The Brief

On Friday, Sept. 15, Atwater Avenue Elementary school parents and students learned that three teachers could have to leave the school more than a month into the academic year.

The shuffling was a result of “Norm Day,” a longstanding student tallying practice that’s rankled parents and educators for decades.

“I'm a huge supporter and proponent of my kids going to public school, but frankly policies like Norm Day make the public school system in L.A. feel a bit unstable,” said Daniel Addelson, who has two children at the Atwater Village school.

If a school has fewer students enrolled than previously expected, teachers can be displaced and classes are re-arranged.

“Norm Day strikes fear in the heart of administrators,” said LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson, a former middle school principal at L.A. schools for more than a decade. He now represents the West San Fernando Valley and North Hollywood.

LAUSD has yet to provide the district-wide totals from this year’s Norm Day count, though the results have reshaped some schools over the last few months.

But as Atwater Avenue Elementary School families learned, the initial consequences of the Norm Day count are not always final. The district can retain teachers even when their enrollment falls below expected levels.

What is Norm Day?

The way schools count students is deceptively complicated and has tangible consequences.

California funds schools based on how many students, on average, show up in the classroom each day. This calculation is called average daily enrollment.

“The school has to have a seat for every child who's enrolled whether they're paid for it or not,” said USC education professor Lawrence Picus. “It seems that we have a responsibility to ensure they have enough money to do that.”

Every year, the Los Angeles Unified School District estimates how many students will show up at its more than a thousand schools when the academic year starts in August. Those estimates are the basis for how many administrators, educators, and other staff each school employs.

California’s education code, the teacher’s union contract, and district policy influence class size and as a result, how many educators are hired. There are financial penalties for schools that exceed the maximum class sizes defined in the education code.

Class size is also shaped by other factors, including whether the school has predominantly students of color, the types of programs offered and grade level. For example, California requires one adult for every 12 students in transitional kindergarten classes.

LAUSD recalibrates its enrollment on the fifth Friday of the school year, Norm Day. This year it was Sept. 15. Other districts, including Long Beach and San Bernardino City, typically adjust their staffing earlier in the school year.

An LAUSD district spokesperson wrote in a statement that “five weeks allows schools sufficient time to enroll students for an optimal capture.”

Though that explanation eludes even longtime educators like Schmerelson, who told LAist in October that he couldn’t explain the Norm Day timing — “I don't know the answer and I won't make one up,” Schmerelson said.

School districts also report their enrollment to the California Department of Education on “Census Day”— the first Wednesday in October. If they overestimated their enrollment, that means they’ll have more staff than they have funding for — which means layoffs or reassignments.

Ahead of the Norm Day count, some schools scramble to enroll more children to keep teachers in their classrooms. Just a few students can make the difference between retaining and releasing an educator.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in a statement last year that while “crucial,” Norm Day brings upheaval to some schools.

“The process is not community centric, student centric, or teacher centric,” Carvalho said. “There is a better way to conduct a student count and implement its results in a way that adjusts for the movement of teachers, reflects the ongoing trends of schools and better allocates resources to address community needs prior to the start of a school year.”

A spokesperson wrote in a statement after this story was published that the district is helping schools retain would-be displaced teachers with additional funding, but did not provide details.

The consequences for a school

In early September, a colorful flier posted to Atwater Avenue Elementary’s online message board advertised the school was still enrolling students. The caption was more dire. “We are still UNDER-ENROLLED and at risk of displacing TWO teachers… Please help us by getting the word out.”

On Friday, Sept.15, Principal Jorge Ríos told parents that two teachers would lose their jobs at the school. A third position on the chopping block would be funded with money originally designated for teaching assistants, but two third grade dual-language educators couldn’t be spared.

“At the gates of the front of the school, there's just kid after kid coming out and they were in tears,” Addelson said of that day’s pick-up. “They had lost a teacher and a role model that was important to them.”

One of them was his 8-year-old daughter Eliot who said goodbye to a teacher she described as “really nice” and “really helpful.”

“If there was a problem at recess she would talk about it,” Eliot said. “She would try to, like, resolve it so no one else in the class has that same problem.”

Daniel Addelson's son, Elan, left, and daughter Eliot, right, both attend Atwater Avenue Elementary School's dual-language Spanish program. "It was really just important for us that our kids grow up learning two languages," Addelson said. "We were thrilled that that was in the neighborhood."

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A group of parents spent the weekend brainstorming how to retain their school’s educators.

Neighborhood families advocated for the start of their school’s dual language Spanish program in 2017. Parents also spoke out in 2019 against the displacement of Ríos himself. The administrator ultimately stayed at the school.

