March 24 Update: LAUSD announced a new agreement with SEIU Friday that includes a 30% bump in wages and retroactive pay. See the full details.  Judging from the rain and official rhetoric, it was a dark Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. Officials at the Los Angeles Unified School District were predicting a rough three days...

Updated March 20 They sympathize with the workers. Some plan to join them on the picket line at LA Unified schools.  But when it comes to union and district leaders, LAUSD parents are skeptical and angry. SEIU Local 99, LAUSD’s 30,000-member union representing employees like custodians, bus drivers, and special education assistants, plans to strike...

Update, March 13: SEIU Local 99 announced over the weekend that it plans to hold a 3-day unfair labor practice strike to protest what it characterizes as harassment from LAUSD. The union will announce dates for the strike this Wednesday at a joint rally with the teachers union, UTLA. An FAQ on UTLA’s website says...

Los Angeles Unified’s most publicly contentious co-location may soon be coming to an end. Brooke Rios, the executive director of the New Los Angeles Elementary, a charter school that has shared a campus with Baldwin Hills Elementary for nearly seven years, said her school is close to securing its own building. “We’re doing everything in...

After almost a lifetime in California politics — first as a student activist, then as an elected official — Jackie Goldberg has returned to a familiar seat of power.  Last month, by unanimous vote, the 78-year-old representative of Board District 5 was elected president of the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education. She last held...

Updated Feb. 13 SEIU Local 99 announced on Feb. 11 that the strike authorization had passed with 96% support from members who voted. The authorization does not guarantee a strike but allows the union’s bargaining team to call one if necessary. The union’s first state-run mediation session with LAUSD is scheduled for Feb. 21.  If...

Correction appended Jan. 10 Every week or so, Los Angeles parent Glenisha Cargin makes a round of phone calls to LAUSD school officials trying to get help for her young son. Cargin, the mother of a first-grader on the autism spectrum who attends a district school in Westmont, calls the principal. Next she moves on...