lausd homework policy 2021

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Like death and taxes, homework has long been a standard feature of life – for public education students anyway.

Like death and taxes, homework has long been a standard feature of life, for public education students, anyway.

Homework’s unlikely to go away any time soon, but the ongoing debate about the proper amount and the impact it should have a student’s grade is heating up in L.A. Unified schools and beyond.

Last summer, the Los Angeles Unified School District implemented a new policy allowing homework to count for only 10 percent of a student’s grade. But that policy was quickly suspended after parents and teachers complained that they hadn’t been consulted. So the district held a series of community meetings over the past several weeks, in an effort to get parents more involved in the decision-making process.

Reaching consensus continues to be difficult. There are many parents – especially those with kids in advanced classes – who complain that the amount of homework students are forced to do is an untenable nightmare. Other parents, however, say it’s just fine.

The district’s new proposal would limit the impact of homework on a student’s grade to 20 percent. It would also set guidelines on how much time students should have to spend after school working on outside assignments, based on grade level. Kindergartners – yes, even they get homework – would be limited to a total of 10 minutes a day. For fifth graders, the limit would be 50 minutes.

The recommendations were crafted by a 15-member committee of administrators, teachers and parents and will be brought to the Board on April 10th for a vote.

From the phones:

Anti-Homework

Elisa in East LA "I have four children, this whole week is Spring break and I am working for a volcano project and a family history project for my 9-year-old that's just one child. I am working the whole week around this project, me and my husband because we're busy. We want to do other things we want to take the time to be be creative with our kids and do things that are not mandated by the schools, and it's very hard, but I also have to teach her to do her work"

Sue in Irvine "I think homework is really out of hand. I see that kids have to make a decision many times between whether I want to get A's in school or whether I want to participate in a sport. Many kids pick between, well if I want to do my sport I'm going to have to get Bs in these classes or I'm going to have to abandon extracurricular stuff so I can get A's because homework will last anywhere between 3 and 5 hours… It becomes a joke I wonder whether they go to school just to get their homework graded."

Joel in Sherman Oaks "I was a teacher for two years, and I would never give my students homework, I think it's a bit inappropriate to intrude into their personal family lives and many occasions I found that the parents didn't know how to help the students throughout the work so it was a problem at home. Most of my students did perfectly fine without the homework, but in general I think LAUSD should leave it to the teacher to make the decision on a teacher-to-teacher basis"

Jervey in Alta Dena I would say that when homework interferes with children becoming passionate readers, that they have free time to figure out what they want to read, like my daughter is passionate about reading the Hunger Games, her school they don't do that, but it just seems like such a problem. At the college level the difference between the kids who are avid readers and the ones that just study for the SAT and the AP, it's alway apparent.

Pro-Homework

Nicole in Pasadena I teach at one of the lowest performing schools in LAUSD and find that the problem is that my students who are extremely intelligent, but don't have the academic skills don't have enough homework. I find myself fighting a battle where i am the only teacher assigning homework, reading, writing, thinking and my colleagues don't, so the students don't develop any good habits in terms of going home and extending their learning.

Sam, a parent in Glendale "I have to say with more and more dual parent families out there and parents working longer and longer hours, we get further and further away from being in touch with how our kids are doing in school and to me doing homework with my kids in the evening helps me gauge where they are in terms of their learning, what things we have to work on at home and what things I can talk to the teacher about afterwards. So I kind of feel like we're taking away a big part of family time when we don't do homework with our kids in the evening."

Amanda in Tustin. I am a college student, and I can't speak to elementary school, it's been too long, but I have found that in my high school, homework load did not prepare me for the time management issues that I am facing in college. I've been in college enough to get a hold of it now, but I found that it was such a big jump that my first year of college was anxiety and procrastination and not understanding how to manage it.

Do the new recommendations strike a better balance for students, parents and teachers? Who should decide how much homework kids get – district officials or individual teachers? Is homework a necessary evil or something that should be abolished altogether? How does homework affect your family?

Los Alamitos Unified School District

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News | LAUSD may revisit social distancing policy,…

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News | LAUSD may revisit social distancing policy, instructional schedules in future

Beutner: it's reasonable to expect schools to offer more in-person activities in future.

