Superintendent Alberto Carvalho recently appeared on Eyewitness Newsmakers. He said staff members are trained in what to do, and says if approached by anyone without a signed judicial warrant, LAUSD also does not provide information about the immigration status of students or parents, citing federal law that protects their confidentiality rights.
"We've added additional bus routes to provide safe passage from home to the school, based on request. We have partnerships with legal agencies that provide assistance to us in terms of legal representation at no cost to children who may be facing legal issues specific to the immigration status of their parents," Carvalho said.
The first numbers about attendance in LAUSD schools should be released in mid-September.
"Based on what we know, compared to last year, I do expect a decrease in the total enrollment, even though we saw some early signs that were positive," Carvalho said. "Over the past two weeks, our average daily attendance is actually higher than what it was last year, prior to these immigration enforcement actions, but I do believe that we will see that a number of families, for a whole host of reasons, have left our community."
Carvalho went on to say immigration raids are not the entire reason for potential enrollment dips. Some families are choosing to leave Los Angeles due to the cost of living, and other families are having fewer children than in the past.
Funding cuts -- both federal and state -- could have a massive effect on LAUSD.
"I think we could be facing a perfect storm, which is a combination of punitive policies topped by a state economic condition that could result in a cost-of-living adjustment that falls short of expectation, particularly for a place like L.A., where everything is more expensive, accompanied by a series of federal reductions," Carvalho said. "The combination of those factors together, and driven by lower enrollment and daily attendance that could drive down our revenues. That catastrophic perfect storm condition could spell out losses to the level of hundreds of millions of dollars."
However, Carvalho said the district is managing and has created the necessary reserves to absorb the first level of impact. He went on to pledge to do his best to continue free meals at school, noting it's sometimes the only food kids receive in a day, and to avoid laying off staff.