Los Angeles Unified School District
| Year | Student Enrollment |
|---|---|
| 1993-1994 | 639,129 |
| 1994-1995 | 632,973 |
| 1995-1996 | 647,612 |
| 1996-1997 | 667,305 |
| 1997-1998 | 680,430 |
| 1998-1999 | 695,885 |
| 1999-2000 | 710,007 |
| 2000-2001 | 721,346 |
| 2001-2002 | 735,058 |
| 2002-2003 | 746,852 |
| 2003-2004 | 747,009 |
| 2004-2005 | 741,283 |
The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students)
public school system in California and
the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population.
As of 2005, LAUSD serves over 710,000 students, and with over 74,000 employees, is the second
largest employer in Los Angeles County, after County government.
The school district serves virtually all of the city of Los Angeles and all or portions of several adjoining Southern California cities. LAUSD has its own police department. The Los Angeles School Police Department was established in 1948 to provide police services for LAUSD schools [1]. If the LAUSD was a Fortune 500 company, it would rank at #250. The LAUSD enrolls a third of the preschoolers in Los Angeles County, and operates almost as many buses as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The LAUSD school construction program rivals the Big Dig in terms of expenditures, and LAUSD cafeterias serve about 500,000 meals a day, rivaling the output of local McDonald's restaurants. [2]
The LAUSD has a reputation for extremely crowded schools, poor maintenance and incompetent administration. Bond issues and ambitious renovation programs have not uniformly eased these conditions.[1] As part of its school-construction project, LAUSD opened two high schools (Santee Education Complex, South East) in 2005 and four high schools (Arleta, Contreras Learning Complex, Panorama, and East Valley) in 2006 [3] [4]. By 2012, over 160 schools will have been constructed, expanded, or completely refurbished.
Every LAUSD household or residential area is zoned to an elementary school, a middle school and a high school.
History
The Los Angeles Unified School District was once composed of two separate districts: the Los Angeles City School District and the Los Angeles High School District. The latter provided 9-12 educational services, while the former did so for K-8. It was not until the late 1960s that the two school districts merged to create what is today the LAUSD.
The last community to secede from the Los Angeles system was Torrance, which later created the Torrance Unified School District, in 1947-48. Carson residents tried unsuccessfully in 2002, and currently, a small area served by LAUSD in Rancho Palos Verdes, known as Eastview, has been trying to do so, and join the school district that the rest of Rancho Palos Verdes is served by--namely, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District. The city of Lomita once tried to secede from the LAUSD and join Torrance Unified. Communities in southeast Los Angeles County, such as Bell, Maywood, and Cudahy, have also tried to secede and form their own districts.
Governance
Los Angeles Unified School District is currently governed by a seven-member school board. The Board of Education appoints a superintendent, who runs the daily operations of the district. Members of the board are elected directly by voters from separate districts that encompass communities that the LAUSD serves. The district's current superintendent is David L. Brewer III, a former Navy Vice-Admiral who served as head of the Navy's Education and Training Division and was in charge of the SeaLift Command. From 2001 until his retirement in October, 2006, the district was led by former Colorado governor and Democratic Party chairman Roy Romer. Current members of Board of Education include Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte (District 1), Board President Monica Garcia (District 2),Tamar Galatzan (District 3), Marlene Canter (District 4), Yolie Flores Aguilar (District 5), Julie Korenstein (District 6), and Richard Vladovic (District 7).
LAUSD has long been known for bureaucracy. Over the years, various attempts at reform have been implemented. First, individual schools were given more authority over day to day decisions, and public school choice was implemented. In the 1990s, LEARN and LAAMP were created, giving principals even more authority to make changes in curriculum to benefit students. Regardless, student achievement failed to increase. [5]
Later reform led to the creation of 11 lettered minidistricts with decentralized management and their own individual superintendents [6]. Due to the cost of this additional bureaucracy, then Superintendent Romer called for merging the minidistricts. United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing LAUSD teachers, supported this plan. Eight numbered "minidistricts" (now known as Local Districts) arose from the merger.
Assembly Bill 1381
After his election to Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa advocated bringing control of the public school system under his office, a move that sparked some protest from teachers, LAUSD board members and many residents of communities not within the City of Los Angeles but served by LAUSD.
In August, 2006, after a compromise was brokered which allowed the mayor large control while retaining an elected school board and allowing input to be provided from surrounding cities, California State Assembly Bill 1381 passed, giving the mayor a measure of control over district administration. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law on September 18, 2006. The Board of Education immediately filed suit to block the law, claiming that it violates the state constitution by allowing a local government to take over an educational agency.
Specifically, AB 1381:
- Removes power from the Board of Education and gives it to the superintendent. The superintendent is permitted to request state waivers, hire and fire principals, negotiate and execute contracts, locate and close schools, and manage all personnel. The school board still retains the sole authority to use eminent domain, place taxes and bonds on the ballot, and negotiate with the unions.
- Creates a council of mayors consisting of mayors of all cities in the LAUSD and members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors who have territory in the LAUSD. This council selects the LAUSD superintendent, takes a look at the budget and makes changes before the school board (with the school board retaining only approval authority, without the ability to make changes). The council of mayors is weighted by population, but must act by a 90% of the population, effectively giving control to the mayor of Los Angeles while requiring him to seek consensus from a few other cities. The city of Los Angeles has 82% of the residents in LAUSD.
- Allows the mayor of Los Angeles and superintendent, through a joint partnership, direct control over three "clusters" of low-performing schools (defined as a high school and all of its feeders, with the high school one of those in the bottom 20% statewide).
