Topline:
EdSource followed the progress of 12 seniors as they dealt with the aftermath of COVID-19 school closures during high school and their first year of college.
Read on... to learn about each student, their struggles and their first semester of college.
Tatiana Torres had everything stacked against her. She spent most of her time in high school learning from home after an accident left her with persistent headaches and sensitivity to light.
She had just returned to Heritage High School in Brentwood full-time when the COVID pandemic closed schools. Despite these challenges, she will transfer this fall as a junior to UC Berkeley to major in political science. She had completed her general education credits in just one year at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg.
Torres graduated from Heritage in June 2022 and enrolled in Los Medanos College after she was unable to get into any of the universities she wanted to attend. She was accepted into an honors program there and flourished, despite taking many of her classes online.
“Academically, it wasn’t too difficult,” Torres said. “However, this year was much more difficult than I anticipated because of life challenges. It caught me off guard and I struggled for a bit, but I was able to bounce back.”
Torres is one of 12 California high school seniors from the Class of 2022 that EdSource followed through graduation and their first year as an adult. Five attended a university, five attended a California community college, one took a job and one student — who planned to sleep in his car while attending UCLA because he couldn’t afford rent — could no longer be reached.
Graduating from high school and going to college, or beginning a career was particularly daunting for the Class of 2022, which had spent more than a year studying from home during COVID pandemic school closures.
The new adults struggled academically, especially with math, and socially due to their prolonged time out of school. Some of the students interviewed changed long-held plans to attend colleges far from home, and one decided not to attend at all.
They are not alone. A newly released national survey of 1,500 seniors in the Class of 2023, by ACT Research, shows that nearly half said the pandemic affected their decision on at least one college or career-related choice. More than a quarter of the students said the pandemic changed their mind about which college to attend and 1 in 10 reported the pandemic made them question whether to attend college at all.
Although most of the students changed their decisions about college or career because of financial difficulties, declining grades and doubt about college tied to the pandemic, others changed course because the school closures gave them time for self-reflection or to discover new interests and priorities, according to researchers.
Torres took advantage of her time at home to start a nonprofit to help younger children struggling with mental health issues during the pandemic. She created the website calm-4-you after talking to a 5-year-old neighbor who felt confused and guilty over not being able to be with her friends and classmates.
Three of the other 11 seniors who were part of the EdSource Class of 2022 project started businesses, some with a goal of creating multiple streams of income for themselves after they graduate from college and start careers.
“We were all at home during our most important years of high school. Because of this, a lot of students have this independent go-getter mindset,” said Gannon Peebles, a 2022 graduate of Edison High School in Fresno. If I don’t know how to do something, I’m going to try to figure it out before I ask someone.”
After more than a year of distance learning, many of the students found holes in their knowledge and struggled to keep up with their studies — particularly in math — when they arrived at college. Some students had problems scheduling their classes or learning the needed study habits to get them through college coursework.
Miles Fu’s problems started after his first semester at American River College in Sacramento, when he was unable to get an appointment with a counselor to discuss which classes he should take in his second semester. He struggled to choose classes, picking them without first considering things such as the length of time in class each day. On Thursdays, for example, he scheduled classes from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. He found himself exhausted after two-hour classes and couldn’t keep up with the required reading.
“The whole year is foggy in my brain,” Fu said. “I did not pass all my classes, and there has been a lot of scrambling to figure out what I need to do next.”
Fu can’t say whether school closures during the COVID pandemic contributed to his difficulties in college.
“I may have absorbed my high school material better and that may have carried into college,” he said. “I may have learned study habits sooner. It’s possible I would have been better off (if the closures never happened).”
College wasn’t all bad this year for Fu. He discovered an interest in rangeland ecology after talking to people who manage rangeland and natural preserves. He would like to earn an internship that allows him to learn more about the career.
Despite the struggles of adapting to college and catching up academically, the new freshmen were ready to make up for everything they had missed out on socially during high school.
