The ruling reestablished the state’s opinion that LA Unified’s spending of $450 million over the last two fiscal years on special education does not qualify it as also having been spent on three needy subgroups — foster youth, English learners and low-income students. State law requires extra money be targeted to these groups and also provides extra state money for them.

“The complaint asserts that special education expenditures may not be counted as such ‘prior year expenditures’ because special education services are available to all students,” the ruling, which was issued Aug. 5, states.

The CDE had issued its initial ruling in May regarding how the district had allocated a total of $450 million for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years and in June gave the district until the 2017-18 school year to make the proper adjustments to how it sets its budget.

The district has also been the target of a lawsuit that was filed last year over how it was spending the disputed funds. The suit was filed by ACLU SoCal, Public Advocates and Covington & Burling LLP on behalf of Community Coalition South Los Angeles and LA Unified parent Reyna Frias. A 2015 study by UC Berkeley and Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) coalition also found that the bulk of the district’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) dollars “has seeped into the district’s base budget with … little apparent regard to the students who generate the new dollars.”

LA Unified had no immediate comment and will not finish its review of the appeal document until Wednesday, according to Greg McNair of LA Unified’s Office of the General Counsel.

In response to the lawsuit in 2015, the district issued a statement that said, “We believe that this group has misinterpreted the LCFF.  The Legislature clearly granted school districts – which serve  predominantly low-income students, foster youth and English language learners – the highest degree of flexibility in determining student program needs.”

At issue is the district’s accounting practices regarding the LCFF, which is part of a 2013 law giving greater flexibility to districts in how they spend state educational funds, along with extra dollars for the high-needs students in question. The CDE’s ruling says that by counting spending for “special education” as spending on services for low-income students, English language learners and foster youth, it deprives many students of the funds because not every special education student falls into those categories.

“The Complaint alleges that as a result of the inclusion of the $450 million of special education expenditures in the estimation of prior year expenditures, LAUSD shortchanged unduplicated pupils $126 million in increased or improved services in 2014-15, and $288 million in such services in 2015-16,” the CDE ruling states. “The Complaint further alleges the ‘deficit’ in expenditures on programs for unduplicated pupils will continue to build each year until it grows to $450 million annually at full implementation of LCFF (estimated to be in 2020-21).”

The ruling could be a financial blow to LA Unified, which is already facing hundreds of millions of dollars in budget deficits in the coming years, according to a report from an outside panel of financial experts that was issued in November.

By Iris Maria Chávez

Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes, and no state has taken that message more to heart than California. Alone among the 50 states, California stopped reporting accountability ratings for public schools in 2013 and was the first state in the nation to hit pause on accountability.

Now, with responsibility for accountability largely in the hands of states under the updated federal education law, the question looms: Will California reinstate real accountability to protect its 6.2 million students who are overwhelmingly low-income and Spanish-speaking, or will it remain in the shadows?

To understand how we got here, a little history lesson is in order. In 2013, the California legislature, with House Bill 484, put in place new assessments and paused utilizing API (California’s longtime accountability system) to allow for implementation of the new assessments.

The legislature also passed a new funding system, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) that requires districts to develop Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) that map performance targets and create plans to achieve those targets. In 2015, the state began full-scale use of the new Smarter Balanced assessment, and the State Board of Education paused use of the API for yet another year. It is not clear when exactly it will return.

There are many reasons for Californians to take a moment and ask, “How do we ensure that schools are supporting students, that parents have quality information about their schools, and the state is monitoring and supporting improvement?”

Many of the changes that are being implemented are intended to improve achievement for California students in the long term, but there’s a lot at stake, particularly for students of color. Improvement has been slow for all groups of California students, and the state ranks in the bottom 10 compared to all states, in all grades and subject areas for students overall on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP).

Latino and African American students continue to underperform compared to their white peers. While Latino students have been making slow, steady gains on most subjects on NAEP (16 points on eighth-grade reading since 2003) the Latino-white gaps continue to range between 24 to 30 points.

In 2015, Hispanic students had an average fourth-grade reading score that was 31 points lower than that for white students. This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1998 (35 points). In 2015, black students had an average fourth-grade reading score that was 33 points lower than that for white students, and this performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1998 (31 points). The Education Trust West recently released a report, Black Minds Matter, that lays out the troubling impact, on students and their future, if “the California Department of Education [continues to] lack an office, initiative or committee focused on African American achievement or the achievement gap, more generally.” We need a clear, coordinated focus on closing the achievement gap in California.

We need systems and policy changes that support better schools and better achievement for students. In the short term, however, many of these new policies come with some troubling challenges and many are having a negative impact on the availability of consistent, high-quality information on student, and school, performance.

The effects of recent actions have far-reaching implications for parents, advocates and policymakers. Without annual information, from high-quality assessments, on school and district performance, the state and district lack meaningful data to inform and enforce intervention decisions for low-performing schools, essentially putting the most needed interventions on hold for years.

