The Brief

For LGBTQ+ educators and students, the past school year was marked by protests, controversial gender notification policies, flag bans, and book restrictions, testing teachers’ ability to create a safe space to learn for students who are still struggling academically and psychologically in the wake of the pandemic.

There’s also been some shows of support: In recent years, the Los Angeles Unified School District board has passed more than a half-dozen resolutions in support of LGBTQ+ students that recognized Pride Month, added non-discrimination training for staff and sought partnerships with nonprofits focused on queer youth.

We wanted to understand how LGBTQ+ educators have faced these challenges, so we checked in with teachers in districts big and small about the struggles and joys inside and outside of the classroom.

Skye Tooley is an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

‘I'd rather live my full self than try to hide’

One of the first books Skye Tooley reads in their fifth grade class is They Call Me Mix, a picture book that helps them explain what it means to be nonbinary.

The book is among about a thousand titles Tooley — Mx. T to their students — has added to their Los Angeles classroom library over a decade of teaching. LAist is not naming Tooley’s school because they have faced threats to their safety.

The stories on the shelves feature refugee families, African mythology, and teens navigating life between multiple cultures in Southern California.

Students at this age start to understand their role as individuals connected to the wider world, see other perspectives more clearly, and develop more empathy.

“Something that sticks with us beyond the classroom, beyond school, is loving reading,” Tooley said. “It opens them up to worlds that they may not have experienced before, or ideas that they haven't thought about before.”

Tooley said their approach to teaching changed as they realized the forces that have shaped their own education. “As adults we’re having to constantly reevaluate how we're showing up for ourselves in community,” Tooley said. “Same thing happens here in the classroom.”

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

"I come from a love of reading," Tooley said. "I really want [students] to walk away with that love, even if it's just one or two stories."

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

Tooley collaborates with educators throughout the state to create more inclusive lessons and curriculum, but sharing that work online, in combination with their trans identity, has made Tooley a target.

“It's not, you know, all sunshine rainbows type thing going on being a queer educator in California or anywhere in America,” Tooley said.

Tooley said online harassment has included death threats after their social media posts were highlighted in conservative media and by anti-LGBTQ+ social media accounts.

“I'm not going to go private,” Tooley said. “I'm not going to hide it because people need to know what's going on.”

Tooley now blocks specific keywords in comments and messages and is public about taking breaks to care for their mental health.

“I'd rather live my full self than try to hide because of death threats,” Tooley said. “I kind of leaned into that more, and leaned into my community and leaned into joy versus leaning into being scared.”

Research shows that educators who feel more safe are more effective teachers and students are negatively impacted when teachers experience discrimination.

Tooley is part of a task force within the teachers union to develop new ways to support queer students and educators and advocate for their needs during upcoming contract negotiations.

“To not address [harassment] allows it to continue to live and exist in our schools and hide in small ways,” Tooley said.

Several of the educators LAist talked to, including Tooley, say they looked to their local teachers union for support in navigating district policies when faced with online harassment.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

This bilingual picture book was written by a Northern California kindergarten teacher and explains what it means to be nonbinary.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

‘You want to defend your family, you want to defend your community’

Kelly and Iris Mendoza teach at South Central’s Frida Kahlo Continuation High. Students who have fallen behind often enroll in continuation schools to earn enough credits to get back on track to graduate.

“Not only are we two queer married women of color, but our classrooms are literally right next door to each other,” Iris said.

They infuse their classes in history, English, ethnic, studies, theater and art with the perspectives they didn’t explore until college.

Iris Mendoza grew up in Escondido in the ’90s and remembered the conversation around immigration at school was often divisive.

“You want to defend your family, you want to defend your community,” Iris said. “However, you're not given the tools to be able to explain why your family had to immigrate. Why did they have to leave?”

It wasn’t until she took a community college ethnic studies course that she started to understand the complex forces that often push families to immigrate to the U.S.

“Working with high school students and trying to ensure that they have that history earlier rather than waiting until college to start to see themselves reflected in the curriculum,” Iris said. “That's what brought me to teaching.”

Kelly Mendoza started out as a substitute teacher. She’d scan new schools for posters of LGBTQ+ people or books — cues that helped her decide how much of her identity to share in an unfamiliar space.

“Now that I have my own classroom, I'm just like, we're going to put up some posters, we're going to put up some flags,” Kelly said. “I want it to be that welcoming space, for my students and for other people from the community as well.”

