The Soulsville neighborhood in Memphis, Tenn. has the unpleasant distinction of being the 12th most dangerous in the country. Local residents have a one-in-nine chance of becoming a crime victim there within a year. The Soulsville Charter School is located on College Street, and the joke is that the street name is as close as most...

Several members of the LA Unified board are using their websites to reflect on what they’re thankful for with the long Thanksgiving weekend just ahead. Board President Steve Zimmer focused on education in his newsletter. He writes: “The recent attacks on liberty and peace in Paris, Mali, and across the Middle East shake our hearts and our spirit. Here at home, the...

As LA Unified deals with looming deficits that could reach $600 million, a recent independent Financial Report attributes a large share of it to the ever-increasing costs of health benefits for present and retired employees. The district spends 14 percent of its budget on active and retired employee health benefits — which is more than it...

LAUSD is making another strong push for input from families and employees to see what the school schedule should be for the next three years. And, the district is providing lots of back-up materials to help inform choices, including a comparison of student test scores in traditional school years versus early school calendars, electricity consumption costs for the...

LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines said late yesterday the district’s facilities staff plans to monitor methane gas levels near two schools in northern San Fernando Valley. Cortines said he will post the results of the air quality report right away on the LAUSD website. Concerns about a smell in the Porter Ranch neighborhood led to a protest that...

At a high school called the Critical Design and Gaming School, you’d think every student had a device on and was playing a game all the time. Not so. In fact, during one recent morning lesson, students opened up boxes of traditional board games to play with each other. “They find out pretty quickly it’s...

And now for the weather forecast: More than $17 million in roof repairs still need to be completed at LAUSD schools before El Niño arrives in January. The district also needs to replace aging equipment at the Emergency Operations Center at a cost of $225,000 a year, and it will cost about $5 per student...

* UPDATED A week ago, the U.S. Senate proposed cutting 20,000 AmeriCorps positions that provide help to schools in unprivileged communities. Now, City Year, which has 309 AmeriCorps members in Los Angeles, is calling on the public to help stop the proposed cuts before decisions are made in the next week. The measure could result in...

The LA Unified’s Office of Inspector General told a school board committee this week that it needs an additional $570,000 to audit charter schools, according to a recent report. The OIG once had a staff of 83 and is now down to 57, according to Inspector General Ken Bramlett, whose office oversees a $7.6 million budget....

Seven years after city voters approved Measure Q, giving LA Unified the go-ahead to borrow $7 billion, the first bond sales from the measure will begin within a month or so, district officials said today. As the largest local school bond measure in California history, Measure Q was requested to upgrade older school buildings and reconfigure...