Peebles said the pandemic experience made him more outgoing when he moved to New York to attend Columbia University last fall. He enjoyed his time there so much he returned to Fresno for only a quick six-day visit before returning to New York earlier this month to take summer classes and a coveted summer internship with Sumeru Equity Partners, a private equity firm with offices across the country.
Even the thick smoke from a fire burning in Canada didn’t stop Peebles from jumping on public transit and enjoying all that New York had to offer when he returned.
“There is never a dull moment in this city,” he said.
Peebles, a straight A-student at Edison High, faltered in math his first semester at Columbia. He attributes his problems with math to not having a full year of in-person calculus during high school.
“It’s actually the opposite of what I thought,” he said of his expectation for college. “Going into college I thought academics would be doable and social life would be challenging. Will I be able to have a friend group and have fun? Looking back on it, my friends turned out amazing and academics the first semester were challenging, but went well.”
Jennifer Tran, a political science major at UC Berkeley, is active in student government and is often either traveling or on Zoom calls advocating for bills she has written either as a member of GENup, a student-led social justice organization, or the Youth Power Project, a nonprofit educational advocacy organization. Tran also is helping to launch the National Student Board Member Association.
Despite the busy schedule, Tran understands work-life balance and has set the weekends aside for fun. She recently moved out of the dorm and into a house with six other students.
“I definitely am getting the whole college experience,” she said. “COVID restrictions are getting a lot looser now. I do feel a little more free.”
Victor Contreras of Elk Grove broke his ankle in November when he was hit by a car while bicycling near San Diego State University, where he attends college. After the fracture healed, he was back on his bike as part of the university racing team and took a spot on an intramural basketball team.
Contreras said the COVID pandemic school closures made him more excited about leaving Elk Grove and meeting new people in college. He dived into the social life on campus with enthusiasm, although he struggled with math and other subjects during his first year. He expects he probably would have done better in college academically if it hadn’t been for the COVID school closures.
“Now, I’m more outgoing, definitely more active as a result,” Contreras said. “I feel like my sense of humor has been impacted (positively).”
Making friends and fitting in on campus was a major concern for Payton Zarceno, who had attended Mt. SAC Early College Academy in West Covina before moving to The Hill at UCLA, the university’s residence halls.
Zarceno decided to make the pandemic a learning opportunity. She spent the majority of her first year in college working with student organizations on student retention.
“(This) allowed me to learn more about the issues students face at UCLA that had been exacerbated by the pandemic,” she said. “Getting involved with these organizations really impacted me socially and personally because these organizations introduced me to so many new friends and faces.”
Tran found her niche as an education advocate during the pandemic school closures. She wrote or advocated for more than a dozen legislative bills to aid California students as the policy director for GENup while attending Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove. Now she is making her mark at UC Berkeley, where she is studying public policy. Tran is planning to add education as a second major next semester.
She recently became one of two Berkeley undergraduates selected for a Travers Fellowship at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco this summer. The Commonwealth Club is the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum, according to the university website.
Tran said the COVID pandemic prepared her for the University of California strike that pushed students back into distance learning for weeks, as well as for the virtual lobbying she has been doing as part of her work with GENup and the Youth Power Project.
“It definitely changed how I think of education,” she said. “I think it’s kind of normal for me to miss classes now. I am able to catch up virtually.”
As part of the Youth Power Project, Tran also helped to write a bill that would offer a Presidential Award for civic engagement to U.S. students, as part of the President’s Education Awards Program. U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey has signed on as author of the bill.
Peebles is confident the Class of 2022 is moving beyond COVID and is back on track.
“I think people have figured it out,” he said. “I think that by now it is more normal. We have all kind of evened out academically.”
EdSource is an independent nonprofit organization that provides analysis on key education issues facing California and the nation. LAist republishes articles from EdSource with permission.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is warning the public of a potential measles exposure from an unvaccinated individual who traveled through Union Station this month.
