By Sikivu Hutchinson
In 2020, Black folks and allied communities took to the streets in global Black Lives Matter uprisings, demanding justice, accountability, and self-determination after the lynchings of George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Ahmad Arbery, and other African American victims. Nationwide, Black youth activists also escalated their resistance to structural school-to-prison pipelining, pushing back against decades of anti-Black discipline policies that disproportionately criminalized Black students. One of the most important outcomes of those pivotal youth mobilizations was the creation of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) program, which reallocated $25 million in school police funds to dedicated programming for Black students as a result of grassroots organizing by L.A. Students Deserve, the Coalition for Police Free Schools, and Black Lives Matter L.A.
According to UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools, L.A. County has the second largest population of Black students in the nation. Decades of systemic racism in L.A. County schools have resulted in Black students being “overrepresented among those who are underprepared for college, who are subject to punitive forms of discipline, and who are chronically absent from school.”
So, when the LAUSD rolled out the BSAP program to a core of priority schools in 2021, it was heralded as a watershed moment after years of piecemeal efforts to institutionalize targeted resources for Black students. Now, despite the district’s full-throated denials, the initiative’s exclusive focus on Black students has been compromised.
In response, the district has proceeded on the directive that race cannot be used to “establish a quota” for identifying schools. The caveat is that districts can be “race conscious” without setting exclusive targets. The district proposed allowing all schools to apply for BSAP funds and support, effectively, as Students Deserve and the Coalition charge, “taking the Black” out of BSAP. Students Deserve maintains that the move would siphon funding from priority or “Tier 1” schools where there is a higher concentration of Black students and greater need.
Under BSAP’s original mandate, schools that had the highest number of Black students were assigned dedicated staff such as school climate advocates, Psychiatric Social Workers (PSWs), Pupil Services Administrators (PSAs), restorative justice coordinators, and other support staff to assist with implementation and community-building. In addition, staff were provided with culturally responsive professional development, field trips, mental health support, and community partnerships.
Refuting the claim that there has been a retreat from BSAP support to Black students, district representatives maintain that the LAUSD has sustained its original priority schools and even added new schools to the plan. Reps further contend that the district is leading the nation in addressing critical racial equity metrics such as recruitment of Black male teachers (who are historically underrepresented in the teaching profession), as well as the assignment of intensive tutoring resources to BSAP elementary schools.
Those in the trenches aren’t buying the district’s claims. Students Deserve director Joseph Williams believes that the district has capitulated to the backlash. He argues that any designation of programming funds and resources to “all” students, notwithstanding LAUSD’s insistence that it continues to prioritize Black students, merely reinforces their educational marginalization. Williams stresses that BSAP is a proverbial drop in the district’s multi-billion dollar budget. Throughout its two-year existence, community advocates have always had to fight to ensure that funding was maintained and were often shut out of key decision-making sessions on BSAP’s future by district officials. According to the Coalition for Police Free Schools, “There is no longer any formal mechanism in LAUSD to ensure equity for Black students when it comes to the allocation of BSAP resources. This nullifies one of BSAP’s core intended aims of providing Black students with a concentration of targeted resources.”
While the district and the community have markedly divergent views on the status of BSAP, it is clear that attacks on the program are informed by escalating right wing assaults on Black students, educators, authors, African American studies, culturally specific social-emotional programs for Black youth, and DEI programs as a whole. After last year’s SCOTUS ruling, African American admissions dropped at top colleges and universities like Columbia, Barnard, MIT, and Tufts.
More recently, after Donald Trump’s re-election to the presidency last week, Black students and Black communities nationwide received a series of racist texts ordering Black folks to work on plantations. And Trump has doubled down on his Project 2025 and Agenda 47-driven threat to eliminate the Department of Education.
In light of this toxic climate, conflicts over BSAP have far-reaching implications for Black student achievement and advocacy, particularly given that the LAUSD is the second largest district in the nation. As Joseph Williams points out, Black youth, educators, and organizers in other California districts have seized on BSAP’s success, utilizing it as a model for their push for racial justice reforms.
King-Drew Magnet High School English teacher Greg Williams (no relation to Joseph Williams) has seen his students thrive since the implementation of BSAP. A ten-year veteran and practitioner of culturally responsive pedagogy, Mr. Williams commented that, “BSAP cultural trips and mental health services have affirmed our students in the wake of irreverent MAGA rhetoric, book bans, police brutality, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, domestic terrorism, and global genocide”.
