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.

LOS ÁNGELES.- Una coalición de más de 300 estudiantes, grupos comunitarios y activistas se unieron este lunes en la sede del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD), para exigir más recursos para decenas de planteles con necesidades.

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.

A citywide coalition of community groups is demanding that 80% of $1 billion in new school funding headed to L.A. Unified be spent on needy students according to decisions made by local schools rather than district bureaucrats.

While many educators and school reform activists hail California’s new school funding formula that will direct more money to K-12 schools with high numbers of low-income students and low-levels of academic achievement, many also say they are worried not enough is being done to inform parents they can have a say in how those funds are allocated.

The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) is intended to reduce the achievement gap at low-income schools by giving those schools more control over how to use the money to achieve that goal. It specifically requires the involvement of parents; a difficult task to manage, since many are unaware of the state’s plan or their possible role in making it work.

The sound of a beating drum and a strumming guitar filled the walls of the auditorium at Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School last Saturday as students huddled around voices singing lyrics about restorative justice.

“Create. Imagine. We community. Inspiring and nurturing family.

A healthy place to support and yield.

Fulfilling the needs our community feels.”