The Brief

Los Angeles Unified is a sprawling school district that covers 710 square miles and all or part of 25 cities including Gardena, West Hollywood, Monterey Park, and Inglewood.

Every child within district boundaries has a resident school near their home, but there are also a lot of other options to explore.

Some of these schools are so popular there isn’t room for every family that wants to enroll. For a chance to attend, families must complete a “Choices”  application.

A quick overview of the timeline:

• Nov. 15, 2024:  Deadline to apply online or by mail. 
• Feb. 3, 2025:  Late applications begin 
• March 2025: On-time applicant selection letters sent 
• Early April 2025: Deadline to accept or decline school offers for on-time applicants 
• April 2025: Late selection process begins

We can’t tell you which schools to apply to, but we can help you think about how to choose a school. Here are some tips from a pair of parents, who have expertise in different areas of education, to help you in the final days — and hours — of the 2025-26 application window.

Our experts

Huriya Jabbar is an associate professor of education policy at the University of Southern California. Her research examines how families, teachers, and school leaders navigate school choice, and what policy designs improve access and equity in school choice.

Debbie Steinert was the magnet school coordinator at Sylmar Charter High’s Science Tech Math Magnet for 30 years and retired in 2024. She taught physical science at Olive Vista Middle School. She is a graduate of both the schools she worked at and her two children followed in her footsteps at Sylmar’s STEM Magnet.

Jabbar and Steinert shared their expertise in a live event at the North Hollywood Library.

Go beyond the labels

Families have to learn an entirely new vocabulary to navigate the public school system. For instance:

• Magnet programs are designed to attract students to a specific campus. Magnet programs in LAUSD include focuses on accelerated coursework, science, math, humanities, law enforcement, medicine and art.
• Charter schools are tuition-free, publicly funded schools that are sometimes privately operated.

But not all schools that share the same label — for example, a "STEAM magnet" (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) — offer the same experience.

“There's a lot of pressure on school leaders and schools to differentiate themselves and to have a special brand,” Jabbar said. “That doesn't always mean that there are kind of deep curricular changes in the school to align.”

Another thing to consider is how much impact any single class, elective or extracurricular may have on your child, compared to the many other courses they’ll take in their K-12 journey.

“Hanging everything on one elective they might take once or twice is probably not the most important thing about choosing a school,” Steinert said.

Follow your child’s lead 

As a kindergartner, Steinert’s eldest son started showing interest in more advanced scientific concepts. Steinert applied for the Balboa Elementary Gifted Magnet Program in Northridge.

“I was looking for more for him to be surrounded by other nerds so he wasn't ostracized,” she said. “If my son's mouth opens, science comes out still. So having other people that maybe recognized his interests and shared his interests would be good for him.”

When it came time for high school, Steinert followed her son and daughter’s lead — both wanted to attend Sylmar Charter High, where she worked.

“Best decision ever, because in addition to getting a phenomenal education and having teachers that really cared and helped them through, both my kids, though they are gifted, have IEPs for different learning disabilities, and they got the support they needed while also getting the challenge they needed,” Steinert said.

Understand the history of LAUSD’s magnet programs …

LAUSD created its first magnet programs in the 1970s to integrate segregated schools after a court order.

In the decades since then, many magnets have grown in popularity among a broad range of families (though schools in L.A. and many other places remain segregated). Students with disabilities and English language learners are all able to apply.

… And their limitations 

Families are admitted based on a points system that takes into consideration:

• Whether students are advancing from the last grade at their current magnet program to a middle or high school. (12 points) 
• If the student is on a waiting list for a magnet program. (4 points for the following year, up to 12 points total for the prior three consecutive years)
• The ethnic make-up of their resident school— whether students are "predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, and 'other non-Anglo.'" The district calls this “PHBAO.” (4 points)
• Whether their resident school is designated overcrowded. (4 points)
• A sibling already in a desired program. (3 points)

Here’s what Steinert said won’t help your chances:

• Your child’s grades or other academic achievements (with the exception of gifted and other select programs) 
• Letters of recommendation 
• Repeatedly contacting the school

“There's nothing you can do that makes your child more desirable, because this is about integration, not about your child being better than somebody else,” Steinert said.

Prepare for the possibility of getting waitlisted

Balboa’s Magnet program was so popular, Steinert’s son wasn’t admitted until third grade.

“I was not disappointed,” she said. “I was very happy with the teachers he had at our present school … So we just had to wait it out till we had enough points and he got in. And then when we applied for my daughter, because there were sibling points, she was able to get in for first grade.”

Consider the benefits of a neighborhood school 

Jabbar’s son just started kindergarten this year at their neighborhood elementary school, which is walking distance from their home and also an arts magnet program.

“There is something to attending a school in your neighborhood in that all, a lot of the other kids, many of them, live in the neighborhood or live nearby,” Jabbar said. “There's a way to have this kind of reinforcing community where you're running into people at the grocery store and it's easier to attend the birthday parties, and kind of build and sustain that community over time.”