Similarly, Jsané Tyler, head of Hamilton High School’s parent and family center, is a strong supporter of BSAP. In addition to having a core team of full-time staff, BSAP also coordinates safe passage programs with community-based partners who assist students traveling home from campus. As a parent and student advocate who has been involved with Students Deserve since 2007, Ms. Tyler often mentors Black students struggling with homelessness and mental health challenges. She believes that BSAP has been transformational for Black students, providing them with a strong foundation for academic excellence and mental wellbeing.
One of the primary strengths of BSAP has been in the assignment of dedicated personnel to Black students. As Ms. Tyler notes, “PSW’s, extra guidance counselors and college counselors, as well as the School Climate Advocates and Community-Based Safety Partners who promote peace-building…have given our Black youth safe people” who help them thrive. Moreover, students have been able to travel on culturally relevant field trips that broaden their horizons. For Ms. Tyler, this underscores how “experience and exposure are the best teachers”.
Reflecting on her own experience as a student, she maintains, “I only tested better than my classmates growing up because I began traveling at an early age and had a family that could take me to local and state landmarks and museums.” Black students who come from households where their parents or caregivers are working several jobs and unable to provide these resources and experiences are effectively shut out of life-altering professional, social, and artistic opportunities.
The substantive impact of BSAP is also reflected in the record gains Black students have made in academic achievement, college-going rates, and mental health and wellness. Black students have increased A-G completion, attendance, and graduation rates. There have been gains in addressing longstanding disproportionalities in GATE assignments, as well as greater access to AP and Honors courses. According to Educational Transformation Officer Dr. Robert Whitman, BSAP priority schools are also outpacing other schools with their gains in academic achievement and mental health metrics.
Yet, BSAP has not been without problems in implementation and outreach. Some parents I spoke to complain that the caliber of programming can vary depending upon the school site. At some campuses, overextended coordinators struggle to keep parents and guardians informed about programming, and only a few schools have BSAP parent advisory councils. Moreover, the sheer magnitude of district bureaucracy can undermine BSAP’s impact on school curricula and professional development, which are largely overseen by local districts and each school’s instructional cabinet. Moreover, as of this writing, BSAP doesn’t provide culturally specific supports for Black LGBTQIA+ and gender expansive students.
Despite these growing pains, BSAP has provided strong connective tissue for culturally specific Black student enrichment. At many BSAP schools, student achievement is rewarded with certificates and culminating ceremonies for youth that are on the honor roll, have good to perfect attendance, and/or have excelled creatively. Last year, my child was a proud recipient of these awards and appreciated seeing their peers recognized. In school environments where blackness is often associated with racist assumptions about underachievement and “disruptive” behavior, this form of recognition is critical for ensuring that Black youth are steeped in a culture of excellence and affirmation.
Now, with the siphoning of targeted resources from BSAP, the initiative’s game changing impact could be short lived. Ms. Tyler reports that white students have already begun requesting access to HBCU tours once exclusively designated for Black students. At the same time, “critical BSAP staff members are seeking positions elsewhere for next school year (out of) fear of being displaced.” Most disturbingly, she stresses the sense of betrayal and frustration that Black youth are experiencing as a result of the attacks on BSAP: “The feeling is (that) ‘we finally have something that addresses our needs, and, like everything else in Amerikkka, when we dare to start making progress, it gets snatched away!”
Joseph Williams concurs, arguing that, “BSAP has still been hugely transformative for some of our young people. For the first time in LAUSD’s history, tens of thousands of Black students are attending schools with no police presence. We must demand that LAUSD put the Black back in BSAP and fight for the district to implement BSAP to its fullest capability.”
This is especially urgent given the threat that Trump’s second fascist regime and administration poses for Black student equity in particular and public education as a whole. Here are some steps that community members can take to help the effort to restore BSAP:
- Individuals: Sign the petition to put the Black back in BSAP (which also sends an email to the Superintendent and School Board) at: bit.ly/DefendBSAP
- Organizations: Sign onto the letter by the Police-Free LAUSD Coalition who fought to create and expand BSAP at bit.ly/protectbsapsignon
- Join the Coalition at its next school board action on Tuesday, November 19th at 3pm at 333 S Beaudry, L.A. 90017