The district is currently locked into maintaining 6 feet of distancing between desks because of an agreement it negotiated with the teachers union on how to safely reopen schools, though recent changes to state and federal guidelines suggest 3 feet of spacing is OK.

But that agreement, effective through June 30, is valid only for this school year, which means the terms could be renegotiated in the months ahead.

By reducing the amount of physical distancing required, schools could fit more desks in a classroom and potentially eliminate the need to split up a class of students into two cohorts, thus allowing all students to return to campus five days a week, parents who have been advocating for schools to reopen say.

“For now, our plans have been built around 6-foot (distancing),” Beutner said during Tuesday’s school board meeting. “We think that’s the appropriate standard. We talked to our scientists and advisers.”

That said, the superintendent said the board may see changes coming in the summer and fall and that it would be reasonable to expect more in-person activities offered as health standards relax.

“As more of the community is vaccinated, we would expect health restrictions and health precautions to ease somewhat,” he said. “That will mean we’ll look at issues like the 3-foot, 6-foot for desks and things like that. We’ll also have the ability to build from scratch instructional schedules, if that’s appropriate, to accommodate as much in-person instruction as possible.”

The district has taken a beating for its hybrid learning model for middle and high schools this semester. Not only will students be on campus for only half the week, but they will continue learning online rather than receive in-person instruction from their teachers, as they would be required to remain in one classroom the entire time.

Beutner has noted that other districts have also struggled to come up with a better hybrid plan while keeping students in stable cohorts to minimize the risk of viral transmission.

Middle and high schools are slated to reopen the week of April 26. About 60 elementary schools and early education centers will reopen the week of April 12, with the remaining elementary and early education sites welcoming students back the following week.

Families should learn by the end of this week the exact date that their children’s schools will reopen, district officials said.

In anticipation of coming back onto campus, all students and staff will be required to be tested for the coronavirus the week before their return. Once students are back in the classroom, weekly COVID-19 testing will occur at their desks.

Some families are still deciding whether to send their children back to campus this semester.

About 64% of families have informed the district of their plans so far, and officials are encouraging those who haven’t submitted a survey to do so in order for administrators to properly plan for the reopenings.

Based on the responses thus far, 41% of families districtwide plan to enroll their children in the hybrid program while 59% will have their kids remain in distance learning full time, said David Baca, chief of schools for the district. At the moment, 50% of elementary school families plan to have their child return, as do 36% of middle school families and 26% of high school families.

Families in low-income neighborhoods that have been ravaged by the pandemic are also more reluctant to send their children back, officials acknowledge.

To help families feel more comfortable about having their children return to school, the district is partnering with St. John’s Well Child and Family Center to vaccinate family members of LAUSD students starting April 5. The vaccinations will be administered at Abraham Lincoln Senior High School in East L.A. and George Washington Preparatory Senior High School in South L.A.

Because the effort is intended to prioritize family members from hard-hit communities, St. John’s will be verifying an individual’s ZIP code to determine eligibility, said Jim Mangia, president and CEO of St. John’s.

“This partnership is about vaccine equity – making sure that those most impacted by COVID in communities of color and low income neighborhoods have access to the COVID vaccine,” he wrote in an email.

Meanwhile, LAUSD officials have been on a campaign to highlight the health and safety measures they’ve undertaken at schools and to promote the hybrid program for elementary students as a full-day program.

Elementary students in the hybrid model will receive three hours of in-person instruction with their teachers — most likely in the morning — five days a week. Afterwards, they’ll be able to go home or, if they choose, can stay for the district’s Beyond the Bell program, where they’ll have an opportunity to participate in enrichment activities or receive help with homework.

“If you look at a traditional elementary school day a year ago, you would’ve seen the academic instruction spread out over the course of a day,” Beutner said. “All we’ve done is concentrate it in the morning or the afternoon, and the rest of the activities will be very much like what an old elementary school day would look like — a chance to play with friends, supervised by adults, whether you’re doing your homework or in one-one-one tutoring, an activity.”

