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This year, the LAist education team also reflected on what we learned about students, educators, schools, and the systems that support them.
Some lessons:
Every year we look back on the important stories of the past 12 months — and look ahead to the stories in the new year.
This year, the LAist education team also reflected on what we learned about students, educators, schools, and the systems that support them.
The foundation for learning is built before children step into a classroom. Events that happen even before birth can change the trajectory of their lives.
In January 2023, mom-to-be April Valentine, a Black woman, died during childbirth at Centinela Hospital. State investigators said the hospital failed to take steps that could have prevented her death. The California Department of Public Health fined the hospital, but this doesn’t change the negative experiences Black people often face when giving birth.
This same year, a report from the California Department of Public Health found that more than 40% of Black birthing people in the state lived in neighborhoods with low access to health care. Infant mortality also ticked up in California.
What does give hope is that many people on the ground are actively working on solutions. One example is this year’s California Black Birth Equity summit, where close to 500 people discussed many ideas, like how to train medical professionals and get better access to doulas.
And parents with older children face problems too: It feels like it’s just normal for our early education system to be the way it is — expensive, low paid, complicated.
And yet, other cities and states do things differently.
For example, New Mexico has a right to child care written into its state constitution. And the U.S. Department of Defense has a child care program that many see as a model for what’s possible.
We’re hoping to see more solutions in 2024.
—Stefanie Ritoper, early childhood engagement producer
I started on the K-12 education beat this summer and quickly realized that as only one reporter in a region where more than 4.2 million kids live, I cannot tell every story, but I can choose to focus on communities that have often been underrepresented and need more support to grow and learn.
The strike that shut down Los Angeles Unified schools for three days in March collided so many issues together — pandemic academic recovery, child care, the needs of the most vulnerable students and of course, labor. Ultimately school support staff, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and classroom assistants reached a deal with the district to increase salaries 30% and provide health care to more members.
I spent much of my time talking to families of students with disabilities. Sometimes these students work with multiple people during the school day, from aides to speech language pathologists. San Fernando Valley mom Kathy L. said none of this support was available during the strike.
“It's a public school system, and my daughter is part of the public, and I would like them to treat her like she was a valued member of this school system,” she said.
Next year, I want to keep exploring how what happens outside of the classroom can have a profound effect on learning.
I talked to Pasadena mom Anne Marie Molina while reporting on the ongoing impact of the pandemic. She told me about how she waited almost a year for her son, who has autism, to be connected with a therapist — but also how he’s flourished after getting access to specialized swimming lessons.
“He's building up his self esteem to try different things that he's uncomfortable with,” Molina said. “He's really shooting for the stars. It does make me extremely proud.”
—Mariana Dale, K-12 education senior reporter
What I’ve learned time and again is that community colleges are a lot more than pathways to a university, though that is an important part of what they do.
Community colleges are also a place to learn a trade, launch a career change, or simply learn something new. One of our colleagues at CalMatters, for instance, recently wrote about an 80-year-old woman who’s taking English classes. She’s doing this in part to hone her skills, but also because the classes give her a chance to socialize and not feel alone. Community colleges also address a lot of basic needs, like access to food and transportation.
This is also why access to this kind of education is a priority for state and higher education leaders.
Across the state, community colleges have worked hard to attract more students, and this past academic year was the first to see wide-ranging enrollment gains since the pandemic began. Colleges have paid for billboards and bus ads, and set up call centers to reach out to those who quit. School representatives have also held information sessions just about everywhere, from local churches to farm fields.
—Julia Barajas, community colleges reporter
Southern California’s public colleges and universities continue to be important intellectual, economic, and cultural engines for the region. There’s a lot of change underway in response to demographic, economic, and political forces. All this affects students for better and for worse — and still, students keep pushing ahead to graduation. There’s a lot of resilience out there.
Graduate students and postdocs at University of California campuses received pay increases in 2022 after a major strike. A year later faculty and students say the strike changed working relationships on their campuses, although others say things have been just fine.
