The Brief

A year and two months after its original deadline, Los Angeles Unified School District leaders have released their official plan to upgrade more than 600 schools to create more green space and add shade on campus.

The 188-paged Green Schoolyards For All Plan details what it will take to achieve this goal by 2035, and finds it could cost $3 billion, or more, to get there.

“Certainly, the delay has been disappointing, because I think there is a lot of momentum around this topic,” said school board member Kelly Gonez, who originally authored a resolution in 2022 to try and get the green school yard plan going. “There's no time to waste because there is a lot of work to do, and so much is needed.”

Defining a schoolyard  

The plan includes new definitions for what qualifies as a schoolyard and what qualifies as a green/natural area, which helps designate what parts of a school campus should be upgraded and what tools can be used. For example, a green space is defined as “exterior areas within a schoolyard which are of recreational and/or ecological value,” which can serve the following purposes:

• Provide locations for recreation and play
• Provide opportunities for the interactive educational observation of natural systems
• Protect areas of both typical and unique plant and animal communities
• Provide areas of natural interest and beauty within the school campuses for students and staff

Materials that can be used in creating these spaces include: plants/trees, grass/lawn/natural turf/other turf materials, dirt/mulch, decomposed granite, permeable pavers. But, according to the document, synthetic turf and cool coating are not considered “green elements.”

In previous school district surveys and conversations with parents about the best approach for greening schools, there was some concern over an over reliance on technology like cool pavement. A majority of people surveyed expressed a desire for “natural” materials like trees and plants.

Parent advocates like Angelenos for Green Schools co-founder Aleigh Lewis argue that natural spaces should be prioritized.

She understands the need for pavement for sports and other play, but believes trees, grass and other natural surfaces should be prioritized over repaving surfaces with a reflective coating.

“You have all this money and you could do so much more for every school and cool them down,” Lewis said.

The Green Schoolyards Index

One of the new parts of the plan is an updated list (starting on page 72 in the PDF file) of 205 elementary school campuses. They're ranked in order of the most heavily polluted areas within vulnerable communities, which get high heat temperatures on campus and are in need of green spaces.

District leaders have identified 634 schools that need natural spaces into three categories — Category 1 includes the 205 elementary schools that have the schoolyards with less than 10% green/natural space. Category 2 is for elementary schools that have 11% or more green/natural space and all of the secondary schools. Category 3 will also include secondary schools. The priority list for Category 2 and 3 are not included in the index.

The challenge

District leaders say that in order to complete all of the projects by 2035, they would have to have about “60 medium-to-large scale projects” started every year over the next eight years. Every year, they would have to have an allocation of $350 million to $400 million.

But, in the plan, district officials state that completing the listed amount of large projects in that time period may not be possible because of the lack of funding, workers and resources. Experts, parents and community members have argued the district could do more with less money.

Right now, the district is using various ways to fund campus greening projects, like lease financing agreements, repurposing bond funding, state funding and partnership grants.

Gonez said the district has already invested $100 million in greening since the resolution passed because they’ve been creative of making their campuses at least 30% green. But there’s still a long way to go.

“There's a big challenge ahead of us, which is how to meet that overall $3 billion number in the next 11 years,” Gonez said. “I want us to dive more deeply into that gap about what we can do right now and how to reach that overall goal so that we can work with our external partners and advocate with the state and federal governments to be able to get the funding that we need for green space.”

Why it matters

A majority of LAUSD school campuses are covered in asphalt, which absorbs heat. Temperatures on asphalt schoolyards in the summer in places like the San Fernando Valley can register up to 142 degrees on the surface. Schools everywhere in L.A. are feeling the impacts of rising heat.

Experts say hot weather could stretch further into the first months of the school year, raising temperatures. V. Kelly Turner, associate professor of urban planning and geography at UCLA and associate director of the Luskin Center for Innovation, said that’s how it’s going to be in the future.