Although elementary students will have recess, they won’t be allowed to use the play structures on the playground — a decision which school board member Nick Melvoin said he’d like district staff to reconsider.

Board members were also told that students from different cohorts may be combined for afterschool child care.

District administrators have held a number of meetings and town halls in recent days to answer additional questions from the public and are preparing a document of “frequently asked questions” which they hope to share with families soon.

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LAUSD Classrooms Reopen for In-Person Learning: Here's What to Know

Published august 9, 2021 • updated on august 17, 2021 at 8:52 am.

Schools are reopening fully for in-person classroom learning for the first time in a year and parents are wondering about COVID safety measures.

The LAUSD, the nation's second largest district is requiring everyone, regardless of whether they've been vaccinated, to get COVID tests weekly.

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The LAUSD plans on offering full-day instruction five days a week, and will offer after-school programs.

The district said in a statement that its preparations for the start of the new school year include "continuing to require masking for all students, staff, and visitors; maximizing physical distancing as much as possible; continuing comprehensive sanitizing efforts, including frequent hand washing; upgraded air filtration systems; regular, ongoing COVID testing and community engagement; and collaborating with health partners and agencies to support free COVID vaccination."

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The testing began on Aug. 2. More information can be found here .

For more information about school, transportation and other issues, parents can download a back to school guide here .

Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.

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Here is a LAUSD resources page that helps direct parents of students to the appropriate section of its website to answer questions about the testing.

Here are other helpful links for parents:

Daily Pass Parent Portal Resources COVID Testing & Vaccinations Enroll in an LA Unified School Frequently Asked Questions

Here is a list of Southern California school district return dates:

San Bernardino County:

Monday, August 2 Bear Valley Unified School district Oro Grande School District San Bernardino City Unified School District

Wednesday, August 4 Apple Valley Unified School District Central School District Colton Joint Unified School District

Thursday, August 5 Hesperia Unified School District Silver Valley Unified School District

Friday, August 6 Fontana Unified School District

Monday, August 9 Adelanto Elementary School District Alta Loma School District Baker Valley Unified School District Barstow Unified School District Chaffey Joint Union High School District Chino Valley Unified School District Etiwanda School District Helendale School District Lucerne Valley Unified School District Mountain View School District Ontario-Montclair School District Victor Valley Union High School District

Tuesday, August 10 Alta Loma School District

Wednesday, August 11 Redlands Unified School District Rim of the World Unified School District

Thursday, August 12 Cucamonga School District Snowline Joint Unified School District

Friday, August 13 Trona Joint Unified School District Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District

Monday, August 16 Needles Unified School District

Monday, August 23 Morongo Unified School District Upland Unified School District

Wednesday, August 25 Victor Elementary School District

Friday, August 27 Oro Grande School District

Wednesday, September 1 Mt. Baldy School District 

Los Angeles County:

Wednesday, August 4 Hacienda La Puente Unified School District Westside Union School District

Thursday, August 5 Palmdale School District

Monday, August 9 Antelope Valley Union High School District Eastside Union School District Rowland Unified School District Walnut Valley Unified School District Wilsona School District

Tuesday, August 10 Bassett Unified School District Castaic Union School District East Whittier City School District  Lancaster School District Saugus Union School District Whittier City School District William S. Hart Union High School District

Wednesday, August 11 Alhambra Unified School District Arcadia Unified School District (high school)  Charter Oak Unified School District Downey Unified School District El Rancho Unified School District Gorman Joint School District Los Nietos School District

Thursday, August 12 Arcadia Unified School District  Baldwin Park Unified School District Bellflower Unified School District Duarte Unified School District Mountain View School District Newhall School District Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District  Pasadena Unified School District South Pasadena Unified School District Sulphur Springs Union School District  Whittier Union High School District

Friday, August 13 Beverly Hills Unified School District

Monday, August 16 Burbank Unified School District Centinela Valley Union High School District Covina-Valley Unified School District La Canada Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District Montebello Unified School District

Tuesday, August 17 El Monte Union High School District Lowell Joint School District (7th grade)

