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12,000 kids will leave LAUSD this year: Los Angeles school board weighs options for how to fill looming financial hole

As LA Unified continues to lose 12,000 students every year, administrators will be notified of expected job losses, restrictions could be made on how to spend one-time funds coming from the state, and labor partners will be called on to be part of the solution. Next year’s projected enrollment decline was reported Tuesday by Chief Financial...
By Mike Szymanski | February 7, 2018
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These parent volunteers are bringing school libraries back to life with color, comforts, and — most of all — books

* Updated Feb. 9 Kids rarely stepped foot in the library at Washington Elementary in Compton. “It was dusty and damp in there, it was not very welcoming for kids at all,” Principal Diana Phillips said. “We had a lot of very old books that children were not interested in and none of the modern...
By Mike Szymanski | February 5, 2018
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Exclusive: LAUSD plans to use same search firm to find a new superintendent — and it gets a break on the cost
The LA Unified school board is set to confirm the same search firm that helped them pick Michelle King as superintendent in 2016, which will save the district at least $160,000. In the contract signed last time with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates of Rosemont, Ill., there was a two-year window clause that says, “If the Superintendent departs...
By Mike Szymanski | February 1, 2018
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LAUSD board seeks ‘disruption’ from next superintendent

In the context of the search for its next superintendent, LA Unified’s school board is asking existential questions about how hard it should be pushing to disrupt the status quo in a system that serves more than 700,000 students. While none of the conversations came particularly full-circle in a special meeting of the board on...
By Mike Szymanski | January 31, 2018
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What you needed to know about LA schools in January: Our 7 most popular articles this month

The new year started off with a bang for education watchers in Los Angeles: a new leader will be chosen this year for the nation’s second-largest school district. The first month of 2018 had plenty more news to keep up with, as the state thumbed its nose at new federal accountability rules, the governor sought...
By Laura Greanias | January 30, 2018
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Los Angeles DACA students who will be in the audience at Trump’s State of the Union address are hoping to ‘really get at their hearts’

*Updated Jan. 30 Two young DACA recipients from Los Angeles will be guests at Tuesday’s State of the Union address, sitting with House Democrats and hoping to hear President Trump announce a permanent solution for them and their families to remain together in this country. The two young women are part of a delegation of...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | January 29, 2018
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How a Blue Ribbon high school in downtown LA is daring its low-income Latino students to dream bigger — and guiding 87 percent of them into four-year colleges

*Updated Feb. 7 Jesús González Saucedo’s parents knew that even though he was born with a cleft palate that made it hard for him to speak, he could develop his potential and rise above the life they could offer him as street vendors. They just had to find the right school. “They had to sell...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | January 29, 2018
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California schools could see the most money ever, but it won’t keep LAUSD from falling off its fiscal cliff

* Updated Jan. 25 The California governor’s new budget proposes giving more to schools than ever before — $78.3 billion — but it’s not going to keep LA Unified from driving off its fiscal cliff in three years, according to the district’s chief financial officer. With steady enrollment declines and crushing pension debt, the...
By Mike Szymanski | January 24, 2018
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LA schools have a tentative deal with labor partners on health benefits — but watchdogs warn it’s not aggressive enough in reining in costs

A tentative agreement on health benefits marks the first time an LA Unified labor contract has directly taken on the district’s soaring healthcare costs. But watchdogs say the deal doesn’t go far enough in tackling the district’s standing debt — and some school board members warn it may actually make the next round of negotiations...
By Mike Szymanski | January 23, 2018
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Marshall Tuck wins California school administrators’ endorsement for state superintendent

*Updated Jan. 22 Marshall Tuck’s student-focused campaign for state superintendent of public instruction has earned him the endorsement of the Association of California School Administrators, which hasn’t endorsed in the race for eight years. In 2014, the organization, which represents more than 17,000 California school principals and superintendents, chose not to endorse because they wanted...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | January 22, 2018