Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Good. Good morning, everyone. The time is now 10:01 a.m. Welcome to the special meeting of Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, including closed session items, and including a special
open session item, the landscape analysis. I will do the roll call of members. Ms. Newbill. >> Present. >> Present. Uh Dr. Rivas. >> Present. >> Uh Mr. Melvoin. >> Here. >> Ms. Crieger.
Ms. Gonez. Ms. Ortiz Franklin. Board President Schmerelson. >> Present. >> Okay, we have a quorum and the superintendent is also present. So, the order of operations for today is going to be uh we're going to take the public comment first, and then go to the
landscape analysis in open session. Following the landscape analysis, we will go into closed session, the board will deliberate, and then if there is anything to report out, um we will come out, and I will read out a report. All right, so the for the purpose and authority, the items
that are going to be heard in the public comment we're going to hear. Uh tab one, personnel pursuant to government code section 54957, public employee discipline, dismissal, and release. Public employment, general superintendent of schools. Superintendent's evaluation under tab
two, conference with legal counsel. Anticipated litigation, one case under government code section 54956.9 D4. I will note that Ms. Grego and Ms. Ortiz Franklin are also here now. Under tab two, also pending litigation
pursuant to government code section 54956.9 D1. One, Gabriella Charter Schools v. California Department of Education. LAUSD at all in Green Dot Public Schools v. LAUSD at all. And under tab three,
conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6. The negotiators Dr. Murphy and the organizations employee organizations are Associated Administrators of Los Angeles. Teamsters 2010, California School Employees Association.
Los Angeles County Building and Construction Trades Council. Los Angeles School Police Association. Los Angeles School Police Management Association. Service Employees International SEIU Local 99. Teamsters, United Teachers Los Angeles, and district represented employees and
contract management personnel. Uh the negotiator for unrepresented employees is Ms. Nivera Reed. And represented there is general superintendent of schools. All right, now we'll take public comment on the action items and then general public comment. And the first caller is
David Tokowsky. Mr. Tokowsky, are you on the line? If so, please press star six to unmute yourself. All right, I'm seeing if Mr. Tokowsky is with us. We moved rather quickly this morning. Okay. Um I do not have Mr. Tokofsky on the
line, so we'll move on to the next public comment. That is just the general public comment. All right, I'll call on the folks who are in person first, and then we'll go to those who are listed as being remote. Uh the first speaker is Diana Guillen.
Are you here, Ms. Guillen? >> Yes. >> There you are. Uh Ms. Guillen, you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Ms. Guillen is going to speak in Spanish, so if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English as she's speaking in Spanish, please put your hands up and we'll get you these translation headsets.
So you can experience simultaneous translation. Anyone else? Okay, listos. Gracias. >> Buenos días, miembros del board. >> Good morning, school board members. My name is Diana Guillen, and I have represented various committees for the school district, and one of the
things that I have spoken about is censoring in the committees, and I've spoken about Mr. Antonio Placencia as director, and you have ignored everything that this man has done against the parents. Yesterday, I heard that the students as well were not
pleased. Are you going to listen to the students now, or are you going to still think that we come and lie about one of your employees? Mr. Chay, are you going to act the same as Mr. Carballo by ignoring us? Because this last school year, I can also say that the El Cap comments were
censored. My comments were censored. You took them out. You changed them. And that is breaking the law. The only thing that PAC committee does is give comments and we want the answer from the superintendent and that Mr. Antonio Plascencia having
supported to censor the parent comments because he doesn't like them or they don't go in according to what he wants. As well as here we have the data the data in regards to i-Ready that you want to get rid of with the political agenda that UTLA has. Miss Gregor and Miss
Rocío right? They get rid of i-Ready because we would don't want to know how the kids are doing and here it says very well that the English learners 82% are below their grade level. 82% three grade levels below. How is it that you managed LCAP? What are the goals for
the English learners? How much money was put into the 21% of these children? How is it that you are supporting African-Americans as well and their English and math goals? Because here all I see is that you say oh African-American students want help
mental health. Please, do you think that the parents African-American parents think that something is wrong with their children? Do you think that the Latin families think that we want that? We want quality education not to be lying to them and putting your gender
gender agenda into their mind. That's enough. Do what you're supposed to be doing. Your job is to support students academically. Thank you. >> All right. Let's see Miss Palmer you're listed as calling but I see you. There you are. Please come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin.
>> Good morning. Looking forward to this presentation today on the landscape analysis but isn't it a little bit late for development of the LCAP or the strategic plan? It It like you should have had that before. Now, you've even convened a special task force on revenue
to chase down leprechauns and their rainbows to capture them and extort more gold from their hidden pots across the state of California, right? But the landscape analysis question here is after you've put out big money to Ernst & Young to get this done, will you have
the guts to cut ineffective programs? Will you have the guts to cut union jobs? To close schools with plummeting enrollment? Isn't that the million-dollar question here? What will actually come of all these studies? You know very well you're overstaffed. You
know you can't stop parents from leaving the district for better options. We heard a lot here on safety yesterday, Mr. Schmelson, Ms. Newbill. Thank you for stating your support for school police, but yet you vote both voted to cut the funding. We haven't seen any of
the comments come out of the safe schools task force to be presented to you because there there were many parents who asked for more school police, and yet those parents were not listened to. We have a lack of transparency here on finances, on many issues. We've said that many times over
and over again. Even the city of Los Angeles, not really known for their fiscal prudence or their transparency, even they have a public financial page on data sets we can query in the public. They have a smaller total budget than the school district, and yet I'm able to look at fund balances and all sorts of
transactions there. Why don't we have that here? Do we not have the funding for that? Wouldn't we all want to know a little bit more about what goes on inside the finances here at LA Unified? So, I am here to bid you farewell for the summer. Here is my yearbook post
from Maria Luisa Palma. Have a great summer. Heart. See you soon in the fall. [clears throat] Thanks. >> Thank you for your time. All right, Monica Arrazola, are you here? You're listed as being here in person. Monica Arrazola.
All right, we'll come back to you. The next in-person speaker Oh, that's the last one. So, now we have just remote speakers. So, Maria Daisy Ortiz, I see you're on the line with us. Please press *6 to unmute yourself, and you have 2 minutes to speak once you begin.
>> He says "Escucha." >> Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Good morning, everyone. I am Maria Daisy Ortiz, and I want to specially direct myself to the superintendent. He [snorts] He knows that
Does he know what integrity and honesty is? And he shouldn't be there because he has conflict of interest since his family works in various unions. So, what are we going to do with you, sir? You are not neutral. You are
not impartial. Do you have conflict of interest? So, I am waiting to see who is going to leave the position, your family or yourself? And I make the whole board responsible for our children being stuck
in academic success because you put any person to just fill a position because you don't care. I also want to speak in regard to security. I don't want to finance the $20 million for safe passages because they are not
district employees, and you are reducing personnel from the district. These persons are not trained to maintain the security at our schools. On the opposite side, there are ex-convicts, ex-criminals who are coming out of
prison. The I don't know who this agenda is for, but I am asking as a parent and as a parent who is a taxpayer, you cannot use a fire department that is not trained. The school police should come back since
you have taken away two there was 200 officers now there's 120 and they will be able to guarantee the security of our children. We do not want another life lost because of the incompetence and negligence of you managing political
positions paying political favors. So please do not finance that and not the 250 million for people that are pedophiles who those who want to defend pedophiles pay it with
your own salary but not with the taxpayers that are contributing the money for education. >> Okay, the next speaker is I'll see Karina Lopez. Are you in the room? You are not online with us Karina Lopez. All right, concerned parent.
You're not online with us. Are you in the room concerned parent? No. Isabel Aguirre. You're signed up to speak remotely but you are not with us. Are you in the room by chance? No. All right, the core Singh. You are
online and remote. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin and I will return to Karina Lopez who's now online. Please go ahead Mr. Singh. >> Hi, can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Please go ahead.
>> Perfect. Great morning. Thank you. Happy Wednesday. I spoke yesterday and I'm again to speak to just provide some more details. I ran out of time yesterday so I wanted to provide some more details to you all about the misconduct by Antonio Placencia, Dr. Eric Elbert and Mr.
Thurka Roucheer. There's been a lack of transparency to members of the SSAC. They lied, they obfuscated information and they obstructed. They've also intimidated. Um They intimidated me. Placencia intimidated
me. Um they of course we've heard many times about how they've intimidated parents and now it's happening to students as well. Um and we even heard yesterday from a student who ran for student board member and Placencia intimidated that student, pressured her inappropriately to change
her speech. That is inappropriate conduct by Antonio Placencia. And it's potentially illegal if fairly simple proper and maybe even illegal what they did, lying about the L Cap to members of the SSAC. Again, with simple questions. I showed you the PDF yesterday that we were handed. Like,
what does this red highlight mean? Of course, Elward refused to answer in writing because he knows what he said in person is a lie and I've confirmed this with Lago auditors and attorneys. Um and they of course tried to pass the buck to Dr. Murphy. Dr. Murphy, I'm sorry that they tried to do that to you, but that's how they act. They pass the
buck and they tried to put put you in in this situation where they lied. And again, I've yet to hear back from Jana Carter. Last time I heard from her was last week. I've yet to hear back. I hope that um I hear from Ms. Carter soon. And my understanding is an investigation has been launched into
Antonio Placencia, Dr. Elward, and Ms. Rocher I hope that it it is um uh done conducted thoroughly. And if you would like more information, feel free to email me. My personal email is p h a k u r dot college 2026@gmail.com
and I'm more than happy to provide more information and I hope that Antonio Placencia, Elward, and Ms. Rocher are instructed to never take advantage of students and parents again. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. All right, Karina Lopez, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two
minutes to speak once you begin. Karina Lopez. Karina Lopez, por favor. Oprima estrella seis para hablar. >> Hello. >> Hello. >> Hola, buenos días. >> Hello, good morning.
My name is Karina Lopez. Can you hear me? Okay, my name is Thank you. My name is Karina Lopez Zuniga and this public comment is for speaking in regard to the grand need about school security
and as well as in the surrounding areas. Since the school district demands the implementation of the responsibility of the parents in which the children going to school every single day on
time. But, you can't be able to commit to that through the school system if there is a lack of appropriate security.
You are giving providing a mediocre security and lack of official of officers because you are
destroying the children's life and the students. You depend on all of the students. And as family members and community members, we depend on the security of the community in which our children study.
So, let's not take advantage because that is also negligence and abuse of the children. You are allowing that day by day something may be extraordinary by
breaking the children's rights, which is security. We need that in regards to safe passages to use it for yourself, but not for our children. The officers are the people or the department that is most appropriate for the security of our
children and we trust in the officers. You will They will never compare to an officer even if you were to be reborn. They are well-trained. Thank you. >> Yes. Breanna Hernandez, please press star six
to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Breanna Hernandez. >> Hi, hi. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Please go ahead. >> Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Great. This is okay since it was 20 years ago. This is what Virtual Academy
Dr. Buck staged a few weeks ago. I was there. I heard it myself. Despite this, he hasn't been put on leave. We know this. He hasn't been made to apologize and most he received a slap on the wrist. It's fake. What about Jose Luis Angulo and Maria Sotomayor? Angulo and Sotomayor make $200,000 a year of
taxpayer dollars despite being prejudiced who pled guilty to covering up a student's rape. Ali Rizvi never fired them. Instead, Ali Rizvi promoted them. The message you sent so far is that you help your friends even if they uphold sexual abusers. If Jeffrey Epstein worked for Ali Rizvi, would you
have fired him? Unfortunately, I have doubts. We know you acted quickly on Susan Chavez but it seems to be just for show when you haven't fired these three individuals. But you have the power to change this. Don't give them a slap on the wrist. Start the process to fire them today. We've heard about the double
jeopardy and a long process to fire these individuals. My thoughts are, who cares? You have child molesters working on our dollars. Fight that process to fire them today. While Jose Luis Angulo, Maria Sotomayor, and Oscar Buck make lavish salaries, they've scared a girl for life. Imagine if this was your
daughter. We know that you would have had them fired immediately. Why is it different when it is someone else's child? Why the double standard? Address this now. Fire them. We promise to you that we will continue to return every meeting possible until we know that they have been fired. Even if it takes the
entire year, next year, even if it takes longer, we will be here until you fire Susan Gulu, Latasha Brooks, and Maria Sotelo who are supporting great on all the years these banned. Trust me, we will not stand down like all the years these stood down for the rape victim in this case. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your time. All right, Abigail de la Torre, you're signed up to speak remotely but you are not signed in. Are you in the room, Abigail? No. Uh Jamila Hello?
Sorry, that person should not be talking. Jamila Fontu, I see you are on the line. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Jamila. >> Can you Can you hear me? >> Yes, perfectly. Please go ahead. >> Okay. Dear members of the school board, my name is Jamila Fontu and I'm here as
a student and community advocate today. We are aware that Jesus Angulo and Maria Sotelo continue to work on the taxpayers' dime. These individuals aided and abetted the sexual abuse of every student and pled guilty for it. They were then promoted They were then promoted by LAUSD. As you see, Brooks
works for LAUSD Brooks works for LAUSD now. The LAUSD think it could hide Jesus at Fulton Academy. Clearly LAUSD thought wrong. Latasha Brooks still works for LAUSD, too. She said that work was not a concern if it was 20 years ago. Are you aware that these These words are reflect on your
reputation as they spoke for simple district told words of your words. Why Why the fast action against these individuals and not here? If Jerry Epstein was employed by LAUSD, would you give him a slap on the wrist like you have to Jesus and Brooks? The right course of action would be to place all
three of these individuals on immediate suspension suspension without pay. We know We know that this has not happened. Then fire them or have them resign. Don't expect for this to be covered up again. The national media is already aware of it. We will continue to speak here no matter how long it takes until
other and Melissa tomorrow and Natasha Block are fired. If it takes two if it takes a year, two, or five years, so be it. We'll be here. I recommend that you see takes the right approach and push them on immediate suspension and then fires them. Currently the seat Currently these people still work for the district. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your time. All right, the next remote speaker is Isabel Tellez, but I do not have you online. Are you in the room, Isabella? No. Christopher Torres. Christopher Torres, are you online or in the room? That is a no.