Parents do not have objective information regarding school performance. Educators and school leaders lack the ability to compare their school’s performance to similarly situated schools across the state for the last few years. And charter management organizations (CMOs) and philanthropic partners do not have performance data to inform decisions regarding support of charter schools.

The State Board of Education is currently considering what a new accountability system ought to include. At a minimum, any new accountability system must be transparent and easily understandable by parents. It should be based on multiple measures, including college and career readiness and graduation rates as well as evidence of student growth.

Finally, the purpose of accountability is not simply to show us where we succeed and where we fall short but to actually drive improvements where needed. California should establish clear statewide goals by subgroup and publicly report progress toward these goals, district goals should be tied to these state goals, and  schools and districts that fail to make sufficient progress toward these goals should receive escalating assistance and interventions.

Even before the new federal law shifted the power away from Washington, the state was responsible for protecting children, promoting equity and ensuring a quality education for all kids. If we know one thing in the new century it is that, in the modern economy, ignorance is anything but blissful. Let’s hope the message isn’t lost on America’s largest state.

Iris Maria Chávez is an education advocate and communications consultant working with national and Oregon-focused organizations to advance equity by supporting the creation of just policies, engaging with communities and supporting communications efforts that better communities in Oregon and across the nation. She worked for over a decade in Washington, D.C., in education policy and advocacy for civil rights and advocacy organizations such as the Education Trust and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

Michelle King

By Jeremy Loudenback

In January, the Los Angeles Unified School District chose longtime local teacher and administrator Michelle King to head the nation’s second largest school district. The first African American woman to serve as district superintendent, King will oversee about 650,000 students at more than 900 schools across the city.

LAUSD students include more than 8,000 foster youth, by far the most of any school district in the state. Educational outcomes for foster youth are much worse when compared with peers, including higher dropout rates, lower graduation rates and the lowest participation rate in the state’s testing program.

In recent years, LAUSD had expanded efforts to address the needs of foster youth under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) initiative, such as the addition of several hundred academic counselors devoted to foster youth. But the challenge of meeting the needs of these youth is substantial, and some advocates are concerned about the way the district is distributing the LCFF money.

Not long after starting her new job, King shared her perspective in an email interview with The Chronicle of Social Change on the challenges faced by foster youth, what the district is doing to create a partial-credit policy for them, and what she thinks teachers can do to best support students at risk of dropping out.

The Chronicle of Social Change: During your tenure at LAUSD, what has your experience been with foster youth?

Michelle King: Through the years, I have experienced working with a large number of students in foster care as a teacher, school administrator and as part of the district’s leadership. In those roles, I have come to understand the complex challenges commonly faced by these students and the most effective ways to meet their needs and keep them on track to graduate. I am relying on this experience as a superintendent to help guide and support our amazing Foster Youth Achievement Program.

CSC: LAUSD has the most foster youth of any school district in the state. What sort of challenges, responsibilities and opportunities does that present LAUSD?

King: Quality of educational services provided to youth in foster care is one of the most important factors in determining success in their adult lives. Youth in foster care have traditionally been more at risk of dropping out than their counterparts due to lack of stability in home lives, frequent transitions and adjustments to new settings. Part of our responsibility is ensuring our teachers and administrators are adequately prepared to identify the warning signs among students of falling behind academically or experiencing socio-emotional problems that are liable to interfere with their educational process. This training must be ongoing for all our educators and caregivers given the continuing updates in regulations and legislation. And there is an opportunity here to understand the unique needs of these students, deliver services tailored to their needs and get them to a level playing field where they have the same opportunities to achieve as all other students. Given the size of our district, we have the opportunity to influence achievement on a very wide level.

CSC: According to one account, 55 percent of California’s foster youth drop out of high school. Based on your track record as both a teacher and principal, what’s the most important thing schools can do to support at-risk students like foster youth?

King: The most important thing we can do is keep these students focused on graduating and prepared to go to college or to start the career of their choice. In order to achieve this, we have counselors who specialize in issues concerning foster care who work closely with students to align services and interventions to the unique challenges they face. We also have systems in place to ensure that students are appropriately credited for coursework and other requirements they need to meet to stay on track to graduation, particularly as they transition among schools. Creating a welcoming student environment to help ease transitions and orient students to new settings is included in our Positive Behavior Support Plan.

CSC: Foster-youth students transfer schools at an alarming rate because of placement changes and other volatilities. Helping these students gain partial credits during school changes has been linked to helping many graduate. What can LAUSD do under your watch to improve its partial-credit policy? How feasible is it to quickly provide students who transfer with an adjusted account of their credits?

