Drinking too much at a work dinner or hitting on a co-worker’s spouse can make things truly uncomfortable at the office. But what about publicly damning a future colleague before his first day on the job? That’s the situation LA Unified school board Vice President Steve Zimmer faces, now that Ref Rodriguez has defeated his good...

LA Unified officials are in Sacramento today lobbying for adult education and transitional kindergarten programs. Oh yeah, and the budget, too. Among those joining in on the road trip are Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King, Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly and board members George McKenna and Steve Zimmer. They planned to meet with Senate President Pro...

LA Unified Board President Richard Vladovic successfully held his District 7 seat last night, winning a third term by the largest margin of the day’s three elections in a race with the lowest turn out. He won with 56 percent of the vote to Lydia Gutierrez’s 44 percent. Mike Trujillo, a campaign consultant to Vladovic,...

In the most of expensive and vitriolic of all three LA Unified board races, Bennett Kayser lost to Ref Rodriguez in the battle to represent District 5. Shortly after polls closed Rodriguez cemented an early lead, and Kayser, who had hoped for a second term, was never able to catch up. “This is a historic victory, as...

In a stunning upset, Scott Schmerelson handily defeated two-term incumbent Tamar Galatzan in the race for LA Unified’s District 3 seat. Schmerelson beat Galatzan with more than 3,000 votes, 55 percent to 45 percent. “I am very happy, very excited, and I’m ready for my five-year term,” he told LA School Report late last night,...

* UPDATED If Ref Rodriguez wins election tomorrow, he’s got no friend in Steve Zimmer. Rodriguez is the challenger in the race for LA Unified school board District 5 against Bennett Kayser, easily the most heated of the three board elections. A loss by Kayser could shift the ideological balance of the seven member board...

It wasn’t the first time children wept in front of the LA Unified school board or told horrifying tales of being bullied in school or recalled that spark of hope ignited by a remarkable teacher. But something in the way students from Los Angeles Big Picture High School on Tuesday pleaded to save their school struck...

* UPDATED Superintendent Ramon Cortines is putting off retirement for another year. The LA Unified school board yesterday voted unanimously to extend Cortines’s contract through the end of the 2015-16 school year. Terms of the deal are still under review, “but nothing, including salary, was expected to change from the previous pact,” district officials said...

In a surprise move today, the LA Unified School Board postponed a vote on a resolution to fix the implementation of college prep graduation requirements, called A through G. The resolution co-sponsored by board members Mónica García and Steve Zimmer was delayed after members complained that they didn’t have enough understanding of the latest amended version...

Big Picture High School, a charter school attended by mostly troubled teens, will likely be shut down in June after a review by the LA Unified Charter Schools Division reported that it is dissatisfied with the school’s, um, big picture. The school board tomorrow is considering turning down its request to stay in operation. The...