All right, we'll go back to concerned parent who is online now. Concerned parent, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Concerned parent. >> Good morning, board members. As we've gotten past the LCAP and a lot
of those budget um budget agreements and contractual agreements, I want to bring your attention back to mental health. I know this is the a big topic that has been and very present in your mind. And I want to [clears throat] take you back to
COVID. I don't know if you all remember or the ones that were sitting on the board when COVID happened. There was a lot of talk about kids being resilient and kids were going to get through a lot of things. And then we have this shift where everybody needs mental health support.
There's a lot of talk about it, students needing help mental health supports, and that you have spoken to the experts. Can you have the experts come into the meeting into the board and make a presentation about why students are being needing are in need of these supports
because it's very important as someone that has used mental health supports, it's very important to understand that people aren't just taking them. Yes, it's good that the the district is offering these services, but there's a
big difference between offering and telling people that they need mental health services. Only a mental health professional will tell you if you need mental health support. So, that should be something in your mind because otherwise, what are we doing to the children?
If the point is making them resilient, are we just telling them that now they're not and now they need all these mental health supports? And I want to also take you back to uh board member Griego's town hall about the supports that are offered in
schools. There was very minimal talk about police not being safe. It was more about administrators and teachers not being safe. So, who are the actual people criminalizing our students and who actually needs the training? Please take
this into consideration because if you don't use mental health services appropriately, you are doing more harm than good. >> Thank you for your time. >> All right, Isabel Aguirre is now online with us. Isabel Aguirre, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you
begin. Isabel Aguirre. >> See when I get in. >> Hold on. >> Good morning. My name is Isabel Aguirre. And just like as we mentioned previously, the SEIU union wants special students from special needs, they want
them to use the resources so that they can provide the services. Now, I we're still not completed with our B staff, but they do have people and they want to hire people from the outside, outsource, and they don't want our
special needs students to have appropriate people for their training and to give and offer these services, but we are allowing other organizations to have this privilege. Therefore, it sounds to me as if we are being
discriminated against and as if you're just leaving our kids to fend for themselves. No one is advocating for them and as if we are going to obtain certain benefit from them. Remember that they are students. Uh these are students that
don't give a lot of funds or require a lot of funds to maintain and I know services end and funds do end. I understand that you are interested in the money and you're interested in the political agenda and that
everyone has their own situation, but we also need to look at those two other options. It is not correct that some people are able to obtain certain services with certain agencies and others aren't. I don't like to say the word
discrimination, but it seems that we are getting there and now that people are seeing People are seeing this now and I hope that you emphasize on this matter even more so. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.
>> Calling speakers Ekaterina Singh, uh but I do not have Ms. Singh online in front of me. Are you in the room, Ms. Singh? No. Uh Brian Simily, are you in the room? You're signed up to speak remotely, but you are also not signed up online. Brian Simily? It's a no.
And the final speaker signed up is Cassandra C. Cassandra C, are you here? Also not online. That concludes all the public comment for today. >> Thank you, Mr. McClain. Good morning, board. Good morning, folks in attendance and joining us online.
Today, EY Parthenon will present the findings of the program landscape analysis that the district commissioned to better understand the current state of programs, pathways, and educational opportunities across LA Unified. Before we begin, I think it's important
to clarify both the purpose and scope of this work. The analysis was commissioned to help us better understand where programs exist, how students access them, where demand is strongest, where gaps may exist,
and how programming can be used as a lever to improve student opportunity, strengthen schools, and support enrollment. Over the course of this engagement, EY Parthenon worked closely with district staff, a cross-functional steering
committee, and working group, board members, and thousands of stakeholders. The district provided data, context, and ongoing feedback, while EY Parthenon conducted the analysis and developed the findings and recommendations being
presented today. The engagement supporting this work was extensive. More than 4,300 community members participated through community meetings and thought exchange. More than 1,100 LAUSD stakeholders, including 745
principals, participated through surveys and focus groups. 290 non-LAUSD families provided feedback. More than 40 community and civic partners participated. And over 25 district leaders regularly engaged in
working sessions throughout the process. One of the most valuable outcomes of of this work is that it provides a shared fact base. Regardless of what future decisions may or may not be made, we now have a stronger understanding of program availability,
demand, coherence, access, and enrollment patterns across the district, as well as where opportunities may exist to expand access to high-quality programs and improve equity outcomes for students. It is equally important though to
understand what this work is not. School closures, mergers, and consolidations were not part of the landscape analysis. No school-level decisions are being presented today. Rather, this report identifies
opportunities for consideration related to the district's program landscape and provides information that may help inform future decision-making. Looking ahead, the landscape analysis will inform two separate streams of work.
The implementation of programmatic recommendations and future conversations regarding facilities utilization and consolidation. Both will require additional analysis, significantly more community engagement, and future board consideration before
any decisions are made. This work represents an important first step in what will be a longer-term process. The purpose of today's presentation is to share the findings, observations, and recommendations that emerged from this
analysis, and to help establish a common understanding of the opportunities and challenges within our current program landscape. With that, I'd like to invite our chief of staff, Carolyn Speight Gonzales, to provide additional background on the engagement and introduce the EY
Parthenon team. >> Good morning. Um I uh want to highlight two things and then I'll get into the introduction. Two things that Superintendent Shade said um because they're especially important. Number one, this work and analysis has been
going on now for months. It's never been and nor is it now about school consolidations. We said that from the beginning and we've meant it. And when we've gone out to the community, we've also said it and that is in fact the truth. We have been focused on programs. We have analyzed the programs and we truly wanted to
understand what was out there, what is serving our students well, where are there deserts, and how can we do better? So that is truly what's been the the the purpose of the of the work and that's what you will see in the presentation today. The second thing I wanted to highlight
once more is that what you will see today is um a high-level summary of the analysis. There are truly reams and reams of data and analysis that have been explored and um um dove in very deep into over the last few months. You will see I mean we would be
here for 3 days if we went through all of it. So you will see a very high-level. I know that each board member we've gone um in a lot of more detail with your board districts. A lot more data behind this. You'll see the high-level and then what Ernst & Young will Parthenon will do today is go into
a few of the uh clusters, ecosystems, feeder patterns to show you just the depth of the analysis. But all of this will um has come to fruition and recommendations. These recommendations are again at a high-level. None of this will be implemented without two things
happening as as Mr. Shade said. Number one, much deeper engagement with the community specific to these communities that are highlighted um in the report. And number two, uh a lot more data analysis because again, we have not gotten to the level we need to to make the changes. This is
really helped us focus on broad areas as well on specific communities to put in a higher priority. One example of this will be you will see that advanced academics is a desert and it's a desert across the the district. Some regions have more than others, but across the
region I can safely say that we don't we cannot say that we're giving our students the advanced academic opportunities that they deserve and that they need. So you will see that as something that's going to be a priority of ours that we will start looking at quickly and soon and as soon as the the summer starts.
Um so let me move now to introduce Ernst & Young Parthenon. So you probably know Ernst & Young as a consulting firm because that's what they've done for over 100 years. Um and about over 40 about 40 years ago they with the rest of the auditing firms got into consulting.
So they've been in consulting now for approximately 40 years. Um and we went through a very competitive process of responders when we did an RFP for this program analysis work. And uh we got
dozens of of responders and uh I was personally involved in the in the uh in the selection and we chose them for for really two reasons. Number one, their of course their RFP, but also their extensive experience in doing this work.
They have worked throughout the country and Puerto Rico doing this same type of work. They worked in Chicago, New York, Providence, Memphis, and and and other places and that mattered to me. Um and to the team that selected them. Number two, of the people who were on the team. So let me move to those two. So the two
there's a whole team of people who've been working on this for months. Um the two that will be that you will see today are Phil Vaccaro who is the principal and the partner of the work led the work and then um Ariel Sidenor who was a program manager who led the smaller team the day-to-day.
Um both are they'll say more about themselves, but both are teachers. Um uh Ariel lives in Los Angeles, so she is an Angeleno like I've become. Um, both have extensive experience personally in doing this work. So, not only does the firm have the experience,
but both of them did as well. Um, and Phil in particular has more than two decades as a teacher and working at central office in New York public schools. Um, I can speak from someone who was a consultant for about 25 years and I can personally vouch for the work
that they have done. Um, phenomenal work and they have worked in everything from deep community engagement to leading the work through multiple departments and working with the schools, analyzing again more data than I can I even knew that we had. Um, and I can also vouch
for the fact that they have maintained an open mind, an open heart, integrity of the analysis, a work ethic and just extremely high quality work. So, I'm excited. I think we're all excited to present today, um,
this work that's again been, um, been going on for months now, um, and then talk about next steps toward the end. So, Phil and Ariel, I'll ask you to come to the the podium. >> Thank you for the introduction, Carolyn. We appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning.
Um, thank you to Superintendent Shade. Thank you to all the board members uh for being here and inviting us to present on the results of the program landscape analysis. Um, as the superintendent and Carolyn said, uh
we did run a very comprehensive process as part of this work. And our approach to this work has been grounded in our experiences uh as educators. So, both Ariel and I started our careers in education as teachers in the New in the New York City
school system. I worked for the school district in New York for 5 years under Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg. And as a consultant to the sector, my work started in 2011 working for the school district in Detroit under the bankruptcy situation. Went on to work in
Chicago with Chicago Public Schools doing very similar analysis to what we did here to focus on programs. And have worked across a number of other school districts as well. So we appreciate the opportunity to have um worked with all of you all all of you
and other key stakeholders in the Los Angeles context for this current work. Okay. So in terms of the topics for discussion here we did want to start by laying out a little bit of the overview of this
work, what we intended to accomplish. Um and the process that we took. Uh we want to talk a little bit about what the current state of programming looks like in Los Angeles. Uh the superintendent talked about some of the community engagement that we've done and we'll touch on that briefly.
We want to talk about feedback that we heard from the community as well as what's happening in other districts as it relates to programs that are in high demand. And then we'll talk a little bit about um the specific approach we used to assess programming and uh give you
examples of how we applied that approach to specific areas of the school district to give you a sense for the recommendations that were um made based on the fact base that we were developing along the way.
So ultimately as uh we progress through this work we and this is really the collective we here felt that it was important to really define a mission statement for programming in uh for LA Unified.
And so there are five elements here that we emphasize. One is programs provide equitable access to high quality options close to home for all students. And so I just want to underscore that equity is the and an equity lens is front and
center in all of this work. And fundamental to the the success of programming in the district. Second, a key goal for programming is to enhance student learning experiences to go beyond what the traditional school day might otherwise offer.
Three, has sufficient diversity to meet the needs and interest of students. Fourth, reflects local community interest, priorities and demand. And that was really a key driver for why we developed the the stakeholder engagement
plan that was used to direct this work. And then finally, appeals to and supports different profiles of learners. So these may be students who have who prefer more hands-on experiences, more academically rigorous experiences,
tech infused experiences and so forth. So as we talk specifically about the goals for our work, and this was touched upon earlier, really just to strengthen programming across LA Unified. And really the three
objectives, specific objectives of this work, one is to develop the shared understanding of the current landscape of programming in LAUSD. And and this is where we're really spending a lot of time developing the fact base fact base for this work.
Second, as we assess the programming landscape, we sought to identify gaps, redundancies and inequities in LAUSD's program pathways. So give us a sense for what's working well, give us a sense for what's working less well. And then finally, the third objective
was to generate a set of recommendations with equity at the center uh to support students through enhanced learning uh experiences through uh bring by bringing greater coherence to uh the programming landscape in Los Angeles.
So, ultimately, the goal is to serve students in this district in more effective and and efficient ways. The next slide was largely covered. Um I think the key point here is that um school consolidations were out of scope
of the landscape analysis engagement that was mentioned several times. Uh the report is focused on TK to 12 programs. Uh we do understand though that programs are only one component of uh a successful school. Um and so, they should be understood in their proper
con- >> context. >> We talked about the extensive engagement that we've had as well as the the uh involvement of many stakeholders throughout um Los Angeles uh unified and um the executive leadership regional
superin- uh superintendents, a steering committee, a working group that met regularly. So, just to place this in um the process of this overall work, and Carolyn uh stated this uh as well as the superintendent, uh we're still this is this is really a
launching point um for decisions that will be made in the future by you all. Um the this period that we've run for the past six or seven months uh has been intended to develop the fact base and initial set of recommendations.
And there's a lot more work to come um as the district considers uh the recommendations on the table, uh how is it going to then action those recommendations in specific schools, and then what is the process that they're going to put around that to make
sure that there is additional engagement from the community to develop support and input for decisions that will be made. We would anticipate that the process to make final decisions will continue on for some time,
and but but the the I think the key aspect here is that there is this significant fact base from which to work and from which to base initial decisions on. We talked a little bit the superintendent talked about the
community engagement that went into this work. I won't repeat it all except to say that it was extensive, that it was aligned with the process to seek input for the strategic plan, and that it did involve lots of different kinds of stakeholders in the
Los Angeles community. One of the things that was highlighted as part of this community engagement was the programs, processes, and priorities that the community felt was important in reflecting upon
the work that Los Angeles Unified does. And programming was certainly mentioned as one of the key components of success for the district. And so when we talk about programs here, things that we heard from the community related to advanced learning options, career
readiness, arts and enrichment as sort of broad categories. But we also heard that the process to select schools, to navigate enrollment process was also really important, and that partnerships have been key
elements of schools for a long time, and that we need to continue to nurture those partnerships. Uh stakeholders also were very clear that they would like clear communication, not only as it relates to enrollment, but uh in other aspects of
the district's work. And then of course there were some other school level priorities that were mentioned as it relates to the importance of school culture and safety, students holistic well-being, and community-centered spaces. So,
um we wanted to make sure that we situate programs in the broader context of things that matter to stakeholders in Los Angeles. So, as we start to step into programming specifically, at the very beginning, our first
exercise was really to make sure that when we talked about programming, we were clear in what we meant. And so, uh we developed a taxonomy of programming across LA Unified. This was part of the request in the um initial
RFP. And so, we worked with the school district to define four levels of programming that exist within LAUSD. The first category on the left is really focused on school models, um school structures, or population-specific
uh programs. Um the second is um programs that have been defined by district that provide sort of enhanced learning experience to students. These programs can be school-wide, or they can be within a school.
