The 8 -year -old girl is a migrant student whose family frequently moves in search of seasonal work. But for five weeks this summer, she found stability, pleasure and academic development in a program for children like her who included visits to the Los Angeles zoo twice a week.
But like the Axolotl, the salamander it has studied, this program is in danger in a critical way. Because migrant students can have family members who live illegally in the country – or can themselves lack legal status – the Trump administration wants to end federal funding for this, saying that the program is wasting money and violates its political directives.
And in a more immediate blow to the program, in the midst of fears of the immigration application raids, fewer children went to the zoo and practically no parents attended simultaneous education workshops on how to support the learning of their children.
Although the experience of the zoo funded by the federal government is a small program in the unified school district of Los Angeles – and a small part of a summer school which reaches tens of thousands of students, it offers a window on the way in which Trump administration policies are filtering to the class affecting the complex education mission of California and some of the most vulnerable children in the state.
There are 1,700 students defined as migrants in the second largest school system in the country, which has around 400,000 students ranging from kindergarten in kindergarten from the transition to high school.
The parents of these students generally work in agriculture or in the dairy industry and they move with the seasons. Children sometimes move with parents; Sometimes they stay with parents in the Los Angeles region or a different attachment base. Their parents generally have limited education and often limited English skills.
The federal government provides UNIFIED around 1.4 million dollars for additional assistance to migrant students throughout the school year, which is part of $ 400 million in federal subsidies on the education of migrants available at national level. The annual distribution of this funding was to start on July 1, but the Trump administration retained it, even if it was approved by the congress earlier this year.
Nationally, this refused the financing of various education programs exceeded around $ 6 billion, although some were published last week. Last week California has joined other pursuit states The Trump administration for having retained money, a large part of the administration wishes to eliminate completely in the years to come, including the financing of the education of migrants.
Those who applaud federal reductions say that governments of states and local should pay these programs if they are precious. Others believe that the federal government retains an important role in helping children with special needs.
Without federal participation, “some students will lose, and historically, they were colored students, they were migrant students, they were low-income students,” said Mayra Lara, director of partnerships and commitment from Southern California for the Edtrust-West advocacy group.
A look inside the unified effort
RR – A third year student upwards that the Times agreed to identify by his initials to protect his privacy and family – attended the zoo program for two consecutive years.
“I was a little excited because I had the same teacher, because I really wanted the same teacher because she was kind and kind,” said RR, who wears glasses and has a dark ponytail.
The number of participants who study on the zoo program is relatively low – because many families leave the region for summer work. During a typical year, 45 students, mainly in primary school, participate.
This summer, however, the number dropped to 25, even if the unified provided buses to take the students to the zoo and Malabar Elementary in Boyle Heights, the attachment base for class work.
What happened is not a mystery to Ruth Navarro, the principal teacher of the Unified Program.
Concerned about immigration raids, four families asked if the district could seek their children at home. The district found a way to do so, but families finally refused to participate anyway, said Navarro.
“Even if we were ready to go to their homes to pick them up, they did not want to let their child get out of the door because of the fear of what could happen to them,” said Navarro.
Normally, the school system needs three buses to recover participating students. This year, one of the buses was canceled.
A student of the Lausd migrants education program wears the mask of an Axolotl during a summer camp at the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park on July 16, 2025.
In addition, practically no parents took advantage of a program for them who coincided with the hours of their children in class, said Navarro. This effort included workshops on subjects such as social emotional learning and how to help children improve their reading skills. There were also advice on how to access immigration problems, said Navarro.
In response to the fears, the parents received simultaneous online broadcast for the workshops – in which about fifteen parents participated, said Navarro. Los Angeles Unified also widened an online version of the elementary classes of Malabar, in which around 40 students participated in various degrees – much more than usual.
But online students missed the heart of the program – seven trips to the zoo and the class interaction in person.
The students of the Lausd Migrant Education Program (MEP) share posters, drawings and descriptions of an Axolotl, a type of salamander, with parents at the Los Angeles zoo in Griffith Park on July 16, 2025.
RR has fully benefited from summer learning – and has become an expert on Axolotl.
At first, “I thought it was like a normal fish, but until I notice the legs. I said to myself: “Wait, a fish has no legs,” she said.
RR, like other students, has created artistic projects from his animal and also served as a docent for parents and visitors.
“They have gills that help them breathe underwater,” she said, holding a microphone next to the tank, adding that the axolotl can change colors to hide. “There is a camouflage there,” she said, pointing.
RR thinks it would be fun to be an axolotl and breathe underwater. She never went to a swimming pool or an ocean.
Students are generally extremely shy at the start of the summer, said Coral Barreiro, director of community programs for the Los Angeles Zoo.
“They acquire interpretation skills, which is incredible in strengthening confidence and public speaking in the future,” said Barreiro. “They meet Zoo’s guards, and they imitate, in the end, everything we have done and make them their own.”
A student from Lausd Migrant Education Program Sharing posters, drawings and descriptions of an Axolotl, a type of salamander, with parents during a summer camp at the Los Angeles zoo in Griffith Park.
Large -scale debate
The Unified continues its program of migrant students for the moment using reserves designated for other purposes. During the school year, the migrant program pays services such as tutoring and extended teaching time after school and Saturday.
Some argue that migrant programs – and many other examples of federal education spending – are not the responsibility of the federal government, notably Neal P. McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute Libertaire.
“The federal government does not have the constitutional power to finance programs like this, without forgetting that we have a national debt of $ 37 billion,” said McCluskey, who did not take a position on the value of the effort. “If the government wants to provide such a program, it should be funded by the state or locally.”
The Trump administration, in its budgetary proposal for next year, echoes this argument, but also classifies the effort of migrants as a negative squarely.
“This program is extremely expensive” by student, according to Budget documents. “This program has not been proven to be effective and encourages non-citizens ineligible to access taxpayers’ dollars by undressing the resources of American students.”
Critics of the administration ‘approach indicate that the federal government has worked for a long time to support students who need it most – when a state does not want or cannot do so.
Without regulations and federal funding, the governments of the States and Local did not “well done by all the students,” said Lara, of Edtrust-West.
The outstanding cuts and the funds selected, she said, will lead “the refusal of the opportunity to the students. States and local governments will have to make really difficult decisions. ”
