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برچسب: LAUSD

  • Covid cases rise as LAUSD tries to improve attendance

    Covid cases rise as LAUSD tries to improve attendance


    An elementary school student demonstrates using a swab for the rapid Covid antigen test.

    Credit: California Department of Public Health

    COVID-19 cases are on the rise throughout Los Angeles Unified and the county. Public health experts are urging caution while school officials are looking to keep children in the classroom for their academic progress and emotional well-being. 

    “We want kids in the classrooms learning,” said Sarah Van Orman, the University of Southern California’s vice president and chief campus health officer. “That’s what we’re all doing — whether that be in K-12 or in higher ed — balancing the need to prevent … respiratory illnesses within our communities with the need for people to … engage in the activities that they need to engage in, which includes learning at the K-12 levels.” 

    Despite the surge in cases, LAUSD has maintained a 95% attendance rate this school year as of Wednesday, according to the district’s attendance tracker. Over the past five days, that number was lower at 93%. And 94% of students went to school on Wednesday. 

    “Obviously, the unexcused absence student is going to take a higher level of priority, but in terms of impact, there’s really no difference,” LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. “Kids who are absent are absent.” 

    Increased rates of COVID-19 

    In a weekly update issued Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported an average of 569 daily Covid-19 infections and 559 daily hospitalizations excluding Long Beach and Pasadena — topping five weeks of steadily rising cases. 

    In schools, however, LA County has observed a 43% increase in cases and 33 new outbreaks in the past week — 23 more outbreaks than the previous week, according to an LA County Department of Public Health news release issued Thursday. 

    EG.5, a variant of Covid related to omicron already infecting more people than any other single strain in the country, remains dominant, accounting for nearly a third of current cases in the sector of the U.S. including California.  

    An Aug. 24 news release from the county public health department attributed the rise of Covid infections to higher rates of summer travel, the emergence of a new variant and a return to the classroom. 

    With increased Covid-19 transmission in the community, schools are another place where outbreaks are possible due to large groups of people being indoors together for extended periods of time, according to the release. And while many children may not experience severe illness associated with a Covid-19 infection, other family members and school staff may be at higher risk. 

    The county also urged parents and guardians to “keep children home if they are sick, including when they have a fever, bad cough, extreme fatigue, or a sore throat.”

    Students who are exposed to Covid or have respiratory symptoms should get tested, the department stated, noting that many districts were already distributing tests to their campus communities. 

    Positive test results, the department said, should be reported to the school, and the sick student should isolate for at least five days. 

    Keeping students healthy could also be critical in maintaining a healthier community. One study published earlier this year suggested that about 70% of U.S. cases begin with a school-age child being infected. 

    More than a year ago, the beginning of the 2022-23 school year also was associated with a surge in Covid infections. 

    For then-4-year-old Jackson Siegel and his older sister, that fall marked a return to in-person learning as both had been kept home the entire preceding year. It also marked the beginning of a wave of sickness. 

    During the first week of school, Covid made its way from Jackson’s sister’s third grade classroom to her and then to Jackson. 

    He missed 10 days of transitional kindergarten and was out again for another 10 days roughly every three weeks — sometimes sustaining a fever of over 104 degrees. 

    “To be honest, I think that I’ve been sick … more times in school than my friends,” Jackson said. “It makes me feel like I should be safer.” 

    That routine repeated itself another seven to eight times, according to his mom, Sabrina Siegel.

    “The fact that they caught it in the first week, I was devastated,” Siegel said. “To the school, [I] said, ‘Look, if you don’t care enough about my kids’ health to, you know, require masks or have kids [sent] home when they’re sick … I don’t care about the attendance.’” 

    Jackson said he looks forward to not being sick this year. 

    But as of Thursday, LAUSD alone had 828 positive tests over the past seven days, which comes amid changes to the district’s public health guidelines that contradict public health guidelines, where parents are now encouraged to send their child to school even if they are experiencing cold symptoms. 

    Current district guidelines require students to stay home if they sustain a fever of above 100.4 degrees — or if they vomit, have diarrhea, severe pain or labored breathing. 

    Keeping students in class 

    As Covid cases continue to rise, LAUSD and districts across the state have been working to recover from pandemic learning losses and keep students in school.  

    “The greatest effect from the pandemic that I have seen in children has been the emotional trauma from missing school,” LAUSD’s chief medical officer, Dr. Smita Malhotra, said in a message to the district community at the start of the academic year. 

    “Schools are foundations of resilience, and I look forward to ensuring that schools continue to be the safest places for children to be so that all students thrive academically, are engaged and are ready for the world.”

    LAUSD experienced a 40% absentee rate in the 2021-22 academic year. The following year, that number fell by 10 percentage points to roughly 30%. The district has largely attributed the decrease in chronic absenteeism to iAttend events, where school officials go door to door to encourage students, mainly with unexcused absences, to return. 

    “This new wave of Covid is coming in at such a difficult time,” said USC education professor Julie Marsh. “You know, schools have just started, and I think that’s also historically a time where you try to make up for summer learning loss.” 

    Keeping students in school is also critical because “for many kids, it’s their only place where they have access to regular food resources, health care, after school care,” Marsh said. 

    Part of LAUSD’s incentive to curb chronic absenteeism also could lie in its coffers, Marsh added, noting that school funding is linked to students’ attendance. 

    “If the financial implications are really what’s driving some of these decisions, then I think it’s calling for larger policy change,” Marsh said. “There’s been a long-standing debate about whether California should fund the schools based on enrollment versus attendance. Lots of states do it based on enrollment. But I just have to wonder, if a district felt a little less concerned about losing funding, whether … we’d be seeing different kinds of policies.” 

    A balancing act 

    Balancing students’ health with being in the classroom is critical, experts say. 

    Marsh said she and her colleagues conducted a study at the start of the pandemic that found clear communication with the community, mental health support for staff and partnerships with local organizations and public health departments were critical.

    She added that schools should continue to take advantage of technological tools popularized during the height of the pandemic, while parents should “trust [their] gut” when deciding whether to send their child to school.

    “You also don’t want to send your kid to school if they’re not well enough to learn. Is your kid impacted by the symptoms?” Marsh said. “You kind of have to understand where your child is at and whether they’re ready to learn.” 





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  • LAUSD considering a policy to limit charter co-locations, prioritize vulnerable students

    LAUSD considering a policy to limit charter co-locations, prioritize vulnerable students


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    The Los Angeles Unified School District school board is considering a resolution that would exclude 346 schools serving its most vulnerable student populations from co-location arrangements with charter schools. Doing so could potentially undermine the integrity of Proposition 39, a statewide initiative that mandates public schools to share spaces with charter schools.

    The resolution, authored by President Jackie Goldberg and member Rocio Rivas and discussed at a meeting Tuesday, would require the district to avoid co-location offers on LAUSD’s 100 Priority Schools, Black Student Achievement Plan campuses and community schools.

    According to the proposal, LAUSD would also avoid charter co-location offers that “compromise district schools’ capacity to serve neighborhood children” or “grade span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines that actively deter students from attending district schools, so that the district can focus on supporting its most fragile students and schools, key programs, and student safety.”

    The proposed criteria would guide the placement of new charter schools as well as those opting to change location and increase oversight of charter school co-locations, including site visits before location offers are made, frequent assessments of the average daily attendance of charter schools as well as regular reporting of their facilities payments.

    Goldberg said that her goal was not to “undo” anything but rather to prioritize the needs of vulnerable students by making the co-location process more rational.

    “We should have just some accountability practices, a common sense policy,” said Gloria Martinez, treasurer of United Teachers Los Angeles, the teacher’s union. “I don’t necessarily see this as an erosion of charter schools to exist. This is not an attack on charter schools or communities or parents or students. This is simply saying ‘Our district schools are drowning, and what’s our life vest?”

    Eric Premack, the president and founder of the Charter Schools Development Center, disagrees, saying, “That display at the board meeting today was really stunning, that they were essentially offering an extended middle finger to the voters of California, to the taxpayers and to students and parents and families who have opted to go to charter schools.”

    Board members will vote on the resolution at Tuesday’s meeting. It would give Superintendent Alberto Carvalho 45 days to report back to the board with an updated co-location policy reflecting the resolution.

    Charter school co-locations have long polarized the Los Angeles community with proponents of the proposed policy maintaining that sharing campus spaces has led to hostile environments for the children and greater challenges with securing necessary resources.

    Charter proponents, on the other hand, say the resolution would cause even more of their campuses to be split up and prolong commutes for students who are already disadvantaged.

