Worth More LA

Today marked the first day of school for many students throughout Los Angeles. Parents across the district are still feeling reluctant about the level of preparedness schools have for in-person instruction.

With parent portal systems overloaded and crashing on the first day back, LAUSD needs to have a plan in place in case systems continue crashing.

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A pesar de que tuvo 1.5 años para planificar el aprendizaje en persona, los padres todavía están teniendo dificultades para hacer que sus hijos regresen a un salón de clase de forma segura.

Con los sistemas de portales para padres sobrecargados y cayendo en el primer día de regreso, necesita un plan en su lugar en caso de que los sistemas sigan cayendo.

LAUSD regresa a la escuela este lunes, y los estudiantes necesitan más tiempo de aprendizaje para recuperarse de 1.5 años de aprendizaje a distancia. Pero LAUSD no ha hecho las inversiones, a pesar de un financiamiento sin precedentes, para garantizar el tiempo adicional de aprendizaje que haría toda la diferencia.

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LAUSD returns to school on Monday, and students need more learning time to recover from 1.5 years of distance learning. But LAUSD hasn’t made the investments, despite unprecedented funding, to guarantee the additional learning time that would make all the difference.

LAUSD passed a budget that its own experts say fails to align funding with district priorities or any coherent strategy. LA students and families deserve better during an ongoing educational crisis and amidst billions in new funding to address student academic recovery.

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LAUSD aprobó un presupuesto que sus propios expertos dicen que no alinea el financiamiento con las prioridades del distrito. Los estudiantes y las familias de Los Ángeles merecen algo mejor durante una crisis educativa y en medio de miles de millones en nuevos fondos para tratar la recuperación académica.

Los expertos dicen que el tiempo de aprendizaje adicional y la tutoría podrían marcar la diferencia para la recuperación de los estudiantes. Pero LAUSD invirtió menos de la mitad del 1% de su presupuesto en tutoría e instrucción en grupos pequeños.

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Experts say that additional learning time and tutoring could make all the difference for student recovery. But LAUSD invested less than half of 1% of its budget into tutoring and small group instruction.

"In the fall, after teachers said her daughter was failing all of her classes, Vega began taking jobs cleaning homes and offices to pay $45 an hour for a private tutor. But she worries her daughter is still falling behind.

“It’s tough to see the light,” Vega said. “The impact of this time is going to be big. It’s going to be bad.”

In California, a million English learners are at risk of intractable education loss Some 1.1 million students in California are English learners. Experts say schools must make immediate and swift interventions to salvage their education.

"Based on reviews of union agreements in five large districts in California, the report notes that Los Angeles Unified students have the least average number of daily live instructional minutes this year — 114 at the elementary level compared to 255 in Long Beach Unified, which had the most."

Report: Learning Loss Data Shows 40,000 Los Angeles High School Students Off Track to Graduate Forty thousand high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District are at risk of not graduating — including 6,000 this year — according to a new analysis that tracks the effects of school closures on students in the nation’s second largest district. In middle school, about a third...

To Petronila Paxtor, a mother of three daughters in the district, that’s not soon enough. While her fifth grader, Jackelin, and her 10th grader, Brenda, have had relatively good interactions with their teachers through remote learning, the same isn’t true for eighth grader, Ana.

After schools closed last March, Ana had no live instruction until this past winter, Paxtor said, and even now, “sometimes the teachers don’t enter, don’t show up” on Zoom, she said. Having only reached the third grade in Guatemala, Paxtor said she feels unable to help with her daughters’ schoolwork. She searched for videos to help Ana and found a free tutoring program at the Koreatown Youth and Community Center.

“What I really want is for the schools to have these supports and these tools,” she said.

Report: Learning Loss Data Shows 40,000 Los Angeles High School Students Off Track to Graduate Forty thousand high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District are at risk of not graduating — including 6,000 this year — according to a new analysis that tracks the effects of school closures on students in the nation’s second largest district. In middle school, about a third...

“They mentioned that we are privileged, that we are affluent,” she said. “That really caught my attention. I worked at a recycling center. Even at home, I didn’t have a computer.” Martinez is now unemployed.

Court Documents Reveal How L.A. Teachers Union Gained Upper Hand in Pandemic Negotiations, Limiting Instruction Time As the Los Angeles Unified School District prepares to reopen elementary schools for the first time in 13 months, recently released court documents show that while the district pushed for more instructional time for students earlier this year, the union successfully bargained for a reduced teacher w...

Our brave parent leaders who are in a class action suit against LAUSD over their distance learning program that has not centered the needs of students and families are currently getting traction for documents that recently became public.

Education Reporter Kyle Stokes shared these newly public documents on twitter that highlights key moments in the Distance Learning negotiations that hurt parents and families.

Read the full twitter thread below-

Kyle Stokes on Twitter “Here’s something you RARELY see: blow-by-blow notes from INSIDE talks between & . Take a look — it’s a glimpse into how the recent & agreements were negotiated https://t.co/ddKQTj7Q2I (Quick 🧵)”

"In Los Angeles Unified, California’s largest district with more than 600,000 students, the number of Ds and Fs in grades 9-12 increased by 8.7 percentage points in the fall compared to the same time period last year, according to data included in a district directive to give students more time to pull their grades up. The data also showed that the gap in the percentage of Ds or Fs between African American (23.2%) and Latino (24.9%) students and their white (12.9%) and Asian (7.6%) peers has widened since last school year."

California teachers grapple with grading nearly a year after initial school closures Many districts are seeing surges in Fs and Ds during distance learning, prompting a revision of expectations and policies around grades.

"A study of 50,000 students from 18 districts reaffirm that those who have traditionally struggled fell farther behind academically."

Initial data for California confirm early grades, low-income children hit hardest by ‘learning loss’ A study of 50,000 students from 18 districts reaffirm that those who have traditionally struggled fell farther behind academically.