Wednesday, August 18  Glendale Unified School District Hawthorne School District Las Virgenes Unified School District Lennox School District  Little lake City School District Lowell Joint School District Monrovia School District Paramount Unified School District Redondo Beach Unified School District Rosemead School District Valle Lindo School District

Thursday, August 19 Azusa Unified School District Compton Unified School District Culver City Unified School District Garvey School District Hawthorne School District Math and Science Academy  Lynwood Unified School District Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Monday, August 23 ABC Unified School District Bonita Unified School District Hughes-Elizabeth Lakes Union School District San Gabriel Unified School District West Covina Unified School District

Tuesday, August 24 Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District Inglewood Unified School District

Wednesday, August 25 El Monte City School District El Segundo Unified School District Glendora Unified School District Lawndale Elementary School District Manhattan Beach Unified School District Palo Verdes Peninsula Unified School District  Temple City Unified School District

Thursday, August 26 Torrance Unified School District

Tuesday, August 31 Long Beach Unified School District Wiseburn Unified School District

Wednesday, September 1 Claremont Unified School District

Friday, September 3 Hermosa Beach Unified School District 

Riverside County:

Wednesday, August 4 Palm Springs Unified School District Perris Union High School District

Thursday, August 5 Beaumont Unified School District Romoland School District San Jacinto Unified School District

Friday, August 6 Alvord Unified School District Jurupa Unified School District

Monday, August 9 Nuview Union School District Palo Verde Unified School District Riverside Unified School District Val Verde Unified School District

Tuesday, August 10 Hemet Unified School District

Wednesday, August 11 Lake Elsinore Unified School District Menifee Union School District Moreno Valley Unified School District Murrieta Valley Unified School District Temecula Valley Unified School District

Thursday, August 12 Coachella Valley Unified School District Desert Center Unified School District Perris Elementary School District

Wednesday, August 18 Desert Sands Unified School District

Orange County:

Monday, August 9 Savanna School District

Tuesday, August 10 Centralia Elementary School District

Wednesday, August 11 Anaheim Union High School District

Thursday, August 12 Anaheim Elementary School District Tustin Unified School District

Monday, August 16 Brea Olinda Unified School District Fullerton School District  Fullerton Joint Union High School District Garden Grove Unified School district La Habra City School District Los Alamitos Saddleback Valley Unified School District Santa Ana Unified School District

Tuesday, August 17 Buena Park School District Capistrano Unified School District Lowell Joint School District (7th graders)

Wednesday, August 18 Lowell Joint School District (TK-8) Orange Unified School District

Thursday, August 19 Cypress School District Irvine Unified School District

Monday, August 23 Laguna Beach Unified School District Newport-Mesa Unified School District

Monday, August 30 Magnolia School District

Tuesday, August 31 Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District

Wednesday, September 1 Huntington Beach Union High School District Westminster School District

Wednesday, September 8 Ocean View School District

Ventura County:

Monday, August 9 Oak Park Unified School District

Wednesday, August 11 Simi Valley Unified School District Santa Paula Unified School District

Thursday, August 19 Fillmore Unified School District

Monday, August 23 Moorpark Unified School District Santa Clara Unified School District

Tuesday, August 24 Oxnard School District Somis Union School District

Wednesday, August 25 Mesa Union School District Oxnard Union High School District Pleasant Valley School District Rio School District Ventura Unified School District

Thursday, August 26 Briggs School District Hueneme Elementary School District

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Smiles, ‘butterflies’ and a little boy cries ‘I want my mom.’ It’s LAUSD’s first day of school

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“I get butterflies in my stomach,” said Alberto Angulo of the first day of school.

He’s a fourth-grade teacher at Main Street Elementary in South Los Angeles. And he’s far from alone in his nervous excitement.

For students and parents, the first day of school Monday at Los Angeles Unified was a crush of new schedules, new teachers and new things to learn, along with a modicum of excitement — and those familiar butterflies. And then around lunchtime — a magnitude 4.4 quake. By early afternoon the district said no damage was reported but the quake apparently triggered some real-life campus earthquake drills, adding to the jitters of the day.

For Angulo, his hint of first-day nervousness combined with the thrill of meeting new students, setting his classroom rules and recruiting students to his folklorico group.

