LAUSD Complaint - Public Advocates

Department of Education determines LAUSD failed to account for millions intended for high-need students

SUMMARY

On July 30, 2020, the California Department of Education determined that the Los Angeles Unified School District which governs the education of some 700,000 young people, violated California’s state education finance reform law known as LCFF in it’s 2018-19 and 2019-20 Local Control Accountability Plans, or LCAPS. The decision stems from a complaint filed by Public Advocates and Covington & Burling LLP on behalf of LAUSD parents Ana Carrion and Elvira Velasco, parents in the LAUSD. This groundbreaking complaint is part of Public Advocates’ ongoing monitoring of the education finance reform call, and work with communities throughout California to help ensure community engagement in the process of implementing the law.

BACKGROUND

On July 11, 2019, Public Advocates filed a complaint against the Los Angeles Unified School District charging the district with improper accounting and reporting practices involving more than $2 billion in funding intended for high-need students. Public Advocates filed the complaint along with Covington & Burling, LLP on behalf of LAUSD parents Elvira Velasco and Ana Carrion. The filing of this complaint reflects a longstanding pattern of behavior by the district. From the filing, LAUSD had 60 days to respond to the complaint.

The complaint came in the wake of the settlement of a lawsuit in 2018 challenging similar practices involving the district’s illegal use of funds earmarked for these same students. In September 2019, the LAUSD amended its current LCAP and opened a process to receive feedback from community members, but problems remained.

On October 1, 2019 the LAUSD Board approved the amended LCAP by a vote of 6-1. Nearly all the public comments on the item urged the Board to vote no due to concerns over the lack of transparency in the LCAP, its failure to demonstrate the district is sufficiently increasing or improving services for high need students, the district’s failure to engage students and parents in the LCAP’s development and/or the district’s dilution of services for foster youth. Public Advocates had until October 4th to appeal the decision.

On October 4^th, Public Advocates filed an appeal to the California Department of Education requesting a reversal of LAUSD’s decision that rejected most of the claims alleged in the UCP Complaint filed in July.

On October 28^th, Public Advocates filed an appeal to the California Department of Education of the L.A. County Office of Education’s decision to deny the relief sought in the UCP complaint and its approval of LAUSD’s revised LCAP. The appeal pointed out that all the same transparency, accountability, and equity problems remained with the revised LCAP despite significant improvements, and that LAUSD must correct these deficiencies with full stakeholder engagement and public transparency. The future of hundreds of thousands of low-income children of color depended on how LAUSD invested the $1.13 billion generated by and for these students.

On July 30, 2020, the California Department of Education (CDE) issued its decision, saying that LAUSD had, indeed, violated the state’s education reform law (LCFF) by improperly accounting for state funds intended for high need students in its spending plans covering the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years.

In one instance, LAUSD created a spending category that bundled $800 million worth of different types of services to different schools and grade levels and labeled it as a single “action.” The CDE ruled such bundling of multiple actions is illegal.

In its decision, the CDE also faulted LAUSD for the way in which it disbursed $460 million in school-level expenditures. Parents had complained that after looking at the spending plans provided to them by LAUSD, it seemed funds sent to school sites just dropped into a “black hole,”—schools received funds but never identified how they were used, in amounts no one knew, and that were not clearly justified as supporting the needs of low-income students, English learners or foster youth as the law says they must.

Although the CDE did not ask LAUSD to amend its past LCAPs, it did order LAUSD to ensure that these violations do not occur in the 21-22 LCAP, which will be adopted in June 2021.

The decision issued by the CDE in July of 2020, however, did not provide the remedies that complainants Ana Carrion and Elvira Velasco were seeking on certain aspects of their original complaint. So, on August 31, 2020, Public Advocates filed a request with the CDE for reconsideration of their decision in order to seek further remedies. This request was denied by the CDE on October 22, 2020.

RESOURCES