Turner and her colleagues have studied extreme heat and the role design plays in how people experience it. They found that “schools are some of the hottest places in communities” as a result of how they’ve been built.

The background

In June 2022, district leaders allocated $58 million to outdoor education initiatives, including greening of campuses. A few months later, Gonez, who was president of the board at the time, called on Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and his team to develop a plan to ensure campuses were at least 30% green by 2035.

District officials say they have partnered with local nonprofits like Tree People and Trust For Public Land to help plant trees and create more shade on school grounds through the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection grant. There are eight LAUSD nonprofit partnerships that have received Cal Fire grants in the 2022-23 grant period. There are other grants, and other funding proposals that are in process.

Meanwhile, the Greening Schools and Climate Resilience Committee meeting that was originally scheduled for May 15 has been pushed to June 5.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers set out a plan to create the largest universal preschool program in the country for 4-year-olds, through a massive ramp-up of an elementary grade known as transitional kindergarten, or TK.

At a news conference, Newsom called it “a commitment that all 4-year-olds will get high quality instructional education,” and said that the investment could close learning gaps. “People aren’t left behind, as often as they start behind,” he added.

The state set a deadline that every district offer transitional kindergarten to all eligible 4-year-olds by fall 2025, and in the intervening years, schools have enrolled more than 175,000 children in TK. They’ve also had to hire new teachers and modify classrooms so that kids have enough space and quick access to smaller-sized bathrooms.

LAist spoke to more than a half dozen early childhood researchers who say a key piece has been missing in the state’s implementation: California itself hasn’t evaluated the program as it's expanded, nor does it have plans to going forward. This, despite studies showing how critical the early years are for a child’s learning, and research from another state’s public preschool program that found students tested lower on state assessments and had more behavioral problems compared to those who weren’t in that program..

“ It is a huge mistake to not evaluate the implementation of TK and whether or not the classrooms are providing developmentally appropriate practice,” said Jade Jenkins, associate professor of education at the University of California, Irvine.

The criticism comes as California has invested $1.2 billion to expand TK, and is paying about $3.9 billion this year to administer the new grade level.

“ We need to know whether this investment is actually lifting kids. We know it's a huge economic windfall for parents, and that's a great boost for families. But is it lifting kids without government research?” said Bruce Fuller, a professor emeritus of education and public policy at UC Berkeley.

A spokesperson for the California Department of Education said money for research has not been allocated in the state budget, and the department would “welcome a legislative appropriation” to “study the impacts of TK on students and families.”

“At this time, the Legislature and Governor have not appropriated funding for the CDE to conduct evaluations,” the agency said.

It’s not the first time the agency has brought up the need for a study — especially as the program was rolling out statewide. A state official told LAist in 2022 that they recommend an implementation study, but they opted not to suggest how it should be funded.

“You could launch a very high quality study at a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the total funding for that program, and that would help people figure out what we are actually offering our families and how to improve it — and that seems really important,” said Alix Gallagher,  director of education policy and outcomes for the research organization Policy Analysis for California Education. “As a taxpayer, I don't find it acceptable that billions of dollars are being spent with no attention to how our systems can learn to use that in ways that are most beneficial for kids."

TK experiences can look different school to school

The state sets standards for TK classrooms, which can have a max of 24 kids and need a 10:1 student to adult ratio. Teachers must be credentialed with early childhood educational experience or units. And while the state has guidelines on what students should learn in TK, it has no mandated curriculum — meaning programs can vary widely from being play-based to more academic.

Lyse Messmer, a parent of a TK child in northeast L.A., has seen even variation between two schools her son has attended in the same area. His first program relied more on screen time and worksheets; Messmer transferred him to another program with more outdoor play. And the teacher at the former school had not previously taught TK, she said, which made for a harder transition into school.

But she said the overall experience has been beneficial for her child, and a welcome financial relief. “I think the benefits of him getting used to a bigger classroom and like a bigger elementary school and navigating all that stuff for him has been really positive,” she said.

