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  • Safety concerns on the rise in LAUSD; Carvalho looks to police

    Safety concerns on the rise in LAUSD; Carvalho looks to police


    Four years after removing district police from individual campuses, the Los Angeles Unified School District has temporarily restored officers to two schools — reviving longstanding debates and dissatisfaction over school policing. 

    Superintendent Alberto Carvalho attempted to restore officers to 20 school sites to make campuses safer, according to a May 13 memo to school board members. Those campuses were chosen based on “relevant safety data.”

    “As we near the end of the school year, we continue to refine our protocols to ensure our schools are safe and welcoming environments for students and staff,” he said in the memo. “It is critical that we are aware of the specific needs of our schools, and respond accordingly.” 

    A day later, amid a backlash, Carvalho’s plan collapsed, with the district limiting police to only two of the 20 schools until the end of the school year because of “heightened activity” in the region: Washington Preparatory High School and Northridge Middle School. At each of the campuses, police could be stationed either all day or during specific times, including dismissal, according to an LAUSD spokesperson.

    The district will decide weekly whether to keep police in place. It is unclear what the district will do next. 

    The district’s own data shows a 45% spike from 2017-18 to 2022-23 in incidents involving suicide risk, fighting/physical aggression, threats, illegal/controlled substances and weapons. And 25% in the year ending 2022-23.

    Weapons incidents rose from 994 to 1,197 in the year ending 2022-23.

    Police were restored to the two campuses after gun incidents. In one, a student died in a shooting a few blocks from Washington Prep. During that incident, a member of the Safe Passage program — which involves community members monitoring routes to and from school to keep students safe — allegedly failed to intervene. 

    Meanwhile, at Northridge Middle School, police came to arrest two students who had brought loaded semi-automatic handguns. Afterward, members of United Teachers Los Angeles rallied in support of student safety, alleging the district failed to issue a lockdown and did not communicate adequately. LAUSD did not respond to the union’s allegations.

    Members of United Teachers Los Angeles rallied in support of student safety at Northridge Middle School in May.
    Credit: Courtesy of UTLA

    “The recent uptick in interest in bringing police back to schools happened because of a few incidents on campuses,” said Amir Whitaker, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California. “And, as always, the immediate response is to bring in police — when oftentimes we know the police wouldn’t have prevented the situations in the first place.” Whitaker is also the primary author of a 2021 report titled “No Police in Schools,” which concluded police in schools have “devastating and discriminatory impacts on tens of thousands of California students.”

    How LAUSD is dispatching its police is part of a continuing EdSource investigation that revealed the vast presence of police in K-12 schools in California. EdSource obtained nearly 46,000 call logs from 164 law enforcement agencies for the period January to June 2023. LAUSD’s police department refused to release its data.

    The current debate over school police is part of a longstanding tug-of-war over student safety. Some community members have advocated during board meetings for more law enforcement, while others maintain that school police should be abolished altogether. 

    “There isn’t security on campus, and that obviously affects our children,” said Efigenia Flores, a district parent and member of Our Voice/Nuestra Voz, a group of Latino parents that has consistently advocated in meetings with district officials for an increased police presence, alongside mental health and counseling supports. 

    “This is unacceptable,” she added in Spanish. “That is why we want a clear and transparent plan that incorporates our voice.” 

    According to a recent district safety and school climate presentation, a range of safety concerns have increased across the district in recent years, leaving many parents worried about their children’s well-being and eager for the district to restore a presence on individual campuses. 

    Last Tuesday, a fourth grader at Glassell Park Elementary brought a loaded handgun to school. Nobody was injured, and Principal Claudia Pelayo said in a message to the campus community that the school acted immediately and asked the Los Angeles School Police Department and Region West Operations to investigate.

    “In alignment with our commitment to comprehensive safety measures and as an ongoing practice, we continuously review relevant statistical data and implement enhanced on-campus support from a number of departments within our District as deemed necessary,” a district spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource.

