The Los Angeles Unified School District unanimously voted to curb classroom screen time, directing staff to develop a policy by June ahead of the upcoming school year.

aims to set clear limits on how screens are used in classrooms across grade levels. It was championed by Schools Beyond Screens, a group of parents that has spent months pressuring the district to is impacting student learning, especially in the earlier grades.

The move signals a shift in how the nation’s second-largest school district approaches classroom technology, as officials respond to concerns about excessive use.

“What we don’t have is equity of resource to protect students from the harms of excessive or passive screen time. Today’s screens can be a barrier to instruction,” said a parent at the board meeting immediately before the board’s vote. The proposal coming to the board for approval in June is expected to include:

• Daily and weekly screen time limits by grade level — the example provided in the proposed resolution was no more than one hour per day or five hours per week for third through fifth graders, though no specifics have been provided on actual time limits
• Elimination of student digital device use in early education through first grade, with exceptions made for students enrolled in the district’s virtual learning program and for certain district-mandated assessments
• Prohibition of student access to YouTube
• Considerations to block video games that are not instructional in nature, such as Roblox and Fortnite
• Promoting the use of computer labs and reducing use of individual devices for students in second through fifth grade, while still allowing families to opt in to using district-issued devices at home as a way of ensuring equitable digital access

With the exception of board President Scott Schmerelson, who recused himself, every board member commented on the resolution before listening to public comments and voted in support of the resolution.

“We know that tech is not going away and can be a powerful tool in the classroom. This is not about going backwards. This is about rethinking school time and screen time in schools to ensure we are doing what actually helps students learn best,” said board member Nick Melvoin while discussing the resolution, which he co-authored.

Board member Kelly Gonez amended the resolution to include an assessment of the use of i-Ready, a district-mandated assessment implemented in 2023. This amendment appeared to be popular among some of those in the audience, who could be heard clapping and cheering on two separate occasions when board members mentioned reviewing i-Ready.

“I know our families and educators are actively trying to navigate that balance between technology as a learning tool while avoiding excessive, poorly structured screen time that has real consequences for our children,” said Gonez during the board meeting.

“I hope that with this new policy, we’re able to prioritize the uses of technology that have actual, real educational value, like coding, robotics, video production, editing and intervention for targeted students, while de-emphasizing rote tasks like reading text on screens, unlimited video streaming and other passive activities.”

Board member Sherlett Hendy Newbill supported the resolution but questioned whether the timeline was feasible. “I don’t want us to rush this because this means coming back in June. It’s a couple of weeks to be able to do this,” she said, though the board ultimately decided to maintain the June deadline.

While parents and public speakers were largely supportive, some thought the resolution could have gone even further by limiting screen use.

After thanking the board for introducing the resolution, one parent described it as a “baby-step resolution.” The parent continued, stating: “It’s better than nothing, but it has no teeth.”

Among the items this parent was pushing for was the prohibition of screen time through second grade and eliminating requirements for one-to-one device use.

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He co-sponsored this year that would give parents an ed-tech “right of refusal.” A former English teacher, he was never a fan of the shift toward every student having their own laptop. Technology, he said, isn’t making students any smarter.

“In fact, we know it’s making them dumber,” he said, expressing a view shared by parents across the country, especially those with students in the elementary grades. 

When his fellow lawmaker Rep. Leanne Harple read the bill, she imagined how tough it might be for teachers to accommodate such requests. An English teacher herself, she also speaks from experience. Her students do research online, where the information is more up to date than in books and academic journals. A 2024 American Federation of Teachers showed 83% of teachers use technology in the classroom daily.

The bill “would create, in some cases, a lot more work,” she said. For every assignment, teachers would “have to create an alternative that’s completely analog.”

Their opposing views on the topic reflect a growing national debate. Parents who advocated for bell-to-bell cellphone bans are now targeting Chromebooks and other ed tech. Influenced by researchers like Jonathan Haidt and Jared Cooney Horvath, who argue that cellphones and classroom technology have harmed students’ development, they’ve mobilized in Facebook groups. They’re demanding pencil-and-paper assignments and asking teachers to excuse their kids from computer-based math and reading apps. Their pleas have sparked pushback from districts that for years have relied on technology for everything from curriculum to testing.

“In August, almost no one was talking about this, and now I’m having no other conversations,” said Kelly Clancy, a mom of three in South Brooklyn, New York, who also serves on her local community education council. “There’s a sea change in parents realizing that they don’t want their kids in front of screens.”

She’s among those challenging the New York City schools’ use of digital programs. She refused to let teachers enter her kids’ work into , an AI tool from the curriculum company HMH that generates feedback on student writing. But when she tried to opt her children out of i-Ready, a widely used testing program from the company Curriculum Associates, she met resistance. The tests are a “baseline component” of the district’s assessment system, David Pretto, superintendent of District 20, wrote in an email. Her school’s principal, he said, “is not in the position to exclude your child from universal screening.”

Clancy didn’t take no for an answer. 

“We will get legal advice if necessary, but my children will not complete these,” she wrote back.

In a statement, the district said any tool using student data “must undergo a rigorous … review process to meet strict privacy, security and compliance standards before it is approved for use.” Officials urged parents to contact local schools with their concerns.

Across the country, the Seattle Public Schools has advised staff that “families may not opt out of district-adopted digital curriculum,” but a spokesperson for the district told The 74 that “this is an evolving landscape,” and “we will continue to review and update the guidance as needed.”

Parents in Pennsylvania’s Lower Merion School District are also determined to keep their students off Chromebooks at school. 

“They’re saying we can’t, but we’ll find a way,” Yair Lev, a parent of two, said after a last month in which Superintendent Frank Ranelli said opting out wasn’t possible because the curriculum is computer-based.

Teachers, Lev said, are caught in the middle. He collected from five teachers, who said students often access gaming sites and YouTube during class, and even make video calls to students in other classrooms.

“There should be clear districtwide policies and parameters for when laptops should and should not be used, rather than leaving major decisions to classroom-by-classroom discretion,” one wrote.

Not ‘our best moment’

Lev, a cardiologist and professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, said he’s not opposed to technology. He consults for cardiology startups using AI and has taken the lead on AI use in his division at the hospital. But he and his wife realized that “kids are being exposed to a lot of screens, and we decided to try to reduce it at home.”

In some ways, he represents many of the parents pushing for tech opt outs. His children are young, and they’re starting school at a time when Haidt, a social psychologist, that cellphones and social media have harmed children’s mental health. Lev’s kids are also beginning their education after the pandemic, when parents are demanding more say over what’s taking place in the classroom and data breaches have compromised student privacy.

“The image of technology in schools that’s seared into every parent’s mind is the lockdown version of technology. It wasn’t our best moment,” said Joseph South, chief innovation officer at the International Society for Technology in Education, which merged in 2023 with ASCD, a major curriculum organization. 

Until the pandemic, Elyssa East, a New York City mom, was raising her son screen-free. That became impossible during school closures. Around the same time, she learned that he had some learning difficulties and would “really fall apart when it came to any instruction on the screen.”

Online math programs like Zearn and IXL made him feel “defeated,” she said, because they were assigned for remediation. 

“Here is this technology that’s supposed to help him, but it makes him feel even worse than a human teacher would,” East said. 

She eventually switched him to a private school. She has opted him out of math apps and he writes on an old electric typewriter.

​​”He likes that a lot,” she said. Compared to a laptop, “it’s a totally different experience.”

‘Caught in the crossfire’

Some teachers have no problem with .

Dylan Kane, a seventh grade math teacher in Lake County, Colorado, near Aspen, went . Students, he wrote, are more focused, are completing more work and spend less time “fussing with logistics,” like connecting to the internet or forgetting their Chromebook at home.

Like many parents, he was influenced by Horvath’s . In his 2025 book, the cognitive neuroscientist argues that the widespread use of classroom technology has left students distracted and unable to retain information.  

But prior to January, Kane never had a parent request to opt their child out of using computers or specific software. Even during parent-teacher conferences this spring, his decision to ditch Chromebooks in class never came up.

“I work in a small, rural town that’s relatively low-income, not a lot of college-educated parents. I think much of the tech backlash from parents is coming from the more-online, higher-educated folks,” he said. He thinks trying to accommodate individual parents’ objections would be tricky. “Teachers could be caught in the crossfire because they have to deal with district-mandated online programs and then potentially parent opt-outs.”&�Բ�����;

South at ISTE+ASCD said he’s heard plenty of “horror stories” about technology, like apps dominated by advertising and students spending class time “shooting aliens” on the screen. But those examples are often due to teachers using a program that was never vetted by their district or “some random kid who found a workaround,” he said.

He and Richard Culatta, the organization’s CEO, added that moving through state legislatures that limit screen time don’t necessarily address parents’ other concerns like cyberbullying, protecting student data or improving the overall quality of instruction. 

Many of the bills require paper worksheets to be used instead of technology, said Culatta, who quipped that he often feels like he’s in a “time warp.”&�Բ�����;

“There’s no quality indicator,” he said. “You could literally take any garbage worksheet and it would be fine.”

‘Rapid innovation’

Opt-out requests have forced districts to be more thoughtful about how they use technology. 

The Worcester Public Schools in central Massachusetts is like a lot of districts. It went through “a period of rapid innovation and tech acquisition” prior to the pandemic to make sure “teachers and students had the tools needed to be future-ready,” said Sarah Kyriazis, director of the district’s Office of Innovation. 

Schools added even more ed tech tools during COVID lockdowns for remote and hybrid learning. Now some parents are questioning those decisions at a time of “national concern about data, privacy, security and screen time,” she said. 

The district’s school committee has so far to allow parents to opt out of ed tech programs. But Kyriazis is collecting feedback from teachers on the apps they feel are most important for instruction. The goal, she said, is to whittle down the amount of data sent through online platforms to third-party vendors. Principals and teachers, she said, should be able to “speak with parents about each app and its purpose in the classroom.”&�Բ�����;

Further west, the Northampton, Massachusetts, district is accommodating opt-out requests from about 12 parents. To do so, teachers must come up with activities that allow students to learn from the same curriculum as their peers “without using the disputed programs,” said Superintendent Portia Bonner. 

Laura Carney Erny, who has a second grader in the district, hasn’t tried to opt her son out of tech yet, but she’s thinking about it for third grade. Even learning which programs the school used took “months of back-and-forth emails” with teachers and administrators, she said.

Parents say they don’t want to further complicate the lives of teachers, especially those who lack classroom aides. Northampton lost in 2024 who were paid with temporary COVID relief funds. 

“I don’t blame teachers for relying on tech because it’s an easy thing to do,” she said. “Some of these programs help keep the kids in their seats.”

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, former teacher Kate Brody is among those who have opted their children out of practice sessions on i-Ready, now the subject of a over student privacy. She decided the program was a problem when her first grader couldn’t tear himself away from the screen to use the bathroom and started having accidents. 

“I used to teach full time,” she said. “I definitely don’t want to create a world where we’re asking teachers to do multiple lesson plans and monitor half the class on the computer and do analog lessons for the other half.”&�Բ�����;

It’s unfair to teachers to field opt-out requests every year, she said. That’s why, as a board member for Schools Beyond Screens, an advocacy group of parents and educators, she backs a that calls for limits on the use of technology for all students, especially in the early grades. The board will vote on the plan April 21.

“Right now,” she said, “it’s the Wild West.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District and Service Employees International Union Local 99 reached a tentative agreement around 2 a.m. Tuesday Pacific Time. 

United Teachers Los Angeles and Associated Administrators of Los Angeles agreed to tentative contracts Sunday night. If SEIU had not reached an agreement, all three unions would have for the first time in the nation’s second-largest district.

“We are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement in principle with SEIU Local 99 that will allow schools to be open,” the district said in a . “Los Angeles Unified and SEIU Local 99 teams will continue to work together to finalize the details of a tentative agreement.”

The union, which represents more than 30,000 bus drivers, teachers’ assistants, custodians and cafeteria workers, had of bad-faith bargaining and retaliation. The teachers union and its 37,000 members had planned to walk out with the SEIU local in solidarity, as it did when the union an unfair labor charge strike in 2023. This time, the administrators union, which represents more than 3,000 principals and assistant principals, had planned to strike in support as well.

“Because of our members’ unity and readiness to take action, we secured major wins — including significant improvements to wages and hours; stronger protections against subcontracting; increased staffing; and we successfully stopped layoffs for (information technology) workers,” Local 99 said in a Tuesday . “This is what collective power looks like.”

The union and the district have been bargaining for two years, said Blanca Gallegos, the union’s communications director.

“Currently, the average wage in (our union) is about $35,000, which is below poverty for a family of four,” she said before the agreement was reached. “We’re also looking to increase hours — because the district relies on a lot of part-time work — so about 80% of Local 99 members are working less than eight hours a day.”

The district previously a 13% raise, but the union it wasn’t enough to provide a livable salary for its members. The union also wanted staff to be able to work more hours. Gallegos said many employees were restricted to a number of hours that’s just under the threshold needed to qualify for health benefits — a reason why picketing would have been classified as an . The district didn’t respond to a request for comment about the unfair labor charge.

“During these two years of negotiations, the district has taken a lot of actions that are retaliatory. One of them is they reduce the hours of thousands of members so that they’re not eligible for health care benefits — I mean, like 15 minutes short of being eligible,” Gallegos said. “We see that as undermining the contract.”

�ճܱ���岹��’s includes a 24% pay increase over three years and minimum work hour schedules for specific positions. 

The district had told all three unions it can’t afford huge raises, but bargaining leaders pointed to a $5 billion reserve fund. Los Angeles Unified has the account is dwindling amid a projected . 

United Teachers Los Angeles Sunday that it agreed to a tentative two-year contract that increases the average salary by 13.86%, with a minimum raise of 8%. The union had rejected an April 1 that included a 10% raise over three years with a one-time 3% bonus for this school year.

The new contract, which will expire in 2027, also includes four weeks of paid parental leave; more psychologists, psychiatric social workers and counselors; lower class sizes; and stipends for teachers if class sizes exceed the limit.

“The flexing of our collective power forced LAUSD to direct significant funding into critical priorities identified by UTLA members in the Win Our Future contract demands,” the union said in a .

United Teachers Los Angeles has been a key player in a statewide effort to improve pay and working conditions during contract negotiations this year. The , coordinated by the California Teachers Association, asked union locals in 32 districts to focus demands around wages, staffing, fewer layoffs and school closures. It also aims to pressure the state to increase school funding.

Associated Administrators of Los Angeles was 12% raises over two years, with a chance to renegotiate in the third year of its next contract. The district to an 11.65% salary increase. Union members stipends if they work in a high-needs school or are a school’s single administrator, and 40 hours a year of professional training.

“This moment did not happen by accident. It happened because 90% of you voted yes to authorize a strike,” union President Maria Nichols said to her members in a . “It happened because you trusted our union. It happened because you stood firm, you stood together and you refused to be overlooked. Your courage at that vote changed the tone at the bargaining table. Your unity shifted the balance of power. Your perseverance made this moment possible.”

The unions haven’t announced a timetable for ratifying the contracts. 

In case of a strike, the district had planned to at community food sites and offer classroom lesson packets. But some parents said loss of learning and other resources would have lasting negative impacts on their children.

Maria Palma, founder of the parent advocacy group , said the pandemic combined with other local school interruptions, such as immigration enforcement raids, have caused students to miss multiple days of school.

“Many parents are very concerned about the learning loss that has happened,” she said. “Most recently, we had a protest where teachers were telling students that they should walk out of schools and protest against ICE. The loss of so many school days for some kids that are now, for example, in high school, over all these years, has been considerable.”