Adding a new grade is a massive endeavor for districts. As in Messmer’s case, it can be especially hard to find teachers with experience teaching kids this age, said Austin Land, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Equity and Excellence in Early Childhood.

“ You can't require that every kid that wants a TK spot gets a TK spot and then also require this workforce to exist that has all this preexisting training,” Land said.

Land, who has been studying TK before the expansion, said he would like to know basic characteristics of TK classrooms today.

“Do you have a sixth grade teacher that got reassigned leading your classroom or is it somebody who's been working with little kids for a while?” Land said. “ Is the teacher having a one-on-one interaction with a child or a one-on-two interaction with some children? Or are they spending most of their time up at the front?”

Lack of data on quality

Without data, it’s hard to know what children are learning, said Allison Friedman-Krauss, an associate research professor at the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.

“We want to make sure we're investing in quality for kids. And one way to know that we're doing it is to be able to monitor it… we want to make sure that the state can sort of have a pulse on what's going on in the classroom,” she said.

Transitional kindergarten classrooms can vary school to school, with some more play-based and others more academic.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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The institute scores public preschool programs across the country on a number of benchmarks of quality. According to the institute’s tracking, about two-thirds of public preschool programs in the country have a classroom observation system in place, she said. California’s TK program does not.

Researchers said it’s especially important to know what these youngest students are doing because early experiences can affect their learning later on.

“At the very least, we want to make sure it's not doing harm,” Jenkins said.

Tennessee: A cautionary tale

Researchers point to a study of Tennessee’s public preschool system as an example of where good intentions were not enough to benefit kids. The state has similar standards to what California put in place: max class sizes, low ratios, specialized teachers.

Dale Farran, a professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University, found in her research that children who attended the pre-K program ended up faring worse academically and behaviorally than their peers who didn’t attend. Farran said standards don’t guarantee quality, much less equity between students from different social, economic and racial backgrounds.

“Those structural elements  are the easiest things for states to make rules about, but are they having the kind of interactions in the classrooms that will be positive for children? That’s much harder to put into place,” she said.

Farran has said that one possible reason for this was the overly academic nature of the program and structured settings: kids sitting at desks and listening to a teacher up front, when kids this age need to move around and play.

Katie Flynn, a mom of a TK student in Pasadena, said while she’s had an overall positive experience with her son in TK this year, it still feels more like elementary school than preschool.

At the beginning of the year, her son wouldn’t drink his water all day, or avoided going to the bathroom until he got home, because teachers didn’t remind or prompt him like they did in private preschool.

“ I know it's also his responsibility, right? Like he needs to listen to his body. So it's a mutual, collaborative enterprise, but it just shows how limited this age group is in ensuring that that happens,” she said.

What can the state do?

The California Department of Education said absent funding from the state Legislature for the department to evaluate the program, it convenes a regular group of early childhood researchers in the state to share their work into TK. But researchers LAist talked to from that group said that approach can only go so far.

Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, chair of the Assembly Education Committee, said he wasn’t familiar with the Tennessee study, but funding for evaluation is something he will look into.

“We definitely need to make sure that we're again evaluating our most effective programs so that we can focus on best practices to continue to support those statewide,” he said.

When LAist asked how the state will assess the current program, Muratsuchi and a State Board of Education spokesperson pointed to one large-scale study of TK done by the American Institutes for Research, in 2017. (The governor’s office also directed LAist to the state board.)

That AIR study found that kids who went to TK when it first started in California had stronger literacy and math skills when entering kindergarten compared to similar-age peers who didn’t go to TK at the beginning of the year. (Those differences mostly faded by the end of the year).

Land, the UC Berkeley researcher, and Gallagher, of PACE, said the AIR study was done nearly a decade ago, and on a TK program that looks different from TK today.

