Bryant Elementary School (Long Beach, California)
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The Long Beach Unified School District is a
school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public Primary school, primary or Secondary school, secondary schools or both in various countries. It is not to be confused with an attendance zone, which is within a school dis ...
headquartered in
Long Beach Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...
, California, United States. Established in 1885, Long Beach Unified School District educates 64,000 students in 84 public schools in the cities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill, Carson, and
Avalon Avalon () is an island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' as a place of magic where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was made and later where Arthur was taken to recove ...
on Catalina Island. The school district is the third largest in California and serves one of the most diverse large cities in the United States. The student population is 59.2 percent Hispanic, 12.2 percent African American, 11.9 percent white, 7.1 percent Asian, 5.4 percent multi-race, 1 percent Pacific Islander and 0.1 percent Native American. About two-thirds of the student population come from lower-income households and qualify for free and reduced price meals. The school district employs more than 8,000 people, making it the largest employer in Long Beach. The district territory includes the vast majority of Long Beach, all of Signal Hill, and portions of Lakewood, as well as Santa Catalina Island, Avalon included. It has no territory in Carson, even though LBUSD operates one school, California Academy of Mathematics and Science, there.


History

Many Long Beach schools were damaged in the 1933 earthquake. This contributed to the passage of the
Field Act The Field Act is a California state law that mandates earthquake-resistant construction for public school buildings. The Field Act was one of the first pieces of legislation in the United States to mandate earthquake-resistant construction, and ha ...
, strengthening the building standards of schools across the state. As of 1993 several parents in the LBUSD boundaries enrolled their children in the
Los Alamitos Unified School District Los Alamitos Unified School District (LAUSD) is a school district in Los Alamitos, Orange County, California. The school district area includes the communities of Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Seal Beach, and Surfside. It also includes portions o ...
day care program so that they could then use LBUSD district transfer rules, stating that parents may enroll their children at a school closest to their daycare provider even if the school is in another school district, to obtain an inter-district transfer from the Los Alamitos district and send their children to Los Alamitos schools. As a result, LBUSD was losing money, because state education funds were paid based on attendance. Horn said "It was never anyone's intention to make the (child-care) program a drawing card from other school districts. It did turn out that way." Gordon Dillow of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' said "Although school officials say they do not track the racial make-up of their inter-district transfer students, the perception has been that many, perhaps most, of the Long Beach-to-Los Alamitos transfer students are Anglo." Whites were a minority in LBUSD, with 26% of the student body, while they were a majority at Los Alamitos USD, with 75% of the student body. In the 1992-1993 school year, 400 students who lived in LBUSD attended Los Alamitos schools because a parent was working at Los Alamitos schools or because of the after school program. Dillow said that while the loss of that number of students from LBUSD, with 76,000 students, "may not seem significant, but it does cause the school district to lose about $4,000 per year for each student in state education funding."Dillow, Gordon. "Schools Fight Flight of Students to Los Alamitos : Education: Day care services in the upscale district drain pupils who later enroll in its elementaries. Long Beach plans to start its own programs--and recapture state funding." ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. August 22, 1993
1
Retrieved on November 1, 2012.
LBUSD began investigating the idea of establishing before and after school programs at its schools so that parents could no longer use the loophole. LBUSD established a new after school program, "Kid's Club." 140 were enrolled in August 1993 and the district expected a total of 300 to be enrolled by the beginning of the school year.Dillow, Gordon. "Schools Fight Flight of Students to Los Alamitos : Education: Day care services in the upscale district drain pupils who later enroll in its elementaries. Long Beach plans to start its own programs--and recapture state funding." ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. August 22, 1993
2
Retrieved on November 1, 2012.
On January 18, 1994, the LBUSD Board of Education voted to require
school uniform A school uniform is a uniform worn by students primarily for a school or otherwise an educational institution. They are common in primary school, primary and secondary schools in various countries and are generally widespread in Africa, Asia, O ...
s in all elementary and middle schools, with the wearing of school uniforms to start in September 1994. The district was the first large urban school district in the United States to require school uniforms. On August 23, 1994, SB 1269 the School Uniform Law was approved by the Governor of California to support schools that adopt a school-wide uniform policy, which also allowed parents to opt out of the policy. At LBUSD, roughly 2% of the students opt out of the uniform policy. Since starting the uniform policy, LBUSD claimed assaults dropped by two-thirds, suspensions dropped by almost a third, vandalism dropped, attendance improved, and test scores increased. President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
mentioned LBUSD's uniform policy in his 1996
State of the Union The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a Joint session of the United States Congress, joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning ...
address. Numerous other large urban districts have now adopted school uniform policies. Some researchers, including David Brunsma of the Sociology Department of
University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...
, have said that the benefits ascribed to the implementation of the LBUSD uniform policy were logically attributable to other factors; such as increased school security, collateral attendance enforcement efforts, and in-class programs designed to bolster sagging test scores. LBUSD now has two high schools,
Woodrow Wilson Classical High School Woodrow Wilson High School (colloquially known as Long Beach Wilson) is an American public high school located in Long Beach, California. This two-block campus is located approximately 1.5 miles from the Pacific Ocean, across from the Recreation ...
, and
Millikan High School Robert A. Millikan Senior High School is a high school in Long Beach, California, United States, administered by the Long Beach Unified School District. It is located near the intersection of Spring Street and Palo Verde Avenue in the Los Alto ...
, that require school uniforms as well. In 1999, Jefferson Leadership Academies became the first public middle school in the United States to convert entirely to single gender classes. Only a few dozen more schools have followed this trend, mostly because of
Title IX Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receiv ...
of the 1972 Education Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded programs. The school has plans to discontinue the program after scheduling conflicts and disappointing test scores. In 2001, there was a movement to form a Lakewood Unified School District. Because students in the city of Lakewood are currently divided between four different school districts (
ABC Unified School District The ABC Unified School District is a school district that is based in Cerritos, California, United States. ABCUSD serves the cities of Artesia, most of Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, the portion of Lakewood east of the San Gabriel River, as ...
, Bellflower Unified School District, Paramount Unified School District and LBUSD), a petition was started. After gathering the required number of petition signatures and an LA County review, the issue went before the
California State Board of Education The California State Board of Education is the governing and policy-making body of the California Department of Education. The State Board of Education sets K-12 education policy in the areas of standards, instructional materials, assessment, an ...
. The board rejected the petition on February 8, 2001 because the board said the proposed district failed to meet four of the state's nine criteria for new district formation. With that setback, the most current plans () are to try to merge those areas of Lakewood served by Paramount into either the Bellflower or Long Beach Unified School Districts.


