The Brief

As the new school year begins, parents, researchers, advocates, and educators are still trying to untangle the academic, mental, and social-emotional consequences of the pandemic.

There is no one answer to the question: Are the kids OK?

Academics with a bird’s-eye view point to numerous statistics that show kids aren’t demonstrating the same academic skills as years prior.

“We're still playing catch up,” said Joseph Bishop, who leads the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools. “We're still trying to understand what students need. We're even trying to find students.”

Individual families are focused on the gains their students made in the last few years and their return to library storytimes and mask-free summer activities.

“It's feeling strange, but also normal,” said Brenda Miller, a parent of three kids in Highland Park. “Should we get used to this or should we not get used to this?”

Bridgette Donald-Blue has been in the classroom for more than 30 years and works at Coliseum Street Elementary School near Leimert Park.

“The kids are a part of society, so, are we OK as a society? The kids are just a reflection of that,” Donald-Blue said. “I feel like they're OK and like the rest of us, we're going to get better. We're going to progress and get better, and move forward.”

LAist asked these and other experts to help us understand where students are today: Are they learning? Have families found the help they need? Are students present? Are they engaged?

What we know about academic recovery 

When Brenda Miller’s youngest daughter started kindergarten in 2021, tests showed she was behind on reading skills, such as correctly identifying the sounds letters and words make.

Miller thinks it’s in part because her daughter missed out on in-person activities such as the library storytimes her older children were able to attend at her age.

“She just kind of got cut off from other kids in a major way,” Miller said.

In fact, most California kids are not reading on grade level.

Less than half of students — 47% — met or exceeded the standards for English/language arts in the first set of California standardized tests given statewide since the start of the pandemic. That’s 4 percentage points lower than in 2019.

The loss of proficiency in math was even larger. Just one-third of students met or exceeded the state's expectations in math — the lowest-ever score since the state started using the test in 2015.

For some parents, the connection between how much their students learned and the pandemic is clear.

“Truthfully, her academic level decreased because it wasn’t the same to be in school at home as it is in person,” said Mirzan Velasquez.

Her daughter, Elizabeth Gomez, is an incoming 7th grader at an East L.A. charter school.

“There's so much stress now,” Elizabeth said, adding that math was particularly challenging last year and she struggled with learning how to subtract and divide decimals.

“We couldn't learn anything like really good when we were in the pandemic and now they're like teaching us way too fast,” she said.

California’s test scores also show American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Latino, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students trailed their Asian and white peers.

“‘Normal’ in education was actually profoundly inequitable,” said Mayra Lara, director of Southern California partnerships and engagement at The Education Trust-West. “What we really saw through the pandemic is the inequities really were deepened.”

Celebrate where students have shown progress

California students were on par with the rest of the country in declining math scores, but did not fall as far behind in reading according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.

Los Angeles Unified was one of few districts to show an increase in eighth-grade reading skills.

“There is a need for assessment. It lets us know what it is we need to do, how hard we need to work, what we need to work on,” said Los Angeles teacher Donald-Blue. “It's also extremely important to understand that students are working hard and have the students understand we are wildly excited about how hard you've worked.”

“We are here every day to celebrate those small successes and help them build upon what they've learned,” said Los Angeles teacher Bridgette Donald-Blue.

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As a school interventionist, Donald-Blue helps students who’ve fallen behind in math develop a toolkit to answer questions.

At the end of last year, one student shared that she was most proud “that she knows how to answer questions now.”

“That was huge,” said Donald-Blue, a 2023 California Teacher of the Year. “It's not always about getting the correct answer each and every time, but if she has a strategy and a knowledge of how to answer, then that means she will persevere.”

Miller, in Highland Park, said her daughter’s teachers kept them updated on her progress and sent home lists of words to practice sounding out together.

Miller said a surprising incentive was her older siblings’ deck-building Harry Potter game. Improving her literacy skills meant she could read the cards and play with the big kids.

“Finding ways for her that don't feel like a chore, but that make it fun and meeting her where she is, is important,” Miller said. And by the time she finished first grade, she’d caught up to her peers.

