Last month, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education unanimously passed Resolution 044-25/26, Leveraging District Purchasing Power to Defend Immigrant Families and Human Dignity. 

The resolution “reaffirms all LAUSD schools as sanctuary spaces, condemns the federal militarization of immigrant communities, and demands the district to leverage its economic power to assess whether a vendor’s practices conflict with LAUSD’s values and educational mission, prioritizing transparency, mitigation, and reasonable alternatives for commonly used goods.” 

In 2024, In the Public Interest released its report Harnessing the Power of Procurement, which explored how procurement can and should be used as a tool to advance–and sometimes defend–the public good and address community needs. This resolution from LAUSD aims to do just that by requiring vendors to disclose contracts, partnerships, or business activities connected to immigration detention, enforcement, or related surveillance practices and allowing the district to consider that information in procurement decisions.

Governments around the country spend trillions of public dollars on contracts with private vendors. This public money should work for the public. The ability of LAUSD to educate its diverse population of students in a safe and trusted environment is key to student attendance, learning, and success. How the district spends public dollars should further these values, not undermine them. By requiring vendors to disclose their ties to immigration detention, enforcement, or related surveillance practices, the district will be better able to align its public spending with the important value of ensuring a safe and trusted learning environment.

Such vendor disclosures are not new. A number of states and local governments already require vendor disclosure of information related to things like labor, environmental, tax, and civil rights laws. Disclosure laws give public entities the information they need to understand the track record of vendors and make procurement decisions that support, not threaten, a community’s interests and well-being. 

Public education dollars should be spent wisely, and the information gathered through the disclosure requirement will help the district do that. Procurement is not just about getting the best price for goods and services. 

As one of the largest school districts in the country, LAUSD has seized the opportunity to reframe how procurement can be used to align public spending with advancing and protecting the public interest.

Shahrzad Habibi
Director of Research and Policy