A strike would have been especially devastating for Indigenous and immigrant families, said Evelyn Aleman, founder of , a local parent advocacy nonprofit. The district serves roughly 30,000 immigrant students, and 25% of them are undocumented, according to the .

Aleman said language barriers had made it difficult for immigrant parents to keep up with district updates about the strike. 

Undocumented parents don’t feel safe enough to pick up materials or food distributed by the district because of fears of deportation, she said. Many parents involved with Our Voice also work as street vendors and are the single guardians of multiple children, making it impossible to find child care.

“When LAUSD says there’s going to be food centers, some parents don’t have vehicles. It’s very frustrating,” Aleman said. “Some children will remain unwatched, because some of the parents will leave the children in the home and sometimes leave cameras. That’s how they monitor the children — that’s what is happening when these situations arise.”

Sergio Garcia is quick to the scene. He puts on a scuffed firefighter jacket, grabs an oxygen mask and crouches down on hot concrete to start chest compressions on a dummy body. 

At the Los Angeles Unified School District’s career technical education showcase, under an outdoor canopy in blistering Southern California heat, the fire academy student demonstrates CPR to other students who might also be interested in joining. 

Sergio represents one of 23 high schools and six middle schools that showcased a range of career technical education at L.A. Unified, including 15 comprehensive three- or four-year programs that prepare students for industries through real-world experience. The showcase, held last month at the , a private health equity foundation, featured student projects, live demonstrations and skill-based challenges, is part of the district’s “Dream It, Achieve It!” initiative that pairs students with local industry leaders.

“With my degree, I’d rather know I’m going to help people,” said Sergio, a senior and fourth-year deputy chief at the fire academy at Banning High School who is on track to earn a fire science degree at a technical college. “Although it is very physically demanding, the fact that you’re doing good in this world is a bigger gift than anyone could ever ask for.”

Building technical and team-building skills 

At another canopy at the showcase, students cheered a remote-controlled battle of two robots, vying for the prize of a 3D-printed bot, while Madelynne Arevalo helped set up a mini flight simulator. Madelynne, a senior at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, is in the robotics program and is designing a rocket launch for her aerospace engineering project.

“We also compete with other high schools, and the competitions are really fun,” Madelynne said. “I’m really proud of all the models (we made), even if they’re not the final ones we end up using.”

Madelynne remembers designing an elevator system in a robot she worked on for a competition. Although she and her team chose a more time-efficient robot for the event, she said she learned how to develop new technical and team-building skills in a high-stakes environment. 

“It was a lot of our own ideas and a lot of collaboration,” Madelynne said, “and I thought that even if it doesn’t work, at least the process was nice.”

In recent years, L.A. Unified has significantly expanded career technical education to about 435 pathways, from engineering and technology to business and construction, serving nearly 40,000 students. About 1,000 students completed internships in the 2024-2025 school year, and CTE programs have about a 97% graduation rate. 

“CTE careers are the fastest growing careers in the United States, more than students going to a four-year university,” said Jaime Medina, a firefighter and teacher in L.A. Unified’s firefighting program. 

Israel Urbina, a junior at Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles, is a third-year student in the photojournalism program. At the showcase, he displayed a photo in which he manipulated light to create different designs, objects and shapes, including one that spelled out his name. 

“Right now, my thing in photography is light painting,” Israel said. “I did a video about it in my photography class, and it’s about all my light paintings and the different ones I’ve done and the different people I’ve done it with.”

Ken Kerbs, a photojournalism teacher at the school, described Israel as nearly an “expert” on light painting. Through years of honing techniques related to perspective, reflections, texture, light and shadow, Kerbs said most of his students leave the program with greater curiosity about the world and a sharper eye for detail. 

“What that says to me is that teaching them the basics is to be sensitive and have a different sensibility about their environment,” Kerbs said. “That’s what makes me come to school in the morning.”

Blessed Thomas-Hill, a senior at Washington Prep, worked with Israel on a film about light painting and wrote poetry for the film’s narrative. She said she chose the photojournalism program because of Kerbs, who helped teach her to be more comfortable expressing herself.  

“I’m an introvert, and talking with people, I really struggle with that a lot,” Blessed said. “I got to know a lot of great friends this year. I’ve got to get closer to more people. It’s made me more sociable.”&�Բ�����;

Students ‘rise to the occasion’ 

Blessed said she wants to be an artist and plans to incorporate photography in her personal art. She remembers a field trip to Cal State Northridge, where she learned about a photographer’s protest of immigration raids through his photos of L.A. communities, which inspired her to commit to art. 

“It’s really inspiring in a way because it shows that you’re not just alone in your community,” Blessed said. 

Madelynne said she plans to continue studying robotics and will pursue a college degree in biomedical engineering. Because she had not committed to robotics until her senior year, she felt she was behind many students who had started coding in middle school. 

“At first, I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t think I was smart enough to do something as complicated as engineering,” Madelynne said, adding that the robotics program led her to Girls Build, a club where girls learn to code and build machines together. 

“Spreading the positivity around has helped me believe more in myself,” she said. 

Sergio, the Banning High fire academy student, said he initially struggled with how physically demanding his training was, but that he learned to build speed and strength with each simulated fire alarm drill. 

“I’ve also learned that when it comes to rising to an occasion, I rise to that occasion. Whether it be someone’s in trouble, I help protect people,”&�Բ�����; he said. “This academy has brought out leadership in me, the discipline, the social skills that I wouldn’t have learned any other way.”&�Բ�����;

Sergio said he also plans to become certified as a diesel mechanic, because the firefighting program has allowed him to combine two of his interests.  

“I love the whole firefighting part, but I’ve also always loved working on cars. I figured if I’m going to be a mechanic, I might as well do it for a better cause,” Sergio said. “Working on fire engines, so when those firefighters go out and save those lives, I can say I helped with that.”

This story was originally published on EdSource.

In February, the telehealth company , including clinicians who worked directly with students and families, leaving about 500 employees. 

The company lost one of its biggest customers, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, last year. It shortened its contract with the Chicago Public Schools because of “challenges securing funding,” a spokeswoman said. And several districts across the country have also either ended their business with Hazel or have contracts that expire later this year. 

they are “restructuring” the company to put it in a better position as it pursues more stable sources of funding, like billing Medicaid and private insurance, now that the federal relief funds some districts used have expired. Company spokeswoman Emilie Fetterley said no additional layoffs are expected “at this time” and that many states and districts plan to renew their contracts. 

But according to internal memos, by a news outlet covering mental health, CEO Iyah Romm said the company was losing “too much money” to meet its goals. Since the expiration of the Los Angeles contract, the company has even, at times, absorbed the cost of services, Fetterley said. 

Some say the company faces a difficult road ahead.

There is a “massive need” to address student mental health and behavior issues, said Adam Newman, co-founder of Tyton Partners, a consulting firm focused on the education sector. Until the relief funds ran out, “there were enough dollars in the system for schools and districts to find ways to underwrite these types of programs. But the risk has always been: What’s the durable funding model?”

In Missouri, the Ferguson-Florissant district, outside St. Louis, ended its business with Hazel last year.

“They were great to work with,” said spokeswoman Onye Hollomon. Hazel served about 2,000 students in the district, which used COVID relief funds to pay for the program. “Once that phased out, we had to make that cut.”

Los Angeles spent more than $28 million in one year to make Hazel available to the county’s 80 districts, according to GovSpend, a data company tracking payments to government agencies. It funded its deal with the company by tapping a $389 million . Between March 2022 and May 2024, 804 schools in the county referred 9,337 students for services, according to data Hazel provided to the county. Of those, 4,162 students received at least one visit, with students participating in an average of six visits. Fetterley said once a student is referred to Hazel, parents don’t always follow through with a visit or may seek help elsewhere.

In addition to taking a loss on services for some students since last year, Hazel has relied on billing insurance, including Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, and contracts with individual districts. Leaders are currently negotiating contracts with districts for next school year. 

Hazel is also one of eight providers approved for a new program that allows 700 districts throughout California to be reimbursed for services by Medi-Cal or private insurers. It participates in a similar in Iowa, and in Nevada, the Clark County School District uses Medicaid funds to pay for Hazel services, but that ends in June. A spokesperson said the board has not yet decided whether to renew it.

‘Made their mark’

Telehealth programs, delivered through schools, were expanding long before the pandemic. They offer families convenient access to a remote doctor or therapist while preventing students from missing school for appointments that often turn into full-day absences. Hazel Health, founded in 2015 by health care executive Josh Golomb, was part of that growth. 

“Telehealth providers have made their mark in school-based health care,” said Nirmita Panchal, a senior policy manager at KFF, a nonprofit focusing on health policy. “They eliminate transportation barriers, where students may not be able to physically get to a provider.”

During the pandemic, when learning and work suddenly went virtual, telehealth programs for schools . of school-based health centers showed that during the 2020-21 school year, more than 80% of respondents offered telehealth services, up from 19% in 2016-17. 

The financial landscape has since changed. A lot of districts are now cutting budgets to close deficits. GovSpend, which doesn’t capture all district spending, shows a decline in payments to , a similar company, since 2023, while , another virtual mental health provider, saw a more stable influx of funds from 2024 to 2025. 

Among providers, however, Hazel Health stands out. The company, which serves 6,000 schools in 21 states, initially focused on primary health care, with physicians prescribing over-the-counter medications for routine symptoms like stomach pain or headaches. In 2021, the company broadened its model to provide mental health services and respond to “rising unmet student needs and limited access to care,” Fetterley said. 

In Florida’s Duval County schools, Brittany Beimourtusting reached out to Hazel last school year when she was going through a divorce. Her middle child, she said, was having trouble adjusting.

“It was a single-parent household all of a sudden, and I thought, ‘How am I supposed to get him to get help because I think he could use therapy,’ ” she said. The provider, she said, met with him about five times and helped him open up about what he was feeling. “It was definitely worth it.”

But when Superintendent Christopher Bernier looked for ways to save the district some money last year, a $1.4 million payment to Hazel was on the list.

‘A connected system’ 

Four years ago, the startup’s future looked bright.

It attracted over $50 million from investors, including Fiore Ventures, founded by Walton family heiress Carrie Walton Penner. As recently as last year, Hazel was still eyeing growth. It made two acquisitions, including , which offers family therapy, to further expand mental health services. 

“Together, we are building a connected system that supports children from their classrooms to their kitchen tables,” wrote Andrew Post, then �Ჹ�����’s president, in October. But he has since resigned, writing this month that it was time to turn to the “next chapter” in his career.

�Ჹ�����’s was supposed to run through the end of 2027. Now it will end on June 30. Still, district officials said the layoffs have had no impact on the services students receive. In a pilot program that began in March 2025, the district made mental health services available to 84 high schools. As of January, 420 students had taken advantage of the program, the district said.

In December, Destiny Singleton, the honorary student member of the Chicago Board of Education, told members that students don’t always feel comfortable talking to school counselors about personal issues because those staff members are often focused on academic performance and preparing for college. That’s why talking to an outsider can be helpful. But she added that students at the district’s larger high schools are often unaware that Hazel is even an option.

Some Chicago parents, however, are wary of Hazel and say families don’t always know what they’ve agreed to when they consent to allowing their child to meet with a Hazel provider. In to Chicago district leaders last year, student privacy advocates said they were concerned about whether Hazel properly secures students’ private information. 

The company’s acquisition of Little Otter, , raises red flags because Rebecca Egger, its CEO, formerly worked for Palantir, a federal contractor known for using AI to assist the Department of Homeland Security in its . 

In a response to Chicago officials, Romm, the CEO, wrote that Hazel does not “sell, share, or use student data for any commercial purpose,” and that it “does not have any relationship with Palantir, commercial or strategic.”

Fetterley, the company spokeswoman, also said Hazel is in the early stages of rolling out chatbots to “simplify administrative tasks like scheduling for parents and clinicians,” but that AI will never be a “substitute for our human providers.”

Even so, some districts see a much higher demand for in-person rather than virtual clinicians. In Broward County, Florida, where Hazel provides medical services, but not mental health support, 179 students completed a telehealth visit between August and December last year, according to district data. Over that same time period, more than 134,000 students visited a school clinic.

“Parents want nurses,” Cynthia Dominique, chair of the District Advisory Council and a parent in the district, told the school board in March. As a nurse practitioner, she questioned how a provider working remotely can diagnose and treat most common symptoms, like congestion or a sore throat.

“I can’t ask the registrar from the front desk, ‘Can you look in the kid’s mouth and tell me what you see?’ ” she told The 74. “They don’t know what they’re looking for.”

For district leaders, however, �Ჹ�����’s ability to keep kids from missing school provided an effective selling point.

During a 2023 meeting, Duval County School Board Member Darryl Willie said the program had saved the district 4,000 “classroom hours” during the 2021-22 school year.

“We’re talking about making sure we’re focused on reading, writing and math,” he said. “The only way we can do that is if students are in school, in classrooms, sitting in seats.”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to The 74.

Embarking on a treasure hunt for the art and artifacts held by the Los Angeles Unified School District is no small feat. 

The nation’s second-largest school district is home to 389,000 students and roughly 100,000 pieces of art, including paintings, sculptures, maps and murals.

The art can be found in schools and district buildings across the district’s over 700-square-mile terrain. It is part of its Art & Artifact Collection, which began sometime in the 1850s and morphed into a multi-million-dollar collection today.

Sure, the collection holds school records — classroom materials, photos, yearbooks. But it also has ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets dating back to 2100 BCE. Sculptures of “Don Quixote” by Salvador Dalí from 1979. A 1931 “Bugs Bunny & Friends” by the animator Chuck Jones shows Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and The Road Runner reading a book entitled “History of the 9th St. School.”

The collection predates the official formation of LAUSD in 1961. The city was served by the Los Angeles City School District and the Los Angeles City High School District, which later . Most of LAUSD’s notable pieces are donations from alumni, former administrators and members of the larger Los Angeles community. A 2008 appraisal estimated the value was more than $12 million, according to a 2022 district document obtained by EdSource.

“LAUSD history is Los Angeles history,” said Cintia Romero, the archive and museum’s curator and archivist. “We have all the people here; we have all kinds of buildings; we have all kinds of architecture; we have all kinds of cultures.”&�Բ�����;

It is rare for school districts to hold on to such artifacts, says Brenda Gunn, the president-elect of the Society of American Archivists.

“I don’t think it’s very common at all,” Gunn said. “I think what typically happens is that the school districts don’t really invest in any sort of preservation. It’s not often that a school district has an archivist, and if they do have any preservation efforts, it’s usually by a nonprofessional.”&�Բ�����;

Treasures at school sites 

School officials also collect items unearthed at school sites during renovations — such as old fire alarms — as well as yearbooks and photographs that document LAUSD history. Los Angeles Unified says it maintains “professional standards for archival care and are intended to ensure that important pieces of the district’s history are maintained for future generations.”&�Բ�����;

“School district records are like a continuous public diary of shifts in neighborhoods, how the school district has approached its curriculum, how did it manage desegregation or any big social and cultural events,” Gunn said. She added that some might also be interested in viewing them for something more personal, like understanding family genealogy. 

There’s little the LAUSD archive turns down. The main criteria is whether the art can serve in an educational capacity or as a teaching aide, Romero said. While LAUSD does sometimes loan pieces out to other institutions, it is “not in the business of buying or selling artwork.” And sometimes, she said, selling wouldn’t be in the “spirit of the donors,” some of whom were the original artists. 

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be valuable to be accepted. It can be a teaching aid,” Romero said. “So, everything kind of has value, really. Everything can be somewhere.”

And it is. 