That's because when TK started in 2012, they said, it was intended for kids who were nearly 5 years old, but had just missed the cutoff for kindergarten. Today, kids as young as 3 are entering TK in California.

LAist also reached out to Karen Manship, principal researcher of the AIR study. She said they’re still investigating topics related to transitional kindergarten, “but we do not have any funding or current plans to evaluate the program overall now that it is fully rolled out.”

The state education board spokesperson also cited research by economist Rucker Johnson, who looked at TK between 2013 and 2019, which found low-income children had greater reading and math gains by third grade than students who did not attend TK.

“These points tell us that an early start has proven to be beneficial for California students,” said a spokesperson for the board, which sets state policy.

LAist reached out to Johnson, who said that while his study of TK in the early years is promising, it’s “not a sufficient condition.”

“For improvements to be sustained, meaning even if they were good in the past, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't continue to be monitoring the success as they're expanded and expanded that scale to universal,” he said.

Kevin McCarty, Sacramento’s mayor and a former state assemblymember who championed the legislation to expand TK, told LAist funding is a challenge — given other budget priorities — but that he welcomes evaluation.

“We want to make sure that it's effective, that it works, and if there are any issues that we need to address and improve going forward,” he said.

In the meantime, he said the program has given many parents a huge economic relief — and parents have a choice on whether to send their kids.

“This is free, this is — California paid for free universal pre-K,” he added, “which is a big deal because, we reminded people, paying for private preschool costs more than sending a kid to UCLA.”

Alysa Liu’s comeback at this year’s Olympics — and her stunning gold medal win — has rocked the world of figure skating, making headlines due to her joy while performing and her commitment to mental health on and off the ice.

Though she primarily trained in Oakland, Liu, who’s also a psychology student at UCLA, has used a facility in Lakewood as one of her home bases away from home. The 20-year-old started training there as she came back from retirement and prepared to take the gold medal (not that that was necessarily her goal, to hear her tell it).

It’s part of a long history for the Rinks-Lakewood ICE, which has also hosted many champions and Olympians over the years, including Mariah Bell, Nathan Chen, Ashley Wagner and Adam Rippon, and counts prominent figure skaters among their staff.

“ We're not unfamiliar with Olympic ties,” said Braden Overett, the skating manager at Lakewood ICE, though he also clarified, “that does not in any way diminish the fun and the coolness [of Liu’s win].”

Lakewood ICE’s place in this year’s Olympics

Working with her coaches remotely, Liu started to drill down on perfecting her skating while also attending classes at UCLA. And though she moved on to her home base at Oakland Ice Center as the Olympic training started to ramp up, the staff who worked with her at Lakewood ICE kept cheering her on.

Overett said that he loves highlighting the Olympic connections at the rink, which may not be obvious to everyone who skates there.

“It's always fun just to connect the dots, right?” Overett said. “It's like going to a restaurant and then you find out later it's your favorite actor's restaurant.”

Ashleigh Ellis runs the nonprofit Unity Ice Academy, which focuses on increasing access to figure skating for kids of all backgrounds at Lakewood ICE.

“ That's just very much how the skating world is. It's very small, you never know who you're going to run into at any time,” Ellis said. “ Could you imagine just being on the ice with a national champion and Olympic skater of any sort? It's just so inspiring for the kids to see that and be within the vicinity of that.”

And Liu wasn’t the only 2026 Olympic figure skater who's used the facility. Li Yu-Hsiang, the Taiwanese national champion who represented Chinese Taipei in Milan this year, also trains in Lakewood.

The rink’s coaches

The small world of skating means that even novice skaters can take classes from world-class skaters: 1976 Olympic silver medalist Dianne de Leeuw teaches there, as do national medalists (and future Olympic contenders) Starr Andrews and Josephine Lee.

 "To get to see them and to get to share ice with them just has a layer of magic that you can't replace and you can't get anywhere else,” Overett said. “ You see the turnover of generations, and it brings in a huge element of history.”