King: Our Foster Youth Achievement Program counselors are collaborating with appropriate school staff to ensure that partial credits are captured and reflected in students’ transcripts. This includes provision of detailed training to over 300 academic counselors to build capacity and proficiency in addressing the needs of our many students in foster care. We are capitalizing on the data match between records from the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and our district’s internal student records system so that counselors are able to review records proactively to ensure students are receiving the credits they need to stay on track with minimal impediments to progress. We are also allocating additional funding to the district’s academic counselors to ensure we remain on top of all students’ individualized graduation plans; this is particularly imperative for at-risk populations such as youth in foster care.

CSC: Though (DCFS) and community-based organizations play a key role in assisting foster youth, what is the role of LAUSD in helping foster youth with school stability?

King: The most important role we play is continuing to cultivate a strong partnership with the Department of Children and Family Services to ensure that the work of our academic counselors and educational service providers is aligned to the work of their social workers. We are also working to streamline enrollment processes to minimize any delays in getting students transferring to new schools into the appropriate classes they need and continuing to learn in a timely manner. We also advocate for the rights of students to their schools of origin by shaping policies that help students remain in stable learning environments and following their peers through families of schools even if they are transferred to homes outside a school’s attendance area.

CSC: LAUSD has made great strides toward providing an increased amount of resources, including counselors to foster youth, under the Local Control Funding Formula program. In its latest Local Control and Accountability Plan, LAUSD described a plan to track school stability/mobility for foster youth. What is the status of that plan?

King: The district’s current data collection and accountability system is capturing baseline data regarding tracking school stability and mobility among youth in foster care. Our Foster Youth Achievement Program is leading the way in developing a case management system that involves careful monitoring and tracking significant indicators of successful interventions. The program is evolving rapidly to improve the quality of service and care we provide youth in foster care. You can keep updated on our progress at any time by visiting the Foster Youth Achievement Program page.

This article was published in partnership with The Chronicle of Social Change. Jeremy Loudenback is the organization’s child trauma editor.

Elmer Roldan of the United of Greater Los Angeles and students from LAUSD. (Credit: Twitter @LAUnitedWay)

*UPDATED

While classmates were at the beach, the mall or the park, about 150 LA Unified high school students spent part of their Saturday dowtown at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, taking part in a Youth Town Hall.

The focus of the meeting was for the students to offer opinions on how the district should spend Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) money, which this school year brought the district an extra $1.1 billion in budget dollars for high-needs students.

Nearly all the students who came are in a high-needs categories the LCFF is intended to help — students who get free or reduced-price lunch, English learners or those residing in foster care. Governor Jerry Brown’s LCAP law requires that they get extra dollars and that districts draw up a spending plan based, in part, on meaningful public input.

Saturday’s event was the first of six LCFF input meetings the district has scheduled with community partners, and more are likely.

Before breaking into smaller groups to discuss specific ideas, the students received a tutorial on the ins and outs of what the LCFF is from Sara Mooney, an education program associate with United Way, and an inspirational speech from LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer.

Zimmer promised that the board and the district would listen to their ideas.

“At the end of the day, what this is about it is about, your right to participate — not just to participate — but to guide and drive this process,” Zimmer said. “The money that is coming though LCFF, the money that’s coming from the state, it’s not the school district’s money, it’s not the money of people who are in power. It’s your money. It’s your funds.”

Saturday’s meeting was the second of its kind. Mooney said no school board members attended the first, last year, but having Zimmer tell them they were being listened to was helpful in getting the students engaged in the process.

“I really appreciate him saying that this money is for the students. I think that is super powerful and very correct,” Mooney told LA School Report.

In the smaller groups, students discuss specific ideas on how to improve graduation rates, a change from last year, Mooney said, when each group tackled a different topic.

“We wanted to focus it around 100 percent graduation, not only what do I need to graduate but what do I need to do to get to college. And that is something we feel is sometimes missing from the conversation at LAUSD, which is how many of your students are actually going to college,” Mooney said.

A full document that outlines all the ideas discussed will be finalized in about a week, but the lack of a focus on college came up frequently in one of the smaller groups. Students said the district just wants them to graduate but offers little support in what it takes to get accepted to a good college.

“It seems like they just want to kick us out of high school, not kick us into college,” one student said.

Another topic that came up frequently was the lack of access to college counselors.

Leslie Chavez, a senior at Banning High School in Wilmington, told LA School Report she would ask for more counselors if she could talk directly to Superintendent Ramon Cortines.

“There is a lack of college counselors. My friends are taking the same classes they took in previous years and they are trying to talk to their counselors, but they don’t believe them,” Chavez said.

The need for more counselors was one of the main ideas that came out of last year’s meeting, as well, Mooney said. During her presentation, Mooney told the students that the district allocated an extra $13 million in LCFF funds more counselors, and the United Way felt a big reason was the recommendation from students.

