برچسب: LAUSD

‘Happy, but tense’: LAUSD graduations continue safely amid regional ICE activity
Jackie, a Maywood Academy High School graduate, wrapped the Mexican flag around her gown as she looked for her mother in the crowd after the ceremony.

Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales
Top Takeaways

Students and families experienced a mix of joy and anxiety before and during ceremonies.

Commencements remained safe amid regional ICE presence.

LAUSD deployed school police and communities established volunteer efforts to ensure safety.
Maywood Academy High School’s graduation Thursday was classic in a county where nearly half its population identifies as Latino.

Students decorated their caps with photos of loved ones and messages of gratitude to God and their immigrant families. A student’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was met with cheers from the crowd; some graduates carried lavish bouquets of roses, commonly known as ramos buchones; their guest speaker was a prominent record label owner pivotal in the rise of corridos tumbados, a now-mainstream genre of Mexican American music with a stronghold in Los Angeles; some students’ stoles featured flags from both the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala — their families’ home countries.

Among them was Jackie, a graduating senior who plans to study cosmetology at Cypress College in the fall. She was wrapped in the Mexican flag, and in Spanish, her cap read: “For my mom, who arrived with nothing and gave me everything.”

“I’m first-generation — everything is for my mami,” said Jackie, who declined to share her last name out of fear of immigration raids by federal agents. “I’m proud of my culture.”

Anxiety about immigration enforcement actions was omnipresent. They have largely targeted predominantly working-class, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods like Maywood, a densely populated city that is just over 1 square mile wide.

“I apologize to you for the words of many who insult and demean and diminish your parents, in some cases yourselves, and I have to admit to you, me. For I am you,” said Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who was once an undocumented immigrant, during the ceremony.

Children of color make up the great majority of the district’s students, with nearly 75% identifying as Latino or Hispanic. And with families hunkering inside their homes to avoid potential interactions with ICE, many parents and relatives of this year’s graduates took the risk to celebrate.

“I’m so proud of her because she’s always worked hard,” said Rocio, Jackie’s mother. “We’re here with fear because of everything that is happening. And, we’re happy — but tense.”

On June 9, Los Angeles Unified announced a series of protocols to keep graduations as safe and normal as possible.

District police forces were deployed and formed a “perimeter of safety” around each LAUSD site where a graduation took place. Families were welcome to stay at the graduations as long as possible to avoid contact with ICE, and principals were instructed to avoid lines so parents didn’t have to wait on the streets.

The measures proved effective. And graduation ceremonies across Los Angeles Unified’s 86 senior high schools were not interrupted by any sign of immigration authorities’ presence. The final graduation ceremony is scheduled for Monday evening.

“We made a promise that our graduations are an extension of the school experience, therefore they’re protected spaces,” Carvalho said.

At the heart of ICE raids in Los Angeles

Part of the Maywood Academy campus sits within the city limits of Huntington Park, where, on the early morning of graduation day, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was present at an ICE raid at the home of a pregnant U.S. citizen.

On Friday, the day after the graduation, immigration agents were seen accosting and detaining people in Maywood. In the days leading up to the ceremony, immigration agents chased day laborers at the local Home Depot in Huntington Park.

And then there was the unspoken awareness that one of their peers, a 17-year-old Maywood Academy sophomore, was one of the hundreds of Angelenos recently detained by immigration agents. On June 3, 18 months after fleeing violence in their home country of Guatemala, Johanna, alongside her mother, Elizabeth, and youngest sister, Jessica, were detained by ICE while attending a scheduled immigration court appearance for their legal asylum case. The family declined to share their last name out of security concerns.

Maywood Academy graduates accept their diplomas. Some wore stoles featuring flags from the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala — their families’ home countries. (Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales)
Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales

Johanna’s father, Hector, suddenly stopped receiving messages from his wife and daughters soon after they arrived at the court, and then they vanished for two days. He and his third daughter, Dulce, searched for them on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s website. By the time their information appeared on the site, they had been transferred to a detention center in Texas, where they remain as an attorney handles their case.

“I want my daughters to grow up and realize all their goals in the United States,” said Hector. “They’re all so intelligent, hardworking, and really amazing people to serve this country.”

Before the ICE raids started, his daughters had felt safe in their home and neighborhood.

“They’re so happy here. It’s a beautiful neighborhood, and their school is nearby,” Hector said. “They’re really happy.”

He said Maywood Academy is in constant contact, offering support, though the school declined to comment on the case.

Austin Santos, a geography and world history teacher who has taught both of Hector’s daughters in high school, said Johanna is on the path to becoming valedictorian and is “all-around a great student.”

“We made sure to tell the other students to be careful and used Johanna’s story to bring awareness to the situation because it’s not only happening at our school,” said Santos. “Her classmates and everyone around her — once the story broke, and they found out who was detained, they all rallied around her.”

Beyond Maywood

The area surrounding Maywood Academy is a hotbed of ICE activity. And it isn’t alone.

“We saw an ICE vehicle going toward St. George Church; I have friends in the court, and they’re not coming out; I saw two immigration officers on the sidewalk; there’s a community school nearby where the raid happened,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), reading Rapid Response notifications aloud during an interview with EdSource.

LAUSD was early to establish itself as a sanctuary district — and the school board unanimously affirmed its commitment to immigrant students in November. The resolution also vowed to “aggressively oppose” any efforts to make districts work with federal agencies on matters dealing with immigration enforcement.

Months later, administrators at Lillian Street Elementary and Russell Elementary, both in South Los Angeles, denied entry to two officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KibeV-R_k

“The district has acted superbly and bravely — and they have set up the atmosphere to … welcome everyone and ensure that every child, regardless of their immigration status or background, feels safe,” Cabrera said.