The Mendozas said they initially questioned why they had to explain their relationship, but their perspective shifted once they started working in schools.

“We both understand if we're asking our students to think about their families, think about their identities, think about their communities that we have to be willing to talk about ourselves,” Iris said.

The Mendozas said local school leadership play a key role in ensuring the impact of these resolutions reaches students and educators.

“If you don't have good leaders then it becomes even more challenging to do an already challenging job,” Iris said.

‘An opportunity to make a bigger difference’

A series of contentious school board meetings led to the start of the 2024-25 school year in the Chino Valley Unified School District.

The board voted in June to limit the flags that can be displayed in classrooms, notably banning Pride flags. In July, the board passed a policy requiring schools to notify families of students who ask to identify as a gender other than the one on their birth certificate.

“It led to the uncertainty and just [a] feeling of uneasiness going into the school year,” said high school life sciences teacher Steven Frazer.

Steven Frazer a science teacher in Chino.

(

Zaydee Sanchez

/

For LAist

)

Frazer holds a brochure that amplifies a safe space for LGBTQ+ people.

(

Zaydee Sanchez

/

For LAist

)

The typically quiet summer board meeting drew hundreds of community members and outside agitators. California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was forcibly removed from the meeting after speaking against the parental notification policy.

Frazer rallied fellow members of the local teachers union to attend the meeting and stood quietly in support while they addressed the board during public comment.

He said it was unclear how educators were expected to enforce the new rules.

Three weeks after the first day of school, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit challenging the gender disclosure policy. In March, the board voted to revamp the policy to require schools to notify parents if a student requests any change to their school record, rather than just a change related to their gender.

A California lawmaker introduced a bill in late May that would ban school policies that require educators to disclose a student’s gender identity to their family.

Some Chino Valley educators say the LGBTQ+ related policies have drawn board attention away from everyday issues like teacher pay and the needs of special education students.

At the Associated Chino Teachers office, pictures of faculty decorate the walls.

(

Zaydee Sanchez

/

For LAist

)

The challenging year pushed Frazer to run for the Associated Chino Teachers presidency. His first term starts in July.

“This is an opportunity to make a bigger difference and support our students that are most vulnerable,” Frazer said.

More than half of LGBTQ+ teens report experiencing poor mental health and 1 in 5 saying they had attempted suicide in the last year, according to surveys from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Frazer, who most recently taught anatomy and biology, said he’ll miss the students’ humor and memes, but maybe not the smell of the annual mink dissection.

“The notes that say that when they look back, they remember my class being a place where they felt they could be comfortable means the most,” Frazer said.

‘Disrupting the K-12 education system’

E. approaches every conflict at her L.A. County charter school with a series of questions.

What was the root of that behavior and where is it coming from? And what does the educator or students involved need to make it right?

Inquiry is central to her work as a restorative justice coordinator.

E. requested that we not use her full name because she is not public with her sexuality at work and believes it may impact her interactions with students and their families.

One of E.’s goals is to help students, parents, and faculty solve interpersonal problems in a way that doesn’t remove kids from class. Restorative justice in education, which is an alternative to the traditional discipline styles of suspension and expulsion, has been shown to lower harmful behavior and absenteeism.

“I enjoy disrupting the K-12 education system, doing something so different than what we’ve known it to be,” E. said. “I enjoy chisme [gossip], so this is a great way to understand gossip. I often tell the kids and the parents, this is like a novella for me.”

Sometimes, the issues are more serious than gossip. In one case recently, students called a teacher (who is gay) homophobic and derogatory words throughout the day. As E. investigated what happened, she gave the teacher reassurance that she knew this was wrong.

“They also don't know about me, so I think sometimes they wonder where I stand on this issue,” E. said. “But it has been hard, and I’ve thought of like, would it make a difference if I do come out? Would that actually set a precedent or would that just make me a target as well?”

In E.’s school, she says gay educators feel like they need to be loud to get support. She’s seen more teachers share that they’re LGBTQ+, but it’s been coupled with more incidents of sexual harassment, specifically around homophobic terms.

Across the U.S., school hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people have more than doubled between 2015-2019 and 2021-2022, and the increase is higher in states that have restrictive gender and sexuality laws in education.

E. volunteers at an advocacy organization that aims to make K-12 schools more inclusive of LGBTQ+ youth, GLSEN L.A. She helps schools across the U.S. find new ways to support LGBTQ+ students.