The “X” on LAUSD’s treasure map sits in a warehouse at the school police headquarters in rows of boxes that house a large portion of the collection. That includes the district’s  collection donated by Venice High School’s historic Latin Museum, which operated from 1932 to 1997, and is now defunct.

In a small museum at the LAUSD headquarters on S. ​​Boundary Avenue, there is a display mimicking a late 19th-century classroom. 

In the “classroom” are wooden phonics teaching tools with scrolling letters, antique maps and silver-colored vessels once used during home economics classes. 

The classroom has a list of “Rules for Teachers 1872” that sits on the front desk: bring “a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session,” take “one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they attend church regularly.”&�Բ�����;

Preservation at schools 

But it is among the modern-day classrooms with digital tablets and smart boards where the rest of the treasure lies:

Typically, in most school districts, items just end up sitting idly by for years, succumbing to what archivists call “benign neglect,” Gunn said.   

“There are all kinds of places that this archival material will end up,” Gunn said. “And staff are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to throw this away, but it can’t be in my office, so I’m going to store it somewhere,’ and then it stays there until the next person.”

For Gunn, the hope is that school officials may take the extra step to preserve art, documents and history. Leaving something in a storage closet or in a box and walking away is not enough, she says.

“You’re not hurting anything. You’re certainly not throwing things away, but you’re not helping this; you’re not improving the situation of the records,” Gunn said. “But, what you hope is that someone down the road will see them, open that door and say, ‘Oh, these are valuable. And, if we can’t keep them here, then maybe there is another archive that will take them.’”

In the case of the LAUSD archive, there have been several thefts, including a painting at Dorsey High School. Romero said that while there aren’t many details of the painting, the president of the school’s alumni association has since found it, and traded $25,000 worth of posters and plans to leave it to LAUSD. 

Today, the district maintains that school security procedures, including key access, protect the pieces. 

Ensuring public access

While LAUSD students might enjoy little treasures displayed on their school walls and in hallway display cases, it’s more challenging for members of the public to view items in the collection. 

In the 1980s, a formal inventory of art was curated. And in 2004, the collection was digitized, Romero said.

So, since 2018, Romero and her small staff — made up of a volunteer and a small cohort of interns from Cal State Northridge and LAUSD’s Downtown Business Magnet school — continued to digitize items and add them to a public , which can be viewed for free. 

This process of digitizing the archive is largely made possible by donations and grants, though Romero’s position is funded through LAUSD’s general fund, according to the district. 

But curating the collection isn’t just about LAUSD’s or Los Angeles’s past. It’s also about the future. 

Romero and her team also keep tabs on ongoing renovation projects at school sites that could reveal new additions. 

“We have so many schools, and each school has something,” Romero said. “Every school has some kind of history.”

We’ve worked in education long enough to know that idea is not only wrong, it’s dangerous. And if educators let it guide the future of schooling, we’ll hurt the very children we say we’re trying to serve.

For more than two decades, we have led , an Indigenous, community-based public charter school in Northeast Los Angeles. We started this school because we believe education is not just a service — it’s a sacred responsibility that communities carry together. It is how communities sustain themselves, how culture is carried forward and how children learn to protect the world they will inherit. It was never meant to be a marketplace.

Yet the U.S. educational system increasingly treats it as one.

Schools are pressured to compete for students, buy pre-packaged curricula from multibillion-dollar publishing companies and outsource major decisions to consultants with a focus on standardization. Anyone who has sat through those meetings knows how quickly the conversation shifts from students to numbers. We’ve seen teachers, parents and even children reduced to data points.

These aren’t random shifts. They are all part of a growing push to marketize education.

You can see this trend in national politics as well. Recently, President Trump highlighted a meant to set up trust funds for children to invest in the stock market. It was framed as an investment in their future. But it also sends a message: that children’s opportunities will depend not on the strength of their education or the support of their communities, but on their relationship to speculative financial markets.

At the same time, efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education would place schools even more at the mercy of market forces. Yes, schools need funding. Yes, a functioning economy matters. But if schools teach children that their futures begin and end with the stock market, they are failing them. Their creativity, their relationships, their roots in community and their future—those are the things that actually carry them through life.

We know this because we’ve watched it happen at our school.

For 23 years, Anahuacalmecac has drawn from Indigenous knowledge systems, systems that kept communities alive on this land long before California was called California. Our students learn Nahuatl, English and Spanish. They plant gardens and learn where their water comes from. They study their own histories, including the parts of California’s story that don’t make it into mainstream textbooks. They participate in cultural protocols. They learn that they belong to a community and that their choices matter.

This isn’t nostalgia. It’s preparation for the world they’re inheriting.

In parts of Los Angeles, kids grow up breathing unhealthy air and drinking water that isn’t always safe. Their families struggle with rent. Parks and open land disappear to development. The effects of climate change show up in severe weather and devastating wildfires, in asthma rates and in the daily lives of students. These crises aren’t limited to L.A., or even California. This is the reality for many children across the country — and the globe.

Schools can’t pretend these conditions don’t exist. Our job is not simply to help young people navigate crises; it’s to give them the tools and imagination to change them.

That requires something beyond training students for the workforce. It means teaching resilience, curiosity, cultural memory and responsibility to the places they come from. It means helping them recognize that their value is not determined by an economy, but by their ability to strengthen their communities and repair what has been harmed.

This approach isn’t just Indigenous. Denmark’s education system — a model U.S. policymakers often praise — focuses on creativity, collaboration and student well-being. Danish children aren’t pushed into competition at every turn or told that their future hinges on financial speculation. They are taught to think, to create and to care for the world they live in. The U.S. could learn from that.

At our school, we’ve seen firsthand that when students understand who they are and what they carry from previous generations, they don’t run from hard problems. They move toward them with confidence.

So we have to ask: What if our public education system centered on children’s well-being instead of the demands of the market? What if schools invested as much in belonging and culture as they do in standardized tests and outside consultants? What if they trusted communities — and children — to shape solutions that actually address the problems they face?

The crisis in public education isn’t because families or teachers failed. It’s because its roots in colonial missions to civilize our ancestors, factory models of training wage laborers and Native American boarding schools committed to destroying culture and language still embody the illusion of democracy through government schooling.

Educators can choose to transform this reality.

When we all create schools grounded in dignity, culture, connection and care, we prepare young people not just to face the future but to shape it. And if we want a healthy society — one capable of meeting climate, social and economic challenges — there is no better investment than that.

After a four-hour closed session on Thursday, the Los Angeles Unified School District board recessed without announcing a decision on whether Superintendent Alberto Carvalho may be placed on leave a day after the FBI raided his residence and the district’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters.

The session will continue on Friday at 12:30 p.m.

Carvalho’s employment was the single item addressed during the closed-door special board meeting. Only a few members of the community spoke during public comment, and the room remained largely empty and quiet.

Board members were not available for interviews, and Carvalho wasn’t seen.

“The District continues normal operations across all schools and offices. We are grateful to our dedicated employees, families, and students for their steady focus and commitment to our school communities,” the district board wrote in a  released shortly after Thursday’s closed session ended.

The federal investigation involves financial matters related to Carvalho himself, rather than the district, the Los Angeles Times reported.

If the board decides to place Carvalho on leave, it remains unclear who the board might appoint as interim superintendent.

Several districts have picked associate superintendents to serve as interim after placing their superintendents on leave amid active investigations.

As of 8 p.m. Thursday, Carvalho has not made any public comment. Further information on Wednesday’s raids has not been released.

“We expect LAUSD to provide full transparency and clear communication to educators, school staff, and the public,” United Teachers Los Angeles, the district teachers union, said in a statement to EdSource.

“UTLA educators and our school communities have long raised concerns about LAUSD rapidly increasing spending on education tech and outside contractors, while investment in classrooms and educators has declined.”

A critical time for the district

LAUSD’s leadership shakeup comes at a critical time, as the district navigates budget challenges, potential strikes and the impacts of federal actions.

“We feel that this moment really calls for clear, strong leadership,” said Nicolle Fefferman, a longtime LAUSD educator and cofounder of the Facebook advocacy group Parents Supporting Teachers. “And we want our elected school board members to make certain that that is what they are prioritizing.”

Fall out with AllHere

���Ķ���vlog reports so far have connected Wednesday’s raids with the company AllHere Education, which LAUSD entered into a $6.2 million professional services contract on July 1, 2023. Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where Carvalho previously served as superintendent, had also  with the company in the fall of 2022.

Los Angeles Unified initiated the  of its chatbot Ed, which was developed by AllHere, in March 2024. It was  to serve as a “personal assistant” for students — capable of reminding them about assignments and exams, and informing them about cafeteria menus and bus schedules.

But three months later, the company’s founder and CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin left the company. Most employees were furloughed, and Smith-Griffin was arrested in November 2024 and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

In July 2024, Carvalho announced a  to conduct a review of what went wrong with the rollout. But its progress and outcomes don’t appear to have been publicly disclosed.

The home searched by the FBI in Southwest Ranches, Florida, in Broward County, is reportedly the residence of Debra Kerr, who is listed as an AllHere contractor in records related to the company’s bankruptcy case and who has ties with Carvalho from his time as superintendent in Florida. Her son, Richard Kerr, is a former employee of the now-defunct AI company who told The 74 in 2024 that he pitched LAUSD on AllHere.

Parents Supporting Teachers is calling for the district to place Carvalho on administrative leave.

“It’s always been this lingering worry and this example of a theme of the lack of transparency and accountability that we recognize in the district,” Fefferman said.

A storied past

In January 2025, the same parent group called for Carvalho’s removal following a “chaotic and dangerous scramble for families and staff” in the wake of the Palisades Fire.

Carvalho’s contract was  in October, maintaining a salary of $440,000.

After serving as superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools for 14 years, Carvalho took over as LAUSD’s leader in 2022. His start at the district began as students returned to physical classrooms from virtual learning due to Covid-19. As a result of the pandemic, he has focused on reducing chronic absenteeism and curbing pandemic learning losses.

But despite LAUSD’s  in standardized test scores and efforts to improve student attendance, his time as the district’s leader has been riddled with controversies — from alleged  of arts funding to a  of cyberattacks and data breaches.

More recently, he has also received praise and backlash for  the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And last month, the district was  for allegedly discriminating against white students, which the U.S. Department of Justice recently sought to join.

“It is our hope that the investigation resolves quickly so that the school district can focus on its core mission of educating our children. While we understand the importance of full cooperation with any investigation, we also cannot overlook or undermine the work that Superintendent Carvalho has led to support our students, educators, and the district as a whole,” said Evelyn Aleman, the organizer of the parent group Our Voice/Nuestra Voz.

“Education is the foundation that builds stability and lifts families out of poverty— we must stay focused on that mission and our students’ success.”

The FBI raided the office and home of Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on Wednesday morning, a move that shocked the Los Angeles and state education communities.

U.S. Justice Department officials said judicially approved search warrants were executed at the district headquarters in downtown Los Angeles and Carvalho’s San Pedro residence, according to published reports. A residence in Southwest Ranches, Florida, was also searched.

Federal officials said nothing Wednesday about a possible investigation. Carvalho was the superintendent of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida for 14 years before taking the job in Los Angeles in 2022.

Carvalho has not made any public statements as of 6 p.m. Wednesday.

In a , Los Angeles Unified officials said, “We have been informed of law enforcement activity at Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters and at the home of the Superintendent. The District is cooperating with the investigation and we do not have further information at this time.”

A source familiar with the school district, who spoke to EdSource on the condition of anonymity, said the raids involved a failed artificial intelligence company, AllHere, that the district contracted with for a chatbot called Ed meant to aid students.

 have also reported that the raids and possible investigation centered on the district’s relationship with AllHere.

LAUSD entered into a $6.2 million professional services contract with AllHere to begin on July 1, 2023, for an initial two-year term. The contract had three one-year renewal options, according to district documents. District investigators began a probe a year later after learning the chatbot put students’ personal information at risk, The 74 reported at the time.

The company has also contracted with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, but Carvalho has denied involvement in that contract, the Los Angeles Times reported.

LAUSD began its rollout of Ed, the chatbot, in March 2024, with initial implementation set to begin with  that the district had identified as being its lowest-performing. District board members, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass were in attendance at the inauguration of Ed, along with partners from various universities and businesses.

Three months later, Joanna Smith-Griffin, AllHere’s founder and CEO, left the company, and most employees were furloughed. In Nov. 2024, Smith-Griffin was  in North Carolina and  in New York with securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Her case remains open.

Carvalho was hailed as a rising leader ushering in a new era for Los Angeles Unified when he took over the district. He was reappointed last year and is paid more than $440,000 in salary, with his contract set to expire in 2030.

Carvalho “is the leading urban superintendent in the nation,” Dean Pedro A. Noguera of USC’s Rossier School of Education said on Wednesday. “He is a proven leader. If Carvalho’s career is over, “the timing for the district is terrible” as it goes through layoffs and a fiscal crisis, Noguera said.

Los Angeles Unified and Carvalho have been repeatedly in the crosshairs of the federal administration during Trump’s second term.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently sought to join  filed by the 1776 Project Foundation, which sued the district in January, claiming discrimination against its white students.

 singles out LAUSD’s Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, or other Non-Anglo program, which was established to curtail the effects of school segregation.

“Students attending non-PHBAO schools are denied and directly blocked from these benefits because of the racial composition of their school attendance zone, which detrimentally impacts the quality of the educational experience and directly damages these students,” the lawsuit alleges.

Carvalho has also maintained outspoken support of immigrant students and families, including those who are undocumented. He has  that he migrated from Portugal to the United States as an undocumented teenager. LAUSD passed a resolution in the 2016-17 school year declaring itself a sanctuary district, and the board reaffirmed that status in a resolution passed late 2024.

EdSource reporter Emma Gallegos and data journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed to this report.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is weighing layoffs that could reshape classrooms across the nation’s second-largest school district. 

The district’s board at next week’s meeting is expected to decide whether to cut jobs, as it faces a projected $191 million deficit in the 2027-28 school year if it keeps spending at its current pace. The deficits in LAUSD and other districts are driven largely by the loss of Covid relief funds, declining enrollment and rising costs.

Meanwhile, labor unions throughout the state are pushing many districts for pay raises and other changes, such as increased health care contributions in their next contracts.

“Where you need to cut then is the classroom,” he said. “Because you need fewer classrooms, you need fewer teachers, fewer aides, fewer of folks that are at the sites directly serving kids.”

Los Angeles Unified is not alone among California’s school districts facing financial pressures. The  must close a deficit or face state receivership.  plans to implement job cuts to address its budget shortfall. 

“Large and small districts, urban, suburban and rural alike, are experiencing similar constraints,” reads an open  from superintendents of eight California districts, demanding the state restructure the way it funds schools. “When nearly every school system in California is facing the same challenges, it is clear that the issue is not isolated decision-making, but the sustainability of the funding model itself.”&�Բ�����;

The superintendents who sent the letter, including LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, cited ongoing challenges, such as enrollment declines.

LAUSD’s enrollment declined more than 3% to 389,000, down from roughly 402,500 between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years. That outpaced both the state and country, according to a at January’s Committee of the Whole meeting. 

About 90% of LAUSD’s budget is spent on personnel. Fine said that with so much of the money being spent on staffing, it would be nearly impossible to balance the budget on the remaining funds. 

“Our priority will be to protect students, protect programs, protect schools, and, to the extent possible, protect workforce,” Carvalho said at a Roundtable discussion with reporters in late January. “And within that priority, the protection of workforce begins with school sites. That is the balance that we want to establish, leading to the necessary fiscal solvency that we must continue to observe.”&�Բ�����;

If LAUSD moves forward with job cuts, laid-off employees would be notified by March 15, per state law.

