I Love the Eastside Campaign

InnerCity Struggle Celebrates 20 Years

InnerCity Struggle (ICS) is launching the I Love the Eastside campaign to celebrate the organization’s 20th anniversary. For 20 years, ICS has built a powerful and influential movement of youth and families on the Eastside of Los Angeles to promote healthy, safe and nonviolent communities. The Eastside is comprised of the communities of Boyle Heights, unincorporated East Los Angeles, El Sereno and Lincoln Heights.

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Eastside Students and Parents Celebrate the Los Angeles School Board’s Approval of the Equity is Justice Resolution

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.

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Program Helps East L.A. Students Plan for Academic Future | EGP News

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.

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L.A. school's health effort should expand: Guest commentary | The Daily News

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.

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Rallies at LAUSD for budget priorities and a student voice | LA School Report

With the LA Unified board meeting tomorrow, two rallies are taking place outside district headquarters that seek support for two different educational issues.

Parents, education advocates and civil rights groups, who represent Communities for Los Angeles Student Success, orCLASS, are organizing a “silent protest” on behalf of low-income students, schools and communities by placing 375 empty desks on Beaudry Avenue. The desks represent the 375 LAUSD students who drop out each week, according to organizers.

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Exigen fondos para escuelas con necesidades críticas | HOY

“Lo único que queremos es igualdad… No estamos pidiendo nada del otro mundo más que el acceso a la educación justa”, dijo Reina Villatoro, madre de familia, que asistió a la junta.

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.

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Protestan para exigir recursos en escuelas de LAUSD | La Opinion

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.

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New school funds should go to needy students first, group says | Los Angeles Times

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.

Coalition members plan to submit more than 7,000 petitions articulating their demands at the L.A. Board of Education meeting Tuesday. They are urging an additional $50 million for students in foster care, $25 million for those learning English and extra services for low-income youth -- including more counselors, social workers and academic support staff.

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Ed Reform Activists Seek to Engage Parents In School Funding Decisions | EGP News

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.

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Restorative justice convening educates on the power of healing versus punishment | Boyle Heights Beat

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.”

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