A vocal and sometimes disruptive group of mostly student activists declared victory this week over federal weaponry being used by LA Unified police. The group received letters of explanation and apologies from two board members and the school police chief. The Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, a nonprofit civil rights...

Parents may be on the verge of settling a two-year “parent trigger” battle at 20th Street Elementary School without a lawsuit, which both sides hoped to avoid. Nearly 200 parents, students and teachers attended a Monday evening meeting at the school and heard about a unique alternative in which 20th Street would win greater autonomy but be neither...

Special education students present one of the biggest costs for LA Unified, but administrators are considering ways to capitalize on the district’s successes with that population. Half of the school board’s all-day special budget session at USC on Tuesday was spent discussing the costs of dealing with students with mild and severe disabilities. Special ed is identified...

The LA Unified school board put its money where its mouth is at its May 10 meeting and approved a $3 million expansion of its growing magnet program. The move comes after months of public comments from district leaders pointing to the popular magnet program as a way to increase enrollment in the district. Two...

LA Unified board members asked Tuesday for an in-depth analysis of a union-funded report stating that the district loses more than half a billion dollars because of independent charter schools. A response from the California Charter Schools Association, delivered after an hours-long recess while the school board met in closed session to address litigation against the district, called...

The LA Unified school board is scheduled to hold an open session meeting today at 1 p.m. Items on the agenda include a teachers union-commissioned report on the financial impact that independent charter schools have on the district, and a resolution from board members Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez calling on the district to more aggressively court...

Anti-immigrant rhetoric going on in presidential politics and a potential state law have added a renewed emphasis on developing required ethnic studies classes in the LA Unified curriculum. An expert from the University of Arizona spoke to an LA Unified school board committee this week to explain the importance of ethnic studies in education. He brought...

Teachers were praised at a committee meeting Tuesday by LA Unified’s Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson, honoring this week of celebrating educators, national Teacher Appreciation Week. “We want to celebrate our teachers, as this is Teacher Appreciation Day, and I want to mark that some of us in this room do not have credentials, but we...

Since the introduction of Long-Term English Learner courses in LA Unified in 2013, the number of those students designated as needing help with English has decreased by 6.4 percent, according to officials. The district has 36,322 students, or about 5.5 percent of the school population, designated as English learners, said Hilda Maldonado, executive director of...

Internationally renowned education expert Pedro Noguera warned members of the LA Unified school board and superintendent that unless more serious measures are taken, the nation’s second-largest school district is destined to lose more students. “The future is dire,” Noguera told the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday afternoon. He pointed to entire neighborhoods in Philadelphia...