Weighing in the potential cuts, LAUSD is expecting a $191 million deficit for the 2027-28 academic year, though several factors are at play, including the final governor’s budget. The district also said it plans to move forward with roughly $150 million in reductions to its central office. 

The current fiscal challenges come after two years of diminishing reserves to help replenish a multi-billion-dollar deficit. While the district teacher’s union has pointed to $5 billion in reserves as of July, LAUSD is expecting to burn through it in three years. 

“The danger in just trimming 5% here, 10% there is it leaves you sometimes with incomplete programs,” Fine said. “It may leave you with the inability to actually turn things into practice.”&�Բ�����;

The school board was originally expected to vote on the layoffs Tuesday, but postponed its regular meeting to Feb. 17 to allow for better preparation and engagement. The meeting’s comes after LAUSD unions issued a  asking that the vote be delayed and presented instead at a stand-alone meeting. 

Ongoing labor actions 

The discussion of layoffs comes as United Teachers Los Angeles, or UTLA, the union representing roughly 35,000 teachers,  a strike if a labor agreement isn’t reached. Meanwhile, SEIU Local 99, which represents roughly 30,000 workers, including special education assistants, cafeteria workers and custodians, is in the midst of a strike authorization vote. 

Before mediation began with UTLA in January, LAUSD said its bargaining proposals would cost $4 billion over a three-year contract, while SEIU Local 99’s would cost $3 billion through 2027-2028. 

LAUSD’s most recent  to SEIU Local 99 would increase wages by 13% over the next three years — starting with a 10% increase this year. Before mediation, the district offered UTLA a 4.5% raise and 1% bonus over two years. 

UTLA says that isn’t enough. With Los Angeles’ high cost of living, teachers are struggling financially, the union says. A showed that money is particularly important for Gen Z Black and Latino teachers in the district; a quarter of whom said they would leave their careers in education in search of a higher-paying job.

“I’m a third-year teacher. I have a master’s degree from UCLA, which is the premier education school in the country, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck. And I’m still unable to even think about one day owning a home,” said Jon Paul Arciniega, a 29-year-old social studies teacher at Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in the Westlake area.  

“I still live at home,” Arciniega said. “And if I want to think about things like getting my own place, starting a family, buying a home, right now, all of that seems untenable.”&�Բ�����;

Uncertainty ahead 

Sandy Meredith, a psychiatric social worker covering 42 district schools, said she hopes a strike won’t be necessary, both because of the financial strain it would place on colleagues like Arciniega and because schools play a critical role in students’ daily safety. 

But at the same time, she said they’re struggling to support students — 20% of whom require mental health services — without the district providing the support and wages they see as critical to their success. She expressed frustration with the size of the district’s reserves, particularly when teachers and staff like her pay out of pocket to provide basic resources, such as toilet paper, for students. 

“I feel like I’m on an airplane,” she said, “and I’ve been told ‘I’m sorry, but we can’t give you a mask to put on first. But go ahead and take care of the child.’ ”&�Բ�����;

Strikes are nothing new in Los Angeles Unified. UTLA last went on strike in 2019, leading to a historic  with 6% pay raises, smaller class sizes and investments in community schools. Four years later, in 2023, SEIU Local 99 went on strike, which resulted in a 30% wage increase. 

But teachers and staff say this year comes with much higher stakes. 

Members of UTLA’s leadership say educators and school staff play a bigger role beyond the school walls.  

“We’re dealing with families’ anxieties. Are they not being able to come to school because of their housing insecurity? Is there trauma with this addition of the ICE raids? There’s concerns about safety,” said Margaret Wirth, a pupil services and attendance counselor who supports all of LAUSD’s Region South. “Is my child safe? For the child, is my parent safe? There’s a lot of different factors that make everything more heightened.”

Pupil service and attendance counselors like Wirth help reduce chronic absenteeism. She said layoffs will mean her caseloads will increase. 

But at the same time, Fine said if a district is going to move forward with layoffs, the earlier, the better.  

“The earlier you cut, the better off you are, and you’re also not dangling this black cloud over your staff and the community,” Fine said. “You get the discussion done, you forecast your gap right, and you make a decision on how to close that gap all at once, and everybody knows what the plan is.”&�Բ�����;

This was originally published on .

If San Francisco educators walk out, it will be the city’s first teacher strike in nearly 50 years. United Educators of San Francisco approved a walkout with the second of two nearly unanimous votes last week. Its bargaining team is to decide within 10 days whether it will strike. 

United Teachers of Los Angeles, which represents more than 35,000 educators in California’s largest school district, has been in negotiations since February 2025. Both parties clashed over pay raises and in December. A strike vote passed with a member approval on Monday. 

With 6,500 members, United Educators of San Francisco has been negotiating with the district since March. The union asked for a 14% pay increase for support staff and 9% for teachers over two years, along with improvements to health care coverage, special education teacher workloads and family housing. 

“We remain prepared to hear any real solutions the district may formally bring to the table that will stabilize our district for our students, educators and families,” the union said in a Tuesday. 

The San Francisco Unified School District has a 2% yearly increase, totaling 6% over three years. It on Saturday that a $102 budget deficit makes it impossible to meet the union’s demands.

“Any raises above the current proposals from the district will force further cuts at school sites that will impact the district’s ability to serve all of its students long-term,” the district .

The union that San Francisco Unified recently allocated $111 million to its rainy-day fund, “money members say needs to be directed back to classrooms and school sites.”

In Los Angeles, the union is an 18% immediate pay raise with a 3% bump the second year of the contract. Los Angeles Unified two consecutive raises of 2.5% and 2% and a one-time payment of 1% of an employee’s salary. A strike deadline has not yet been set.

Cheryl Coney, the union’s executive director, wrote in a to the district that drastic raises are needed because more than 20% of members qualify for low-income housing and roughly one-third leave Los Angeles Unified by their fifth year on the job. 

The union the district can afford pay increases with a $5 billion reserve, but officials budget constraints recently worsened because of enrollment declines, the expiration of pandemic aid and increased operating costs. The district’s projects a $1.6 billion deficit by the 2027-28 school year.

“We recognize the real financial strain on educators and staff but must make difficult decisions to preserve classrooms, student services and long-term stability within finite resources,” the district said in a Jan. 31 . “This moment calls for collaboration between all parties to reach a sustainable resolution.”

The Los Angeles and San Francisco superintendents joined representatives of five other school districts in a Monday that asked advocates, nonprofits and lawmakers to help campaign for more funding from the state. 

“Educators and staff deserve to feel valued and supported, and districts recognize and respect those realities,” the letter says. “At the same time, school systems cannot spend resources they do not receive, nor can local negotiations resolve statewide enrollment trends or the loss of temporary federal funding.”

The strike votes in Los Angeles and San Francisco come amid a by the California Teachers Association, focusing negotiations in 32 districts statewide around : wages, staffing and student stability — meaning fewer layoffs and school closures. The also aims to pressure the state to improve school funding.

A from the statewide union found that 88% of educators identified insufficient school funding and low pay as serious issues for 2026.

Several California teachers unions already walked out of the classroom this school year or are close to striking. United Teachers of Richmond, located north of San Francisco, staged a in December. Five unions — Natomas, Twin Rivers, Rocklin, Woodland Joint and Washington — are at an impasse, along with Madera Unified Teachers Association in central California and Berkeley Federation of Teachers.

More than 90% of San Diego Education Association members recently a one-day unfair labor practice strike for Feb. 26. The union said it’s protesting as San Diego Unified’s repeated contract violations regarding special education staffing caseloads.

The schools have mostly reopened after prolonged closures, using temporary classrooms. But the fires, which killed dozens and left thousands homeless, have chopped enrollment by half at some of the affected schools.

“Families went with schools that weren’t impacted by the fires,” said Bonnie Brimecombe, principal of Odyssey Charter-South, which was destroyed in the Eaton blaze. “And then we have other people that are just nervous about coming back [because] it’s a lot to see and be a part of.”

Odyssey South, located in the Altadena area of Los Angeles, reopened on three temporary campuses from January to June of last year including a Boys and Girls Club, an office in Old Town Pasadena, and classrooms at the nearby ArtCenter College of Design.

By fall, the main campus reopened in a school building that was formerly used by another charter, but many families chose other schools or left the area, with enrollment falling to 183 from 375. 

Despite the trauma, students were resilient, improving test scores and good classroom behavior, said Brimecombe. 

“It’s just a complete surprise at how well the kids have gone through this process,” she  said. “The kids are happy, the kids are smiling, they are learning, they are fine. The kids are happy, happy to be back together.”

Still, enrollment challenges persist, and the school has had to let go of a handful of teachers and teaching assistants. The school’s original building felt more like home, Brimecombe said, but kids who have stayed at the school are thriving.

Odyssey South has put new supports in place for students’ including an on-site counseling team that was expanded this year to increase access for students.

The school also brought in art therapists to run a series of sessions with different grade levels, and a counseling team that visits classrooms for structured sessions on topics that surface for specific age groups.

Teachers have also increased the number of field trips at the school to give students “happy situations” and positive experiences away from the fire-affected environment, Brimecombe said.

Odyssey South was able to maintain its previous levels of programming this year but may have to make cuts next year if current funding levels don’t persist, Brimecombe said.

That’s largely a matter of enrollment, since Odyssey South, like other public schools in LA., receives its funding on a per-pupil basis. With half of the school’s students gone, the future is uncertain.

Still, the principal is hopeful.

“Families are coming back,” Brimecombe said. “They’re just not back yet.”Enrollment problems also persist in the Palisades, where three schools were burned, said LAUSD school board member Nick Melvoin, who represents the area.

Palisades Charter High is holding up the best, with about 2,500 students, down from about 2,900 pre-fire. Marquez Elementary has about 130 students, a little less than half of pre-fire enrollment. Palisades Elementary has about 300 students, down by about 100 from pre-fire levels.

Students returned to Marquez Elementary into portable, temporary buildings in the fall. Palisades High students are returning to their school building on Jan. 27, and Palisades Elementary students continue to attend school at their co-location site at Brentwood Science Magnet.

New, rebuilt facilities for all three schools should be completed by fall 2028, “but all three schools are kind of a slightly different journey from now until then,” said Melvoin.

“The families that have been displaced, that are in other parts of L.A. and the country, are either coming back eventually or not,” he said of enrollment drops. “Some families who were not satisfied with the co-located option or didn’t want to be back in the Palisades just yet because of environmental concerns, are still in other schools.”

The district is giving flexibility in where families choose to enroll, said Melvoin, who expects enrollment in the displaced schools to improve.

“We’re going to have some new enrollment for the coming months, as people realize like, ‘Oh, I’m moving back to my house,’ or ‘my insurance money ran out, and so now I’m back in the Palisades,’ and there’s only a few schools that are open,” said Melvoin.

Besides environmental concerns, Melvoin said, families that are staying away due to a lack of infrastructure in the fire-scorched area, and because of trauma.

“The burn scar is still there,” he said. “You’re still driving past a number of destroyed buildings and houses. There are just some families who aren’t ready to put their kids back there yet.”

Many families are hopeful because schools are returning, construction is visible, and some businesses are coming back, said Allison Holdorff Polhill, a district director who works in Melvoin’s office and longtime Palisades resident who lost her home in the fires.

Virtually all residents were under‑insured, and there is still a strong need for federal money, grants and loans to cover rebuilding gaps, said Holdorff Polhill, and people are frustrated by slow government planning and being scattered in rentals or forced into assisted living.

“Every single friend’s home burned to the ground,” said Holdorff Polhill. “People are still traumatized by what happened.”

LAUSD has set aside $604 million for the full rebuilding of the impacted areas in the Palisades, including the three burned schools, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said.

The money will provide for the full rebuilding of Marquez Elementary, which was destroyed, plus new buildings and improvements to existing ones at Palisades Elementary, where about 60% of the campus was burned.

At Palisades High, about 30% of classrooms were destroyed and the remainder are being rebuilt. 

The school is famous for being a popular filming location for Hollywood movies such as Carrie, Freaky Friday, and Teen Wolf, and for notable alumni including J.J. Abrams and will.i.am.

Pali High students have been attending classes in a former Sears department store building while construction is underway to repair fire damage. 

The school’s campus is scheduled for reopening when work is completed later this month. 

Carvalho said the district is still working to recover about $500 million of the expected construction costs from insurance companies.

“The rest we will seek FEMA reimbursements, which we believe we are absolutely legally entitled to,” Carvalho said. “We hope that the federal government will not play games, political games as we seek these reimbursements.”

In addition to these investments, the district will spend in excess of a billion dollars, all funded through Measure US, a $9 billion bond referendum approved by voters in 2024, to build higher levels of fire resilience at schools across the district.

“That means anything from replacement of filtration systems, the acquisition of air purifiers, new filtration systems for schools, HVAC systems, and replacement of roofing structures and windows with materials that withstand fires,” Carvalho said.  

LAUSD has installed more than 230 air quality sensors on school buildings, covering every campus in the district, Carvalho said.

The sensors detect nauseous fumes, particulate matter in the air, and also measure temperature and wind speed, enabling school officials to make emergency decisions in case of fires, he said.

“Prevention is the best solution for fires,” said Carvalho. 

Avery Colvert was an eighth-grader when the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, California, a year ago this month, reddening the sky and destroying nearly 10,000 structures. It was the second natural disaster she’d survived; she was just 14 years old. Her family had lost their home in Nashville, Tennessee, to a flash flood in 2021, before they moved west. 

This time, the catastrophe spared her house, but consumed her school. Familiar with the psychological toll such devastation can take, Avery posted an , which burned for over three weeks. She asked for items to help her “friends feel confident and like themselves again!” — “clothes, personal items, beauty and hair care — stuff WE need.”&�Բ�����;

The plea, posted just three days after the fire broke out on January 7, 2025, quickly went viral. It has since garnered over 28,000 likes; earned support from celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Charli XCX and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; and led to the creation of the nonprofit, an organization that, Avery said, gives girls permission to ask for what they need without apology. 

“I always hear teenage girls say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ like they feel they need to apologize for asking for too much,” Avery, 15, now a ninth grader, said. “At the beginning [of recovery], there was a lot of stigma around asking for help. Girls, after they lost their homes, they felt like it was embarrassing.”

But they don’t need to apologize or feel embarrassed — for asking for help or stating their preferences, Avery said. “It’s OK to say, ‘I like this sweater instead of that one.’ Girls are allowed to have opinions.”

Avery founded Altadena Girls with her mother, Lauren Sandidge. Sandidge said that no one seemed to be focusing on the teen girl experience in the wake of the wildfire, which occurred in tandem with the massive Palisades Fire 30 miles away in Los Angeles. Through a pop-up boutique, Altadena Girls has supplied clothing, shoes, beauty products and hair care to more than 5,000 girls and their families. The organization has distributed more than a million items in total. Last year, it hosted a prom for over 300 girls, and it also provided back-to-school supplies and social-emotional support for 500 more. 

In October, Altadena Girls celebrated a major milestone: It opened an 11,000-square-foot community center offering free programming in nearby Old Town Pasadena. 

What began as a social media request for donations turned into a movement that revealed how inclusive disaster recovery can be when girls are centered rather than marginalized.

Avery didn’t write her viral post with an endgame in mind. 

“I don’t even know what I was thinking,” she said. “I was going through so many emotions at the time that my body just kind of went into fight-or-flight mode. It was like, ‘I’m just going to do this, and this needs to be done right now.’”