Understand where your child is now

But most students who fell behind during the pandemic have not caught up yet. The strategies to help students recover vary from district to district and often rely on federal funding that runs out next fall.

"There's this kind of fantasy that people have like, ‘Oh, well, we'll just do better instruction during the school day. We'll accelerate kids' learning,'" said Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor at USC’s Rossier School of Education. "If we knew how to do that, we would have done it already."

Instead, researchers and policymakers point to frequent, one-on-one tutoring as an effective way to help students catch up. Los Angeles Unified has tried — and struggled— to implement such a program.

Another option is to extend the school year. Los Angeles Unified administration and the teachers union squabbled over the addition of four optional days of school to last year’s calendar. Each of the next two school years in the district will include three voluntary instructional days.

“We must recognize that the amount of additional schooling required to catch students up cannot be compressed into a one-shot intervention or single school year,” wrote researchers from NWEA, a nonprofit that creates standardized tests, in a recent policy brief about pandemic recovery.

NWEA estimated it will take the average student more than four months of additional schooling in reading and math to catch up to pre-pandemic levels.

Eric Nuñez and his daughter Emilia check out the backpacks at a resource fair at the East L.A. Civic Center. Families could also get food and information about educational and mental health programs.

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At the start of school last year, public schools reported half of their students were at grade level, but not all families are getting the message, Polikoff said. A survey of families in California and nationwide this summer found only a quarter of families say their child was identified as needing help or support in school.

“If parents just don't think that kids are really struggling, they're just not likely to opt in,” Polikoff said.

Seek help in and outside of school

The parents that seemed the most comfortable about how their kids were doing in school told LAist they sought out additional resources.

L.A. mom Gabriela Heredia enrolled her daughter in a summer program ahead of her freshman year of high school. Her son, who is a special education student, goes to a socialization program at a community-based organization.

At a recent backpack giveaway at the East L.A. Civic Center, she got information about community mental health resources and youth services, and her kids looked through free comic books.

“I really keep them busy,” Heredia said. “I look for programs aside from the school.”

Gabriel Gomez, Elizabeth’s dad, said parents are key partners in their kids’ schooling.

“I educate her to pay attention in school,” Gomez said. “I educate her to do homework, to read, to do everything that the teacher is telling her to do.”

Gomez also encourages his daughter to ask questions in class.

“If you see the teacher gets mad, you say, ‘I'm just trying to learn,'’’ Gomez said.

Get students to school 

Data shows that in the three years since the start of the pandemic, fewer students consistently attend school.

Several parents LAist talked to said non-COVID illnesses caused their children to miss so much school they received letters about truancy in the mail last year.

About 30% of California students in grades K-8 were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 school year— triple the rate of students who missed at least 10% of school before the pandemic.

The rates of American Indian, Alaska Native, Black, Latinx, and Pacific Islander students who missed more than 10% of school were even higher.

“Chronic absence is usually a symptom of a lot of things,” UCLA’s Bishop said. “It's not usually because students don't want to come to school. It's that they're struggling.”

For instance:

• Transportation to — and from — school is one barrier. California schools are not required to bus students and until last year hadn’t increased transportation funding levels in more than four decades. 
• A lack of access to health care and meaningful relationships with school staff also contributed to rising absenteeism before the pandemic.
• Some students also say they’re not going to school out of concern for their safety.

In 2021, 9% of high school students told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention they didn’t go to school because they felt unsafe at or going to and from class. American Indian, Black, and Latinx students were most likely to skip school, citing safety concerns. 

Bishop said fears of gun violence play a role, but that students also equate safety to their ability to be heard and ask questions like “Do I feel like my peers and my teachers will listen to me?”

Students who miss a lot of school can fall behind and are more likely to drop out. Students in California school districts with larger increases in chronic absenteeism scored worse on the state’s standardized English/language arts and math tests, according to a recent analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California.

Families can also be penalized for multiple unexcused absences. Students can lose access to extracurricular activities and parents can be fined.

