LAUSD’s first day of school: coffee cake, new algebra books, chess and looming layoffs

Teacher Raquel Chacon put out copies of Algebra 1 workbooks for each of her seventh-graders. Justin Cole inspected school uniforms set aside for unhoused students. Florian Ospina, in the school library, made sure no chess pieces were missing. Scott Mandel steeled himself to fundraise $60,000 for a student trip to Washington, D.C.

Pacoima Middle School was ready.

Los Angeles Unified opened its 1,300 schools Wednesday as educators showed off classrooms and student programs and touted academic goals in a show of stability for a year that will be marked by uncertainty and transition.

Looming ahead for L.A. Unified are painful cuts, including the possibility of more than 6,000 job losses, needed to offset a future deficit projected to reach as much as $3.6 billion if the cuts are not made. Enrollment continues to shrink at a faster pace than in most California school districts — even though academic performance has been improving. And fears persist among families about federal immigration enforcement as the school system does legal battle with the Trump administration on several fronts.

Families in and near Boyle Heights are sending their children off to eight schools within one mile of the Lineage warehouse fire after a hot, miserable summer in neighborhoods beset with toxic smoke, ash, the stench of rotting food, fly swarms and rats.

Amid ongoing concerns, district officials have assured parents schools are safe, campuses have been sanitized and high-grade air filters installed.

This school year also opens after months of leadership upheaval.

Last year at this time, the seven elected board members were about to vote unanimously to rehire nationally recognized Supt. Alberto Carvalho for an additional four years. This year, he’s gone after the FBI raided his home and office in February as part of a broader investigation into his dealings with a tech contractor. Carvalho has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime, but the school board placed him on paid leave two days after the raid.

With his future uncertain and under pressure from the Board of Education, Carvalho resigned in June and was permanently replaced by a lower-key career insider, Andrés E. Chait, who had been serving as acting superintendent.

With about 390,000 students, L.A. Unified is the state’s largest and the nation’s second-largest school system — and therefore a constant center of attention. But it’s also opening week for more than half of L.A. County’s other 79 school systems, with most of the rest opening next week.

Despite the LAUSD uncertainties, back-to-school traditions were undeterred: Teachers put up bulletin boards; cafeteria cooks whipped up the district’s signature coffee cake. Speaking of which, there also will be new school meal items: a vegan blueberry muffin, Poly High’s Butter Chicken, a cheesesteak on sourdough and chicken posole made from scratch.

Progress in Pacoima

Pacoima Middle School embodies district challenges, but also its hard-won successes.

Enrollment has declined from about 1,500 a decade ago to about 700, Principal Simer Garcha said. This decline was possibly made worse by federal immigration enforcement, which district officials believe worsened the annual districtwide decline last year from about 2% — which had been expected — to about 4%.

Principal Simer Garcha at the outdoor “Living Schoolyard” as preparations continue for the first day of classes at Pacoima Middle School.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Garcha also must compete for students with independently operated charter schools and popular district magnet schools. Although under a somewhat faded exterior, Pacoima Middle School has flashy technology and other attributes, including expanded academic offerings, rising test scores, a robotics lab, a room of new fitness equipment and added garden space.

In her math classes, Chacon is developing a growing cadre of high achievers in a student population that comes almost entirely from high-poverty families.

“We take the approach of meeting kids where they are, and then also not creating a glass ceiling for them,” Chacon said. “If they are able to surpass, for example, Algebra 1 or wherever they are, we are able to supplement the curriculum, challenging them constantly.”

Math and computer science teacher Raquel Chacon displays horror-genre memorabilia including numerous Michael Myers masks to entertain her students at Pacoima Middle School. She’s also getting more of them to take accelerated math.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The number of students taking on more accelerated math has increased from about 30 last year to 75. Chacon also leads an e-sports program — which, in her hands, is computer science training and problem-solving designed as fun.

The school’s population includes about 30 students classified as homeless. A free boutique, which serves students throughout the San Fernando Valley, is set up in a back bungalow. It provides school uniforms, new shoes and general clothing items. Cole, who helps manage services for unhoused students districtwide, made sure this week that all was ready for the crush of children.

Ospina is a onetime history teacher turned librarian, who is on a mission to increase library use and ramp up reading — and has earned several district awards for getting students hooked on books.

One of numerous displays promoting reading inside the library run by Florian Ospina at Pacoima Middle School.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

“We are going to start with three things,” Ospina said. “Number one: Bring the kids to the library. We put out a lot of signs, facilitate the students to find the place. Number two: Engage them in reading. We have the most popular books: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dork Diaries, Dog Man, manga and so on. And number three: We play chess in the library, so the kids come to the library and start playing chess. If they don’t know, I teach them, and then the ones that already know will teach others.”

In about half a dozen years, only two chess pieces have been lost.

Mandel leads the Pacoima Singers, a choir program for which Pacoima Middle School has long been renowned. His challenge this year is raising more money for an annual Washington, D.C., performance trip. He speculates that tariffs and inflation related to the war in Iran have played major roles in increasing travel expenses from $50,000 to at least $60,000 in one year.

A view of teacher Scott Mandel’s choir class schedule as final preparations are underway for the first day of classes at Pacoima Middle School.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

“Our rule is: Everybody goes or nobody goes,” Mandel said. “Parents donate as much as they can afford, and we fundraise the rest. In 27 years of these trips, I have never left a kid behind.”

The districtwide outlook

In L.A. Unified as a whole, major programs are largely untouched by budget cuts, but throughout the year, senior officials must develop plans that will result in the loss of more than 6,000 jobs in a school system that employs about 83,000. The district plan also includes unpaid furlough days for workers, but employees unions so far are not going along.

If the district does not follow through with budget cuts, county education officials will take charge and impose them.

In Boyle Heights, district officials dealt with parent concerns about school safety in the wake of the warehouse fire and said they went to great lengths to make the air safe and odor-free — installing fresh MERV-13 filters in air conditioners and adding air purifiers throughout. But parents also worry about what happens when children play outside — or if conditions continually keep them inside.

Some activists are calling for extensive soil testing and possibly moving students temporarily to schools that are not downwind of the fire site.

Ultimately, the call on such decisions will be Chait‘s.

Only a few years ago, Chait headed operations in the San Fernando Valley, where he worked closely with Garcha, the Pacoima principal. Last week, Chait chose Pacoima Middle School for an annual media event in which the superintendent visits a family at its home and talks of the importance of good attendance.

Pacoima, it turns out, has a higher attendance rate than similar schools, and Chait has long admired Garcha.

None of this much mattered to student Aayden Vasquez, who is excited about starting at Pacoima Middle School and shook hands with Chait, Garcha and anyone else who offered a palm during their visit to his home.

He’s looking forward to sports, joining clubs and making friends. “The new school is gonna be pretty nice. I want to try to get into music to do violin,” he said.

His mother, Mary Rodriguez, is excited that Aayden was just designated as gifted and that he will be a fourth-generation Pacoima Panther.

“I’m happy with his education,” she said.