Um we'll talk a little bit about those on the next slide. Uh as well as this level three, which we define here as pathways. And pathways are structured sets of courses that students may take sequentially or individually to build specialized knowledge or credentials.
And there are again there are a number of sub type sub types that we'll talk about on the next slide. And then finally, there is a fourth group here that is more school-specific, and this has to do with um programming that may not be standardized across all schools, but that many schools do offer
um thematic-based elements of the school day or enrichment opportunities as it relates to academic enrichment, athletics, dance, music, robotics, etc. So, let's dig into two of those categories
uh on the next slide. Those middle two. So, the level two programs and then the level three pathways. And, you know, LA Unified is a district that offers a rich um set of choices
uh and programming today. So, we see in the portfolio of work that the district offers a number of magnet programs, a number of language programs, uh advanced a number of advanced learning options, and and of course uh many of these other programming types
would really reflect advanced learning as well. Um career readiness programs, and then the level three uh pathways, and here we're specifically specifically referring to career and technical education and advanced coursework. So,
uh you'll see everything that uh we were able to catalog across um the school footprint and the rich diversity of programming that the school district does offer today. So,
by way of of quickly summarizing the um program landscape at a very high level in uh LA Unified, there is a wide variety of programming. Nearly 100% of middle schools and senior high schools have at least one program or program or pathway.
Uh more than 25 or about 25% of schools have three or more programs and pathways. There's also a tremendous amount of diversity and unique educational experiences that these programs offer. Uh we mentioned both full school models
and partial school models. Uh core sustained sustained experiences as well as enrichment opportunities. Programming that is defined at the district level as well as at the school level. Uh and programs that are accessed through applications or through opt-in
participation. Okay? Yet, uh there are opportunities to better meet the evolving needs of students, families, and other school and community members. So, uh we did identify
with the district a number of uh challenges that do exist in the programming landscape today. Um there are examples of supply-demand imbalances. So, for example, there are some programs that are very oversubscribed where there are long waitlists
uh and where many more students would like to access those programs. Second, we note that there is an uneven program distribution. So, some programs that are offered in some parts of the district are not necessarily offered in other parts of the district. And so,
there is not necessarily equity of access in that way. Third, there is a level of complexity in understanding the programming options for families. And so, uh it was certainly noted that um
families often have a hard time understanding what their choices are for their students. And then finally, as it relates to the enrollment process, uh we heard um about navigation challenges. Families struggle to navigate and enroll in program options.
Uh the enrollment algorithms can be complex and difficult to understand. Uh it is interesting to note that um programming in LAUSD is abundant in a way that really does not exist in many
school districts across the country. I would say Chicago probably most closely resembles the programming depth that a district that that LA Unified has. In New York, we did not have this nearly this level of programming. Um
And so, it is important in particular to be clear about to families about what their options are and how they can access those options. So, we're going to talk next about some of again more feedback that we heard from the community and what type of
options might be available programming options might be available to strengthen programming in LAUSD. And so, what we're really focused on here is programs that drive strong student outcomes, programs for
which there are there is high demand, and programs that are are innovative, that meet new or evolving needs. And so, fortunately, there are many examples of programs that are successful in across
these dimensions both within LA LA Unified as well as outside of the school district. When we spoke to stakeholders and had our community sessions in each of the board districts as well as processed the feedback from
the thought exchange, the community feedback and the data analysis both pointed to sort of three areas that are a significant priority for stakeholders in LA Unified. One is these advanced learning options. Carolyn
mentioned in her introduction that there are many ways to augment the existing advanced learning options within the district and and this includes dual enrollment courses, early middle college, IB, AP
courses, so forth. Second, uh, we heard a lot about, uh, from families who are concerned about their children uh, being prepared for the workforce and so the importance of having, uh, programs that are going to support
student readiness for careers. Uh, and these are really examples of applied learning that prepare students for careers through internships, apprenticeships, certifications, and so forth. Uh, again, these do exist within the district today through work that it does, uh, in linked learning programs,
uh, career and technical education pathways, so forth. And then the third category we heard a lot of feedback on was in terms of arts and other enrichment. And these are really, uh, offerings that are intended to bolster student engagement, support
feelings of belonging and connection, and provide specialized learning experiences for students in these areas. Uh, examples within the district, um, visual and performing arts, athletics, robotics, so forth. So,
uh, we can actually point to some uh, specific examples, uh, on the next page across each of these excuse me, [clears throat] each of these areas. So, you know, as we think about what could improve the landscape of
programming across the district, uh, one of the things, one of the places to start certainly is to look for schools and programs within, uh, the LA Unified portfolio that have high demand, that are getting strong results for kids. Um, and so from an advanced learning
standpoint, uh, early and middle college options, uh, examples, um, the Early College Academy, LA Trade Tech, Middle College High School. Um more advanced learning options that uh are focused on
um gifted students and have eligibility requirements including the IHP programs, the individualized honors programs, and then there are IB pathways, uh Eagle Rock Senior High School, Fairfax, Bancroft, Foshay Learning Center. So, uh
again examples within the the LA port LA Unified portfolio of advanced learning options. Career readiness, uh CT and linked learning hubs at Venice Senior High, in industry [clears throat] partnerships, Francisco Bravo uh Senior High School Medical Magnet, King Drew
Magnet High School of Medicine and Science. Um and then finally unique pedagogical approach, Center for Centers for Enriched Studies. We have uh here at LA Center for Enriched Studies Magnet as well as the Maywood Center for Enriched
Studies. And then a multi-grade model, um which would be the open charter magnet. So, you know, there are many examples of programs within the district that again are generating high demand that are achieving uh generating high high outcomes for students. And so,
as we think about, you know, the deserts uh that we're going to talk more about, these are examples that uh of schools and programs that are having a tremendous impact uh and are in tremendous demand from students here in the district and could be potential for
replication. There are also many examples that exist outside of the school district, and these are just a sampling of some of those programs. So, uh again these programs are focused on future-forward unique pedagogical approaches, and then really developing
partnerships with significant assets within the community. Um we won't go through through each of these, um but uh many of them are focused on preparing students for a 21st century learning experience and job market
infusing technology and other themes to support advanced learning to support personalized pathways, integrate internships. The The Met School in Providence actually The school that I taught at was modeled
after the Met High School in Providence and was very much designed to support students personalized learning through internships, advisory and real-world projects. As far as the work that's happening in LA,
LA has clearly a number of um rich assets in the community, whether it's at the university level, whether it's in business or arts, and there are schools that are taking advantage of that. The Alliance Health Services Academy High School, the Port
of Los Angeles High School, LA County LA County High School for the Arts, and the King Drew Magnet High School of Medicines and Science really leveraging partnerships with some of these key assets in the LA community. >> Okay. >> So, I want to talk next about the
approach to our work here and um this is where we spent a lot of time with the team within LA Unified. And And ultimately, the question that we were trying to answer is what does good programming look like across the
district and how do we assess that? As we sort of stepped into that question, the first thing that we really need to solve for was at what level are we assessing programming at the at the district. It is obviously a very large district,
and students cannot reasonably commute to just any school. So, what we did was we tried we tried we said, "Well, let's try to assess programming across geographic units that represent uh how students move within
the system." And so, we started at the uh feeder pattern level and looked at adjacent feeder patterns or or feeder complexes. And ultimately, we defined 41 neighborhood clusters that are represented uh on this map here. And
each of the dots is a is a school, and the color scheme represents the the neighborhood clusters. There are There are 41 uh across across the district. And um these became sort of our initial geographic unit that we used to
assess programming. The next step was to then say, "Okay, well, if those if we're going to assess programming across those geographic units, what are the questions that we're trying to answer? What makes for good programming in each
of these areas?" And so, we settled on these these five dimensions: availability, coherence, academic growth, demand, and retention. So, what what do we mean here? So, from an availability standpoint, do all students have a sufficient mix and number of
programs to meet their interests and needs within their neighborhood cluster? So, a diversity of programs um that are that is available to them. Second, coherence. Does programming within any neighborhood cluster represent a degree of coherence? So, if
you start a particular type of programming in an elementary school, can you continue that programming at the middle school or at the high school level? Third, we looked at to what extent programs are supporting academic growth and stronger academic outcomes.
Fourth, we looked at which programs have the highest demand and where does demand uh fall short where sorry where does demand exceed supply and suggest that if there were more seats available in those programs then students would want to
fill those seats. And then finally we looked at how students move through the system and are students enrolling in schools and program options within their neighborhood cluster or are they going elsewhere within the district. So we
looked across each of these five dimensions across each of the neighborhood clusters and we assigned scores to each of these dimensions and ultimately a program score for each neighborhood cluster.
These the score the scoring was you get a max of 16 points four points across each of the the core dimensions that we assessed and then the retention piece was done was layered on on top of that.
What we did what we wanted to make sure we did though as as we assessed the programs and develop these sort of programming scores across the neighborhood clusters was we wanted to make sure that programs were being considered within the broader school level context in which they exist. So
ultimately we looked at three factors that drove our assessment of the neighborhood clusters and and how they are performing from a programmatic and school standpoint. So the program score that
was assessed using the dimensions I just mentioned does the neighborhood cluster score well against the program assessment dimensions and we broke broke the neighborhood clusters into higher and lower on that on the program scores. And then at the
school level we looked at school level utilization and academic performance. These are the school level characteristics of the programs um And so, we wanted to get a sense for, you know, for each neighborhood cluster to what extent are the schools in that
neighborhood cluster well utilized or less well utilized? To what extent are they higher performing or lower performing? And so, we divided schools uh as we divided neighborhood clusters uh in half based on whether or not they
were high or low programming, high low utilization, high low academic performance. And what we were trying to do is validate that the approach that we were taking um had face validity and and seemed to be
uh providing a useful way to assess programs. And so, what this chart shows, each of the dots on the page represents a neighborhood cluster. And what you would expect to see here is if you have uh program if programming is contributing to if programming is
working within a particular neighborhood cluster, you would expect to see that in those neighborhood clusters we have higher levels of school utilization and higher levels of academic performance. And that is in fact what we do see. Um so, the upward sloping uh trend here among the neighborhood clusters does
show in fact that um neighborhood clusters that have better programming, which is represented by the green or the darker green, um those program those clusters do have higher academic performance and do have higher school level utilization. And
then, on, you know, toward the bottom left there, for example, you see a lot more gray dots, which means that neighborhood clusters that score less well from a programming standpoint tend to be uh tend to also have lower utilization and lower academic performance. So, you
you it gets back to what is the value of programming within the system. I think what this chart would suggest is that neighborhood clusters are or parts of the of the district where you do have uh better programming according to the
dimensions that we assessed, you also have more students attending those schools, and you have students getting higher higher academic outcomes as well. Okay. Now, 41 neighborhood clusters is a lot to um
internalize. And so, what we did is we looked across the district, and we said, "Well, if we if we look at uh the characteristics of these neighborhood clusters, and we look at that relative to other adjacent neighborhood clusters,
we can actually think of um the school district in 17 ecosystems that are based on student matriculation patterns, uh how students commute throughout the system, and shared dynamics in terms of
some of the characteristics that the uh these parts of the city face as it relates to um uh some of some common challenges that they may experience. And so, we ultimately uh aggregated the neighborhood clusters
into these 17 ecosystems, which you can see through the color coding um of these uh shapes on the map. And then, what we did was we tried to say, "Okay, based on the fact base that we've developed, based on the program assessment and the school context,
there are there are a number of core challenges that are represented across the ecosystem. Not every one of these challenges exist in every ecosystem, but these were sort of the six broad uh set of challenges that were identified for
the school district. So, one, there are program deserts. Um and specifically what we mean here is that um there are parts of the school district where we do not have uh high growth, high demand program types or or
enough of them. Second, we were able to identify places where there were gaps in pathways. So, a lack of coherence. So, if you started programming certain type of programming at the elementary school level, you could then not continue to
um access that kind of programming at the the middle school level, for example. We identified areas that have significant competitive intensity. And these are parts of the school district that have seen significant enrollment loss,
uh often driven in part by competition from other school options, specifically independent charters or private schools. There are uh other parts of the city uh the school district that face significant wait lists. And so, there
are space constraints in high demand programs. Fifth, uh we found that um another challenge that some parts of the school district faced is low or inconsistent academic growth outcomes.