“We can teach that traditional Mexican folk dance, which is something that I’m very passionate about, since that’s part of my culture,” said Angulo, who is starting his ninth year at the school and will have 22 students with him in Room 22.

Demeras Tillman dropped off her three elementary school children at Main Street, a school she has come to rely on.

“They actually care for the kids,” Tillman said. “We’ve had nothing but great support from people in the office to the teachers, everybody’s understanding and helpful.”

Veronica Cortez calmly and cheerfully welcomed 4-year-olds confronting their first day of school in transitional kindergarten. A few were eagerly digging into a breakfast of milk, apple and cinnamon bun, but a boy named Axel, nattily dressed in new khakis and a green shirt, was wailing: “I want my mom” and finally plopped the side of his head on the table in front of his chair.

At the Girls Academic Leadership Academy in the University Park neighborhood near USC, students walked onto their new campus, a refurbished LAUSD administration building. The students at the grade six-12 school had formerly used a portion of the Los Angeles High campus.

Rose Agamegwa, a college and career counselor, described the change as “liberating” for the girls and staff to have their own campus.

Staff at Bandini Street Elementary in San Pedro cheered, shook clappers and waved pom-poms to welcome the new 4- and 5-year-olds as parents crowded in front of the school’s gate, waving, taking photos and calling out goodbyes, unable to enter school grounds.

“Usually he’s upset when he gets up, but today he was ready to fly out of bed,” said Claudia Reyes as she stood outside the gate with her kindergarten son, Legend.

Challenges ahead

For the Los Angeles Unified School District the opening of the 2024-25 academic year is also about taking on renewed challenges.

Supt. Alberto Carvalho, entering the third full school year of his administration, is confronting lagging student achievement, declining enrollment, school safety worries, absenteeism and budget constraints.

He was up at 4:30 a.m. for an early start at a bus yard, then on to Main Street Elementary and a roster of other campuses.

Carvalho has hailed the rise in state test scores at every grade level that took the math and English assessments, although students are struggling to reach pre-pandemic levels. Attendance is following a similar trendline — much better but still in need of improvement.

Even though families were raving about her school, Main Street Principal Eva Rodriguez-Chavez said she has had to cope with declining enrollment, just like most other local schools. And she’s also pushing for better attendance rates, just as at other schools.

“My message to parents today: Please bring your child every day on time. We can’t support, we can’t do our job if they’re not here. If you’re worried, like, ‘I’m not sure how my child is feeling,’ we’ve got a full-time nurse who will check it out and make that determination with you.”

Chronic absenteeism — defined as missing at least 10% of the school year — soared when pandemic-shuttered campuses reopened in spring 2021. Just over 45% of students were chronically absent in 2021-22. The percentage dropped to 36.5% the following year, in 2022-23, the most recent year for which data have been posted. These numbers far exceed pre-pandemic levels, which already were considered high.

For Jordan High senior Katherine Castro, the 2024 academic year embodies the familiar as well as the new — and portends memorable moments ahead.

“It’s like a fresh new start and I try to reflect on the year before and what I can do better,” said Katherine, who is looking forward to senior events — like a trip to Disneyland — and who intends to join the first college-going generation of her family. “It feels nice to go back to school, especially since this is my last year.”

Getting to school

There is a complex infrastructure behind getting schools opened and students into class. And one important element for many students is the school bus.

Over the years, budget cutting limited daily bus service almost exclusively to students in magnet programs — meant to promote integration — and for students with disabilities. Yet there are about 25,000 empty seats on existing routes as school opens and officials have decided to try to fill them as a new service to families.

The district is advertising “transportation for all.” What that has meant is that parents can contact the transportation division to request an available seat if a bus stops where that student needs to go. This year the transportation division also has tried to add stops based purely on demand.

“It’s about how to be more efficient with the resources we have,” said transportation director Daniel Kang. “So we’ve brought in several routing experts, consultants, to provide their solutions and using our routing software as well.”

Some 59 operating buses are electric — with 250 expected to be in service by the end of year. They cost twice as much — about $350,000 apiece — and require the construction of charging centers, but are expected to save money over time in fuel costs, while also reducing pollution.