“They are an example for us to follow, and we will continue to collaborate with them on as many opportunities as possible.”

Roughly five and a half miles from Maywood, in Boyle Heights — the home of Roosevelt High School and Garfield High School — sightings of ICE agents and unmarked cars have become more common. A checkpoint was stationed just outside a freeway entrance.

At the same time, June 8 was supposed to be about celebrating.

But in a community like Boyle Heights, with its history of law enforcement violence, Roosevelt High social studies teacher Thalia Cataño said the district’s approach to commencement safety was “tone deaf.” Volunteers organized hours ahead of the graduation ceremony to have teachers, locals and members of CHIRLA’s Rapid Response team patrol the area.

At the same time, leading up to the ceremonies, students contemplated whether to have their families come and support them. Others wondered if they should attend their graduation.

Most did.

And when the now-alumni of Roosevelt High returned to school on June 9 to officially wrap up their high school careers, they reminisced on the ceremony — the highs and lows.

“We’re there. We’re happy,” Cataño heard her students sharing. “But we’re looking over our shoulder … just waiting for anything to happen.”
Source link
14/06/2025
‘Happy, but tense’ – LAUSD graduations continue safely amid regional ICE activity
Jackie, a Maywood Academy High School graduate, wrapped the Mexican flag around her gown as she looked for her mother in the crowd after the ceremony.

Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales
Top Takeaways

Students and families experienced a mix of joy and anxiety before and during ceremonies

Commencements remained safe amid regional ICE presence

LAUSD deployed school police and communities established volunteer efforts to ensure safety
Maywood Academy High School’s graduation Thursday was classic in a county where nearly half its population identify as Latino.

Students decorated their caps with photos of loved ones, and messages of gratitude to God and their immigrant families. A student’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was met with cheers from the crowd; some graduates carried lavish bouquets of roses, commonly known as ramos buchones; their guest speaker was a prominent record label owner pivotal in the rise of corridos tumbados, a now-mainstream genre of Mexican-American music with a stronghold in Los Angeles; some students’ stoles featured flags from both the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala — their families’ home countries.

Among them was Jackie, a graduating senior who plans to study cosmetology at Cypress College in the fall. She was wrapped in the Mexican flag, and in Spanish, her cap reads: “For my mom, who arrived with nothing and gave me everything.”

“I’m first-generation – everything is for my mami,” said Jackie, who declined to share her last name out of fear of immigration raids by federal agents. “I’m proud of my culture.

Anxiety of immigration enforcement actions was omnipresent. They have largely targeted predominantly working-class, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods like Maywood, a densely populated city that is just over 1 square mile wide.

“I apologize to you for the words of many who insult and demean and diminish your parents, in some cases yourselves, and I have to admit to you, me. For I am you,” said Los Angeles Unified superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who was once an undocumented immigrant, during the ceremony.

Children of color make up the great majority of the district’s students, with nearly 75% identifying as Latino or Hispanic. And with families hunkering inside their homes to avoid potential interactions with ICE, many parents and relatives of this year’s graduates took the risk to celebrate.

“I’m so proud of her because she’s always worked hard,” said Rocio, Jackie’s mother. “We’re here with fear, because of everything that is happening. And, we’re happy — but tense.”

Monday, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced a series of protocols to keep graduations as safe and normal as possible.

District police forces were deployed and formed a “perimeter of safety” around each LAUSD site where a graduation took place. Families were welcomed to stay at the graduations as long as possible to avoid contact with ICE, and principals were instructed to avoid lines, so parents didn’t have to wait on the streets.

The measures proved effective. And graduation ceremonies across Los Angeles Unified’s 86 senior high schools were not interrupted by any sign of immigration authorities’ presence. The final graduation ceremony is scheduled for Monday evening.

“We made a promise that our graduations are an extension of the school experience, therefore they’re protected spaces,” Carvalho said.

At the heart of ICE raids in Los Angeles

Part of the Maywood Academy campus sits within the city limits of Huntington Park, where, on the early morning of graduation day, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was present at an ICE raid at the home of a pregnant U.S. citizen.

Friday, the day after the graduation, immigration agents were seen accosting and detaining people in Maywood. In the days leading up to the ceremony, immigration agents chased day laborers at the local Home Depot.

And then there was the unspoken awareness that one of their peers, a 17-year-old Maywood Academy sophomore, is one of the hundreds of Angelenos recently detained by immigration agents. On June 3, 18 months after fleeing violence in their home country of Guatemala, Johanna, alongside her mother, Elizabeth, and youngest sister, Jessica, was detained by ICE while attending a scheduled immigration court appearance for their legal asylum case. The family declined to share their last name out of security concerns.

Maywood Academy graduates accepting their diplomas. Some wore stoles featuring flags from the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala – their families’ home countries. (Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales)
Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales

Johanna’s father, Hector, suddenly stopped receiving messages from his wife and daughters soon after they arrived at the court, and then they vanished for two days. He and his third daughter, Dulce, searched for them on Immigration & Customs Enforcement’s website. By the time their information appeared on the site, they had been transferred to a detention center in Texas, where they remain as an attorney handles their case.

“I want my daughters to grow up and realize all their goals in the United States,” said Hector. “They’re all so intelligent, hardworking, and really amazing people to serve this country.”

Before the ICE raids started, his daughters had felt safe in their home and neighborhood.

“They’re so happy here. It’s a beautiful neighborhood, and their school is nearby,” Hector said. “They’re really happy.”

