Names and identifying details of every student here are changed, as they are everywhere on the blog.
Sveta wants to know about the yellow bus and she wants to know now, before the polish, because her boy starts at a magnet across town and three people have promised her that the district drives him there.
What nobody mentioned is the part where a seat is applied for. So we do it in order, between the file and the base coat.
Applying, in order
First is the PIN, which is handed to the parent somewhere between one and three days after enrolling your child. If you do not have the PIN, then you do not have a Parent Portal account, and without the account there is no request. And that is where the two weeks go.
Distance decides who is even allowed to ask. Elementary over a mile from the school, secondary over two miles, and for magnet routes the number is different again, only the district’s own pages do not agree on what it is, so that one goes to the magnet coordinator. Then it comes down to routes and seats. First come, and the request goes in again every school year, with the window in the spring.
Seats come with a condition. Miss the bus for long enough, ten days without a single ride, and it goes to somebody else, though you can ask again.
Nothing here is owed to you, either. Unless a child’s IEP says otherwise, the district drives where it can, and can is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Sveta typed it into her notes.
That pass nobody mentions
For the kids who take Metro instead, there is GoPass, and it is free, unlimited on Metro buses and trains. The student requests an activation code through the LAUSD account, activates the card at the TAP site, waits an hour, and taps within 14 days or the whole thing has to be redone.
Cards sit in a drawer in the school office until somebody asks for one. Sveta held hers up to the lamp and turned it over twice.
Thirteen. Her boy. A train by himself, no, she is not there yet. I was on the colectivo across Rosario at that age and it was nothing to anybody, which I mentioned and then let go.
The morning I drove the line
One week in October a friend had me on her school run. You roll up, the child is out on the sidewalk side, and you are already gone. No parking. Nobody walks in. And the woman with the arms, she is moving cars, she has not even registered your face.
Afternoon goes slower, and it ends with a neighbor by the door, not on the office list, while somebody phones you at work.
Names go on that list in September. All of them, the aunt, the neighbor, the friend with a car.
When nothing comes at 7:20
A late route texts you on its own, provided school messages were not switched off at some point, and if they were, silence, until START LAUSD goes to 91841. The other number worth keeping is 1-800-LA BUSES, for the corner with no bus on it.
Ninety minutes is what a ride is allowed to be, where that works out. Different, though, when the route goes into town, turns around, and your kid rides both halves of it.
Week three, seat granted. She drove behind the bus that first morning to see the stop for herself.
Courses at Palme School
Russian for bilingual children
When a kid understands Russian and answers in English
School of reading
Reading and writing for kids who already speak Russian
Free materials
Things to print and do at the kitchen table
Whatever happens to Russian while the day runs in English is on no route map. Palme School works with children from four years old, online, in small groups, a lesson runs 40 minutes. The first two sessions cost nothing, a talk with a methodologist and then a trial lesson inside a group. For a child who understands and answers you in English, Russian for bilingual children. For one who talks but stops at the page, the reading school.
Frequently asked questions
Into the Parent Portal, and that account only begins after the school provides a PIN, which is a day or three post-enrollment. Over a mile out from an elementary school, over two from a middle or a high school, and that is who gets to ask at all. Whether a seat turns up depends on which routes are running that year.
No, and here is the irritating part, the district gives that number differently depending on which of its own pages you open. Take it from the magnet coordinator at the school rather than from a website.
Yes. Ten days pass with nobody riding and it goes to another family, and you are back at the beginning of the request. The request is annual anyway, with the opt-in window in spring.
Nothing, that is the point. Students ride Metro buses and trains unlimited on it. The activation code comes from the LAUSD student account, the card is activated on the TAP site, and after an hour of waiting it has to be tapped within 14 days, or the activation is done again from the beginning. Physical cards come from the school office, within three days if there is none at the desk, and the 2026-27 pass covers July 1, 2026 through Sept. 30, 2027.
Only the ones named on the list the office keeps, which is why everybody possible goes on it in September, the aunt included. The ride itself is limited to 90 minutes, where that can be managed.
Those alerts come by text and by phone, so the first thing to look at is whether LAUSD messages got switched off on your number somewhere along the way. START LAUSD to 91841 brings them back, and for that morning itself there is 1-800-LA BUSES.
Palme School: Russian for bilingual children · School of reading · Free materials for families
Monica Perez moved to Los Angeles from Rosario, Argentina. She interacts a lot with Russian-speaking women at her nail salon, so she has a wealth of knowledge about Russian culture and the secrets that women from Russia keep to themselves.