    Still, the resolution comes amid years of declining enrollment across LAUSD, which some say might be the real reason behind the efforts to curtail co-location.

    Charters in LAUSD: The Basics

    For the 2023-24 academic year, Los Angeles Unified authorized 272 charters — 51 affiliated with the district and 221 independent, according to a presentation by José Cole-Gutiérrez, the director of LAUSD’s charter schools division, which coordinates the district’s Proposition 39 program.

    By the first day of November each year, charter schools must file a facilities request to LAUSD as part of a process outlined by the proposition. Those requests must include the charters’ must include their average daily attendance, which is used to determine how much space they would be allocated.

    For its part, LAUSD must extend a final location offer to the charters by April 1, and the charters have a month to respond.

    For years, the district has had charters share campuses with its regular public schools. This academic year, there are 52 co-locations at 50 campuses, representing 6.7% of district sites.

    Los Angeles Unified has seen fewer facilities requests from charter schools in the past few years. In the 2015-2016 academic year, for example, the district received 101 facilities requests. That number shrank to 51 this year.

    ‘More to do with less’: Fighting for increased enrollment

    The resolution comes as Los Angeles Unified — and schools throughout the state — have been reckoning with decreased enrollment despite the expansion of transitional kindergarten. Districts are working harder to retain and increase their current student populations.

    “Parents have some choices, and they’re not shy about exercising them,” said Premack, the president and founder of the Charter Schools Development Center. “A lot of them have voted with their feet and gone to the charter sector for instruction to enroll their kids, and … the district sees that is costing them a lot of money.”

    Decreased enrollment has led to fewer charters making facility requests, leading to more physical space open for student learning, said Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Association, which opposes the proposed resolution and staged a rally outside LAUSD’s headquarters during the recent meeting.

    With enrollment at 538,295 in 2022-23, LAUSD suffered the second-largest percentage enrollment decline in the state — a nearly 16% drop from 639,337 in 2015-16.

    “The cream of the crop left the district and went to charter schools, so did the money, and so did the funds, now we have to do with less,” Rivas, who co-authored the resolution, said during Wednesday’s board meeting.

    She also said that charter management organizations have continually profited while eroding the money the district needs to support more vulnerable student populations.

    A study conducted by the University of Arkansas, however, found that regular public schools in LAUSD made $5,225 more per student than charters in the district, as of 2019-20.

    “We’re pitted against each other to fight for the very few crumbs we’re given,” Rivas said.

     Challenges with co-location 

    Parents and community organizations have long pointed to challenges with co-locating charters on regular LAUSD campuses, citing competition over spaces and contentious relationships between school communities.

    “Co-locating charters are a burden placed on the shoulders of school communities. Campuses become divided spaces with drastically diminished resources, often at the expense of our most vulnerable students and families. As a result of co-locations, we have witnessed appalling and unacceptable uses of space,” reads a news release issued by the Facebook group Parents Supporting Teachers.

    The group says some schools have had to hold speech therapy sessions in closets and auditoriums have been converted into administrative offices.

    During Tuesday’s public comment segment, speakers and board members in favor of the proposed changes also cited challenges with district schools being able to access music and dance spaces — along with PE areas and rooms needed for individual education plan meetings.

    Supporters of Los Angeles charter schools, however, emphasized that sharing spaces is not always associated with problems.

    “Nobody likes to share,” said Castrejón, the president of the California Charter Schools Association. “But there are actually really good examples of … really good synergistic co-locations that actually amplify and serve both schools.”

    Supporting campuses with higher needs  

    The new resolution would prevent Priority, Black Student Achievement Plan and community schools from sharing their campuses with a charter school. Board President Goldberg said during the meeting that the changes would offset “some of the worst impacts” of Proposition 39 on more vulnerable LAUSD schools and communities.

    This academic year, LAUSD approved 13 co-locations on the district’s 100 Priority Schools, 19 co-locations on Black Student Achievement Plan campuses and seven on community schools campuses.

    “We’re saying: Those schools where we are doubling our investment — and I don’t mean as far as dollars — but where we are doubling our efforts really to help those schools – we cannot subject them to being co-located and then having themselves … in a fight to be able to carry out that vision to be able to … hold on to rooms where we can actually carry out the needs of the community,” said Martinez, the treasurer of United Teachers Los Angeles.

    The resolution’s opponents, however, have noted that many charters located on LAUSD campuses are community schools.

    More than 70 of LAUSD’s independent charters have received State Community Schools Grants, according to Ana Tintocalis, California Charter Schools Association spokesperson.

    “Based on CCSA’s analysis of the district data, there are more independent charter schools in LAUSD that have received State Community Schools Grants than district schools,” Tintocalis said in an email to EdSource.

    Potential effects for charters 

    This academic year, 19 charter schools have been split over either two or three LAUSD campuses, and the proposed resolution is projected to increase that number.

    “In attempting to avoid sites with special designations, it is likely that there will be more multi-site offers, leading to a larger overall number of co-locations Districtwide,” reads the interoffice correspondence from the office of the chief strategy officer on “Operational, Policy & Student Impact Statements” for the resolution.

    “This may also lead to increased costs associated with renovation work to make sites ready for co-location, and would likely make it more challenging for the district when making ‘reasonable efforts’ to locate the charter school ‘near’ where it wishes to locate.”

    Splitting a charter school across multiple sites can negatively impact students’ morale and can lead to unsustainable commutes for parents, said David Garner, the principal of Magnolia Science Academy-2.

    “They were going to also offer us another school, which is Sepulveda Middle School, which is 6.9 miles away,” Garner said. “And 6.9 miles away is not a big deal if you have people that have cars. However, 88% of our students’ parents come from free-and-reduced lunch backgrounds.”

    Eighty percent of the 4,000 students enrolled in his schools come from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.

    Garner calculated that the commute from Sepulveda Middle School to Magnolia Science Academy-2 is 55 minutes each way by bus — which can add up, particularly in cases where parents have children at various locations, spread out across grade levels, with different bell schedules.

    “Let’s just say one of the kids is in, you know, one of our sites on (Birmingham Community High School’s)  complex, and then she has another two kids at the Sepulveda Middle School site,” said Garner.

    “That parent would have to take the bus to Sepulveda from our school (at Birmingham) for one hour just to drop her other kids, and then take a bus back one hour to pick up the kid from our school, and then the bus back one more hour to pick up her second kid, and then the bus home.”

    Ultimately, he said, schools — public, charter or private — should all be held to the same standards in supporting their students.

    “We all take to this industry because we care about the kids,” Garner added. “We care about their futures. We believe that education can be used as a means to social mobility, as a means to get out of some challenging circumstances and (give) them all the tools to be successful.”





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  • LAUSD considers adjusting its Black Student Achievement Plan amid complaint

    LAUSD considers adjusting its Black Student Achievement Plan amid complaint


    Students at La Salle Avenue Elementary listen to a class presentation. The school is one of 53 schools in the first tier of the Black Student Achievement Plan.

    KATE SEQUEIRA/EDSOURCE

    The Los Angeles Unified School District is considering broadening the language associated with the Black Student Achievement Plan in an attempt to avoid investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, a move supporters fear could steer the focus of the program away from Black student achievement and wellness.

    The potential change in the Black Student Achievement Plan comes after Parents Defending Education, a conservative group with a track record of challenging schools’ efforts to promote equity, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education in July, claiming the program violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because it specifically supports Black students.

    “We are just starting to see the positive impact of BSAP, creating a positive and welcoming learning environment and greater access to culturally and racially responsive coursework and field trips due to dedicated BSAP staff members and community partners,” said school board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin in a statement to EdSource.

    “With continued investments and support — not diluted or threatened programming —I look forward to seeing our Black students achieve in the ways that we all know is possible.”

    While program supporters say the complaint by Parents Defending Education is largely unsubstantiated, they fear any efforts to alter it in response could have consequences for students in Los Angeles and beyond.

    An LAUSD spokesperson said in an email to EdSource that the mission and operations of the program will not change and that “the district is ensuring that the associated language aligns with the law and practice by clarifying that BSAP operates in accordance with the District’s Nondiscrimination policy, based on applicable federal and state laws.”

    The Education Department has already warned districts to avoid programs that focus on one student group. In August, a month after Parents Defending Education filed the complaint, the department released a guidance letter to school districts in response to an uptick in complaints.