He said Maywood Academy is in constant contact, offering support, though the school declined to comment on the case.

Austin Santos, a geography and world history teacher who has taught both of Hector’s daughters in high school, said Johanna is on the path to becoming valedictorian and is “all-around a great student.”

“We made sure to tell the other students to be careful and used Johanna’s story to bring awareness to the situation because it’s not only happening at our school,” said Santos. “Her classmates and everyone around her — once the story broke, and they found out who was detained, they all rallied around her.”

Beyond Maywood

The area surrounding Maywood Academy is a hotbed of ICE activity. And it isn’t alone.

“We saw an ICE vehicle going toward St. George Church; I have friends in the court, and they’re not coming out; I saw two immigration officers on the sidewalk; there’s a community school nearby where the raid happened,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), reading Rapid Response notifications aloud during an interview with EdSource.

LAUSD was early to establish itself as a sanctuary district — and the school board unanimously affirmed its commitment to immigrant students in November. The resolution also vowed to “aggressively oppose” any efforts to make districts work with federal agencies on matters dealing with immigration enforcement.

Months later, administrators at Lillian Street Elementary and Russell Elementary, both in South Los Angeles, denied entry to two officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KibeV-R_k

“The district has acted superbly and bravely — and they have set up the atmosphere to… welcome everyone and ensure that every child, regardless of their immigration status or background, feels safe,” Cabrera said.

“They are an example for us to follow, and we will continue to collaborate with them on as many opportunities as possible.”

Roughly five and a half miles from Maywood, in Boyle Heights — the home of Roosevelt High School and Garfield High School — sightings of ICE agents and unmarked cars have become more common. A checkpoint was stationed just outside a freeway entrance.

At the same time, Sunday, June 8, was supposed to be about celebrating.

But in a community like Boyle Heights, with its history of law enforcement violence, social studies teacher Thalia Cataño said the district’s approach to commencement safety was “tone deaf.” Volunteers organized hours ahead of the graduation ceremony to have teachers, locals and members of CHIRLA’s Rapid Response team patrol the area.

At the same time, leading up to the ceremonies, students contemplated whether to have their family come and support them. Others wondered if they should attend their graduation.

Most did.

And when the now-alumni of Roosevelt High returned to school Monday to officially wrap up their high school careers, they reminisced on the ceremony — the highs and lows.

“‘We’re there. We’re happy,” Cataño heard her students sharing. “‘But we’re looking over our shoulder… just waiting for anything to happen.’”
Source link
14/06/2025
Backlash mounts as LAUSD approves policy preventing charters on vulnerable campuses
The LAUSD School Board meeting on Aug. 30, 2022 in Los Angeles. Credit: Julie Leopo, EdSource

The Los Angeles Unified School District school board voted 4-3 Tuesday to adopt a policy that would prevent charter schools from sharing a campus with the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools, community schools and priority schools.

This decision means that when making co-location offers, the board will try to avoid 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 is months in the making — beginning with a resolution passed in September, mandating that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho devise such a policy. Board members reviewed a draft of his proposal at January’s Committee of the Whole Meeting.

“This policy, in the eyes of some, does not go far enough; and, in the eyes of others, it goes too far,” Carvalho said at Tuesday’s meeting. “And somehow, experience tells me that any time you’re in that position, you probably achieved some degree of balance.”

Supporters of the co-location policy, including United Teachers Los Angeles, have claimed that the presence of charters in district schools has created an atmosphere of ongoing hostility and that charter schools take critical resources — including spaces used for enrichment programs and social-emotional support services — away from district students who are more vulnerable.

“Before we became a community school and a BSAP school, we had no arts, no sports, no clubs, and our students [compared] our school to a prison,” said a science teacher who spoke during public comments at Tuesday’s board meeting.

“The school has transformed….The students that used to want to leave immediately now want to stay after club hours. And this is only possible because we have the space available to host these resources.”

Pro-charter organizations maintain that the new policy is detrimental to the future of charter schools in Los Angeles and that it will likely result in more charters being divided across multiple LAUSD sites. They also anticipate charter closures will become more common.

“The district has finally made its intentions clear: to run charter schools out of town,” states a letter to Carvalho and LAUSD’s school board members by the L.A. Coalition for Excellent Public Schools — consisting of about half of charters in the district — including 107 charter schools that educate more than 50,000 students.

“If the district can just elbow charter schools out of the campuses they’ve been sharing – if it can engineer feeder patterns, if it can remove charters from predominantly Black campuses, if it can make it all but impossible for kids to enroll in charters throughout their K-12 education – then L.A. Unified will keep more students and save a few bucks.”

The letter further alleges that the district’s policy is not about students’ education or equity, but rather about the district’s enrollment and financial challenges.

“The resolution will most immediately and severely impact thousands of predominantly Black and Latino students. Even more alarming is that it paves the way for L.A. Unified to eradicate charter schools altogether, denying so many families their civil rights, their hopes and dreams for their children’s futures.”

Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, said in a statement that “the decision of the LAUSD Board of Education to enact this policy is divisive, discriminatory, and unlawful.”

Castrejón added, ”It is a shameful day when the second-largest school district in the nation puts politics ahead of students and families. . .. Instead of following California law and providing equitable facilities for charter public school students, LAUSD’s Board voted today with their campaign donors and against the very students they took an oath to support.”

‘Merely moving and enlarging challenges’

In addition to a wealth of support, the policy has also garnered backlash — from both pro-charter organizations and from individuals who said the policy doesn’t do enough to protect vulnerable students.