Twenty-four hours after her post appeared on Instagram, donations began pouring in, as well as offers for help from stylists, makeup artists and fashion designers. Many of these professionals didn’t just give away products. They also volunteered their time and labor to the fire-impacted girls. 

Sandidge recalled kneeling over, sorting through boxes of donations. “Every time I looked up, there was someone with more donations,” she said. “And then they would stay. They could tell I was overwhelmed, and they would just stay.”

Woven through Altadena Girls is this sense of community. The organization is more than just about distributing goods to teen girls in need. It’s about creating a space where they feel supported. Sandidge said her own family — she also has a son — felt stabilized by this as the wildfire left them uncertain.

“It got us through those moments where we didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. “The fires were still burning. Everyone felt that way.”

Through its permanent brick-and-mortar space, which opened on October 11, 2025 — International Day of the Girl — the hope is that Altadena Girls can continue bringing the community together. 

“It was really cool, really exciting,” Avery said. “I still can’t believe we did it.”

The center includes music and podcast studios sponsored by Fender; quiet rooms for studying, journaling or one-on-one conversations; a free boutique offering hygiene products, clothing and school supplies; and a gathering area for community events.

The most popular space is the Sliving Lounge, a glittery pink room of nearly 1,000 square feet filled with collaging stations, Polaroid cameras, karaoke, movies, books and vision boards. The name of the space, sponsored by Paris Hilton and her nonprofit, 11:11 ���Ķ���vlog, is a portmanteau of the words “slay” and “living.”&�Բ�����; 

“It’s definitely our most popular thing,” Avery said. “Everyone ends up there.”

Avery wanted it “to feel like a girly explosion,” she said. “And they delivered.”

Journey Christine, a 12-year-old actress who lives a block away from the Altadena Girls community center, said she visits most weekends. She called the center “a blessing” to Altadena and Pasadena, parts of which the fire also ravaged. “It’s like my new home away from home,” she said. 

Altadena Girls’ dance workshops — run in partnership with Dance and Dialogue, a non-profit organization that provides intergenerational, multicultural programming — are especially meaningful to Avery. A dancer herself, she has watched girls return to dance night after night.

“I’ve seen them grow. They got really good,” she said. “Dancing is so healing for me, and I’m glad other people get to discover that.”

Youth are not required to participate in any activity to spend time at the community center. “You can come in and learn guitar,” Sandidge said, but the priority is that their basic needs are met —  they’re fed, they’re safe, they’re relaxed. “That’s when people can make good decisions.”

After the fire, Journey has grappled with having classmates, steady presences in her life, move to different neighborhoods and communities. At Altadena Girls, she has been able to catch up with peers who relocated. 

“There are still people who haven’t moved back yet,” Sandidge said. “There are emotional needs that don’t go away just because the headlines do.”

Avery believes the fire didn’t just create new needs. It exposed existing ones, such as a lack of “a third space” for teen girls to meet during the digital age, with phones and social media replacing physical gathering spaces. “For some teenagers, the internet is their third space,” she said. “But I think it’s important that we have a physical space that’s accessible to everyone.”

That Avery’s advocacy led to the center’s creation has felt empowering for Journey. “It’s really inspiring,” the seventh grader said. “It shows other kids that just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference.”

Avery’s belief that dignity is a core component of recovery has led to national recognition. She became the youngest winner of the , and Senate District 25 named Altadena Girls . At the 10th Hollywood Beauty Awards, which recognizes the artistry that influences beauty in film, television and on red carpets, she received . 

Avery’s request for beauty and hair care resonated on a profound level.

“She wanted to give something that wasn’t just socks and T-shirts,” said Pamela Price, the awards’ senior executive producer. “She wanted to give girls something that brought a little happiness during an uncertain time. People might think it’s superficial, but it’s not. Hair, makeup, skincare — those things affect how you feel. Avery was thinking about mental health.”

Journey said simple cosmetic items can make a world of difference for young girls. “People might think losing your favorite lipgloss, eye liner, pair of jeans or hoodie is petty, but it’s not because those things help boost confidence,” she said. “It’s how we represent ourselves. It’s our sense of style. Avery and Altadena Girls get it.”

Avery still remembers the discomfort she felt when she received gift cards in front of her classmates after the Tennessee flood that destroyed her home. “I felt embarrassed. Guilty.” That memory inspired her to prioritize the dignity of teen and tween girls in the wake of the Eaton Fire. 

A year later, her nonprofit isn’t attracting the same level of national attention it did immediately after the disaster. Sandidge said that she understands the waning focus, having lived through a similar dynamic after the Nashville flood. “It’s naturally what happens,” she said. “Everyone comes around. There are headlines. People want to help. And then the intensity dies down.”

But the long-term needs of disaster survivors related to mental health, stability and belonging don’t simply vanish, she said, a notion that research bears out. A in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that direct exposure to wildfires significantly raised the risk of PTSD and depression six months afterward.

As Altadena Girls enters its second year, maintaining its momentum and making it more accessible are top of mind. The center is currently open three evenings a week, with plans to expand to full-time hours. “We want to keep it free,” Sandidge said. “And it’s not free to run.”

The organization is also forming a teen advisory board, a critical step, according to Avery. “It has to be for girls, by girls,” she said. “We need their feedback.”

In time, Sandidge hopes the space allows girls to plan their futures without the shadow of the wildfire and the trauma that accompanied it. “I want them to make decisions based on who they are,” she said. “Not what they lost.”

was originally reported by Nadra Nittle of . .

As more people’s lives are upended each year due to climate disasters communities — and our political leaders at the local, state and federal levels — must do more to ensure the needs of children and families are met during these emergencies.

During wildfires and other disasters, we continually see the familiar pattern of school closures, child care disruption, families moving into temporary housing and routines essential to children’s sense of safety abruptly severed. Communities and political leaders at every level must confront a hard truth: Our emergency systems were not designed with children in mind. 

During wildfires, schools and child care systems are among the first institutions to fail. Children are displaced from classrooms, separated from trusted adults and thrust into shelters or hotel rooms never designed to support their physical, emotional or developmental needs. Studies show that stress brought on by exposure to natural disasters can have an outsized impact on children and lead to lifelong trauma. This trauma can lead to socio-emotional impairments; health-risk behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse; and even early death, according to the published in 2011 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. 

This past year has made it clear that local jurisdictions can no longer rely on federal disaster systems to carry the full burden of recovery. As the future of entities such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency becomes more uncertain, states, cities and counties must assume greater responsibility for protecting their most vulnerable citizens. 

This starts with treating schools as critical infrastructure. While schools became formally recognized as part of critical infrastructure — specifically within the Education Facilities subsector in 2003 under Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7 (HSPD-7) — they are not allocated commensurate resources and protections for security as other designated critical infrastructure. 

The Covid-19 pandemic underscored the central role that schools play in economic stability, as widespread closures rapidly disrupted labor markets and productivity. Treating schools as critical infrastructure would align education with other essential public systems that underpin public health, safety and economic performance; as such, it merits long-term investment.

Second, schools need contingency plans that ensure continuity of in-person education when normal operations are disrupted. After the LA wildfires, many schools scrambled to set up alternate sites or transitioned to online learning. Students are still making up from the pandemic, and it is unclear whether those losses can be stemmed. Online learning should be used only when all other options have been exhausted, given the devastating impacts on student learning. The planning needs to begin now, not after disaster strikes.  

Third, practice is key to success. Emergency plans often fail children not because they are poorly written but because they are never written with children in mind. Children experience disasters differently than adults, and procedures designed without them can inadvertently heighten fear and trauma. Age-appropriate drills, school-based tabletop exercises and responder training in developmentally appropriate communication can dramatically improve outcomes. 

Local governments can formally integrate school districts, child care providers and pediatric health systems into emergency planning rather than treating them as afterthoughts once a crisis unfolds. Practicing with children builds familiarity, reduces panic and accelerates recovery — not just for young people, but for entire communities.

Finally, funding structures must reflect the realities families face after disasters. While billions are allocated for fire suppression and mitigation, far fewer resources are earmarked for sustaining schools, child care and pediatric mental health in the months and years that follow. Local and state governments should establish dedicated funding streams for child- and family-centered recovery — supporting school continuity, mental health care and family stabilization — since these investments can reduce long-term social and economic costs.

Implementing a family-centric disaster response model isn’t just a moral imperative. Adverse childhood experiences lead to an economic burden of  of dollars annually in the U.S, much of it absorbed by taxpayers through Medicaid and Medicare spending, special education, disability programs and lost lifetime tax revenue. When disaster responses destabilize children, short-term emergencies are converted into long-term public liabilities, driving government inefficiency and reactive spending. These failures also spill into insurance markets, increasing claims, and deepening reliance on federal backstops that distort risk pools and shift costs to the public.

In an era of escalating disasters and constrained budgets, policies that protect family stability during crises are not social add-ons but high-return investments: reducing future taxpayer exposure, stabilizing insurance systems and limiting the need for costly federal intervention after the fact.

The one-year mark of the Los Angeles wildfires should not serve as a memorial to what was lost, but as a reckoning with what must change. Disasters will continue to test our systems, but allowing children to bear the brunt of those failures is a policy choice, not an inevitability. Protecting children during emergencies necessitates radical change. If we fail to act, we are not merely accepting risk: We are knowingly passing preventable harm and long-term costs onto the next generation.

A year ago, Tanya Reyes watched in disbelief as the Eaton fire incinerated her Altadena home. As her three daughters listed everything they had lost in the days that followed, Reyes kept reminding them that what mattered most was that they still had each other. 

A year later, Reyes is struggling. The steadiness she once summoned for her children has been worn down by chronic back pain, brought on by the strain of moving every few months, and the emotional toll of rebuilding her family’s life while working her teaching job, supporting pregnant and parenting teens. 

Reyes is a teacher at McAlister High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and is among thousands of Los Angeles-area residents who watched their way of life destroyed as fires tore through neighborhoods and schools. Today, life is about finding equilibrium in a new normal, with many still putting the pieces of their old lives back together.

“I’m very much a go-getter and a doer,” she said. “And my body is saying, ‘No, you can’t.”&�Բ�����;

The 2025 fires cut a wide swath of destruction that the region is still grappling with. Thirty-one people died. Over 100,000 people were displaced.

School communities were hit particularly hard. More than 16,000 structures were destroyed, including eight school campuses in the Pasadena Unified School District and Los Angeles Unified. 

Evacuations put both districts on hold, temporarily halting instruction for roughly .

In the year since the fires, both districts have been on the road to recovery, making progress on plans to rebuild and renew their communities. They have also provided support to students during the year of upheaval.

“Over the past year, the school communities devastated by the January 2025 wildfires have demonstrated extraordinary resilience and strength,” Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools Debra Duardo told EdSource. “While the Eaton and Palisades fires tragically claimed lives, destroyed homes, and disrupted the sense of security and daily routine that students depend on, we have come together to rebuild, support each other and heal.”&�Բ�����;

Reconstruction

Throughout the region, school sites are reminders of the fires’ destructive path. Tons of fire debris have been removed, and rebuilding efforts have started taking shape. In many respects, the two school districts have rebounded, but in different ways.

Los Angeles Unified has made headway in rebuilding Marquez Charter Elementary, Palisades Charter Elementary and Palisades Charter High School. 

Rebuilding the schools in LAUSD is estimated to cost up to $600 million. But the school district is able to count on rebuilding funds from a 2024  passed by voters. 

At Marquez Charter Elementary, enrollment is down to 130 students from 310 before the fires — some are attending other schools in the area or have left the region entirely. But in late September, those who remained were able to  to their original campus in portable classrooms. Their permanent campus is expected to be built by 2028, for $207 million.

Just over a mile away, nearly 3,000 Palisades Charter High School students will  to campus this month in portable classrooms after spending the past year attending classes in a renovated . Their new campus is expected to cost $267 million to rebuild and is slated to open by the end of 2029.

It’s a different story 35 miles away in the school communities of Pasadena Unified, where long-standing financial challenges compound fire recovery. District officials also look to a $900 million bond measure passed in 2024 to help restore its five campuses lost to the fire. But money is still tight. The district has struggled financially for years and has been  to avoid a county takeover. 

As the district recovers from the fire, its financial struggles have made recovery difficult. In November, the district  $24.5 million from next year’s budget as part of a larger $30.5 million reduction. Roughly $17.2 million of those cuts were in staffing, from teachers to gardeners and librarians — some of whom had been directly impacted by the fires. About 40 teachers were ultimately laid off. 

Compounded losses 

While both districts were able to relocate campuses — and keep students together in the same classes with the same teacher — within weeks of the fires, some students — particularly foster and homeless youth — struggled. 

In the Altadena area, about 225 children and youth in foster care were living in the region impacted by the Eaton fire, the majority of them school age. Some live in congregate care settings, such as group homes, while others stay with relatives.

Within three months of the fire, 36 students had relocated outside the area, moving an average of 16 miles away, according to an , a research center focusing on youth in the child welfare system.

As recovery continues, Taylor Dudley, the center’s executive director, noted that while some school-based services, such as support for students with disabilities, were initially delayed as schools took account of the losses, they were eventually provided more consistently as schools stabilized. But, she is concerned that students may begin to see other services “drop off” with time.

For example, if a student’s home is now safe to return to, the child might be reenrolled at the school they attended before the fire. Dudley noted that a transition of this nature raises many questions for a foster student, who may not have a constant advocate by their side: Who will ensure all their credits will transfer from their previous school? Will their transportation plan be upheld? Will their individualized education plan (IEP) transfer in full, with all services continuing? 

Meanwhile, the healing process has continued for students in the area who were homeless before the fires or who lost their homes. Nearly 300 homeless students in Pasadena Unified were enrolled by the first Wednesday in October, known as Census Day, during the 2024-25 school year, according to an EdSource analysis of the state’s most recently available data. About 10,800 were enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

The state initially made it easier for families to enroll their children in new schools by removing the typically required documentation. Jennifer Kottke, the homeless liaison for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, spent months after the fires consulting with schools, working around processes to verify residency and determine which district a student belonged to. Students experiencing homelessness have the right to immediate enrollment at any moment at any school, she said. 

Some families who were suddenly homeless after the fires “were having a hard time because they’ve never seen themselves as being the ones in need,” Kottke said. “They’re the ones who provided for those who were in need.”&�Բ�����;

These families had previously been “the givers,” as Kottke noted. Some initially declined resources, from basic hygiene products to computers to food, because they believed other families might need them more, she said.

Meanwhile, as the year unfolded, some students in fire zones faced another crisis: immigration raids in the late spring. Both situations, one immediately after the other, targeted students’ sense of safety, said Lisa Fortuna, who chairs the Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the University of California, Riverside.

“There’s so much threat to self and to one’s close loved ones, the people you’re dependent on, the places and things you depend on as your home, as your resources in the community,” said Fortuna. “It’s a cumulative loss.”

Adjusting to the new normal

Despite a quick surge in counseling and psychological support for students, the emotional fallout from the fires is ongoing. The occasional fire drill or nearby house fire can reignite feelings of fear and loss for students, said Gabriela Gualano, a teacher librarian at LAUSD’s Paul Revere Charter Middle School.

“We had to definitely front-load to the kids: ‘Hey, this is what’s happening. It’s just a drill. We know you’ve done this before. The district just wants to make sure that we’re able to do this in a timely manner, so we’re going to get through it,’” Gualano said. Some students have developed a dark humor around the fires, she said, while others avoid the topic altogether. 

How schools in the region will mark the Jan. 7 anniversary of the fires varies.

At Pasadena Unified schools, a moment of silence will usher in the anniversary. 

Some schools in the L.A. Unified area do not have elaborate plans to commemorate Jan. 7.

