Los Angeles Unified and the Fender Play Foundation announced in harmony today an expansion of a music program that provides free instruments and lessons for middle school students.
The remaining middle and high school campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District began reopening today, meaning all students now have the option to be back on district campuses for the first time in more than a year.
In accordance with state and local guidelines that cleared the way for a resumption of youth sports, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner this week authorized students aged 13 and older to participate in outdoor competitions.
These are the top stories of what happened in Crenshaw & Around this year.
With COVID-19 case levels in Los Angeles at record highs – nearly three times higher than those in San Francisco and twice those in New York City – Superintendent Austin Beutner today announced the suspension of all school-based instructional and childcare programs for the rest of the Fall semester.
The Dorsey Dons boys’ basketball team will be heading into a new era as Robert Washington was recently hired as their head coach.
A lawsuit filed against Los Angeles Unified on behalf of a Black boy with a speech and language impairment alleges he was verbally and physically abused by his white preschool teacher in 2019 and that the principal did nothing about it.
The tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, and others have illuminated, yet again, the realities of systemic violence Black Americans have faced for centuries and continue to encounter daily. Much of the current attention is focused on law enforcement. But our public education system has its own racialized history of oppression.
Police are criminalizing students, says Director of Operations and Campaign Joseph Williams. “In LAUSD, Black students are only 8% of the student population, but they’ve been 25% and 30% of all contacts, citations, and arrests by L.A. school police. We know that Black student achievement has been one of the lowest rates on all of LAUSD.” Williams infers that LAUSD refuses to invest in Black student success, and instead, is investing in prioritizing the criminalization of Black students.
The Los Angeles City Council voted today to cut $150 million from the police department’s budget next fiscal year, following weeks of demands from activists to reduce funding for law enforcement.
It is the sacred wisdom of our ancestors that a great person lies down in death like a hill, still having height and always pointing the way upward, constantly calling us to the upward paths of our best ideas, values and practices as persons and a people. And so it is with our beloved and honored brother, Larry Aubry, an all-seasons soldier and uncompromising servant of his people, who made transition and ascension, Saturday, May 16, 2020 (6260), and now sits in the sacred circle of the ancestors, among the doers of good, the righteous and the rightfully rewarded.
Los Angeles high school sophomore Zsateau Bouyer has a passion for sprinting, she is ready to improve the school’s track program with her dedication. When the Romans track and field team needed more participants, she urged schoolmates to compete with her.
As the nation adjusts to the new normal, education remains a topic of discussion as students have been learning from home. With assistance from teachers, parents are now asked to homeschool their children, but the question for many lies in resources.
On April 3, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) announced that high school sports were canceled for the rest of the school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The order terminated all basketball state championship games. Spring sports like track and field, baseball, softball, boy’s tennis and boys’ volleyball were cut short. Senior student athletes face new challenges in the college recruitment process.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has reported that over 15,000 students have not been heard from since the March 16 closure of schools due to coronavirus concerns. An estimated 40,000 additional students fail to check-in daily.