“This resolution is the capstone of a relentless, decades-long campaign….to cast blame rather than take responsibility,” the letter reads.

A survey conducted by CCSA’s Local Advocacy Team of 28 organizations also found that 10% of charter students in district facilities are Black/African American, in comparison to 4% of all public school students in LAUSD. About 90% of those students are from low income backgrounds.

Charters were also found to have more socio-economically disadvantaged students and students who are English learners.

Meanwhile, the coalition’s letter also states that blocking co-locations on BSAP campuses will lead to fewer charters being able to serve Black students in the long run, adding that it takes “gall to rob Black families of the critical lifeline that our schools provide.”

School Board Member Nick Melvoin, who voted against the policy, also said that while he appreciates the policy’s intentions, “the district’s own analysis suggests that this policy will create not fewer, but more co-locations.”

“This may placate some folks in the room, but next year, we’ll have folks from 600 other schools back here with concerns because we’re not solving anything,” Melvoin said. “We’re merely moving and enlarging challenges.”

Spreading a charter school across multiple campuses can have negative effects, according to charter proponents — and CCSA’s survey specifically found that:
- “89% (8/9) reported a negative impact on staffing due to a split campus.”
- “77% (7/9) reported a negative impact on school culture due to a split campus.”
- “66% (6/9) reported a negative impact on student enrollment and the ability of families to maintain access to the school due to a split campus.”
- “66% (6/9) reported a negative impact on school finances due to a split campus.”
- “55% (5/9) reported a negative impact on programs or academic offerings available to students due to a split campus.”
Meanwhile, LAUSD board president Jackie Goldberg, who co-authored the initial resolution passed in September, rebuked claims from charter proponents, insisting that she was not “complaining about charters” and had no intention to “un-do anything.”

“This resolution simply says if we can undo some of the problems we’ve created, let’s try to do that as we go forward,” Goldberg said.

Rather, she faulted Proposition 39 — which requires public school districts to share space with charters — calling it “flawed from the day it was written.” She also criticized the “privately owned, publicly funded” nature of charter schools.

Goldberg also blamed the CCSA and the current state of the charter movement — which she said is more focused on competing with public schools rather than improving them.

“Prop 39 overrules everything,” Goldberg claimed on Tuesday. “And the enormous amount of money that the California Charter Schools Association is willing to spend suing districts … .is a design for them to contain power in Sacramento.”

Meanwhile, Scott Schmerelson, vice president of the LAUSD school board, who voted in favor of the policy, said that while he sees the policy as a step forward, he also recognizes that some do not feel it is enough to protect the district’s most vulnerable students.

“I hear you, I want to say that I understand you don’t feel we’ve done enough,” he said. “But we have made progress. And for now, I am willing to say OK, we will approve this, but we will keep the conversation going.”

‘A substantial risk of litigation’

A letter released by Latham and Watkins LLP on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association, claims that the newly adopted policy is illegal and places the district at “a substantial risk of litigation.”

“By prioritizing public school students attending District-run schools over public school students who attend charter public schools, the policy violates Proposition 39’s mandate that ‘public school facilities should be shared fairly among all public school pupils, including those in charter schools,’” the letter reads.

According to the letter, there are currently 13 co-locations on the district’s priority schools this academic year — as well as seven on community schools and 19 on BSAP campuses.

“I just hope that as we walk out of this building today,” Carvalho said, “we recognize that at the end of the day, that the only thing that matters, the only thing that should matter…. is what we do for kids, how we do it for kids despite our positions as adults.”
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12/06/2025
LAUSD condemns immigration raids as one unfolds next to a school
A rumor spread quickly on Monday morning that Huntington Park High School in southeast Los Angeles might be the site of a raid after federal immigration agents were seen at a Home Depot nearby.

Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales, EdSource
Top Takeaways

LAUSD assures students’ and families’ safety during graduation ceremonies.

Huntington Park schools activate emergency protocols amid ICE activity.

More summer school locations, plus virtual option, made available to students who fear ICE raids.
Los Angeles Unified School District’s superintendent and board members condemned the raids and arrests of undocumented immigrants on Monday during a press conference at the district’s headquarters in downtown L.A. Meanwhile, 7 miles away, another raid was unfolding next to a high school, creating new tension and apprehension.

Around 8:30 a.m., videos posted on social media platforms showed what appeared to be immigration agents chasing and arresting day laborers by the city’s Home Depot, which sits behind and in sight of Huntington Park High School.

Simultaneously, a graduation ceremony for a local elementary school was taking place in the high school’s auditorium. Many people online began speculating that the ceremony might be the target of an immigration raid. It wasn’t, but the fear was real.

“These are communities of resilience and hope — places where generations have worked hard to build a better life, and yet our families are now forced to live in fear, looking over their shoulders on the way to school or their child’s graduation,” Rocio Rivas, vice president of L.A. Unified’s school board, said at the press conference. “This is just simply wrong.”

Huntington Park’s residents are predominantly Latino, immigrant and working class, a demographic that has been the target of many of the known immigration raids in recent days.

A protest was organized within hours of immigration enforcement activity next to a high school in the city of Huntington Park, commonly known as HP.
Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales, EdSource

‘Perimeters of safety’

The district’s protocol, which includes offering families the option of remaining on school grounds and notifying the district of immigration enforcement activity so they can determine the appropriate response, kicked into gear. An alternative exit door on the side farthest from Home Depot was opened.

A Huntington Park High official later confirmed that immigration agents made no attempt to enter the school, though a public statement addressing the rumor was not shared online until hours later. An attendee at the graduation ceremony, who declined to share her name, confirmed via a TikTok message that at the end of the ceremony, a school official announced the presence of immigration agents in the area and confirmed the agents were no longer next door.

