side, if the school in question has higher outcomes, and the choice is to close it or redesign its staffing structure to transform it into a more intentionally small school, parents and students may accept that trade if it means preserving the school community.
It would also mean changing budgeting practices so that what gets allocated is a fair share of the dollars per pupil—in contrast with allocations based on standardized staffing prescriptions.
The last decade saw a big push for inputs-based models, including “every school needs a counselor” or “every school needs a nurse.” As enrollments continue to fall, these inflexible one-size-fits-all allocations stand in the way of keeping small schools open.
None of this is to say that every school should remain open. Many will inevitably close. But for some of those that deliver solid outcomes for their students, perhaps now is the right time to rethink the typical schooling model.
Marguerite Roza is Ddrector of the Edunomics Lab and research professor at Georgetown University, where she leads the McCourt School of Public Policy’s Certificate in Education Finance.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Wildfire smoke fills the air over the 110 freeway in Los Angeles.
Credit: AP Photo / Etienne Laurent
Fires, ash and power outages continue to push communities throughout Los Angeles away from their homes and into uncertainty — all while more than 12% of the state’s schools, including nearly 800 in Los Angeles Unified, have had to stop in-person instruction, and, despite incurring damages, extend essential services to students and their families.
As of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, blazes spanning roughly 350 to 17,000 acres continued to burn across Los Angeles County, according to CalFire. At least five people have died, and thousands of buildings have been destroyed.
Eight schools are among the structures that have been damaged in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and beyond.
Schools damaged and districts closed due to fires in Los Angeles County
The map below shows the status of districts in the region. Data as of 1/10/2025 11 a.m.
Map designed by Yuxuan Xie / EdSource
“With so many students, staff, and families affected by the devastating Eaton fire and mandatory evacuations, we know this is an overwhelming and difficult time for everyone,” Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco said in a statement. “Our hearts are broken for everything that our beloved community is enduring. But we know that our community is strong, and together, we will get through this.”
Meanwhile, several unions — including Associated Administrators of Los Angeles/Teamsters Local 2010, Teamsters Local 572, SEIU Local 99 and United Teachers of Los Angeles — along with teachers and parents criticized the Los Angeles Unified School District’s response to the fires as well as the decision to only close campuses in certain regions on Wednesday.
LAUSD has since announced it will close all of its campuses and district offices through Friday.
“Extreme winds continue to threaten the further spread of the fires. … Air quality is at an extremely unhealthy level throughout LA, with ash falling like rain in many areas of the district,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and district officials wrote in a letter to four unions collectively representing more than 74,000 LAUSD employees. “Traffic is also congested throughout, making it difficult or impossible for many students and workers to travel to school sites and leaving many without food deliveries.”
“Many school sites have lost power, water, telephone, and internet access,” the letter noted. “In these extreme circumstances, requiring students, families, and workers to travel to school and attempt to conduct educational services in this environment is unsafe and irresponsible.”
Damages to schools
Los Angeles Unified and Pasadena Unified school districts have experienced severe damage from the fires.
As of Thursday, three LAUSD schools had been damaged, including Palisades Charter High School, Palisades Charter Elementary School and Marquez Elementary School, according to a district spokesperson.
At the 63-year-old Palisades Charter High School — which was featured in films including “Carrie” and “Freaky Friday”— the school community remains hopeful that 70% of its campus may survive the flames, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The damage at the other two campuses was worse, and roughly half of Marquez Elementary School has been turned to rubble.
Meanwhile, five campuses in Pasadena Unified have been damaged by the Eaton Canyon fire, which, according to CalFire, was still 0% contained as of 5 p.m. Thursday.
School Closures
As fires continue to ravage communities, more districts and schools throughout the L.A. area have opted to close.
More than 1,000 public schools closed, according to an EdSource analysis, affecting more than 9% of students across the state.
Districts that closed are:
Alhambra Unified School District
Arcadia Unified School District
Beverly Hills Unified School District
Burbank Unified School District
Compton Unified School District
Culver City Unified School District
Duarte Unified School District
Garvey School District
Glendale Unified School District
Glendora Unified School District
La Canada Unified
Los Angeles Unified School District
Monrovia Unified School District
Pasadena Unified School District
Rosemead Unified School District
San Gabriel Unified School District
Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District
South Pasadena Unified School District
Temple City Unified School District
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District — the largest in the state, with roughly 1,000 campuses — closed schools in harder-hit areas, including in the central and eastern parts of the district. Several parents had opted to keep their children home anyway, and the district’s attendance rate was 68% on Wednesday.
“I understand as a parent and former medical professional what we are dealing with,” said Vicky Martinez, a parent of three Los Angeles Unified students in the Highland Park area. “And I was not going to expose my kids and myself to the debris unnecessarily.”
Closures among colleges and universities
Several colleges and universities throughout Los Angeles also closed their campuses or halted in-person instruction.
UCLA canceled undergraduate courses on Thursday and Friday, while graduate courses are being held remotely.
Cal State Los Angeles has also announced that instruction will be online-only until Monday. “We are closely monitoring the situation and are in regular communication with our students and employees to ensure their safety and well-being,” said CSU Chancellor Mildred García in a statement Thursday morning.
The California Institute of Technology was closed Thursday but planned to reopen Friday.
Community colleges, including Glendale Community College, Pasadena City College and Santa Monica College also paused in-person instruction through the end of the week, while the Los Angeles Community College District remained closed on Thursday.
Region North: Mulholland Middle School, Sepulveda Middle School, San Fernando Middle School, Richard E. Byrd Middle School
Region East: Hollenbeck Middle School, South Gate High School, Los Angeles Academy Middle School, John H. Liechty Middle School
Region South: Fremont High School, Harry Bridges Span School, Edwin Markham Middle School, Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy
Region West: Marina Del Rey Middle School, Sonia Sotomayor Arts and Sciences Magnet, Berendo Middle School, Fairfax High School
Los Angeles Unified also announced Thursday a partnership with the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles to help provide displaced and evacuated families with free child care and provide additional resources.
The YMCA — which has 28 centers across Los Angeles — is also allowing students who are at least 12 years old to use its facilities for free at its facilities that remain open.
“We are deeply grateful to the YMCA for stepping up during this challenging time to support our students, families, and essential workers,” Carvalho said in a statement. “This partnership exemplifies the power of community and our shared commitment to ensuring no child or family is left without support.”
Community members have also initiated GoFundMe campaigns to support teachers and families who have lost their homes; the Los Angeles County Office of Education is providing guidance to school districts and sharing resources.
“We are committed to supporting our schools and communities during this challenging time,” Van Nguyen, spokesperson for the county office, said in an email to EdSource, “and will continue to adapt our response as the situation evolves.”
Staff writers Daniel J. Willis, Diana Lambert and Karen D’Souza contributed to this report.
