Cloud Mejia, 13, who goes by they/them pronouns, said that they couldn’t even keep track of how many days of middle school they missed last year. “I rarely got myself to go,” Cloud said. “It’s not that I didn’t want to go to school, I just don’t feel welcome there a lot of the time....

After half of Los Angeles Unified students were chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year, superintendent Alberto Carvalho tweeted in April he would personally take on 30 chronically absent students to better understand the issue. In an interview earlier this month with LA School Report, Carvalho said he was able to have “regular contact” with...

Faced with a crisis of chronically absent students last academic year, Los Angeles County education officials have spent the summer training workers to connect with families so children return to class next month.     Teachers and social workers have been learning to spot mental health issues; and help parents find resources such as daycare so older...

Jennifer Kottke has worked with LAUSD homeless and foster care youth for more than 20 years — but she has never seen chronic absenteeism among these students become the crisis it did  during the pandemic.  While nearly half of all LAUSD students were chronically absent during most of the the 2021-22 school year, the numbers...

LAUSD school board president Kelly Gonez will likely head to a runoff against teacher Marvin Rodriguez in district 6 this November — a surprising outcome for the five year board member who was backed by the powerful Los Angeles teachers union. Maria Brenes and Rocio Rivas will also likely head to a runoff for the...

Updated May 18 This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Los Angeles Unified high school senior Hailey Galvan had never considered attending one of the country’s most elite colleges — until she took a special college course offered at her school. It was in...

This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.  When the pandemic hit, 10-year-old Luis, who has autism, quickly started to regress. Luis’s mother said the boy stopped socialializing after his fourth grade class at his Los Angeles Unified school in Southeast L.A. shut down....

Updated May 4 This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The majority of English learner students in Los Angeles Unified district schools failed to meet state math and reading standards in the latest round of assessments, prompting parents to call for better communication...

This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Sign up here for LA School Report’s newsletter. From their dislike of local teachers’ unions to a lack of confidence in school administrators, California voters are more disillusioned with the state of education than voters nationally, a...

Updated April 12 This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. New Los Angeles Unified school superintendent Alberto Carvalho plans to fill hundreds of teaching vacancies by reassigning school staff to classrooms for the remainder of the year.   “The adults may feel inconvenienced by...