    “Schools may violate Title VI when they separate students based on race or treat individual students or groups of students differently based on race,” the guidance reads. “Schools also may violate Title VI when they create, encourage, accept, tolerate, or fail to correct a racially hostile educational environment.”

    The letter also adds that “a school-sponsored or recognized group or program with a special emphasis on race, such as a student club or mentorship opportunity, that is open to all students, typically would not violate Title VI simply because of its race-related theme.”

    The complaint  

    The complaint lodged by Parents Defending Education claims LAUSD’s Black Student Achievement Plan discriminates against students of other races. EdSource reached out to Parents Defending Education requesting an interview but did not receive a response.

    The program “directly responds to the unique needs of Black students but not students of other races,” the complaint alleges.

    “The District makes clear that the program is designed ‘to address the longstanding disparities in educational outcomes between Black students and their non-Black peers.’… And the District notes that the program is meant to address ‘[t]he perennial trend of black student underperformance; and to achieve ‘racial equity.’”

    The complaint against LAUSD includes two pieces of documentation: screenshots of the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan website as well as an overview of the program.

    But supporters of the district’s plan say the complaint lacks teeth — especially as it does not include a claim that anyone suffered or was discriminated against because of the program.

    Amir Whitaker of the ACLU of Southern California’s Senior Policy Counsel said he doubts the U.S. Department of Education will choose to investigate the district.

    Parents Defending Education’s goal, he said was about creating “hysteria about the complaint.”

    Parents Defending Education, which describes itself as a “national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas,” has levied complaints against educational agencies throughout the country, including in Pennsylvania, Maine, Vermont and Oregon.

    “I think a lot of other districts and states are really reluctant to kind of engage in something that’s very race specific because of the ways in which we as a country …are not comfortable with having race conversations, despite the disproportion of Black students who are in special education … the number of Black students who are suspended, the high rates of Black students who are chronically absent,” said Tyrone Howard, a professor of education at UCLA.

    “So I wish we had just as much energy and anger around those data as we do around the fact that we think that (a law) might be violated.”

    Program’s impact 

    The Los Angeles Unified School District board approved the Black Student Achievement Plan in February 2021 after widespread community calls to action and in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the racial reckoning that followed.

    The Black Student Achievement Plan cut the district police budget by more than 30% and vowed to uplift Black student achievement, create “culturally responsive curriculum” and fund a team of counselors, climate advocates and psychiatric social workers at 53 top-priority schools that collectively educate a third of LAUSD’s Black student population.

    “The ultimate beauty is that commitment to BSAP will … not only serve the Black students that have been disproportionately underserved for far too long. It has lots of implications on the district just improving as a whole,” said Christian Flagg, the director of training at Community Coalition, a foundation that aims to “upend systemic racism” and played a key role in the plan’s establishment.

    In 2011, a decade before the plan was established, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — which also received the Parents Defending Education complaint — conducted an investigation into LAUSD.

    The investigation found discrepancies in the treatment and experience of Black students in comparison to their peers, including the percentage of students admitted to the Gifted and Talented Education program, availability of technological resources, newness of textbooks, prevalence of teacher absenteeism and rates of discipline.

    In response to the investigation, LAUSD offered to enter an agreement to resolve the concerns.

    A survey of 2,300 students across 100 LAUSD campuses found that since the Black Student Achievement Plan rolled out, 87% of Black students had benefited from the program. Still, nearly half the students also said their schools do not have enough resources for Black students.

    Lindsey Weatherspoon, a senior at Venice High School who said she has benefited from the Black Student Achievement Plan, credits her campus BSAP counselor for helping her and her peers attend events at which some Historically Black Colleges and Universities made on-the-spot admissions offers to seniors.

    Weatherspoon said she strongly hopes LAUSD will “stand strong in their decision to have BSAP and fund BSAP, and it’s not a situation where BSAP gets cut back.”

    “I hope, in fact, it gets expanded continuously to more schools, and the program constantly evolves because BSAP is not just something that happened overnight. It’s been years in the making. And it’s been the labor of love of several groups and community members and students and teachers pushing to get this program made.”

    The BSAP counselor, she said, gives students more personalized counseling and creates opportunities for Black students to spend time together, which is essential because “it’s really easy to feel disconnected from other Black students when you barely see any.”

    Weatherspoon said, “The thought that it could … be degraded from its original purpose or its original use is just mind-blowing and heartbreaking.”

    Moving forward 

    The Black Student Achievement Plan being compromised, either as a result of board action or the complaint itself, could lead to greater consequences for both the district and for the nation, the program’s supporters say.

    Channing Martinez, co-director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, said that the program is “not saying that Latinx students or white students or other students don’t deserve equal access to opportunity, but it is saying that Black students have not had equal access.”

    He added that while the district may be concerned about Parents Defending Education’s complaint, LAUSD could also face lawsuits or complaints from organizations supporting the program if they dilute the program.

    “In 2020, you had George Floyd, and it was pretty easy in the board’s mind to defund the school police as a measure of saying that they’re going to stand with Black students, but this year we don’t have George Floyd. But that doesn’t mean that the lives of Black students don’t matter,” Martinez said.

    “It does really put us in a really tight spot in which we want to believe in the Black Student Achievement Program. But at the same time, it almost feels as if we are stuck in this program, and that they are using this program to say ‘Look, we’re doing something for Black students.’”

    Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an “equity multiplier” that would grant $300 million in ongoing funding to the state’s poorest students in an effort to uplift Black student achievement. But some critics of the proposal said it would not do enough to specifically support Black students.

    Howard, the UCLA education professor, described the nature of the complaint by Parents Defending Education as racist because there has been little opposition to other programs designed to support different groups of students who are more vulnerable, including students with disabilities and those struggling with homelessness.

    Programs like the Black Student Achievement Plan are hard to come by, Howard said. And if the complaint succeeds, he is concerned it could deter other schools throughout the state and nation from developing similar programs.

    “Essentially, it says we’re fine with Black failure. We’re fine with Black underperformance. We’re fine with Black students consistently not experiencing schools in a way that their peers do,” Howard said. “That’s to me the bigger takeaway message. And why do we feel so comfortable with that?”





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  • A year after Alberto Carvalho vows to curb Covid learning loss, LAUSD struggles to recover

    A year after Alberto Carvalho vows to curb Covid learning loss, LAUSD struggles to recover


    LAUSD Superintendent Albert Carvalho at the Aug. 30, 2022 school board meeting.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    Last fall, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said he would recover Covid-19 pandemic learning loss in two years. 

    One year later — and half way to that goal post — the 2023 California Smarter Balanced test scores revealed a small improvement in math scores, a minimal decline in English language arts scores and poor science scores in comparison to the previous year — and is still about 3 percentage points away from the pre-Covid-19 numbers, where roughly 44% of students met English language arts standards and about 33% met math standards in the 2018-2019 academic year, according to the CAASPP dashboard.

    With its scores remaining largely stagnant, Jia Wang, a professor at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, said getting scores back to 2018-19 levels is a “very ambitious goal” — but not out of the question. 

    The district’s ability to make up the lost ground, she said, depends on how well it supports struggling students. 

    But more than a year after Carvalho’s lofty promise to the district, many teachers and parents remain skeptical, and say the diagnostic tools and expanded interventions the district relies on to boost academic achievement are poorly implemented. 

    LAUSD’s test scores 

    Carvalho said he believes LAUSD’s Smarter Balanced test scores across subject areas accurately reflect where the district’s students are academically — but he remains confident that the district will meet its goals and fully recover on time. 

    This year, LAUSD saw a 2.01% increase in the rate of LAUSD students who met or exceeded standards in mathematics. Overall, 30.5% of students either met or exceeded the standards, while 69.5% failed to do so. 

    “Math was our Achilles’ heel. That’s why we went really strongly into math, and results are compelling. But math is a subject area that requires foundational skills that build upon each other, right? So you don’t transition to … multiplication, division of fractions until you master addition, subtraction, and you really understand numerator and denominator,” Carvalho said in an Oct. 25  interview with EdSource. 

    “If you don’t master that, you cannot advance. So, there are a lot of students who are stuck in a loop. They lack certain basic concepts.” 

    The district’s English language arts scores, however, decreased; 41% of students either met or exceeded state requirements in the subject — marking a 0.53 percentage point across-the-board drop from the previous year. 

    Carvalho described Los Angeles Unified’s ELA scores as a “mixed bag,” with some elementary grades “moving in the right direction” and other upper elementary and middle school grades in need of improvement. 

    Middle school grades had some of the district’s lowest English scores, with 38.62% meeting or exceeding standards in sixth grade and 38.9% of students either meeting or exceeding standards in eighth grade. 

