The Los Angeles Board of Education took a number of actions that will impact the local community at its board meeting Tuesday.
Key among those, was approval of an Equity is Justice Resolution directing Superintendent John Deasy to develop an “equity-based” index that identifies the neediest schools to guide the District as it allocates new supplemental funds from the state, expected through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).
These funds are earmarked to improve the academic achievement of California’s lowest-income students, foster youth and English language learners.
The resolution was co-sponsored by board members Monica Garcia, Richard Vladovic, Ph.D., and Vice President Steve Zimmer and approved on a 5-1 vote.
Board member Tamar Galatzan was the lone dissenting vote, and she believes that the resolution is not needed and would arbitrarily take funding from already needy students and shift them to those deemed even more needy based on this new index. She believes the LCFF funding already does this.
Supporters counter that the LCFF does the bare minimum, while the index created by the resolution injects additional environmental factors such as neighborhood conditions, poor health, and lack of access to quality preschools. Factoring in this information enables the school district to prioritize so that the most needy schools can be served first.
The projected funding of more than $800 million will come from recently voter-approved Proposition 30. The 2014-15 school year is the first time these additional dollars are being made available to school districts and will continue to come for six more academic years.
In other Board action Tuesday, the members voted unanimously to name South Region Elementary School #10 after the late Marguerite Pointdexter LaMotte. She died in office last year while attending a conference representing the LAUSD.
The school is located at 4410 Orchard Ave., and opened in the fall of 2012.