    Uneven access to community-based safety 

    Several community organizations, however, have maintained that law enforcement heightens fears around racial profiling and violence against students of color — and say the district has “really failed to commit to implementing” community-based safety efforts that could help tackle “root causes” of violence, according to Joseph Williams, director of Students Deserve, a community organization focused on “making Black lives matter in schools.”

    Those community efforts include Safe Passage and restorative justice practices, which are designed to help students understand the impact of negative behavior and address underlying challenges that may have caused them to occur in the first place. 

    LAUSD spokesperson Shannon Haber maintained, however, that the district has “really leaned into our safety initiatives and restorative justice practices,” citing efforts to hire more mental health professionals and partnerships to promote safe passage, among other initiatives.

    School board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin has long supported restorative practices in the district — and said the fears Black students experience around police “is not something I want to perpetuate, personally.”  

    “Everybody’s job in the school district is to make sure kids are safe; and, some people think only officers focus on safety,” Ortiz Franklin said in an interview with EdSource.

    “Your teachers are focused on safety, your principals focus on safety, your campus aides are focused on safety — everyone understands that is our primary concern. And so, where we need to improve and grow as a system is not just with one department. It’s with everyone.”

    LAUSD’s current law enforcement landscape 

    In 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in Minneapolis, LAUSD’s school board voted to cut the district’s Los Angeles School Police Department by 35% and remove police officers from all campuses. 

    The district’s police department saw a $25 million reduction in the 2020-21 budget, including more than $14 million in salaries and over $10 million in overtime pay, according to a Dec. 15, 2020, report by the Board of Education.

    Since then, the district has adopted a “patrol model,” where an officer is assigned to patrol a neighborhood in a car, both before and after the school day. 

    Some officers also patrol during the evenings when there could be potential trespassing or vandalism — and they are often present during evening events, including football games, Ortiz Franklin said.

    If an incident takes place on campus, she said, a school principal or designee can call the police, and the district department has a response time that ranges from three to seven minutes. 

    The district did not disclose how many calls were made to district police over the past several years. 

    “We have public education dollars to spend on teaching kids to get ready for college, career and life; and, if we choose to spend education dollars on law enforcement, that to me feels like a disservice and a missed opportunity,” Ortiz Franklin said, while emphasizing that the district anticipates “dire budget cuts” in the coming years. 

    With incidents on the rise since 2017-18, some parents are asking for more police in schools to keep their children safe. 

    “Because there is no security, this will continue: the distribution of drugs, fights, bullying and sexual harassment,” said Maria Hernandez, a mother of four LAUSD students and a member of Our Voice/Nuestra Voz. 

    “There are many mothers who are saddened by the deaths of their children, and I don’t think they are hoping for more,” she added, speaking in Spanish. 

    Evelyn Aleman, who runs Our Voice/Nuestra Voz, added that “we, as the adults, really have to step in and take charge of the safety of the students.”

    She also questioned whom principals would call in an emergency if there aren’t district police at schools. 

    “They’re going to call LAPD. Do we want the principals doing that?” 

    ‘A visceral response’

    Venice High School senior Lindsey Weatherspoon saw a man in a blue uniform enter her classroom a couple of weeks ago. Aware of allegations that district police had targeted students of color, she panicked. 

    “I could just feel my heart literally beating out my chest — thinking it was wrong, and they’re conducting random searches or something,” Weatherspoon said.

    Fearing police violence, she wondered: “‘Is this going to happen to me? Is this going to happen to one of my friends?” 

    The uniformed person entering the school turned out to be a maintenance worker, but Weatherspoon found it “mind boggling” to have “such a visceral response.”  

    Weatherspoon is part of the ACLU of Southern California’s Youth Liberty Squad, one of many community organizations that has called for an end to school policing altogether — whether by district or municipal law enforcement agencies.

    Several students from these organizations also attend district board meetings and speak out against policing during public comment sections — claiming the district police force has disproportionately profiled and policed students of color and consistently posed a threat to their emotional safety at school.

    Despite being roughly 8% of LAUSD’s population, Black students account for roughly a quarter of arrests, citations and diversions, according to a 2022 report released by the Police Free LAUSD Coalition, a group of community organizations that oppose school policing. 

