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Dear friends and partners,
As we adjust to a tough new reality of staying home, I know how difficult these past few weeks have been for you and your families. We’re all thinking about loved ones across the country and world, juggling work and other demands alongside our families now being home all day, and debating in our households which outings are really essential.
But our work continues. The district’s Grab and Go food centers served over a million meals to students and families in one week—more than any food bank in the nation, and we’ve added partners to our distribution including World Central Kitchen, Snap, Inc, Mattel, and Baby2Baby. We just announced an emergency investment of $100 million to bridge the digital divide with devices, internet access, and training to ensure that students can continue to learn while schools are closed, now through May 1. And we are starting to get structured, consistent plans up and running to keep kids learning, support students with special needs, and help parents navigate this new normal for the foreseeable future.
Thank you all for the outpouring of support, patience, and partnership as we do everything in our power to meet the needs of our families. This hasn’t been easy and we will continue to have bumps in the road, but I’m grateful to all of our parents, teachers, employees, and partners without whom none of this would be possible.
We’re all in this together, apart.
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Meeting the needs of our school communities
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The digital divide is leaving our highest need families disconnected: Check out my op-ed for more about the importance of bridging the digital divide with free, universal internet access for all families across Los Angeles. In 2020, WiFi is a necessity, not a luxury—and this crisis has elucidated existing connectivity inequities and the need to fix them.
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You can also donate here to help families with the basics, like rent, food, and childcare.
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Adapting to keep our kids learning
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School leaders, teachers, and staff are working tirelessly to get structured plans in place to keep kids learning at home. Thank you to everyone for your incredible efforts and creative solutions to make distance learning possible in this unprecedented moment.
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School Spotlight: STEM Academy steps up for healthcare heroes
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As it became clear last week that our local hospitals were running out of PPE and our critical healthcare workers on the frontlines were rationing and re-using masks, gloves, and gowns to treat patients—we reached out to see if any of our schools had anything to donate. Thank you to the awesome team at STEM Academy of Hollywood for answering this call and donating hundreds of PPE supplies from their medical simulation center to help Kaiser Permanente's critical efforts under unthinkable circumstances.
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Keeping our families updated and informed
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All Grab and Go centers are open M-F 7a-11a. You can find all the site from LAUSD and our charter partners (all serving all families) here. 👇🏼
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Check out these resources for information on:
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Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily updates on L.A. Unified, Board District 4, education news, and much more:
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