LAUSD

As state and local leaders throughout Los Angeles County and statewide work to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, concerns remain about how such measures could impact youth and families involved with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. 

Since the 2015 passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), school districts and child welfare agencies around the country have been tasked with developing transportation plans to keep foster youth in their schools of origin if that is what they prefer.

With high rates of poverty among youth in Los Angeles, a new report prepared by civil rights advocacy group Advancement Project California called on the city to ramp up youth development efforts by drawing on revenue from legalized cannabis.

Foster youth in California schools have a rate of chronic absenteeism far higher than the general student population, according to data available for the first time from the state’s Department of Education (DOE).

In the 2016-17 school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) budgeted $67.34 million of its $13.5 billion budget for school police. Restorative justice programming, meant to help improve student behavior and provide alternatives to suspensions, expulsions, and arrests, received only $10.81 million.

As director of the School Mental Health unit at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Pia Escudero supervises more than 300 psychiatric social workers, clinical psychologists and other mental health professionals.

Advocates for foster youth in Los Angeles are eager to learn about plans for foster youth under new Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Michelle King. In January, LAUSD chose longtime local teacher and administrator Michelle King to head the nation’s second largest school district.

Amidst mounting criticism of its disciplinary practices in recent years, Los Angeles Unified School District began shifting away from citations and suspensions and toward practices that emphasize keeping students in the classroom in 2012.

California’s biggest school district put most of its funding for foster youth into extra high school services. But research, and advocates for youth in care, suggest that the problems start far earlier.