FBI Raids Home of LA School Superintendent

This morning the FBI showed up at the home of Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. The FBI also carried out a similar raid at the LAUSD offices. 

F.B.I. agents raided the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the home of its superintendent on Wednesday, federal authorities said.

F.B.I. officials said that the agency was executing search warrants at the school district and at the home of the superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, but that the accompanying affidavits had been sealed by the court. They did not elaborate on the target of the investigation.

Neither the district nor Mr. Carvalho immediately responded to requests for comment.

So what’s going on here? No one is talking and the warrants are under seal so we may not get an official statement on that anytime soon. However, that doesn’t stop news outlets from speculating about what may be behind this. The NY Times mentions that Carvalho stood up against ICE. Last year Homeland Security Investigations agents were turned away from a couple of schools in Los Angeles. That made a lot of news about a year ago.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at a press conference Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security’s presence sowed fear among educators and the surrounding community.

“ My very first question starts there— what interests should a Homeland Security agent have in a first-grader or a second-grader, a third-grader or a fourth-grader for that matter?” Carvalho said…

“These HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) officers were at these schools conducting wellness checks on children who arrived unaccompanied at the border,” a DHS spokesperson told LAist by email. “This had nothing to do with immigration enforcement.”

So the Times is suggesting that maybe this is some kind of DOJ pushback because of Carvalho’s stance on ICE related issues, but again there’s no proof of that.

Alternatively, LAist notes that there is a lawsuit filed against the school district which claims the district discriminates against white students.

A lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Unified School District for allegedly discriminating against white students could move forward, given the current political climate. But critics say it is troubling and lacks merit. 

The suit by the 1776 Project Foundation takes aim at the district’s Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, or other Non-Anglo, or PHBAO, program and claims that “for students who attend non-PHBAO schools, the District provides inferior treatment and calculated disadvantages.” Roughly 70% of LAUSD schools are part of the PHABO program…

The suit, filed this week in federal court, also calls out the program for allegedly maintaining a more robust staff and receiving extra points on applications to prestigious magnet schools.

“Students attending non-PHBAO schools are denied and directly blocked from these benefits because of the racial composition of their school attendance zone, which detrimentally impacts the quality of the educational experience and directly damages these students,” the lawsuit alleges.

As of last week, the Trump DOJ is looking to join that lawsuit.

The nation’s second-largest school district is acting illegally under both the California and the federal Constitution, the suit alleges.

The Justice Department agrees and wants to participate in the litigation because “the United States Attorney General has reviewed this action and determined it is a case of general public importance,” according to the court petition filed Wednesday.

“This case will provide relief to the Plaintiff’s members but will also relieve the entire LAUSD student population of the ‘injury’ of ‘being forced to compete in a race-based system that may prejudice the(m).’”

Could the FBI raid have something to do with that? Again, we don’t know but the timing seems more reasonable than the issue involving DHS visits to schools a year ago.

Finally, the Economic Times suggests yet another possibility involving another lawsuit that could be motivating today’s action by the FBI.

The raids occur amid elevating legal and financial conflicts that involve LAUSD. A civil case filed in Los Angeles Superior Court reports that the district improperly diverted $76.7 million from Proposition 28, funds approved by voters in 2022 to broaden arts and music initiatives by hiring extra teachers.

The lawsuit states that the district utilized the money to pay existing staff salaries rather than expanding programs, which would contradict the plan of the ballot measure.

As reported by The Current Report, Carvalho mentioned how the funding was allocated, citing, “The district prioritized the use of Prop 28 funds to cover existing staff as well as hire new staff.”

So at this point you can take your pick. Carvalho and the LAUSD could be on the hook for any and all of these issues. Since a judge signed a warrant for this search, it’s presumably only one thing they were looking into. At this point, the only way we’ll know is if a) the warrants are unsealed and b) someone leaks it to the media. Stay tuned.

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