Families can coordinate transportation needs through the district’s online “parent portal.”

There’s definitely room for improvement in the view of L.A . parents who took part in a recent survey commissioned by HopSkipDrive, a tech-based transportation vendor.

About 40% of parents who drive their children to and from school say these obligations have caused them to miss work, with a similar number saying the task has interfered with their ability to seek out or accept new job opportunities. And 44% of those who drive to and from school said that “navigating and waiting in the pick-up or drop-off lane is one of the most stressful parts of their day.”

Keeping students in school

The district accelerated an outreach campaign that includes home visits. AI-enhanced software that was supposed to provide reminders and suggest resources has been shelved after the company that created it cratered financially.

Another strategy offers students and families support through wellness clinics such as the one that just opened adjacent to Jordan High in Watts. It will serve students as well as an estimated 1,000 nearby community members who can walk in or make appointments.

The needs are especially acute at Jordan. Compared with elsewhere in the school system, families in that area have the highest rates of asthma, the largest number of emergency-room visits for assaults, the greatest eligibility for Medi-Cal services and the most pressing need for dental care, said Ron Tanimura, the district’s director of student medical services and Medi-Cal programs.

Katherine, the Jordan High student, said that the clinic provides help and privacy for students, whether for contraceptive services or required physicals for sports.

“There’s going to be more athletes this year,” said Katherine, who plans to study forensics in college. In the past, some girls who wanted to be on the soccer team “didn’t do their physical, so they weren’t a part of it, because they didn’t have a clinic to go to.”

She also appreciates the mental health component.

“Having the wellness clinic is like you have another place to go to that’s not necessarily inside the school, because maybe you’re insecure about other students seeing you.”

School safety

Officials view a pending cellphone ban as a major safety upgrade — mobile devices have been used to organize fights and drug sales on or near campuses . They hope to reverse a significant rise in fights and drugs on campus.

The district has tried to make campuses safer from outside threats by limiting entry and installing surveillance cameras. Threats inside a campus — such as bullying and vaping — are supposed to be managed through greater counseling resources and restorative justice , through which students who treat others badly or break rules are supposed to take responsibility for their actions and attempt to make amends.

The role of school police remains a topic of intense debate. Since mid-2020, officers have been limited to off-campus patrols, entering only to make arrests, conduct investigations or respond to an emergency situation.

One faction of students and parents wants to entirely eliminate the school police department, saying their presence traumatizes students and makes them feel unsafe.

Countering them are pro-police parents who, by the end of the last school year, had collected about 5,000 signatures on a petition calling for school police to be returned to campus.

“We’re here as parents fighting for more security and safety in the schools,” said Diana Guillen, a leader within the district’s parent-advisory committees at a school board meeting this month .

“All these programs that you’re doing truly don’t have an impact,” Guillen said. “I think if you want to take school police away, it has to be once the programs are already functioning — not when you’re experimenting with them. Because you’re playing with our kids lives.”

Meeting basic needs: Food

School food has a poor reputation and L.A. Unified richly deserved it for years — combining poor nutrition with sketchy taste. It did not help that, for a time, the district built new schools without working kitchens, relying instead on trucked-in entrees assembled in a central kitchen and then reheated at the school.

But a succession of efforts has improved the menu. This year’s annual taste-testing of new offerings took place at the new kitchen at Belvedere Middle School in East L.A.

Students sampled and rated an acai bowl with fresh fruit and a cheesy jalapeno biscuit with hot honey chicken. A nod to cultural diversity appeared in the birria bowl and arroz con pollo. And vegans could try chickpea masala or a fresh bar with fruit, vegetables and hummus.

All produce is sourced within 200 miles, central kitchen supervisor Javier Gutierrez said proudly.

A $65,000 “combi” oven allowed cafeteria staff to follow a two-step process for making fresh cinnamon rolls — one temperature for the dough to rise and a different setting for the cooking, explained culinary supervisor Jamie Ginsburg.

Salik Mian, a junior at Chatsworth High — and a self-described picky eater who used to eat only white rice at Chinese restaurants, savored his first bite: “I love that actually.”

