Project Narrative

LAUSD school campuses sit on 6,657 acres of land and are constructed with enough asphalt to pave a 4 lane highway from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The Drought Response Outreach Program for Schools (DROPS) offered an opportunity to re-design LAUSD campuses with the permeable surfaces that capture stormwater, create habitat, and create outdoor spaces for LAUSD students to learn and play. The DROPS project involved the design and construction of Low Impact Development (LID) Best Management Practices (BMPs) at four LAUSD schools: Normandie Avenue Elementary School, Northridge Middle School, Victory Boulevard Elementary School, Daniel Webster Middle School. These features included rain gardens, native plants, bioswales, permeable pavers, and cisterns. The DROPS project also supported: water quality monitoring to assess the capture and treatment efficacy of installed BMPs, training LAUSD staff about operation and maintenance needs of installed features, connections between the LID features and STEAM curriculum, and comprehensive outreach efforts to engage and inform faculty, students, and surrounding communities.