Hot classrooms, leaky roofs — one student’s fight for better school facilities (Rebroadcast)

About this episode

Miliani Rodriguez, a high school senior, discusses her fight for better school facilities in California and the inequalities in funding for school renovations.

Miliani Rodriguez is a senior at Coachella Valley High School. The school buildings are old, she says, and they show it. The air conditioning often breaks in over 100-degree heat. When it rains, the ceilings leak. The sinks in her ceramics classroom broke and flooded the classroom. Miliani thought these kinds of things were  normal, after attending school in the Coachella Valley Unified School District since kindergarten. But last year she visited her cousin’s high school, just a couple of miles away from her, and found modern buildings, spacious athletic fields, and working air conditioning. Now, she is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit, Miliani R. v. State of California, which claims the way the state subsidizes school renovations perpetuates vast inequalities for students, sending more money to districts that already have more property wealth, and locking out poor districts from accessing funding. Guests: Miliani Rodriguez, Lead plaintiff, Miliani R. v. State of California John Fensterwald, Editor-at-large, EdSource Read more from EdSource: Equity advocates to ask California court to suspend billions in school construction funding California sued over bond program…

People in this episode

Host: Zaidee Stavely

Guests: Miliani Rodriguez, John Fensterwald

Topics covered

• school facilities
• education inequality
• student activism
• lawsuit
• California education policy

Keywords

• school facilities
• education inequality
• lawsuit
• California
• student activism

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Coachella Valley High School, Coachella Valley Unified School District, State of California

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