What's next: People who were at Union Station between those hours should monitor for symptoms until Oct. 3.
Go deeper: There are already more US measles cases this year than in all of 2025
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is warning the public of a potential measles exposure from someone who traveled through Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles earlier this month.
The unvaccinated passenger arrived at Union Station on Saturday, Sept. 12, by Amtrak train just after 7 a.m. and departed about four hours later on an Amtrak Thruway bus bound for Bakersfield.
People at Union Station during the exposure window of 8 a.m. to noon may be at risk of contracting measles seven to 21 days after exposure. The last day to monitor for symptoms is Oct. 3.
State health officials say the passenger was traveling on buses and trains through L.A. and at least five other California counties before leaving the state.
"This case, along with previous measles outbreaks in California this year, serve as reminders of the importance of vaccination against measles," said Dr. Rita Nguyen, assistant state public health officer. "Measles is one of the most contagious infections that can lead to severe lifelong consequences, including permanent brain damage, and can also be fatal, especially for children."
Symptoms of measles include fever, red, watery eyes, and a rash that usually develops several days after other symptoms and typically starts on the face.
As of Sept. 14, a total of 59 measles cases have been reported in California this year. In most cases, patients were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status.
Topline:
Long Beach is embarking on its biggest street redevelopment yet, reshaping over five miles of Studebaker Road into bike friendly lanes with other improvements.
Why it matters: Long Beach has been working toward this vision since it adopted its bicycle master plan 25 years ago, now with mounting urgency as auto-related fatalities rise.
Why now: The biggest project so far – the Studebaker Road Transformation Project – is bringing this vision to the doorstep of Studebaker Road residents. But not everyone is a fan.
Imagine a sprawling network of roomy bike lanes, generously landscaped to calm relentless traffic. Think Amsterdam with newer buildings and fewer waterways. That’s been Long Beach’s goal anyway.
Instead of wide post-war boulevards, roads would become slower and leaner, transforming Long Beach into a top-five global cycling city, said former city traffic engineer Paul Van Dyk. “Some of that is tongue-in-cheek, but if you shoot for the moon you land in the stars.”
Long Beach has been working toward this vision since it adopted its bicycle master plan 25 years ago, now with mounting urgency as auto-related fatalities rise. The biggest project so far – the Studebaker Road Transformation Project – is bringing this vision to the doorstep of Studebaker Road residents.
It has drawn mixed reviews.
“The intent of the design is malicious — it’s immoral,” said Joey Schilling, who drives the road six days a week and wrote a social media post criticizing the project that drew almost 1,000 comments. ”It’s people who do not use the road trying to tell other people how to use the road.”
Amid red cones and barriers, a woman and her dogs navigate the construction zones at Studebaker Road and Willow Street in Long Beach on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.The $65 million project runs over five miles from Second Street all the way up to Carson Street. It includes bike lanes, greenways and stonescape with fiber-optic cable running underneath. It is crucial to the city’s long-term plan of knitting together 300 miles of bikeways by 2040 to bring bicycle culture to Long Beach, as well as create safer streets.
The massive project funded from 13 federal, state and local agencies, gives a glimpse of what’s to come for Long Beach thoroughfares. The Clark Avenue work is in progress. Pacific Avenue and Orange Avenue “backbone” plans are on deck. Now Studebaker Road, the biggest, longest and most expensive, is well underway, spending the most dollars and, arguably, drawing the most resident anger.
Schilling, who lives near Studebaker Road actually does ride his bike to work in Seal Beach and said he is OK with bike lanes in general. However, he says the project is not practical in a community where he says most drive to work. “It’s not a reasonable solution. It’s not even for the greater good, that would be to appease the 95 percent who use their cars. The cost and the benefit do not match up. The cost is too high, the benefit too low.”
The Studebaker project features raised bus stops and wider bike lanes than have been seen previously. No more flimsy bollards separating bikes from cars, said Van Dyk, the city traffic engineer who helped usher in the bikeway and traffic-calming street plan before he went on to consult on other urban bike projects.