E. said she worked with a private Maryland school to create policies on pronoun usage. And in L.A., she’s been providing resources to other schools that have seen an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ slurs.

At GLSEN L.A., she’s surrounded by people working toward better outcomes for LGBTQ+ students.

“Any work you do to disrupt something, you may not always have a group,” E. said. “But when you can put yourself in a space where you’re nurtured, you feel like you belong.”

‘Mistrust of me as an educator and a human’

Erica Nuss, a sixth grade teacher in the Antelope Valley, knew she wanted to be an educator since she was a child.

“I was very fortunate to always love school and be passionate about school,” Nuss said. “I think as I was growing up, I didn't really realize the difference of school experiences for different people because I loved it.”

That’s why, in her 15-year career, Nuss has worked to get all kids excited about education. That also translates to her work on the union’s equity team where Nuss has been working with her union on contract language to bolster equity and inclusion for teachers.

Erica Nuss is a sixth grade teacher in the Antelope Valley.

(

Zaydee Sanchez

/

For LAist

)

A book about Stonewall sits in Nuss’s home library .

(

Zaydee Sanchez

/

For LAist

)

She works in a much smaller district than LAUSD.

Nuss is one of the only public lesbian educators in her small Antelope Valley school district. She started the first equality club there after students came to her asking to learn about inclusive topics, so now they make posters and read books that center people of color and LGBTQ+ stories.

It started after a tumultuous time. In 2020, she was put on administrative leave while her district investigated claims of grooming with a student she was mentoring.

“[The student was] really struggling with issues at home and their own identity, and it just got really ugly,” Nuss said. “I think that there was a lot of mistrust of me as an educator and a human.”

The California Teachers Association stepped in, and Nuss said they helped clear her of the charges. LAist is not naming Nuss’s school because of concerns for her safety.

Though she is now at a new school, Nuss said she feels like she’s been labeled as a “gay troublemaker teacher” because of her past and inclusion of LGBTQ+ sources in her curriculum. But she believes that teaching students about people with different genders and sexualities helps save lives.

When LGBTQ+ youth have a supportive adult in their lives, data shows a 24% reduced risk for suicide. More than two thirds of LGBTQ+ students reported feeling unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, according to GLSEN’s 2021 national school climate survey. Roughly half of California LGBTQ+ students surveyed reported being verbally harassed for their gender expression or sexuality.

Recently, Nuss taught students about Stonewall. She structured her lesson around a callout on the topic in her class’ curriculum, and she had to notify parents about it in advance.

“It's the first LGBTQ national monument in the country,” Nuss said. “If districts are even lucky enough to have a curriculum that includes Stonewall to begin with, does it still get skipped by people? I'm sure it does.”

A 2021 survey found more than two-thirds of LGBTQ+ students reported that their classes did not include any LGBTQ+ topics, but California is a bit of an outlier. State law says social studies and history classes should include the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

Part of this is the culture around the districts. She says her community in the Antelope Valley doesn’t have a large LGBTQ+ population.

“I worry that the way that I teach is going to somehow get spun by the community that I work in,” Nuss said. “Yet no matter how many hours a week or month I spend thinking about whether to do it or not, I feel like I have to.”

‘Reluctant to even believe that it was happening’

Last June, multiple fights at protests erupted after the Glendale Unified School District announced it would recognize Pride Month, something it had done for four years.

These incidents drew national headlines. But for one gay educator in Glendale, it was close to home. (LAist is not using the educator’s name out of safety concerns.)

Around the same time, a student at his school tore down a classmate’s poster recognizing an LGBTQ+Armenian author in a school library display celebrating the country’s culture.

The vandalism was a part of a slew of actions in the past year — ranging from a teacher’s ally flag getting covered up to an increase in homophobic language — he said were out of step with the school’s average student behavior.

“I was reluctant to even believe that it was happening,” the educator said. “To see that kind of animosity, that kind of tension and, you know, just the things students were saying to each other was really unfortunate.”

An anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrator yells at pro-LGBTQ+ demonstrators from behind a police barricade outside a Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) Board of Education meeting on June 20, 2023 in Glendale.

(

David McNew

/

Getty Images

)

The tensions inside the school mirrored what was happening outside. Parents, adults without kids in the school, and right-wing activists used the district’s Pride Month recognition to push for limits on LGBTQ+ education.

Anti-LGBTQ+ protests are usually focused on parents’ rights. But in Glendale, which has a large Armenian population, it quickly became about differences between Armenian conservative values and LGBTQ+ inclusion.