District awards

LBUSD was the 2003 winner of the $1 million
Broad Prize for Urban Education The Broad Prize for Urban Education recognized school districts in urban areas for closing the achievement gap and improving the academic performance of low-income and minority students. It was sponsored by the foundation of philanthropists Eli Broa ...
. The Broad Prize was the largest education prize in the country awarded to urban school districts. In 2004, LBUSD received a second grant from the Broad Foundation for $1.14 million to continue their efforts to improve the organization of the district's schools using Baldrige strategies. In 2004, the Broad Foundation also awarded 55 Long Beach Unified School District seniors $500,000 in scholarships as Broad Prize Scholars. LBUSD has gone on to receive nominations for the award three more times and once prior to winning (2002, 2006, 2007, 2008).


Unusual schools

Two Harbors Elementary School, at Two Harbors on Catalina Island, was a
one-room school One-room schoolhouses, or One-room schools, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, and Spa ...
. Enrollment in 2005 was 12 students. In 2014, the Two Harbors one-room schoolhouse closed due to low enrollment, and students now go to Avalon School on the other side of the island in
Avalon Avalon () is an island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' as a place of magic where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was made and later where Arthur was taken to recove ...
, which is a 45-minute to 1-hour drive. Previously the district had planned to close the school in fall 2005, but Two Harbors residents and visitors raised enough money to keep the school open.