    Of the core subject areas, LAUSD students struggled the most in science — with only 22% of students either meeting or exceeding state standards. The state’s average, in comparison, was about 30%. 

    Because the district has focused on recovering learning losses in English and math, Carvalho said, subjects such as science and social studies have fallen by the wayside and emphasized a need for that to change. 

    “Science often becomes a stepchild. It cannot be,” Carvalho said. “There are four major core content subject areas, and science and social science should not be on the back burner.” 

    These scores across subject areas can help illustrate the district’s progress in relationship to previous years and the state as a whole, Wang said. 

    But she said they also oversimplify students’ performance, which is “compounded by race and ethnicity, by the language proficiency, by the disability, by your school environment, school resources, you know … whether the students are taught by certified teachers or not, how many years of experience.”

    Pressure to move students forward regardless of academic performance 

    Another reason some remain skeptical about Carvalho’s goals is the practice of promoting students to the next grade level even when they have not met standards in core disciplines. 

    Raquel Diaz wanted her now 13-year-old daughter Hailey — an English learner with dyslexia — to be held back and repeat fourth grade because she was struggling. 

    “It doesn’t matter if you can’t understand everything right now. Your goal should always be: I can, and yes I can achieve it,” Diaz said she tells her daughter, according to an interview with EdSource that was translated into English. “Even if you are slower like a turtle, it does not matter. We will achieve it.” 

    Diaz said the school refused to hold Hailey back, and now she is a seventh grader who cannot read.  

    “We have to fight for our children and make (the schools) listen to us, so we can move forward,” Diaz said. “I am a single mother … and sometimes I get tired. I get frustrated. But I say ‘Oh, God, give me strength.’ Come on, I have to do it for them.” 

    Hailey has plenty of company among students with disabilities and English learners. 

    In the 2022-23 academic year, students with disabilities had some of the lowest standardized test scores in LAUSD — with about 12% meeting or exceeding ELA standards and only 8% meeting or exceeding math standards. 

    English learners also had disproportionately low scores in all areas, with about 4% meeting or exceeding the state’s English standards and almost 7% meeting the standards in math. 

    Even in cases where students are not meeting state standards, teachers say they feel pressure to promote them to the next grade level. 

    Carvalho said the trend of moving unprepared students up a grade is an “uncomfortable truth” and represents a “disconnect between what students can do versus what is taught to them.” 

    An LAUSD teacher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation told EdSource that in April 2021, her school’s principal had notified the teachers that “no student can be retained.” 

    “There is a lot of pressure … even more so as secondary teachers, to not give D’s and F’s … even if the student is doing no work,” the teacher said. 

    “The students’ needs aren’t being met, and they’re really going to struggle,” adding that many will drop out. “A lot of kids, especially older kids, are not coming to school because they’re struggling so much, and it’s so negative. … It just becomes worse and worse.” 

    Challenges in the classroom

    Part of Carvalho’s confidence in LAUSD’s ability to recover Covid learning losses is the 1,000 literacy interventionists hired to work with smaller groups of students on their specific needs as well as the district’s implementation of iReady, an online tool that teachers can use for diagnostic assessments and learning exercises. 

    Wang, the UCLA professor, said that while there is no perfect metric for students’ academic performance, learning support funneled into classrooms is just as important as student output.

    “Instead of just saying ‘here’s what the student produced,’ I also want to see information about what is being put into the classroom,” Wang said. “What kind of supports are being given to students (to) ensure they are given the opportunity to learn?” 

    Some teachers are claiming that the rollout of LAUSD’s intervention programs, where struggling students are pulled aside for additional support, has been challenging, starting with the diagnostic tool used to determine who is placed into intervention programs.

    Teachers who run the district’s intervention programs are supposed to rely on iReady to determine students’ levels of proficiency in reading and math and use the results to decide who needs additional support. 

    That diagnostic tool is available between August and October, according to a district spokesperson. 

    “Students continue to enroll throughout the first few weeks of school, and the window provides flexibility to schools,” the spokesperson said. “Schools were guided and supported to provide the best time to administer the assessment based on school needs. We aimed to ensure that teachers had ample time, support and training to successfully implement this assessment.”  

    That deadline, however, was too late, according to teachers, who stressed that the testing window takes up more than a month, causing interventions to start too late in the school year. 

    Once teachers determine who needs the extra help, elementary instructors carve out a schedule for different groups to be pulled out — a task some say has been challenging, given large blocks of “protected time.”

    “Trying to make a schedule at a school site is very difficult because there’s so many other things going on on campus, and so it really ended up taking students in the same class together. But that doesn’t mean … those are students who should be together based on their needs,” the teacher said. 

    In middle school, students are pulled aside for an intervention tutorial that takes the place of an elective, a district math teacher and interventionist who also wished to remain anonymous told EdSource. 

    “I don’t want them to hate math because they have math twice,” the teacher said. “I don’t give homework. I don’t give tests. … I tell them this class is to help your grade in the other classes, to get you better at math.” 

    During these tutorial sessions, the teacher uses iReady and other techniques that can also give students practice problems targeted at their individual levels. 

    iReady, according to an LAUSD spokesperson, has a participation rate above 95%, and technical difficulties have been “minimal to nonexistent.”  

    But the teacher said the tool is sometimes challenging because she can’t see the personalized programming created for each of her students and the problems they are assigned.  

    With other online tools, she can go through the problems herself, “pretending I’m them to see if it’s doable, and to see where spots might come up that might be difficult for them,” the teacher said. But with iReady, she “can’t find a way to figure out how I can do that. And that makes it difficult for me to know what they’re getting so I can support them.”

    While some teachers remain optimistic about LAUSD’s initiatives to boost achievement, several said they would like to see more support from higher up.

    “It just seems like … what we do is considered a very low priority on a school campus,” the elementary teacher said. “But the expectations on us are very high. And I kind of just feel like we’re being … set up to fail.” 





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  • LAUSD receives mostly ‘B’ grades from district parents, survey reveals

    LAUSD receives mostly ‘B’ grades from district parents, survey reveals


    Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho, right, with students at Miles Avenue Elementary School in Huntington Park.

    Credit: Twitter / LAUSDSup

    Parents and guardians of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District offer mixed reviews of the nation’s second-largest school district, scoring it low on how it disseminates information and considers parents’ perspectives but generally high on the quality of education their children are receiving. Specifically, less than a quarter give the district an “A,” according to the Family Insights survey, conducted by GPSN and Loyola Marymount University’s Center for Equity for English Learners.  

    The 2023 survey also marks the second year of the district’s four-year strategic plan under Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who garnered approval from two-thirds of survey respondents. 

    Forty-one percent of parents in the survey give district schools a ‘B’ overall — and 43% give the same grade to their children’s individual campus. 

    “Families generally feel positive about the quality of teaching and instruction in their direct school and their own child’s academic performance, but gave mixed results on the district’s overall performance,” according to the report.

    “Raising up family perspectives on the state of the district and its performance is key this year when we may expect to see progress from the many investments made to address learning loss and other impacts of the pandemic on students.” 

    The Penta Group, an independent research firm, surveyed a random sample of more than 500 district parents and guardians between Aug. 22 and Sept. 14, 2023 — asking them about the district’s progress and what they would like to see LAUSD focus on. 

    The survey sample was representative of Los Angeles families “with students attending district, magnet, pilot, and both affiliated and independent charter public schools, and aligns with key demographic variables of enrollment by grade level, race/ethnicity, school type, English learner status, language spoken in the home, board district enrollment, and family income level.”

    Academics 

    According to the report, parents throughout the district say they are satisfied with their children’s education and would like to see LAUSD invest in more enrichment opportunities and individualized support. However, many do not understand how their child or the district as a whole is performing. 

    Specifically, 82% of parents surveyed say instruction at their children’s school is “good” or “excellent.” 

    Parents’ broader perception of LAUSD’s academic performance, however, paints a different picture. A little more than half of parents think the majority of district students perform at grade level in reading and math. 

    Three-quarters of LAUSD parents surveyed also think their own child is performing at grade level in core subject areas. 

    In reality, however, 41% of students in the district met state standards in English language arts this past year, while 30.5% met state standards in math, according to state standardized test scores. 

    “As a family member, a parent or a guardian, you’re looking for the basic thing: Can my kids read? Can they do math at whatever level you think that’s appropriate?” said Ana Teresa Dahan, GPSN’s managing director. 

