LAUSD: The 2nd Largest Unified School District in the US - Essay Sample

Introduction

Los Angeles unified school districts one of the largest public schools' systems within the united states when it comes to student's population and only comes 2nd as a public-school district nationwide. Being unified districts this body serves over 600,000 students from kindergarten to the twelfth grade with them over a thousand schools under the unified district. LAUSD history dates back to many years when they once comprised of two regions, Los Angeles city high school district and Los Angeles city school district formed in 1890 and 1853 respectively. Together they provide education for children at different levels, one for K-8 while the other one for 9-12 years. LAUSD, however, was formed the 1st of July 1961 when the two bodies the Los Angeles city school district and Los Angeles city high school district merged.

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LAUSD, since its establishment, has faced a lot of changes, that have forced the board to institute new rule to guide how the schools within the district are run. In 1963, for instance, a lawsuit was filed to compel the LAUSD to end segregation in school. Discrimination has been an issue for many years and the school, eventually made changes in coming years to accommodate all students and treat them equally regardless of their differences.

In the governance of the school also unions mainly by teacher have been very instrumental in the development and improvement of operation within the many schools within LAUSD. Unions mostly for the many teachers within the LAUSD schools have often come up together to protest for better pay as well forgean outstanding deal to foster educations success. One such strike occurred in 1989 where teachers engaged in a protest to get more control of the school's administration as well as decent pay for most of their efforts.

Belmont High school is the school I chose for this case study. Belmont high school was originally a hotel before being turned into a private Belmont girls' school after the site was abandoned. The Los Angeles board of education which runs the LAUSD purchased the parcel of land after the private school was destroyed by fire and after that constructed what today is known as Belmont high school.

On grade configuration, LAUSD uses the MiSiS project to gather different student grades and provide them with an accurate GPA for all the learners. MiSiS simplifies the process of grading and quickly identifies learners eligible for reclassification. This project, besides also identifying prints reclassification letters and labels them to the many learners in this category ("Los Angeles Unified School District / Homepage," 2019).

LAUSD total budget for the fiscal year 2018-19 was 13.7 billion finalized on June 7, 2018, by the superintendent. The overall budget covers operating funds, capital projections, debt service funds, internal service funds, fiduciary funds. In this fiscal year, the school sites under the unrestricted general fund received the largest portion of the budget at 37%.

LAUSD receive a huge percentage of their funding from the state revenues which are collected from sales and income taxes and distributed by the state. The economy, in this case, plays a huge role in determining the amount of funding given to the district schools. Funding is high when the economy is doing well and falls when it deteriorates. LAUSD despite these funding is mostly controlled by the state's governors and their respective legislators. The LAUSD percentage on salaries, healthcare insurance, and other benefits are at 10% of the total budget.

This California based organization, just like others, has some strategic plan to counter the different challenges they have and achieve their respective goals. The mission of these organizations to provide the youths with the educational achievements that will create the leaders of tomorrow. Their vision, however, is to become a leader globally when it comes to education through providing children with a dynamic and inspiring learning experiences.

LAUSD plan in the future is to facilitate full graduation of all children from early childhood education. To achieve this objective, the program is based on specific elements that include providing a conducive learning environment. The preparation of full graduation for LAUSD students based on the plan begins by empowering the learners through mastery-based learning. This kind of education involves building the student critical thinking skills, encouraging creativity and other essential digital skills to produce competent graduates who can compete in this era ("Los Angeles Unified School District / Homepage," 2019).

Another part of the plan to ensure full graduation according to their strategic plan is through empowering families to be part of their children studies and career choices. By personalizing their learning experiences, learners can become confident with their decision and thus proceed to graduate.

Another long-range plan to become a global player in education and ensure the full transition is through the various initiatives which they have put forward to enable their goals to achieve. Among the initiates includes minimizing the achievement gap in k-12 schools across the district. This shall be done by LAUSD committing to ensure equity and proper learning environment within the early childhood education stages. California preschool learning foundation shall be instrumental in ensuring that goals by the district are achieved ("Los Angeles Unified School District / Homepage," 2019).

