Marking a major step forward, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD's) Board of Education unanimously passed the resolution “Aligning Site-Based Professional Development (PD), Collaboration & Decision-Making in the Community School and Pilot Models” on May 13, 2025. The resolution grants LAUSD community schools decision-making authority over all site-based PD, enabling schools to more intentionally align PD with their unique needs, transformation plans and community school strategies.

The resolution directly responds to concerns surfaced during UNITE-LA-coordinated empathy interviews with community school coordinators and principals in spring 2024. These concerns were further reinforced and elevated by the Empathy Interview Subcommittee’s key priorities and recommendations, presented in winter 2025, also facilitated by UNITE-LA.

Looking ahead, UNITE-LA will launch a PD subcommittee comprised of Community Schools Steering Committee members and external partners in the 2025–26 academic year. The subcommittee will help develop an initiative-wide PD plan aligned with each school’s assets and needs assessment, School Experience Survey results and whole child data. The subcommittee will also identify opportunities to deepen both site- and district-level understanding of community schools through an ongoing, systematic professional learning.

By centering PD in the community school strategy, the resolution lays the groundwork for greater coherence, shared understanding and alignment across school sites and central offices—ensuring that professional learning reinforces the initiative’s long-term goals.

For more information, please reach out to Jenny Vu, Director of Education Systems Strategy, at [email protected].