{"id":462475,"date":"2026-09-13T10:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T10:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462475\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T10:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T10:38:12","slug":"one-l-a-school-trades-asphalt-for-trees-and-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462475\/","title":{"rendered":"One L.A. school trades asphalt for trees and grass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fourth-grader Landon Gonzalez and one of his classmates ran the 5K at the L.A. Chinatown Firecracker Run last year. They plan to do it again in the spring \u2014 only this time, they have a new place to train at their school in Westlake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About 30,000 square feet of asphalt was removed, and 35 trees were planted at Esperanza Elementary School, increasing green space across the campus from 9% to 37%, according to the Los Angeles Unified School District.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have this bright blue track to get in shape,\u201d Gonzalez, a student council member, said recently. \u201cActually, all the students are healthier because we\u2019ve been running on the track.\u201d<\/p>\n

The track is one piece of a major greening project at the Westlake school<\/a> that students, teachers and community leaders celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial <\/p>\n

The \u201cTrees & Seeds\u201d planting day at Esperanza Elementary in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The grass, native plants and trees are intended to provide shade and reduce heat on a schoolyard that was previously made up largely of asphalt.<\/p>\n

The school also has a new lawn for recreation and instruction, along with stormwater capture features and solar-reflective basketball and handball courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something calming for all of us \u2014 students and staff \u2014 about being surrounded by so much nature on campus,\u201d Principal Brad Rumble said.<\/p>\n

Students are already playing kickball games on the lawn, walking on the track together and gathering beneath the new trees, Rumble said. Younger students have been using the outdoor classroom areas to talk and play games, while others have been watching figeater beetles and butterflies visit flowering trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe low hills are a hit,\u201d Rumble said.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez and other students have quickly taken to the new spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought our school would look like this,\u201d he said. \u201cThe kids of Esperanza love rolling down the hills. Think about it. We now have fields on Esperanza campus. Friends are sitting in the shade of sycamore trees, they are chitchatting about things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $4.5-million project was completed through a partnership between LAUSD and the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, with funding from Cal Fire and the California Natural Resources Agency.<\/p>\n

The school district has set a goal of reaching 30% green space at all district schools by 2035.<\/p>\n

Similar greening projects are planned or underway at several other schools across Westlake, Koreatown and Pico Union, according to LAUSD. The projects include replacing pavement with trees and landscaping, creating outdoor learning areas and improving playgrounds.<\/p>\n

Schools with projects include Commonwealth Elementary School, Hobart Early Education Center, Los Angeles Elementary School, Hoover Elementary School, Plasencia Elementary School, Cochran Middle School, MacArthur Park Elementary School for the Visual and Performing Arts and 10th Street Elementary School, according to the district.<\/p>\n

Work at Esperanza took six years to complete and could serve as a model for other school campuses, said Tori Kjer, executive director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pointing the direction towards changing the model for school campuses across LAUSD and other districts,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s too hot for asphalt. Every child in LAUSD deserves access to grass to run on, trees to shade them, birds and butterflies to watch and wonder at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fourth-grader Liliana Guzman, another student council member, remembered watching the work take shape during the previous school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t imagine Esperanza being a better place than it already was. But guess what? It turned into a masterpiece,\u201d she said. \u201cJust look around. Where there was asphalt and very little shade, now there is grass and places where you could sit down and talk. And there is much more shade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malxux Gaspar, who teaches a Mayan culture class at Esperanza, also watched the construction from her classroom window. She said students sometimes grew frustrated as the work dragged on and dust forced them to close the windows.<\/p>\n

Now, Gaspar said she spends her breaks walking with students through the new green spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids, they come down, they chitchat, they rest and it\u2019s just beautiful,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to work at this school and in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez already has another idea for the new lawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou changed our lives, and I\u2019ll leave you with a proposal,\u201d he told the crowd. \u201cMovie night right here on the lawn under the stars. How about that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd erupted in cheers and applause.<\/p>\n

Hanna Kang<\/a> writes for the LA Local<\/a>, a nonprofit news site covering Los Angeles communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fourth-grader Landon Gonzalez and one of his classmates ran the 5K at the L.A. Chinatown Firecracker Run last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2600,7,9,8,2791,182198,182199,5745,82897,47098,17248,182200,1506,37318,4574,13795,21177,1968],"class_list":["post-462475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-asphalt","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-campus","tag-esperanza-elementary-school","tag-esperanza-love","tag-gonzalez","tag-grass","tag-l-a-school","tag-lausd","tag-new-lawn","tag-project","tag-school-district","tag-student","tag-tree","tag-westlake","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}