“Punitive responses are unlikely to improve attendance when absences occur for reasons beyond the control of the student and their family,” wrote researchers at Policy Analysis for California Education, a consortium of research universities.

Gabriela Heredia, right, said aside from a few people wearing masks, her son and daughter's parent orientation and open houses felt "pretty normal and the same like before."

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Gabriel Gomez, left, said he he saw a drastic change in his daughter's education during the pandemic, but that he's hopeful the future will be better. "[A] parent has to get involved and say, 'What are you doing? Are you doing your homework? Are you reading? Are you doing all the things that the teacher is telling you?" Gomez said.

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Researchers have also found several low-cost strategies to engage parents in the effort to get students to school.

A Harvard study found students missed fewer days when their families received several letters a year about the importance of attending school.

Other approaches are more high-touch. During the pandemic, some educators visited students at home and continuing that work could help bring kids back to school.

“That kind of wall-less classroom or school became a reality in a lot of places,” Bishop said. “It's really hard to keep up that practice, but I think it is ... still very powerful.”

Sort through a lot of emotions

It’s a little trickier to pick one metric that represents students’ mental health and its impact on how they learn.

“If I had a magic wand, the thing that I would want to know is how many school days are missed because of a mental health issue,” said Lishaun Francis, senior director of behavioral health at advocacy group Children Now. “We're not really able to easily understand that connection.”

But here’s what we do know:

Young people were experiencing increased feelings of sadness and hopelessness, and attempting suicide even before the pandemic started.

The percentage of students who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased 40% between 2009 and 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC has surveyed high school students about their mental health since 1991. The most recent survey, and the first since the start of the pandemic, was completed in 2021. It found:

• 42% of students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the last year. 
• Female, LGBTQ+, Latinx and Hispanic high schoolers were among the most likely to feel so sad or hopeless they stopped participating in their usual activities. 
• 22% of students seriously considered suicide. 

LGBTQ+ students often reported the highest percentages of mental distress.

• 69% reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. 
• 37% made a suicide plan, more than twice the percentage of their peers overall. 

Nicole Stelter, who oversees behavioral health care at Blue Shield of California, said part of the increase may be due to better awareness of mental health during the pandemic.

“A lot of people recognize that we were going through this real, very collective stressor,” Stelter said. “It opened up that door for more dialogue.”

The health plan recently surveyed youth 14-25 nationwide this summer; nearly 9 in 10 respondents regularly felt stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, unmotivated, lonely, or panicked.

Students' feelings are also changing how they show up at school each day.

“We have eighth graders who are running through the halls, pushing and shoving at the same rate you would expect to see from fifth or sixth graders,” said Terrence, a middle school administrator in Westchester who called into LAist 89.3's public affairs show AirTalk earlier this week.

Donald-Blue taught fourth grade at Coliseum St. Elementary during the first year of in-person school.

“There were a lot of tears,” Donald-Blue said. Many children asked her to sit next to them so they could complete their work.

Donald-Blue tailored her lessons to the moment. For example, by changing journal prompts to focus more on feelings.

“We need to have them at grade level,” Donald-Blue said. “But we also need them to be whole emotionally.”

Pasadena mom Anne Marie Molina has noticed since the pandemic her two youngest children, who are 8 and 10, often pepper her with questions. For example, whether their car will flip over in an accident, and, after a lice scare at their school, whether bugs will eat their scalps.

“It seems like it's all stemming from the same place of anxiety and fear of unknown danger,” Molina said.

She tries to reassure them with facts and is honest about what she doesn’t know, but “it feels so heavy every time they talk about all these disastrous possibilities.”

Blue Shield’s survey also found that more than three-quarters of youth say they’ve talked to someone about their mental and emotional health in the last year. Stelter said it’s a positive sign if kids are willing to talk to their parents, or another trusted adult, about what’s bothering them.

“You cannot take care of yourself in a vacuum,” Stelter said.

Find ways to grow confidence

The caveat is that it’s often challenging for families to access mental health services.

