For most kids, getting expelled in the seventh grade for bringing a weapon to school is the beginning of a sad story, the first step into the school-to-prison pipeline. But for Eduardo Pacheco, a recent graduate of LA Unified’s Woodrow Wilson High School, it ended up being a low point from which he slowly rose to...

A teacher at LA Unified filed a lawsuit against the district Wednesday after he was suspended in 2014 over a lewd Facebook page that was created with his name and image on it. A student was eventually arrested by the LAPD and charged with creating the page, but not before the teacher, Jason Duchan, was suspended from...

In response to a critical story by the Associated Press that concluded the Clean Energy Jobs Act (Proposition 39) has failed to meet its stated goals, two of the campaign’s co-chairs said the program needs more time to benefit schools. “It’s irresponsible and more than a little misleading to prejudge a long-term, multi-year program this...

* UPDATED One day before LA Unified’s traditional schools opened, students at ICEF Vista Elementary Academy, a charter in Del Rey, began their classes, greeted yesterday by teachers and administrators — and about a dozen protesters who told them they were not wanted and should go somewhere else. It was also the first day ICEF had moved...

As the curtain goes up tomorrow on another LA Unified school year, many of the problems of last year appear resolved, giving hope that the new year will unfold with fewer headaches despite a flurry of changes. The last school year featured weeks on end of trouble, including scandal, labor unrest, technology problems, a polarizing...

* UPDATED In the latest wave of his ongoing staff shakeup, Superintendent Ramon Cortines has reassigned three top administrative leaders, demoting them to the role of school principal. The moves were made without any public announcement, but LA School Report has learned that former Chief Academic Officer Gerardo Loera, former Director of Curriculum and Instruction Susan Tandberg and former...

Teach For America–Los Angeles announced today that 80 instructors from its program will be working at schools in the Los Angeles area this year, a 20 percent reduction from last year. The reduced numbers are directly related to the nationwide teacher shortage, something Teach for America is also experiencing. “I think what we are seeing...

A new evaluation of LA Unified’s greening initiatives by the district’s Inspector General encourages the addition of green space and gardens as a way to fight the California drought, finding them to be a more efficient way to conserve water than covering the open spaces with asphalt. However, if the district wants to create more...

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that fewer than one in five of the nation’s middle and high schools start the day at 8:30 a.m. or later, a time recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In a report last year, the Academy concluded that insufficient sleep in adolescents and...

Looking to calm any last-minute fears that the start of the new school year will mirror last year’s troublesome beginning, LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines is promising that the MiSiS computer system has been fixed and will operate smoothy when schools open later this month. “MiSiS is the heart of this district,” he said in a statement from...