And then finally, there are parts of the school district um where there is low demand for programs that do exist. And so, these are programs are often very small um and would suggest that there may be excess capacity due to program
saturation, meaning uh many programs of the same type within a particular area of the school district. So, these are the core challenges that we identified across each of the ecosystems. And then um what we did was we said, depending on
what kinds of challenges the uh ecosystem is experiencing, there that leads to potential set of of recommendations. So for for where in places for where you have a program desert or where there is a lack of coherence or breaking
coherence in the school district, those may be logical candidates to add new programs particularly in areas of underrepresentation. Um when you have high competitive intensity or where you have wait lists, um this may be opportunities this may
present opportunities to expand seats in existing high demand programs or to add uh new high demand programs in new locations uh to increase access for students. Um next,
uh where we have um lower academic growth academic growth outcomes, these are certainly opportunities where uh we can strengthen programming. And if you look across different program types, you do tend to see a diversity of
academic a range of academic outcomes. Um so for example, there are some dual language programs that show significant uh academic growth and others that show uh much less academic growth. And then finally, uh in instances where we have low demand
uh for programming, um these may be opportunities to think about some form of consolidation or reconfiguration, reallocation of resources uh to ultimately strengthen the pathways that are in the highest demand. So ultimately, these are the types of
recommendations that can help strengthen the overall program landscape. Uh if we look at these recommendations on balance, um what the sort of aggregate of the recommendations that um
we formulated as part of this work, um there are a number of additions and expansions that are recommended. Uh, this would be particularly for in favor of higher demand, higher quality programs. Um, and then there are also, um, some
targeted consolidations, reconfigurations of lower demand programming that we will suggest. So, uh, on balance, um, when we think about adding more of the add recommendations do come in uh, at the middle school and and high school level. You have much many fewer of those schools. We do know
know that many middle schools and high schools do have an abundance of programs. The question is always, do they have the programs that are uh, most responsive to what the community and what students are looking for? Are they presenting those advanced learning options for students? Um, are they being responsive to uh, the
needs of the community? Uh, when it comes to the consolidation sort of reconfigure programs, um, the the recommendations align to that specific to to to that specific category. Um, they are more commonly
uh, represented, um, across elementary schools. We have a lot more elementary schools in the system. Um, and uh, there are some examples where we do have a lot of the same types of programs in uh, a condensed area of
the city and therefore, um, as a result of some of the enrollment decline over time, some of those programs are in lower demand and and may suggest some redundant redundancy. So, then we brought this all together and we said for the 17 ecosystems, which of the
challenges that I just went through do those do those ecosystems face? And so, you can see that across the various 17 uh, ecosystems, which are the rows in this chart, um, a number of these challenges exist
across many of these ecosystems. So, Uh in some cases, Central Valley for the first one, the the biggest core challenge that we identified was wait lists. Um in other parts of um the city or or in the school district,
multiple of these challenges may exist. Historic South LA, for example, uh uh presents a number of challenges and also therefore a number of opportunities for the district to strengthen programming. So, I'm going to hand things over to Ariel here to walk us
through three of the ecosystems that we studied uh and we've did this work in depth for all of them. So, but we wanted to just highlight three of them here today that showcase some of the challenges and how they present themselves in uh three of the ecosystems
that uh we're going to profile. >> So, what Phil has walked through is a lot of the methodology and the summary of the recommendations. What we're going to go through now is more of the sort of nitty-gritty detail to show the level of analysis that went into this and then
how the analysis then directly informs the recommendations. So, again, we chose three ecosystems just because they um illustrate the various core challenges and so we wanted to show how different core challenges result in a different set of
recommendations. But again, we've developed this full set of analysis as well as recommendations for all of the 17 ecosystems. So, we'll start with the West Valley ecosystem. So, you can see in the map, it's in the the upper left of the map,
the sort of orange polygon shapes. There are three neighborhood clusters that make up the West Valley ecosystem, collectively serving about 34,000 TK-12 students across 55 schools. Um this is an area of the district for context that
holds about 9% of LAUSD's enrollment and has um that 2 and 1/2% enrollment loss over the last 2 years, which is much lower than the district overall. So, that again, this is an area that has held enrollment fairly well over the last couple years.
And the key challenges, which we'll see in this area of the district, are waitlists and competitive intensity. The first we'll go through each of the neighborhood clusters and then we'll come back together to the ecosystem level to go over the recommendations. So, we'll first go through the Reseda
neighborhood cluster. What you see on the the screen right now is a map of the schools that comprise the the neighborhood cluster. So, the maroon I won't do this for all of them, but for the for the early slides I'll do a little bit more explanation. So, the maroon circles are
the elementary schools, orange is middle, sort of bright yellow is senior high schools, gray are span schools, so schools that go across elementary and middle or middle and high, sometimes full through the school experience, and then the bright pink are independent
charter schools in the area. What this slide shows is the enrollment by school type. So, we just saw a map of the schools that exist in the area. And this map what this slide is showing us is where the enrollment sits across those schools.
So, the blue portion of the bar, if we look on the left, the K-5 bar, what that means is that 79% of K-5 students in this particular neighborhood cluster, Reseda, are enrolled in LAUSD schools. The remaining
students go to other school options outside of LAUSD, which could either be independent charter schools or private schools. So, across all of the three grade levels or across the elementary and middle grade levels in this area LAUSD has a
higher enrollment share than the district on average. So you can see the the values below the bars. For middle school for example LAUSD has 85% of the enrollment share in this area versus 65% for the district at large, but then that
changes at the senior high level where LAUSD in this area has 38% of the of the students enrolled and there is a larger enrollment in independent charter schools in this area. So again we'll come back to this, but when we say high competitive intensity, that
is one sort of way that we can see that the competitive intensity is the enrollment through in other school options. So if we go to focus on the assessments that Phil talked through earlier, for each of these neighborhood clusters, we
looked at both the program level measures and the school level measures in the neighborhood cluster. And as he described, we sort of the neighborhood clusters based on if they fell in the top half or the bottom half to get a general sense of
their relative performance on each of the measures. So Reseda is a neighborhood cluster that fell in the top half across all three of these measures. We'll go through the program score in more detail on the following pages, so I'll just give a little voice over of utilization and academic performance.
The utilization here is higher, so you have more than half of the schools that have above median utilization. And what that tells us is that there are likely some schools that are very very well utilized and there are some schools where there may be space if there are programs that are particularly pop
popular and high demand, there is potentially capacity to expand, which is why it's helpful to understand not only the program level enrollment, but also the school level utilization because it will inform some of the next steps. Academic performance, this uh the
schools in this neighborhood cluster perform on the higher end as well in the top quartile. On the next page, this will go more into the program assessment. So, Phil talked us through the dimensions and the questions we were asking for each of these neighborhood clusters. Those
dimensions are on the left here, availability, coherence, academic growth, demand, and retention. And Reseda, the one of the reasons we started with this um neighborhood cluster is because Reseda was the cluster that scored the highest on the
program assessment. So, it scored in the top quartile across all of the all of the four measures you see on the page. And so, the sort of maximum score was 16 and Reseda as a cluster had that score. So, availability is high. You have 10 of
the 11 program types we had to find available. Most of those programs are coherent, meaning students who start um in elementary or middle school can continue through middle and high school. The programs are supporting high academic growth, uh which we measured
using the SBA math growth. And there is high demand for the programs based on the application volume that is seen for all of the students that relative to the number of students enrolled. So, this just to show the sort of level of the data that we were looking at when
we went to make recommendations. Um we not we didn't only look at it in aggregate to produce those scores. We actually went down and looked at within each of these neighborhood clusters, what are the programs that are there, at what grade level do they exist, and then again, what are the what's the demand
for those programs and the academic growth those programs. And so, this table shows uh the programs that are available in the Reseda neighborhood cluster. So everywhere you see a one, that means that that program is available in a school in this cluster. If there's more than one, that is
usually that that program is available at least two separate schools. And so you can see again here, there's a diversity of program in terms of different magnet types. There's a full Spanish dual language pathway as well as some schools for advanced studies and avid programs. So
high diversity and relatively high coherence. We'll walk through Woodland Hills and Canoga Park Chatsworth as well, which are the other two neighborhood clusters again in this ecosystem that will then come together for recommendations.
So Woodland Hills just to give a sense on the map, we're a little bit west to the area we were just looking at. And you can see here one large larger senior high school, a couple middle schools the orange ones again, and then a fair number of elementary schools
which are the maroon dots. And in this area again, when we talk about competitive intensity, the pink independent charter schools are represented. So this again this slide shows the enrollment share and it's sort of a similar trend to what we saw in the in the last neighborhood
cluster in that at the elementary and middle school level, the blue portion of the bar which represents LAUSD enrollment is quite high and is higher than the district average shown below the bar. Whereas at the senior high level, there is a lower enrollment share in LAUSD,
higher in independent charters and private schools. So again, that illustrates some higher competitive intensity for from the other school options in these areas. This again is another neighborhood cluster that scored on the higher end across all three measures. So we'll go
through the program score on the next page, but this is an area that has particularly high utilization in schools. So, 15 of the 16 schools have above median utilization, suggesting that some of these may be places that the programs are quite over
enrolled or in high demand and the school performance is also in the top quartile. So, the the program assessment here is an interesting one because the overall availability of the programs is
relatively lower on the on the based on the program types that we looked at and the coherence of those programs is also relatively lower, but those that are available are in very high demand and are producing high academic growth. And
it's important to pause on this point as we think about the program assessment because the purpose of the program assessment or programs in schools overall is again to support strong schools that families want to go to. What we saw on the prior side is that these schools are in fact, based on the
utilization, schools that are in high demand that families are going to and that are performing well. And so, again, to keep programming in its sort of proper place as we think about this assessment, programs are just one part of strong schools and we know that you don't necessarily need programs and you
don't need to add something if other things are working in the school. So, I just wanted to highlight that point that it's we wanted to make sure that we had a clear understanding of availability across the district, but availability being of programs being lower is not always a bad thing
if the schools are, you know, academically performing and in demand from families. Okay. So, again, a view of the the programs available in the Woodland Hills neighborhood cluster, you have a full uh
for gifted highly gifted, but then as we saw in the prior page, coherence is lower. So, if there's a blue box filled in, for example, what at STEM, that means there's two elementary STEM programs, but within this neighborhood cluster, there's not a middle or senior high school STEM program, so that would
represent a gap in coherence. Um those students, you know, could travel to a STEM program in an adjacent cluster, but it's not in the same neighborhood cluster. And then the last neighborhood cluster in this ecosystem, Canoga Park-Chatsworth,
similarly just to orient, so we're sort of up northwest in the northwest area now. You see some um representation of charter schools, two senior highs and two middle schools and a span school all the way up north. So, this uh neighborhood cluster again,
we see some competitive intensity this time in the younger grades, so K-5, the LAUSD enrollment share slightly lower, um and then for the middle school and senior high, the LAUSD enrollment share um is higher than the average. And uh so, Canoga Park-Chatsworth, the
program score here is actually on the lower end, um and we'll get into that in a little bit. But again, utilization and academic performance score on the higher end, so you have, you know, 2/3 of the schools that are above median utilization, and it's in the top half from an academic performance
perspective. So again, as we think about the role of programming, it's important to understand and have the fact base of what programming is available, um but the schools are continuing to be well utilized and performing academically, suggesting again that programs are just
one part of the larger picture. So, the program score is on the lower is in the lower half across neighborhood clusters. The drivers of that are um availability, coherent, and academic growth. So, availability of seven of the 11 program types available still
relatively um higher, but in the bottom half across clusters, and the coherence is relatively lower as well. But, those programs that are available are in um high demand from families. Again, just to give a sense for what programs are available in this area, uh
we do have full career and social entrepreneurship pathway as well as a full K-12 Spanish language program as well. But, you can see where there are some gaps that the district might consider um filling if there's significant demand. For example, the Korean program
for middle school. So, if we take a step back, again, we had, you know, that data, and for each of those programs, we had the enrollment, the enrollment trends, the academic growth for the program. So, we really did look at a very, very granular level.
And then we wanted to take a step back and say, "What are the core challenges in this particular area, in this ecosystem of the district, to make sure that any programmatic recommendations that were made would be to address those particular core challenges?" So, in the
West Valley ecosystem, we saw there's high program demand. Uh demand for programs across all three of those neighborhood clusters was in the top quartile. So, all three of them had programs that are in sort of the top range across the district. So, very high uh
demand, which shows up in terms of waitlists for programs. Um and then competitive intensity, we saw that LAUSD enrollment share in a number of places was lower than the district on average, um due to some com- competition from independent charters and privates.
So, for wait- the waitlists are largely in the middle school and senior high programs, and where we see those waitlists in demand was largely for the advanced learning options and other sort of specialized programs. And so, what the district could consider going
forward is in those programs with wait list, consider expanding capacity or adding seats in those existing programs since we know that there's already high demand where capacity allows for that. Or the district could look at adding sort of replication of that same program
in a new location based on the origin of student demand. So, that's some of the work that the district will do going forward is thing is looking at who are the programs that are who are the students who are applying to these programs, what neighborhoods are they coming from? Are they from this neighborhood? If yes, maybe it's an
expansion. If they're from another neighborhood, then we would want to think about adding that program elsewhere so that the students have access closer to home. So, examples that we saw that were in high demand again, advanced learning, some of the gifted highly gifted programs,
APs, dual enrollment. And then specialized programs, so things like visual and performing arts, robotics, engineering tended to have high wait list in this area. The competitive intensity piece actually leads to a similar programmatic
recommendation. If you are thinking about how can LAUSD better compete with some of the surrounding schools or non-LAUSD school options, LAUSD could consider adding new programs that sort of better compete
that are in high demand. So, what we saw when we did a survey of families, we did a survey of families who had applied to LAUSD and not enrolled. And what we learned from that survey is that many of those families that applied but did not enroll said that they did not receive a
seat in their top choice in their top program that they applied to in choices. And they indicated that if they had received a seat, they would have enrolled. And so, there's clearly an opportunity to expand or to offer more programs that families are looking for to again
offer and and expand access for kids and and retain them at LAUSD schools. So that's the West Valley ecosystem. I'll go through the next ones. We have more of a consolidated view, but we did want to provide one where we went through the detail by neighborhood
cluster. So the next uh the next ecosystem we'll look at is the Southeast ecosystem. So to orient you on the map, we're looking at sort of the bottom right. The Then there's a blue box around um Bell, Huntington Park, and South Gate neighborhoods.