Some Los Angeles campuses might opt to plant a tree or take students on a walk, but only activities that heal, said Julianne Reynoso, Pasadena Unified’s assistant superintendent of Student Wellness and Support Services.

Meanwhile, Wendy Connor, a retired first grade teacher at Marquez Charter Elementary, said the school doesn’t plan to do anything on the anniversary. Maintaining a sense of normalcy is still the priority, she said. 

“It’s been a collaborative, iterative process,” said LAUSD school board member Nick Melvoin, who represents schools in the Palisades. “I think we’ve done a lot of right by our students, which is most important, but always, always more to do.”

The district is making “sure we keep our eye on the ball when it comes to the permanent rebuild,” he said.  

Meanwhile, teachers say they’ve had to grapple with decades of losses that can’t be replaced. Connor tries to remember what her room looked like, the place where she taught for 38 years when she and her students fled: “Somebody’s backpack is open on their desk; all the chairs are out or pushed around instead of just sitting all straight normal. It’s all wacky.”&�Բ�����;

The grieving continues for teachers, she said. “It’s not things that you can turn to the district and say, ‘Will you buy me this?’” she said. “You (used to) have samples of every art project all put together in a binder up on the shelf — and now you don’t have any of it.”

For teacher Tanya Reyes and her family, the past year’s struggles have made her reflect on how the community can best move forward after the devastation. Reyes stressed the importance of remembering “who the roots of Altadena were.”&�Բ�����;

She, her husband, and three children have moved three times — from one family or friend’s home to the next, and finally into a new rental home roughly 6 miles from Altadena in Sierra Madre. 

Reyes’ family is slowly coming to terms with what they lost this past year when their home burned, including a daughter’s stuffed tigress. Over the past year, the family’s pet bearded dragon died. But life moves on, and their new space is morphing into a semblance of home.

As the year progressed, Reyes learned that the recovery process means taking it slower.

“I feel humbled as someone who is a doer and a mover and a goer to really have to sit back and be still,” Reyes said. “There is a mourning or a grief in my body that I don’t even have awareness of, but it’s showing up.”

This  was originally published by EdSource.  for their daily newsletter.

The district recently reignited its dormant nonprofit, the , hiring a new executive director to court dollars from corporations and foundations. The effort has brought in some $26 million so far, including from well-known players in L.A. entertainment and business, on its way to a $100 million goal for the foundation’s first five years. 

A renewed focus on raising private money for school districts across the country comes as student needs are growing and leaders worry about shifting federal policy, education philanthropy officials said. 

“What’s occurring right now is that those that don’t have them are forming foundations, or reforming them if they’ve gone dormant,” said Mike Taylor, head of the National Association of Education Foundations, who said he’s been fielding calls since the summer from school districts looking to navigate the uncertainty around federal funding and leverage community resources.

In Los Angeles, the initial fundraising push has helped families impacted by last year’s wildfires and supported the district’s neediest schools.

“I want to level the playing field,” said Sadie Stockdale Jefferson, who came in to lead the LAUSD foundation this summer after serving in a similar role for Chicago Public Schools and running a University of Chicago think tank focused on public education. “We’re taking the best of what we know works to improve education and ensuring those initiatives reach the schools and classrooms that need them the most.”

A major initial focus of the foundation will be on what LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho calls “priority schools,” with lagging academic performance and the highest student needs in a district that educates everyone from the wealthy elite to families experiencing homelessness or poverty.

Jefferson recently saw a breakdown of private support to district schools by region and said she realized: “The disparity is shocking,” adding she wants foundation money to primarily support campuses without their own parent-run fundraising efforts. 

The philanthropic money is still a drop in the bucket in the district’s more than . But it represents a potential new revenue stream at a time when LAUSD continues to shed students and run a deficit. 

Carvalho is looking to the foundation to support students in ways the district can’t, like sending homeless students off to college with a new laptop, or providing emergency cash to families impacted by the wildfires. “Sometimes the need is acute,” Carvalho said, with foundation money typically being deployed quickly and with less bureaucracy. 

Many of the needs Carvalho ticked off as foundation priorities are those students face outside the classroom. But he said he’s also open to private money supporting the district academically, particularly in the priority schools. District support for priority schools involves teacher coaching, strengthening curriculum and providing tutoring. 

“Government dollars will only go so far, and there are unmet needs that often foundations can address and support,” Carvalho said.  

The foundation has also taken on music education, riding off the popularity of “The Last Repair Shop,” an Oscar-winning short film about the highly skilled team that keeps scores of district-owned instruments working for LAUSD students. Jefferson said she’s hoping to replicate a sponsor-a-school program she ran in Chicago, offering businesses a way to directly help local schools. 

Using private money for public education can be controversial, particularly when funders are seen as exerting too much pressure or pushing for school reforms like charter schools.

Carvalho and others involved in Los Angeles’s fundraising say they’re aiming to avoid that tension as they address critical needs in the district of 400,000 students. 

Of the nation’s 13,000 school districts, around 6,000 have foundations, the majority volunteer-run, Taylor said. The focus of district foundations has evolved, he said, from being thought of as a vehicle to buy extra books or classroom materials. The needs and challenges have deepened since the pandemic. Philanthropic money now goes toward building partnerships for workforce development, supporting teacher retention and addressing student mental-health challenges, Taylor said.

LAUSD’s foundation has recruited board members from local business, education and philanthropic organizations.

Board Chairman Michael Fleming, the president of the David Bohnett Foundation, said he was drawn to the role after hearing Carvalho’s vision for an organization that could move fast and target specific goals, including investing in the priority schools. 

He’s also committed to bridging the divide between public and private funding. “There is this innate distrust sometimes between a government entity and philanthropy, and vice versa,” Fleming said. “They each see the world very differently and say: ‘You don’t understand the way we operate.’ I think that’s false.”

Enthusiasm for private investment in public school districts has fallen in and out of favor over the decades. Initial waves of corporate and foundation money aimed to revolutionize education.  

“When things don’t dramatically get better, the energy and resources and attention ebb,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor emeritus at Columbia’s Teachers College who has followed education philanthropy. Many private foundations doubled down on charter schools, which then made school districts wary of partnerships. In Los Angeles, a nonprofit launched by LAUSD leaders in the 2010s later merged with an entity that backed charters, putting it at odds with the district it initially set out to help. 

Henig sees today’s philanthropists more focused on supporting strong school leaders, rather than looking to fundamentally disrupt the way education is delivered. 

That shift makes sense to Erica Lim, a senior program officer at the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Broad, along with the foundations of “Two and a Half Men” co-creator Chuck Lorre and L.A. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, to the LAUSD foundation to support its priority schools.

Lim said she was encouraged by the stability Carvalho has brought to LAUSD since he joined in 2022 after a string of short-tenured leaders. The former Miami-Dade Public Schools superintendent now has a contract to keep him in the L.A. job until at least 2030.

“We’re not looking to backfill or solve really systemic budget issues,” Lim said. “That’s for district leaders to solve.” Instead, Broad wants its investments to help kick-start new initiatives or scale programs that show promise. 

Carvalho said the district won’t be turning to philanthropy to fund core areas of the budget. That said, he could see the foundation being used as a stopgap if, for instance, the federal government cut off longstanding funding to support English language learners. “That would be a legitimate support from the foundation,” Carvalho said, “Which could be a likely scenario in the months to come.”

In reviving the foundation, Carvalho changed the bylaws to give himself less power over its board, a move he saw as helping ensure its independence. Jefferson works with the LAUSD Education Foundation board to direct funds, with district input. 

Fleming, the board chair, said he’s looking for the foundation to outlast the many prior attempts and avoid drama. “We simply want to get resources for the schools and for students,” he said. “That’s it.”&�Բ�����;

Duque, who has taught at the award-winning, urban planning-themed LAUSD in West Hollywood for 18 years, was one of four teachers named as finalists by the state education department for the 2026 California Teachers of the Year in October. She was the only LAUSD teacher to receive the honor.

Duque works hard to create a free-flowing vibe in her first-grade classroom to promote the creativity of her students, describing the scene as the “best kind” of messy.  

“It’s a place where my students are able to wonder, to be curious, to take risks, to be able to make things with their hands and minds,” said Duque, who has been a teacher in Los Angeles Unified since 2000. 

“It’s a place where you can tell learning is happening,” she said of her classroom. 

The veteran teacher’s freewheeling approach is apparent in her classroom but there’s a method to the mayhem. Everything her students do is somehow tied back to the school’s theme of urban planning and urban design, topics Duque admits could be heady for her 6-year-old students, were it not for her approach to the subjects, which links them to kids’ everyday lives. 

On a recent school day, students in Duque’s class were drawing pictures of designs for a new community space in Griffith Park after she noticed a news report about the city’s struggle to repurpose the area .������

Students drew pictures of their ideas for the space, coloring construction paper using markers and drawing their visions for forests and lazy rivers that could be installed in L.A.’s historic park.  

In subsequent parts of the project, Duque said, students will create three-dimensional models of their ideas for the part using recycled materials such as cardboard and paper.  

“We’re making an arcade that’s called Fun Time, and then we put a petting zoo next to it called Pig Pig,” said Ben, a student in Duque’s class, who was working on a drawing with a few classmates. “I wonder if it will really happen.”

Duque often pulls ideas for lessons from real-life events in L.A., finding the sprawling and diverse city offers no shortage of inspiration for classroom activities tied to urban planning. 

“I just keep my eyes and ears to the news, and I just see what’s happening in our community, and I just get ideas from there,” she said. 

A favorite lesson from a few years ago was based on an experience the teacher had while walking her dog in Griffith Park, when a coyote approached the two and nearly attacked Duque’s pet. 

are common in L.A. and such experiences aren’t unusual, but this event inspired Duque to create a lesson for students to create outfits for pets to repel predatory coyote attacks.

Students created costumes for pets that featured things known to deter coyotes, such as flashing lights. One student liked the project so much she created a picture book about the lesson with her parents, a copy of which Duque keeps displayed on the wall in her class. 

“It’s another example of how I really look at what’s in our city, what’s in the news, and what’s relevant to kids and our lives,” the teacher said. 

Duque’s relentless curiosity and enthusiasm make her a natural leader among her colleagues at Rosewood, said the school’s principal, Linda Crowder.

“She is a lifelong learner,” Crowder said. “She gets something and she runs with it.”

LAUSD’s chief financial officer in an interview last week said declining enrollments and the end of pandemic relief funds have forced the district to take cost-cutting measures.  

Schools have already been notified of how much they will have to cut from their budgets. The cuts will go into effect starting in August. 

LAUSD officials in June had predicted a $1.6 billion deficit for the 2027-28 school year. But an updated version of the budget  last week eliminates the deficit by using reserve funds plus cost-cutting measures over the next two years. 

The planned cuts to school budgets will begin in the 2026-27 school year, with school consolidations and staffing reductions planned for the following school year, said LAUSD Chief Financial Officer Saman Bravo-Karimi. 

“We have fewer students each year, and in LAUSD that’s been the case for over two decades,” Bravo-Karimi said. “That has a profound impact on our funding levels. Also, we had the expiration of those one-time COVID relief funds that were very substantial.”&�Բ�����; 

The district recently contracted with the consulting firm Ernst and Young to create models for closing and consolidating schools. While school officials wouldn’t say which schools or how many would be closed, the district has clearly been shrinking. 

Enrollment last year fell to 408,083, from a peak of 746,831 in 2002. Nearly half of the district’s zoned elementary schools are half-full or less, and 56 have seen rosters fall by 70% or more. 

Bravo-Karimi said in the current school year the district will spend about $2 billion more than it took in from state, local and federal funding. The trend of overspending is expected to continue next year and the year after that, he said.

The district’s board in June approved a three-year budget plan that included a $18.8-billion budget for the current school year. The plan delayed layoffs until next year, and funded higher spending in part by reducing a fund for retirees’ health benefits. 

According to , the district will save:  

• $425 million by clawing back funds that went unused by schools each year 
• $300 million by reducing staffing and budgets at central offices 
• $299 million by cutting special funding for schools with high-needs students
• $120 million by cutting unfilled school staffing positions
• $30 million by consolidating schools  
• $16 million by cutting student transportation 

Bravo-Karimi said the district gets virtually all of its money through per-pupil funding from the state. Since enrollment in the district has fallen steadily for decades, and then sharply since the pandemic, funding is down significantly, he said.

Most zoned L.A. elementary schools are almost half empty, and many are operating at less than 25% capacity. Thirty-four schools have fewer than 200 students enrolled; a dozen of those schools once had enrollment over 400.������  

The drops have prompted LAUSD leaders to talk about closing or combining schools, a controversial step that other big U.S. cities  or considering. 

Bravo-Karimi said the district would assess the needs of communities and the conditions at local schools before it makes any decisions about school closings or consolidations. 

“That process needs to play out before any decisions are made about potential consolidation of school facilities,” he said.

Bravo-Karimi said other factors, including ongoing negotiations with labor unions, and changes to state funding, will further impact the district’s budget in the coming months. 

Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab and Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said the cuts planned for LAUSD are “relatively mild” compared to overall size of the district’s budget and cuts being considered at other  and the rest of the country. 

“I don’t think the people in the schools are going to notice that there’s a shrinking of the central office or that they’re using reserves,” said Roza. “Unless you’re one of the people who loses their transportation or if you’re in one of the schools that gets closed.”&�Բ�����;

But, Roza said, many of the cuts taken by LAUSD can only be made once, and the district still faces profound changes as enrollments continue to fall and downsizing becomes more and more necessary. 

“This really should be a signal to families,” said Roza of the planned cuts in the district’s latest budget. “After several years of really being flush with cash, this is not the financial position that LA Unified is going to be in moving forward.”&�Բ�����;

LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz-Franklin, who represents LAUSD’s District Seven, which includes neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro, said the district will work to shield kids from the impact of budget cuts. 

But, Ortiz-Franklin said, the district hired permanent staffers with one-time COVID funding, and now some of those staffers will have to be let go. 

Still, LA Unified has made strong gains since the pandemic, she said, and the district must work hard to preserve its upward trajectory despite financial headwinds. 

“We would love to share good news, especially this time of year,” said Ortiz-Franklin. “But the reality is, it is really tough.”&�Բ�����;

School leaders across LAUSD received preliminary budgets for the next year over the last few weeks, said Ortiz-Franklin. Some schools in her district are facing cuts of up to 15%, forcing them to make tough decisions on which staffers to keep and who to let go. 

Several hundred additional layoffs will be announced in February, she said, when the district makes another assessment of staffing needs. 

“We don’t know the total number yet, and we don’t know which positions yet,” said Ortiz-Franklin.

Its most recent contains the blunt admission that, “L.A. Unified currently has a structural deficit whereby in-year expenditures exceed in-year revenues. As revenues continue to decrease due to enrollment decline and loss of one-time COVID funds, expenditures have not been reduced proportionately.”

How did a district with $18.8 billion in revenue this year get to the point where it is projecting a $1.6 billion deficit by 2027-28?

The problems start on the revenue side. Namely, the district keeps losing students. According to it reported to the federal government, Los Angeles Unified served 495,255 students in 2018-19, the last full school year pre-pandemic. By 2023-24, that number had fallen to 419,929. That’s a decline of 75,326 students, or 15.2%.

That 15% decline is key to understanding the next few data points because the district did not reduce the number of staffers at anywhere close to the rate at which its student population declined. During the same period that it lost 75,000 students, it cut its teaching ranks by just 251. That represents a decline of 1.1% on the teacher side, compared with the 15.2% loss in student enrollment. It had a similarly small decline in non-teaching staff.