    “Rather than arresting (students) and pushing them out of our schools, we truly need to find out the root cause of what is really going on with our youth. What is it that’s going on at home? What’s going on mentally, as well?” said Steven Ortega, the director of youth organizing at the East Los Angeles-based non-profit InnerCity Struggle. 

    “We’re not saying, ‘Let’s let young people get away with anything.’ We’re saying that there still needs to be accountability, but more holistically.” 





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  • LAUSD safety concerns are growing. Here’s what the board members have to say.

    LAUSD safety concerns are growing. Here’s what the board members have to say.


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    Members of the Los Angeles Unified School District school board continued to discuss student safety Tuesday — and are still a ways away from determining whether to revamp its police presence on individual campuses.

    A safety task force — which previously recommended each campus choose whether to have police stationed at its site — made a presentation about LAUSD’s approach to student safety, including community-based safety methods such as restorative justice. They will continue to meet in the coming school year.

    Discussions about reintroducing police to individual LAUSD campuses are taking place for the first time since George Floyd’s murder amid a 45% increase in incidents between 2017-18 and 2022-23, including suicide risk, fighting/physical aggression, threats, illegal/controlled substances and weapons. 

    Here’s what the board members said at Tuesday’s meeting. Their remarks have been edited for length and clarity. 

    School board President Jackie Goldberg: ‘Not really desirous of having armed police on campus’

    I spent 17 years teaching in Compton. … We had two sets of gangs. … We then hired school police to come onto campus. The problem was that there were two (officers). The problem was that when the gangs came over the fences, they came over in 10s and 20s. … How did they have guns? They came over in sufficient numbers to disarm the police. So, I’m not really desirous of having armed police on campus. …

    LAUSD Board Member Jackie Goldberg

    What do I think school police can do? I think school police can be in neighborhoods where most of the problems happen. … What we mostly had to do was to have them in the community around the school and for us to be able to find out from trusted — usually — graduates of ours when trouble was about to happen. And so, (police) could be not in twos, but they could be sent in fours and fives to neighborhoods where things were about to come down. 

    … If you want to stop drug abuse, are you going to have a police officer sitting in the bathrooms because that’s where the exchanges take place?  No, we’re not. We’re not going to put a police officer to sit in classrooms. Do we want school police on campus when there’s a fight? Yeah, that may be useful. 

    … Most of the fights are not bad. And I think as we keep statistics, I would like us to have a notion of what the types of fights were. Was this two or three kids who … called your mother something and they’re fighting and it gets stopped? I think they should be counted, but I think they aren’t the problem. The problem is the massive fights, and those do need to be treated differently. 

    Secondly, we do not have restorative justice in this district. Period. I visited all 151 of the schools I represent, several of them several times, and in only a handful of them did I see anything that resembled restorative justice. 

    School board Vice President Scott Schmerelson: ‘I also believe in school police’ 

    Let me just tell you what really bothers me: when people think that school police are supposed to do discipline at school. They’re not supposed to be doing discipline at school. That’s the teacher’s job. That’s my job as the principal, or the assistant principal, or the dean. … 

    LAUSD Board Member Scott Schemerelson
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    I do believe that we need climate advocates at school. Absolutely — all the help that we can get at making peace at school. Very, very important. … Yes, I do believe in restorative justice. I do. Our kids need to see what they’ve done wrong and how to make amends for what they have done. Very, very important. I also believe in school police. 

    We are responsible from the minute the kids leave home to the minute they get to school. And, we’re responsible from the minute they leave school to the minute they go home. … That’s why safe passage is really so important too. Kids need to have check-in points along the way home to and from school. Extremely important. Everybody has a job at school, and we should not be pushing people under the bus whether you’re a school police officer, or a climate control officer.

    Board Member Rocio Rivas: ‘We do have the data on what we need to do’

    We’re not the same since the pandemic. Things have changed. Our students are suffering. They have high anxiety. There’s increase of suicidal ideation. 

    LAUSD Board Member Rocio Rivas

    … We have (positive behavior intervention and support) and restorative justice, but they’re not strengthened. They’re not bolstered. So, the district does have that system in place where we can create safe, loving, culturally responsive schools, but we’re not giving the investments or the support that our schools need.