The students were primarily bussed to the meeting and they came from all areas of the district. Many are students leaders, like Chavez, who said she heard about the meeting through the teacher of her Youth and Government club.

“It brings me joy to see that there are other students pushing just as much as I am to improve our schools within LAUSD. We do have a lot of flaws, and I feel like these students and I can really improve what we have,” Chavez said.

As to what got her to dedicate her Saturday to a discussion on LCFF funds, Maria Garcia, a junior at the RFK School for Visual Arts and Humanities said, “My motivation is always to help so that my sister can have a better education and my brother can too. I think it’s important for students to advocate for the generation that is coming after them.”

*UPDATED to reflect the $1.1 billion in LCFF funds are for the current school year, not last year

In the brief open session, the school board will take up clarification amendments to the LCAP plan as required by the Los Angeles County Office of Education. In closed session, the members will review progress on matters relating to the search for the next superintendent.

The LCFF investments are targeted to low-income, English learner and foster youth students. And, money is going toward expanding arts programs, providing librarians and library aides, reducing class sizes for 8th and 9th grade English Language Arts and Mathematics, increasing counseling support and providing intervention and support programs to youth on their path to graduation.

The report by UC Berkeley and Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) coalition is slated for release on Monday and found that “the bulk of LCFF dollars has seeped into the district’s base budget with… little apparent regard to the students who generate the new dollars.”

Under the state formula foster care youth, students living poverty and those requiring special education programs earn the district additional funding to supplement their education.

While the board made commitments to distribute those funds — $700 million in 2013-14 and another $145 million in 2014-15 —to an array of initiatives targeting this student population, the money was largely invested in special education efforts as well as restoring staff positions. According to the study, few of those re-hires were directly tied to instruction, especially at the elementary school level.

Research for the study was gathered through student surveys, focus groups with pupils, teachers and principals, and analyzed school-by-school budgets. 

Several improvements were made over the current school year. Spending on new instructional aides for English learners is up; programs benefiting foster care youth were launched; and funding for restorative restorative justice programs got a boost.

Other key findings included:

• LCFF “investment dollars” equaled less than 3% of LAUSD’s total budget in 2014-15
• The majority of LCFF investment dollars — $145 million — went to high schools in 2014-15
• Distribution of LCFF investment dollars to elementary schools did not follow the equity formula established by the district

The analysis concludes that the district has no coherent strategy for how new positions and program dollars supposed to spur discrete improvements at the school level. Further, district officials have no method of tracking which endeavors are successful and which need modifications.

The United Way, which partnered with the district on the meeting, said it is planning on hosting around 150 students at its headquarters. Governor Jerry Brown’s LCFF law requires districts to draw up a spending plan based, in part, on meaningful public input, and tomorrow’s event is designed to help meet that requirement, said Sara Mooney, an education program associate with United Way.

The students will get presentations on the history of the LCFF law as well as on the district’s five performance meter goals, Mooney explained. The students then separate into five groups, each focusing on one of the goals and how the LCAP can used to meet it. The district’s goals are: 100 percent graduation; proficiency for all; 100 percent attendance; parent and community engagement, and school safety.

The district’s five goals all address priorities that the state requires districts to focus on in their LCAPs, Mooney said.

“Each group is going to be walked through what the performance meter goals are, how the district is supposed to measure it and what the district has done thus far to see improvement in each area,” Mooney said. “So the kids are going to be asked things like, ‘Do you think this is a good measurement? Are these good tools for measurements. Have you seen improvements at your school in this area, and what can the district do better?’ ”

The students will create a document with up to 15 recommendations tol be presented to district leadership, Mooney said.

In effect, the state would have the right to place a cap on how much money a district can keep in reserve, which sounds simple enough. But LA Unified and other big school districts are opposed to it because if shifts the right to manage savings and spending to Sacramento.

So much for local control.

“The reserve proposal is counter to the spirit of local control in the LCFF in that it fails to allow local school communities to make fiscal decisions that best serve the needs of their students,” said Edgar Zazueta, LA Unified’s chief lobbyist.

The provision was tucked into Gov. Jerry Brown‘s state budget Sunday night. It’s part of a rewrite of a ballot initiative that has already qualified to go before voters that revises the state’s rainy day fund plan. Basically, each school district would be given a cap — a set percentage of the budget — that it can keep in reserve. LA Unified’s would be three percent. Currently, it’s at five percent.

The measure is more complex than that, with a lot of if-this-then-that provisions. But essentially, it would require districts to spend money in better economics times, rather than save it. The mandate would only apply in years the state puts more money in a Prop 98 fund, under a rationale that if the state is saving more, districts don’t have to. Prop 98 sets the amount of money the state spends on K-through-12 public education.

Two percent of LA Unified’s $7 billion budget is the equivalent of $140 million. That would pay for a lot of teachers, librarians and counselors, which is why the California Teachers Association (CTA) has been such a strong proponent of the measure.

