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The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted recently to close a half billion dollar budgetary shortfall by proposing to increase class sizes, cut after school programs, early childhood education and adult education. The plan, a worst case scenario, would go into effect, only if voters refuse to pass a $298 annual per capita parcel tax. Both the school board, and those protesting outside the meeting where the plans were discussed blame the state government for funding cuts.

What often gets left out of such discussions are the real impacts that public school programs have on vulnerable youth populations. Today, we feature the story of one LAUSD teacher, Florence Avognon, a literacy specialist teacher at Phoenix Academy and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, focusing primarily on kids that nearly everyone else has given up on, such as those residing in drug rehabilitation facilities. She has also taught at Central Juvenile Hall, teaching incarcerated youth. Florence Avognon, herself a product of the public school system, raised by a single mother, and who benefited from the welfare system as a child, uses literature as one of her teaching tools. Avognon was recently recognized for her teaching work, being named California’s 2012 Teacher of the Year. Her one-woman play “Makin’ Us Whole: A Tribute to Literary Activists” opens this Friday as part of Women’s History month, and features works by such African American literary giants as Langston Hughes, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, and many others.

GUEST: Florence Avognon, literacy specialist teacher at Phoenix Academy and the Los Angeles County Office of Education

Makin’ Us Whole: A Tribute to Literary Activists, will be performed on 4 dates only: Saturday March 24, Sunday March 25, Saturday March 31, and Sunday April 1, 2012. Saturday performances are at 8 pm, and Sunday performances are at 2 pm and 7 pm.

The play will be at the Imagined Life Theater, 5615 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90019.

Admission is $25 each. Group rates available. Call 951-313-8012 or click here to purchase tickets.