    … The area that needs that support are middle schools. … That is where we start seeing the suicide ideation, when we start seeing the fights, when we start seeing our students needing to medicate themselves. 

    … We love our kids, and at early ed centers, we love them; we want to protect them. But once they leave those early ed centers, it’s almost as if they lost that system of love and compassion and care. And we put in other systems, and we look at them (as though) all these kids are deviants. No, they are children. They are children until even after they’re 18 … because their brains are still developing. 

    … We know exactly what we need to do, but we’re not putting the money or the strength or the emphasis. … We’re talking about test scores, but you know what? You are not going to see increases … in student achievement unless that child feels that they’re being heard, that that school cares about them, that they have somebody in there. 

    … We do have the data on what we need to do. We have the funds. We just don’t have the buy-in from this district, from this building, because it’s so disconnected from our schools and from our communities.

    Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin: ‘We’ll keep the conversations going’

    LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin

    I’ll just bring our attention back to the Community Based Safety Resolution. The last resolve does ask us … to strengthen community-based safety approaches … and resources as a primary means of cultivating and maintaining positive school climates and keeping school communities safe even in emergency situations. 

    … We need the (restorative) training throughout for all of the staff members — as many folks can come back before the school year starts. We’ve got $350 million invested in people who are focused exclusively on safety. If we can focus on this community, restorative approach as the primary means — really shifting away from that punitive, traditional, policing model —  I think we’ll get even closer to the vision of this resolution that we all passed. I think we’ll keep the conversations going next year in the school safety committee. 

    Board Member Kelly Gonez: ‘It’s about creating a true infrastructure around community-based safety’

    I was looking just at the (Local Control and Accountability Plan) information for our meeting later, and it highlights different demographic groups of students and the percent of students reporting that they feel safe in the school experience survey, and there are significant gaps — like for our Black students, who are rating the lowest in terms of whether or not they feel safe, which obviously is very concerning, as well as the number of students who feel like they are part of their school. 

    LAUSD Board Member Kelly Gonez
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    Those numbers, it looks like, took a significant dip in the wake of the pandemic and have not really fully recovered, and I would just surmise that there’s a connection between feeling disconnected or not seen at your school site and whether or not there is true safety and belonging for students. 

    … It’s not just about restorative justice and the practices, but it’s about creating a true infrastructure around community-based safety. And, I think that’s inclusive of a number of staffing positions as well — beyond, just for example, your restorative justice teachers and beyond the partnerships with community based organizations, which are also integral. It’s about, for example, our classified staffing positions. We know that a number of our incidents happen during lunch, during dismissal. 

    … I would just ask that in any plan … that we’re providing for the necessary staffing and supervision that our schools and our students really deserve — and especially looking at our secondary schools, because we know that’s where the majority of these incidents are happening. 

    Board Member Nick Melvoin: ‘The glaring omission (is) … the data on the fights.’ 

    LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSourc

    Regardless of our views of what’s happening outside of the school, our responsibility is for school safety on the school campus, and we have different ideas. … But I do think really the glaring omission (is) … the data on the fights. 

    … I’m trying to understand where we can trace that based on grade levels, and Covid, and the effects of the pandemic and the success or lack thereof of our positive behavioral intervention supports and restorative justice. … (and) on school campuses with the current deployment model, which is not having police there, except for rare emergencies.

    … We have different ideas … and I just hope that we can engage, starting from the premise that we all want kids to be safe and talk to each other and not just about or past each other. 

    And then the last thing, too. … I just want to make sure that the city and the county aren’t off the hook for this — and that as we’re talking amongst each other, we’re also bringing them in. 

    Board Member George McKenna: ‘We still haven’t come to grips with the reality of what makes the schools safe’ 

    I’ve been in this for 62 years — I’ve never seen police criminalize the children. I’ve seen them respond.

    … Do you know that there is no guideline in a teacher’s contract — or even an administrator’s contract — that says you must go break up a fight? The only one that has to do that is someone who’s trained to do that. And that will be a school police officer. 