More to Read

Editorial: LAUSD students’ scores are bouncing back — thanks to teachers

July 28, 2024

LAUSD schools open amid historic storm with 4 in 10 students staying home

Feb. 5, 2024

As LAUSD enrollment plunges, only one school is overcrowded. Proposed fixes panic parents

Jan. 30, 2024

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Howard Blume covers education for the Los Angeles Times. He’s won the top investigative reporting prize from the L.A. Press Club and print Journalist of the Year from the L.A. Society of Professional Journalists chapter. He recently retired “Deadline L.A.,” a past honoree for best public-affairs radio program, which he produced and co-hosted on KPFK-FM (90.7) for 15 years. He teaches tap dancing and has two superior daughters.

Veronica Roseborough is a summer 2024 reporting intern covering education for the Los Angeles Times. She is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, where she studied media and the law and worked for Berkeley’s independent, student-run newspaper, the Daily Californian. She also previously covered education and policy as an intern at the San Francisco Examiner and the Hill.

Kate Sequeira is the audience engagement editor for the Los Angeles Times early childhood education initiative. She worked previously as a production specialist for The Times’ Reading by 9 literacy program.

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School Boards Are Struggling. Could a New Research Effort Help?

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A divisive political climate for school boards has led to packed meetings, bursts of misinformation about complicated decisions, and even threats of violence against the elected officials who have traditionally occupied a lower profile corner of local politics.

As school board members search for strategies to counter those dynamics and win public trust, they often come up empty-handed, said Jonathan E. Collins, an assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Education research focuses more heavily on the work of teachers and administrators, and there’s a dearth of national data on how school boards form, how they function, and how their stewardship affects student learning.

Collins founded a new research lab this month to help provide solutions and paint a clearer picture of how the most local of local governing bodies operate. The School Board and Youth Engagement Lab, or S-BYE, plans to assemble a national data set on factors such as how boards are elected and how they interact with the public. It also will partner with local boards to pilot new communications tools.

“If you talk to school board members now, versus in 2012, it’s like the Twilight Zone,” Collins said. “School boards have become these Ground Zero spaces for major political and ideological fighting, and we as a research community haven’t provided enough support for the board members undergoing these challenges.”

Tensions at board meetings have been stoked in recent years by disagreement over policies like school masking requirements that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. That climate has been further fueled by scrutiny over how schools address issues like transgender student rights and discussions of race.

“I would tell any board to be prepared, follow the national trends. It’s happening in one district, then it’ll pop up in a next,” Chris McCune, a Westchester, Penn., board member who lost a reelection bid after a dispute over critical race theory, told Education Week in 2021 . “Do your homework on what these tactics are, and deal with them in an appropriate way that doesn’t escalate them, that de-escalates them, but also counters them.”

Adding to the dynamic: Well-financed national political groups have poured money into local races and supported recall elections.

How can school boards build public trust?

The climate has even led some boards to limit public comment at meetings to avoid contentious displays and marathon hearings.

But some boards are looking for ways to build democratic processes and encourage parents and members of the public to weigh in on more routine issues, like strategic plans and how schools spend grant funds, Collins said.

The S-BYE lab plans to conduct academic research of those strategies to test their effectiveness. And researchers plan to work with an advisory panel of school board members to hone an online platform that allows boards to seek written and verbal public comment, divide virtual meeting attendees into video breakout groups to discuss suggestions, and conduct polls. A pilot version of the platform includes an AI feature that summarizes input, and it allows school boards to communicate with participants about how their input was used in resulting decisions, Collins said.

“The idea is, theoretically, if we make participation more accessible, and we also make the focal point of participation something to where their perceived stake in the outcome is very clear, then we should see some of the participation imbalances [between very vocal community members and those who are less likely to participate in meetings] start to flatten,” he said.

The lab’s initial national dataset will focus on the 250 largest school districts, collecting information about factors like whether their elections are partisan, whether boards allow public comment at their meetings, whether comment time is limited, and other measures of interactions between boards and the public.

“I think we as a research community, we have an obligation to step in and be very thoughtful, intentional, and aggressive about how we can be useful here,” Collins said.

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