So that this the Southeast ecosystem similarly contains three neighborhood clusters collectively serve about 35,000 TK-12 students across 59 schools. Uh this is an area that experienced more enrollment loss over the past 2 years
relative to um the district average, uh but still hold about 9% of LAUSD enrollment. And the key challenges we'll see here, which are one is the same as last, but one is different. So wait list and low demand. I
So we'll look quickly just to orient folks to the three neighborhood clusters that make up the Southeast ecosystem. So one thing to note here uh that you can sort of see visually, you have less competitive intensity, so fewer independent charter schools in this
area. In Huntington Park-Vernon, you see more of the independent charter schools. A few senior high schools, two middle schools, and then elementary schools. And then the South Gate neighborhood is the third neighborhood cluster in this
ecosystem. So, for this neighborhood class for this ecosystem and for the next ecosystem, we aggregated the neighborhood clusters together to give a picture of what it looks like again as this larger ecosystem where we do see significant
student matriculation between between the neighborhood clusters. So, this is a neighborhood cluster or this is an ecosystem rather where students remain largely in LAUSD schools. So, they attend LAUSD schools at a higher rate than the district overall. You can see across all three of
the grade levels, the share the blue share of the bar which is LAUSD enrollment is is much higher relative to the district overall. Then when we look at the program assessments for the three neighborhood clusters and a sort of interesting dynamic emerges here. So, you have
relatively high availability and coherence across these three neighborhood clusters which means there are programs available that are diverse in nature and they tend to be coherent. So, when students start, they can continue their experience.
But, the academic growth that they're producing is mixed. So, some of them are stronger, some of them are lower and demand across all three of these areas is below the median and two of them are in the bottom quartile. So, what that sort of tells us to look
for is to think about when we look at the programming is are there programs that are over represented that might be leading to low demand. And so, we'll see that on the next page. And then also with that, there could be
some opportunities in the availability category to think about what could be missing or added. So, there's a lot on this page but I'll so I'll walk through the left-hand side first. Again, this is all three of the neighborhood clusters together. So, this is an ecosystem view.
And on the left, it shows the count of programs available at each of the grade levels in the cluster, and then whether or not that represents coherence. So, for a simple example, there's an in the in the language program type, there's an Arabic program that's available at the elementary, the middle, the senior high
level, that represents a full coherent language pathway. But then you see some higher numbers here than we saw in some of the earlier slides. So, for example, there are nine elementary STEM magnet programs and four middle school STEM magnet programs. And there are 21 elementary dual language
Spanish programs in the area. So, when we think about low demand and try to understand why are those programs lower demand, it's not that people aren't interested in dual language. Clearly, if there are 21 uh programs, you know, the community wanted dual
language Spanish programs. But as the enrollment has dropped and as some of these schools have added the programs, then they're very close by to each other, the demand gets dispersed across the programs. And so, that's where we see lower demand because we're looking at the number of applications a program
receives relative to enrollment. So, again, it's not it's not saying that there's not demand there. It's the demand relative to the the sheer number of programs and seats available. So, this suggests there might be an excess of capacity. You can see on the right as well this a
view of the pathways. So, this is CTE and linked learning. And there's a lot there, which is um which is a strength in many ways since we know from the community engagement and feedback that we got that career connected learning um
is very important to families. However, there are a few places again where you have uh a lot of the same type of pathway, and so there could be an opportunity for high schools in the area to think in a more coordinated way about what sort of
focus one high school might have relative to another to strengthen those particular pathways instead of sort of offering a lot but with less of a strong focus. So, let me take a step back based on what we saw on the on the prior page.
In this in this ecosystem in the Southeast, so these three neighborhood clusters, there is a sort of misalignment of capacity with demand. So, at the senior high level there are a number of waitlists for programs. So, if you see
when you look at the sort of columns for availability of programs, there's a lot more in the elementary and middle column from like a a sheer numbers perspective than there as it is at the senior high level. And so, what that resulted in was even though demand was sort of lower across
the neighborhood clusters overall, when we zeroed in on just the senior high programs, those programs actually had quite high demand, suggesting that there could be an opportunity to expand capacity or seats. And since we know in this ecosystem that students tend to stay
here, so they they enroll and then they are they continue at middle school and high school in this ecosystem, it would make sense to expand the capacity at these schools where that is an option. And then again, consider adding new offerings, particularly advanced learning.
There are some gifted in SAS, but certainly there could be more in this area, and potentially we recommended looking at a middle college as well. And then for the elementary programs, we saw again, there's low demand for many of the elementary programs. There is
some competition, and we heard that in the community engagement, and we heard that from the principals as well, that there is some within district competition where schools have similar programs and are sort of competing with each other. And so again, we know there is demand there, but can those students be served in a smaller number of
programs that have a stronger focus? Um so you'll see some of the programs we mentioned like the dual language and STEM programs and CTE pathways. All right. The last ecosystem we'll go through again as an example is the East Valley.
So the East Valley ecosystem contains two neighborhood clusters serves about 24,000 TK-12 students across 46 schools. Um and this is an area we wanted to highlight at least one neighborhood or one ecosystem where the challenge was
program desert. So we do see competitive intensity and some low demand here as well. Uh but program desert is the the new sort of challenge exhibited here. The Sun Valley, this is made up of the Sun Valley and San Fernando Sylmar neighborhood clusters. So the first one
is the Sun Valley neighborhood cluster. Some um competitive intensity from charters in this area. And then the San Fernando Sylmar cluster is larger. And so we see we see a few senior high
schools, few middle schools, and then elementary schools as well. So these two neighborhood clusters make up the East Valley ecosystem. And the this has a little bit of an interesting enrollment dynamic in that the enrollment share at the senior high
level for LAUSD is higher, but it's lower at the elementary and slightly lower at the middle school levels, which again is just uh a little bit different than some of the dynamics we've seen in other places. So you'll see how this sort of informs the
recommendations as we think about what where programming could expand to uh enhance experiences for more students. So, the program assessment within these two neighborhood clusters is sort of is is mixed, which makes it sort of interesting. The availability is
in the the second and third quartile, but the coherence of those programs that are available is quite high. But, then we have mixed academic growth and sort of mixed demand profile. So, there is some sort of broad availability of
programs, but they're not all in high demand. Then again, when we look at what what is the nature of those programs that are available, you can see on the screen that again, there is sort of a diversity of programs here in terms of magnet types. So, you have a full
STEM pathway and students who start the enriched studies in visual performing arts at middle school can continue through their through senior high school. There is a gap in the gifted highly gifted magnet after elementary school. So, there are a few schools for advanced
studies that students could continue at. And then the other gap that you see in coherence is there's an Armenian program at the elementary level that could be continued to the middle and senior high. Similar on the right hand side here, there is a lot of CTE and linked
more CTE, some linked learning, which again is a strength, but potentially opportunity for the senior high schools to coordinate and and and focus within a particular area. So, when we put that together again, we said at the beginning there's sort of
three three challenges we see here. There's a program desert in terms of again, the advanced learning options and specifically what we saw here is that Uh, there is not even any availability of gifted, highly gifted with at the the
middle school and high school level. Um, so we'd propose potentially adding gifted, highly gifted, um, or and or other, uh, advanced learning options like the middle school accelerated math pathways, expanding those further in the middle college.
Um, competitive intensity in this area again was more at the elementary level, partially middle school as well. And so as we think about what programs could be added or expanded to better compete, expanding capacity in the programs with the focus on coherence would be the
recommendation. So, for example, if we know that, and we see in the data that the Armenian program is quite high demand, potentially there's an opportunity to, um, c- continue that that pathway at the middle and senior high level and make sure that we're
meeting that demand. And we the other recommendation as an example would be the elementary visual and performing arts program because right now that exists at middle and senior high, but not at the elementary level. Uh, so potentially an opportunity to capture
more of those students at LAUSD schools, um, relative to the independent charters at the elementary level. And then again, low demand. This, uh, this is not a an ecosystem with the same challenge of low demand as the last one. So, in the last one it was very easy to
sort of identify that the low demand was coming from a lot of the same program type, whereas in this ecosystem there are not there's not as much redundancy, if you will. There's not as much repeat of program type, but the demand for some of those programs is still lower. And so
this could this is one of the areas where as the district thinks about next steps, it will be important to go out and say what the data's showing us, what the application data's showing us, and the enrollment data is that these are not necessarily programs that are in high demand. what else is the community
interested in adding that could better meet the needs to to better align the the offerings with demand from the community. >> Great. So, that was a little bit about how we actioned the analysis and and used it to
develop recommendations in some of the geographic areas that we profiled here today. Just quickly by way of some next steps, as we talked about up front, you know, this is really sort of the beginning of a multi-year
effort to improve programming across the school district. Of course, anything uh to strengthen the existing programs can be done starting now, but really, you know, the next few months will be focused on additional planning, additional stakeholder
engagement, and then really starting to tee up decisions that could take effect for the 2027-2028 school year and beyond. As far as what needs to be done to execute effectively, and the execution part of this is always
complex. Uh first, of course, some assembling a team across functional team similar to what we used with the steering committee working group constructs for this particular work, um creating a budget to um invest in programming.
The programs do not um receive a lot of additional funding from the school district, but there are certainly startup costs uh if there is going to be net new work done from programming standpoint. Um and then ultimately this gets to this lays the
groundwork for developing a prioritized list of um programming actions, which can be vetted through the community, and then ultimately finalizing an implementation plan uh and sequencing to the work. And
as far as other initiatives aimed at improving the programming landscape, some of this work really needs to be done in parallel specifically as it relates to the enrollment process. And we talked about some of the enrollment challenges that were identified up front. How do we
get closer to one process, one timeline, clear choice assignment algorithms, improving some of the communication. There's a lot of acronyms that are used as it relates to programming that are difficult for parents to to understand. But
So so a lot of work to be done there in parallel. Just overall from a strategy and management standpoint, this is cross-functional work. It is does require a lot of stakeholder engagement and we need to make sure the team is in place to succeed in that regard.
And then as we mentioned, a lot of the best programs in the district do have really strong partnerships with organizations and assets within the community. And how do we make sure that we can continue to cultivate those relationships effectively.
So finally by way of summary here, we bring back the slide that articulates the goals that we had for this work. And so just to kind of recap where we got to with respect to each of those goals. The first goal was around the shared
understanding and what we found here is that LAUSD certainly does have a strong foundation to build upon. There are substantial number of high quality programs that already exist in places across the district. So the second objective
in terms of identifying gaps, redundancies and inequities, we did find that. Uh there is certainly an opportunity to increase student access to programs, particularly high-quality programs, high-demand programs, uh to address places where there may be gaps or redundancies that limit
equitable access. And then finally, our goal here was to generate actionable equity-centered recommendations and um based on a thorough assessment of programming in each of the neighborhood clusters, aggregated to the ecosystem level, we
did develop recommendations aligned to the key challenges in each area across the district. And so, um that is the um culmination of the work that we performed here uh in partnership with many of you, and um we
appreciate the opportunity to share this today and welcome any questions. >> Okay, board members. I'm sure we have First of all, that was a fantastic presentation. Really eye-opening. Really, thank you so much. Questions from board members? I guess we're all in shock.
>> [laughter] >> Go ahead, Tanya. >> Well, and and we've all seen our own schools, so this is the second or third time we've seen some of this, but appreciate the public conversation, and I particularly appreciate um slide 28, which I think was new for me. Um just kind of breaking that down, and and it
does surface some of the equity concerns that I think we'll be having to grapple with. Um Uh I guess just uh one question. Do we have the programs with the wait lists? I'd be really curious to see what schools those are. And you mentioned middle college and those things. I
didn't hear Gala mentioned, but I always hear them lifted up as a school with a lot of students on the wait list. So, do you have that? Can you share that with us? >> It it's not in the presentation here, but we have um all of the data head that we have collected as part of this has been analyzed, aggregated, and then
returned back to the the district. so all of it exists and we could certainly um us or the district could be responsive to that request. >> Okay, that would that would be helpful. Um and I think one of the things that I had shared in our briefing before this was on the maps to also include the names of
the independent charter schools um because something we want want to consider is why are students choosing independent charter schools particularly at the middle school level in my district. Um so I don't know if that can also maybe that's even just our own team adding that so we can have those community-based
uh about families' choices. Um I mean maybe those are some of my like initial questions. I know everybody's sort of processing a lot. Um but I'll just say to you that um you know, last week we did approve a fiscal stabilization plan that includes you reducing our district footprint by
$60 million over um 2 years. And so while I appreciate that this was focused on what is out there now, I don't want to hide the fact that this board will have to make some tough decisions about how we use this information and um you know, sort of right-size our our
district. Um and so I I just I want to be clear um that they are not the same process, but that is what we are thinking about and what I think the public is thinking about too. And so I don't I don't want to hide that from anyone. Um but I'll pause as we continue to process. >> Thank you, Tanya, for mentioning the
charter schools. In my particular district, I have three enormous charter schools that were once district schools. And for some reason in the public's mind, they still think that that's a district school. It's a charter school. Making it worse, when you look up
information for the district, where what's your address, you know, where you should you go for high school, it says the charter school, which is absolutely insane. They're not district schools. So that is a hard thing to to change, the
idea that these three gigantic empires are still there, but they're no longer district schools, and people still think they are. No matter what you tell them, they still think they're district schools, so it's very sad. One thing, um, also, when I was looking at the schools, of course, it's not measured,
but, gosh, principal leadership and school leadership makes a big difference at the school. When I see the enrollment in some of my schools, and they're not offering that many fantastic programs, but it's a great educational program,
it's the leadership of that school that's stable. They've been there, the parents trust them, and that's why the enrollment is so high. Just so you know. Okay, thank you. Kelly. >> Um, yes, well, I agree on both of those points. I think, uh, you know, you the East Valley was was
highlighted, and one of the points that I made to the team was, I think, on in San Fernando Sylmar, it was noted that the elementary enrollment is lower in our district schools than the district average, and one of the things I noted to the team was because we have conversion charter elementary schools that retain their attendance boundary,
so they actually are the the default elementary school. Um, so that might be I just I think it's important to understand root causes, and not to make an assumption that families are not choosing, um, a an elementary school, for example, because it might not actually be an active choice that that
families are making. Of course, we we could do more, probably, to make to make it clear that we have choice programs in at the elementary level. Um, but I I appreciate Sorry to dive right into it, but I appreciate the work and I appreciate the presentation, um, and the and the time you all took to
engage with the community. And I think in a district as large of as LAUSD, we have to look at a neighborhood-by-neighborhood um, breakdown because there is such, um, diversity in our communities that we serve, but also inequitable access to a
lot of programs, and I think that, um, the analysis really highlights that. I know one of the things that was pointed out was advanced learning options and it is absolutely the case that uh the access to GATE programs, access to advanced learning options maps
perfectly onto like level of poverty in the communities that we serve. Our our lower income communities there are not gifted programs in those areas and there is a long history as to why that is the case. And so I think that there is an urgency
and that when we think about this work and I appreciate that equity was centered in in what you all presented, when we think about what takes priority for us to actually act upon, I think it is providing an expanded access in our highest needs communities to these types of programs.