After years of layoffs and flat salaries, teacher unions across the state want raises for current personnel and the return of those laid off during recessionary years — although at this point, it’s hardly clear how districts would spend the money.

LA Unified and other districts around the state object to the change for two major reasons: One, as Zazueta said, it reduces dollars districts would rather have for long-term and emergency spending. Second, it seems to countermand the new spirit of local control build into the overhaul of state spending on public education.

Approval largely depends on whether voters think school districts should be spending more money or saving it. What they would spend it on is a fight for another day.

Alberto Retana, Executive Vice President of Community Coalition

Among the challenges poor kids in south LA are forced to overcome just to meet the most basic learning conditions in schools, are cockroaches.

Not in their classrooms. In their bodies.

LA Unified students in neighborhoods like South Gate and Watts regularly visit health clinics to have the insects that crawl inside their ears, plucked out,  Alberto Retana, Executive Vice President of Community Coalition, one of three groups that developed the Student Need Index, told LA School Report.

“How can you learn in a classroom if you have a cockroach in your ear that stems from poor housing conditions in the community?” he asked rhetorically. “You can’t. There is a link there.”

And it’s one of several links Retana hopes Superintendent John Deasy makes today when the LA schools chief unveils his plan to distribute $837 million in supplemental and concentration funding for three groups of students with specific needs for academic achievement — foster youth, English learners, and those from lower-income households — to the district’s neediest schools.

Deasy has been instructed by the board to devise a formula using his own set of indicators and data to target the money where the need is greatest and where it will have the biggest impact on academic outcomes.

The board approved the idea of establishing an index to allocate money in a way that would more faithfully meet the spirit of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), based on research by three community groups — Community Coalition, the Advancement Project and InnerCityStruggles.

The schools were identified by calculating a dozen factors, including neighborhood conditions that can affect the lives of students, like gun injuries; access to childcare and asthma rates, graduation rates and 3rd and 8th grade test scores. They found the district’s 242 “highest need” schools are located in south and east Los Angeles and the Pacoima area in the San Fernando Valley.

“He is going to use our index as a model, but he doesn’t have to follow it,” Retana explained.

One aspect he expects Deasy will hang onto is “the notion that if you’re a foster kid and an English Learner and poor, that should count three times as opposed to once because the conditions are unique and have a greater impact on a child’s learning.”

Under LCFF, the grants are not duplicated if a student qualifies in more than one category.

Deasy initially opposed establishing additional metrics to divert more money to the districts poorest and poorest performing schools, arguing that they were unnecessary because the district was already considering several poverty factors for the 2014-2015 budget.

But in less than two months, as the community groups mounted an intense campaign to convince the board more specific metrics should be considered, he became a champion of the community groups’ measures.

Retana says one of the reasons Deasy and five of the six board members — Board president Richard Vladovic, Monica Garcia, Steve Zimmer, Bennett Kayser and Monica Ratliff — all came around to support the index because it is tied to outcomes. Tamar Galatzan was the lone dissenter.

“This is not a blank check,” Retana said. “The district needs to demonstrate, over the course of three years, that our high needs schools are improving, and that makes this unique. It hasn’t been done before.”

Another reason was the undeniable public support from LA Unified families. Between February and April the coalition gathered 4,300 signatures on a petition supporting the index, then delivered it Vladovic’s office (though he wasn’t there to accept it).

“We built the community base and pressure that created the space for [board members] who are often on opposing sides, to say, you know what? on this particular issue I’m going to do the right thing,” Retana said.

Without thousands of signatures being collected, he added, it never would have happened.

The revised budget is in the hands of the LA Unified Board of Education, but the public has a final opportunity tomorrow to weigh in on how the district’s $7 billion budget will be spent.

The board has set a limit of 30 speakers to address the six members for two minutes each, to advocate for their causes célèbres.

But in all likelihood, the budget presented last week by Superintendent John Deasy and the spending plan that reflects the new revenue from the state’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) will not change significantly after parents, students and community leaders have their say. In fact, there’s very little the board members can do, either, as the budget approaches a final vote on June 24 and presentation to the LA County Office of Education before July 1.

School board members cannot veto line items. To adjust spending in a particular area, a member must raise the issue for discussion, make recommendations on where to find an offset, then persuade a majority of colleagues to agree to the changes.

“I don’t think that’s going to be happening,” Chris Torres, Chief of Staff for board President Richard Vladovic, told LA School Report. “The board members have expressed everything they’ve needed to express in the past meetings.”

The only item on the agenda that may impact the budget is Bennett Kayser’s resolution to invest $44 million over the next three years in early education. His motion would earmark $10 million for the upcoming school year, $14 million in 2015-2016 and $20 million in 2016-2017.