List of schools


Elementary schools

*Addams Elementary School *Alvarado Elementary School *Barton Elementary School *Birney Elementary School *Bixby Elementary School *Bryant Elementary School *Burbank Elementary School *Burcham Elementary School *Carver Elementary School *Chavez Elementary School *Cleveland Elementary School *Dooley Elementary School *Edison Elementary School *Elizabeth Hudson Elementary School *Emerson Parkside Academy *Fremont Elementary School *Gant Elementary School *Garfield Elementary School *Gompers Elementary School *Grant Elementary School *Harte Elementary School *Henry Dual Immersion School *Herrera Elementary School *Holmes Elementary School *Kettering Elementary School *King Elementary School *Lafayette Elementary School *Lincoln Elementary School *Longfellow Elementary School *Los Cerritos Elementary School *Lowell Elementary School *MacArthur Elementary School *Madison Elementary School *Mann Elementary School *McKinley Elementary School *Naples Bayside Academy *Oropeza Elementary School *Prisk Elementary School *Riley Elementary School *Roosevelt Elementary School *Signal Hill Elementary School *Smith Elementary School *Stevenson Elementary School *Twain Elementary School *Webster Elementary School *Whittier Elementary School *Willard Elementary School


K-8 schools

*Cubberley School *John Muir Academy *Newcomb Academy *Powell Academy *Robinson Academy *Tincher Preparatory School


K-12 schools

* Avalon School in
Avalon Avalon () is an island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' as a place of magic where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was made and later where Arthur was taken to recove ...
on Catalina Island (Divided into elementary, junior high, and high schools, but with a single principal)


Middle schools

*Bancroft Middle School *Franklin Classical Middle School *Hamilton Middle School *Hoover Middle School *Hughes Middle School *Jefferson Leadership Academies *Keller Dual Immersion Middle School *Lindbergh STEM Academy *Lindsey Academy *Marshall Academy of the Arts *Nelson Academy *Rogers Middle School *Stanford Middle School *Stephens Middle School *Washington Middle School


High schools


Comprehensive High Schools

* Cabrillo High School * Jordan High School * Lakewood High School *
Long Beach Polytechnic High School Long Beach Polytechnic High School, founded in 1895 as Long Beach High School, is a four-year public high school located at 1600 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, California, United States. The school serves portions of Long Beach, including Bixby ...
*
Millikan High School Robert A. Millikan Senior High School is a high school in Long Beach, California, United States, administered by the Long Beach Unified School District. It is located near the intersection of Spring Street and Palo Verde Avenue in the Los Alto ...
* Wilson High School


Other high schools

* Beach High School/Long Beach School for Adults *Browning High School * California Academy of Mathematics and Science (CAMS)
CSU Dominguez Hills campus">California State University, Dominguez Hills">CSU Dominguez Hills campus* Renaissance High School for the Arts * Educational Partnership High School (EPHS) * Reid Continuation High School * McBride High School * Sato Academy of Mathematics and Science


Charter schools

* Intellectual Virtues Academy * Clear Passage Educational Center


Other schools

*Buffum Total Learning Center *Tucker Transitional Center *Long Beach School for Adults


Former schools

*Buffum Elementary School : (Converted to Buffum Total Learning Center) *Constellation Community Charter Middle School : (Closed due to low enrollment) *Burroughs Elementary School : (Now used as a District-wide Teacher Resources Center and Head Start Program Offices) *Butler Middle School : (Closed and Students Transferred to Nelson Academy) *Monroe K-8 School : (Now used as Personnel Commission Office) *New City School/Colegio New City : (Closed due to low test scores) *DeMille Middle School : (Closed and Demolished in 2011, campus now houses McBride High School) *Hill Middle School : (Closed in 2016, Campus now houses Sato Academy of Mathematics and Science) *Keller Elementary School : (Converted to Keller Dual Immersion Middle School) *Hi-Hill Outdoor School (informally known as Camp Hi-Hill), formerly a privately owned resort known as Opid's Camp, is located on of land in
Angeles National Forest The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the United States Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in Southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabri ...
in a deep canyon below Mount Wilson and permitted to the district by the Forest Service. The camp allowed urban students to experience a week of outdoor education. The first class of sixth graders was on April 19, 1948. More recently, fifth graders traditionally spent a week at Camp Hi-Hill. Unfortunately, due to cost and increasing fire risk, the school district closed the camp in 2008 and it remains vacant as of 2016.


See also

*
List of school districts in Los Angeles County, California List of school districts in Los Angeles County, California, United States Primary and secondary (K-12) ;Public school districts Text list/ref> K-12: * Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District * Alhambra Unified School District * ABC Unifie ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Education in Long Beach, California School districts in Los Angeles County, California Lakewood, California Carson, California Signal Hill, California 1885 establishments in California School districts established in 1885