- Los Angeles Unified School District
- How Are Working Together
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How We Are Working TogetherThe L.A. Unified School District is the second largest school district in the United States, serving a student population of well over half a million students, preparing our youth for college and career in the 21st century economy. In order to ensure that our students have the resources they need to thrive in the rapidly changing world we live in, the school district actively engages federal and state lawmakers in Washington D.C. and Sacramento to communicate the needs of our District and to seek the necessary resources for our students. To underscore this commitment, in November 2017 our Board of Education directed that the District work in partnership with statewide education stakeholders, our labor partners, the business community, local advocacy groups and parents to seek additional per pupil state funding for all public schools in California. Currently our state ranks 46th in per pupil state funding, spending roughly half the funding per student as states such as Vermont and New York.In addition to this call for broad based additional funding, the L.A. Unified Board of Education in December will consider other measures to guide the school district’s action at the state and federal level to identify additional revenue streams for education; enhanced resources to adequately fund its special education programs; streamlined, more flexible and efficient processes to build and expand its school facilities; enhanced grant funding opportunities to support valuable programs like TRIO and GEAR UP that service our disadvantaged and low income students, and others. As these efforts are identified and implemented, we will reach out to you, parents and members of the public, to partner with us and support our efforts to effect these policies that benefit our students. Such efforts may include calling or writing your state and federal legislators to support the policies adopted by our Board and pursued by the school district. Please check back to this site and we will provide updated information to you at regular intervals throughout the year.Thank you for your support of L.A. Unified!What can we do to help with California schools being underfunded?
The best thing we can do is to educate our elected officials about the underfunding of schools and to work in partnership to advocate for additional funding. No one entity alone can ask for more education funding. We are much more effective when we all work together.
Looking at the New York State model illustrates very quickly what California does in providing funding to education. It is important that elected officials and our labor partners understand this too. By comparing states to each other, California does fairly well in its level of investment. IF we compared local communities we would find California local communities do very little to contribute (caveat being local bonds) to education. Education will help identify where the gap is and allow the conversation to focus on those gaps.
To Sacramento and Beyond!
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Enriching Students' Lives with Limited Resources
