Only a third of incarcerated students in Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall graduated last year and 14% were chronically absent or missed more than a month of the school year, according to a new report by a coalition of juvenile justice reform advocates.
The Education Justice Coalition, in the report released Wednesday, Aug. 6, argues these latest performance metrics, obtained from publicly released data, highlight the Los Angeles County’s long history of “systemic failure” when it comes to teaching youth incarcerated within its juvenile facilities. The coalition includes the Children’s Defense Fund-California, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the Youth Justice Education Clinic at Loyola Law School, Public Counsel, Disability Rights California and the Arts for Healing and Justice Network.
“As evidenced by low graduation rates, high suspension rates, alarmingly low attendance, observations, and testimony from students, staff, and monitors, Los Angeles County has failed to ensure access to the essential tool of a quality, culturally affirming, robust, and individualized education to the thousands of students under its care in juvenile detention facilities each year,” the authors wrote.
“This failure disproportionately affects low-income communities of color and persists due to the lack of transparent and responsive accountability mechanisms.”
The report calls on the county Board of Supervisors to implement its long stalled “Youth Justice Reimagined” reforms and to take steps to ensure youth not only have access to quality education, but also mechanisms for accountability to ensure education is consistently provided.
In a statement, Vicky Waters, the spokesperson for Los Angeles County Probation Department, said the agency is working closely with county and community partners to improve outcomes, reduce disruptions to learning and foster environments “where youth can grow both academically and personally.” The department’s goal is to provide education, mental health care, vocational training and rehabilitation programs that address “the trauma and circumstances that brought them to us,” she said.
“We acknowledge the real challenges that exist within the juvenile justice system — particularly in delivering consistent, high-quality educational services in secure environments,” Waters stated. “But despite those challenges, we remain focused on ensuring that every youth has access to learning, support, and opportunity.”
The Los Angeles County Office of Education did not respond to a request to comment.
A school accountability report card released by LACOE indicates that Los Padrinos had 212 students enrolled during the 2023-24 school year. More than half of those were in grades 11 or 12.
Students with disabilities, who make up about 42% of all enrolled students, are not given access to appropriate instruction, according to the report.
“Teachers within the LACOE juvenile court system reported that specialized academic instruction minutes were frequently delivered by paraprofessionals, rather than by credentialed special education teachers,” the authors wrote. “This lack of properly trained and credentialed staff for specialized instruction further undermines the quality of education for students who require additional support, reinforcing the systemic issues plaguing the education provided in juvenile detention facilities.”
Among the 69 students eligible for graduation at Los Padrinos last year, only 21 graduated. Roughly a quarter dropped out, records showed.
One youth who was incarcerated in Los Padrinos in 2024 told the report’s authors that teachers often provided the same packets for students to fill out repeatedly and that its contents were designed for much younger students.
“We didn’t learn. The teachers wouldn’t do anything,” the youth said. “The teachers would hand us a packet that we do over and over and over.
“I get that we have a variety of age groups in one unit, but I was already in high school,” the youth added. “It’s not fair to be learning about vowels and nouns like we’re dumb.”
The youth informed the ombudsman and the director of education about the quality of the education, yet never saw improvements, according to the report.
“We wouldn’t even talk about college when we were in high school,” the youth stated. “The work was super repetitive so it got to the point where I just wouldn’t do it — I’d scribble on it. I already knew it.”
The report’s authors blamed a perpetual cycle of “finger-pointing” between the Probation Department and LACOE for the lack of progress on these well-known issues, according to the report.
“All youth in California, including youth who are incarcerated, have the fundamental right to an education,” said Vivian Wong, director of the Youth Justice Education Clinic at Loyola Law School and one of the authors of the report, in a statement. “But over the years, federal and local agencies have found L.A. County out of compliance with minimum education standards for youth in its custody.”
Some of the failures go back as far as 25 years. A Los Angeles County civil grand jury report in 2000 criticized the Probation Department for not maintaining appropriate facilities or coordinating with LACOE on educational needs. The report pointed to deteriorating facilities, cleanliness issues and graffiti.
A school accountability report card for Los Padrinos, released in January, describes many of the same issues decades later, including graffiti, cracked walls, broken windows and doors, and damaged HVAC systems.
In 2001, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice found issues with teacher shortages, consistent daily instruction and support for students with special needs at the county’s three juvenile halls open at the time.
The California Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory body overseeing the state’s juvenile halls, closed Central Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in mid-2023 after the facilities fell out of compliance amid a staffing crisis. The short staffing, which continued when Los Padrinos reopened that year to take the populations of the shuttered facilities, often led to youth missing school or arriving late, according to inspection reports.
Los Padrinos was ordered to close by the BSCC in late 2024, but the county refused to comply. A judge later ordered the county to implement a depopulation plan that would move 100 youth out of Los Padrinos, but a series of roadblocks have largely stalled those efforts.
A state takeover now looms. The California Department of Justice has flagged its own concerns about the conditions within Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls for years, including the quality of educational services. A settlement agreement between the state and county, signed in 2021, required the county, under the watch of an independent monitor, to make systemic improvements, but officials now say more than 75% of those changes still have not been implemented.
Earlier this year, prosecutors with the DOJ charged 30 officers at Los Padrinos for their alleged roles in enabling and even orchestrating fights between youth.
Now, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has asked a judge to place the county’s juvenile facilities under the control of a receiver instead. A hearing on the motion is set for Sept. 16.