Inglewood residents could finally have a say in their school district again

All decisions in the Inglewood Unified School District have gone through one person, a state or county administrator, for the last 14 years. 

This means nobody from Inglewood — not the school board, parents or teachers — has had the authority to make decisions on issues ranging from controversial school closures to teacher pay to safety on campuses. The constant turnover in county administrators hasn’t helped; there have been nine in 12 years, according to the current administrator, James Morris. 

All of this could change soon, though, as the district may soon be able to prove it’s out of the fiscal crisis that placed it under state control, or receivership. A state agency is coming to Inglewood in February to verify they’re on the right track to exit receivership, which it’s been under for longer than any other district in California history. 

If the audit goes well, Morris predicts the school district will officially be back under local control in 2027. 

That would be a major milestone, but other financial challenges remain. On top of repaying a $29 million loan, the district continues to struggle with falling enrollment and chronic absenteeism, which inform how much funding the district receives from the state. 

“The issue is, we’ve been in receivership longer than any school district in the history of California, and the student attrition rate has never been addressed, which is the key reason for the fiscal issues,” said John Hughes, president of the Inglewood Teachers Association.

How Inglewood got here — and what’s next

The district was placed under state control back in 2012 after it was projected that Inglewood schools would have another year of negative cash flow. The state’s Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, or FCMAT, explained that declining enrollment and overstating how many students were in attendance helped lead Inglewood schools into receivership. 

“Districts that get into financial difficulties, get into those financial difficulties because they’re spending more money than they’ve received,” Morris told The LA Local. “They make mistakes like over-projecting what their enrollment is. So, they think they have more money than they actually do, and that was pretty much the cause of the financial difficulties that Inglewood Unified got itself into.”

The district is scheduled for its annual review of the receivership with FCMAT from Feb. 2 through Feb. 21. 

FCMAT has 153 standards school districts must meet, and Morris told The LA Local that  Inglewood has met all but seven related to finances and two related to facilities.

Read more: Inglewood teachers and advocates call out campus safety issues

Morris told The LA Local in November that the district will meet the facilities standard because they closed five schools in the last year and made improvements to the schools that remained open. 

A November report from the American Civil Liberties Union said that 48% of Inglewood’s schools have closed since 2018 — including the former Morningside High School, which is temporarily housing the city’s high school students due to construction at the original Inglewood High School. Enrollment dropped in Inglewood schools by 39% over 10 years between 2015-2025, the report found.  

Parent Victoria Preciado is a member of the “Stop IUSD Closures” group that came together last year to try and halt school closures. She said the closures feel like another round of displacement for Inglewood families.

“The parents who can have taken their kids out of the district,” Preciado said. “The schools that remain open are some of the lowest-performing schools in the state of California. The kids that are left are the kids whose parents don’t have access to resources or transportation to get them out. I think it’s really disheartening.”

On the financial front, Morris said the district has taken steps like tracking the number and costs of due process filings, which are complaints filed by parents who believe the district is not meeting its obligations to special education students, and keeping an updated inventory system for technology equipment replacement and purchasing decisions. 

Inglewood’s money problems may not end after receivership, though. The district borrowed $29 million in emergency funds from the state in 2014, which it will be paying back until the 2034-2035 fiscal year, according to Morris. The loan is not a factor in the district’s current receivership status. 

“The district is currently paying about $400,000 a year in interest on that loan,” Morris said. “That’s $400,000 that children who are in our schools today, don’t have the opportunity to benefit from because the children today are paying for mistakes from the past.” 

Overall, the district will pay $8.3 million in interest alone. To combat this, California Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood) introduced Assembly Bill 51 in December 2024. The bill asks the California Department of Finance to forgive the remaining interest payments on the district’s loan. AB 51 is currently in committee and was last amended in May 2025. 

McKinnor’s office said she’s planning to revisit AB 51 in this year’s budget talks. Morris said he and a large group of supporters traveled to the state capitol in Sacramento early last year to support the bill.

Here are the issues that still leave teachers concerned.

Hughes, the teachers’ association president, agrees that the district will most likely exit receivership this year but said regaining local control is only one step on the road to improving Inglewood schools. 

“The difficulty in Inglewood is that they’ve suppressed wages for such a long time, they can’t attract and keep qualified or excellent teachers,” he said. “So, that’s our focus moving forward.”

Hughes is also hoping the state adjusts how it calculates local schools’ funding. California school districts receive a base amount per student and extra funds for high-need students (students with health, housing or other issues), according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Right now, the formula used to calculate that amount is based on average daily attendance, not total enrollment, which can create funding challenges for schools with high absenteeism rates. 

Read more: Inglewood teachers keep pressure on district leaders over safety concerns 

The ACLU report showed that Inglewood lost millions of dollars because of student attendance. The district had the highest chronic absenteeism rate in LA County during the 2023-2024 school year, with 43% of students chronically absent. The report found that the absentee rates cost the district $15 to $20 million annually, leading to school closures. 

Hughes said high absenteeism also makes it harder to know how much money will be received each year. 

“California gives about $16,000 per student, so when you have less students, of course, that impacts the overall budget,” Hughes said. 

To address this, Morris said the district is “working with the District Attorney’s office to implement the Abolish Chronic Truancy (ACTP) program that supports students and families with excessive absences.” Morris said the district implemented a strong enrollment campaign and that student attendance this past year was 89.6%.

“While we will always have students absent due to illness, generally, 96% or greater is a goal. Each 1% improvement in attendance generates approximately $1 [million] in annual revenue for IUSD,” Morris told The LA Local via email.

The ACLU report also noted that school closures were connected to campus safety issues. The closure of schools across the city caused students from different neighborhoods, some territorial, to be placed together on the remaining campuses. That led to rising tensions and sometimes violent incidents. 

Inglewood Teachers Association members held a rally in December at the district office to raise awareness about growing safety concerns at Inglewood schools. In response, the district and ITA agreed to require all employees to wear a district-issued name badge when on campus. 

The district also said security cameras would be placed on each school campus by the end of January. Morris told The LA Local the cameras have been fully installed, more than 110 in total, but Hughes said more needs to be done to ensure safety. 

“The problem is, how do you change the culture, where you wouldn’t even need a camera?” Hughes said. “The culture has to be addressed. The discipline has to be addressed.”

Who could end up in control after receivership ends?

The Inglewood Board of Education doesn’t have voting power while the district is under state control, but three of its five board seats will be open in November. 

Morris said Board President Carliss McGhee has reached the term limit and cannot run again. 

Board Vice President Brandon Myers and board member Joyce Randall will be up for reelection. Myers confirmed he plans to run for re-election. Randall did not respond to a request for comment from The LA Local. 

So what happens to the county administrator, who’s employed by the district, after receivership ends?

Morris said it’s up to the board to decide if they want to hire him as the next superintendent.