“I immediately went into research mode,” said parent Kirstin Eggers. “I went deep into the L.A. Unified paperwork, contracts, and all of this information online.”

Other parents started pleading the school’s case in an online petition, through comments on the superintendent’s social media posts, and by contacting district officials, their school board representative Jackie Goldberg’s office, and journalists.

Parents become advocates for change

Norm Day outcomes have been altered before.

LAUSD gave schools more flexibility in their staffing in 2020 and allowed them to use money from the previous year and a one-time fund to save teaching positions that would have otherwise been cut after Norm Day.

Meanwhile, Addelson's daughter Eliot was assigned a new teacher, who formerly taught second grade, while some of her peers were moved into classes that combined third and fourth grade.

An LAUSD administrator with knowledge of the situation said school and district leaders were already working to mitigate the displacement of teachers when families reached out.

“When we hear from parents we always like to be responsive to them,” the administrator said.

Lori Rosales has three sons, two who currently attend Atwater Avenue Elementary and one recently left to start middle school. Her youngest child temporarily had a different teacher after Norm Day in mid-September.

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Mariana Dale

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But for parents, it was unclear what resources were available to retain beloved educators.

“It was just so hard to, like, work at something and just not feel like anybody was listening to us,” said parent Lori Rosales. The former parent teacher association president stepped in to help coordinate the families’ response.

Ultimately, the Region West Superintendent’s office provided an undisclosed amount of funding to fund one of the third-grade dual language teacher positions and the school funded another according to a district spokesperson.

In her third classroom configuration of the year, Eliot was reunited with her best friend.

“I'm learning a lot more than I learned in second grade,” Eliot said. Her recent homework included practicing spelling words like sharks, carnivores, forward, and arctic.

Her dad, and other parents, are still wary of future disruptions.

“When Eliot goes to fourth grade, I don't want to have to wonder, 'Is she going to lose her teacher five weeks or six weeks into the school year again?” Addelson said.

Eliot scrolls through her third-grade homework. She likes to create dishes like mushroom stew in the video game Minecraft when she has free time on the computer.

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Kirstin Eggers’ son was among the handful of third grade students who remained in a combined fourth grade classroom even after the school restored two teachers.

“I feel like his world got very small,” Eggers said. “And yet he's also overcrowded. It kind of feels like the worst of both worlds right now. I'm trying to be patient, but it's difficult to hear.”

Eggers said the experience has her rethinking how she volunteers her time engaged with her son’s education.

“I feel really ingrained and really interested in the numbers aspect of this and the policy aspect of this,” Eggers said. “That has kind of awakened in me being an extreme advocate.”

Inglewood officials are working on a full rewrite of the city map for the first time in nearly 40 years, laying out how they want the city to grow and change for the next two decades.

Along part of Manchester Boulevard, city planners are setting up an option for developers to rebuild rows of small storefronts with a mix of homes and commercial space. On La Brea Avenue, south of Centinela Avenue, they envision the possibility of dense housing and business blocks as high as six stories.

Jerome Johnson, an Inglewood local, said he’s lived through three decades of change in the city. He recalled watching a “raggedy market” at the corner of La Brea and Centinela make way for the two-story shopping center that’s there today. He said the potential developments around the intersection could be a catch-22.

“There’s a shortage of housing,” Johnson said. “But you don’t want it to turn into New York City.”

It’s all part of the ongoing process for Inglewood’s new general plan, the foundational guide that governs things like what kind of buildings can be built where in the city and how they need to look. A draft land-use plan will go before the Inglewood City Council on Tuesday, then go into the environmental impact review process.

“This is really a historic milestone for the city,” Bernard McCrumby, Inglewood development services director, told The LA Local. 

McCrumby said planners are aiming to open up room for new housing and to revitalize some of the city’s flagging business corridors, without changing the city’s existing residential blocks or sacrificing the grocery stores, barbershops and local restaurants that make neighborhoods tick.

“The stadiums and arenas are here, they’re not going anywhere,” McCrumby said. “Now we can plan around those.”

The last time the city did a full update of its general plan was 1987, when horses were still racing at Hollywood Park and the “Showtime” Lakers were winning championships at the Forum. Edward Vincent Jr., the city’s first Black mayor, had only been in office for four years. 

The city has made intermittent updates to its planning guidelines since then — notably remapping a band of Inglewood along the Metro K line before it opened — but city documents indicate planners spent the past couple years working on a comprehensive rewrite. 

The new update to the general plan could set the city’s direction until 2050.

Planners hope to change some of the city’s commercial corridors into mixed-use zones that allow for housing and businesses alongside each other or even stacked on top of each other.

Those zones could go in place along Century Boulevard and Arbor Vitae Street as well as Manchester, Centinela and La Brea.

