The Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District resolved their yearslong dispute by agreeing to a settlement on Dec. 11 over federal Title I funding.
As part of the settlement, LAUSD will grant the archdiocese several concessions, including:
- $3 million in additional services for Title I-eligible students
- The ability of the archdiocese to meet with LAUSD at least three times per year to ensure transparency and increased communication about how funding is calculated
- Allowing the archdiocese to pool its Title I resources across several schools, rather than individually
“This agreement will bring resolution to a seven-year dispute over student eligibility for Title I services, ensuring maximum participation and reimbursement of services from prior years,” said Paul Escala, senior director and superintendent of schools for the archdiocese. “I appreciate the leadership of LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and his team whose collaboration demonstrates a commitment to a positive partnership moving forward.”
“I look forward to the ways we can work together in the future and serve the students of Los Angeles,” Carvalho said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Education issues Title I funds at the state and local level to support students from low-income families, regardless of whether they attend public or private school. LAUSD is responsible for calculating and administering funding and services for all schools in its territory. The archdiocese’s Department of Catholic Schools uses Title I funding to provide services such as tutoring, academic counseling, parental support, or professional development for teachers.
As part of the new settlement, how services are determined and distributed to the archdiocese’s Catholic schools will be slightly different.
Previously, eligibility was determined partly from the total number of income surveys filled out by parents of individual schools. Going forward, extrapolation will be used with the income surveys to get a more representative count of eligible students. Another modification is that rather than individual Catholic schools using their manpower to gather necessary data and submit paperwork, the archdiocese will be the middleman to send information on their behalf to LAUSD.
The archdiocese will also be able to pool its Title I-funded services to reallocate to smaller schools that may need greater resources.
The biggest difference will be getting increased services to needy students who have suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lengthy dispute, said Robert Tagorda, chief academic officer for the archdiocese’s Department of Catholic Schools.
“The concentration of the impact is in our poorest communities, precisely where our Church needs to be,” Tagorda said. “And it has been heartbreaking for us to see our immigrant students, our English learner students, our black and brown students, our poor students. They’re the ones who bore the brunt of this. So that’s been really difficult for us and why we are so convicted to advocate on their behalf endlessly, to ensure that the largest school district in this state and the second-largest school district in this country actually does right by these kids.”
The settlement comes after years of complaints, lawsuits, and court rulings, beginning in August 2019 when the archdiocese filed complaints after it said LAUSD had reduced the number of Catholic schools eligible for Title I funding to 17 after more than 100 schools had qualified in previous years.
When the matter wasn’t resolved by June 2021, the archdiocese appealed to the California Department of Education, which issued a 58-page “investigation report” that ordered LAUSD to rectify its actions in withholding Title I funding. The archdiocese filed a lawsuit in December 2021, alleging LAUSD had not taken corrective action.
The district appealed to the U.S. Department of Education in 2022, which put the lawsuit on hold. When the USDE issued a ruling in November 2023, it confirmed the California Department of Education’s findings that LAUSD withheld federal funds from low-income LA Catholic school students.
In July 2024, a Superior Court judge ordered LAUSD to produce records related to its calculation of Title I federal funding, effectively compelling the district into working toward a settlement.
Schools were expected to notify the Department of Catholic Schools by Dec. 20 whether they were interested in applying for Title I services, Tagorda said. From there, the archdiocese will use the income surveys and services requests by February 2025 before meeting with LAUSD in April to begin the process of determining services for the 2025-26 school year.
“There should be every attempt made to maximize support to the most impoverished students,” Tagorda said. “In the past, the district was not adhering to that, to the spirit of the law. Now, as a consequence of this settlement agreement, we’re making strides toward fulfilling this law.”