Um I also noted um and you know, there's a there's a lot to get into, but I think on the on the chart that Ms. Ortiz Franklin pointed out, the uh 28 what are the core challenges, uh I note like waitlists seem to correspond to greater areas of affluence
largely and low demand corresponds to communities that experience greater poverty. And I think that that like we need to dig into that a little bit more um and I know that I have seen uh amazing school programs that either word
is not out about, maybe there are reputational challenges that, you know, schools have made improvements but the community doesn't necessarily know that yet. But also in some cases our families are choosing to go to more affluent areas because there is a perception their school programs are better. And it
is really incumbent on us to make to one make sure that that is not the case um because especially our low income families deserve access to the best public education programs in their neighborhoods without having to travel for it, but also to ensure that we're getting that word out because unfortunately the default assumption for
many I think is that they believe at least I'll say in my area that like going west from the East San Fernando Valley means greater a better public education and that's not necessarily the case. Um, but until we share that and until we invest along those lines, then
that that's going to continue to be the pattern that we're combating. Um, so I I I think it's really urgent important work. The other piece I wanted to note is you know, some of the places that feel maybe like a natural area for consolidation. I know that number of Spanish dual language programs at
elementary schools in my district was lifted up. I I I It requires a bit of a nuanced conversation cuz I think like every every elementary school should offer a dual language option. Like truly I I think that that's I think that that's a right that families should have to
continue to preserve their native language and to build up bilingualism and biliteracy in their communities. So like maybe the question is not do we consolidate the Spanish dual language programs, but maybe maybe that becomes the default rather than the residential English based uh programs being the
default. Like I think there's interesting questions that we should combat. I'll also note that there is like a lack of language diversity when it comes to dual language programs in the San Fernando Valley. We Not not to talk about Mr. Schmelson's district. He's He's got one additional language, I think, but my my district majority
Spanish dual language programs, which I love. You know, my kids are enrolled in one. Um, they're great. But also we have a lot of diversity in the San Fernando Valley and I think it would be worth expanding access. Like there's no reason there shouldn't be an Arabic program or a Mandarin program in the San Fernando Valley. Like our families deserve access
to those types of programs, too. Um, and then the only other thing I I I it's all sort of along those lines is also thematic programs, link learning, um, you know, the middle the early college programs. We also have to look district wide at where those are located and why they
aren't located in certain communities. I think none of the ones on that list that were highlighted are in are in the East San Fernando Valley. And again, that's a fundamental equity issue. If you want to go to early college high school, you can't do that if you live if you live in
my area, you have to leave by default. So, in addition to looking neighborhood by neighborhood, we also need to look at the big picture around what is being offered throughout the system. Um and what is the incentive structure that we're setting up for families? Families want the best for their kids. How can we
ensure that that is most located in in our communities and especially make that true for our communities of the highest need? I'll have more about those are my big picture thoughts. >> Thank you. Charlette. >> Uh thank you for the work. I know we've had a couple conversations and I feel
like we've probably held you guys up over the time when we spoke, but um appreciate the work being done and some of the things that's been highlighted here that we will as a board have to do some redistribution of our schools
and I think this work uh kind of launches us into the next and for our district which you you know, we weren't able to see, but we have probably one of the most diverse groups and one of the districts that probably check every
box on there with program deserts, cohesion lack of, wait list maybe not. Um and maybe there are some. Um but we are definitely in a in an area where I appreciate uh Kelly highlighting that
where there's deserts of programs, it's mostly economic uh situations where our families do not have access and when we think about the next work that comes up, how do we balance that out to make sure that our communities are getting what they need in order to not
go west. Uh I think the same in my community, many of our um students and families live live our board district and may go to school inside of other board districts or other clusters and I'm not sure if you guys have highlighted that work to be able to see
where they're coming from. I think you mentioned it kind of the origin of demand and where they're coming from. I'm not sure if you guys highlight that or even know that work as far as where these students come from to be able to say,
you know, they live here but they go here and that's why there was more continuity in certain areas but they don't even live in that community versus them staying in their community to have the program that they desired in their neighborhood. So, I'm not sure if your
work covers that. Is it that deep enough or is that something that we work alongside here with our offices to >> So, we we didn't include it here but we do have an analysis that shows at the middle and high school level
where the students were enrolled in elementary school and so we can see exactly what you're talking about. You have students who are coming from sort of the center of the district and then going west for middle school or senior high school, for example. And so we have sort of the share that leave a particular neighborhood cluster and then
where they are going to. So, that that is available and it is a trend that we see both in the eastern San Fernando Valley as well as in your board district. >> And and one more thing, board member Handy here again over here again. Handy Newville is that we also want to look at the waiting list, do a deep dive
on those waiting lists because that doesn't necessarily mean that just because there's a waiting list for a school in a certain region that that's where we should expand. Because if we look at the waiting list and we see concentrations of students living in different areas, why not put the program
there? So, back to the, you know, close to home equity. >> Right. And and I know, you know, close to home some may be like, I don't want to go to school close to home. I mean, it it just everyone has a reason or I mean, education is one of these things that when you talk about it, it can
bring up so many different um facets of who they are and sometimes they like, "No, I I just want to be there. I'm you know, I want to be miles away." Uh everyone has, you know, this district has given us choice in order to do that. Um I think obviously changing narrative
of schools, I know I've been in this district for a long time and I've been able to see, you know, trends of where individuals have lived in certain areas and they have certain narratives to the schools and they say, "I don't want to go to that
school." And it's been decades now and the schools have improved and scores have gone up, but yet the historical pieces, you know, tend to change that. Well, um other questions I have was the metrics
or the academic performance, what is the metric that guided that work? I don't know if you had touched on that briefly, but if you can. >> Yeah. At the program level, when we looked at academic growth, we looked at the smarter balanced assessment math growth and the reason we used math
specifically is because it's less correlated with underlying demographics. Uh so it should be sort of the most predictive of of a student of student improvement. For the school level, we used uh the school identification model that the district uses as part of their
MTSS support structure. >> Got it. Uh I'm going to let someone else go. Thank you. >> Who's next? Nick, go ahead. >> Sure, thank you. Um thanks to the team, Carolyn, your leadership and
superintendent and and um for engaging the board and our communities on this. Uh you know, it's a important and long overdue conversation um and I think for some of us who've been here for a while, it uh validates things we have known for years and and asked the district to move on for years. And so that's two you
know, double two sides of that coin. One is frustration cuz it's like yeah, we've been saying this for in some cases nine years. On the other side of that coin is like well, this is now this this validation in a really helpful format to maybe move on some of this. And so one of the questions I do have which I can
get to just at the end is is around those next steps cuz they're rather broad and I think for some of these we have to move quickly. I also you know again when it comes to things that aren't a secret like elementary schools that are over enrolled down the street from elementary schools that are under enrolled. That I
think is true across the board. Residential pathways that don't necessarily make sense. That you you mentioned this or Carolyn I think you mentioned this in your preamble around highly gifted. And if you don't live in the valley you're kind of out of luck. Um I also think
one of the things the West Valley yes, sorry. Thank you. The West Valley in specific specifically. You know, there's also an issue particularly in in board member Smallsons and I know he alluded to it in my district too when it comes to the conversion charters and they're a little different like Pali High is one of our biggest high schools in the district.
It's not shown because it's an independent charter but it is the neighborhood school and you also you know, it might look like a program that goes from Canyon Canyon to Paul Revere ends and doesn't have a high school component. It does. It's just um The charters are interesting too because
I know that I mean you know, not to belabor what is a long and political point but like when I was looking at the language list for example like if we include charters that we oversee authorize and are part of our portfolio it does increase our offerings. Like we have a German charter school Goethe in Borges for we have a Hebrew charter
school is shown. And so it is one of those things that we just have to discuss as we're talking about the challenges of charters when it comes to enrollment loss. There's also from a family's perspective the benefit of those offerings and it it's just I think I've always said we should take pride in the schools that we approve and authorize and it adds to those
offerings. Um One of the things I thought was interesting is kind of the engagement around folks who aren't in the district. You know, folks who have chosen other districts. You know, my district has some neighboring ones, Las Virgenes, El
Segundo. Also, the ones who are in independent schools. And so, can you show Can you show more about how we found these folks? If they um they included infant and preschool age families. And like, will we re-engage these families? Or where do we get the data on non- Valley Unified families? >> So,
we the survey was sent out to families that the district has the information for. So, there was a set of families that had never applied to the district, um but were sort of eligible to. And then there's more families that were
enrolled at the district previously, so last year, and then were not enrolled this year. >> Yeah, cuz I think that's a big piece. I mean, when we look at the the families that leave us for middle school and come back for high school, which I think anecdotally, some of that is cuz char- certain charters go to eighth grade or
just have middle school options. But, you know, really getting in that nuance and understanding where we're losing those families. The other thing, and I mean, I have a lot of different questions and comments. We'll We'll keep it limited because I know we'll have further opportunities. But, you know, another thing that's not anywhere
in here, and I know that the response is going to be because legally it's individualized, but is our special ed programs. You know, 15% of students in the district are in special education. And even though yes, it is mandated to be individualized based on need, not every school can meet every need. And I
think it's relevant to families to understand like where there's a certain program or where And so, I do think that needs to be part of the conversation, understanding that the IEP process trumps, you know, what what we may suggest. But, I I think that's important. Um
On slide 23, I would be curious if you could share with the board and the public the uh which dots or which clusters. Um I just So if that could be a follow-up, um I think it's an interesting representation of of
utilization and it would if we could have like a crosswalk on that. Um I think this has been noted too, but there are a few as we've pointed out in our district, um places where the cluster like the program pathway is just outside the cluster
boundary, um Rich in Elementary which has a French program that that now goes to Webster Middle School. Those are in two different clusters. So really under I know it can't be perfect. I mean, especially with not in my district, but I know in in and Miss Handy Newberry's like LACES and Prescott, that has
changed residential boundaries too where there are families who live in or District 1 who their zoned middle school per LAUSD is Emerson, which is in West like some of these things don't make sense. So I know it's hard geographically, but that has to be part of the conversation.
