The Brief

With thousands of spots in its subsidized preschools vacant, the Los Angeles Unified School District is opening up enrollment to higher-income families to fill spaces currently not being used by low-income families.

The district has more than 80 preschools for 2- to 4-year olds, known as early education centers, funded through the California State Preschool Program (CSPP). The state requires that providers prioritize students based on certain criteria, like income and living situation.

But since the pandemic and the growth of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds, the district has been under capacity at its preschools, said Dean Tagawa, who directs LAUSD’s Early Childhood Education Division. They’ve been at around 70% full — equivalent to about 3,000 open spots. Now, the district is seeking families regardless of income.

“This idea of being able to expand to reach other families that may not have qualified in the past is pretty exciting — to be able to get more families in and be able to provide more services,” Tagawa said.

The move essentially makes preschool more universal in the largest school district in the state, and could save families who have been just above the historical cutoff thousands of dollars. But it’s also an outlier among preschools that contract with the state in a program aimed at serving low-income families, based on LAist interviews with county and early childhood experts.

Expanding eligibility

On a sunny morning at Glassell Park Early Education Center, groups of toddlers play outside in the nature-based learning space. Some are digging mud with toy trucks, others play in a sandbox. One curly-haired toddler decides to get a taste, and shoves a fistful of sand into their mouth. Inside the classrooms, children learn about numbers and letters through play-based activities.

The Glassell Park Early Education Center's nature-inspired outdoor play space.

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Tagawa said recent changes to state guidelines mean that districts now have a way to enroll students from any family, regardless of income, to pre-schools like this.

“So whether you're very wealthy, or you're middle-class or you're at that kind of cusp where you wouldn't have been income-eligible before, you are now — and you pay a very nominal fee to go to these programs,” he said at a September school board meeting. “That is a huge change, but it goes fully in line with making sure every child in California has an opportunity to go in an early education program.”

Under the change, families could save a lot of money: A family of four who makes over half a million a year could pay less than $400 a month to send their child to an LAUSD preschool, for instance. A family of four with an annual income of about $144,000 would pay around $93 a month.

Nick Melvoin, an LAUSD school board member, said many of his constituents were previously just above the income threshold to qualify for the early education centers, but at the same time, haven't been able to afford private preschools, which can run upward of $2,000 a month.

“The pitch to parents is… please send your kid. It’s really $400 a month versus $2,000 to $3,000 a month,” Melvoin said.

How the state prioritizes enrollment

The California Department of Education contracts with over 600 school districts and other agencies like nonprofits to run the California State Preschool Program, which was founded in 1965 to serve low-income families not eligible for federal Head Start.

State law lays out who is eligible for enrollment, and directives from the California Department of Education further flesh out the order for how providers should prioritize families. Examples of priorities include children in families at or below state median income (about $105,482 for a family of three); or who receive certain kinds of aid; or who are at risk of being neglected, abused, or exploited; or who have special needs.

Once all the state’s priority groups have been met, it allows school districts to enroll children regardless of their family’s income.

“If we were at capacity with all lower-income and then identified-need [students], we wouldn't have any space to do this,” Tagawa said.

He added that they’ll set aside 5% of slots for priority families who end up wanting to enroll.

Nina Buthee, executive director of EveryChild CA, which provides technical assistance to subsidized early care and education programs, said she was surprised to hear that LAUSD had enrolled eligible students from all the other priority categories.

An analysis by the California Budget & Policy Center found that while enrollment at these state preschool programs has declined since the pandemic, it found only about 17% of eligible three and four-year-old children in the state were served in 2022.

“It is the only school district that I have heard of, to date, that is utilizing this provision which would allow any family to be enrolled, regardless of income,” Buthee said. “I know that there are issues around enrollment in CSPP, especially for school districts that have a pretty aggressive transitional kindergarten program.”

Tagawa said while districts have theoretically been able to enroll higher income families for several years, it wasn’t until the state made a recent revision to how families pay for subsidized preschool that LAUSD decided to expand its eligibility, beginning this fall.

