A yearlong revival of social-emotional learning at 109 LA Unified schools is in danger of being shut down because the district doesn’t have money earmarked to continue the programs, district officials confirmed. Concerns about losing this fundamental tool in learning led LA Unified’s Commission on Human Relations, Diversity and Educational Equity to vote Thursday evening to support social-emotional learning and...

When Principal James Lee arrived at school Wednesday morning to find a sea of anxious faces, he knew he had to do something. Donald Trump was now the president-elect, and Lee recalled how his students had reacted with fear to some of the rhetoric during the presidential campaign about immigration, deportation and “the Wall.” Sylmar Charter High...

October was National Bullying Prevention Month, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for LA Unified. Anecdotal evidence and interviews with dozens of teachers, administrators, parents and students over the past three months point to an increase in school bullying, inappropriate language and public humiliation that many believe can be specifically attributed to...

    For the first time since LA Unified has collected such data, the number of incidents involving fights, suicidal behavior, bullying, drugs and other disruptions on campuses was higher at middle schools than at high schools. The district last week released the 2015-2016 iSTAR Annual Report, which stands for the Incident System Tracking Accountability...

It was supposed to be a simple primer on the Charter School Petition Authorization Policy at a committee meeting, but it ended up bringing up new issues and old problems. Scott Schmerelson expressed consternation that his fellow board members often go against the recommendations of the Charter Schools Division staff as well as the superintendent...

You may have seen the uniformed police officers on campus when dropping the kids off at school. Here are a few facts you probably didn’t know about the Los Angeles School Police Department: • The LASPD is on duty 24 hours a day seven days a week to monitor more than 1,300 schools. • They...

Every day, the news headlines make Police Chief Steven K. Zipperman aware of something more he has to do to help 664,000 children feel safe coming to school. Chief Zipperman cradles the responsibility of keeping LA Unified’s students safe, as well as its 60,000 employees. And that’s a tall order in a today’s world, with...

It wasn’t all about charters at the 13 hours of meetings held Tuesday by the LA Unified School Board. They also made decisions on possibly bringing flavored milk back to schools, encouraging more water access, discouraging a high-speed rail rumbling past some schools, a name change to a school with a titled deemed racist, plus more. Other...

* UPDATED On a technicality, LA Unified turned down the Satanic Temple of Los Angeles from starting up an After School Satan Club on one of their elementary school campuses. But it doesn’t mean the idea is banned until hell freezes over. The district’s decision had nothing to do with the merits of the after school...

*UPDATED LA Unified is struggling to define its role in overseeing charter schools as the numbers of academically strong charters continue to grow across the nation’s second-largest school district. LA has the most independent public charter schools overseen by a single district and usually approves most petitions. But this week a record number of charters,...