    Board Member Dr. George J. McKenna III
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    … I have no problem with the climate coaches or whatever they’re called, in addition to the people that have been there in uniform with the licensure and the legal responsibility for student safety … And the only people that have voted for the safety of school police being on campus are people who have been on the campus as administrators, including principals. … The most important people in the school district are the people who run the school, that’s the principal.

    … The most police officers we’ve ever had on the campus … is two, and I think it’s understaffed if you only put one on it because they have no backup. They need to be visible in order to assist the students and the prevention of incidents that occur because … the students will confide in them. 

    ….We’re not OK the way we are. And we still haven’t come to grips with the reality of what makes the schools safe and whether or not our school safety officers are a benefit to us. When you start with the premise and use the word the “punitive school police” and that’s the way you introduce it, you are already biased because that means you don’t understand what they do. And you can fill up the room with your accolades and your people that you’ve encouraged to be here, but we have to go to the schools on a regular basis. It makes a school safe.





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  • California’s college financial aid chief on FAFSA chaos, concerns about Trump and more

    California’s college financial aid chief on FAFSA chaos, concerns about Trump and more


    Daisy Gonzales, the executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, speaking at Hancock College in 2019.

    Credit: California Community Colleges

    When Dr. Daisy Gonzales took over as executive director of the California Student Aid Commission in June, she stepped into the position at a tumultuous time on the financial aid front, marked by state budget deficits, outside schemes to defraud financial programs and concerns over what President-elect Donald Trump will mean for undocumented students.

    Among her first priorities: making sure more students apply for financial aid this year following declines in 2024 amid the chaotic and oft-delayed rollout of the federal government’s revamped Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The U.S. Department of Education last month made the 2025-26 version available. Most students in California use that form to access both state and federal aid for college costs. FAFSA completions in the state declined by an estimated 10% among incoming freshmen in 2024, mirroring a national decline, as students and families found it difficult to access and complete the form in a timely manner.

    The state student aid commission (pronounced See-Sack by insiders) oversees more than $3.5 billion in state grants available to college students mainly based on need. That includes the Cal Grant, the state’s main financial aid awards that come in various types for tuition, living allowances and career or technical programs. The commission also oversees the Middle Class Scholarship, which can provide substantial grants to underwrite attendance at California’s public colleges and universities for students from families earning up to $217,000 a year.

    In addition, the commission runs the California Dream Act Application for undocumented students, who can use it to apply for Cal Grants despite not being eligible for federal aid. Some students, including those who have citizenship or legal residency but an undocumented parent, may still be fearful to fill out any financial aid applications out of concern that information will be shared with the federal government. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport undocumented residents when he takes office next year. State officials promise that Dream Act information will not be shared.

    Meanwhile, community colleges in California and across the country continue to be plagued by financial aid fraud. Scammers, posing as students, enroll at the colleges for the sole purpose of stealing financial aid. California’s community colleges have lost more than $7.5 million this year alone to such fraud. 

    Dr. Gonzales was deputy chancellor of California’s community college system before joining the aid commission in July. She also served as the system’s acting and then interim chancellor. She was selected to her current post by the 15 members of the commission, 11 of whom are appointed by the governor and another four by the Legislature.

    Previously, she was a consultant for the Budget and Appropriations Committees in the state Assembly. She has a bachelor’s degree from Mills College and received both a master’s degree and a doctorate in sociology from UC Santa Barbara.

    She recently spoke with EdSource. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

    What is the Student Aid Commission doing to ensure students are completing the FAFSA this year?

    We’ve been working differently with Cal Volunteers and training all of their volunteers to learn about financial aid, because they’re the boots on the ground. And even working differently with our segments. I’ve been really grateful to the community colleges. I gave them the data of those districts and colleges where we are leaving students behind, and they immediately got to work doing professional development, deploying messaging. (Cal Volunteers is a state office charged with increasing volunteering. Its College Corps program provides stipends for college students who volunteer.)

    It was also important that I could hear directly from students. So I’ve also launched a student council where all the student associations (at local community college districts) have appointments on that council, and then they are activating their associations to educate students about financial aid, the deadlines, and even solutions to some of the common barriers that they face.

