By Anna Bauer

Reyna Frias worries about her kids. One of her sons is in special education, and both of her sons are English learners and low income students. Like many other parents with children enrolled in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) schools, she wants to ensure that her children are receiving the best possible education, particularly when they face significant challenges and need additional services to keep up with their classmates.

So when Ms. Frias heard that state lawmakers enacted the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), a new law that provides more funding to California school districts that serve high-need students, she hoped it would bring much needed relief to her school and two children. She grew even more encouraged when she learned that the law is intended to increase and improve services for English learners, students in foster care and low income students.

But nearly two years since Governor Jerry Brown signed the law into effect, Ms. Frias has seen little improvement in the services being provided to her children and is growing frustrated. “My youngest child needs help learning English, but he isn’t really getting the help he needs. As a mother, I feel frustrated to see my son . . . ,” said Ms. Frias, her voice trailing off.

Enacted in July, 2013, LCFF was meant to reapportion California’s education funds to high need students, who include Ms. Frias’s two children and make up 84 percent of LAUSD’s enrollment.

Unfortunately, many students, including Ms. Frias’ 8-year-old, are not receiving the help he needs because LAUSD manipulated a budget calculation to reduce its obligation to add new or better services for high-need students, including English-learners, over time.

LAUSD counted nearly a half billion dollars in pre-LCFF spending on special education services as part of its baseline estimate of services it was providing to high-need students. By inflating its starting point, LAUSD reduced its obligation to increase or improve services for high-need students in the future. LAUSD’s approach is illegal because LCFF is designed to increase or improve services for high-need students in proportion to the amount of new funds those students generate. Before LCFF, LAUSD was already required by federal and state law to provide special education services to all eligible students. And eligibility for special education has nothing to do with being a member of one of the three high-need student groups under LCFF.

So LAUSD is taking credit for something it already had to do. The manipulation deprived high need students of $126 million for improved services funding for the 2014-15 school year and $288 million for the upcoming school year. At this rate, LAUSD will take more than $2 billion from high need students like Ms. Frias’s two children by 2021.

The ACLU Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal), along with Public Advocates and Covington & Burling LLP, sued LAUSD on behalf Ms. Frias and the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles for violating this state law.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, asks that the school district be required to invest the appropriate amount of money to develop new or improved services for the high need students targeted under LCFF.

Ms. Frias and other LAUSD parents feel “it is unfair that the state says it is going to provide some help and then the district doesn’t provide it.” She hopes that LAUSD will recalculate their expenditures and rewrite their LCAP so her sons, and the hundreds of thousands of other high need students in Los Angeles, will finally receive the proper amount of supplemental services they have been promised by the new law.

Anna Bauer is an intern with the ACLU of Southern California

The Supreme Court issued a historic ruling on June 26, 2015, granting same-sex couples the freedom to marry throughout the United States. As ACLU client Jim Obergefell and his co-plaintiffs stood triumphantly on the Court’s steps, advocates across the country celebrated this victory and the decades of work that brought it to fruition. From filing the very first lawsuit arguing for the freedom to marry in 1970 to representing Edie Windsor in the case that took down the Defense of Marriage Act to being counsel in 16 other federal marriage equality cases since 2013, the ACLU has been at the forefront of the fight for legal recognition of same-sex relationships.

But our movement does not end with marriage equality. Individuals can still be fired in 28 states solely because of their sexual orientation and in 31 states solely because of their gender identity. LGBTQ youth continue to face discrimination, harassment, and physical violence at school. And all too often, LGBTQ people and people living with HIV/AIDS are unfairly targeted by police and subjected to unconstitutional conditions while in custody. The gay, bisexual and transgender clients we represent who are locked up in San Bernardino County’s “alternative lifestyle tank” serve longer sentences and don’t get work, drug rehab, or educational programs.

We also have much work to do on the rights of parents. For example, some states do not recognize the rights of non-biological parents, even if they were married to or in a domestic partnership with the biological parent when the child was born. As a result, to ensure recognition across the country, non-biological parents must often adopt or get a court judgment in order to secure their parental rights. For more information about the parenting and marriage rights of same-sex couples, please see our updated CA Marriage FAQ. And check out the ACLU’s resource for transgender parents.

Many transgender individuals are still denied fundamental rights and lack access to basic services. They also face disproportionate rates of violence and police profiling. Trans youth experience a host of problems at school, including being “outed” by school staff, being addressed by the wrong name and/or pronoun, or not being able to use appropriate facilities. For example, Gavin, a transgender student in Virginia, is currently being forced to use “alternative private” restroom facilities at his school, which are separate from the communal restrooms that other students use.

Here in California, schools must respect a student’s gender identity and allow transgender students to use facilities and participate in gender-segregated programs in accordance with their gender identity. But transgender students still encounter problems at their schools despite our progressive laws. And to make matters worse, an anti-trans coalition is collecting signatures to get a bathroom policing initiative on the ballot that would require the government to monitor bathrooms and single out people who don’t meet stereotypes of what it looks like to be male or female. Those who don’t answer invasive questions or undergo examination would be prohibited from using the bathroom.

For information about your rights in these situations, be sure to check out our “Know Your Rights” cards for transgender students and for transgender individuals using public restrooms.
Though we have come a long way since that first marriage equality case in 1970, we still have a ways to go before LGBTQ individuals can be considered full and equal members of society. The ACLU will continue to lead this charge and “stand for justice” for everyone.

Melissa Goodman is director of the LGBTQ, Gender & Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU of Southern California. Christine Parker is an intern with the LGBTQ, Gender & Reproductive Justice Project.