    “But … what type of words you’re reading and what your comprehension is really what differentiates having a basic skill versus being at grade level, and I think that’s like a nuance families don’t always understand.” 

    Families that make more than $60,000 are more likely to believe their child is performing adequately, the survey found. In contrast, only 28% of low-income families and 27% of families of English learners have the same confidence in their child performing at grade level. 

    “When you’re sending your kids to your neighborhood public school, there’s a trust that … the school is delivering on getting your kids at grade level,” Dahan said. “Unless someone is telling them that that’s not happening, I think they just inherently are trusting that it’s occurring.” 

    In previous years, the survey revealed a high demand for additional academic support as well as after-school and summer enrichment opportunities. And this year, the number of parents calling for that assistance — including one-on-one tutoring — increased even more.

    Parents “recognize and respect the challenges schools are facing and teachers are facing” in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Dahan said. “You can’t just expect a teacher or the school to solve the entire challenge of what the pandemic brought to students and families and communities.” 

    Fifty-six percent of parents name high-quality tutoring as their top priority for the district as a whole —– marking a 25 percentage point increase over the past two years. Meanwhile, 54% say they want to see LAUSD offer free, widely accessible summer programs. 

    And specifically at their child’s school, 85% of parents — and 93% of English learner families — say they want one-on-one or group tutoring on campus.

    More than half of parents surveyed also voiced strong support for enrichment programs, including arts programs, sports and coding. 

    “We’re also seeing, for students in particular, what those 18 months of isolation did,” Dahan said.

    “Families are recognizing (that) impact (on) their students, whether that means not wanting to go to school or not being happy at home. … They know that straight learning at school isn’t going to bring back the joy, right? So, it’s the enrichment opportunities that do that.”

    Emotional support 

    Additional support for students’ mental health is also a top concern among the parents, with 45% of respondents naming counseling and therapy as their third priority for the district overall. 

    In comparison, 32% of parents made the same request in 2021, and 44% called for the same in 2022. 

    Food assistance 

    For the first time in the survey’s history, 38% of families called for food assistance to be more readily available on their child’s campus. 

    “The district has done a lot in the years (to feed students)” Dahan said. 

    “We know that the people most impacted coming out of the pandemic … continue to be families in low-income households. And, as different government financial support has faded away, I think we’re starting to see the effects of that in LAUSD.” 

    Internet connectivity 

    During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, LAUSD promised to provide a laptop to every student and provide free internet access to families in need. But now, nearly three-quarters of the families surveyed said they experience a barrier to consistent, quality internet access. That number, however, marks a 10% improvement since 2021. 

    This year, 42% say the cost of internet is a barrier, while 34% said their challenges had more to do with securing a good quality connection. 

    Twenty-six percent, however, attribute their challenges to their geographical area.

    Community involvement and communication 

    Parents also said they feel their input is increasingly insignificant to the district — and that they would like communication from LAUSD to improve, especially concerning academic standards. 

    Specifically, the number of parents who feel their thoughts matter “a great deal in school and district decisions” decreased by 9 percentage points, only accounting for 40% in 2023. That drop was even larger for low-income families, the study found. 

    Meanwhile, most families applaud LAUSD for timely and accessible communications, but more than half also say it “takes a lot of effort” to understand the messages. 

    Forty-eight percent of parents say they want to receive district communications via an app, while 44% said they prefer email. 

    More than half of the parents also say they want more information about academic standards and a better idea about what their child is learning in the classroom. Fifty-two percent also said they want to know whether district students are performing at grade level in the main subject areas. 

    “We want to ensure that families receive accessible and understandable information that aligns with their expectations and needs,” Dahan said. “That’s also going to be a factor not only just accessing programs, but their understanding of where their child is.” 

    A future in LAUSD 

    Despite mixed reviews in various areas, about 90% of families said they would likely keep their children in the district until they graduate from high school. 

    Respondents who said they are “extremely likely” to keep their children enrolled in the district, however, dropped by about 18 percentage points in the past year from 53% to 35%, according to the study. And the number of families who are “not very or not at all likely to stay” in LAUSD has increased from 3% to 8%.

    Forty-two percent of families that voiced an interest in leaving the district — which included disproportionate rates of low-income families, families of English learners and white families — said they would most likely pursue a charter school. 

    Private schools lagged in popularity for those considering leaving the district and would be the first choice of roughly 32% of families, while 28% said they would take their child to a public school in another district altogether. 

    “Whatever perspective families had about communications, or even their policies, the district (and the superintendent) really did rate high,” Dahan said. 

    “Effective leadership plays a pivotal role in driving school improvement and meeting the diversities of our community. I think that is a signal that families think that the district is going in the right direction. It also underscores the importance of sustained leadership support in fulfilling these aspirations of our families and kind of fostering a thriving educational environment.”





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  • What to know about public health guidelines as LAUSD students return from the holidays

    What to know about public health guidelines as LAUSD students return from the holidays


    Third graders at Hooper Avenue School in Los Angeles wear their mask during class.

    Credit: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/Polaris

    As students return to school after holiday travel and festivities, respiratory illnesses are at high levels in Los Angeles, with many suffering from a mix of Covid and the flu. 

    During the week leading up to Dec. 28 and with Covid-19 strain JN. 1 having become dominant, the LA County Department of Public Health reported an average of 621 cases each day, marking a 25% increase from the previous week. 

    The Department of Public Health also said the figures are an “undercount” since most tests are done at home and not reported to medical staff. Meanwhile, for the first time this season, the county has entered the CDC’s “medium” category for Covid hospitalizations. Mask mandates have been reinstated in health care facilities.

    “There have been notable, yet not unexpected, increases in COVID-19 reported cases, hospitalizations and deaths,” according to a news release from the LA County Department of Public health. 

    “While recent increases are significant, they remain considerably below last winter’s peak and common-sense protections are strongly recommended to help curb transmission and severe illness as the new year begins.”

    Earlier this season, 23% of LA County residents participating in a text message survey said they had experienced a cough or shortness of breath within a week of Dec. 10, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

    More specifically, they reported that about 18% of specimens tested at Sentinel Surveillance Labs in LA County came back positive for the flu — marking a 4% increase from the previous week. And, in the week leading up to Dec. 16, more than 12% of specimens came back positive for RSV. 

    “Respiratory infections among children and adults are increasing this winter season. These infections are not limited to Flu and COVID-19,” read a message from LAUSD. “We are also seeing a rise in Respiratory Syncytial Virus, also known as RSV.”

    Before going on winter break, between Dec. 6 and Dec. 12, LAUSD also reported 528 Covid cases, according to the district dashboard. 

    LAUSD and the LA County Department of Public Health suggest parents follow these guidelines for determining when a child should be home, come to school and how to stay healthy. 

    What should I do if my child tests positive for Covid? 

    Whether symptomatic or not, students with Covid should stay home for five days, following either testing positive or experiencing symptoms. 

    Those who are immunocompromised, however, may isolate for longer periods, according to the district. 

    If my child tests positive for Covid, when is it safe for them to return to the classroom? Do they need to provide a negative test result before coming back? 

    Students do not need to provide a negative antigen test to return to class between days six and 10. And following day five, if your child has been without a fever for 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medicines, and their symptoms are improving, they can return to the classroom. 

    If, however, the symptoms come back after the isolation period, the student should test again, according to the district. 

    What does it mean if my child is a “close contact?” What do I do then? 

    If your child is in the same indoor space for Covid for 15 minutes within 24 hours with someone positive, they are a “close contact.” 

    In that case, the district asks that your child’s health be monitored for 10 days following the exposure. They also recommend masking and testing between the third and fifth days. 

    What about other illnesses like the flu or RSV? Do the same rules apply? 

    If your child has a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher — or if they are vomiting or have diarrhea —  they should stay home, according to the district. 

    What should I communicate to the school? How do I ensure my child’s absence is excused?

    If your child has Covid, upload the result onto the Daily Pass. 

    And regardless of the sickness, absences due to illness are excused. To excuse an absence, provide the school with documentation within 10 days of your child’s return to class. 

    If the school does not receive documentation, the absence will count as uncleared or unexcused, meaning it can count toward truancy. 

    Where do I find free Covid tests, vaccinations and treatments to keep my child healthy? 

    LAUSD provides Covid-19 home test kits at each school site. Libraries and other community centers may also supply tests. 

    Additionally, as of Nov. 20, the federal government provides each household with four home tests for free, according to the LA County Department of Public Health. 

    How do we stay healthy? 