Remember your family shapes your child’s education

Steinert said she also felt confident that their family would be able to enhance her child’s educational experience, no matter where they went to school.

“My parents were engineers. They all live nearby," she said. "So my kids grew up in a rich environment where they were exposed to things that Balboa offered that maybe you wouldn't get at other schools — different field trips and things like that. They'd already seen that.”

Visit schools before making your final decision

Steinert, Jabbar and almost everyone we’ve ever interviewed about choosing a school endorse visiting the campus in person.

Jabbar remembers visiting her son’s school.

“Just walking into the school, it just felt very open," Jabbar said. “A lot of the early childhood classrooms kind of open up into a courtyard and they have a really nice school garden.”

At Sylmar Charter, Steinert invited families to visit anytime, but other schools may only offer guided tours.

Here are some questions to ask:

• Can I talk to staff and students? 
• How big are classes?
• What is staff turnover like? 
• What extracurricular activities are available? 
• Is there before- or after-school care? 
• What is the school’s approach to social and emotional learning? 
• How does the school handle discipline? 

Here are some things to observe:

• Are students engaged in the lessons? Wandering around campus? 
• What is the condition of the campus’ facilities and grounds? 
• How are staff interacting with students and each other? 

Some final words of affirmation 

“It is a very stressful process to choose a school for your child,” Jabbar said. “I think it's because the system has been set up in a way that puts this burden on families rather than offering high quality school options for everyone.”

“When my kids were babies and toddlers, I remember stressing over everything,” Steinert said. “Should I continue breastfeeding them? When should I potty train? Which kind of diapers?

“Every little thing was a big thing you should think about, and you look back, now that they're old, it didn't matter," she said. “If your kid is happy at their school, that's what matters. So find a climate that they like, and they will be fine if you're there to support them.”

A new free record shop for survivors of last year’s Eaton and Palisades fires is celebrating with a grand opening party Saturday night.

After losing his home in the Eaton Fire, Brandon Jay founded Altadena Musicians to get instruments back into the hands of musicians who lost their gear in fires.

Now he’s doing that with vinyl records, too.

“We want to be here to help replace those items and support music in people’s lives that can’t necessarily afford it right now because they’re saving all their pennies just to live and also just to rebuild their homes,” Jay told LAist.

Jay says they’ve seen roughly 3,000 records donated so far. Now they have a dedicated space on Lincoln Avenue where fire survivors can sign up for time slots and shop for up to 10 records a month.

“It’s a really lovely distraction but it kind of keeps me going as well just to know that we’re trying to build something great for the community and keep us all moving forward,” Jay said.

The store will carry copies of the benefit album, Gimme Shelter: Songs for LA Fire Relief. The compilation features cover art by Shepard Fairey and L.A. specific tracks from artists like Elliott Smith ("Angeles" of course), Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, as well as a cover of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads performed by Jay and about 50 other fire-impacted musicians.

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

Musicians set up for rehearsal ahead of the next leg of Ziggy Marley's tour.

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“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

Ziggy Marley in the hallway of his new studio in North Hollywood.

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For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 as part of a tour supporting his new album Brightside.

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He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”

A City Council committee voted Friday to shelve a proposed ballot measure aimed at cutting L.A.'s “mansion tax” nearly in half.

The ad hoc committee on Measure ULA voted 2-1 to set aside a proposal by Councilmembers John Lee and Marqueece Harris-Dawson that would have asked voters in November to reduce the ULA transfer tax rate for multifamily and mixed-use properties to somewhere between 2% and 3.5%, down from the current rate of up to 5.5%.

However, the ballot measure proposal was also referred to the City Council’s rules, elections, and intergovernmental relations committee, which could still choose to move it forward.

Instead, the ad hoc committee advanced a narrower pilot program that would reduce the property transfer tax only for newly built affordable housing projects.

The pilot program won't need voter approval in the form of a ballot measure. Committee Chair Ysabel Jurado, who introduced the substitute language, said she believes the city should avoid a ULA ballot measure because it’s still too early to evaluate the measure’s long-term effects.

“ I'm against going to the ballot, but I'm for making fixes that make this better,” Jurado said.

Voters will see a separate proposal on their ballots by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to effectively repeal Measure ULA.

If the L.A. City Council does not approve reforming the measure, the only decision on the ballot in November may be whether to keep the mansion tax in its current form or end it.

About the mansion tax

L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in 2022 to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention. The measure taxes real estate sales over about $5 million. Since taking effect in April 2023, ULA has raised just over $1.1 billion from 1,633 real estate transactions, according to the city’s housing department.

The city projects it will generate about $500 million in the coming fiscal year — about half of what proponents initially promised. It has funded about 800 new affordable units and helped stabilize thousands of renters facing eviction, according to the housing department.

But critics say the tax has suppressed housing development. Several studies link the tax to a slowdown in apartment construction in Los Angeles, but ULA supporters say high interest rates and broader economic conditions are to blame.

