Community Investments in L.A. Youth

For a second year in a row, L.A. Unified was awarded a $44 million grant from the state’s Community Schools Partnership Program to sustain and expand the district’s Community Schools Initiative for another five years. Expanding the Community School model has been a key priority of the L.A. Compact since 2018. A program of the California Department of Education, the Community Schools Partnership has provided funding to more than 70 local education agencies across the state since 2021 to support schools’ efforts to partner with community agencies and local government to align community resources to improve student outcomes.

Charting Progress Towards L.A. Compact Goals

More than 150 L.A. Compact partners joined UNITE-LA and SoCal Grantmakers for our Data to Action event on Feb. 24 to officially launch the L.A. Compact Charting Progress Dashboard and to discuss new data and trends in education and workforce outcomes and what the path forward looks like for our cradle-to-career systems amid COVID-19 and persistent, systemic racism. The event featured a distinguished panel with the region's key systems leaders, including UNITE-LA board members Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez (LACCD), Dr. Manuel Pastor (USC), and Bill Allen (LAEDC), as well as LAUSD Board President Kelly Gonez and First 5 LA's Dr. Kimberly Hall.

Looking Back at 2021

LOS ANGELES – Today, leading education, government, business and labor, and civic organizations in Los Angeles have signed onto the new L.A. Compact agreement.

The L.A. Compact is a bold effort to address gaps and opportunities that exist in our education and workforce development systems, and the list of Compact partners is impressive in its breadth. Leaders in L.A. County are committed to continuing and intensifying their collaboration to improve lives from cradle through career.

Mobilizing to End the Digital Divide in L.A. County

Reliable and affordable broadband internet access can serve as an engine of economic mobility, educational opportunity, civic engagement and better health care. As our reliance on the internet continues to grow, we are also leaving behind many individuals and communities who have limited or no internet access at all. It is time we eliminate the digital divide.

In July, the L.A. Compact, convened by UNITE-LA, together with the L.A. Opportunity Youth Collaborative, released a case study detailing its efforts to connect foster youth to public workforce programs in L.A. County using a shared referral process across agencies. This brief describes the development and implementation of a process to coordinate and streamline foster youth referrals to workforce programs and includes specific recommendations for process improvement based on feedback from both network partners and foster youth themselves.

Collective Action and Collective Impact for L.A. County's Foster Youth