    The LA County Department of Public Health suggests testing, not only if you have been exposed or have symptoms, but also if you have attended larger gatherings or have visited individuals who are more susceptible to illness.  

    They also recommend washing hands frequently and masking in crowded indoor areas as well as in spaces that are poorly ventilated to prevent Covid, RSV and the flu. 





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  • LAUSD agrees to issue $500 million in bonds to settle sexual abuse claims

    LAUSD agrees to issue $500 million in bonds to settle sexual abuse claims


    The Los Angeles Unified school board did not discuss the bonds for settling sexual abuse claims before members authorized them on June 3.

    Credit: Livestream recordings of LAUSD board meetings

    The article was updated on June 18 to include LAUSD’s previously undisclosed information revising total costs of the bonds it authorized to settle sexual abuse claims against it.

    Top Takeaways
    • School trustees authorize bonds without comment or public explanation.
    • The total cost of $500 million in bonds could reach $765 million.
    • Other districts also face massive costs in response to a 2019 state law.

    The Los Angeles Unified School District board has quietly authorized issuing a half-billion dollars in bonds to settle decades-old sexual abuse cases involving former students. 

    And that will likely not be enough to settle all the claims the nation’s second-largest school district is facing under 2019 legislation that allows victims of abuse by school employees to seek damages for incidents dating back decades.

    Since Jan. 1, 2020, LAUSD has received approximately 370 child abuse claims under Assembly Bill 218, of which 81 cases have been settled or dismissed, according to data that LAUSD released this week. The district stated it is currently defending against more than 275 claims; approximately 76 allege abuses dating back to the 1940s through 1970s, while 45 to 50 claims allege abuses in the 1980s. 

    Board members approved the expenditure on June 3 without comment or a public presentation, agreeing to borrow up to $500 million through judgment obligation bonds.  Unlike bonds for school construction, they did not require voter approval. The claims are not covered by insurance carriers. 

    The scant information in the meeting agenda estimated the total cost of the bonds, including principal and interest, at $899 million. It assumed a now outdated 6.10% interest rate, documents show (see Page 3).

    On Monday, the district lowered its estimate. It said it would initially issue $303 million in 15-year bonds, instead of 20-year bonds, at the current interest rate of 5.6%. At that rate, the total cost of $500 million in bonds would be $765 million.

    “The board has been talking about judgment obligation bonds for, I would say, about a year and a half,” board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said in an interview. Spreading out the payments means “the district’s current students aren’t punished by depleting resources,” she said.

    No public hearings were held. Board members were briefed about the matter in small groups, she said. “We also had several conversations in closed sessions, as we typically do with legal cases.” She did not disclose the number of claims made against the district or how many were settled.

    The district administration will likely ask the board to approve more borrowing next year to settle additional claims, Ortiz Franklin said. 

    The district is far from alone in facing massive payouts to victims who have filed claims under the legislation, Assembly Bill 218, which experts say is impacting local public agencies throughout the state.

    Los Angeles County alone is facing $4 billion in settlements involving formerly incarcerated juveniles and foster youth.

    By taking on long-term debt to deal with the AB 218 cases, LAUSD is “lessening any potential impacts to (its) core education programs in the near term,” by spreading out the settlement costs, supporting documents provided to board members stated. Nonetheless, issuing $500 million in bonds would reduce spending on students by tens of millions of dollars annually from the district’s general fund during the years it takes to pay off the bonds. 

    In a statement this week that pointed to potential costs that could “bankrupt entire school systems,” LAUSD urged state leaders and advocates to work with districts “to ensure we can meet our moral obligation to survivors while still protecting the essential right to a free, high-quality public education for all students.”

    “Los Angeles Unified unequivocally believes that survivors of sexual abuse deserve to be heard, supported, and empowered to pursue justice on their own terms. AB 218 has enabled victims of childhood sexual assault to seek justice with less legal limitations,” it stated. 

    “However, we must also acknowledge the very real and unintended consequences”  on  school districts that “may face lawsuits from decades past, even when current leadership, policies, and practices have changed dramatically,” it continued.

    AB 218, brought by then-Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, rolled back the statute of limitations for abuse claims involving public employees like teachers to “22 years from the date the plaintiff” becomes an adult “or within 5 years of the date the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered that the psychological injury or illness occurring after” reaching adulthood was caused by sexual assault. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill on Oct. 13, 2019.

    Messages left at Gonzalez’s office were not returned. 

    Legislative records show that proponents of AB 218 argued that sexual assault scandals involving the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts showed that victims of child sexual abuse sometimes took years to come forward, often after the statute of limitations to seek damages had expired. 

    “Victims who are ready to come forward today deserve an opportunity to expose their perpetrators and those who covered up the abuse,” members of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Victim Policy Institute told lawmakers, records show.

    Opponents of the bill, including the California Association of School Business Officials and other groups, expressed concerns about cost.

    “It will be impossible for employers to effectively defend against these claims when evidence is likely gone, witnesses have moved or passed away, and there has been a turnover of staff,” a summary of opponents’ concerns in legislative archives stated. “With these barriers, schools will be unable to adequately respond to these claims. This failure will result in diversion of funding intended to educate students and serve communities to financing increased legal costs, whether or not the claim is valid.”

    A Senate staff analysis warned of “unknown, potentially major out-year costs to local entities and school districts to the extent litigation is successfully brought outside the current statute of limitations and/or the entities are liable for damages.”  The bill was unanimously passed by both the Senate and the Assembly.

    Last week, in an interview, an advocate for taxpayers was critical of the debts the legislation created for school districts and other agencies. 

    “These bonds are going to hang around the necks of school districts for decades,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “There has to be a statute of limitations,” he said. “Witnesses are probably gone. All cases have to be time-barred at some point. This is bad policy.”

    School districts across the state are facing similar claims allowed by AB 218 and facing crises of how to pay for settlements, according to a January report by the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, or FCMAT. As the matter evolves, there is no firm number of the number of claims so far brought against districts, “but the best estimate is $2 billion to $3 billion.” 

    “A comprehensive analysis of claims is not available,” the report states. “But what we can conclude is that the impact is significant.” 

    FCMAT concluded that “the goal should be to completely eliminate childhood sexual assault in public schools” and to “increase mandated training to build awareness of, and reporting options for, childhood sexual assault.”

    Other recommendations, such as creating a victim compensation fund to eliminate claims brought against individual public agencies, have received little support in the Legislature and were opposed by plaintiffs’ attorneys, the FCMAT’s chief executive officer, Michael Fine, said in an interview.

    The claims and settlements, Fine said, continue to pile up. “The data changes daily.”





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  • LAUSD agrees to fund $900 million to settle sexual assault lawsuits

    LAUSD agrees to fund $900 million to settle sexual assault lawsuits


    The Los Angeles Unified school board did not discuss the bonds for settling sexual assault lawsuits before members authorized them on June 3.

    Source: Livestream recordings of Los Angeles Unified board meetings

    Top Takeaways
    • School trustees authorize bonds without comment or public explanation.
    • Lawmakers were warned of the financial impact of erasing the statute of limitations.
    • Other districts also face massive costs in response to a 2019 state law.

    The Los Angeles Unified School District board has quietly approved borrowing nearly $900 million — including interest — to settle decades-old sexual assault cases involving former students. 

    And that will likely not be enough to settle all the claims the nation’s second-largest school district is facing under 2019 legislation that allows victims of abuse by school employees to seek damages for incidents dating back to the 1970s. District spokesperson Britt Vaughan would not say how many claims the district faces, the number that have been settled and what they have cost to date.

    Board members approved the expenditure on June 3 without comment, agreeing to borrow up to $500 million through judgment obligation bonds with an estimated 6.10% interest rate, documents show. Unlike bonds for school construction, they did not require voter approval. The debt is due to be paid off in 15 years. The claims are not covered by insurance carriers. 

    This fiscal year, the district’s undisclosed number of settlement claims was roughly $302 million, Vaughan said.

    “The board has been talking about judgment obligation bonds for, I would say, about a year and a half,” board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said in an interview. Spreading out the payments means “the district’s current students aren’t punished by depleting resources,” she said.

    No public hearings were held. Board members were briefed about the matter in small groups, she said. “We also had several conversations in closed sessions, as we typically do with legal cases.” She did not disclose the number of claims made against the district or how many were settled.

    The district administration will likely ask the board to approve more borrowing next year to settle additional claims, Ortiz Franklin said. 

    The district is far from alone in facing massive payouts to victims who have filed claims under the legislation, Assembly Bill 218, which experts say is impacting local public agencies throughout the state.

