The LA Unified school board spent more than an hour last night, debating dates for the next three academic calendar years. Ultimately, the members decided to keep the schedule similar to this year’s — starting in mid-August with three weeks of winter break — but only for one year. The plan passed on a 5-2...

The LA Unified board today put itself on record as opposing a proposal that originated with the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to expand the number of charter schools in the district in the years ahead. By a 7-0 vote, the board made it clear that it would do what it could to discourage the...

Charter school administrators, alumni and parents appeared today at a morning meeting of the LA Unified school to oppose a resolution that will ask the board to condemn any threat to the school system through a proliferation of charter schools. “Resolutions like this distract us and are perpetuating harmful myths in the community,” Rachel Hazlehurst,...

The LA Unified school district is analyzing why certain charter schools operate on split campuses. In a report being presented to the school board at a meeting today, the staff found 24 charters using shared facilities on two traditional school sites, and one-third of them are divided among three sites. Representatives of LA Unified charters...

* UPDATED LA Unified’s selection of a new superintendent could end as early as this afternoon with the board announcing a successor to Ramon Cortines after a months-long search. The finalists are believed to be Michelle King, the current interim, and Kelvin Adams, superintendent of public schools in St. Louis. A special board meeting has been...

After three revisions, a resolution aimed at curtailing future charter school expansion in LA Unified is finally coming before the school board for a vote on Tuesday. While the measure is largely symbolic in that it cannot change policy regarding charter growth — that is a state matter — it’s a way to open a “difficult conversation...

After a rash of suicides by local teenagers’ hanging themselves, jumping off rooftops and throwing themselves in front of subways, the mayor of Nagoya, Japan turned to LA Unified for help, and what he got is an anti-bullying campaign that is now a model for schools in Japan. Holly Priebe-Diaz, who helped put together the LAUSD anti-bullying...

Here’s another bit of evidence to suggest that LA Unified will have a new superintendent by next week. The agenda for a board meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 12 includes this: “Recommends approval of an employment agreement for the Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent of Schools.” That would presume that the members will have coalesced around one candidate...

Months of preparation in anticipation of the El Niño storms have kept service calls to LA Unified’s facilities office to a “moderate” level, according to the school district’s director of Maintenance and Operations Roger Finstad. Yesterday, he said, his department received 423 rain-related service calls from 211 schools, and by mid-afternoon today, he received 235 calls from...

* UPDATED She gave $1 million to Palisades Charter High School for classroom renovations and building a community pool. She was LAUSD’s oldest full-time teacher when she retired at 94 and one of the oldest ever in the nation. She taught the children of Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum. And, her students...