    President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport undocumented residents. What guidance are you giving to undocumented students or students who have undocumented parents and are worried they could expose them by filling out the FAFSA?

    We believe in providing students and their families with the information that will allow them to consider all of their options. We know that there are many concerns around privacy protections for individuals without a Social Security number.

    Last year, the commission opened the Dream Act application to students from mixed-status families (those with both documented and undocumented individuals), and we are maintaining that. And so for any student, particularly if you’re a first-time applicant, if you have a family member, a parent, or a spouse that is a part of your application that does not have a Social Security number, you are being invited to complete the Dream Act application. We also have to inform you that as a part of not completing a FAFSA, you will not be able to benefit from federal aid. And our job is to help you understand that it’s your choice. And that applying is a family decision. Here at the commission, we protect your data. However, there are no similar federal reassurances that we can provide.

    Are you doing any messaging to make sure students know that any information they submit via the California Dream Act Application is not shared with the federal government?

    We redid our website so that we could have a very clear message around our data security. You can also then click on that message and it’ll show you additional information that’s important as you’re making your decision on whether to file a California Dream Act Application or FAFSA. We’ve also been deploying messages. For the first time, at least in the last several years, we actually sent out a notice that went to all education leaders — meaning the K-12 superintendents, the higher education presidents and CEOs. They all got the same message. And it was a message saying that our job is clear. We need students to stay enrolled. We need to offer them a safe option. And that is the California Dream Act Application.

    There has been a big push by lawmakers in recent years to reform the Cal Grant by simplifying it and making more students eligible for aid, especially low-income community college students. That reform hasn’t happened because of state budget constraints. Is it still a priority of yours?

    I’m here with a very clear mission to transform financial aid. I believe that it’s something that we can do together. And in doing so, then that means we are building financial aid pathways that are centered in student success. Yes, we need Cal Grant equity to be a reality, but that’s not yet funded.

    But there are still so many other things that we can be doing. So, for example, I envision a California financial aid system that’s actually predictable. What would it look like to have an expedited renewal process for aid? I hear that as the No. 1 burden for students and families. 

    Another example I can give you is foster youth. They end up having to fill out two to five different applications. So at the commission, they might do three applications, if they qualify for those programs. And then when they get to a college, they still have to fill out an application for institutional aid. And so I challenged the team here at the commission, and I said, “What would it look like to create one application where we can ask students about all of the additional special programs that California has?” We need to be able to do this differently. 

    Even though Cal Grant reform was not funded in the latest state budget deal, there have been other ideas floating around about how to come up with that funding. One suggestion was to create a new tax that would raise dollars for financial aid. Are there other creative ways to possibly raise new funding?

    There are many other states that do have additional taxes, particularly on alcoholic beverages. There are also so many different ways that I think we can move the needle here in California. I think we can do a better job in general communicating with students about what exists, how do they access it, and how we can actually help them achieve their end goal much faster. There are many other things that we can and should be doing.

    What are your expectations for the 2025-26 state budget? Are you worried there could be further cuts to financial aid?

    Nothing can be taken for granted, especially in a difficult year. We have a number of new legislators. So for me, it’s about reeducating, reaching out, building that relationship, especially with new elected officials. We’ve had to cut funding for the commission already by 7.95%. All state agencies received the same reduction. There was also a hiring freeze here at the commission. And all of this happened before I arrived. I don’t take anything for granted. I know it’s a really difficult year, but I also know that poverty has been increasing in the state. And so when I go out and advocate, I’m advocating for our students, and I’m defending the dollars that we have while helping California build pathways for many more Californians.

    On another topic, California’s community colleges have lost millions of financial aid dollars this year and in recent years to fraudsters. Is there anything the student aid commission can do or is doing to alleviate the fraud? Or does that responsibility fall to the colleges?

    I think the challenging thing about fraud is it keeps getting more sophisticated. Our campuses play a really critical role in identifying that fraud. And they are best positioned. But the commission can be a part of the alert system and a part of the professional development process. I’ve also asked for additional IT positions through the state budget process to be able to deal with some of these situations.





