Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Alberto Carvalho said district guidelines “failed to work adequately” last week during L.A. County’s fire emergency, leading to a last-minute decision to expand school closures.
Carvalho’s response comes amid criticism and calls for his removal for not shutting down campuses sooner and leaving parents and educators scrambling, largely in eastern and central parts of the district.
In a press release on Wednesday, Parents Supporting Teachers, a parent education advocacy group made up of 30,000 parents, students and teachers, argued that the district’s response to the wildfire tragedies that have polluted skies with smoke since Jan. 8 was mishandled.
“Campuses were opened with trees down, no power and with half of their staff available to students. Early closures that were announced haphazardly created a chaotic and dangerous scramble for families and staff,” the letter read.
Most schools reopened on Monday after all campuses were shut down last week on Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday, the day after fires broke out, officials announced more than 200 schools would shut down after classes were already in session.
At an L.A. School board meeting Tuesday, Carvalho explained the district acted based on 2021 guidelines for major fires.
“This guide…I am going to admit up front, failed to work adequately considering the conditions that our community was experiencing … This guide actually contemplated a single event,” Carvalho said. He explained the current guidelines don’t account for multiple fires burning simultaneously.
Carvalho added that while the guide gives instructions to follow air quality dashboards, those were “inconsistent with what I was seeing and breathing” last Wednesday, forcing the district to close additional schools.
“We know this was a burden, that this was after our committed workforce had already began traveling, arrived in school, and in some instances, students in schools impacted by this secondary shutdown. But we felt that based on what we knew that we didn’t know hours earlier, that we needed to do it,” Carvalho said.
Carl Peterson, a member of Parents Supporting Teachers, spoke during public comment at the School Board’s Wednesday meeting. He blasted the district’s scrambled handling of its response to school closures and a lack of transparency regarding Carvalho’s evaluation, which happened during a closed session after public comment was held.
“During yesterday’s board meeting the district’s labor partners pulled no punches as they criticized him for the breakdown in leadership during the ongoing crisis,” Peterson said. “The public should know if the board accounts for these criticisms as they evaluate the superintendent.”
In its statement, the group also cited what it called “fiscal mismanagement” under Carvalho, and a lack of transparency over a 2024 data breach.
Before Carvalho announced the decision to close all LAUSD schools, unions representing more than 74,000 district workers condemned the superintendent for not closing all schools sooner in a letter declaring it unacceptable “that the nation’s second-largest school district has demonstrated a delayed and inadequate response to this crisis.”
Educators also urged for their schools to be cleaned before reopening, and highlighted the need for a clear evacuation plan for all district schools to follow in future emergencies. District officials said 3,000 employees, plus additional temporary staff, worked through the weekend to prepare campuses for staff and students this week.
A spokesperson from the district could not immediately comment on the matter.
Boyle Heights Beat youth mentor and freelance reporter Alejandra Molina contributed to this story.
Yes! A close family member is a young female teacher that headed to the school that morning. At a stop light on the way, billows of dark smoke was ahead. She turned around and headed home. Calling the school office for an update, she was told the school was open and she would have to use a sick day if not coming in. Too hours later at 9am, the schools closed early. WTF Caravalho! Unless it’s a good photo op, he is out and about business! Does nothing and the budget should be investigated on where the funds go. #AlbertoCaravalhoNeedsToGo
I’m an LAUSD teacher and not a huge Carvalho fan, but this is a little ridiculous. Being the superintendent of a district the size of Los Angeles means you will be criticized no matter what you do. He realized that many schools needed to close and he shut them down. Should it have happened Tuesday night? Probably, but the rate at which the fires escalated was unprecedented. Calls for Carvalho to go should be about the damage he has done to morale throughout the district.