What Liu’s win means for the skating world

Ellis is already using Liu’s example to stress the importance of mental health to the kids and families she works with, like one parent who was worrying about her child taking two weeks off skating due to pneumonia.

“I was like, ‘Alysa Liu took two plus years off and she just won the Olympic gold. Do not worry about it this two weeks,’” she said.

A bipartisan bill aimed at protecting pets during disasters has been introduced in Congress, with a Southern California representative citing the rescue efforts of local organizations during last year’s L.A.-area fires.

The PETSAFE Act of 2026 — which stands for Providing Essential Temporary Shelter Assistance For Emergencies — would expand the use of emergency management funds so local governments can plan for evacuations that move animals to safety, as well as provide veterinary care and rescue equipment during disasters.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) helped introduce the bill earlier this month with several House of Representatives colleagues, including Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida and Democrat Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada.

Chu, who represents Pasadena and Altadena in the 28th Congressional District, said when the Eaton Fire tore through her district, many families delayed evacuations because they couldn’t bear to leave their pets behind.

She told LAist she’ll never forget seeing the cats, dogs and other animals with burned feet and singed fur who were being cared for by Pasadena Humane in the aftermath.

“But to think, if there is even one more thing we could do to keep our precious pets safe, wouldn't we want to do that?” Chu said. “So this PETSAFE Act could go a long way towards making sure that our loved pets can indeed survive a disaster.”

About the bill

Pasadena Humane teams looked for pets and wildlife in Eaton burn zones, dropping off food and water along the way.

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Courtesy Pasadena Humane

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The PETSAFE Act now has been referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The bill would amend the Emergency Management Performance Grant program to increase the federal cost share for certain animal-related preparedness activities from 50% to 90%.

Supporters say this would lower barriers and make it more affordable for communities to roll out emergency protection plans for people and pets.

Specifically, the PETSAFE Act would allow state, local and tribal governments to use grant money awarded by FEMA toward pet supplies, crates, veterinary equipment, emergency generators and training, among others.

Pet owners whose homes are under disaster-related evacuation orders can be faced with an “impossible choice” — leaving their pets behind or staying home with them, which risks the owner’s own safety and complicates rescue efforts for first responders, according to Chu’s office.

The bill aims to address the challenges pet owners and first responders face without authorizing new federal spending, according to Mast’s office.

How we got here 

Chu said local shelters, including Pasadena Humane, and communities across California stepped up to care for all kinds of animals during the Eaton Fire, which ignited in January 2025.

Pasadena Humane helped more than 1,500 pets and wildlife during the fire and in the aftermath by providing shelter, medical care and emergency resources.

A horse was housed in the organization’s garage when Chris Ramon, Pasadena Humane’s president and CEO, ran into its owner walking down Raymond Avenue for miles.

“Part of me likes to think that this won’t happen again,” Ramon told LAist last month. “But the realist in me realizes … disaster preparedness is something that just is an ongoing conversation for us at Pasadena Humane.”

Chu also cited the work of the ASPCA, which helped more than 530 animals during the Eaton Fire, including goats, parakeets, pigs and a gecko, according to the organization.

She said local organizations did “tremendous” work and “lovingly cared for” the rush of animals affected by the fire.

“But what we would want to do is to make sure that there is an even better system for animal evacuation and ways to ensure that pets could be safe,” Chu said, adding that would relieve the burden on places like Pasadena Humane.

Other laws aiming to protect pets

This is not the first time last year’s fires have led to new legislation focused on protecting pets during emergencies.

A new state law known as the FOUND Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, was inspired by Oreo the Pomeranian, who reunited with its Pacific Palisades owner in an emotional, viral video during the Palisades Fire.

The law requires cities and counties to include procedures for rescuing pets during mandatory evacuations in their next emergency plans, which need to be updated every five years to qualify for FEMA assistance.