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  • Education concerns remain high at LA County juvenile hall

    Education concerns remain high at LA County juvenile hall


    Minors detained at Los Padrinos juvenile hall in Los Angeles County.

    Credit: Richard Ross

    Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles County remains open a year after the state’s corrections oversight board deemed it “unsuitable for the confinement of minors” and four months after it ordered the center to shut down due to ongoing noncompliance with the state’s minimum standards for juvenile facilities.

    The problems plaguing the facility, located in the southeast LA city of Downey, include insufficient probation officers, students arriving to class late, abysmal performance on standardized education testing, and the center’s heavy reliance on substitute teachers.

    A court hearing that had been scheduled for Friday was to decide the hall’s fate, but L.A. County Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza deferred the decision until April, to allow for the completion of a re-inspection by the Bureau of State and Community Corrections, known as BSCC, the state agency that deemed it unsuitable after multiple inspections.

    Advocates say they are concerned that the situation could impact the quality of education the youth are receiving.

    “When we are thinking about young folks who are in these camps and halls, we want to make sure they’re having access to academic rigor that is deeper than just a packet, that they’re actually being challenged, and that they have the opportunity that when they leave these sites, to either return to their school of origin and be ready for the next thing — for trades, for college, for these things that allow them to be productive members of our community and society,” said Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, director of education equity at Children’s Defense Fund California.

    While the issues found at Los Padrinos appear to be improving according to reports from an ongoing inspection, advocates are skeptical because such moments of compliance in the past were short-lived.

    “We have a history of these independent bodies identifying issues with the education being provided, and then it might improve for a little bit, but then, once eyes are off or the settlement ends, we see those issues persist and get even worse,” said Vivian Wong, an education attorney and interim director of the Youth Justice Education Clinic at the Loyola Law Cchool, whose recent clients have included Los Padrinos students.

    This chaotic history has led to the formation of groups like the Education Justice Coalition, which started in 2020 to advocate for the release of as many youth as possible at the height of the pandemic and high-quality education for detained youth.

    Advocates like Wong insist that while conditions must improve inside the juvenile facilities, the priority should be to release youth back into their communities.

    “Our policy recommendation, and something we’ve been consistently advocating for, is keeping people in the community as much as possible,” Wong said of the education coalition. “If you don’t have the staff, we should really question why young people are in here.”

    In less than two years since its reopening, Los Padrinos has been plagued with accusations and findings of violence, allegedly incited by probation staff, and about the inadequacy of its programs, including the residents’ access to education. This site was to provide relief after two other juvenile halls, Central Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights, were shuttered and deemed unsuitable given their ongoing problems. Issues included insufficient staffing, lack of proper training on the use-of-force policy, as well as youth being confined to their rooms for too long.

    Los Padrinos itself was closed in 2019 amid allegations of abuse, with six officers charged with assault and child abuse the year of its closure, and a history of concerns about safety for both youth and probation officers. Then- California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the county, and the county office of education entered into settlements in 2021 after problems were revealed with access to education for the youth. A 2010 settlement in a class action lawsuit showed inadequate education programs for the youth in the county’s largest juvenile detention facility. Reforms focused on 13 major areas, including literacy, instruction, transition, special education, and after care.

    School at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall

    Over 230 youth are at Los Padrinos and, as of Jan. 6, 190 of them were attending the hall’s court school, which is operated by the county’s office of education. They are all pre-disposition youth who are awaiting court action or transfer to another facility.

    The student population consists of 167 male students across 21 living units in the hall and 23 female students across two units. Students’ ages can range from 13 to 22 years old in grade levels from sixth to 12th. Some youth remain at Los Padrinos for months, up to a couple of years, but the average stay is about 22 days.

    A typical day at Los Padrinos is supposed to go as follows: School is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., and students remain for two class periods until 11:50 a.m. Then they return to their units for lunch for the next hour and a half, after which they return to class until 3 p.m. for their third and final period of the day. The only shortened day is Friday, which ends at 1 p.m. for teacher professional development.

    Probation staff are tasked both with taking students from their units to their classroom and remaining in the classroom while class is in session.