Meanwhile, the teachers union, UTLA, is pressing for more changes. Union leaders are planning a noon press conference at district headquarters to campaign for major changes in Deasy’s budget, including money to return teachers, counselors, nurses, librarians and social workers who were laid off during the recession.

“The Superintendent’s budget does not do enough to restore these key positions,” the union said in a press release. “The 640,000 students in this district deserve the type of support system that exists in many other districts across California and the nation.  This inequity cannot be ignored.”

Among other issues tomorrow, Kayser has a motion before the board, to keep Stuart Magruder, an architect, on the Bond Oversight Committee. Magruder’s reappointment for a two-year term was blocked last month because of his opposition to using bond money for iPads.

Deasy is expected to deliver on his promise to provide the board with a final formula for the Student Need Index, which is supposed to identify the district’s neediest schools by taking into account such factors as graduation rates, local crime and environmental health conditions.

The Index was passed in a 5 -1 vote last week, on the condition by board member Monica Ratliff that the superintendent quickly come up with a plan to identify the schools that will be getting additional LCFF dollars as a result of the new plan.

The board is also considering final spending plans for the district’s 53 affiliated charter schools.

For board agenda, click here, and here (for special meeting agenda).

For board materials, click here, and here (for final budget proposal).

Adds details about UTLA press conference.

An open letter to the Los Angeles Unified school board from five district students:

Dear board members:

We are students who live in South Los Angeles and attend South L.A. High Schools. One of us wakes up early every morning to take two buses to attend Hamilton High School in West L.A. so that she can have access to academic opportunities – like extra A.P. courses, and strong college preparation – that aren’t offered at her neighborhood school. For the rest of us, we struggle everyday with violence around our schools, lack of enough support services, and inadequate resources and materials.

From studying our history, we know that south L.A. students have struggled with being provided enough resources so that African American and Latina/o students can reach their full potential. We don’t think it’s right that in 2014 we are still struggling with an issue that should be a basic civil right. It makes us upset to know that students who attend schools in wealthier areas of town have access to more educational opportunities than we do. Two weeks ago, we recognized the 60th Anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that was supposed to end segregation in our school system, but from what we see in our community, it looks like “separate and unequal” still exists.

This is why many of us got involved with student organizing, so that we could make a difference in our community. For some of us, we’ve been fighting for change for years. Others of us got involved more recently because we learned about an important campaign called “Schools We Deserve.” We found out that thanks to the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), for the first time, LA Unified will receive more money from California to help high needs students. Our “Schools We Deserve” campaign is an effort to make sure that the schools with the highest needs in LA truly get these resources. That’s why we were so excited when you introduced the “Equity is Justice Resolution” at the May 13th school board meeting.

Your resolution directs the Superintendent to adopt the “Student Need Index,” a tool that uses data to rank all the schools in LA Unified based on need. The national civil rights organization, Advancement Project, developed this tool with support from Community Coalition and InnerCity Struggle. When we first learned about the Student Need Index, we were really excited because for the first time there was something scientific that could measure and describe our experiences.

We’ve been talking about the conditions in our community and schools for years, but now the index actually backs us up by using numbers. For example, the index found that students in high needs schools are nearly five times as likely to be exposed to gun violence. We knew this intuitively, as all of us know someone who has been shot, and in south L.A., gunshots, police helicopters and sirens are a regular part of life. This violence interferes with our schoolwork because it’s hard to concentrate when one is scared, sad or angry. We hope that the Student Need Index will direct more money to our schools, so we can have wellness counselors and trained adults on campus to help us deal with these problems.

The Student Need Index also looks at stuff like the number of foster care students and English language learners at a school, drop out rates, poverty, reading levels, and even considers environmental health factors. Another big thing the index looks at is the numbers of expulsions and suspensions at a school. That’s important to us because last year we advocated for the passage of the “School Climate Bill of Rights” resolution that ended suspensions for non-serious offenses, like forgetting school supplies.

If the Student Need Index passes, some of the funding could go toward “restorative justice” programs on our campuses, where alternatives to suspensions – such as community service, dialogue, mediation and restoration – are used to deal with problems. These programs are better because they keep students in school and learning, and get at the root of what was causing the bad behavior in the first place.

We believe through the passage of this resolution, we can decrease the dropout rates, increase graduation rates and college rates by using LCFF dollars for increasing support for students who live in the communities with the harshest conditions. Our long-term vision is for all students to have the opportunity to achieve their dreams, graduate from a four-year institution and enter a living wage career, regardless of where they live and what school they go to.

Board Members Monica Garcia and Steve Zimmer and Board President Richard Vladovic, we thank you for your support, but we have not yet reached victory. We need all board members to support this resolution. We attended a debate the other night with the four leading candidates for the open District 1 seat. We asked the candidates if they support the “Student Need Index,” and all four said they do! It’s our belief that if we had a voting representative right now for that seat, this resolution would pass.

