Four years ago, Amestoy Elementary Principal Hugh Ryan made a strategic decision to invest in parents. He set high goals for parent participation and enlisted teachers in that effort and in making sure parents felt valued. He opened the parent center with district funds and gave its part-time parent representatives his full support — and...

As an undocumented student in her San Bernardino high school, Maria Lopez Lozano was told by her school counselor she couldn’t go to college. She went anyway, graduated from UC Irvine, and now teaches in LA Unified. As a “DACAmented” teacher — as she called herself for being undocumented and a DACA recipient — she...

Creating a partnership between parents and schools to achieve student success has been the mission of Families in Schools (FIS) since its foundation in 2000. For the past five years, under the leadership of Oscar Cruz, the organization’s president, that mission of developing parent engagement across schools in Los Angeles has expanded to other school...

High school seniors at Academia Avance, an independent public charter school in northeast Los Angeles, show up to school looking like they’re headed to work. That’s because they are. Three days a week, all students in the senior class head off to internships where they are mentored by medical, legal, and business professionals. “Privileged kids...

“DACA is dead. The Dream Act is a permanent solution for us, and that’s what we’re fighting for now,” said Paulina, an LA Unified graduate from Fremont High School and a DACA recipient who met on Wednesday with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, LA Unified board members, and business and community leaders in Los Angeles...

California community college students now have a faster route to a four-year degree, thanks to two new state laws. On Friday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 705, allowing more students access to college-level courses instead of remedial courses when they start community college, and AB 19, giving all first-time students in the state a free...

The main goal for most community college students in California is to transfer to a four-year university to earn a bachelor’s degree. But a new report shows it takes an average of 6.5 years to get a bachelor’s for students transferring to the University of California system and seven years for those transferring to the...

Whether you are considering sending your child to a different school, looking for a themed academic program, or want your child to speak a second language, LA Unified is now accepting applications for magnet programs, permits with transportation, and dual language/bilingual programs through Nov. 9.  Monday was the launch of LA Unified’s new unified enrollment system. The...

Many Latino immigrant families came to this country with one objective: a better education for their children. But in the newly released test scores, English learners in LA Unified posted no growth at all for the second year in a row, and Latino students had one of the lowest growth rates among all other ethnic...

In Los Angeles, the lines to renew DACA permits are getting longer as the Oct. 5 deadline approaches, according to CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, which has been helping about 40 immigrants a day renew their permits for free. The usual processing cost is $495. The Trump Administration announced on Sept....