The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) held a Board of Education meeting March 7 in which attendees discussed the importance of providing all secondary students access to online A-G-approved courses, a necessary piece in supporting the district’s strategic plan.  

During the meeting, LAUSD released its approved professional service contracts, which includes the following vendors: 2Sigma School Inc. (SBE); Accelerate Education; Edmentum Inc.; Get Lit Words Ignite Inc.; Imagine Learning LLC; Jupiter Education Services LLC, dba Red Comet (SBE); and Lincoln Learning Solutions and Subject Technologies Inc. (SBE).   

According to LAUSD, online course offerings are available to all secondary students to support the district's widespread goal of a 100% graduation rate. All secondary schools who wish to incorporate online courses as an option for students may select from the vendors in the current A-G approved list.         

The school district believes that by providing all secondary students access to online A-G-approved courses is necessary to support the district’s strategic plan. These courses will increase opportunities to enroll in robust course offerings (including college credit-bearing) that may not be available at the student's home school. Online options have the ability to allow students with impacted schedules to enroll outside the school day and increases student access to recovering a course where a failing grade was initially received. Overall, these courses will support a higher graduation rate and increase access to specialty courses such as advanced placement, dual enrollment and CTE pathways.         

According to Options for Youth, A-G courses are a series of high school classes that students are required to successfully complete to be eligible for admission to certain colleges, such as California State University and University of California systems. The overarching goal of A-G curriculum is to ensure students have attained the core subject knowledge that will fully and effectively prepare them for success in college.

Alberto M. Carvalho is the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which includes a total of 184 high schools.