Amid the uncertainty, district officials discussed the importance of centering students’ needs: Graduation ceremonies should continue undisturbed, and families should feel assured their children would be safe attending summer school.

L.A. Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho stressed that the graduation season, with more than 100 ceremonies taking place Monday and Tuesday, should remain celebratory and joyous. He said the district has directed its police force to establish “perimeters of safety” around graduation sites to help “intervene and interfere” with federal agents if they arrive.

“Every child has a constitutional right to a public education,” he said. “Therefore, every child and their parent has a right to celebrate the culmination of their educational success.”

An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent, and about 133,000 children in California public schools are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Carvalho also said principals have been instructed to minimize entry lines to limit the risks of waiting on the street. And parents will be allowed to stay at the venue as long as they need if there is immigration enforcement outside.

District police will also stay on-site for as long as necessary, he added.

Meanwhile, the possibility of ICE officials storming graduation ceremonies would be a “preposterous condition,” Carvalho said.

“I hope a situation like that will not occur,” he said. “But then again, I certainly would have hoped that militarized equipment would not be seen on the streets of an American city.”

And as the district transitions from this year to the next, Carvalho said L.A. Unified will expand the number of campuses offering summer school to shorten travel times; provide transportation, and add virtual learning options for students who do not feel safe attending in person.

“I want to be very clear to those who may seek to take actions that transcend our beliefs and our policies. We’re not just talking about our schools,” Carvalho said at Monday’s press conference. “We’re talking about our schools, places where kids wait for the buses, the bus itself.”

When immigration enforcement activity occurs near schools, educators and staff are at times simultaneously communicating the information with the district so they can confirm what response may be needed, and calming their students’ and families’ fears.

Communication flows the other way too — top-down from district officials to teachers, parents, and students regarding activity, and about any false rumors.

Rapid response network

On Monday, educators like Marcela Chagoya, a middle school teacher at L.A. Unified’s Stevenson College & Career Prep, reassured students, many somber and tearful after a weekend of raids and protests, that school remains the safest place for them to be. As she talked with students, her phone lit up with constant notifications from a Rapid Response Network about nearby ICE sightings.

“Our school district is a sanctuary district, and we’re definitely not going to put any of our students or their families, if they’re on our campus, at risk,” Chagoya said. “We’re going to defend them as much as we can.”

Chagoya is also one of many teachers who have gone through training by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, and is tasked with reporting any notification of ICE activity to their principal, who would then inform the district. She also carries a bullhorn in her car to alert the community.

She reminds the students that ICE agents won’t be allowed inside the classroom and quizzes them on what they learned about potential interactions with a federal agent.

“This is a lesson that we’re learning in real time,” said Chagoya. “And we will all just roll with it and be as proactive as we can.”
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10/06/2025
LAUSD launches Ed, the nation’s first AI ‘personal assistant’ for students

An LAUSD student tries out Ed, the district’s new AI assistant for students.

Credit: Los Angeles Unified / X

Los Angeles Unified School District students will soon have their own individualized AI tool, a “personal assistant,” to help them with everyday tasks and remind them about school work when they forget.

The tool, named Ed, is the first of its kind in the nation and will be able to accommodate students verbally and on screen in 100 languages.

“What we are announcing here today is a vision that was built over years of thinking about it, but only one year in actually bringing the necessary partners together — to give a voice, to give a simple life, to give a color, to give an experience,” said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho during Wednesday’s inaugural event at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center. “And what has emerged is Ed.”

Ed includes a number of features. It will, for example, be able to remind students of upcoming tests, inform them of the cafeteria menu, provide updates on school buses and even wake them up in the morning, Carvalho said.

“Ed will tell Maria ‘You’re falling a little behind in reading, but we got you – click here,’” Carvalho said. “Maria will click, and, without the need for an additional sign on … (it will) open the doors to all of the resources to elevate each student’s needs.”

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Carvalho said this tool will not replace the many people in LAUSD who teach and support students on a daily basis.

During the pilot period, Ed will be available immediately to 55,000 students in 101 elementary, middle and senior high schools. Once an initial pilot period is over and the program proves successful, Carvalho said it would expand to the whole district.

“Just like humans are not perfect — although sometimes, in certain political circles, some say they are — the technology produced by humans isn’t perfect either,” Carvalho said.

“With all of the protections against the vulnerabilities, there is always a concern. That’s why we are over vigilant.”

Carvalho also tried to dispel potential cybersecurity concerns — emphasizing that the district has had support from local, state and national agencies in monitoring the program’s evolution.

He also said Ed is currently operating at 93% accuracy, several percentage points above the gold standard of 85% to 87% for ChatGPT.

A strong set of filters will also ensure the program is free from any kind of offensive language, Carvalho added.

More than 100 people, including LAUSD school board members, partners from various universities and businesses as well as representatives of local and state government officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, attended Ed’s inauguration.

The event space was decorated with balloon archways and various photo backdrops — along with Lego building tables, face painting, juice stations and food trucks to celebrate the occasion. Students also sat at tables testing out various features provided by Ed, while the parent interface was displayed on iPads.

“It is the power of artificial intelligence that will allow us for real-time understanding of where students are and where they need to go,” Carvalho said.

“It is the power of this technology to ensure that we will meet every one of our students where they are and accelerate them academically and in terms of enrichment towards their full potential.”

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07/06/2025
LAUSD, partners provide 25 affordable housing units for district families

Sun Valley Apartments provide homes to LAUSD families that have experienced chronic homelessness.