He felt like Armenians were being pitted against LGBTQ+ people.

“I think it was frustrating to see that this small, angry, vocal group, who was purporting to speak for our community, was getting media attention,” the educator said. “There was still the larger community who … was not being heard.”

That stuck out to the educator, who’s Armenian. He went to a school board meeting to share his thoughts last summer, but shortly after that, his name came up in social media posts. Since then, he said his personal information was shared and he received a death threat to his school email.

The educator doesn’t typically share his sexuality with students, but he also doesn’t hide it.

“If you’re an out educator and you’re teaching the mandated state curriculum of LGBTQ+ history,” he said, “are you then going to be accused of grooming kids, or trying to trick kids, or spread propaganda of some kind?”

A demonstrator holds a sign outside a Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) Board of Education meeting on June 20, 2023 in Glendale.

(

David McNew

/

Getty Images

)

These concerns remain, but he believes the community he grew up in is more accepting than its loudest LGBTQ+ detractors.

“I do love being here,” he said. “It’s a safe city, but I just have to work harder to make everyone feel safe and welcomed.”

The Genders and Sexualities Alliances student club at his school are already designing posters for this year’s Pride Month, in June, about bullying, microaggressions, and LGBTQ+ civil rights icons.

If Proposition 3 looks familiar, it’s because this is the third time the income tax measure has appeared on California ballots. But this time might be the last.

Prop. 3 would permanently extend an income tax on the wealthy to fund schools, healthcare and other state services. It first appeared on the ballot as a temporary tax in 2012 to help schools through the Great Recession, and voters renewed it in 2016. Now, its supporters are asking voters to make it permanent before it expires in 2031.

“I can’t overstate how important this is,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union and a primary supporter of the measure. “It’s only a tax on the wealthiest Californians, but it’s vital for our schools.”

Prop. 3 would extend a tax on individuals who earn more than $371,000 or couples who earn more than $743,000 annually. It generated between $5 billion and $15 billion a year, fluctuating with the stock market, interest rates and other factors that affect the income of the state’s top earners.

Top earners would continue paying an income tax rate of 12.3% if the measure passes. Tack on the state’s additional 1% tax on income over $1 million for mental health services and California’s highest-earners wind up with an income tax rate of 13.3%, the highest in the nation.

The bulk of the money would be funnelled through the state’s Proposition 98 funding mechanism, which guarantees 40% of the state budget be set aside for K-12 schools and community colleges. If the money surpasses a certain level, the extra would go toward a budget rainy day fund.

Prop. 3 would also pay for healthcare and other services because it frees up money the state would ordinarily spend on schools for other services, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Of the Prop. 98 money, 89% goes to K-12 schools and 11% goes to community colleges.

In flush years, the income tax makes up about 15% of the state’s overall K-12 education budget. If it doesn’t pass, school districts will be forced to lay off up to 50,000 teachers and make other cuts, Goldberg said.

Union’s big push

The teachers union is aggressively supporting the measure. It collected thousands of signatures to win a spot on the ballot and sent members to knock on more than 200,000 doors throughout the state. Goldberg described the campaign as “one of our biggest, most ambitious efforts yet.”

The powerful union as well as other groups have raised more than $40 million to pass Prop. 3. Opponents, which include taxpayer associations, have raised $5,500.

The measure appears to have an edge with voters. According to a Public Policy Institute of California poll conducted in September, 58% of likely voters said they planned to vote yes on the measure. Among Democrats, 82% said they favored it, while 18% of Republicans said they did.

Prop. 3 is not the only tax-the-rich measure on the Nov. 3 ballot. Proposition 40 would levy a 5% tax on Californians with assets of more than $1 billion, with 90% of the money going toward healthcare and the rest divided between schools, food assistance programs and other services. The teachers union opposes Prop. 40 because it argues schools wouldn’t receive enough of the money, Goldberg said.

“We’re not campaigning against Prop. 40. We’re just prioritizing Prop. 3,” Goldberg said.

The union decided to put the measure on the ballot now, more than four years before the current tax expires, because schools typically plan their budgets many years in advance and need plenty of advance warning of significant changes in revenues, Goldberg said.

‘Not sustainable’

Susan Shelley, vice president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association, questioned whether schools need more money, considering the state’s recent investments and declining enrollment.

“We have fewer and fewer students. Does this mean we need fewer teachers? Maybe it does,” Shelley said. “It’s time to revisit some of these costs. Some districts have unaffordable labor contracts, fewer students … It’s not sustainable.”