Effectively, Los Angeles reduced its student/teacher ratio over this time period from 22.5 to 19.3 students per teacher. As The 74 reported earlier this year, about three-quarters of districts across the country have reduced their student/teacher ratios in similar ways over the last few years, but Los Angeles had one of the bigger drops.

As it served fewer students, the district also failed to adjust the number of schools it operates. In 2019, it had 785 district-run and charter schools. Five years later, despite the 15% decline in the number of students it served, it operated the exact same number of schools — 785.

In practice, by not responding to the enrollment declines, the district now operates a lot of partially vacant schools. Between 2019 and 2024, 224 Los Angeles schools lost 25% or more of their students. It is far from the only district with very small schools, but it does have a particularly large number of them. In 2024, 52 Los Angeles district schools served under 100 students and another 68 had less than 200 students.

The Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University has compiled across the country, and that data suggest that many small schools become very expensive to operate. For example, Marina del Rey Middle School in Los Angeles served 716 students in 2013-14. Ten years later, it taught only 369, at of $38,780. Similarly, Crescent Heights Elementary went from educating 384 students in 2013-14 to just 192 a decade later and now spends $37,967 per pupil.

So, how is the district proposing to get its back into balance? For now, it’s starting with accounting tactics like limiting the amount of money schools can carry over from one year to the next, closing unfilled school staff vacancies and cutting central office operations. It also hints that it will “consolidate” campuses and programs but doesn’t say exactly what that will mean. Elsewhere in the document, the district says it expects to save $130 million this year by cutting 1,291 teacher positions — a 7% reduction. 

These cuts are necessary in part because the district projects it will lose another 35,000 students, a further 9% drop, by 2027-28. The one-time federal relief funds allowed Los Angeles to temporarily ignore the imbalance between revenues and spending it had accrued thanks to a bloated payroll and an unwillingness to deal with the messy business of closing or consolidating schools.

But it now has to resolve that deficit, and district leaders will face some tough decisions in the years ahead as they attempt to bring their budget back into balance while continuing to build on their recent academic gains.

The election of a progressive mayor who has said he wants to end mayoral control of New York City schools might seem like a bellwether.

The next largest school systems, Los Angeles and Miami-Dade County, have been run by elected boards for years. Chicago is transitioning to a fully elected board after decades under mayoral control.

But don’t .

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani hasn’t laid out clear plans, and his references to “co-governance” could mean a lot of things, including an ongoing role for the mayor.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, another progressive, supported a when she ran in 2021, but once she was in office.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, has in support of union priorities.

And in Indianapolis, some community groups are in an increasingly fractured school system.

Many large cities have repeatedly overhauled their school governance of the previous model. Now a new set of existential threats — declining enrollment, looming school closures and layoffs, persistent academic challenges, and threats from the Trump administration — are reviving conversations about who can claim to exercise legitimate power over schools.

Who gets to make decisions on behalf of students and families feels particularly high stakes in this moment.

Yet there is little evidence that voters consistently prioritize student outcomes at the ballot box, whether they’re voting for mayors or school board members. Nor is there strong evidence that any particular system consistently delivers better results for students, better financial management, or more responsive leadership.

“It’s like getting dirty and changing clothes and expecting to smell good without taking a bath,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “That’s what you’re doing when you change your governance structure.”

School closures put focus on who makes decisions

Education reform policies such as expanding school choice, closing low-performing schools, and welcoming charter schools have been supported by both mayors and elected school boards, sometimes under threat of state takeover. Those changes have reshaped communities in complicated ways.

New schools proliferated, and students got more opportunities. At the same time, the connections between neighborhoods and schools have frayed, competition for students and funding is fiercer, and multiple entities are now responsible for school oversight. These new realities are testing old ways of running schools.

In Indianapolis, the mayor already authorizes charter schools independently from Indianapolis Public Schools, which is run by an elected board. than district-run schools. Legislation from earlier this year that would have failed, but a state-created advisory group, chaired by Mayor Joe Hogsett, is charged with figuring out how city schools should share buildings and transportation services.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is also considering proposals that would in school governance, including appointing most or all of the board.

Historically, groups associated with education reform have . Yet the Mind Trust, an influential pro-charter nonprofit that supported an appointed board in the past, hasn’t taken a position yet. Several potential Indianapolis mayoral candidates for 2027 are charter skeptics and supporters of an elected board.

Cleveland, where , is grappling with similar challenges.

As in Indianapolis, a large share of the district’s school-age children attend charter or private schools after decades under the , and enrollment in district schools has plummeted. Supporters of mayoral control sometimes , but Mayor Justin Bibb’s is causing some community members to demand a greater voice.

reported an exchange at a recent community meeting between Bibb and teacher Sarah Hodge.

“Are you gonna go with us on the plan to make sure that the voters are re-enfranchised to vote for their school board?” Hodge said. Bibb responded that voters can seek a new system if they wish, but he has full confidence in his appointed board and in schools CEO Warren Morgan.

The ability to push ahead with a school closure plan is one of the benefits of mayoral control, said Aaron Churchill, Ohio research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right think tank. He contrasted Cleveland with Columbus, where the elected school board has moved more slowly in response to many of the same pressures.

“They’re controversial, they’re hard to do, and it does take leadership,” Churchill said. And there is still a democratic check on the process. People vote for the mayor, he said, and most people know who their mayor is — unlike their school board members.

Hodge has a very different view. “It’s not bold to upset the entire city,” she said in an interview.

She believes an elected school board would listen to parents and ultimately come up with a better plan for what she agrees are necessary closures.

Hodge is working with a small group of other teachers and activists to . But Ohio’s Republican trifecta state government is unlikely to go along willingly.

Hodge and other Cleveland activists have watched conservative groups like Moms for Liberty exert their influence on school boards. She wonders why people in Cleveland have fewer rights.

“If the people of Cleveland want to make an idiotic decision, that’s our right,” she said. “Since when do legislatures get to tell people, ‘You don’t get to vote. You’re too terrible to make decisions for yourself?’”

Voters often don’t care much about test scores

If mayoral control of schools is undemocratic, elected school boards raise their own questions about representation.

Most school board members are elected by small numbers of voters who don’t have children themselves and who aren’t . Once in office, they , surveys show.

Vladimir Kogan, a political science professor at Ohio State University, said that’s because voters don’t give them any incentive to do so.

Voters in school board elections might care about home values, taxes, jobs, or “symbolic virtue signaling that they are [on] team red and team blue,” Kogan said, before they care about how well schools are serving students.

School board elections are one of the few places parents can pull on the levers of power, said Keri Rodrigues, a Boston parent and president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy group. But they can turn out to be “democracy in name only.”

It doesn’t have to be that way, said Scott Levy, author of “Why School Boards Matter.” Many school board members would benefit from more training, including on how to understand academic data and budgets.

“If you look at education reform efforts, you can find every permutation except investing in school boards,” he said.

But if school boards don’t spend enough time on schooling, it’s not clear that mayors who do reap big benefits.

Kogan points to former District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty. Public opinion polls at the time showed under his controversial appointed chancellor, Michelle Rhee. But he : that accompanied the overhaul of D.C. schools.

“Reformers have a wrong theory of change about mayoral control,” Kogan said. “The idea is that mayors are more visible, and it’s easier to hold them accountable. That assumes that voters care about academics.”

Progressive mayors want a role in schools

Fights over who gets to control schools often reflect racial and political divisions. Predominantly white business interests, Black- and Latino-led community groups, and teachers unions wrestle for influence. Republican legislatures try to control Democrat-led cities.

Mayoral control spread in the 1990s and 2000s as white flight and shrinking tax bases undermined school systems. Mayors, the thinking went, could elevate the importance of education, marshal resources, and insulate governance from the influence of teachers unions.

Some of these political assumptions have eroded as voters choose more left-leaning mayors.

In last year’s — held amid a that — the mayor’s union-backed allies picked up only four of the 10 elected seats. But with 11 appointees on the 21-member board until 2027, Johnson still controls the school board.

During recent union contract negotiations, to hire more staff and cover a larger share of pension costs, which district leaders feared would be financially unsustainable. The , not the board, to .

Wu, Boston’s progressive mayor, became a firm believer in mayoral control once she was in office. During a , a caller reminded Wu that the idea of an elected school board “got more votes than you.”

Wu pointed to frequent superintendent turnover and the recent threat of state takeover to argue against the idea.

“We need to have a focus on stabilizing and getting our school facilities up to date and mental health supports and some of the academic changes that we’re making,” Wu said.

Voters haven’t penalized Wu — she .

New York parents, community groups want more say

Mayoral control in New York City is up for renewal in 2026. If Mamdani goes to Albany and advocates for less authority, he’ll be the first New York mayor to do so.

When Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, successfully lobbied for mayoral control in 2002, people were concerned not just about student achievement but basic safety. Some of the city’s local community boards, which ran 32 regional school districts, were corrupt or dysfunctional.

Bloomberg gained the sole ability to appoint the chancellor and the majority of the city’s school board. He adopted a that included charter school expansion and greater school accountability. Test scores and other metrics improved. New York City represented a “victory lap for mayoral control,” said Collins, the Columbia professor.

But Bloomberg also introduced Lucy Calkins’ now-discredited . Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who was elected on a public safety platform, — but the rollout . Now Mamdani, who ran on affordability, may give schools and teachers more autonomy.

“That whiplash is a real problem,” said Jonathan Greenberg, a Queens parent and member of the Education Council Consortium, a coalition of parent leaders. “So much of the really deep-seated changes we think need to happen take more than two years or more than four years.”

Mayoral control , with the school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, expanding and exerting more independence.

Finding the right balance for an exceptionally large and complex school system may not be easy. The coalition is proposing a short extension of mayoral control — but with the mayor no longer appointing the majority of school panel members.

Greenberg hopes that policy experts can help the city design a system that allows for community control and a healthy central system that can do things at scale.

Low voter turnout in both mayoral and school board elections should be treated like a crisis, Collins said. A better system would allow for more meaningful participation, and not just at the ballot box.

Unless more people are engaged, Collins said, “there’s going to be a small fraction of people who decide who serves, and the people who are serving are going to be disconnected from the true needs of the folks who are sending their kids to school.”

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Every 4-year-old in California can now go to school for free in their local districts. The new grade is called  — or TK — and it’s part of the state’s effort to expand universal preschool.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state legislature  in a $2.7 billion plan so that all 4-year-olds could attend by the 2025-26 school year. (Prior to this, TK was only available for kids who missed the kindergarten age cutoff by a few months). While it’s not mandatory for students to attend, districts must offer them as an alternative to private preschool.

As a free option, it can save parents a lot of money. Parents  how sending their kids into a school-based environment compares to a preschool they might already know and like, as well as other needs like all-day care, and .

One big question we’ve heard: What do kids actually do and learn in a TK classroom? Educators say it’s intended to emphasize play, but what does that mean?

To help parents get a better sense of this new grade as they make their decisions, LAist reporters spent the day in three different classrooms across the Southland. Here are five things we saw children do.

Get used to the structure and routines of school

For many students, transitional kindergarten is their first introduction to a formal school preschool setting. Crystal Ramirez sent her 4-year-old to TK at Marguerita Elementary School in Alhambra, so he could get used to the rhythm and rigors of school.

“I didn’t wanna put him straight into kindergarten when he was five, six, so he at least knows a routine, already,” she said. “Now, as soon as he sees that we’re in school, he loves it.”

TK students, like other elementary school students, follow a schedule: morning bell, recess, lunch, second recess and dismissal. They’re also learning how to listen to instructions or stand in a line. Some are learning to go to the cafeteria for lunch.

“ I wanna make sure that their first experience in a public school setting is one that is joyful, where they feel loved, where they feel welcomed, where they get to really transition nicely into like the rigor of the school,” said Lauren Bush, a TK teacher at Lucille Smith Elementary in Lawndale.

Claudia Ralston, a TK teacher at Marguerita Elementary, said it can be hard for young kids to get up early and leave their moms and dads. But seven weeks in, many of her students have learned their routines already. She helps with the morning transitions by turning on soft instrumental music in the classroom, and allowing them free play until they regroup on the mat to discuss the day.

“They’re four years old. I want them to feel safe at school, know that this is a special place for learning and that they play,” she said.

Learn how to socialize and communicate

In TK,  learning is a big part of the curriculum. That’s a fancy word, but it just means they’re learning how to be in touch with their emotions

At Price Elementary in Downey, the teacher has her kids give an affirmation: “I am safe. I am kind. I matter. I make good choices. I can do hard things. All of my problems have solutions!” (They also have these sentences on classroom wall signs.)

The children also learn how to interact with their peers. In some schools, there are no assigned desks so the kids can learn how to share the space.

“ They’re able to problem solve. They’re able to use communication to get their needs, regulating their emotions. They do better than students who come in without this experience,” said Cristal Moore, principal at Lucille Smith Elementary.

On the playground, a student named Ava told teacher assistant Lizbeth Orozco that another student pushed her.

“How did that make you feel?” Orozco asked.

“M����!”

Orozco encouraged Ava to express her feelings to her classmate.

“ We give them options of how to solve a problem and then they go in and solve it themselves,” Orozco said. “If they need extra help, they always come back and we can help them.”

Arguing over toys can be a common occurrence in a TK classroom. At Price Elementary in Downey, educators help kids work through a solution. On a recent morning, one 4-year-old used two tongs to pick up paper shapes in a sensory bin, leaving another kid upset.

“What’s the rule about sharing?” asked Alexandria Pellegrino, a teacher who gives extra support for one TK classroom.

The boy handed over a tong to his peer. “Thank you so much for being a good friend,” Pellegrino said.

“[It’s]  about being kind friends and making friends and using our manners. So we do build that foundation at the beginning of the year,” said Samantha Elliot, the classroom’s lead instructor.

At the end of the day in Alvarez’s Lawndale TK class, she counts up the stars next to each student’s name earned throughout the day — earned for positive behavior like being kind, solving problems, trying something challenging, or showing effort in other ways. Ten stars earns a small prize from the treasure chest.

“If we don’t get something today are we going to get mad?” Alvarez asked the class.

“No!” they responded.

“I’m not going to cry!” one boy piped up, followed by his classmate and a “Me too!” from another student.

“That’s [a] positive attitude,” Alvarez said. “Because tomorrow you can get more stars!”

Get exposed to numbers, shapes, letters

In Elliot’s TK class, students use their own little lightsabers to trace letters in the air.

“They’re learning the letter, the sound, and then a little action to go with it. They’re wiggling and moving and they’re also learning those letter sounds and they don’t really realize, so it’s incorporating instruction,” she said.

There’s no mandated curriculum in TK, but instruction is supposed to align with the state’s . “Kindergarten is basically where the state standards go and kick in. There are standards in TK, but it’s a little bit different,” said Tom Kohout, principal at Marguerita Elementary.

Students might put playdough into letter molds, or the teacher might pull out toys from a bag that all start with a letter “E.” Kids will play with little plastic toys that connect — or “manipulatives” — that can help them recognize numbers and patterns.

“It’s play with a purpose,” Ralston said. “They’re just being introduced to the numbers, the colors, writing. But again, we’re not doing worksheets.”

Build fine motor skills

Molding pretend cakes with kinetic sand. Connecting small LEGO bricks. Cutting playdough. It might not seem like much, but children this age are still learning how to use their bodies.

“Tearing paper is really hard and it’s a really amazing fine motor skill for them because the same muscles you use to tear paper are the same muscles that you use to hold a pen or a pencil,” said Lauren Bush, a TK teacher at Lucille Smith Elementary in Lawndale.