Another quick point is anecdotally, you know, I know a lot of like we have complicated and varied ways that people access our programs, which also um leads to how certain programs are utilized. Are you Is it an affiliated charter application? Is it a magnet application? And a lot of credit to
folks who are in the room around e-choices and you know, there's been a lot of improvement in the last few years on um kind of navigating the the choice system that we have, but I think that's still like the convoluted nature of the magnet point system still I think discourages people from applying. And so
I think we should look at as we're doing that deeper dive, how much does how you apply to a program um uh impact whether you're going to go there. Most independent charters you can just apply. Um for the magnet point system having figuring out how you're going to bank your points and all that. So that
would be another level of detail. Um and then, you know, finally or kind of penultimately maybe, I think we saw in the Woodland Hills example is a good one, but I I'd caution us and this is really for the team Um in over specialization of programs. What I have found in board district 4 is a
lot of the schools with the highest utilization are low in specialized programs or just really good schools. There are some outliers that I'll discuss but so I think that you know, it's not like I have Rosewood Elementary School in West Hollywood is an urban planning magnet. I don't think families are
saying oh my 4-year-old is really going to be an urban planner. So that's why I'm going to Rosewood. I think they're saying this is a magnet school. That's fancy. They're doing a good job of recruiting in our local ECs and I want to go to this school and so I just I don't want us to take from this that we need to over specialize. I think kind
of keeping the main thing the main thing and like those building blocks that make a school good are really important. You know, some of the notable notable exceptions Ms. Gonez mentioned dual language programs. That's been huge in board district 4. And then and you noted it in the presentation open magnet charter
which is kind of the only I think um cluster based program in the district. So kids are in their it's color for folks who aren't familiar with open anchored. Everyone to go visit it. They have clusters based on color and it's the teachers loop with the students. It was also just last week
the only school the district has renewed for 7 years since that became legal a few years ago. So that is one that I've been saying for 9 years like this is a school that's been hitting out of the park for decades. Why haven't we replicated? So I guess you know, obviously this is uh I think it would
interest the board and our constituents. >> My final question given that excitement and urgency will be you know what are the next steps? Are we going cluster by cluster? Is it program type by program type? Is it going to be determined by the board offices in terms of like we'd like to focus in
Westchester versus Woodland Hills or or um cuz there are definitely some low hanging fruit but I think that's that's where to my opening point which is that a lot of this is the stuff we've known for years. Not to diminish the great work of the team. You've helped validate it. But things haven't changed, like
where do where to from here? >> So obviously there's so much depth to this work that there's a number of different directions that we could go. Our immediate and and most urgent path is to address the areas where we do see critical program deserts. Now I want to kind of echo what you said and I
actually said this to the team in in earlier engagements. It can't always be programs. A lot of times it really is again about the quality of the school. A school can have literally no sort of bells and whistles if you will, but folks just know in that community that it's a high quality school. So that's kind of a different problem to solve for
if you will, but it's something that we need to consider. When it comes to the specific work around the landscape analysis, it's again if we have areas where we see no program offerings or very limited program offerings, where we see and again this was Board Member Handy Newbill's question
was very salient. If we see that folks from that area are going elsewhere because they want those programs, can we bring them closer to home so there's at least that optionality? Now we have to be very clear-eyed. We If we're being very honest here, we know that families are still going to make some geographic
choices. Meaning even if you offer the program down the street, in some cases the family will still say and and Board Member Handy Newbill, you hit on this too. I've had a lived experience with this with a CES that we we've started uh back in the East Valley. Some
families will still say thank you. I understand that it's geographically close. I still want to go to school X Y and Z that's a little further out. But ultimately that should be their choice. We should not make that choice for them. So again, our initial priority will be to look at those areas where
there is essentially a dearth of programs, do additional engagement with the community and say, "We see, based on this analysis and based on again what we've many of us have known for years and years and years, we don't see programs here. Here is essentially a a of offerings that we could potentially
bring here. What do you think, community? Cuz again, we always want to start there. What do you think would be most engaging, uh most inviting to you and your families? >> Before we have some more uh comments, I something you mentioned, Mr. Melvoin,
it's a really good school. It's a really good school. So, what makes it a really good school? Well, I can I know what makes it a really good school. First of all, the parents love the school, and they're the best informers of who should go to that
school, number one. They know that their kids will be taken care of. They know if there's an emergency, they can trust that school to handle it as it is. They like the staff. They like the principal. They like the main office staff. They love the nurse. That's why they love that it's a really good
school. And so, >> Thank you. >> Yeah, no, and the the last thing I'll say on that, just keeping open top of mind. I mean, again, it's it's no secret. We go through a lot of panaceas and silver bullets. Charter, affiliate charter, magnet. That's why everyone steam, STEM. I I think the building
blocks and one of the reasons I've been so interested in principal leadership continuity, school staffing, um is the people there. Open magnet, the principal of the school who did just uh move on to come come here, and there's a great new leader. But, Principal Cass, who was incredible, if she's watching, her mom
was principal of the school. I mean, and the teachers there have been there for a while. And the and the that cohort model, so it's it's they were innovative, you know, they were talking about things before the rest of the educational world was. Um and you know, that's what's really frustrating, cuz a school like Open 20 years ago, someone should have looked at that and said,
"Where's the middle school for that school? Where's the like let's let's let's have an open let's have a cluster-based model in every board district." Um and so, I'm I'm glad we're having that conversation, but to your point, it is it's it's hard to kind of it's the art and the science, but at those schools that have had a lot of success, Mark Twain, Venice. Venice is
now our most oversubscribed um high school in Region West. Um and that same thing uh, you know, kind of that one hasn't had the longevity of principals, although Principal HT has been there for a while, but you know, programs that attract families uh, and um, the last thing I'll say with
Mark Twain is that was a principal who was at the elementary school literally on the same block, right? Dr. Ford, who then brought families with her the middle school and over the course of a few years that middle school went from half enrolled to over subscribed. Um, and I think there are examples probably
everybody's board district they can look at that and point to continuity of leadership and a few other investments. And so, that but that's I think getting at a good school. And I know that in Board District 4 the least specialized programs are the most over subscribed because of that kind of good school
feeling. Thanks. >> Okay, we'll get to Karla. Listen to parents opinion about schools everybody. Listen to what parents have to say about their neighborhood school. That's a very important indicator. Go ahead, Karla. >> So true. Well, I went to a really good school in the valley, but I had to be
bussed for almost an hour and a half to two hours away from seventh grade to 12th grade. And um, that wasn't that wasn't good for me. I had to wake up at 4:00 in the morning in seventh grade. I want these really good schools everywhere. That's what I want. And I do
think that schools I'm glad you you brought that up that a lot of times it's not the specialty or the magnet or the the focus, but really it's about the school climate and the welcoming environment that makes you feel like one of the most popular schools in my area
in Eagle Rock has no magnet program, but and it's just the the gifted is embedded in everywhere. It's just everybody wants that school. A really good school that everybody wants and they parents want to have a say so in,
you know, a lot of things for very good reasons because they know what they like and they've liked the way the school has been led, so they want to be able to be engaged in making decisions. And it's it's been allowed, so people continue to like it. So, um
I think there there is a lot to dig in beyond just programs, and I know in my district we kept pushing for let's look at more than just programs, because I do think that it is important to see where the program deserts are, and and it's a very rude awake not a
rude awakening, because frankly like everybody else has said here, you feel it, you know it, um but now to see the numbers, it's it's the reality. Um but also, I think there's more to it, and so I wanted to ask you all, um in you know, if we want to replicate what's
happening in some of these schools that are high-performing, high-demand, um everything's going great and wonderful, um what are some things that we need to do in order to replicate what's happening there, if if that's something that you looked into. Is it around investments?
Is it investments in certain things? Is it um being able to maintain staff for longer period I don't know. What did you investigate that question? >> So, we didn't investigate that question specifically, but based on our experience, um
you know, and and I said this in my exit interview when I left New York City is there's no shortage of good ideas. It all really comes down to execution. And so, careful planning, but if you're going to replicate something, one, you know, to what extent can you look to the experience of the district in other
replications, what worked well, what worked less well, but you know, to the point that's been made several times, putting in place that sort of foundational school leader, I think is probably the biggest predictor of success that you're going to find in any kind of replication. >> Thank you. And then, um in regards to
the Southeast cities, um there's been a lot of social political events um that have happened to that particular area of my district, and I'm wondering if you also looked at other factors that played a role in the 8.2 decline in enrollment.
>> Um we we we know that there are a variety of factors that are influencing um enrollment declines. Um certainly uh some of the immigration stuff that's happening for sure. Um affordability challenges, uh changes
in birth rates, and each of these things are not happening in equal equal ways across uh the district. Um we didn't look at sort of the contribution of each of those factors to the enrollment declines. We just looked at on an absolute basis what was the change in
enrollment by by area. >> Okay, I think that's something I know that the board has been discussing that about the different types of reasons for declining enrollment in >> member Grego, um uh that as we as we mentioned in the uh in sort of the
preamble at the beginning, more detail, more analysis done on the data. That is something that we will look at again before we do anything to go deeper into the reasons why. We've already started some of that, particularly around the middle school, but also with the school in general. So that will in fact is we know it's
important, and it will be part of the analysis. >> Thank you. And then that leads me to the next question about middle schools because in the southeast areas, we have a lot of elementary schools and only eight middle schools, and I'm wondering I looked at your recommendations and they were not specific to middle school
elementary, but do you have any particular recommendations for middle school? >> Well, I think that um just middle school sort of writ large. I mean, I I think one of the biggest things for middle schools, and it is
generally in my experience um working across districts, the transition point from elementary to middle schools is one of the hardest transition points to retain families. Um there are many people in cities that I've worked who have said straight out, "We are comfortable sending our students
to elementary school, but we're not com- um comfortable sending kids to a middle school in a particular area." Um and I think it is what in places where um feeder patterns are successful is really in developing the tight relationship
between the elementary school and the middle school for for a feeder pattern um uh feeder pattern purposes. And you know, what what we have learned in studying a number of systems is that it's not the decision is not made when the child is in fifth grade on where they are going to go to middle school.
That decision is made, you know, kindergarten, first grade. It's made really early. And so, and and kids have a lot more agency today than they had, I feel like, you know, when I when I was growing up, certainly a lot more choices. And so, recognizing when those
decision points are being made and then trying to establish the connections between across schools to ensure that there is um as much or continuity for families in areas that are closer to home. >> And um when are the next opportunities
for community to give input? >> Um so, I think that this work has um concluded our um assignment, our our project. So, I would look to the the district to advise on that. >> All right. And then just lastly, did you
hear anything about the enrollment process for magnets? And then just also why, because one of the things that I I have found and I've experienced, is that there's mag- we've there was a a moment when we just started opening a lot of magnets. And we didn't want to make them
all magnet schools, so we would open up magnet centers. But then it created um a competition within the same school, so that the magnet center would have higher enrollment and then the the residential schools started declining enrollment and
I think we have several schools like that. Did you look into that and then just the perceptions in in in just enrollment in these magnets? >> Sure. Enrollment navigating the enrollment system was a
topic that came up frequently when we engaged with the community. Based on our experience in working in other districts, there are opportunities and I think the district is already aware of this. For the district to improve
the enrollment process for families. Some of the specific areas that were mentioned is the fact that there are multiple sort of enrollment processes to to navigate including with charter schools when you throw charter schools in the mix. Second, just in terms of
parents understanding what their options are. There there is a lot of great data out there. And maybe families don't know how to access it or maybe there's We heard a lot about acronyms and people don't understand what the acronyms are and that can actually be It's it seems like um
almost a silly thing but every organization has acronyms and and there can be a lot of these that families just don't understand and LACES like what what is LACES? So, you know, I think that that is a another point that's come up and you know, other things that other districts have dealt with is you know,
how do you how do you manage the assignment algorithm, right? So, we have a point system here in in Los Angeles. People have said that that's a hard thing to interpret. There are other ways that other districts have have gone about doing that. How many offers do you
get as a result of a choices process? You know, in in New York all students were required to go through the uh process to to make their uh choices and then they were only they're given one offer at the end. Um and so that is different than what
Los Angeles does. You know, these these the decisions that you make here, they don't have to be the same across districts, of course. Um and there are other examples of um that you can uh learn more about in terms of how they have gone about the enrollment process, but I think ultimately
keeping in mind what which we all what we all know is that um families are the the key stakeholders here in terms of how they navigate and understand and and build awareness and and ultimately um choose and making sure that that everything is done with their
perspective in mind and how to make that process as easy and transparent as possible. >> And I wonder if having that point system gives that perception, you know, the like this must be good if it is so competitive. It must be good. And so
that makes people want to apply more to that and I I just keep thinking about these schools that have centers because I do see that the the residential schools, which is usually um our kids who are in the English language learner program or the kids in the special ed
program, they're the ones in that school and if you're losing enrollment, then you're losing resources. And so it creates this two-tier system within a school. And and when it comes to equity, I don't think that's what we want to continue uh promoting. So I I think I personally
would want us to look into that practice of creating these schools within a school. Um and um well, thank you so much. Appreciate um the work. I look forward to doing the work to improve these uh
this data that we have. Thank you. >> Rocio. >> Yes. Um yes, so thank you for um providing us with um a descriptive landscape of um all the programs in LAUSD throughout throughout the district
and it does definitely does serve as a decision-making document that we will you know further analyze as it was mentioned there's going to be more you know community engagement lot more questions looking at you know more
at specific programs and how they can be replicated etc. So it does provide us a little bit more information that to that would help us you know move ahead. So I mean overall the um your study you know as I said provided a
inventory inventory of programs and pathways um very grateful that you know there was a lot of community input and that um you know we we did hear um I I appreciate you
recognizing the family demands um that they matter as you mentioned in your report families are seeking advanced learning families want career readiness and families also want arts and enrichment which is you know something that also
came through in the strategic plan the feedback that we were hearing from families in strategic plan so that that also strengthen that um that feedback that we're getting from our families and that we're also hearing in our respective board but also um appreciated
is the uh the concept of the coherence of the programs where the students can continue a pathway as they transition from elementary middle and high school um so this is a an important equity issue because many students start
programs but then cannot continue them and then probably have to seek out of their immediate um sort of neighborhood to to access those programs. So and this is an area that I've always that I've noticed you know since I've been working at the district now as a board member
that that coherence was was lacking as I saw in my own board district and also in other board districts that that I worked in. So, I do appreciate that that um emphasis on that concept. And um you
know, you do connect that programs um to enrollment retention. So, you know, I I definitely we definitely see the relationship between uh stronger program landscapes, academic performance, utilization, and