And the California State University campuses are working to give Black students and Latino students, and low-income students greater connection to their schools. At Cal State LA, “belongingness” coordinators in English and math classes support students, and instructors are advised on ways to help first-year students persevere through challenges on and off campus.
This past spring’s graduation ceremonies included many students concerned about turmoil in the job market, such as students who closely watched the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes. These acting school graduates sought out independent work, founded theater groups, and started doing voiceover jobs.
Universities haven’t been immune from sexual assault in society at large. Students say policies to prevent attacks and hold those who assault to account are not enough. Some colleges have hired “assault advocates” to help people who’ve been hurt navigate the procedural and emotional hurdles, all to help students stay in school.
This year I’ve learned from speaking to college students that there are so many paths to success and that the most rewarding one, students say, is the path that is left behind to help the next person reach that graduation day.
—Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, higher education correspondent
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Angelenos took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles and Westwood on Saturday in response to the U.S.-Israeli military strikes in Iran.
Details: Local demonstrations protesting U.S. intervention took place outside City Hall in downtown Los Angeles, as well as in Ventura and Orange counties. In Westwood, Iranian Americans gathered to celebrate the strikes. More demonstrations are planned for today and tomorrow.
Read on to see photos from Saturday's demonstrations.
Angelenos took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles and Westwood on Saturday in response to the U.S.-Israeli military strikes in Iran.
A coalition of organizations, including the National Iranian American Council, the ANSWER coalition and 50501, held protests nationwide in reaction.
Local demonstrations took place outside City Hall in downtown Los Angeles, as well as in Ventura and Orange counties.
In Westwood, Iranian Americans gathered to celebrate the strikes. More demonstrations are planned for today and tomorrow.
Here are photos from Saturday.
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Utility boxes are a popular canvas for public art, but a Los Angeles street artist has taken the idea further — transforming one into a miniature theater.
Why now: Since S.C. Mero installed the box theater just a few weeks ago, dozens of performers have already reached out and begun using the space, ranging from poets to musicians and clowns.
The backstory: Mero often transforms overlooked street fixtures into pieces about urban life. A previous installation at the same corner — an oversized mailbox symbolizing the elusiveness of homeownership — stood for about five years.
Walk through cities around the world and it's easy to spot the trend: utility boxes painted and transformed into public art to spiff up neighborhoods.
In downtown Los Angeles, street artist S.C. Mero has taken the idea of the utility box as art in a different direction with one she’s installed in the Arts District.
“Would you like me to open it up and you can see?” she asked on a recent morning.
At first glance, it looks like an ordinary electrical cabinet — gray, about the size of a refrigerator, with slotted vents. But instead of the usual fire-resistant metal, this one is made of wood with a faux concrete base.
Mero spins two combination locks and pulls open the door.
Inside, instead of a tangle of cables and cords, red crushed velvet covers the walls from top to bottom.
A gilded clock and gold-framed pictures of two other electrical boxes (“possibly its mother, and its great-grandfather”) adorn the tiny interior, inspired by one of downtown’s oldest and grandest movie palaces, the Los Angeles Theatre.
“The first time I went into that theater, the feeling that I had, I wanted people to have a similar feeling when they opened this up,” she said.
Like the theater, the box is meant to bring audiences together. Mero invites performers to step inside, and since its installation a few weeks ago, some 30 poets, magicians, puppeteers and clowns have reached out about using the space.
Many are female artists.
“Maybe it's because of the scale of it, they feel like they can actually have a chance to get inside,” Mero said.
The box theater sits on the 800 block of Traction Avenue, across the street from the historic American Hotel, an early hub for artists in the neighborhood.
Jesse Easter, the hotel’s night manager, has a front-row seat to the box theater performances.
“The Arts District is still alive,” he proclaims.
Easter first arrived in the neighborhood in the 1980s, a blues and rock musician who also professionally installed art.
He said the Arts District has long been known for unconventional public art. Famously, in 1982, artist Dustin Shuler pinned a Cessna airplane to the side of the American Hotel with a 20-foot-long nail.