In addition, she said, California already has the highest personal income tax rate – 13.3% – in the country. Adding more will only drive the wealthiest residents – and their money – from the state, which will have a disproportionate impact on state revenues, she said. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the state’s top 2% of earners pay about half the state’s income taxes.

California’s K-12 enrollment has declined steadily for at least a decade, with schools losing more than 500,000 students since the mid-2010s. Families are having fewer children, immigration is down and many families have left California because of the high cost of living.

Still, California has among the country’s highest student-to-teacher ratios. In 2022-23, California had one teacher for every 22 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The national average was 1:15. In New York, it was just over 1:11.

That’s why California schools need more money, said Rob Manwaring, senior policy and fiscal adviser at the advocacy group Children Now.

“Those ratios mean that students who need extra help aren’t getting it, which is why we have such a large achievement gap in California,” Manwaring said. “It’s dire.”

He also noted that federal budget cuts will continue affecting California, including its schools, and the state will need revenue to backfill those costs. The chance of an economic downturn in the next few years will also imperil school funding.

“No one wants to project out too far, but schools might see some very tight budgets,” Manwaring said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The state workers who are planning the first-ever statewide walkout in 44 years this week once were on much better terms with their boss, Gov. Gavin Newsom.

SEIU Local 1000, state government’s largest union, kicked in one of the single biggest checks to Newsom’s 2018 campaign, a $500,000 contribution. It followed up with $1 million more to help Newsom fend off a recall in 2021.

That alliance made sense for the union, especially considering that Newsom’s Republican opponents were much less friendly to labor.

But today the two sides are far apart with Local 1000 preparing its first statewide strike since signing its first collective bargaining agreement in 1982 as it accuses Newsom of bad-faith bargaining. Its members are trolling Newsom online with memes likening him to infamous Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, caricaturing him as a sci-fi villain and mocking his presidential ambitions.

What happened to the labor love fest?

At the bottom line, Newsom was stingier with public employees than voters who think of him as a labor-aligned Democrat might assume. He demanded wage reductions from state workers over three years of his tenure and limited raises to 3% in financially flush times. He also took a hard line in calling employees back to the office four days a week after many grew accustomed to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The fact the state has refused to bargain in good faith is what got so many members active,” said Anica Walls, president of Local 1000. The union represents about 100,000 workers. “They’re just kind of tired of always feeling the budget is balanced on state employees’ backs.”

That feeling goes back more than 20 years for some California public employees. Like many workers, they accepted furloughs and wage reductions during the Great Recession. That period lasted from 2008 to 2013 under former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. But Brown then pressed for more concessions, including an additional paycheck deduction to fund retiree healthcare and higher worker contributions toward pensions.

Union leaders had high hopes Newsom would end the trend of temporary pay cuts and givebacks, as shown by the campaign contributions he gained in 2018.

It didn’t work out that way.

Here’s a look at some of the issues that led the state’s largest public employee union to break with Newsom and put him on the spot with its first statewide strike.

Money, money, money

California state government spending surged during the Newsom administration, climbing from $201.4 billion in the 2018-19 financial year to $321 billion in Newsom’s 2025-26 budget. That’s a 59% increase.

Payroll is up, too, but at a slower rate. Compensation for state workers hit $25.2 billion in 2025, about 32% more than 2019.

To be sure, Newsom gave bonuses to many public employees — especially prison staff — when the state was flush with money just after the pandemic. But he’s been thriftier with wage increases. They topped out 3% in most contracts.

Meanwhile, Newsom at two key moments pressed public employees to accept pay cuts. The first happened in the panic of the early pandemic when the governor braced for a severe recession. Unions agreed to wage cuts of roughly 9% and in exchange workers received days off that they could save and bank for later.

The second wage cut happened in 2025 when the governor sought to close a severe budget deficit. Most unions, including Local 1000, again accepted deals for two years of wage reductions in exchange for days off. They also agreed to defer raises until next year.

One union did not accept those terms, the California Association of Professional Scientists. The scientist union was the first to strike against Newsom, holding a three-day walkout in 2023. It viewed the contract it negotiated in 2024 as critical, and it didn’t want to give up its raises when Newsom asked.

But, just before an agreed-upon raise was supposed to take effect last summer, it learned that the state budget didn’t include money for the wage increase.