Cultivating a good relationship with the students is another way through which the organization is focusing on to improve the success of students, especially at a young stage and in college. By giving the Learner a voice, the teacher will able to identify their weaknesses and strengths and make proper adjustments to make sure each child improves in class. Involvement of student in the learning process is a critical element that is going to facilitate the success of the students and improve LAUSD chances of full implementation(Sanzi, 2019).

Promoting collaboration between the district and other stakeholders such as the communities and the schools can be very instrumental in improving the attendant rates for students. By developing this collaboration, the district can achieve its objectives to providing quality education to the youths of Los Angeles as well as expand the partnerships,

The employee service center (ESC) within the district has several programs that promote employee growth. ESC, for instance, has an employee who provides the district staff with many answers regarding their salary and other pay rates question. Aside from that, the representative can guide the district staff to various programs available and even guide them on how to get legal and financial services in cases they need an expert in such fields. The LAUSD has several programs they offer to enable their staff to improve professionally ("Los Angeles Unified School District / Homepage," 2019).

My professional growth system (MyPGs) is an example of such a program within the district in which teachers answer prompts to determine their progress within their teaching profession. This program is guided by the LAUSD teaching and learning framework objectives as well as other essential elements that help in improving their skills.

Gifted and talented program is another program offered by the LAUSD, which provides opportunities for the unique teachers and other staff who are exceptional in specific fields. The opportunities include small group training and school site professional development. Besides that, the gifted staff members get an opportunity to provide by LAUSD to attend annual conferences and symposiums for the exchange program with other school's district. This talented teachers and members of the staff also undergo a lot of online classes to improve their mastery of the subjects.

The smarter balanced personal development program is another program provided by LAUSD to make use of available resources in making database instructional decisions ins line with the curriculum to achieve better results. This program is regularly updated because additional resources and ideas are generated often to improve their staff efficiency in performing their duties.

LAUSD district is the second largest in the country when it comes to the schools and the number of students. Majority of the students however in this district are Latinos. Majority of the learner are not English speakers and only slightly above a quarter can be classified as English-speaking students. Being public schools, the students are mainly from low-income families, and it is estimated that over two thousand students within the LAUSD schools are homeless.

The number of students served by the many LAUSD schools was 734, 641 in 2017 with the adult student being 107,142 while those at independent charter schools 69,687 students. 74% of the student population are Latinos. The English-speaking student also has Latino as their primary language. Majority of the student population comprised of the ethnic minorities present in the united states.

LAUD district faces a lot of challenges, and the biggest one is the issue of finances, which has deeply affected the quality of learning in the many schools within this district. LAUSD spends more dollars each way above their budget estimates, and this has resulted in them having massive debts. Budget estimates indicate the projected debt levels in the future through coming up with revised budgets; however, without proper action being taken, the problem could have dire effects shortly. Finances issues are mainly caused by the rising costs in various department of the school as well as an increase in pension costs. Expansion of charter schools also has played a significant role in causing this financial issue for the district.

Teachers strike is another problem facing this district, and their concerns are very legitimate, given they are the most valuable personnel for the district. The school district is unable to cater for all these expenses because of the rising costs and the new demands being raised often by their employees. As teachers within the district they deserve decent pay, but the district is in a challenging situation as the funds allocated to them cannot meet the needs of all the schools. The financial problems that are facing the Los Angeles unified school district require more money to save from doing budget cuts that would affect teachers and students. The budget cust will result in the deterioration of the schools educational quality as more teachers will be forced to settle with the small salary(Sanzi, 2019).

Another issue facing this district is the lack of adequate infrastructure to meet the demands of the large student population. Public schools lack support is because the leader does not seem to realize that education is the key to making Los Angeles a great city. Leaders must address the problems of LAUSD by increasing funding to ensure that learner get appropriate education from teachers who are decently paid(Sanzi, 2019).

The LAUSD Comprises of Seven Board Members Representing Each District.

George Mckenna (District 1) He is originally from New Orleans and received his first degree in BA in mathematics from Xavier University. He also holds a Masters degree in mathematics which he earned in Loyola University and a doctor of education degree from Xavier University.

Monic Garcia(District 2)She is the current president of the board and has championed for school reforms since her election in 2006. In her district, she successfully led a campaign that generated $7billion for the most prominent construction program. Before joining the board, she previously served as an academic advisor in south Los Angeles Foshay learning center and Eidon middle school, besides that she also served as a counselor and sol...