    But the BSCC’s inspection from December 2024 noted that inspections have found an “inability of facility staff to get youth to school on time due to lack of staff available for supervision within the classroom.”

    The issue seems to have subsided at least once in the last year and a half. During an annual inspection in June last year, both the county office of education and youth reported that students had not been late to class in months due to low staffing. That inspection was conducted by the county’s Probation Oversight Commission, a group created by the county Board of Supervisors in 2020 to monitor and advise the Probation Department and the Board of Supervisors as they implement justice system reforms.

    But that appears to be one of the few inspections since Los Padrinos reopened that found that students arrived at class on time. On-time arrival to class — of both students and teachers — has been listed as a problem during inspections more often than not.

    It is unclear how many instructional minutes students have missed due to low staffing, but the 2024 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress showed that not a single 11th grader at Los Padrinos met the state standard for math, and just over 2% met the English standard.

    Students enrolled in LA County’s juvenile court schools take additional assessments referred to as STAR Reading and Star Math, which measure achievement and growth in the two subject areas.

    Assessment results for the fall of 2023 showed that 0% of students tested proficient in reading and less than 5% tested proficient in math.

    In the most recent STAR assessments from winter 2024-25, “urgent intervention” was needed for nearly half of all students in reading and about 44% in math. Just about 10% of students met or surpassed the benchmark for reading; 11.5% in math. The remainder were either bordering on needing intervention, or they needed it already, in both subjects.

    While the numbers indicate progress, they remain low for the students’ grade levels.

    At Los Padrinos, there are currently no reading specialists on staff, according to Erin Simon, associate superintendent at the county’s office of education. Reading intervention is provided by students’ teachers.

    Many students arrive with “very low reading levels,” she said, and the county education office has implemented intervention programs such as Read180 to increase reading levels.

    “They’re adjusting to their environment; there’s mental health and trauma,” said Simon, who was hired nearly 11 months ago to provide oversight over the county’s juvenile facilities, with an emphasis on Los Padrinos.

    “The complexity of it is knowing that many of those students only stay with us for a very short period of time, so we are always pushing to have more intervention and more instruction, but we also know that there are certain things that happen when a student gets here.”

    She added that more counselors are available now to help Los Padrinos students address mental health concerns, first addressing social-emotional learning and mental health challenges and then moving into academic intervention programming.

    On a typical day, students might be taught by their assigned and credentialed teacher, but it is not uncommon for a substitute to lead the class instead.

    While Los Padrinos, the county’s largest juvenile hall, has 33 permanent, credentialed teachers — up from 26 in October 2023 — they rely on nine to 14 substitute teachers on a daily basis, according to Simon. There are also seven vacancies at this time.

    “It does require a teacher who is really not afraid to work in those camps and halls; a teacher who can really build relationships with many of our students, knowing they have trauma and also some mental health issues, and so it does become a very difficult position to fill, especially at Los Padrinos,” Simon said.

    On the day of last year’s inspection by the county’s probation oversight commission, there were seven full-time teachers on the job and 16 substitute teachers.

    “It’s a huge problem, especially for this population, where they have adults come in and out of their lives, and, frequently, there is already so much instability in their education. They’re coming and going in and out of schools, transferring school districts,” said Wong about the reliance on substitutes. “If the teacher is not there, then they have to build up that trust again with the new person.”

    It can be especially difficult for a student who requires accommodation in the classroom, as is the case with Wong’s clients. She said a client, currently at a county juvenile camp, was doing well in school after having developed a relationship with a teacher. But when the teacher was out for a month, the student could no longer access his curriculum in a similar fashion, “because every teacher implements accommodations differently.”

    As the debate continues over whether Los Padrinos will close or remain open, in part depending on the result of the latest BSCC inspection that began last week, advocates are pushing to maintain the focus on the youth inside the hall.

    “We’re dealing with fires and fire recovery, climate change, housing, homelessness, all these things that overlap with our young folks and their needs,” McMorrin said. “But it’s such a priority to get it right, because there is no do-over for these critical years of youth and to do what we can to prepare them for this world.”





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