This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Ankur Patel, a candidate for the District 3 seat. At 29-years old, Ankur Patel is the youngest candidate running for the LA Unified School Board, and he’s using that...

This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Scott Schmerelson, a candidate for the District 3 seat.  Scott Schmerelson is bad at being retired. After more than 35 years as an educator — he’s been a teacher,...

SEIU Local 99 has a new leader to steer the union’s 45,000 LA Unified employee membership. Max Arias has been named Executive Director starting Feb 16. He is replacing Scott Washburn who has been serving as interim executive director since July, 2014. The union represents teachers assistants, custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers among other service positions....

Let the negative campaigning begin! An arm of the California Charter Schools Association‘s political action committee has unleashed the first campaign attack with a full color, glossy flyer aimed at District 5 board incumbent Bennett Kayser. The message targets a very specific demographic: Latinos. It features five sad looking brown-skinned kids with their heads in their...

Hours after criticizing LA Unified School Board Member Bennett Kayser for dropping out of today’s District 5 campaign forum, one of his challengers, Andrew Thomas, announced that he, too, is pulling out. That leaves the stage to the only other candidate in the race, Ref Rodriguez, who is promising to attend. The forum is the...

LA Unified has hit yet another snag in its attempt to get laptops into the hands of students as part of the district’s beleaguered computers-for-all plan. More than 19,000 laptops —  part of the newly renamed Instructional Technology Initiative Phase 1L pilot — were scheduled to be delivered to 21 participating high schools by September....

* UPDATED LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines today for the first time publicly inserted himself into the district’s contract negotiations with the teachers union, calling its latest demands “entirely unrealistic” and asserting that they raise “serious ethical and equity issues” for the district. Pointing out that all the district’s other unions have agreed to new contracts...

This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Elizabeth Badger, a candidate for the District 3 seat.   For Elizabeth Badger the race for LA Unified’s School Board District 3 seat is personal. “I’m angry and fed...

More than 17,000 District 1 voters put George McKenna on the LA Unified school board last year. Now he needs each of them to send him $2.06. While candidates for this year’s school board elections are busy raising money, McKenna, is looking for help in paying off nearly $35,000 in campaign debts from last year. In...

The LA Unified teachers union, UTLA, dropped its salary demand yesterday to an 8.5 percent increase from a 9 percent, the union’s third consecutive lowering of what many teachers consider the most important issue in negotiations for a new contract. As part of the change, UTLA negotiators also asked the district for an annual $1,000...