While previously there was no uniformity to what rate they could charge families, the new guidance “gave us as a district a place to start from,” he said.

What are other districts doing? 

LAUSD is by far the largest contractor of the California State Preschool Program, with 6,657 children enrolled as of October 2023. Other districts LAist spoke to have not opened enrollment to higher-income families.

A spokesperson for Huntington Beach City School District said they haven’t had families who meet higher-income requirements because families interested in their CSPP pre-school have solely been from families below the income threshold, or who have kids with other prioritized needs.

Long Beach Unified School District, the second biggest district in L.A. County, said they also haven’t enrolled beyond the income-eligibility requirements because they have a waiting list of families who are income-eligible.

Luis Bautista, executive director of the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) Head Start and Early Learning Division, said he also hadn’t heard of other districts opening up their enrollment.

The agency sub-contracts with eight districts and nonprofits in the county to enroll about 1,000 students, and is a little over 90% capacity, he said. Because their programs are also combined with the federal program Head Start, the income eligibility requirements are even lower than the state’s program.

“We're nowhere near enrolling families at that income ceiling level that the state allows for because we have to work with families that are earning much less,” he said. “I think the need is out there for sure.”

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority told its employees Friday to stop work, shut down their computers and stay off agency systems while it looked into “a potential security issue affecting our systems,” its chief executive confirmed to LAist.

That shutdown order was still in place Monday evening, according to a LAHSA official not authorized to speak on the record.

Gita O'Neill, the agency’s interim CEO, told LAist on Friday evening that the agency did not “yet have enough information to say definitively whether any sensitive or confidential personal information was accessed.”

She has not answered questions about whether or not services for unhoused people are disrupted.

Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of LAHSA, speaks ahead of the annual homeless count on Jan. 20, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAHSA holds highly sensitive information collected from people experiencing homelessness in the region. The agency oversees the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, which includes unhoused people’s names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and disabilities, as well as self-reported mental health and substance abuse history, income sources and domestic violence history.

In a statement Monday, LAHSA said it had taken its internal computer systems offline “as a precaution” and “engaged outside cybersecurity specialists to investigate the nature and scope of the incident.” The statement, sent on O'Neill's behalf by outside public relations strategist Trevor Daley, continued to call it “a potential cybersecurity incident.”

The agency is “taking steps to maintain essential operations,” the statement added, saying LAHSA “remains open” while the investigation continues. It said the agency is working with its technical and legal teams.

What staff were told

Friday’s email to "Team LAHSA" carried the subject line "URGENT: Log Off and Shut Down for the Week." LAist obtained a copy, and O'Neill confirmed by text message that she had sent it.

“As a precaution while we look into a potential security issue affecting our systems, we're asking all staff to stop work and take their machines offline for the remainder of today and through the weekend,” the email said.

It told employees to “Log off and shut down your LAHSA computer” and not to log back in or connect to LAHSA systems, including email, “until you receive an all-clear from us.”

The email also told staff to report anything “unusual” before shutting down, such as “files renaming on their own, unexpected pop-ups or messages.”

What LAHSA leadership has said

In a texted response to LAist on Friday evening, O'Neill said she asked staff to take their computers offline “out of an abundance of caution” while the agency’s IT team assessed the situation.

“Our IT team is actively reviewing the situation now and working to understand exactly what occurred and whether any information was affected,” she wrote. “Protecting people’s personal and confidential information is a top priority in that review.”

Leaders of three LAHSA-funded service providers told LAist on Monday afternoon that they had not received any communications from LAHSA about the potential cybersecurity issue. All three use the HMIS system that holds unhoused people’s personal details.

Previous attacks against another LA housing agency

Another L.A. housing agency was previously hit by cyberattacks. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles — a separate agency known as HACLA — has said hackers got inside its network in 2022 and may have accessed people’s names, Social Security numbers, financial accounts numbers and medical information.