    Los Angeles County alone is facing $4 billion in settlements involving formerly incarcerated juveniles and foster youth.

    By taking on long-term debt to deal with the AB 218 cases, LAUSD is “lessening any potential impacts to (its) core education programs in the near term,” by spreading out the settlement costs, supporting documents provided to board members stated. Nonetheless, the cost of paying down the bonds will reduce spending on students from the district’s general fund by tens of millions of dollars annually for the 15 years after the bond is issued. 

    AB 218, brought by then-Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, rolled back the statute of limitations for abuse claims involving public employees like teachers to “22 years from the date the plaintiff” becomes an adult “or within 5 years of the date the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered that the psychological injury or illness occurring after” reaching adulthood was caused by sexual assault. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill on Oct. 13, 2019.

    Messages left at Gonzalez’s office were not returned. 

    Legislative records show that proponents of AB 218 argued that sexual assault scandals involving the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts showed that victims of child sexual abuse sometimes took years to come forward, often after the statute of limitations to seek damages had expired. 

    “Victims who are ready to come forward today deserve an opportunity to expose their perpetrators and those who covered up the abuse,” members of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Victim Policy Institute told lawmakers, records show.

    Opponents of the bill, including the California Association of School Business Officials and other groups, expressed concerns about cost.

    “It will be impossible for employers to effectively defend against these claims when evidence is likely gone, witnesses have moved or passed away, and there has been a turnover of staff,” a summary of opponents’ concerns in legislative archives stated. “With these barriers, schools will be unable to adequately respond to these claims. This failure will result in diversion of funding intended to educate students and serve communities to financing increased legal costs, whether or not the claim is valid.”

    A Senate staff analysis warned of “unknown, potentially major out-year costs to local entities and school districts to the extent litigation is successfully brought outside the current statute of limitations and/or the entities are liable for damages.”  The bill was unanimously passed by both the Senate and the Assembly.

    Last week, in an interview, an advocate for taxpayers was critical of the debts the legislation created for school districts and other agencies. 

    “These bonds are going to hang around the necks of school districts for decades,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “There has to be a statute of limitations,” he said. “Witnesses are probably gone. All cases have to be time-barred at some point. This is bad policy.”

    School districts across the state are facing similar claims allowed by AB 218 and facing crises of how to pay for settlements, according to a January report by the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, or FCMAT. As the matter evolves, there is no firm number of the number of claims so far brought against districts, “but the best estimate is $2 billion to $3 billion.” 

    “A comprehensive analysis of claims is not available,” the report states. “But what we can conclude is that the impact is significant.” 

    FCMAT concluded that “the goal should be to completely eliminate childhood sexual assault in public schools” and to “increase mandated training to build awareness of, and reporting options for, childhood sexual assault.”

    Other recommendations, such as creating a victim compensation fund to eliminate claims brought against individual public agencies, have received little support in the Legislature and were opposed by plaintiffs’ attorneys, the FCMAT’s chief executive officer, Michael Fine, said in an interview.

    The claims and settlements, Fine said, continue to pile up. “The data changes daily.”





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  • ‘My confidence grew’: LAUSD student board member works to elevate Latino, student voices 

    ‘My confidence grew’: LAUSD student board member works to elevate Latino, student voices 


    Credit: Courtesy of LAUSD/KLCS-TV

    After hours of test taking last May, Karen Ramirez perked up when she saw a district leader and a camera crew walking onto her high school campus. 

    She had a hunch good news awaited. 

    Her instincts were right — then-17-year-old Ramirez was about to learn she had been elected as LAUSD’s student board member.  

    “I turned around, and I was like, ‘Wait, I think this means something happened,’” Ramirez, a senior at the Girls Academic Leadership Academy, said. “Eventually, I walked into my classroom because they brought cameras to film my reaction, and that’s when it hit. I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I think I got it!’”

    Since launching her campaign last February, Ramirez has made it her mission to promote student leadership across the district and to support the district’s Latino community. 

    “I know this is a position that not every student has in the district,” she said. “And to be able to be the one to experience all this, I feel very privileged.”

    A path to the board 

    Ramirez’s path to LAUSD’s school board began when she was in the eighth grade and on LAUSD’s Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council, a group that meets with the superintendent several times each year to provide student input on the district’s efforts. 

    “I thought it would be a really nice idea to get an insider’s perspective into what’s going on,” Ramirez said. “Being able to see how (the committee has) evolved has definitely been an amazing thing.” 

    Ramirez has remained on the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council since, tallying up nearly five years of district leadership. Being part of the board, she said, has been a “constant” in her educational journey. 

    One day during her junior year, an older mentor on the advisory council told her about the student position on the Los Angeles Unified School District board, and Ramirez’s campaign began. 

    “I started off just kind of thinking ‘Oh, OK, I just want to see what happens next,’ but then, as I got involved in the campaign process and started seeing how many students I would actually be representing in the district, that’s when it really became such a big passion for me,” she said. 

    “I know that my representation on the school board is something that is pretty big, especially for the Latino community.” 

    Last April, following an application and interview process, the district posted introductions to each of the position’s 10 finalists on its Instagram account, along with a brief speech made by each. Students then had two weeks to vote through an online portal. 

    “Everyone would start reposting on their Instagram stories, and they would all start campaigning for me on their own, and I didn’t even know that it was happening until after the fact, when I would talk to some friends who told me, ‘Oh, I voted for you!’” Ramirez said. 

    Elevating student voices on LAUSD’s school board

    A critical forum for Ramirez to amplify student voices is through LAUSD’s school board meetings, where she speaks on behalf of students and co-sponsors resolutions, including one honoring Latino heritage. 

    Each month — and after a week of reviewing roughly 600 pages worth of materials and a summary in preparation for the board meeting — Ramirez is pulled out of school around 11:00 a.m., after her second period class, and is driven to downtown Los Angeles for the board meeting. 

    “Once I get there, I have lunch. I prepare, I look over all the board resolutions we might be discussing in the boardroom, and I take notes. I circle any things that might be relevant to students and that I might want to comment on,” Ramirez said.  “And I also look for any board resolutions that I might want to co-sponsor.” 

    LAUSD’s student board members’ votes don’t technically count in board decisions, but they can introduce resolutions and can cast advisory votes, which school board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said is “powerful” when making major decisions for the district. 

    Ramirez said it is vital that students’ voices are heard by school board members and the community at large, noting that district leadership often has to prioritize other challenges and communities. 

    “Sometimes the responsibilities that we (students) hold are big, but it’s not as big as what board members are doing. They have so much more on their plate,” Ramirez said, stressing the importance of providing students one-on-one attention. 

    “We are accessible, and (students) can reach out with any worries or comments, or just things that they want to see in the district. … I will always be attentive to the needs. … That’s the biggest thing.”

    Ramirez also emphasized the importance of individual, one-on-one interactions, where she meets with students and encourages them to attend board meetings and join the various student councils at the district level, including an Asian American Pacific Islander council, individual board members’ councils and the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council. 

    “Oftentimes, we feel a gap or lack of connectivity with our school board members, especially because our school board members are always on their platform … and so as students, a lot of times, we feel like we can’t really reach out to them,” Ramirez said. “My biggest thing is to really bridge that gap that we might feel.” 

    Bridging gaps 

    Beyond attending regular school board meetings, Ramirez has attended leadership conferences, appeared on television for Latino heritage month, reached out for collaboration with the Mexican Consulate and is working to launch a podcast later this year. 

    The podcast, she said, is in Spanish and will specifically cover topics pertinent to English learners. “That’s a community that’s really close to my heart and I always want to support,” she added.

    Ramirez’s commitment to her heritage makes her stand out, Ortiz Franklin said.

    “What’s so clear from Karen is how proud she is to be Latina, how privileged she feels to be a representative on the board in a district that is almost three-quarters Latino, and just what that means for immigrant families in particular, given how much of Los Angeles has been influenced by immigrant communities over the past generations,” Ortiz Franklin added. 

    Moving forward with confidence 

    Ramirez’s motivation to enter public service goes back to her parents, who encouraged her to take advantage of every opportunity. 

    “Some of the things that we … don’t have access to are things that you do have access to,” she remembers her parents telling her. “So if you have that opportunity, then you definitely have to take it.”

    Ramirez said, “When I was told about the student board member position, and I knew that I had the opportunity to do something for my community as a whole, I thought that that was something that I couldn’t give up.”

