Los Angeles Unified School District

Los Angeles Unified School District

Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school system in California and the 2nd largest in the United States. During the 2016–2017 school year, LAUSD served around 734,641 students, including 107,142 students at independent charter schools and 69,867 adult students. The school district consists of Los Angeles and all or portions of several adjoining Southern California cities.

About Los Angeles Unified School District in brief

Summary Los Angeles Unified School DistrictLos Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school system in California and the 2nd largest in the United States. During the 2016–2017 school year, LAUSD served around 734,641 students, including 107,142 students at independent charter schools and 69,867 adult students. The school district consists of Los Angeles and all or portions of several adjoining Southern California cities. LAUSD enrolls a third of the preschoolers in Los Angeles County, and operates almost as many buses as the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The LAUSD has been criticized in the past for extremely crowded schools with large class sizes, high drop-out and expulsion rates, low academic performance in many schools, poor maintenance and incompetent administration. But more recently, there are signs that the district is showing improvement, both in terms of dropout and graduation rates. Every LAUSD household or residential area is zoned to an elementary school, a middle school and a high school, in one of the eight local school districts. Each local school district is run by an area superintendent and is headquartered within the district. The district’s current superintendent is Austin Beutner. The former superintendents are Michelle King and Ramon C. Cortines. The seven current members of Board of Education include George McKenna, Monica Garcia, Scott Schmerelson, Nick Melvoin, Kelly Fitzpatrick-Gonez, Richard Vladovic, and Jackie Goldberg. In the March 2015 Los Angeles City Council and School Board elections, voters approved Charter Amendment 2, which allows the LAUSD to change their election dates to even-numbered years.

It will take effect with the March 2020 Primary election and the runoff in November 2020. The total school district operating budget for 2016– 2017 was USD 7. 59 billion. The Los Angeles School Police Department, which was established in 1948 to provide police services for LAUSD schools, is the second largest employer in LA County, after the county government. It was led by former Governor of Colorado and Democratic Party chairman Roy Romer from 2001 until his retirement in October 2006. On July 1, 1962, West County Union High School District ceased to exist. The annexation left Los Angeles Unified District and the Topanga School District as separate remnants of the high school district. In 1961, Topanga and the Las Virgenes Union School District changed its name to the West County District. In 2011, the Los Angeles High School School District was a local predecessor to Los Angeles Elementary School District. The West County School District became West County Junior and Senior High District in 2012. In 2013, the district merged with West County West School District to form West County High School and Junior High District. It is the only school district in the state that does not have its own police force. It also has its own school construction program, which rivals the Big Dig in Terms of expenditures, and LAUSD cafeterias serve about 500,000 meals a day, rivaling the output of local McDonald’s restaurants. It opened two high schools in 2005 and four high schools in 2006. In 2007, the dropout rate was 26 percent for grades 9 through 12.