“California's problem has always been that they're not widespread and readily available for every child,” Francis said. For example, more than two-thirds of California adolescents who said they experienced a major depressive episode did not receive treatment, according to a study from the California Health Care Foundation.

Molina said she waited almost a year for her son, who has autism, to be connected with a therapist who is helping him improve his social skills.

He also recently started swim lessons with an instructor familiar with autism. Molina said the weight of the water comforts him and after only a month-and-a half he’s now confident in the deep end of the pool. Though he often avoids certain foods, her son's now curious about seafood.

“The fact that he's building up his self-esteem to try different things that he's uncomfortable with? He's really shooting for the stars,” Molina said. “It does make me extremely proud.”

Illustration by Assistant Engagement Producer Adriana Pera.

Lori Rovner of Manhattan Beach is a big sports fan, so there was no question that when tickets for the Olympic Games went on sale, she'd be signing up.

She scored a slot in the first ticket drop, which launched Thursday, and logged on right at 10 a.m., hoping to score tickets to the Opening Ceremonies and some finals too. After battling her computer to get through "access denied" screens and a lost shopping cart due to a 30-minute time limit, she bought 16 tickets.

It was only when she was about to purchase that she noticed the service fees, which were around 24% of each ticket. One $2,100 ticket had a $505 service fee, bringing the total cost to $2,604.63.

"It's insane," she said of the fee. "I don't understand what the service is."

As the locals-only sale kicks off and Southern Californians have their first chance to buy tickets to the Olympic Games, some fans are wide-eyed at the high fees on all tickets and the prices in general, which start at $28 but go up to more than $5,500 a pop. Opening Ceremony tickets start at $328.68

The service fees aren't a surprise add-on. The price fans see when browsing the site is the total cost, including the fee. Still, some who bought in the first phase of sales were surprised when they saw the fees add up.

One user on Reddit of shared their cart of 10 tickets, which added up to $11,264. That included $1,038 in fees alone. Commenters responded in shock and awe.

Service fees are standard in ticket sales, but the percentage they charge can vary widely. High fees have been a source of ire for music and sports fans for years. A 2018 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the average fees on a primary ticket market were 27%.

LA28 did not respond to LAist's requests for details on the service fee, like what it pays for or why it's a percentage rather than a flat rate.

Not everyone seemed bothered by the prices. Some people LAist spoke with opted for only $28 or similarly priced tickets, even if it meant missing some of the biggest Olympic events. One user on Reddit said they purchased 18 tickets for around $550.

"I went with all $28 tickets," they wrote in the online forum about the Olympics. "I got women’s soccer, gymnastics, beach and regular volleyball, track and field, baseball and a few others."

For some, the ticket process, the prices and the dense web of events to choose from made it too hard to pull the trigger.

Jeff Bartow of Sierra Madre made a spreadsheet with some competitions he was interested in seeing before he logged on to buy tickets Friday.

"So many times, so many schedules, so many events," Bartow said. "I think I initially thought I was going to go to a bunch, but thinking about how crazy it's going to be … I might be a little more limited."

This is just the first ticket drop. There will be more opportunities to buy tickets in the months to come — and on a resale market that launches in 2027.

Some ticket-buyers told LAist they already were contemplating which tickets they'd keep and which ones they'd re-sell, just minutes after buying them.

In the more than two months since the Department of Justice released its latest batch of files on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors have not brought any new charges based on the documents, despite federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continuing to demand accountability.

The more than 3 million pages of documents include accusations by alleged victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's abuse and thousands of emails and photos showing Epstein associated with prominent figures. The files indicate that many of these people maintained contact with the disgraced financier long after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to sex crimes that involved minors. Appearing in the files is not necessarily an indication of criminal wrongdoing.

The release of the Epstein files came after Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all documents it held related to Epstein.

Epstein died in prison about a month after a 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was convicted on sex-trafficking charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence. Since the release of the files in 2025 and 2026, there have been no related arrests in the U.S. However, the disclosures have led to some resignations and other reputational repercussions for some high-ranking Americans.