    Ramirez said her education at the Girls Academic Leadership Academy — LAUSD’s only all-girls school — has been especially formative in developing her confidence, not only as a board member, but as a leader in her high school’s student body and various clubs. 

    “Being in that environment around so many women, I felt like my confidence grew. In school, we always like to support each other,” Ramirez said. “I bring that confidence and that energy anywhere I go.” 

    Ramirez has accepted a scholarship to Yale University, and this fall she will become the first in her family to attend college. 

    “It’s an honor. I’m so excited to see how I experience that,” Ramirez said. “And anything that I learn there, I’ll bring that to my family and bring back to my community.” 

    Editors’ note: This story has been updated based on information made available after publication.





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  • LAUSD considers limiting charter co-locations on vulnerable campuses

    LAUSD considers limiting charter co-locations on vulnerable campuses


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    The Los Angeles Unified School District school board drew a mix of gratitude and frustration from communities throughout the region during its discussion of a policy that prevents charter schools from sharing a campus with its 100 priority schools, Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools and community schools. The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), along with charter supporters, said the board policy was discriminatory and threatened lawsuits against the district. 

    Borrowing from a previous resolution, the proposed new policy encourages the district to avoid co-location offers that “compromise district schools’ capacity to serve neighborhood children” and that “result in grade span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines that actively deter students from attending District schools.” 

    The policy would come into play when the district evaluates new charter schools, when charters request different or new sites or when “existing conditions change for reasons including, but not limited to, insufficient space, addition of grade levels, and other material revisions.”

    LAUSD’s school board directed Superintendent Alberto Carvalho to develop such a policy through a resolution passed last September, and the board is slated to vote on it in February. 

    The goal of the resolution, according to board President and resolution author Jackie Goldberg, is not to undo anything — but instead, to prioritize the needs of district students who are more vulnerable. She cited hostility on campuses and challenges with sharing spaces, including those used for enrichment activities and basic needs support. 

    “We’re on the right path to get past, shall we say, discomforts and disagreements on what it means to have a charter school on a campus,” said school board member George McKenna during Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole Meeting. 

    “Everyone may not be satisfied all the time, but I think the guidelines are a great opportunity.”

    Charter supporters, however, have claimed that the policy discriminates against roughly 11,000 charter students by closing off roughly 346 district campuses. These restrictions, they say, could lead to more school closures and instances where schools are split between various locations — leading to longer commutes and accessibility issues for disadvantaged students. 

    “If the board adopts the proposed policy presented today, CCSA will be left with few remaining options but to, yet again, meet LAUSD in court and enforce the rights of charter school students,” said the organization’s CEO and president, Myrna Castrejón. 

    Co-locations in LAUSD 

    As a result of Proposition 39 — a statewide initiative — public school districts throughout California are required to share space with charter schools. 

    While there are several ways for districts to share space with charters — such as pursuing private sites or long-term leases — LAUSD has opted for years to co-locate its campuses, meaning that both a regular public school and a charter school share one campus. 

    “What we have at play here in Los Angeles is very unusual. … We know how we got here, so we have a golden opportunity here to fix it, to make it better,” said district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho at Tuesday’s meeting. He added that the district should be “vigilant and honest about unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies.” 

    To secure a space, charters request facilities from LAUSD. The district then evaluates the request and comes back with a preliminary offer by Feb. 1 every year. 

    Charters are given a month to respond, after which the district has until April 1 to finalize the offer. 

    Currently, there are 50 co-located charters across the district spanning 52 sites. About 21 charters are located on sites that would be protected under the new policy. 

    While the proposed co-location policy has not yet been approved, several district officials said during Tuesday’s meeting that the proposed guidelines were considered when making this year’s offers. 

    And of the 13 new requests from charters this year, only two offers will likely be made on the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan, community and priority schools. Meanwhile, the district did not have an estimate on the number of charters that failed to receive an offer on their requested campus. 

    “Co-location is one of many ways to deal with the legal obligation to share space and our moral obligation to make sure kids are treated equally; and, we have a myopic focus on these co-locations, which are really difficult even in the best-case scenarios,” said school board member Nick Melvoin on Tuesday. 

    “This district, LA Unified, traditional schools, has lost a couple hundred thousand kids in 20 years. We definitely have enough space for everyone. We just don’t allocate it properly.” 

    In fact, as the district experiences declining enrollment because of larger demographic shifts — in both non-charters and charters — the number of facilities requests and co-location offers has also declined. 

    Specifically, over the past five years, Castrejón said charter schools’ need for space has gone down by more than 50%. 

    Instead of focusing on solutions, Melvoin claimed both charter supporters and opponents have attempted to “articulate the pain for political gain on one side or the other.” 

    “I remain disappointed in the unwillingness to actually try and solve this,” he said. 

    Support for the policy 

    The policy’s supporters have repeatedly emphasized that avoiding co-locations on Black Student Achievement Plan, community and priority schools is critical to promoting equity and protecting the district’s more vulnerable students. 

    “That’s not a political issue, that’s an issue of equity,” Goldberg said. 

    “An issue of equity says that the schools that are struggling the most to educate our students should not be given continuously more things to do, like figure out a bell schedule and how to share the cafeteria and how to share the playground and how to share the bathrooms. … That’s an additional burden on everybody on that school, really on both sides.” 

    Goldberg added that in order to avoid co-locations on vulnerable campuses, the district will need to reevaluate their definition of a “reasonable distance.” 

    Members of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing district teachers, have historically sided with the district on matters concerning charters and have voiced support for September’s resolution. 

    “It’s been months since the School Board passed the resolution on co-locations, but we have schools that are in the process of losing valuable classroom and learning space. Without action, there are schools that will soon have to hold counseling sessions on the playground, or will lose their computer lab,” reads a Facebook post from the union. 

    “Enough is enough. LAUSD needs to stand by its own resolution and protect our amazing programs.”

    Yolanda Tamayo, a teachers union leader from the East Area, said during public comment that Lorena Street Elementary, where she teaches, used to be co-located with a charter. 

    During that time, 10 years ago, the school allegedly “endured the dismantling of our computer lab, lost a full-time use of our library, auditorium, eating area, yard, plus the gutting of our important resources that our school desperately needed back then and now.”

    Another speaker, who teaches at an LAUSD community school, said he fears his campus could be co-located with a charter, which he believes would cost them space used to house clothes for students in need and preclude them from opening a health center and food pantry. 

    Concerns from charters 

    Supporters of charter schools have claimed, however, that the policy discriminates against charter students and could lead to “charter deserts,” harming students from marginalized communities, who make up the bulk of charter students, according to Castrejón, the CCSA president. 

    “Charter schools do pay a fee for the use of district facilities,” Castrejón said, noting that several at-risk charters are also community schools. “The cost of going to an open market in a place that is as overbuilt and as expensive as Los Angeles could actually … result in some school closures if Prop. 39 co-location is not made available.” 

    Another potential impact of the policy is an increase in multi-site offers, where charters are split across multiple LAUSD campuses, which would force families to weigh what is feasible against what they feel is right for their children, according to Keith Dell’Aquila, CCSA Greater Los Angeles local’s vice president. 

    Dell’Aquila added that split schools also lead to longer commutes and accessibility challenges for lower-income families. 

    “You may see a charter school forcibly relocated by the district that forces a family to make a choice: Are you the type of family who can travel across Los Angeles, can travel 45 minutes, has access to private transportation to get your family to that car or not?”

    Split campuses also pose challenges for school communities, he emphasized. 

    “You start to look at a school that has to do more with less with their budget, and they’ve got to have two administrators across two different sites. They’ve got to make programs work, you’ve got to make teacher [professional development] work,” Dell’Aquila said. 

    “You have a divided school culture. We’ve talked to every one of our schools who has experienced this split site offer and have said, ‘yeah, life is harder across the board.’” 

    While they cannot fully anticipate how the policy will be implemented and its effects, CCSA sent a letter to LAUSD’s school board Monday evening addressing several of their concerns with the policy, ranging from the alleged limits placed on charter school growth to the district allegedly ignoring the intent of Proposition 39. 

    The letter also threatens legal action if the board adopts the policy. 

    “A public school policy is a promise you are making to the public,” said Shawna Draxton, who has served as an educator in both regular Los Angeles public schools and charters for more than 25 years, during public comment Tuesday. 

    “My students are watching. They admire you; they care about civics; they’ve been to these meetings. And whether or not they agree with your decisions, they are looking to you to be courageous leaders.” 

    Editors’ note: This story has been updated to add a statement from UTLA.





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