On Tuesday, the Police-Free LAUSD Coalition held a press conference outside LAUSD headquarters to release a report on access to wellness and safety resources in schools and the Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP). The report comes from a survey of over 2,300 students across more than 100 LAUSD schools.

The report shows that Black students are feeling the positive impacts of BSAP where programs have been implemented but, that much of the district’s allocated funding has still been unused.

  • 87% of Black students who took the survey said they feel like they are benefitting from BSAP
  • ZERO dollars of the $15 MILLION allocated for Community-Based Safety Pilot programs were spent last school year. As of February 2023, only 20% of that funding has been spent

More than half of students who took the survey said they want to have de-escalation programs, addiction counseling, peer counseling, and safe passage programs available in their schools. Read the full report.

“For a full year there were no police at Dorsey. But last semester, police started showing up at the entrance every morning. And for the last few weeks police have been on campus most days.

LAUSD is still not providing enough mental health resources and schools are still using police to criminalize and abuse students who need mental health support, not police. 

It’s upsetting and enraging that students aren’t getting what we were promised and what we deserve.” — Jailynn Butler Thomas, Dorsey High School Student and Students Deserve Leader

“Our students are telling us that they need BSAP. The program has only just started and already we’ve seen great gains at BSAP schools.

The district does not continue to fund and support programs that they don’t have an obligation to fund and support. UTLA is demanding that the Black Student Achievement Plan is codified in our contract so the district cannot just ignore and underfund it.” — Julie Van Winkle, UTLA Secondary Vice President

Sign a letter to Carvalho and the school board urging them to divest from school police and instead invest in a community vision for safe schools.