Credit: Mallika Seshadri

Twenty-five units of permanent, supportive housing have been made available to families of LAUSD students who have experienced chronic homelessness.

After more than seven years of collaboration, district officials and partners — including Many Mansions, a nonprofit that provides affordable housing to Los Angeles County and Ventura County residents — cut the ribbon for the new Sun King Apartments on Monday and vowed this would be the first of many structures to come.

“I am filled with hope and determination to continue bringing housing opportunities to more LAUSD families in need,” said school board member Kelly Gonez on Monday. “Because while we’re not in the housing business, we are in the business of doing everything we can to advocate for our students and families.”

High rates of poverty “should not be the reality in the richest country on Earth, in the richest state in the nation, in one of the richest counties of this state,” district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho added.

The Sun King Apartments — consisting of one, two and three bedroom apartments — are located in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, where Gonez said there are several elementary schools where more than 20% of students are homeless.

The apartments’ residents are supported through a voucher, and their rent is based on a sliding scale.

In addition to the housing, residents will have access to a range of youth services — including after-school tutoring, summer camps, family events and school supplies, according to Rick Schroeder, president and CEO of Many Mansions.

Several of the district’s partners and collaborators on the project attended Monday’s event, including U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, City Council member Imelda Padilla and the city’s chief housing and homelessness officer, Lourdes Castro Ramirez, along with business partners.

‘Not stopping here’

Annika, Angel and their daughter, Faith, live in one of the Sun King Apartments.

The parents, whose last names were not provided, met at a homeless shelter 16 months ago.

In late December, they — along with their daughter, Faith — moved into the Sun King Apartments.

“We all started a new chapter of our lives, and it has filled us with the highest hopes, blessings and glory,” Annika said Monday. “With the thanks to Many Mansions, we have been able to create a safe and stable chapter of life and a new home for our daughter, Faith.”

Noting that homelessness among school-aged children has increased, Carvalho said Monday that similar projects to house members of the Los Angeles community are critical. He said the Sun King Apartments project is something “that we need to replicate and amplify very quickly.” The superintendent did not provide details or a timeline for when additional housing is expected.

This initial effort took more than seven years, but Carvalho hopes future projects will take less time.

So far, the district has put out a request for information for seven potential properties — some of which may also serve as workforce housing for teachers and classified personnel, Carvalho said.

He declined to share how many people the district is ultimately looking to house and said Los Angeles Unified School District would pursue options that do not cost them financially.

“How do you tackle (homelessness)? One unit at a time, 25 units in a building, many buildings, many mansions across our entire community,” Carvalho said.

“And why do we do this? … Families today live on the third floor. They see the mountains. They see the street. They’re close to the school where their baby girl attends. They feel maybe for the first time somebody paid attention, they’re important.”

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07/06/2025
Charter Schools Association sues LAUSD over charter co-location policy

Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District, challenging the district’s policy limiting charter co-locations on nearly 350 campuses, including the district’s 100 Priority Schools, Black Student Achievement Plan schools and community schools.

The lawsuit, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, argues that the policy is illegal and discriminates against charter students by not providing them with “reasonably equivalent” facilities.

“We have consistently maintained that this policy is a shameful and discriminatory attack on public charter school students, for which the district shares a responsibility to house,” said Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the CCSA at a press event Tuesday.

“Families choose to send their children to LAUSD charter public schools because they have found programs uniquely tailored to their needs. … This policy limits options for those parents among the most vulnerable across LA Unified.”

The CCSA started making threats of litigation when the board passed the resolution on Feb. 13. The following month, the CCSA claimed the vote was invalid due to alleged violations of the state’s open- meetings law, the Brown Act, tied to board member George McKenna’s virtual participation during the February vote.

LAUSD’s school board reconvened on March 19 and passed the policy a second time with a 4-3 vote that included the support of Board President Jackie Goldberg, Vice President Scott Schmerelson and members McKenna and Rocio Rivas.

The four board members, along with members of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), have repeatedly emphasized negative effects of co-location, particularly on vulnerable students, including allegedly hostile school environments and challenges with accessing programmatic spaces, including computer labs, music rooms and art studios.

Family centers, according to Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of UTLA, are also negatively impacted by co-locations.

“Implementing proper oversight and limitations on co-located schools is the fairest way to ensure that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, can access a high-quality education within LAUSD,” Myart-Cruz said in a statement to EdSource.

She added that the lawsuit filed by the CCSA is “a misguided response” to a policy widely supported by teachers, parents and students.

“All students deserve a space to thrive, and overcrowding our already resource-limited public schools has had a detrimental effect on both public and charter students,” Myart-Cruz said.

Charter proponents, however, have argued that taking nearly 350 schools off the table for co-locations could lead to more multi-site offers and school closures, which they say will negatively impact vulnerable students.

The lawsuit specifically states that the 240 charter schools in LAUSD educate more than 115,000 students, who are largely low-income and students of color.

The lawsuit also claims that the district has failed to collaborate in good faith and points to a history of alleged violations of Proposition 39, which dealt with bonds to finance school facilities.

“Despite CCSA and the charter public school communities’ offer to work collaboratively with the board on a new policy that would improve the process of sharing campuses, LAUSD has disregarded the voices and needs of charter school families and adopted a new policy to harm their charter schools,” Castrejón added at Tuesday’s press event.

LAUSD declined to comment on the lawsuit as litigation is pending.

Meanwhile, the CCSA emphasized its strong legal track record and said they feel optimistic about the case.

“It is a common theme with LAUSD,” said CCSA’s vice president of legal advocacy and executive director, Julie Umansky, on Tuesday. “We’re feeling confident with the precedent on their disregard for Prop. 39 and our ability to get the court to see it the way we do.”

