A Message from the Superintendent

January 16, 2025

Dear Students, Families, Employees, and Community Members:

As we built our Strategic Plan last year, we turned to our students and asked them what characteristics they would include in our Portrait of a Graduate. We wanted them to contribute not just to the mission and vision of the plan, but to the very traits they want our school district to help develop in them and the students who follow them.

Our students landed on five characteristics: Future-Ready, Effective Collaborator, Critical Thinker, Curious Learner, and Empathetic Community Member. While the first four are fostered and exhibited largely inside our classrooms, the last speaks to the ability and willingness of our students to see the larger picture, to understand the world that exists beyond school walls and community boundaries, and to reach out and meet needs whenever they see them.

Such needs exist now. The tragically devastating wildfires in Los Angeles have destroyed thousands of homes and, as of this writing, killed more than two dozen people. Schools have been closed, and some school buildings have been burned out. Lives are forever altered, and an untold number of Los Angeles residents have little to nothing left.

That’s where we can step in. Today, I am announcing the launch of #LiftLA, a campaign through which we are asking our students, families, employees, community members, and businesses to contribute what they can to help the students and families of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The campaign will start on January 22, 2025, and conclude on February 28, 2025.

I know we can do this. Our school district community’s history of generosity proves it. Our schools raise hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for Maryland Special Olympics through the Polar Bear Plunge and for needy families through the Harvest for Hungry – Kids Helping Kids campaign. Just eight years ago, our school community raised $45,000 to help the Houston Independent School District after Hurricane Harvey.

As is the case with Harvest for the Hungry, schools will accept cash donations from students, families, and employees. Those wishing to contribute by check should make those checks out to Education Foundation of Anne Arundel County Public Schools and note #LiftLA in the memo line. Those wishing to contribute online can go to www.aacps.org/liftLA. All donations will go to the Los Angeles Unified School District Education Foundation so that it can support the district’s students and their families as needed.

The Belong, Grow, Succeed mindset we try to impart to students every day is sometimes bigger than our own community and this is an opportunity to step up and help. I would like to think others would do something to help our students if we were in this situation, and I am confident we will rise to this challenge to offer at least some relief to children and families in Los Angeles.

The rebuilding of Los Angeles will take years, if not decades. Our efforts can make a difference for children we may never meet, but whose lives can be bettered by our generosity.

Yours in education,

Mark T. Bedell, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools

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A Message from the Superintendent