The Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) is developing a new Learning Acceleration and Support Plan (LASP) and is seeking public input at Board of Education meetings on May 26, June 2 and June 23.
The plan’s goal is to improve the classroom experience and help students who need support, according to Superintendent Dr. Jill Baker. It will attempt to address systemic racial inequities and long-term harms, she told the Board of Education at its May 17 meeting.
“This is an important year for us as our district comes out of the pandemic year of learning,” Baker said. “[LASP is] an opportunity for us to address the needs of students who struggle, whose needs have not been met, and those who need more support than ever.”
Baker said LASP and other investments derive from public input on issues such as student emotional distress and inequity, citing $750,000 earmarked to support foster youth and $1.6 million for high school wellness centers, counselors and psychologists.
“When members of our community see that we’re making an investment in Black student achievement, learning acceleration and support,” Baker said. “Then they will know that the things that they have suggested are coming into the plan.”
LASP is not required by the State like the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) that details LBUSD’s annual programmatic goals, Baker said. Instead, LASP demonstrates the “district’s vision and commitment to excellence and equity in the years to come,” she said.
More details will be revealed during the three forthcoming meetings, but Baker said last week that LASP basically consists of four areas or “pillars”: academic acceleration, social and emotional learning, engagement and voice, and improving infrastructure.
Social and emotional learning, as defined in the LCAP, promotes understanding, examines biases, builds cross-cultural relationships, closes opportunity gaps and cultivates inclusiveness through curriculum content and instruction.
Baker said executing the four pillars generally involves redesigning the core curriculum; increasing student academic and emotional support; fostering dialogue among staff, students, advisory groups and the community; and modernizing technological and classroom infrastructure.
“Infrastructure either propels or creates a barrier,” she said. “Infrastructure for teacher quality and workforce diversity, for the modernization of our technology, for the modernization of our classrooms.”
Board Member Dr. Juan Benitez, representing LBUSD District 3 in southwest Long Beach, questioned how LASP’s pillars address systemic racism and structural inequalities.
“This an opportunity for us to actually show the public our commitment to excellence and equity, for undoing harm that has been done, for looking at systemic issues.”
–Dr. Jill Baker, superintendent of Long Beach Unified School District
The new core curriculum will be more equitable, Baker said. LASP will train teachers and “purchase equity-oriented classroom materials that center anti-racism, and that redefine what every classroom in Long Beach Unified looks like,” she said.
To ensure LASP goals will be met, LBUSD will regularly evaluate its programs, collecting data that it will desegregate by race and ethnicity, Baker said.
“This is an opportunity for us to actually show the public our commitment to excellence and equity, for undoing harm that has been done, for looking at systemic issues, as you’ve called out,” she told Benitez.
Benitez pressed Baker on how LASP would “uplift” students who face inequitable programming, such as “culturally irrelevant texts.”
LBUSD will train teachers and administrative staff in a Summer Equity Institute program to think differently about the classroom, Baker said.
“[Training] brings in research, it brings in provocative content, that helps the teacher to think about a student’s experience,” she said.
LBUSD’s Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development (CIPD) office is already redesigning the core curriculum per LASP, Baker said.
“That means new books, new materials, and it also means a strengthening of social-emotional learning right alongside what might be traditional thinking about reading a book,” Baker said. “So social-emotional learning becomes part of what we do every day, not part of what some students receive.”
Funding for LASP will come from federal and state resources, including one-time COVID-19 supplemental relief funds, and grants that support low-income and other at-risk students, said LBUSD’s Chief Business and Financial Officer Yumi Takahashi.
The district is receiving a total of $469.1 million in COVID-19 relief funds over the next three years, Takahashi said. It will spend $120 million to $150 million per year on LASP and other LCAP programs until relief funding ends in September 2024.
Board members expressed general support for LASP’s investment in addressing inequalities and student well-being.
“It’s about how we’re choosing to embed restorative practices and social-emotional learning into who we are and how we operate, not just implementation of a particular program to ‘fix something,’” Board Member Megan Kerr said.
Board President Diana Craighead said she’s heard consistently from students that they want the District to hear and respect them.
“Even after the devastation of this whole pandemic, the silver lining is that we are learning how important the social-emotional side of education really is,” Craighead said. “We can’t expect kids to learn if they’re not in a good place emotionally.”
Benitez encouraged the community to participate in the three upcoming board meetings to provide input on how LBUSD is spending its educational resources on LASP and other plans.
“We are having these very big philosophical, strategic conversations,” Benitez said. “We need to hear from [the public].”