“I was one of the people that was in the hotel that saw the room that the nail came down into, went through the brick wall, into the floor and stopped,” Easter recalls.
Easter says Mero’s installations boldly continue that tradition of guerrilla street art in the neighborhood.
After graduating from USC in 2011, she started to make sculptural works with overlooked street fixtures, exploring issues such as addiction and homelessness.
Before the theater box, Mero installed an oversized mailbox at the same corner, towering over passersby, symbolizing a housing market that remains out of reach for many Angelenos.
Elsewhere in the Arts District on Rose Street, she has installed a 13-foot-tall parking meter sculpture, commentary on the overwhelming nature of parking in the city.
The box theater is perhaps the piece that has invited the most participation.
Last week, Mero asked Easter and other local artists to perform there. He played a blues song he wrote more than 40 years ago when he first moved to the Arts District.
“It was sunset, and I was thinking, this kind of is the bookend,” he said.
Other participants performed spoken word poetry and played saxophone.
One performer, Mike Cuevas, discovered the theater by accident.
An Uber driver, Cuevas was waiting for his next delivery order by the box theater as it was being prepped ahead of the night’s performance.
Mero recalls him getting out of his car to look at what she was doing.
“He's like, what's going on here? This looks so cool,” Mero said. “He said as he's driving throughout the city, in between his rides, he writes poetry.”
Cuevas, who goes by the pen name Octane 543(12), left to make a delivery in East L.A., but he said “something in his heart” told him to return that evening.
After watching others perform, he stepped up to the box and read his poetry in public for the first time, a piece about Latino pride.
“Another generation will pass through,” he recited. “And they'll understand why we honor with proud delight, the continuous fight for the history of our brothers and sisters.”
Cuevas didn’t know Mero by name or anything about her work, but thanked her for giving him a venue.
“I just felt something beautiful with her art,” Cuevas said. “It's time for me to start expressing myself. She inspired me to do exactly what she's doing, but through poetry.”
He now plans to read again at an open mic in downtown L.A. next week.
Mero says the project has spoken to her personally, too. Growing up in Minnesota, she loved art as a child but later focused on playing lacrosse and hockey. At USC, she studied public relations.
“Once I started getting so into art, everyone was kind of shocked,” Mero said. “That's why I really want to encourage people to go inside themselves and see what's there, because you never know.”
Mero is hoping for a long run for the box theater. Its predecessor, the supersize mailbox, stayed up for five years, only toppled, she heard, after skateboarders accidentally ran into it.
In the meantime, the small theater sits unassumingly on the sidewalk waiting for its next performer, its exterior starting to collect graffiti like any other utility box.
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A total lunar eclipse is happening this Tuesday. That's when the earth will move directly between the sun and moon, casting a “blood” red color onto the moon.
What: It's going to be the first lunar eclipse of the year. The process is slated to start around midnight and last until dawn on Tuesday. It’s called the “Blood Moon” because of the red hue the earth’s atmosphere refracts onto the lunar surface as light from the sun passes through it.
When: Although the eclipse begins around midnight, it won’t reach totality until 3:04 a.m., at which point it will be visible to the naked eye for about an hour. All of Southern California should be able to see it.
How else can I watch: The Griffith Observatory will be hosting a live virtual broadcast of the celestial event from midnight to dawn.
What's next: This isn’t the only lunar eclipse happening this year, but it is the only “total eclipse,” according to NASA. Another one is set to occur in August, but it will only be partially visible in North America. A solar eclipse will occur Aug. 12.
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With warm — relative to Alaska — spring waters, migratory rest-stops and great feeding grounds, Los Angeles County’s coast is considered part of the “Blue Highway,” a crucial whale migration corridor and one of the best places to spot the gentle giants.
What might you see? Cetacean species you may spot in our waters include humpback whales, orcas, blue whales and dolphins. Your best chance, however, is spotting a gray whale. As school-bus-sized gray whales migrate back and forth between Alaska and Baja, they consistently hug LA’s coastline.