Board members Tamar Galatzan, Bennett Kayser and Monica Ratliff, it is our hope that one of you will stand up and be the voice for South L.A. – and do what’s right for Los Angeles – by supporting the Student Need Index!

Sincerely,

South Los Angeles Youth Leaders with the Community Coalition,

• Cristian Gaspar, 11th Grader, Fremont High School

• Ryan Bell, 11th Grader, Dorsey High School

• Timothy Walker, 11th Grader, Crenshaw High School

• Jathan Melendez, 10th Grader, Manual Arts High School

• Siria Diego, 12th Grader, Hamilton High

The ad appears a day before a board meeting when issues of the budget will be a large part of the conversation.

In “An Open Letter to the LAUSD School Board,” the groups who form the coalition known as CLASS – Communities for Los Angeles School Success — call on Superintendent John Deasy and board members to honor the spirit of the state’s new funding mechanism to spend more on students who need it most — English learners, foster youth and students from low-income families.

“As you know,” the ad says, “this year’s budget will set the course for years to come. The community is watching to ensure you support student success first, and we are counting on you to do the right thing.”

Ryan Smith, ‎Director of Education Programs and Policy at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the coalition organizer, said the ad was meant to push members to increase funding and build public support for the effort.

Smith said he did not know how much the full-color ad cost.

The 47 parents and guardians selected to give feedback, have had two weeks to “live with” Superintendent John Deasy’s proposed 2014-15 school year budget. However,  Rowena Lagrosa, Executive Director of the district’s Parent Community Services Branch, admitted to LA School Report, “Some came more prepared than others.”

“Like all of us, when we’re given something to read as an assignment, we might have good intentions, but you show up that day and . . .” she trailed off. Later she explained, “It’s a heavy document that is filled with terminology inherent to LA Unified, which made it challenging to get through on their own.”

In anticipation of such an outcome, Parent Educator Coaches were assigned to lead groups of four to six committee members through the document and supporting materials section by section. Afterward, they outlined priorities for each of Deasy’s goals.

Lagrosa said it’s too early to identify trends for what are must-haves for parents, but the information will be compiled and presented to Deasy by the May 13 school board meeting.

The public can weigh in on the LCAP during the public speaking portion of the meeting.

Song Lyrics composed by youth at BHC Boyle Heights (Photo by Gaby, age 15, from the Las Fotos Project)

Community groups big and small, have responded collectively to the extra $332 million coming into the district via the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), Governor Jerry Brown‘s signature K-through-12 education initiative.

For now, only a few schools have complete autonomy in deciding how the money should be used although more will gain the freedom over the next few years.

At Building Healthier Communities (BHC) Boyle Heights, which is part of a 10-year, $1 billion program of The California Endowment, the youth have composed a song that asks LAUSD, “Where does all the money go?” in reference to the distribution of LCFF money.

The song will be presented at Saludarte, an event produced by our collaborative in partnership with the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, on April 26 at Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights. LA School Report has transcribe the lyrics below for your reading pleasure.

(Verse)

Where does all the money go?
To our children? Bureaucracy?
Or to the “Fat Cat”?

It’s a political mirage, an illusion,
That a gift is being given.

(Refrain)
(A slight of hand that’s the trick)

Wait a minute! Lights on!
Recognize you have to deal with us
Our presence, our collective dreams
For our children

(Lights on!)

We will not surrender,
Physically, mentally
We are present!
Answering the call to action
In our homes, in our schools,
In our communities, in our board rooms.

Every charter school in the district — and that includes 52 affiliated and more than 200 independent schools — must craft an individual Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) to show how it will disperse funds from Governor Jerry Brown’s new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).

Traditional LA Unified public schools are covered under the district’s LCAP, so they’ve been spared the extra paperwork.

“This is the fourth major plan that is due this month and on that timeline, the LCAP is the last one that’s due, so my attention has been on the first three,” Joe Martinez, principal of Carpenter Community Charter School in the Valley told LA School Report.

Martinez is also chairman of Valley Affiliated Charter Schools, a coalition of 43 charter schools in the San Fernando Valley who are working together to meet state and federal funding guidelines.

He says all charter schools have been facing deadlines for major issues. Orders for textbooks were due last week, each school’s Single Plan for Student Achievement is due to the state at the end of the week, and next week, they’ll have to finalize their annual budgets for the 2014-15 school year.

“Once those get done, then I’ll start focusing on the LCAP,” Martinez said.

That’s not to say they charters and the district haven’t been preparing for the April 30 LCAP deadline.

Jose Cole-Gutierrez, chief of the charter schools division for the district, met with all affiliated charter school leaders last week.

“We’ve given them templates to use as models so that they’re not all starting from scratch,” he told LA School Report.