“You see kids playing with dinosaurs. I see kids sorting by color, doing visual, you know, eye hand coordination and visual discrimination. I see them using their fine motor skills,” she said.

At lunch, kids learn how to open up a milk carton or open a packaged muffin. At PE, they learn to balance on a block or walk in a straight line — learning spatial awareness.

“They’re learning how to run, stop, things like that and playing because their bodies are so young,” said Principal Kohout.

Learn independence

For some kids, it might be the first time where mom and dad aren’t there to help carry their backpacks or . TK is meant to help focus on their independence, though aides can help.

TK classrooms are also usually set up with play centers, so kids can have the choice to explore on their own.

“ I want them to be independent, to be able to solve their problems, you know, with assistance,” Ralston said.

Samantha Elliot, the TK teacher in Downey, says she encourages kids to talk to their teammates first to figure out an activity before going to a teacher.

“It’s just gaining the confidence and building that independence from basically the start of the school year,” she said.

Parent Crystal Ramirez has already noticed a change in her 4-year-old this year since starting school. “ [He’s] socializing a little bit more, talking a little bit more, trying to express himself as well.”

For four consecutive days last month, a group of Los Angeles County students was suspended after a fight broke out in their classroom inside a juvenile detention facility.

This is according to Stacy Nuñez, an education attorney representing one of the students, who said her client was among those suspended and questions why he was penalized before the facility called a meeting to discuss other behavioral interventions.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education can interrupt education services, even those legally required under an Individualized Education Program, if there is “an immediate threat to the safety of youth or others,” according to a  with . A second settlement with Los Angeles County, including its Probation Department, Department of Mental Health, and Department of Health Services, was also entered at the time.

But exactly how an “immediate threat” is defined is unclear and appears to be “completely discretionary,” Nuñez said.

This lack of clarity on the legal settlement with the county education department, often referred to as LACOE, is just one of the reasons advocates say education access for detained youth must be prioritized in ongoing court hearings to decide whether L.A. County’s juvenile halls should be placed into a receivership.

Saying it is “the only option left to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the youth currently in its care,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a request in July to grant full operational control of the county’s juvenile detention facilities to an appointed receiver. He also said the county is “substantially compliant with just 25% of all requirements” in the 2021 settlements.

After several court hearings on the receivership request, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez has listed education as one of five core reform areas, along with staffing, room confinement, use of force and data management. The next hearing is on Friday.

The county’s education department declined an interview to discuss the status of the settlement stipulations.

“Over the past four years, we’ve made substantial progress across multiple areas of the agreement, even while managing significant operational changes, including the closure of Central Juvenile Hall and the opening of Los Padrinos,” Elizabeth Graswich, LACOE’s executive director of public affairs and communication, wrote in a statement to EdSource. “As with many complex, multi-year agreements, some areas required additional time to fully implement.”

Prioritizing education

Full operational control under receivership would include management of its Probation Department, which contracts with the county education department for services to students enrolled in schools within detention facilities. The most recent enrollment  shows 532 students enrolled across seven juvenile detention facilities, with at least 225 in juvenile halls.

It’s this memorandum of understanding between the departments, plus how closely they must work on a regular basis to ensure students receive an education, that makes changes to one department nearly inextricable from the other.

Despite this, advocates say education is not always a priority in discussions about reforms to the juvenile justice system.

“It’s kind of a theme that education is a secondary thought … but I think the point is really valid that young people spend a majority of their waking hours in school each day when they’re in a facility, so we should really be focusing on that,” said Megan Stanton-Trehan, a senior attorney with Disability Rights California.

When Stanton-Trehan represented detained students during the initial years of the settlement with LACOE, staff would sometimes say her clients refused special education services, only to later learn her clients weren’t always clear on what the services were.

The settlement requires that the county “document efforts to send youth to the classroom on the same day that the youth refuses to go to school, except when there is an immediate threat to the safety of the youth or others.”

But Nuñez agreed that, to this day, it still isn’t always clear whether students actually refused services or how the alleged refusal is documented.

“If I go visit a client and they don’t come out to see me, all I’ll be told is ‘they refused,’” said Nuñez, who was recently told a client didn’t want to meet with her. It was only when she pressed further that she was told the client was in the middle of completing a test.

This was published on .

This school year, the Los Angeles school district has lost more than 13,000 immigrant students, mostly Hispanic, school officials said, with students fleeing in the months since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stepped up activity in Los Angeles in March.

The nation’s second-largest district now enrolls about 62,000 English learners, according to new figures obtained by The 74, down from more than 75,000 immigrant students in the 2024-25 academic year.   

“Some children are just choosing not to go back to school, especially those who are immigrants,” said Evelyn Aleman, founder of , a parents’ group which advocates for L.A.’s Spanish-speaking and low-income families. “That’s because they know that immigrant children have been arrested or detained by ICE.”

In the 2018-19 academic year, the district enrolled more than 157,000 English learners.  The downward trend of these students represents a stunning turnaround for a district that in 2003 was nearly half immigrant kids. It comes amid a districtwide decline in enrollment.  

L.A. is not the only city seeing declines in immigrant enrollment since ICE cracked down. Denver, Miami and San Diego have also . 

Since January, school officials, municipal leaders and state lawmakers have sought to present a brave face against the immigration crackdowns promised by President Donald Trump. Even before the ICE raids began, they issued guidance and rolled out tools and policies, and proposed legislation to limit federal immigration enforcement.

But the fear of ICE became real for many families, Aleman said, after federal agents in April showed up at two LAUSD schools seeking ‘access’ to young students. 

The federal agents’ school visits — with as many as four appearing at one time looking for information on children in grades one through six — were considered the first reported cases of Homeland Security authorities attempting to enter a U.S. school. 

School staffers turned the agents away in both cases, but outside of school grounds at least two LAUSD students have been arrested and held by ICE, Aleman said.  

“It isn’t because they don’t want to be in school,” said Aleman. “A big concern for families is that they’re going to be separated [by ICE]. Rather than see that, many are choosing to self-deport, or children who are high schoolers are choosing not to return.”

Instead, Aleman said, kids are staying home where they feel safe, or in some cases going to work outside their homes.  

According to LAUSD figures, the drop in immigrant students this year means LAUSD now enrolls about half as many of those kids as it did before the pandemic. 

Besides the ICE raids, factors including rising housing prices, falling birth rates and a tight local economy have also contributed to the exodus of immigrant students, said LAUSD Board Member , who represents , which includes neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro.  

“People are having less children, and traditionally, in Latino families, there are more children. So that’s one area,” said Ortiz-Franklin. “And, obviously, the in Los Angeles is ridiculous.”

Recent fears around immigration enforcement and the future of public assistance, such as SNAP benefits, are also likely driving down immigrant populations, Ortiz-Franklin said. 

shows the immigrant students in 2003 accounted for about 45% of enrollment, with more than 325,000 English learners enrolled there. Since then, the number of immigrant students has fallen sharply.

But the ICE raids that began in L.A. this year have given immigrant families more reason to be concerned about sending their kids to school — or leave the city entirely. 

To bolster immigrant students’ sense of safety, LAUSD officials have established ‘perimeters of safety’ around campuses and instructed school staffers to refuse ICE agents entry, unless warrants are displayed.

The district has created its safe zones around schools by warning families to stay away when volunteer sentries spot ICE agents nearby. A free legal defense fund has been created for families facing enforcement.

Other measures include free busing to class, legal clinics for families, and remote lessons for when all else fails.

In a statement, a district spokesperson said LAUSD’s overall enrollment “continues to reflect a long-term downward trend observed across large urban districts in California and nationwide.”&�Բ�����;

“Multiple factors contribute to these shifts, including declining birth rates, changes in housing affordability, and family migration patterns,” the spokesperson said. “In addition, increased federal immigration enforcement efforts have had a chilling effect in many communities.”

LAUSD officials and researchers said it’s difficult  to pinpoint where immigrant families are going when they leave. During the pandemic, L.A. superintendent Alberto Carvalho said some of these families had left the state for Texas and Florida for economic reasons.

Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education Pedro Noguera said LAUSD will face challenges in attracting more immigrant families, even with the measures to protect students from ICE raids.

“They’re taking a lot of extra steps to try to reassure the population, but it’s limited as to what they can do,” Noguera said.  “It’s a combination of several trends, all heavy at once, that is producing this significant decline,” adding LAUSD may soon have to make tough choices due to its shrinking class sizes.

Smaller class sizes have already prompted district leaders to consider measures such as closing schools or converting unused campus buildings for housing. 

Overall enrollment in LAUSD’s massive, 1,500-school system has cratered since its peak in 2002, when 746,831 students attended classes. This school year the district  enrolled 392,654 students, a drop of roughly 4% from last year’s count of 409,108, school officials said.

Enrollment this term has also failed to hit targets set during the budget process earlier in the year, indicating the losses are steeper than officials expected.

Julien Lafortune, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said such declines are impacting districts around the state, of immigrant students.

“The growth of Los Angeles and other districts was driven by a lot of immigrants coming in, and then, on average, having more kids than the average native-born person,” he said. “Now, we’re seeing kind of the inverse of that. Kind of a bust after the boom.”

Seeing all that data was interesting. But they were just numbers in a spreadsheet until we decided to out the results. And that geographic analysis revealed some surprising findings. 

For example, we found that, based on our metrics, two of the three highest-performing schools in California happened to be less than 5 miles apart from each other in Los Angeles. 

The Charter School came out No. 1 in the state of California. With 91% of its students in poverty, our calculations projected it would have a third grade reading rate of 27%. Instead, 92% of its students scored proficient or above. Despite serving a high-poverty student population, the school’s literacy scores were practically off the charts.  

PUC Milagro is a charter school, and charters tended to do well in our rankings. Nationally, they made up 7% of all schools in our sample but 11% of those that we identified as exceptional. 

But some district schools are also beating the odds. Just miles away from PUC Milagro is our No. 3-rated school in California, Hoover Street Elementary. It is a traditional public school run by the Los Angeles Unified School District. With 92% of its students qualifying for free- or reduced-price lunch, our calculations suggest that only 23% of its third graders would likely be proficient in reading. Instead, its actual score was 78%. 

For this project, we used data from 2024, and Hoover Street didn’t do quite as well in . (Milagro .)

Still, as Linda Jacobson reported last month, the district as a whole has been making impressive gains in reading and math over the last few years. In 2025, it reported its highest-ever performance on California’s state test. Moreover, those gains were broadly shared across the district’s most challenging, high-poverty schools. 

Our data showed that the district as a whole slightly overperformed expectations, based purely on the economic challenges of its students. We also found that, while Los Angeles is a large, high-poverty school district, it had a disproportionately large share of what we identified as the state’s “bright spot” schools. L.A. accounted for 8% of all California schools in our sample but 16% of those that are the most exceptional. 

All told, we found 45 L.A. district schools that were beating the odds and helping low-income students read proficiently. Some of these were selective magnet schools, but many were not. 

INTERACTIVE

Map of Los Angeles Area Bright Spots

Some of the schools on the map may not meet most people’s definition of a good school, let alone a great one. For example, at Stanford Avenue Elementary, 47% of its third graders scored proficient in reading in 2024. That may not sound like very many, but 97% of its students are low-income, and yet it still managed to outperform the rest of the state by 4 percentage points. (It did even a bit better in .)

Schools like Stanford Avenue Elementary don’t have the highest scores in California. On the surface, they don’t look like they’re doing anything special. But that’s why it’s important for analyses like ours to consider a school’s demographics. High-poverty elementary schools that are doing a good job of helping their students learn to read deserve to be celebrated for their results.

But look at the odds you face if you’re not white or Asian. In L.A, only 3% of Hispanic elementary students and 4% of Black students attend a school where 7 of 10 kids are reading at grade level. This shocking data comes from the California Department of Education.

My organization, Available to All, is a nonprofit watchdog that defends equal access to public schools. Our analysis of state data shines a light on the 456 zoned elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the K-5 or K-6 schools that are the default assignment for hundreds of thousands of L.A. children. Over 190,000 children attended these schools in 2023-24, the last year for which data is available. Of these 456 schools, only 39 have 70% of their students reading at grade level. At 105 of these schools, fewer than 30% of kids are reading proficiently.

What is absolutely crucial to understand is that discrepancies of this size can exist only if a government entity enforces them. Imagine for a moment two post offices. At one, 70% of letters and packages get delivered as promised. It’s not great, but we’ll call it pretty good. At the other post office, 3 out of 4 packages get lost or damaged, and only 25% arrive on time and in their original condition.

As soon as this data became public, people would stop going to the bad post office. Hundreds of people would drive to the pretty good post office, even if it was much farther away. Long lines would form outside the door. The bad post office would have to improve or face an empty lobby.

So the question is this: How does LAUSD enforce these discrepancies? How does it prevent tens of thousands of families from lining up outside the doors of those few elementary schools where most of the kids can read? The answer is attendance zones. The district draws a meandering line around each elementary school, determining who is and who isn’t allowed to attend.

The problem is, of course, that these coveted schools are located in some of the priciest parts of town. The lines typically encircle expensive single-family homes that are on large lots. What’s more, the home prices in these zones are distorted because the house comes with exclusive access to a desirable public school. “I know it sounds expensive,” the real estate agent will say, “but if you buy a home in this zone, you won’t have to pay for private school.”

These are quasi-private schools for wealthy Angelenos, but they’re operated on the public’s dime. Our research has shown that Los Angeles is one of many cities where coveted elementary schools have attendance zones that from the 1930s. Once again, families in less wealthy areas are boxed out, especially African-American and Hispanic kids, as well as working- and middle-class people of all races.

What’s incredible is that such exclusivity is possible in a system that has so many half-empty schools. f of L.A.’s elementary schools — 225 of 456 — have seen enrollment drop by more than 50% in the last 15 years. You would expect that, with so much overcapacity, families would have their pick of public schools.

Even the highest-performing schools are below their full capacity. In the 39 elementary schools with over 70% of kids reading at grade level, enrollment is down by over 7,000. That’s 7,000 seats that could be available to students who are currently assigned to failing schools, often within a mile or two.

California’s 1994 requires the district to make open seats available to students who live outside school attendance zones. But LAUSD has treated this policy as voluntary, as recently as 2018 that it is their choice whether to report open seats. Thus, these 39 schools reported only 58 open seats for this school year — less than 2% of what we’d expect to see based on their historical enrollment.

Of the 39 high-performing elementary schools, 15 of them are “affiliated conversion charters,” meaning they are operated by LAUSD but don’t have to participate in Open Enrollment. However, they are required by the state’s charter school law to hold a lottery for any open seats.   My organization called each of these schools, and 14 indicated that they could not accept any applicants from outside the zone, since they were “full.” But, again, these schools are well below their historical peak enrollment and should have at least 2,589 seats available.

The hard truth is this: Principals in these high-performing, zoned schools do not seem to want to make their open seats available to children outside the zone. Doing so might threaten the exclusive nature of the school, and that exclusivity is exactly what families are paying for when they take out their oversized mortgages.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. In the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has abolished attendance zone assignments. Test scores are up, as are graduation rates and college enrollment. In California, the state legislature ended geographic assignment for community colleges in the 1980s. In the years after this reform, enrollment rebounded after years of decline. Today, the community college system is a crown jewel of the state, championed by Republicans and Democrats alike.

America was built on the idea that even a kid from the wrong side of the tracks can go on to become a business owner, a doctor, a politician, a professor or a general in the military. History has proven that to be true. But here in the 21^st century, middle-class and low-income kids are blocked from fulfilling their potential, locked out of the best public schools — even ones that their families’ tax dollars pay for. It’s not fair, it’s not just,and it’s time to make a change.