The lack of arrests in the U.S. contrasts to the fallout in the U.K., where investigators have pursued charges related to corruption, not sexual abuse, in their dealings with Epstein. Two former government officials — former Prince Andrew and ex-ambassador Peter Mandelson — were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he is now known, has denied wrongdoing and has not been formally charged. Mandelson has also not been charged, and lawyers for Mandelson have said that the arrest was prompted by a "baseless suggestion."

In the U.S., top Justice Department officials have said that they found no evidence compelling enough to pursue further charges related to Epstein, and that the public can make their own assessments based on the disclosed documents.

In a statement to NPR, Justice Department spokesperson Katie Kenlein said that "there have not been additional prosecutions beyond Epstein and Maxwell because there has not been credible evidence that their activities extended to Epstein's network. However, if prosecutable evidence comes forward, the Department of Justice will of course act on it as we do every day in sexual trafficking and assault cases across the count[r]y."

On Thursday, President Trump announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out of the top job at the Justice Department, following bipartisan criticism over her handling of the Epstein files.

NPR asked four former prosecutors and one former law enforcement officer why there may not have been enough evidence to levy additional charges. Here's what they said.

Prosecutors must prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt"

Prosecutors must prove to a jury that a person committed a crime "beyond a reasonable doubt," according to Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

"One of the biggest misconceptions people have is how difficult it is to charge and convict somebody for a criminal case," said McQuade, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

A prosecutor's ethical responsibility is to charge cases only if they believe there is enough evidence for a conviction, McQuade said. Documents, including emails, jokes, and even plane itineraries, can be a place to start, but, alone, they are not enough to prove guilt, McQuade said.

"What you would need [is] rock solid evidence," McQuade said. "You can't charge someone for a crime without sufficient evidence, and I have yet to see evidence of a crime involving an Epstein associate that has gone uncharged."

Based on his understanding of the case, Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown Law, said he agreed that prosecutors who investigated Epstein's alleged associates "may have believed that they couldn't persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." He said problems with witness credibility or certain forensic evidence can prevent a case from moving forward.

The U.K. cases are focused on corruption 

In the U.K., the two people arrested are being investigated on suspicion of "misconduct in public office." McQuade said the U.S. does not have a single equivalent federal law. Instead, the U.S. prosecutes public corruption through statutes that focus specifically on crimes such as bribery and extortion.

After the release of the latest files, British police began investigating Andrew's correspondence with Epstein when Andrew was a U.K. trade envoy. At that time, Andrew allegedly shared government itineraries, investment plans and notes from official foreign trips with Epstein. The information may have been covered by the United Kingdom's Official Secrets Act.

Similarly, Mandelson has been accused of passing confidential government information to the late sex offender when Mandelson was a U.K. Cabinet minister.

Meeting the burden of proof is especially challenging for sex crime cases

Victim statements are essential for establishing basic elements, such as the timeframe of events, required to build sexual assault cases, said Diane Goldstein, a retired police lieutenant from California and the executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. But a victim may be reluctant to come forward because of a fear of retaliation, not believing the police can help, believing it is a personal matter, or not wanting to get the perpetrator in trouble.

McQuade noted that in some sex trafficking cases, especially those in which a perpetrator is in a position of power, victims may experience intimidation or threats that prevent them from speaking out.

Victims also may be hesitant to move forward with allegations because they fear having to testify at trials where defense attorneys may attempt to poke holes in their allegations, McQuade said.

Goldstein said that for sex crime cases to advance, investigators need to follow certain policies and procedures. "If you don't have a legitimate police investigation to start, you're not going to get any type of criminal filing," Goldstein said.

Other potential charges are also a difficult path

Prosecutors may have considered pursuing charges of criminal conspiracy related to sex trafficking against people associated with Epstein, said Jessica Roth, a professor at Cardozo School of Law. FBI documents in the files relating to its investigation into Epstein's crimes identify certain people as "co-conspirators."