“We know there’s a lot on principals’ plates, and the LCAP is new, but we’ve tried to create a web of support [for charter schools],” he said.

The district has assembled a team with members from six offices including Budget Services and the Office of Instruction to help affiliated charter school leaders navigate the new process.

Once the district has approved the charter school LCAPs, they head to the state in July.

When asked if he is stressed about the approaching due date, Martinez laughed and said, “We’re not going to lose sleep over it, we’re just going to make sure it gets done.”

CLASS rally at LA Unified

The battle to influence the Los Angeles Unified School board on how to spend Governor Jerry Brown’s new Local Control Funding Formula budget boost and statewide tax revenues for education continues to rage on.

Parents, educators and community organizers rallied outside of LA Unified headquarters today before a special school board meeting primarily focussed on budget issues.

Inside, members of Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) presented the six-member board with a petition containing more than 5,000 signatures by families and teachers across L.A.  “demanding that $1 billion in extra state funding over the next seven years goes to help low-income students, English learners and foster youth.”

The petition was bound by rubber bands, about seven inches thick, and made a loud thunk as speakers dramatically dropped sections of it on the speaker’s podium.

A graduate of Manual Arts High School who said he’d had “a  lot of emotional problems” when he was a student there, suggested the district hire several restorative justice counselors.

Several parents called for the district to close teacher jails and open school libraries  instead.

Caroline Horton, an eduction aide at Crenshaw High School, said the district “is being wasteful twice” when it puts teachers in “teacher jail.”

“You’re paying them to do nothing and then you’re paying a substitute to do their job, too,” she said.

School board member Monica Ratliff tried to manage the protesters’ expectations.

“I know it sounds like a lot of money,” she said, “but it’s really not that much when you really look at it.”

LA Unified will receive $110.5 million in extra funds next year and another $140 million in 2015-16. That money is earmarked specifically for English Language learners, students who receive free or reduced lunch, and foster care students.

Ratliff said a one percent raise for teachers, who have not had a salary increase in seven years and agreed to take on extra furlough days during the district’s recent budget belt tightening, would cost the district $40 million

“We’re not talking about a large amount of money,” she said. “It’s really important that we get that message out there, otherwise people will be really disappointed.”

In a statement after the board meeting, member Monica Garcia said:

“I accept the thousands of signatures and acknowledge voices that have demanded investment, quality and justice from LAUSD for decades. Every child in California deserves more investment and support for their academic journey. Our students with greatest needs deserve our greatest support. We must embrace the opportunity to lead and get to 100% graduation.”

via the LAUSD Parent Community Services Branch

A series of meetings are scheduled to help LA Unified parents and other community members learn about the new Local Control Funding Formula, the state’s new funding stream. A coalition of advocacy groups known as CLASS, as well as LAUSD board members are holding community meetings to help the public understand the changes. Below is a guide to meetings scheduled in the coming weeks.

Click here to see the schedule.

Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) is holding the first of eight “Town Hall” meetings this evening at Community Coalition in south Los Angeles, where officials plan to explain how the recently passed Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) works and how the money is intended to help students with the greatest needs.

“Our message is simple,” said Maria Brenes, Executive Director of InnerCity Struggle, in a CLASS press release. “LCFF is about making sure schools that serve the neediest students get the resources they need to close the achievement and opportunity gaps that exist in neighborhoods.”

In addition to the town hall gatherings, CLASS is circulating a petition, urging the board to support the thrust of the new funding law. CLASS is also planning to hold a rally at the March 4 school board meeting.

The district is also reaching out to the community, with individual school board members holding their own town hall style meetings at school sites. District 4 board member Steve Zimmer recently sent a flyer to principals, highlighting three “conversations” he plans to hold.

LAUSD’s regional Education Service Centers are planning stakeholder meetings throughout the month as well, according to the CLASS town hall calendar.

The district must submit its Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) to the state in July, outlining its efforts to ensure community input on how to best use the new education dollars.

Previous Posts: The right balance; LA Unified is seeking 47 parents to make spending recommendations; LA Unified asking community for ideas on state spending plan

via the LAUSD Parent Community Student Services Branch

With new education tax dollars coming in, LAUSD is quickly assembling a 47-member Parent Advisory Committee as part of its Local Control Accountability Plan, which represents the district’s spending priorities. For parents there’s a two-step process for participating.

A local School Site Council identifies interested parents as  potential candidates. Then each council nominates one parent of a “low income” student and one parent of an “at large” student, who will then proceed to the next round.

Parents of English Language Learners (ELL) and foster youth will also be represented on the PAC but are chosen through a different process.

All potential candidates must attend the next parent meeting at the regional Education Service Center, where nominations will be made. After each candidate speaks, those in attendance will vote.

The schedule for elections is available here.

Previous Posts: LA Unified wants you: 47 parents and your spending priorities