The rest of the update, McCrumby said, is aimed at lining the city’s zoning regulations up with state law and the city’s current reality on the ground.

City staff held several community meetings over the last year as they put together the draft and still aren’t done gathering feedback. 

The next year will see at least one more community meeting and a 45-day public review period, according to city documents. McCrumby said that, with the anchor of the land-use map in place, planners will continue to work on the rest of the general plan, targeting final City Council approval of the plan and accompanying environmental impact report next spring.

You can get all the details on the general plan at nextlevelinglewood.com and attend the City Council meeting at 2 p.m. on Tuesday to give a public comment.

We also want to know what you think of the proposed changes. Email isaiah@thelalocal.org with your questions or thoughts.

Students within the Los Angeles Unified School District showed improvements on state reading, math and science standardized tests for a third consecutive year, district authorities announced Tuesday.

Superintendent Andrés Chait revealed the preliminary results at the annual opening-of-schools address at East L.A.’s Garfield High School— his first as the district’s leader since the board appointed him to the job in June.

“ These are not just numbers on a page,” Chait said to an audience that included about 1,000 principals, administrators and district supporters. “They are the result of your passion, your persistence, your belief in what students can achieve. These are collective accomplishments.

"They reflect the dedication, skill, and commitment of our entire community,” he said.

Jai Gant-Leau, principal of Eagle Tree Continuation High School, said the “back-to-basics” focus of Chait’s speech was a welcome departure from the tone of recent opening addresses.

“We will continue to rise for the outcomes and expectations for the success of our students. That's the message I got,” Gant-Leau said. “Very different than the others where it was a lot of… bells and whistles.”

Why it matters

Student achievement, as measured by test scores, plummeted during the pandemic. Los Angeles Unified’s growth in 2025 outpaced the state, as test scores exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

This year the percentage of students in all grades who met or exceeded the standard are 39.7% for math, 48.3% for English and 32.1% for science. It’s unclear how this compares to students statewide because those results have yet to be released.

Challenges ahead

Chait also acknowledged the challenges posed by declining enrollment, community fears of immigration enforcement actions and proposed budget cuts.

 “The decisions will be hard, but we cannot lose sight of what defines us,” Chait said. “We are the system that lifts students to opportunity, turns potential into achievement, creates spaces of belonging, healing, growth.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

We hope you’ve gotten used to the hot weather, because it’s going to be here for a while.

The National Weather Service has issued yet another heat advisory for much of Southern California, less than a week after other high-temperature warnings were lifted.

This week’s advisory will be in place from 10 a.m. Wednesday through Monday. Forecasters expect temperatures to climb steadily over the course of Wednesday and Thursday.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas in L.A., as well as Riverside and San Bernardino counties, will likely see highs ranging from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Areas closer to the coast, including downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange County, will hit the 90s. Beaches will hover mostly in the upper 70s.

Humidity will also add to the discomfort. Even though it’s decreasing slightly, it makes cooling down harder, especially at night.

People who work outdoors or do not have air conditioning are especially at risk from the heat and humidity, along with people over 65, young children and other sensitive populations.

Fire risk

Forecasters are warning that conditions are ripe for fires, driven by a combination of wind and dry vegetation.

Southern California hasn’t seen much rain recently, despite the humidity, leaving plants with little moisture and turning them into the perfect fuel.

“Even though the air feels kind of moist, we're in the time of season where it doesn't matter. The fuels are dry and they're ready to go,” said NWS meteorologist Ryan Kittell.

Kittel said people should take extra care with anything that could create a spark, and residents in fire-prone areas should remain aware of their surroundings in case a fire starts.

The fire risk is likely to be concentrated in a few specific areas that will experience higher winds than others, including parts of the 5 Freeway corridor in northern L.A. County, especially around the Grapevine, and in southern Santa Barbara County.

For most of the region, though, winds should stay fairly mild.

Dangerous beach conditions

Southern Californians also have to contend with some ocean-specific risks this week.

Forecasters expect dangerously large waves and strong rip currents to hit the coastline at a time when the heat may drive more people to the beach. The conditions are expected to persist through the weekend.

If you decide to head to the beach, it’s a good idea to ask a lifeguard for advice on the conditions before entering the water. It’s also recommended to swim only near occupied lifeguard stands, stay off of rock jetties and avoid turning your back to the waves.

South-facing stretches of coastline will bear the brunt of the swell, which is being driven by two tropical storms churning hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Ocean.

“Those two systems generated the winds and the waves locally that are pushing towards us, and so that's creating elevated surf and some stronger currents than normal,” Kittel said.

The swell is not expected to cause significant coastal flooding as high tides remain relatively low.