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05/06/2025
Unions allege LAUSD is misusing arts education funds

High school junior Maya Shtangrud may have given up on her childhood dream of learning to play the violin — but now, serving as an arts justice fellow at the ACLU of Southern California, she remains steadfast in her advocacy for arts education.

Like many, she hoped Proposition 28 — a ballot measure passed by roughly 65% of voters in November 2022 to allocate about $1 billion toward arts education each year — would lead to greater opportunities for her fellow students.

She’s not quite as optimistic now, and is joining a group of teachers and advocates to sound alarms on the district’s alleged mismanagement of their estimated $76.7 million in Proposition 28 money — which they claim has been used to pay for current teachers rather than create new programs or bolster existing ones.

“I really want adults, teachers, administrators, people who distribute the Prop. 28 funds, to understand that they need to really think about it from our perspective and see how much it is impacting us,” said Shtangrud, who now plays jazz piano and enjoys filmmaking. “A lot of people don’t understand the impact that the arts have on us students.”

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Most families assume their children are getting some form of arts education, said Janine Riveire, a professor of music and music education at Cal Poly Pomona. Many also hoped that Proposition 28’s passage would lead to better outcomes for their children.

Despite Proposition 28’s widespread support in the polls, bringing arts education to students across the Los Angeles Unified School District has remained a challenge — with educators and advocates claiming that the district’s implementation of Proposition 28 has failed to give individual campuses their own discretion over the use of their funds, leading to roadblocks that impede teachers’ ability to access supplies central to their artistic discipline.

“Millions of Californians, voters and parents and others, voted for more arts funding for schools,” said Amir Whitaker, senior policy counsel of the ACLU of Southern California’, who is also part of the LAUSD Arts Advisory Council. “And that’s not what we’re seeing.”

Widespread calls to action

On March 25, various unions and former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, who authored Proposition 28, wrote a letter to state officials — Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas — demanding the state hold districts accountable for their spending.

“Prop 28 is the largest investment in arts and music in U.S. history and establishes California as a national leader. But only if it’s properly implemented,” the letter reads.

“If school districts are allowed to violate the law without consequence and substitute the new funds for something they were already spending money on, their actions will make a mockery of voters’ clear wishes.”

The letter — supported by SEIU 99 President Max Arias, Oakland Education Association President Ismael Armendariz, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz, California Federation of Teachers President Jeff Freitas, Teamsters Local 572 Secretary-Treasurer Lourdes M. Garcia, California Teachers Association President David Goldberg — also urged the state officials to direct schools to submit, within a 30-day window, proof that they have not supplanted money and a list of teachers employed during both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.

“Instead of hiring about 15,000 additional teachers and aides, the funds would instead be used to pay for existing programs,” the letter reads. “This means millions of children will miss out on the arts education voters promised them.”

In a statement to EdSource, LAUSD said it remains committed to arts education. This year, the district budgeted $129.5 million toward the arts, on top of $76.7 million from Proposition 28, for a total of more than $206 million. That is almost three times the $74.4 million that a district spokesperson said LAUSD spent on arts education in the 2022-23 academic year.

“We couldn’t agree more in how formative and critical the arts are for personal development, social emotional regulation, educational attunement, and an overall appreciation for diversity, cultures, and experiences,” according to the statement. “That is why the arts are so central to the instruction and pedagogy of Los Angeles Unified.”

The district also claimed its current investments in the arts “meet and exceed requirements specific to Prop 28, and that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho is coordinating “a comprehensive multilayered scan” of the district’s investments and expenses.

While applauding efforts at various districts throughout the state — and especially in Bakersfield and Santa Monica — for their implementation of Proposition 28, Beutner said LAUSD’s statewide leadership in arts education has waned over the past decade, referring to it as “the poster child for how to violate law.”

“Maybe the time in which (various districts) responded was similar, but one read the law and chose to do what the law says and do the right thing for kids in their schools,” Beutner said. “One read the law and said, ‘OK, we’re going to ignore that, and we’re going to do something different, and we’re going to cut funding for the arts and hope nobody finds out.’

“Two different approaches. Same law.”

Proposition 28 spending at the district level

Beutner said that before Proposition 28’s passage, only about 20% of California’s public schools had a full-time arts or music teacher. Advocates for the measure faced no opposition, and support was widespread — and garnered about 65% of the vote, he added.

Proposition 28 was also designed to prioritize hiring new arts teachers — and schools are required under the measure to use at least 80% of funds to hire staff. The funds are supposed to add to the existing money — not replace it, which Whitaker and several teachers told EdSource that LAUSD is doing. They also said they’ve heard accounts of the district firing arts teachers only to rehire them with Proposition 28 funds. They fear that this practice will deplete the funds without making any improvement in arts ed.

“For the 2023-2024 school year, the LAUSD’s General Fund is not being utilized for either of the above purposes,” an instructor claimed in an email to the California Department of Education.

“Instead, LAUSD has replaced the General Fund’s allocations for itinerant arts positions (approximately 250 FTE funded in the 2022-2023 school year) and the allocations for arts materials/supplies for every elementary and secondary school with the funds from Proposition 28.”

Teachers have suggested the trend will continue in the upcoming year, pointing to this year’s purchase forms for itinerant arts services issued for the 2024-25 academic year, which identify Proposition 28 as the funding source for elementary school principals.

At school, closer to home

Ginger Rose Fox, an elementary school dance teacher who serves as the United Teachers Los Angeles Arts Education committee chair, said she is concerned that LAUSD’s implementation is costing schools their autonomy in choosing how to spend their Proposition 28 money.

