A black-and-white photograph of President John F. Kennedy hangs on the wall of Nick Melvoin’s small office, which is the nerve center of his campaign headquarters in Venice’s trendy tech neighborhood. Kennedy’s on the phone, one hand covering part of his pained face. Melvoin, 31, often looks up from his folding-table desk at the iconic photo...

Kelly Gonez widened her lead in District 6 and Nick Melvoin narrowed Steve Zimmer’s lead in District 4, according to an updated vote count Tuesday in last week’s LA Unified school board primary. The lineup for the May 16 runoff remains the same. The primary election results aren’t final as LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean...

Marshall Tuck, who unsuccessfully ran against State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in 2014, announced Monday he is running for the seat again. Tuck, who lives in Los Angeles, previously led Green Dot Public Schools, a network of independent charter schools, and Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a turnaround organization that oversees district schools....

LA Unified’s newest power broker is the guy who finished last. Whomever Gregory Martayan throws his support behind in the District 4 school board runoff could determine the outcome of the key race — and that race has the power to shift the balance of the board overseeing the nation’s second-largest school district. Martayan was...

Allison Holdorff Polhill, who fell short of making the runoff by about 10,000 votes, said Wednesday the biggest challenges she faced in her campaign were misrepresentations about charter schools and the attempts that were made to align her with Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. “I am woefully disappointed in Steve Zimmer’s...

*UPDATED LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer will face Nick Melvoin in the runoff in May, while incumbent Mónica García easily won re-election outright on Tuesday. In the race for the open seat in the San Fernando Valley, Kelly Gonez leads Imelda Padilla going into the runoff. The District 4 contest will continue to be...

Voting is underway today for three seats on the LA Unified school board. By late afternoon, a random sample of voter turnout showed less than 8 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots countywide, according to the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan. Polls close at 8 p.m. At 4PM our random hourly sampling of voter turnout...

Judging by how much is being spent, Los Angeles is about to hold the most important school board election in American history. As of Monday, candidates and their backers have poured $6.4 million into races for three seats, with most of that — about $5.4 million — coming from labor groups and deep-pocketed charter school...

The Fair Political Practices Commission will investigate spending by United Teachers Los Angeles on a public relations campaign supporting LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer, who is running for reelection. The chief of the FPPC’s Enforcement Division notified Keith Dell’Aquila, who filed a complaint, Thursday that it will investigate the complaint, according to a...

A question posed to the District 6 candidates for the LA Unified school board at a forum Wednesday night about Superintendent Michelle King’s strategic plan highlighted the differences and priorities among the contenders. High school students posed the question at a candidate forum at LA Mission College sponsored by the United Way of Greater Los...