The City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA was formed earlier this year to study how the measure is working and develop potential reforms. That work took on more urgency inside L.A. city hall after the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a statewide ballot measure for November that would effectively repeal Measure ULA entirely.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House LA coalition, which campaigned for the original measure, said the City Council committee made the right call by rejecting broader exemptions.

“By not taking up the extreme calls for broad, 15-year waivers that could cost the program about a third of its revenue, the committee acknowledged that ULA is working,” Donlin said in a statement.

A separate group of housing developers, union workers and advocacy groups calling itself the “Mend It, Don’t End It” coalition has been urging city hall to make changes to ULA. On Friday, the group said it supports the measure, but believes targeted reforms are still needed.

“Independent research shows that Measure ULA has slowed housing production in Los Angeles at a time when we need more housing, not less,” said Melanie Mendoza, a coalition spokesperson.

What the data show

The debate over ULA's impact played out in the committee room Friday morning. The city's chief legislative analyst reviewed seven independent studies on ULA’s impact. Three of those studies concluded ULA had suppressed housing production and reduced property tax revenues, while four found no meaningful negative impact.

Before ULA took effect, Los Angeles collected about $22 million a month in transfer tax. After that, it dropped to about $13 million. But city legislative analyst Henry Flatt told the committee a similar decline happened in cities without the tax, including Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita.

“We are not currently convinced that Measure ULA has had an extremely negative impact on general fund revenues,” Flatt told the committee.

The county assessor's office read the same period differently. Scott Thornberry, an assistant assessor with L.A. County, told the committee that commercial and industrial property sales are falling in the city but not elsewhere in the county.

“We are seeing, we believe, a trend line of impact to property tax revenue growth in the city of L.A. specifically," Thornberry said.

What the committee did

Instead of the ballot measure, the committee voted to develop a five-year pilot program cutting the ULA tax to 1.5% for newly constructed affordable housing projects that meet specific requirements.

Lee, whose ballot measure was replaced with language advancing the pilot program, said he hadn't seen the substitute prior to Friday’s meeting and voted against it.

“This was just placed in front of me,” he said. Lee objected to a provision in the substitute recommendations calling for $30 million in new spending on homelessness support.

“Without knowing where this money's coming from, I'm going to have to vote no,” he said.

Lee told LAist he supports stronger oversight and technical improvements to Measure ULA, but believes a ballot measure is the right approach.

“Voters deserve the opportunity to consider targeted changes that would preserve the intent of the measure while addressing its unintended impacts on housing production and real estate activity in Los Angeles,” the councilmember said, in a statement.

Friday's meeting was the committee's final scheduled hearing. The committee, which is set to dissolve June 1, also voted to advance a narrower nonprofit tax refund limited to organizations that can prove all sale proceeds went directly to affordable housing.

The committee continued a separate motion on fire exemptions for Palisades fire victims, which will be heard by another council committee. A motion to loosen eligibility rules for the ULA Citizens Oversight Committee was noted and filed.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced several of the committee's motions, said the process had been guided by a commitment to protect the measure.

"My goal has always been to listen carefully, bring people into the conversation, and protect ULA while honoring the voters' intent," she said at Friday’s meeting.

In her closing remarks, Jurado reflected on the three-member committee’s past work.

“We released $14 million in rental assistance to the most vulnerable Angelenos and $300 million for affordable housing,” she said. “We did in six or seven meetings what others couldn't do in five years.”

The ad hoc committee's recommendations now move to the full City Council.

Harris-Dawson and Lee’s ballot measure motion will be considered by the City Council’s rules committee at a later date, officials said.

Monsterpalooza, the annual movie-monster bash for horror fans, returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, starting Friday night (May 29) and lasting through Sunday.

What to expect

Now in its 18th year, devotees can rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

Dozens of panels and presentations are scheduled, including a deep-dive into the 95th anniversary of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies by writer Julian David Stone.

Writer Julian David Stone gives a presentation at a past Monsterpalooza event.

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Stone said that the two classic movies have left a lasting impact.

“Dracula is a movie about supernatural horror..... and Frankenstein is about technological or man-made horror," he said. "You can just trace those two themes all the way forward to this past year with Sinners and Megan 2.0."

Richard Redlefsen's Armageddon Rat at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Stone first attended the convention in 2008, returning over the years as a fan, spectator and presenter.

“It’s just a terrific convention that celebrates all things horror,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of celebrities you can meet who were in these horror films and you can get pictures with them." He added that he’ll never forget when he met Carla Laemmle in 2010 — the last living cast member of the original 1931 Dracula.

Mike Mekash and Chris Nelson re-created Twisty the Clown on Dan Gilbert at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Who's attending

If you’re jonesing to be photographed with high-profile entertainers (expect a fee for many), this year's event has a line-up that includes musician Alice Cooper, actress Lin Shaye from the Insidious movie franchise and David Howard Thornton, who plays Art the Clown in the popular Terrifier movie series.

Cosplay and crazy costumes are encouraged, although a T-shirt celebrating a classic horror movie will also do. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.