But Ankush Khardori, a senior writer and columnist at Politico magazine who worked as a federal prosecutor on financial fraud cases, told NPR those identifiers are not "formal accusation[s]" and are simply part of "interim documents."

"The FBI does not determine who is a co-conspirator," Khardori said. "That is a legal judgment that prosecutors make."

But for those conspiracy cases, "criminal intent," in particular, is difficult to establish, said Roth, who worked as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York for seven years. Criminal conspiracy charges "would require knowledge and intent on the part of each individual who was charged," Roth said. If a person who communicated with Epstein had some suspicion that he was engaged in illegal activity, that alone would not be sufficient evidence to press charges, she said.

Investigators may have considered charges related to criminal tax violations, McQuade said. But the statute of limitations has likely ended on those cases, she said, meaning that prosecutors can no longer bring charges.

The current evidence lacks context

Legal experts say the haphazard way the documents were released and redacted makes it difficult for the public to understand why no additional charges have been filed.

Roth, the Cardozo law professor, said the information is in "isolation," without the appropriate context. "We'll see an individual photograph that looks perhaps incriminating. We'll see an email that looks incriminating, but we don't necessarily have everything that was said before and after that email and that exchange," Roth said.

One document that could explain why no charges were pursued, according to Butler, is a heavily redacted DOJ memo naming "potential co-conspirators" of Epstein. "The parts that should indicate why the department declined prosecution on any alleged co-conspirators other than Ghislaine Maxwell [are] redacted," said Butler, the Georgetown law professor and a former federal prosecutor.

Butler said those redactions are "unusual" because they do not appear to follow the permissible reasons for redactions in the Epstein documents. Those reasons include confidentiality for Epstein's alleged victims, or anything that would compromise an ongoing investigation, Butler said.

"When the Justice Department grudgingly releases information when pressed by politics or forced by Congress, it also creates the impression that they have something to hide," Butler said. "That there is some cover-up going on."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Nearly 30% more students in Los Angeles County experienced homelessness from 2022-23 to 2023-24, making it the county’s highest rate in the past five years and far outpacing the rate of homelessness across the state in the same timeframe, as the resources to identify and support this student population have decreased.

The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools published two reports on Wednesday on the state of student homelessness in the county: “Rising Numbers, Fading Resources: Students Experiencing Homelessness in Los Angeles County” and “Hidden in Plain Sight: Fear, Underidentification, and Funding Gaps for Housing-Insecure Students in Los Angeles County.”

Researchers found that Norwalk-La Mirada Elementary Unified School District had the highest rate of student homelessness in the county — 1 in 3 students, meaning that over 4,700 students were identified as experiencing homelessness during the 2023-24 school year out of a total cumulative enrollment of about 15,600.

The city of Norwalk, where the district is located in the eastern region of the county, was sued by the state in 2024 for banning emergency shelters and other support services for people experiencing homelessness. Last year, the state reached a settlement with the city, which was forced to overturn the ban and put $250,000 toward building affordable housing.

Student homelessness is defined differently under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a federal law that requires every public school to count the number of students who are living on the street, in shelters, in motels, in cars, doubled up with other families, or moving between friends’ and relatives’ homes.

As a result of this expanded definition, McKinney-Vento includes doubled-up students in the count of homelessness. Doubled-up is a term used to describe children and youth ages 21 and under living in shared housing, such as with another family or friends, due to various crises.

There were a few other patterns seen in the L.A. County data analyzed by the UCLA researchers:

• Latino students were disproportionately more likely to experience homelessness: they represent 65% of the county’s student population, but 75.5% of student homelessness
• A third of homeless students were in high school
• Many districts with the highest rates of homelessness had higher school instability but lower dropout rates

While McKinney-Vento has an expanded definition that includes more types of homelessness than several other definitions, identifying students remains difficult.

The second report from the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools focuses on the lack of dedicated funding for school staff to identify and support homeless students. Students and families facing homelessness do not always self-identify, whether due to fear, shame or being unaware that their housing situation is considered homelessness under McKinney-Vento.

