A judge has allowed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District to proceed to a jury trial, quashing the school officials’ attempt to have the filing dismissed.
The district’s former superintendent Austin Beutner is spearheading the lawsuit. Beutner and Hollywood’s biggest stars helped secure nearly a billion dollars specifically for new art teachers and classes through Proposition 28, with $77 million allocated to LAUSD.
The lawsuit claimed the district did not use the money to hire a single teacher and defrauded taxpayers by not using the money as intended. Outraged parents joined the lawsuit, believing that their children had been cheated.
District officials tried to stop it by claiming, among other things, that there was no discrimination and that Beutner did not understand the law. Beutner wrote the law and believed withholding the funds discriminates against the minority students the program was designed to help.
Beutner hopes the judge’s decision will prompt LAUSD to reconsider its legal strategy.
“Maybe it causes them to come forward and settle this,” Beutner said. “Maybe the district needs to acknowledge it didn’t do the right thing. Maybe they need to make sure every school has art teachers.”
LAUSD released the following statement after the judge’s decision:
“While we do not comment on the specifics related to ongoing litigation, we look forward to having the parties’ disputes decided on the merits. Los Angeles Unified recognizes the profound importance of the arts and prioritizes arts instruction, programming and investments. Los Angeles Unified continues to follow implementation guidance as provided by the state of California to ensure that we are fully complying with the requirements of Prop 28, and we are committed to providing arts exposure for every student in Los Angeles Unified regardless of their zip code.”
