Parents, students and teachers gathered at Los Angeles campuses Tuesday to protest a $10 million grant cut that district officials say will affect 42 LAUSD-affiliated charter schools. Demonstrators warned the reduction could strip support from nearly 25,000 kids, trigger layoffs, compromise school safety and hurt low-income families across the district.
The rallies, planned for several campuses, were organized to pressure district leaders ahead of an afternoon school board meeting, where demonstrators intended to bring their concerns directly into public comment, according to ABC7 Los Angeles. At Riverside Drive Charter School, parents said the stakes are concrete: they could lose nearly half a million dollars and at least 12 staff positions if the cut goes through as planned.
Parent Kate Marchbank put the fear in blunt terms, saying she worries campuses won’t have enough adults on hand when kids need them most. “We don’t have people on the yard to watch our kids,” she said, raising concerns about recess supervision and emergency response if staffing shrinks.
A Dollar Figure That Depends on Who You Ask
Exactly how deep the staffing hit might run is a point of disagreement. While the station’s report cited parents saying Riverside Drive could lose at least 12 positions, the school’s own PTA has put the number higher, warning in materials posted by the Riverside Drive Charter PTA that the cut “could eliminate at least 13 vital staff positions and directly impact our students’ safety and daily experience.” The PTA also pegged the school’s potential loss at $475,000 for the 2027–2028 school year, a figure in the same range as the nearly half-million-dollar estimate parents gave to reporters.
Those competing numbers underscore how unsettled the picture still is for individual campuses even as the broader $10 million figure has been confirmed by the district. Los Angeles Unified has said the cuts are necessary to help close a projected $3.6 billion deficit, attributing the shortfall to declining enrollment, rising operational costs and the expiration of one-time COVID-19 relief funding.
Why This Particular Funding Stream Is Going Away
The money at the center of the dispute is a supplemental Charter Block Grant allocation that the district has historically provided to 42 affiliated charter schools that began operating before fiscal year 2012-13. According to the district, that supplemental funding originated from central district resources after the state’s own Charter School Categorical Block Grant ended in 2013, and it was never extended to other affiliated charters or to traditional district schools.
Eliminating that allocation, the district has said, brings greater consistency to how resources are distributed districtwide. Affiliated charter schools will continue to receive funding through norm-based allocations and other applicable district programs, officials noted, even as they acknowledged the decision may have different impacts on individual schools, including possible effects on staffing, services and programs.
The timing traces back to a wave of conversions: EdSource has reported that 40 affiliated charters in the district were established between 2011 and 2013, a period when converting to affiliated status could unlock additional state funds through the charter block grants that are now being phased out at the district level. That history helps explain why this specific group of 42 schools, and no others, is absorbing the cut.
Part of a Much Larger Budget Squeeze
The grant elimination is one piece of a far bigger fiscal picture. A Proposed FY 2026-27 Fiscal Stabilization Plan listed the Affiliated Charter Block Grant Reduction among its expenditure actions, part of a document that also flagged declining enrollment, the expiration of COVID relief funds and rising costs as long-term drivers of annual deficits. The same plan’s preliminary multiyear projection showed a negative ending balance of $3.581 billion for FY 2028-29 under one budget scenario.
That stabilization effort has already produced painful cuts elsewhere. In May, the district board voted 5-2 to eliminate 657 central-office jobs, a move expected to save an estimated $90 million annually, according to LAist. Ahead of that vote, district staff had previewed plans to cut an additional $3.6 billion from the budget over three years, including thousands of additional layoffs and the elimination of funding tied to the Student Equity Needs Index, which targets the district’s highest-need learners.
Charter advocacy in Los Angeles has a history of turning into public spectacle at district headquarters. Back in January 2019, parents and supporters rallied outside LAUSD headquarters to oppose a proposed moratorium on new charter schools, according to The 74. Tuesday’s demonstrations suggest that charter families remain willing to show up in force when they believe their schools’ funding is on the line, even as the district insists the latest reduction reflects a push for more consistent resource allocation rather than a targeted strike against any single campus.