“A lot of these young people are dealing with a lot of trauma, so they don’t want to be identified. They don’t want to be pointed out; sometimes it’s scary for them, because they think we’re going to report them to the Department of Children and Family Services,” said L.A. County Office of Education staff interviewed for this report.

School staff, known as homeless liaisons, who work with homeless students received a historic influx of federal funds during the Covid-19 pandemic — $98.76 million for California, out of $800 million nationwide, from the American Rescue Plan-Homeless Children and Youth.

That funding has since ended, and there is no other dedicated, ongoing state funding set aside solely for the rising number of homeless students. This has led districts in California to “heavily depend on highly competitive and unstable federal streams,” the UCLA researchers wrote. Those federal streams have become increasingly precarious as the federal administration last year sought policy changes that would shift how they are structured.

This is a developing story and will be updated. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:

• CalFire incident page
• Latest evacuation map
• For more updates, follow the Riverside County Fire Department.

Multiple evacuation orders are in place for residents near the Springs Fire burning in east of Moreno Valley in Riverside County. The fire was first reported around 11 a.m.

As of this afternoon, the fire has reached 3,500 acres.

West of the Springs Fire, a separate bush fire near Acton also began Friday afternoon. The Crown Fire has burned 280 acres and is 25% contained.

The basics

• Acreage: 3,500 acres as of Friday afternoon
• Containment: 5%
• Structures destroyed: None reported
• Deaths: None
• Injuries: 0
• Personnel working on fire: 260
  
  • 2 helicopters
  • 36 engines
  • 2 dozers
  • 2 water tenders
  • 7 crews

Evacuation map and orders

The Moreno Valley College campus closed Friday afternoon due to air quality and evacuated all students and staff.

Evacuation orders have been issued by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department for the following areas:

• MOE-0507
• MOE-0747
• MOE-0745
• MOE-0641
• MOE-0746
• MOE-0744
• RVC-0748
• RVC-0826
• RVC-0825

Evacuation warnings

Authorities say those who require additional time to evacuate and those with pets and livestock should leave immediately.

• MOE-0504
• MOE-0505
• MOE-0506
• MOE-0633
• MOE-0637
• MOE-0638
• MOE-0639
• MOE-0640
• MOE-0743
• MOE-0822
• MOE-0823

Evacuation shelters

Valley View High School
13135 Nason St.
Moreno Valley, 92555

Animal Shelter

San Jacinto Animal Shelter
581 S. Grand Ave. San Jacinto 92582

Moreno Valley Animal Services
14041 Elsworth St.
Moreno Valley, CA 92553

Road closures

Gilman Springs Road is closed from Alessandro Road to Bridge Street, according to Cal Fire.

What we know so far

The Springs Fire was first reported around 11 a.m. Friday near Gilman Springs Road as a 5-acre fire that grew to 1,000 acres by 1:45 p.m.

Conditions are fairly windy and dry in that area, according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts reached 20 to 30 mph from the east. The Santa Ana wind event is expected to last into tomorrow.

Listen to our Big Burn podcast

Fire resources and tips

Check out LAist's wildfire recovery guide

If you have to evacuate:

• Why fire officials don't want you to stay and defend your home
• How to get packed up
• How to leave your house
• What evacuation terms mean and how to sign up for alerts

Navigating fire conditions:

• How to drive in high winds and fire danger
• How to prep for power outages
• How to navigate poor air quality

How to help yourself and others:

• Resources for fire victims, evacuees and first responders
• If you want to help fire victims, resist the urge to volunteer
• How to help find lost pets

How to start the recovery process:

• What to do — and not do — when you get home after a wildfire
• How to make an insurance claim
• How to safely clean up wildfire ash

What to do for your kids:

• How to talk to children about wildfires and losing a home
• What parents should know about wildfire air quality

Prepare for the next disaster:

• Every day is now fire season. Let's get you ready for the next wildfire
• Yes, wildfires are getting worse. The history that got us to this moment