The green bollards seen on Bellflower Boulevard and Studebaker before the redo often get hit by cars and can resemble thick blades of stomped grass. “People do not like the way they look, and I agree with their frustrations,” said Van Dyk. “That’s why we moved towards those concrete medians.“ He said planners “learned a lot of lessons along the way.”
Studebaker will feature roomier bike lanes – 9 feet wide compared with the old 6-foot-across version. Wider lanes will allow riders to travel two abreast for a better ride, Van Dyk said. It also makes them easier to clean. Debris-filled lanes are a sore spot with bikers.
The old bike lane sweeper the city used to clean narrow paths was notoriously difficult to move and use. (Fourth District Councilmember Daryl Supernaw joked that sightings of the small sweepers were less frequent than Bigfoot.) But a regular street sweeper can get into the broader lanes where it can’t on Broadway and Bellflower south of Atherton. (They actually set a street sweeper in a bike lane before planning and pouring the concrete to make sure it would fit.) Still, protected bike lanes are harder to clean than lanes merely separated by paint and “swept” by passing cars.
David Raslevich, a 41-year-old cyclist who frequently rides on the new lanes on Clark, said he has noticed branches, leaves and other debris. “I feel safer riding with the traffic, because they (cars) move debris out of the way for you.”
One new component of Studebaker and the other newer lanes are raised bus stops. The new stops designed to accommodate bikes and buses are about five inches off the ground and separated from the road by a curb. Buses will stop in the No. 2 lane, halting traffic behind them, and pick up passengers, instead of easing out of a bus turnout.
Van Dyk said that change evolved from talks with Long Beach Transit, which revealed that buses would sometimes get hit when pulling into traffic. Planners reasoned it’s better to have cars waiting for a bus to pick up passengers instead of forcing a bus waiting to pull into the No. 2 lane.
“It’s math my second grader can do: What’s better, 40 people on a bus wait or four people in cars,” Van Dyke said. “Which is the greatest cost to society? The bus is going to be more efficient.” He also contends the new system is safe; there is less ambiguity as a bus will slow down in front of a car, so the car would be more likely to stop instead of zipping around a protruding bus bumper.
It is too early to know how this plan will play out – the new bus lane curbs on Clark show missing chunks already from drivers that likely didn’t see them. Raslevich said he has seen cars turn into the curb by the raised bus stop. “They don’t know that there’s an island there, so they’re hitting that island, pretty much daily.”
Councilman Supernaw, whose district encompasses the $65 million project, had reservations about the price tag before ultimately supporting it.
“All anyone asked for is a repave, to get rid of potholes and have a smooth surface to drive on,” Supernaw said. “Should we just forgo the bike lanes and do a straight repave? The answer was no, we wanna use the grant money for the bike lanes.”
The city saw it as a grander vision, weaving together a puzzle of state and federal grants along with $8.5 million in local sales tax money for new transit stops, sidewalks and curb ramps that improve how all people can move through the city.
“It’s not just ‘I wanna ride a bike for fun.’ People need it to get to work,” said Jocelin Padilla, a spokesperson for the city’s Public Works Department.
A series of community meetings were held in 2024, drawing limited feedback. But when residents later saw painted pavement markings showing the planned curbs and bike lines, “they got involved in a big way,” Supernaw said.
“We call this communication via spraypaint,” said Supernaw. “Constituents see lines marked out and contact the council office.”
Aside from the cost and the bus islands, some residents are frustrated by the execution. Leslie Goldman, who lives near Studebaker and Stearns, said large piles of dirt – at times higher than cars – have blocked residents from crossing the street or seeing oncoming traffic. Some concerns were addressed, including a bus shelter that was added due to feedback from residents.