enrollment. While definitely it's not proving causation, uh provides an evidence that programs may help strengthen the school. So, that's very definitely important. And also that you're moving beyond the one-size-fits-all, not one-size-fits-all throughout the clusters. And and
definitely we can see that. Um but, you know, but your report also raises some concerns. Um or just more food for thought that do do better programs directly connect with better academic performance and
utilization. So, you do demonstrate a correlation, but um as we will, you know, as a district and um us overall, we're going to look um deeper into controlling for income levels, right? Housing stability, transportation access, selective
admissions, parental engagement, and historical school performance. So, those are for me other elements or factors that we really need to, you know, do a deeper dive into as we look into our respective um cu- um board districts and communities
that we serve. So, a high-performing program may attract This this is sort of the the thing that popped out for me is that a high-performing program may attract higher performing students rather than create the outcomes. Does that make sense? Like, you know, we
have a high performing, so those high performing students will go for that, right? But, um so that's what creates those outcomes because of the students that are there because they're attracted to us. So, for me, one question not maybe not necessarily a question for you, but just
overall, maybe you can answer this, but how much of the measured academic growth is attributable to the program itself versus the student selection effects? >> So, it's a good question. It's
probably not going to give a perfect answer here, but the way that the district calculates academic progress does account for the starting level of proficiency of a student. So, in that sense, it is intended to measure what the school at contributes to the student, not what the
student brings to the school. And so, that is why we made as the basis for our assessment of academic performance at the program level, why another reason why we used a progress measure. Ariel mentioned why we use math instead of literacy because it was less correlated with
student demographics. So, um in the in by using a progress measure, you're less likely to see what a student brings to a school in terms of their overall level of proficiency or background because that is being controlled for in the
progress measure itself. >> Um and also, the word equity, which is very important for us and it's mentioned in in the your report, but I think further we need to analyze how equity um
appears or is for English learners, you know, students with disabilities, our foster youth, our homeless youth, our newly arrived newcomer students, our black students, and also overall Latino students. So, um for me, the analysis was more
geographical rather than like really looking at the different factors that we analyze in terms of equity, right? And those student groups, the subgroups, student subgroups that uh we really want to uh make sure that they're that equity exists for them. So, a cluster may
appear equitable geographically while still for me it looks like equity, but it could still be under serving specific student groups. So, that's another analysis factors that we definitely to, you know,
you know, do a closer look as specific student groups. So, I know that's I'm I'm I'm seeing Naughty in the back, so I think that's that's um I'm glad that, you know, we're definitely going to look further into that. Um and also for me, the demand of some of uh these programs
may reflect awareness, and I think that's been touched on, but rather than a true need. Um so, for instance, you know, um in the report, you look at applications, wait list, enrollment demand as major indicators. However,
families, you know, as mentioned, families cannot demand programs that they don't know exist, right? And particularly as, you know, we're mentioning all the acronyms and what is this school and, you know, it may be a little bit, you know, overwhelming for families to really understand the the
programs that exist. So, some schools have stronger out, you know, there can also be that, you know, the schools that are high in demand, maybe those schools have stronger outreach, stronger reputations, um and more apparent networks, which, you know, uh board member Greg mentioned
that the and, you know, that elementary school that you mentioned, I think I know which one it is, but yeah, there's several that the parents really network with other parents. They'll have connections with um um daycare centers and preschools, and
then they go and recruit this So, I've seen that where parents are really like they love that school and they want to maintain that reputation of the school and they want to, you know, bring in those parents. So, that's also the other thing. So, these factors could inflate some demand measures. So, that's
something we definitely need to look at. Um so, the question is how or maybe for you, how did the study account for unequal awareness and marketing of of programs of some schools? Is that something that came >> That's a hard question for us to assess based on the data that we've had access
to. >> Yeah, but maybe that's a question for for our district leadership. Um And then um you know, the recommendations for consolidation, you know, it's just a recommendation. So, they're really under developed because the decisions are now, you know,
and I, you know, I see the timeline that how your recommendation to consider consolidations moving forward. Um yet for us as a board, we definitely need to start looking at fiscals fiscal saving estimates,
staffing impacts, transportation impacts, enrollment impacts, and also community impact analyses. And that's one area that we that is if anything has to be primary. How are communities going to be impacted by
you know, consolidations or whatever decisions we make. So, um so so cost saving facilities and also sustainability. So, um let me see what else. Um And yeah, so your report also
acknowledges the factors such as safety, culture, and staffing that they matter, but obviously it was outside of your analysis. Um so, for me what really came out is that yet families families consistently identify these factors as major drivers
for enrollment decisions. So, for me, programming alone may not substantially increase enrollment if underlying school climate concerns remain unaddressed. So, that is actually, you know, one definitely one area that we need to
continue moving on continue analyzing moving forward. I think that's that's it for all. So, just wanted to thank you for um for just giving us a lot more food for thought, a lot more areas that we need to analyze, um but I do appreciate um
the myth your methodology and the clusters and the programs and you know, and and the stakeholder engagement. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Rocío. Round two for anyone questions you still want to ask. We heard a lot. We really did. We
appreciate it. Go ahead, Sherlette. >> Is there information on correlations on some of the um like the availability versus something else? Are there any correlations that came out naturally that you guys witnessed or saw through
the work? >> Um in the program characteristics? >> Mhm. >> Well, I think that um >> I think we didn't run correlations necessarily, but thematically across clusters where available This makes sense. Where availability is higher,
there is often higher coherence, but not always. But where availability is lower, coherence tends to be lower. If there are fewer programs of different types available, it's harder for those to be coherent. Um and then where program academic growth is higher, demand tends
to be higher. So, if there are high-performing programs, presumably awareness of those programs, and then you see a lot of demand. So, those were the two that I think um sort of trend together most often. >> Okay. And I know in our district, and I didn't mention, but as we talk about the
charters and appreciate Nick bringing that up because in my district, I think we probably had one of the largest with all the pink dots. Uh but in seeing that where we have higher charter um within a within a cluster
obviously there was not any continuity in those programs. Did that raise any flags or did anything come about seeing where there were more concentration of charter schools within a cluster? >> I don't think that
I don't think that it would from the data we would necessarily be able to see the charter impact on continuity of programs. Um but where there are is higher charter presence, we did tend to see more enrollment share at those charters and
in places that results in lower enrollment lower demand for programs. >> Or in lower retention. >> Yeah. >> And lower retention. And then retention you said kind of covers over all of these and the retention is just the students and not necessarily those that drive the programs because when we talk
about programs I I programs and I think about people. >> Right. >> Because the people obviously sometimes make the program and if the people aren't there, program doesn't go. And so, did we see any of that cal-
taken into account when we looked at retention? Was it just student retention or staff retention? Was that a part of this analysis? >> We were focused on student retention and trying to understand the way in which students move throughout the system.
Um we did not look at staff retention. >> And even with the program, there's just a student retention, not the >> Yeah, I mean, anecdotally we we heard that there are staffing challenges with some programs because of the sort of specific specialized expertise that is
needed to provide that programming to students and that some cases, you know, a program can almost be um thought of in the same way as the sort of what specific expertise does a teacher have. If that teacher leaves, then the programs or leaves with them.
Um and so I think we've had conversations about, you know, making sure that programs are indeed characteristics of schools and not characteristics of staff. But um uh I think the the With respect to staffing, the biggest thing we heard was just the challenges
of finding certain uh teachers who could who had the specific expertise to to teach a specific type of programming. >> So in the work of expanding these programs, we'd have to look at those expertise as well because >> Sure.
>> if to the recommendation to expand, if the personnel or the people aren't available, that expansion probably can't exist either. >> It's possible that it could be a constraint. I think we heard it most often in terms of some of the specialized CTE programs as well as some
of the specialized dual language programs. >> Thanks. >> Well, before we get to Mr. Chait, I agree with you so much, Charlette. It's not only the leadership, but it's also the people in the main office who are still there for years and years and years and years. And you know, if you
call that main office and you say your child needs something, they're going to attend to you. They'll answer the phone. And people matter. They really do. And I appreciate your work so much. Mr. Chait. >> Thank you, Board President. Again, just want to express appreciation and gratitude to the EY Parthenon team, to
Phil, to Ariel for the the extensive work. Thank you, of course, to all the folks that participated over the last few months in this work. So, in terms of where do we go from here and where are priorities? You know, one I already called out that we want to look at those proverbial program deserts,
acknowledging that not everything is solved by a program, but just looking at where we have areas where we're not necessarily giving our communities the choices that other folks may have across our district. That's one. Two, it's and this was touched on a couple of different times during the
presentation, it's around ease of accessibility and awareness, right? We have a lot of amazing resources in this district, not even just in terms of programs. I mean, I could rattle off a whole list, but if folks don't know about them, if folks don't know how to access them, how to to
get connected with someone who can help them get there, then it's really of no value. So, it's that awareness piece and also, again, the the enrollment piece. We've made some significant strides in how our families can enroll, find out about programs. We're not where we would like to be. Again, aspirationally
[snorts] for me, and I say this from lived experience as a district parent, I want to get us to a place where I as a parent can put in, you know, obviously where I live, the ages of my students, their basically their interests, right? And then I would get a list of schools that are
essentially a match and how to contact those schools, how to enroll. We can get there. The obviously the technology exists, so it's it's not about not having that capacity. Uh the last thing I'll say, though, all of this has to be done via community engagement. The last thing that you want is for
folks to feel like something is being done to them rather than with them. I can remember a time, again, a long time ago when I was just starting out as a principal, about three or four superintendents ago, where the general superintendent at the time, the charge to us as principals is,
all of you are going to adopt a program. All of you. Whatever you're going to do. Magnet, pilot, you know, pick one, But you have to have a program. Well, that was something that was being done to us. We didn't necessarily have the buy-in. We just were in sort of a compliance mode. So, it's the same thing
with our communities. We can't go in and just say, "We're going to give you this program." Even if it's amazing. Right? Because again, that's top-down. We want to engage and say, "We see a We see a desert. We see an opportunity. What do you want to see in this area?" And then also, last thing I'll say on
this to board member Kelly New Bill's point, are there the folks here to do that work? Because the last thing you want is you get folks all excited about a program, and then when it comes time to staff that program, when it comes time to actually offer that program, you can't come through.
But again, in closing, we we very much feel the urgency. We appreciate the work done by EY EY Parthenon. It really is going to be one of our guiding documents, but it's only one of the factors in the work ahead. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. So, Mr. McLean, I
believe we have someone on the line. >> We do have someone who's been very patiently waiting to give comment. Uh that is uh one David Tokofsky. Please press star six to unmute yourself, and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin.
I see you're with us, sir. Please go ahead. >> Thank you very much. Uh that was a very uh enjoyable introductory course to Los Angeles Unified. Um and the board members showed remarkable insights that uh are really quite uh noteworthy. Um
that can help [clears throat] some out-of-towners figure out some of the detailed texture, history, politics, race, class, and other factors that uh can be elaborated on this uh um um aspect. And uh so, I'm speaking on
the employment item, uh which is uh with respect to contract. Uh this uh requires a lot of more public input. This is different than an emergency action. We have no, as the public, idea exactly what is happening.
Um the departure of of Carballo is a different assignment than the current one. And there are many things that need to be answered such as the recent anti-Semitic allegations in the district. Number two, the Green Dot and the Gabriella charters that are on your
closed session agenda. If it is true that both of them missed the deadline, I can sarcastically say somebody ought to be promoted for those errors. But I will say you need to ask what in the world happened to not meet the deadlines and put the board at a disadvantage in
their discussion and decision. And finally, there were lots of things that I can document, but gifted has no money in the state of California. While there's a lot of expectations out of gifted schools and students, there's no financial benefit to having that happen.
Arabic in the Southeast is more about the population that's already there rather than expanding one of the five languages that the US government thinks is important across the district. Spanish dual language, wonderful, but perhaps the board should take a policy position that Spanish is not a foreign
language, that it's a requirement. As well as Mr. Smothers and the middle school language teacher could expand that. But there are lots of things. South Gate goes to four school districts. There's no discussion of the bordering districts. There's no discussion of the virtual schools, the the
the homeschooling populations that are in other districts. In some place like South Gate, where they go to Lynwood, they go to Downey, they go to the district of LA, and and they go >> Thank you for your time, sir. >> Why >> Thank you. All right, the time is now 12:45 and the
board is going to recess into closed session. Thank you. >> Uh Uh >> All right, welcome back. The time is now 3:41. Welcome back to the special meeting of Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education including closed session items. I'm going to take
roll. Ms. Newbell? >> Present. >> Dr. Rivas? >> Present. >> Mr. Melvoin? >> Here. >> Ms. Corengo? >> Here. >> Ms. Gonez? >> Present. >> Ms. Kelly Franklin? She may be joining remotely in just a moment. Board President Schmerelson? >> Present. >> All right. Couple items to report out.
Under public employee discipline, dismissal, and release, the Board of Education authorized the non-re-election of 11 certificated probationary employees. The vote was seven eyes. Under public employment, the Board appointed Andres E. Chait as General Superintendent of
Schools. The vote was seven eyes. Terms and conditions will be available upon finalization of the agreement. >> [applause] >> Okay. So, the Board of Education has unanimously voted to appoint Andres E. Chete as superintendent of the Los
Angeles Unified School District effective immediately. >> [applause] >> This board's decision reflects the confidence in Mr. Chete's leadership, his decades of service to Los Angeles
Unified, and his demonstrated ability to guide the district during this period of transition. Throughout his career and most recently as acting superintendent, he has shown deep commitment to our students, families, employees, and school
communities. And on behalf of the board, I want to congratulate Superintendent Chete and thank him for his continued dedication to the students and families of Los Angeles Unified. The board looks forward to working together to build on the
district's progress and continue advancing student achievement and well-being. Mr. Chete. >> Thank you, Board President, Board Vice President Ribas, all members of the board, and of course our LA Unified community. I firmly believe in leading with
gratitude and never taking the work and support of others for granted. So, I begin today in that spirit of gratitude. Thank you to the board for your faith in me and for this opportunity. In working with you over the past few years, but particularly in these last 4
months, I have seen first-hand the student-centered focus that guides your actions. Thank you to the district community for your support these past few months. As we faced a number of challenges, I could genuinely feel that folks were rooting for our shared success,
and that truly made a great difference in our outcomes. And of course, most importantly, thank you to my family for their love and unwavering support. To my wife Laura, my girls Kristi and Jackie, you are and will always be my heart. Thank you to my parents for
always being my biggest cheerleaders. Almost 30 years ago, I stepped into a kindergarten classroom at Queen Anne Elementary for the first time. I was probably more nervous than the kids were, but I knew then that this was a place where I could make a positive difference in the lives of students and families.
I have always known that there is no greater accelerator of change and opportunity than the schoolhouse, and that is still true today. Throughout my career in various roles, that has remained my focus. How I could be of service and support to our
students and families in accessing these opportunities. Please know that commitment has not changed, and I look forward to the work ahead. Thank you. >> I'm now going to adjourn the meeting. Thank you, Mr. Cheate. >> [applause]