Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has developed an index to help identify the schools that are most in need of greening resources.
Many parents and advocates have called on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to implement more measures to reduce heat and provide shade over its school playgrounds, where asphalt can reach temperatures of 150 degrees Fahrenheit, as previously reported. To accelerate campus greening for students who lack access to green spaces and the benefits they offer, LAUSD has developed a Greening Index that assigns a “green score” to help identify which schools are most in need of greening resources.
The Greening Index combines two measures of need: 1) school site-specific need and 2) community-based need. A school’s green score is based on the percentage of green space on a campus compared with its total area; and a score derived from results of the Los Angeles County’s 2016 Parks Needs Assessment (PNA), a countywide study of the diverse parks and recreation facilities throughout LA County’s cities and unincorporated communities. Prepared by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), the PNA gathered data to determine the scope, scale, and location of park need in Los Angeles County.
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