Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles County, California. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the second-largest public school district in the United States, with only the New York City Department of Education having a larger student population.
The school district's jurisdiction area consists of almost all of the city of Los Angeles and all or portions of several adjoining cities and unincorporated areas in southwestern Los Angeles County. LAUSD has its own police force, the Los Angeles School Police Department, which was established in 1948 to provide police services for LAUSD schools. 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.Jon Fullerton, Budget and Financial Policy Unit For the Board of Education – Overview of School Finance and the LAUSD Budget Presentation to the Presidents’ Joint Commission. (Archive) August 11, 2005 – See slides 24 "LAUSD Has Almost as Many Buses as the MTA and Many More Routes", 25 "LAUSD Provides Almost Twice as Many Meals as Local McDonald’s" and 26 "LAUSD Is Executing One of the Largest Public Works Projects in the Nation" 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.
During the 2022–23 school year, LAUSD served 565,479 students, including 11,795 early childhood education students and 27,740 adult students. During the same school year, it had 24,710 teachers and 49,231 other employees. It is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County after the county government.Largest Employers in Los Angeles County. Compiled by the LA Almanac, Source: California Employment Development Department, The Los Angeles Business Journal, and Almanac research The school district's budget for the 2021–22 school year was $10.7 billion, increasing to $12.6 billion for the 2022–23 school year.
LAUSD has been criticized in the past for extremely crowded schools with large class sizes, high drop-out and expulsion rates, low academic performance in many schools, poor maintenance and incompetent administration.Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer – Payroll system beset from Day 1. Poor management, software failures and breakdowns in training led to a yearlong crisis at L.A. Unified. Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2008, In 2007, LAUSD's dropout rate was 26 percent for grades 9 through 12. In 2013, evidence was found that the district was showing improvement, both in terms of dropout and graduation rates. An ambitious renovation program intended to help ease the overcrowded conditions has been completed.Helfand, Duke, "Shake-ups Launched at Four Schools," Los Angeles Times January 11, 2002: A1. As part of its school-construction project, LAUSD opened two high schools (Santee Education Complex and South East) in 2005 and four high schools (Arleta, Contreras Learning Complex, Panorama, and East Valley) in 2006.
History Early history (1870–1961)
The Los Angeles Unified School District was preceded by two districts: the Los Angeles City School District, formed in 1870, and the Los Angeles City High School District, formed in 1890. The LACSD was formed to serve elementary and junior high students, originally starting with the same borders of the city of Los Angeles and annexing various smaller elementary school districts throughout its existence. - Clipping at Newspapers.com. The LACHSD was catered to high school students, and was a result of annexations of high school districts in the area.
Formation (1961–1962) On July 1, 1961, the Los Angeles City School District and the Los Angeles City High School District merged, forming the Los Angeles Unified School District. The merger left the Topanga School District and the Las Virgenes Union School District as separate remnants of the Los Angeles City High School District. The Las Virgenes district changed its name to the West County Union High School District. LAUSD annexed the Topanga district on July 1, 1962. Since the Las Virgenes Union School District had the same boundary as the remaining West County Union High School District, West County ceased to exist.
Desegregation (1961–1980)
In 1961, Jackson vs. Pasadena School District was a local predecessor of Crawford v. Board of Ed. Of Los Angeles. Jar R. Jackson and Lucia Jackson, noticed that the local Washington Junior High School zone in the district was separated between white and black students. They filed a lawsuit against the district spearheaded by attorney Samuel Sheats, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Pasadena. In 1963, at the Supreme Court of California, the Jacksons won through an appeal after the Pasadena Superior Court dismissed their complaint. The court ruled typically for the times, that school boards needed to refrain from intentional actions towards segregating students despite the reasons for it. However, what was different about this ruling is that it demanded an active integration of school that had a substantial racial difference. A setback to this ruling, as well as other rulings in Los Angeles City School District and surrounding areas, was the language used to ask for integration. The language implied that integration was required if it was “reasonably feasible.” This caveat was used by local school districts to claim integration was not feasible due to financial or other limitations.
In 1963, a lawsuit, Crawford v. Board of Ed. of Los AngelesCrawford v. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles was filed to end segregation in the district. The California Supreme Court required the district to come up with a plan in 1977. The board returned to court with what the court of appeal years later would describe as "one of if not the most drastic plan of mandatory student reassignment in the nation." A desegregation busing plan was developed to be implemented in the 1978 school year. Two lawsuits to stop the enforced busing plan, both titled Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. of Ed., were filed by the group Bustop Inc. and were petitioned to the United States Supreme Court.Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. of Ed., Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. of Ed. The petitions to stop the busing plan were subsequently denied by Justice Rehnquist and Justice Powell. California Constitutional Proposition 1, which mandated that busing follow the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution passed in 1979 with 70% of the vote. The Crawford v. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles lawsuit was heard in the Supreme Court in 1982. The Supreme Court upheld the decision that Proposition 1 was constitutional.
After the Crawford v. Board of Ed. Of Los Angeles was processed in Los Angeles, and just as the outcome was upheld by the Supreme Court, Judge Paul Égly, created the Los Angeles Monitoring Committee (May 1978). Helen V. Smookler was the executive director of the committee and she managed 12 members from the community, ranging from all diverse backgrounds representative of the Los Angeles demographics. Each member spearheaded a sub-committee that was charged with overseeing and working on sustaining the desegregation of "all senior high schools, majority of junior highs, and most elementary schools." The committee's Integration project master plan (1979-1980) expanded beyond the Brown ruling because Los Angeles was a hub of multiculturalism. Hence, the “(1) logical and sensible, and (2) economical and inexpensive in time and effort and dollars” approach is to desegregate minority school pupils and integrate them into other schools. A goal of the integration process was to have small class sizes so that the diverse student population would have more individualized support when dealing with possible racial differences. By the mid-1980s the desegregation process was in compliance with the Supreme Court ruling and California propositions.
Attempts at reform (1990–2000) Various attempts at program reform have been attempted. In one reform, individual schools were given more authority over day-to-day decisions and public school choice, authored by school board member Yolie Flores was implemented. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Education Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN) and the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP) were created, giving principals even more authority to make changes in curriculum hopefully benefiting students. Regardless, student achievement failed to increase.Charles T. Kerchner, Professor of Education Claremont University – Presentation to LAUSD follow up letter . August 23, 2005. Summary: Follow up letter to LAUSD board following a presentation.
Later attempted reform led to the creation of eleven minidistricts with decentralized management and their own individual superintendents. Due to the cost of this additional bureaucracy, then Superintendent Romer called for reversing the measure and re-merging the minidistricts. United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing LAUSD teachers, supported this plan. Eight numbered Local Districts arose from the merger replacing the eleven districts.
From 1993 to 2000, LAUSD schools were required to continue year round schedules while 540 LAUSD schools had year-round schedules but were allowed to change them to traditional schedules. Due to community outcry, 539 of them reverted, especially those in the San Fernando Valley and Westside areas and several in the Harbor area.
Further reform and the COVID-19 pandemic (2000–present) Assembly Bill 1381 After his election to Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa advocated bringing control of the public school system under his office, removing power from the Board of Education.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. This sparked some protest from teachers, LAUSD board members and many residents of communities not within the City of Los Angeles but served by LAUSD.