On the morning of Monday November 14^th, nearly 4,000 students from 18 LAUSD schools, including all seven of the local Eastside high schools: Roosevelt, Garfield, Mendez, Torres, Solis, Wilson and Lincoln walked out of their campuses in protest to the presidential election outcome and to raise their voices in support of their families and communities.

Indeed, community schools are guided by a philosophy that schools and neighborhoods work together to offer services identified by students and parents as crucial, said speakers at InnerCity Struggle’s Eastside Community Schools Convening on Aug. 27 at Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School. For the Ruiz family, that would mean adding more specialized services to students with special needs in the schools.

Ruiz’s son was diagnosed with autism when he entered kindergarten. The younger Ruiz walked on his tippy toes and could barely talk.

Most high school students usually spend their lunch time hanging out with friends.

For Eduardo Pacheco, it was a different story.

Instead, the recent high school graduate spent his lunch – and even breaks during classes – rummaging for cans and plastic bottles that he could recycle. Every little bit of money he earned helped his family, who had a difficult time making ends meet after his father couldn’t find a construction job during the recession.

The Eastside Community Schools Convening — hosted by InnerCity Struggle (ICS) — will take place Thursday, Aug. 27 at Mendez High School, 1200 Plaza del Sol, Los Angeles, 90033 from 8:30 am – noon. 

The event will bring together key allies and stakeholders, as well as organizational and community leaders to discuss the importance of community schools.

InnerCity Struggle opposes the proposed 710 freeway tunnel that would run from El Sereno to Pasadena because it would not reduce traffic in the area and would worsen air quality for thousands of residents.

The proposed tunnel would start where the 710 northbound freeway lanes end at Valley Boulevard in Alhambra. It would pass underneath hundreds of El Sereno homes and disproportionately impact the neighborhood that includes El Sereno Arroyo Playground where many children play daily. Bringing more traffic to an area where children live would put them at an increased risk for such health problems as asthma and cancer.

After months of organizing, Eastside students and parents celebrate the Los Angeles School Board’s approval of the Equity is Justice Resolution in a 5:1 vote ensuring $837 million are allocated to the district’s highest need schools. The Resolution directs the Superintendent to use the Aggregate Student Need Index developed by the Advancement Project, in collaboration with InnerCity Struggle and Community Coalition as a foundation for distributing Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) dollars. The Student Need Index will use a rigorous and research-based set of variables including demographic, academic, health and neighborhood metrics to rank LAUSD schools according to an aggregate need for LCFF funds distribution.

As the end of the school year and summer vacation approaches, some high school students are starting to plan what to do during their free time.

In East Los Angeles, members of United Students, a program of the education-based nonprofit InnerCity Struggle, are preparing to attend the Media Justice Academy in July.

United Students, is a student-organized program that provides information and resources to low-income youth from Theodore Roosevelt, James A. Garfield, Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, Esteban E. Torres and Mendez High Schools in East L.A.

Schools have long served as trusted and safe places for community and families to gather. In addition to being places where parents entrust their children for education, schools have inherent connections to communities as parent centers, polling places, and venues for town halls and other gatherings.

The creation of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Wellness Network in 2009 was sensible and bold. Fourteen full-service medical clinics offering holistic, comprehensive and integrated services — including physical, mental, oral and preventive health services — were to be built on or around school campuses by an approved bond measure appropriating $34 million in joint-use funds for the creation of these new access points of care.

Cansados de que el dinero nunca llegue a las escuelas, y de que esto provoque que hasta 375 estudiantes por semana abandonen sus estudios  en el distrito escolar unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD), padres, estudiantes y activistas se manifestaron el lunes frente a las oficinas del distrito para demandar “equidad” en la distribución de fondos.

“Los fondos están ahí. Han estado ahí siempre, pero a nuestras escuelas nunca llegan”, afirmó frustrada María Valdez, abuela de estudiantes del LAUSD.