Advocacy and Articles
Dr. Cynthia Gonzalez has dedicated her life and career to speaking truth to power. This is evidenced by her ability to advocate for issues that she understands will directly impact the most marginalized students and communities. Below is a series of articles in which Dr. Gonzalez provided information, personal experience, and recommendations to support the work of education policy to a broader audience.
ARTICLES
Schools in Light of COVID-19 | The View from the Principal’s Office UCLA Ed & IS
America's missing kids: Amid COVID-19 and online school, thousands of students haven't shown up. Erin Richards USA TODAY
As School Year Begins, New Report Examines How Schools Survived Spring The Takeaway
Students missing: A South L.A. high school confronts pandemic’s heavy toll Ricardo Cano Cal Matters
The COVID-19 Recession Risks Facing Working High School Students: Stress, Disengagement -- And Dropping Out?
Kyle Stokes The LAist
La pandemia pone en jaque a los estudiantes Jacqueline García La Opinion
COVID-19 Devastates Communities Of Color But Latino Teens Are Still Unsure About The Vaccine Jackie Fortiér The LAist
To get ahead of other equity gaps with vaccination rollouts, Dr.Gonzalez contacted County Supervisor Holly Mitchell to talk about vaccine disparity's impact on students of color. This led to coordinating a vaccination clinic targeting students and families in the Florence-Firestone area. Dr. Gonzalez realized that many students were vaccine-hesitant. This realization mobilized her to take action by creating an advisory curriculum about the vaccine. She understood that this issue should be elevated at a larger scale through established media sources. The LAist covered the story to increase dialogue and discussion on vaccine hesitancy and misinformation.
Advocacy
AB 104
California legislators passed AB 104. This legislation would allow students to change A-G courses to a pass no pass, hoping the pandemic wouldn’t harm students' college acceptance opportunities. Although the plan greatly benefited many students, Dr. Gonzalez realized that the deadlines would make it impossible for schools to take advantage. She advocated for changes to the state-established deadline by communicating with Assemblymember Luz Rivas and LAUSD School Board President Kelly Gonez. This level of advocacy on her behalf led to changes to the deadline. This change gave schools additional time to speak to students and families and obtain the appropriate signatures to take advantage of this opportunity.
LAUSD Policy
Dr. Gonzalez’s relationship with board members and participation on the superintendent advisory board led to various policy changes in LAUSD.
“Dawn Patrol” which deployed non-school administrators to school sites to support returns to school from COVID.
Recommendations to the contact tracing platform and the daily pass application to make navigating for staff, students, and families easier.
Advocated for increases in allowable graduation expenses for all district schools. The district raised the graduation acceptable expense amount from $600 to $3,000 per school.
Advocated for a meeting blackout month in October, typically the most challenging time for schools to focus our energies on students and staff. Administrators were grateful to have more time at their school sites.
Advocated that the schools with the highest need should prioritize staffing due to teacher shortages. Although the board had made this request prior, it was not happening. This advocacy led to an immediate change in the process.
As prior chair of the Pilot School Organization and executive board member, Dr. Gonzalez coordinated meetings with board members to advocate for a director position to support Pilot Schools.
Began a school safety collaborative that includes school leaders, non-profit organizations, law enforcement, city and county officials' office staff, and our feeder pattern schools. The goal is to align resources to address immediate safety concerns while providing early intervention and prevention strategies and resources to our highest-need families.
