Black students in Los Angeles County continue to face a multitude of barriers to an equitable education, including concentrated poverty, high suspension rates and housing insecurity, aResearchers focused on 14 school districts in the county that serve at least 800 Black students to understand how various factors are leaving behind Black children, particularly those considered vulnerable.
“The issues have been going on, historically, for decades,” said Stanley L. Johnson, Jr., lead researcher on the study. “Clearly schools can’t do this alone, but a lot of the schools and the particular surrounding areas don’t have the resources with respect to mental health, social work.”Advertisement
Antelope Valley Union High School District, in Lancaster, has seen an increase in Black student enrollment. While districts like L.A. Unified and Compton have seen a decline over the last two decades, the Antelope Valley district gained more than 2,200 Black students. Researchers also identified that in- and out-of-school support for vulnerable Black students — foster youth, those with physical and learning disabilities and those experiencing homelessness — has fallen short in some districts.disabilities are two to 10 times more likely to be suspended than the overall suspension rate in the county across 13 of the 14 school districts.