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More than 250,000 Los Angeles Unified School District students will receive free tutoring, summer school, and other academic support under a landmark settlement that resolves a five-year legal battle over the district's pandemic remote learning policies.
The agreement, announced on Sept. 3 in L.A. County Superior Court, ends a class-action lawsuit that accused the nation's second-largest school district of providing inadequate online education that disproportionately harmed low-income students and students of color. Under the terms, 100,000 students performing below grade level will receive 45 hours of intensive one-on-one tutoring each year through 2028.
The settlement affects students who were enrolled in L.A. Unified during the pandemic closure and remain in the district. The agreement represents over 10 million hours of guaranteed high-dose tutoring over the next three school years, with sessions conducted in small groups of six students or fewer. The tutoring must be available at least three times weekly in 30-minute sessions aligned with classroom work.
Among those eligible, 100,000 students performing below grade level will receive the most intensive tutoring support through 2028. The settlement also requires mandatory math and English language arts assessments, teacher training programs, and student outreach measures to combat chronic absenteeism through summer 2028.
"After five years of tireless advocacy on behalf of LAUSD students and families, we are proud to have secured a historic settlement that ensures students receive the resources they need to thrive," said Edward Hillenbrand, a partner at law firm Kirkland & Ellis, which represented the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit, filed in fall 2020, alleged that LAUSD failed to provide adequate education during remote learning, particularly harming low-income, Black, Latino, disabled, and English learner students. Those groups comprise the majority of students in the nation's second-largest school district.
Parents cited specific problems with the district's remote learning implementation. Akela Wroten Jr. said his second-grade daughter, who was already struggling academically before the pandemic, received insufficient attention during virtual classes because teachers were not adequately assessing student progress.
The lawsuit documented severe engagement issues, noting that only 60% of district students participated in virtual learning during spring 2020. The complaint accused the district of cutting teacher hours and class time, removing student testing, and failing to provide adequate technology access.
According to the lawsuit, the district "did nothing to attempt to reengage the 40% of students that — according to LAUSD's own data — did not participate in online learning and live video conferencing at all during remote learning."
"LAUSD's remote learning plan fails to provide students with even a basic education and is not preparing them to succeed," the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit targeted an agreement between the district and United Teachers L.A. that restricted teachers to four-hour workdays, removed testing obligations, and permitted pre-recorded rather than live instruction. The agreement also halted teacher evaluations and oversight during remote learning.
During the pandemic, California schools shuttered campuses from March 2020 until fall 2021. Academic performance declined statewide when students returned to classrooms, and student attendance problems worsened across school systems.
The lawsuit initially faced legal challenges. L.A. Unified won a dismissal in 2021 after campuses reopened, but parents supported by nonprofits Parent Revolution and Innovate Public Schools successfully appealed. A state appeals court reinstated the case two years later.
United Teachers L.A. backs the settlement, stating it aids students while maintaining teachers' negotiated agreements and preventing court involvement in educational policy. The union emphasized that academic test results have improved significantly following the pandemic.
L.A. Unified declined to comment while awaiting court approval. A hearing is scheduled for December, though the settlement begins immediately.
While the district has not revealed its funding strategy, Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated $378 million annually for three years, beginning 2025-26, to the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant program, beyond the $1 billion remaining unspent; tutoring represents a recommended expenditure.
Education specialists consider the settlement potentially transformative. "It will go a really long way to helping those students who fell behind during Covid," said Kathy Bendheim, strategic advising director for Stanford Graduate School of Education's National Student Support Accelerator, who emphasized that intensive tutoring ranks among the most studied and successful academic interventions.
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