Two years later, HACLA was breached again, according to an official notice, with hackers potentially accessing names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and phone numbers.

LAist reporter Aaron Schrank contributed reporting to this story.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced Monday that she is running to be the county’s first elected chief executive. Horvath is the only candidate so far to enter the race, which is set for 2028.

The new executive post will take the place of the county’s appointed CEO and implement key priorities of the county Board of Supervisors. The executive will oversee the county budget, which is currently roughly $50 billion, and labor relations with more than 100,000 employees.

Horvath was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2022 and was re-elected in June to another four-year term. She represents the county’s 3rd District, which covers the San Fernando Valley and parts of the Westside and Central Los Angeles. She is a former mayor of West Hollywood.

The supervisor made her announcement Monday via social media and her campaign website. She called the race a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

The backstory

Voters created the position in 2024 when they approved Measure G, which was proposed by Supervisors Horvath and Janice Hahn.

Among other changes, the measure allowed the Board of Supervisors to expand from five to nine members by 2030 and established an independent Ethics Commission, which held its first meeting last month.

The pushback

On Monday, Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement saying she believed it was “premature” to campaign for the new county executive position when it remained unclear whether “the office itself is constitutional.”

Barger pointed to questions raised by former federal judge Stephen Larson about whether California’s Constitution allows an elected county executive to veto board decisions, control county contracts and take on powers state law currently gives the Board of Supervisors.

“Moving forward with an office that would fundamentally change how Los Angeles County is governed, without first resolving these questions, is putting the cart before the horse,” Barger said in her statement. “We need clarity.”

The primary election is scheduled for March 7, 2028.

The Los Angeles Unified School District said it’s reviewing how to proceed after Google’s announcement last week that it will not allow schools to use its search engine unless they opt in to using artificial intelligence.

Google said that in the coming months, access to products like Gemini and Google Search would be turned off by default until schools turn them on, saying it believes “schools should have control over AI in their classroom.” But Google Search, by default, includes an AI chatbot and uses AI to summarize search results — meaning that schools that restrict AI would not have access to Google Search.

Earlier this school year, LAUSD implemented a moratorium on students using generative AI on district-issued devices.

“We are reviewing Google’s announcement and its potential implications for schools, educators and students,” said a spokesperson for LAUSD. “Los Angeles Unified believes emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, have the potential to enhance teaching and learning when introduced thoughtfully, responsibly and with clear safeguards.”

“Search and A.I. are deeply integrated,” Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google, said to The New York Times. He told the outlet that if a school bans AI, students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.”

What are schools doing now?

Currently, students in LAUSD can still use Google to search for information, a district spokesperson said, but the AI mode — in which students can converse with the company’s chatbot, Gemini — is turned off. Some searches may still show an AI-generated summary or overview. The district has asked Google for a modification to allow the summaries to be turned off.

If a school does opt in to artificial intelligence, Google said it will offer a “guided learning” tool in its chatbot for student accounts “to help them work through problems without skipping straight to answers.”

The announcement has prompted outcry from advocates. "Google forced its AI products into classrooms, and parents fought back," said Lila Byock, founder of Schools Beyond Screens, the group that pushed for LAUSD’s AI moratorium, as well as the district’s screen time limit. "Now Google is refusing to take no for an answer. … Schools Beyond Screens calls on district leaders to reclaim their authority from corporate interests and divest from Google."

The district’s ad hoc committee on generative AI is scheduled to have its next meeting on Nov. 13.

Rep. Thomas Massie moved Monday to force a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, setting the stage for a dramatic vote on whether to remove one of the Trump administration’s most prominent figures following sweeping election losses.

The impeachment resolution was introduced by Massie, a Kentucky Republican, as soon as the House opened for the first day of sessions after the midterms. It largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.

Massie said the secretary’s actions amount to “high crimes and misdemeanors” and his leadership at the Pentagon “thus warrants impeachment.”