“We’re not saying we don’t want construction done ever, that’s life in the big city,” she said. But Goldman contends the “assembly line” construction approach, as opposed to the work done in shorter phases, is leading to more “noise, vibration, dust, traffic, blind spots, trash, roadblocks, … All at sporadic intervals unknown to residents. It’s not just an inconvenience, it’s a hardship.”
Padilla of Public Works acknowledged the hardship, but said the benefits would outweigh the short-term pain. She said doing the work in shorter segments would increase costs and project timelines – not a good thing when it needs to be finished by the Olympics. “This is a once-in-a-generation project,” she said.
Not all residents are wary. “Studebaker is gonna be awesome when it’s done,” said Dan Olsen, who lives near Studebaker and Atherton. “It’s new, it’s fresh, the neighborhood is going to benefit. It’s been a total pothole disaster for so long. … Even though there are catches and hooks, it’s still worth it.”
Long Beach is not yet Amsterdam; it’s still a patchwork of protected lanes and unprotected ones of varying degrees of newness. But Studebaker should be done in 2027. Pacific Avenue and Orange Avenue are next. The bike lanes and streets won’t uniformly connect, but there will be more of them – Artesia Boulevard to service Jordan High, Clark Avenue near Long Beach City College and now Studebaker. “Long Beach’s cycling network is reaching critical mass,” Van Dyk said.
Van Dyk and other bike proponents say it’s a long game. Amsterdam itself was car-dominated until the 1970s when the Stop de Kindermoord movement was launched in response to the high number of child deaths. “It’s a generational effort; it took multiple generations to give us the infrastructure we have today,” he said.
Will they help make transportation safer for cars and bikes? The city racked up 53 traffic deaths in 2025, the highest in a decade, and 32 bike/pedestrian and e-scooter deaths. This year has seen 36 traffic deaths through mid-September. The city is also trying other tools; speed cameras are being installed, and tickets will go out this fall.
It’s not yet any safer to ride through Long Beach than it was 10 years ago, “but it’s not safer to do anything in Long Beach,” said Kurt Canfield, a cyclist and organizer for Car Lite Long Beach, a bike advocacy organization. He often rides the Broadway bike path, which he considers a success despite debris in the lane and other issues.
“They wanna bike, they wanna walk, people are driving 300 horsepower crossovers. We’re in conflict for the same space,” he said. “But this infrastructure gives us the ability to be safer.”
Topline:
Pianist Hunter Noack brings his grand piano to Griffith Park for two shows in September, part of a nationwide series organized in partnership with the nonprofit Trust for Public Land.
Why it matters: The Sept. 26 and 27 performances mark the first time the "In a Landscape" series has played Los Angeles in its 11-year run.
Why now: The shows nod to Trust for Public Land's work in the Griffith Park hills. The nonprofit helped raise the funds that kept Cahuenga Peak and the ridgeline around the Hollywood sign from being developed.
A grand piano, hauled in on a Ford F-350, will make its way next weekend to Griffith Park.
Then, right below the Hollywood sign, the flatbed will unfold into a stage for a recital by pianist Hunter Noack, who has played everywhere from Yosemite Valley to Joshua Tree National Park.
His Sept. 26 and 27 performances are all part of In a Landscape: Classical Music in the Wild, organized in partnership with the nonprofit Trust for Public Land. (The show is sold out, but you can sign up for the waitlist.)
For a decade, Noack has hauled his Steinway — the same model used at Carnegie Hall — through rough terrain to perform in unusual places: 370 concerts and counting.
"We've had the piano lid be ripped off by the wind. We've had the piano trailer tires catch fire on Highway 1. We've almost driven off the side of Mount Bachelor. We've played in 112-degree heat and negative 2 degrees in the winter," Noack said. And the piano has come out unscathed, including after it was towed down the washboard gravel along Schweitzer Mountain in Idaho — the only thing that happened was that it went out of tune.
Among the pieces on the program at Griffith Park is "Nature Boy," the song Eden Ahbez wrote while living outdoors under the first L of the Hollywood sign. The song was later made famous by Nat King Cole.