Read on ... for tips on where and how to spot whales near you.
It’s whale watching season, which always makes me think of the novel Moby-Dick.
In the book, Captain Ahab chased a whale for vengeance. I recently chased whales off the coast of Los Angeles, but in my case, it was in pursuit of the beauty and majesty of the natural world.
With warm — relative to Alaska — spring waters, migratory rest-stops and great feeding grounds, Los Angeles County’s coast is considered part of the “Blue Highway,” a crucial whale migration corridor and one of the best places to spot the gentle giants.
According to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium program director Jim DiPompei, many whales can be seen right in our backyard.
“There’s a little over 90 species of cetaceans (marine mammals) in the world, and we see about 30% of the species we could possibly see here in Southern California,” DiPompei told The LA Local.
Cetacean species you may spot in our waters include humpback whales, orcas, blue whales and dolphins. Your best chance, however, is spotting a gray whale. As school bus-sized gray whales migrate back and forth between Alaska and Baja, they consistently hug LA’s coastline.
But where should you go to actually get a good look at whales? Don’t worry — I got you. Here’s The LA Local guide to cruising the Blue Highway.
Point Vicente Interpretive Center
31501 Palos Verdes Drive West, Rancho Palos Verdes
Free, laid-back, on the mountains!
At the Point Vicente Interpretive Center in Rancho Palos Verdes, you’ll find an overlook dedicated to whale watching. While this is a great free spot for amateurs to come and look out for whales, this is no playground. Professionals conduct the annual whale census here, tracking the migration of whales.
This is a great place to bring a picnic basket and some binoculars to relax while scanning the ocean. Even if you don’t spot any whale action, you can visit the free natural history museum inside, which focuses on the region and its most famous inhabitants: whales. Afterward, step outside and chat with a museum docent accompanying the census watch.
If you want to see whales, stick to the coastal canyons. Canyons aren’t just massive structures above water — they are also mountains beneath the surface, offering depth, cold water and nutrients that attract food for whales. Gray whales tend to follow the canyons to stay away from the dangerous orcas.
Whale watching season typically runs from December through May. It peaks from January to March.
When looking for a whale, try to spot their water mist blowing above the water. Gray whales typically surface for air every five minutes. When they do, they’ll blow out a water mist — that’s your chance to spot and track them until they surface again.
If you want to get eye-to-eye and really feel a cetacean’s scale, there are plenty of whale-watching cruises. They typically depart from Marina Del Rey, Redondo Beach, Long Beach, San Pedro, Dana Point and almost anywhere with a port.
Many cruises have a naturalist on board to answer questions and provide expert context to ocean wildlife.
On my tour departing from Long Beach, we saw five gray whales and a swarm of common dolphins feeding.
But be warned: If you get seasick easily, this trip might not be for you. On our two-and-half-hour trip, the boat rocked emphatically as we approached feeding sites. It’s fun if you can imagine yourself on a see-saw, but it might not be that enjoyable if that sounds nauseating.
While boat captains are not allowed to approach the whales too closely due to environmental protections, the whales can approach the boat if they choose. Sometimes the whales seem curious and watch us in return — it’s up to them and how they are feeling.
Cabrillo Marine Aquarium
3720 Stephen M. White Drive, San Pedro
If you really catch the whale-watching bug, you’re in luck.
At the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, they offer a whale-watching naturalist program where you can volunteer and train to be a naturalist on board whale-watching cruises.
DiPompei said they train anyone over the age of 18 “who’s interested in learning about whales and volunteering their time to be on these whale-watching boats to talk to the general public and to talk to students.”
This program was started in the 1970s by John Olge, one of the founders of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, with an emphasis on education and showing schoolchildren the beauty of our natural world.
The aquarium is also a great place to introduce whales to children. With kid-sized exhibits and educational programs throughout the year, it’s an ideal way to show young ones just how big and beautiful our oceans are.
