Chancellor’s remarks on online learning and Anti-Asian violence

The chancellor of LACCD and members of the Board of Trustees meet online to discuss Anti-Asian violence and district updates.

By Anthony Lopez, Staff Writer

The chancellor of the Community College District and members of the Board of Trustees held an advisory committee meeting to briefly discuss Anti-Asian violence and Los Angeles Community College District updates.

Board of Trustee and district members, which included Trustee Mike Fong (host) and LACCD Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez, were in attendance on the March 25 advisory meeting. Rodriguez was there to inform the district about future updates for the district. A few members from the college district, Otto W. K. Lee, president of Harbor College, and Dale Shimasaki were present as well.

“We have pivoted pretty dramatically to an online learning, teaching, and work environment,” said Rodriguez. “We were already about 20 percent online learning, just under that, but now we are about 98 percent.”

Furthermore, the chancellor and over 100,000 students, helped transition more than 10,000 sections of classes to online learning or remote learning platforms.

The LACCD’s planning assumes that for the 2021 fall semester the schools will be in the yellow tier category, which is up to 50 percent. There will be more information in regards to adjustments made to academic learning and service environments in future meetings. The chancellor and members of the Board of Trustees hope that sometime in April, the district will be in the orange tier category.

COVID-19 has caused many hardships for the district and some of its members. According to Rodriguez, the pandemic has impacted student enrollment by an average of 15 percent district-wide. However, the district has been able to use the financial stability that was provided by both the federal and state governments, specifically for emergency aid.

“Aside from the support we received from the federal and state governments, our philanthropic community has been supportive as well,” said Rodriguez.

Based on the support from the community, generous donors, foundations and individuals throughout the district, the district has been able to dispense close to 25,000 Emergency aid scholarships, over 40,000 laptops and Chromebooks. They also raised several million dollars in private aid for the students.

After a review of the agenda and updates, the meeting shifted towards an informative PowerPoint by Shimasaki. In the PowerPoint, he strongly addressed how to stop Asian American Pacific Islander discrimination. A general proposal was to include a $1.4 million appropriation to track anti-Asian bias and hate crimes. In regards to State Budget proposals, FAFSA or California Dream Act Application is requiring local educational agencies to confirm that all high school seniors complete one of the two beginning in the 2021-22 academic year, according to the presentation.

On the slide about ethnic studies requirements, Assembly Bill 1040 will make it a requirement for all associate degrees for transfer students to complete ethnic studies courses for transfer to a CSU.

Anyone wishing to attend future meetings or would like to find more information about AAPI can go to their website.