Beutner added that giving schools autonomy is also the law.

“Not top down ‘what does the district want done?’ … This was written to give agency to school communities, and it saddens me greatly to see L.A. Unified ignoring what was written in the law, the will of the voters to do something, just because they want to do it their way.”

Ensuring schools can make their own decisions directly affects students’ ability to access certain arts disciplines and have continued access throughout their K-12 education, Fox said.

“Can this kid who was excelling in dance in elementary school be able to have dance in middle school?” Fox said.

Fox and other educators have emphasized that giving individual schools autonomy on how to allocate resources is critical to that process.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring families into school to engage alongside teachers and school leaders and say, ‘What do we want to do?’” Beutner said.

In November, Fox wrote a letter to Thurmond and California Department of Education.

In addition to concerns about allegedly supplanted money, Fox claimed that the district’s use of Proposition 28 funds has also depleted the stock for critical arts supplies.

Arts educators and advocates stressed that some teachers are now struggling to purchase basic materials that are critical to their discipline — ranging from musical instruments to clay and visual arts supplies.

Many of them are still calling for accountability and hoping that the funds will eventually come to support students.

Beutner said he had hoped that after the documentary film “The Last Repair Shop” won an Oscar recently, the district would make a greater commitment to arts education. Unfortunately, he said, that did not happen.

“The repair shop has been wonderful. It’s been long standing, and the people that work there are my heroes,” Beutner said. “How, at the same time, could you be and have been, for more than a year now, cutting funding for the arts?”

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04/06/2025
LAUSD union members rally, demand an end to alleged ‘Carvalho cuts’
Members of UTLA and SEIU Local 99 rally outside of Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters on May 7, 2024.

Credit: Delilah Brumer / EdSource

Thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers and employees took to the street outside the district headquarters on Tuesday to demand an end to what they describe as the “Carvalho cuts,” referring to the superintendent.

Members of both United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and SEIU Local 99, which represents roughly 30,000 workers in LAUSD, anticipate staffing and program cuts in the upcoming academic year, despite Los Angeles Unified having roughly $6.3 billion in its reserves.

“We’re out here making sure the district hears us and funds our positions properly,” said Conrado Guerrero, the SEIU Local 99 president, who has served as a building engineer in LAUSD for 27 years.

“We’re so understaffed,” he said outside a district board meeting on Tuesday. “We’re being overworked, and they’re underpaying us. After a while, you just become a robot from working and don’t have time to be with your family.”

UTLA also claims in a news release that the district has failed to set aside enough money to keep its current staffing and services and is instead planning to “reclaim an unprecedented portion of ‘carryover funds’ that schools rely on to address budget shortfalls.”

Amid declining enrollment, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told The 74 in an interview in December that LAUSD was implementing a targeted hiring freeze and may have to consider consolidating or closing some of its schools as pandemic aid funds run dry.

“Los Angeles Unified is committed to prioritizing investments that directly impact student learning and achievement,” an LAUSD spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource on Tuesday. “We are exploring a multi-faceted approach that combines fiscal responsibility with strategic resource allocation.

“We will protect our workforce and the historic compensation increases that were negotiated, and we will protect programs for our students.”

If the cuts take place, union members fear these positions, among others, could be at risk:
- special education assistants
- campus aides
- school supervision aides
- pupil services
- attendance counselors
- psychiatric social workers
- school psychologists
- library aides
- IT and tech support staff
- Art and music teachers
The unions have stated that on top of reducing students’ access to services such as mental health and special needs support, the cuts will also lead to messy or dirty classrooms and larger class sizes.

Support for programs like the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan, community schools and English language learner programs could also take a hit, they say.

Cheryl Zarate, an eighth grade teacher at Thomas Starr King Middle School, said she found out about the cuts from her school principal and immediately felt “devastated.”

Thomas Starr King Middle School alone could lose as many as six campus aides, two counselors, school climate advocates, custodians and an assistant principal, Zarate said. School psychologists, she added, will no longer be available every day — and will only be on campus twice a week.

These cuts, Zarate said, would have a particularly negative effect on students with disabilities and those who are struggling with mental health challenges.

“It scares me and the other educators to know that we have middle school students who go through mental fatigue and anxiety and, God forbid, have suicidal ideations,” Zarate said.

“Are we supposed to schedule out when a student is going to have a mental breakdown?”

Zarate added that LAUSD should be focused on keeping and supporting the staff, not prioritizing other initiatives such as the diagnostic assessment tool called iReady and its newly launched AI tool, Ed.

“All these projects … are not relevant to what we asked and fought for, which is a full-time staff … mental health, safety, a greener campus for our students,” Zarate said.

“That’s what we deserve. That’s what the students deserve.”

Amid a sea of UTLA red and SEIU purple, the rally’s participants shook tambourines, waved pompoms and chanted “stop the cuts.”

Among them was William Chavez, a social science teacher at Wilson High School, who has worked in LAUSD for a decade.

“We’re sending a clear, unified message to the superintendent and the school board that these deep cuts are unfair and unjust,” Chavez said. “We’ll all have to wear more hats. We’ll have to do even more work, and something’s got to give, and that really hurts the students.”

Delilah Brumer is a sophomore at Los Angeles Pierce College majoring in journalism and political science and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
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30/05/2025
Safety concerns on the rise in LAUSD; Carvalho looks to police

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uneven access to community-based safety

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

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

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

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

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

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

LAUSD’s current law enforcement landscape

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘A visceral response’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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26/05/2025