The conflict again angered public employees who expected a pay boost. The union appealed to state lawmakers, who funded the raises in a follow-on spending bill.

“We negotiated that collective bargaining agreement in good faith and believe a deal is a deal,” said the union’s vice president, Justin Garcia.

Working from home

California government changed overnight during the pandemic, when Newsom ordered employees to work from home unless the nature of their job required them to report to a prison or state hospital. That was a major cultural adjustment for a bureaucracy known for time cards, rigid schedules and a refusal to pay for workers’ office parking.

The Newsom administration commended workers for making the change and it publicized a dashboard that showed state employees were just as efficient at home as they were in the office.

But as time passed Newsom said he grew concerned that remote work stifled the in-person collaboration that he argued was important for a successful organization. He called employees back to the office two days a week in 2024, and four days a week beginning last summer.

Many state workers want more flexibility. They point to a 2025 state audit that found the state could save $225 million a year by allowing more remote work.

Retirement plans diverge

State workers hired before 2013 have a better retirement deal than public employees who joined since then. That issue is not front-and-center in the Local 1000 strike, but it’s bubbling up as newer workers learn about their colleagues’ benefits.

Former Gov. Brown championed the law that trimmed pension benefits. It came out of the Great Recession, which caused California’s major pension funds to hemorrhage billions of dollars and highlighted a generous pension enhancement that former Gov. Gray Davis had signed into law a dozen years earlier.

Now, public employees work longer and pay more of their own income toward their pensions. Newsom last month vetoed a bill that would have sweetened retirement formulas for police and firefighters, a proposal that likely will return to Newsom’s successor in the near future.

“What people thought before was a cush state job because we had good retirement, the ability to retire with a pension, that does not look the same to people who came after 2013,” said Walls, the Local 1000 president.

Where else can they go?

Local 1000 and other state government unions might be frustrated with Newsom, but they tend to get a better hearing from Democrats than Republicans. Schwarzenegger, after all, championed four failed ballot measures that would have stripped them of their power and influence.

“They (unions) have to make converts in the church in which they worship,” said Don Perata, a union-aligned Democrat and former Senate president pro tem who battled with Schwarzenegger.

He praised Local 1000 members for carrying state government through the pandemic and for taking on difficult jobs to serve Californians. He recognized governors and lawmakers have to pass balanced budgets, and said that means they should be more careful in running up the cost of programs that might eat away at funding that could be used to pay public employees better.

“It’s past time to show there’s recognition and not just by blowing smoke at them,” Perata said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Two upcoming events at Long Beach City College will give Long Beach residents the chance to stockpile sandbags in advance of what is expected to be a particularly strong El Niño season.

On Saturday, Oct. 24, residents can pick up sandbags for free at the LBCC Trades, Technology and Community Learning Campus (1305 E Pacific Coast Highway). A second distribution will be held on Saturday, Nov. 7, in Lot M of the Liberal Arts College (4901 E. Carson St.). Each event runs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and community members will be able to drive up to the distribution sites, where staff will help them fill their cars with up to 10 sandbags. IDs will not be required to receive sand and sandbags.

At a recent press conference amid the waves fueled by Tropical Storm Rachel, Mayor Rex Richardson emphasized that residents all across Long Beach will likely feel the effects of storms and flooding this El Niño season.

“Do not be caught off guard,” he said. “Prepare right now.”

The Peninsula has already endured catastrophic damage — a dozen families lost their homes in the punishing waves of the most recent storm. Yet even if residents can’t see the ocean from their windows, experts predict the greater Long Beach area will see bursts of drenching rain carried by atmospheric rivers, large bands of water vapor. In turn, those rainstorms raise the risk of flash flooding, landslides and high tides.

Some of these effects will not be limited to the coast. Low-lying areas throughout Long Beach are especially susceptible to flooding, according to a city press release.

Richardson urged city residents to pick up sandbags before they need them — and to keep them throughout the rainy season, which typically lasts from December through March.

In addition to the upcoming distribution events, residents can also pick up empty sandbags at all neighborhood fire stations. (Station locations are available here.) Sand is available at stations 7, 12, 13 and 14, and residents are encouraged to bring shovels to fill sandbags themselves.

City officials encouraged community members to stay informed during the rainy season by signing up for Alert Long Beach and checking the city’s landing page for emergency updates. City Manager Tom Modica urged residents to take steps to fortify their properties, gather emergency supplies and develop plans for emergency weather.

Find additional resources on how to prepare for and navigate El Niño here.