A vote in the House could come by mid-week, putting pressure on Republicans — many of whom blamed their election wipeout on the Iran war — but next steps are highly uncertain.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent this outcome, and warned lawmakers against impeaching the Defense secretary while the U.S. is engaged in military actions in the Middle East.

“Impeaching a Cabinet secretary right now, especially the Department of War in the middle of hostilities abroad would be a terrible, terrible look, a terrible thing for our allies and our enemies to see that,” Johnson, a Republican, said as he opened the chamber.

“We don’t impeach Cabinet secretaries for political gain or for cheap tricks, and I think that’s what this is and I think everybody knows it.”

Most House Democrats are expected to support impeaching Hegseth, with Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries saying over the weekend it’s time for the Defense secretary to go.

If the House votes to impeach Hegseth, it would next go to the Senate for a potential trial. Republicans remain in the majority in both chambers, until the new Congress convenes in January with Democrats in control.

Hegseth issues his own defense and prepares for a fight

Hegseth maintains he’s eager to litigate the military actions that he and President Donald Trump have taken against Iran, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Venezuela’s previous leaders.

“If you want to take issue with what we did in Epic Fury or Rough Rider or nabbing Nicolás Maduro, you’re taking issue with the troops and what they accomplished, which is historic,” Hegseth told reporters Monday, using the military code names for the Iran war and campaign of strikes to halt the Houthis’ attacks on shipping in the Middle East.

Hegseth also announced that he would hold a rare news conference on Tuesday — his first in over 180 days — on the impeachment threat. His last briefing was in May, and he has not held one on the Iran war, strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats or other U.S. military actions since then.

The Pentagon chief is bearing the brunt of anger and calls for his ouster after the Iran war and its economic impact contributed to severe Republican losses in the midterm elections that cost the party control of Congress.

Hegseth waves off impeachment push as ‘noise’

Hegseth, after giving a speech at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, brushed aside the impeachment push.

“There’s a lot of politically motivated people who may have substantial policy disagreements, but their disagreements are with success,” he told reporters. He added that “if we want to litigate” the military actions that the Trump administration has taken, “I’m happy to do it all day long.”

“My team, we’re not worried about the noise — it’s what I told the troops, too — ‘don’t worry about the noise,’” he said.

Asked about Vice President JD Vance blaming the Iran war for the massive GOP losses in the election, Hegseth noted that Trump said he would do it again, and “I agree.”

He largely repeated a line that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said to reporters a day earlier: “It doesn’t have to be necessarily popular, but it can be necessary.”

Hegseth argued that the war was necessary because “someone had to confront the Iranian regime’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon” and said “the choice was don’t act and wish it away or take a bold move.”

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Trump defended Hegseth to reporters on Sunday night.

“He’s guilty of two things, basically winning two wars,” Trump said. “I believe we saved the Middle East and Israel combined. And it’s awfully hard to say let’s impeach somebody who did that.”

Pentagon chief insists ‘Iran is devastated’

Hegseth reiterated that “Iran is devastated,” even though the Islamic Republic has been able to keep striking military bases in the Middle East that are used by the United States, causing billions of dollars in damage, as well as commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Disruptions to shipping in the waterway, where one-fifth of the world’s oil passed before the war, have led to higher energy prices that hit voters’ pocketbooks.

He said the next steps on the war are up to Trump, including telling Iran: “Hey, we’re done, and we’re going to watch your nuclear material. You better not move it.”

Hegseth’s defense of the war comes after about 6 in 10 voters said the U.S. made the “wrong decision” in taking military action against Iran, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters in the United States.

With anger in Congress rising, Hegseth has been on a social media blitz, posting a video last week acknowledging the threat of impeachment. He said it would be “all about the politics of personal destruction” and insisted that “won’t work with me. You can rest assured of that.”

Since then, scores of political appointees within the Pentagon have posted images of Hegseth emblazoned with the words, “Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic.” The White House also posted a video to social media that featured praise from Trump.

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.