Audiences at the Griffith Park show will be provided with wireless headphones for concert-hall quality sound, he said. "Some people just set up their picnic chairs or blankets right near the stage. Other people lay down," Noack said. "When there's so much else that's happening visually ... the music kind of automatically becomes a soundtrack, and we all get to experience that together."
The series is named after "In a Landscape," a piece by John Cage, who believed any sound could be music — even "somebody crinkling on a bag of chips," Noack said.
During his first show in 2016 at the Columbia River Gorge, Noack was midway through a soft Schumann piece about a delicate flower when 40 Harley-Davidsons on a memorial ride rolled up and circled the piano.
Rather than pack it in, he answered with Frederic Rzewski's "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues," a piece built to mimic the aggressive clatter of a cotton mill. "It was a conversation between the piano and these roaring Harleys," he said.
Where: Griffith Park, 3200 Canyon Dr., Los Angeles
When: 3 to 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 26 and Sunday, Sept. 27
Tickets: Both shows are sold out, but you can join the waitlist.
The show is held in partnership with the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit that helps preserve Cahuenga Peak and the ridgeline around the Hollywood sign for the public.
Topline:
California accounted for the largest share of ICE arrests involving people from Asian countries during the first 18 months of President Trump’s second term, according to a new data tracker.
Why now: The new Asian and Pacific Islander ICE Tracker shows how arrests, detentions and deportations are rising faster among Asian immigrants than among immigrants overall.
Go deeper: ICE raids quiet SoCal's Asian hubs
California saw the largest share of immigration arrests of people from Asian countries during the first 18 months of President Trump’s second term, a new tracker shows.
More than 25% of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took place in California, home to the country's largest Asian population, followed by Texas and New York.
The findings come from the new Asian and Pacific Islander ICE Tracker launched by Stop AAPI Hate.
These communities are often missing from the national debate over immigration enforcement, said Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate during a briefing on the tracker.
“Asian and Pacific Islander communities deserve better than to be an afterthought in this crisis," Choi said. With the tracker, "we are aiming to ensure we cannot be ignored any longer."
The data shows that ICE actions targeting Asian immigrants rose much faster than enforcement against groups overall between January 2025 and August 2026.
Arrests were up 436% compared to a similar time period during the Biden administration; detentions up by 512%; deportations up by more than 1,100%.
The number of arrests peaked this past July with 1,950 recorded nationwide.
In California, there have been more than 5,300 arrests of Asian immigrants and more than 11,400 detention stints, which includes separate stays at different facilities during a single detention.
As for deportations, they were not broken down by state.
The largest numbers involved people from India and China, the countries of origin for the largest Asian immigrant populations in the U.S.
Stephanie Chan, Stop AAPI Hate’s director of data and research, noted that a rise in anti-Indian rhetoric centered on H1-B visa holders and truck drivers.
"You see a lot of elected officials saying things like, 'Indians are coming to take the jobs,'" Chan said.
Researchers also found that people from smaller communities — such as those from Laos and Uzbekistan — were arrested at rates far disproportionate to their share of the Asian noncitizen population.
The tracker draws from ICE records obtained through public-records requests by the Deportation Data Project at UCLA and UC Berkeley.
Leaders at Stop AAPI Hate said the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is not only harming the people being swept up by ICE. Chan said the group’s annual survey of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders found more than half have felt the effects.
“That includes things like fearing that their status will be questioned,” Chan said. “That they will be arrested, detained, or deported.”
Choi drew parallels with how Asian Americans were scapegoated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who joined the briefing on the tracker, said the findings felt "very personal" because of the state’s large share of arrests.
A member of the Republican-led congressional China Committee focused on U.S. competition with the Chinese government, Khanna predicted Democrats would win the mid-terms and shift the tone of that panel.
"It's going to be much more about a celebration of Asian Americans — and documenting that — than the demonization of other countries," Khanna said.