- The "Southeast Schools Coalition" composed of the cities of Bell, Cudahy, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, and Vernon is given the right to ratify its local minidistrict superintendent.
AB 1381 is required to sunset on January 1, 2013, unless extended by the Legislature. [7]
On December 21, 2006, AB 1381 was ruled unconstitutional. The mayor has appealed. [8] In May 2007, the mayor dropped his appeal as two of the candidates he supported for school board were elected, essentially giving him indirect control over the school district.
LAUSD cities and unincorporated areas
Source: Los Angeles Times
LAUSD serves all of the following communities:
- Bell
- Cudahy
- Florence
- Gardena
- Huntington Park
- Lomita
- Los Angeles - Including, but not limited to:
- List of districts and neighborhoods of Los Angeles
- excluding a small portion of West Hills which is in the Las Virgenes Unified School District
- Some areas of Los Angeles with Beverly Hills addresses, i.e. Beverly Hills Post Office, are located in LAUSD
- Marina del Rey
- Maywood
- San Fernando
- Topanga
- Universal City
- Vernon
- View Park
- Walnut Park
- West Athens
- Westmont
- West Hollywood
and portions of the following communities:
- Carson
- Commerce
- East Los Angeles (other parts of East Los Angeles are served by Montebello Unified School District)
- Inglewood
- Monterey Park
- Rancho Palos Verdes (most other parts of Rancho Palos Verdes are served by the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District)
- South Gate
- West Compton
- Willowbrook
List of schools and properties
Schools
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LAUSD has 219 year-round schools and 439 schools on the traditional calendar. About 47% of all LAUSD students are enrolled in year round schools. [9]
Belmont Learning Center
The Belmont Learning Center, in the densely populated Westlake district just west of downtown, was originally envisioned as a mixed-use education and retail complex to include several schools, shops and a public park. After more than a decade of delays stemming from the environmental review process, ground was broken for construction in 1995 . Midway through construction it was discovered that explosive methane and toxic hydrogen sulfide were seeping from an old underground oil field. Later, an active surface fault was found under one of the completed buildings, necessitating its removal. The LAUSD had spent an estimated $175 million dollars on the project by 2004, with an additional $110 million budgeted for cleanup efforts. The total cost is estimated by LAUSD at $300 million. Critics have speculated that it may end up costing closer to $500 million. The school is scheduled to open in 2008.
The Ambassador Hotel
Another controversial project has been the development of The Ambassador Hotel property on Wilshire Boulevard in densely populated Koreatown. The LAUSD fought over the defunct landmark with among others Donald Trump, who later walked away from it, with the legal battle dating back to 1989 . In 2001, the LAUSD finally obtained legal ownership of the property. Plans to demolish the building, the site where Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot, were met with strong opposition from preservationists. Kennedy's family supported the demolition plans. In August 2005, LAUSD settled a lawsuit over the matter that had been filed by several preservationist groups: most of the Ambassador complex would be destroyed, but the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop and the Coconut Grove nightclub would be preserved, with the Grove serving as the auditorium for a new school to be built on the site. Demolition began in late 2005, and the last section of the hotel fell on January 16, 2006. The first new school on the site is scheduled to open in 2009.
Santee Dairy
In 2005, soil samples taken at the LAUSD-owned site of a former Santee Dairy facility in South Los Angeles found high levels of carcinogens in soil used as foundation fill for a high school then under construction. A small controversy brewed on the matter, with some neighborhood activists and LAUSD critics claiming a repeat of the Belmont Learning Center fiasco. State scientists determined that the contaminated soil was sufficiently deep to pose no threat to students on the site, and the now-called Santee Educational Complex opened its doors in July 2005.
Park Avenue Elementary School
On February 9, 2000, the Los Angeles Weekly published an article about the environmental troubles of Park Avenue Elementary School [2].
Notable staff members
Teachers
- Jaime Escalante taught students Calculus at Garfield High School in the East Los Angeles CDP of Los Angeles County for many years, as dramatized in the movie Stand and Deliver.
- Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the daughter of Strom Thurmond, taught typing in the district from 1967 until 1997 .
- Writer/Director Alec Cicak (Mr. Id) currently teaches English at Crenshaw High School.
- Eleanor Bralver, the oldest teacher in the United States, retired in June, 2006 at the age of 92 from Sylmar High School [10].
- Ezola B. Foster, controversial right-wing political activist, taught in various LAUSD schools from the 1960s until the early 1990s.
- Jody Weissler, Teacher who founded Teachtopia.com, the largest education network on the internet.
- Cuban-American Screenwriter Migdia Chinea teaches English, Physical Education, Spanish, Art, Social Sciences and other subjects at various LAUSD schools in the Central District.
Other
- José Huizar, a politician who served as a board member and president for LAUSD
- Fabian Núñez, a politician who served as the government affairs director for LAUSD
See also
References
- ^ Helfand, Duke, "Shake-ups Launched at Four Schools," Los Angeles Times 11 January 2002: A1.
- ^ http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/oozing-asphalt-jungle/6010/ "Oozing Asphalt Jungle" LA Weekly 02/09/2000 (Accessed on 02/19/2007)
External links
- Los Angeles Unified School District Web site
- Los Angeles School Police Department Web site
- Los Angeles Unified School District Facilities Services Division
- LAUSD District 6
- Enrollment Statistics
- United Teachers Los Angeles website
| Government of Los Angeles, California |
|---|
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| School districts: Los Angeles Unified School District · Las Virgenes Unified School District |
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