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Stories of hope power education town hall in East Los Angeles

Mary Najera didn’t even know what a charter school was when she applied to the first Green Dot Public School, but within two years it had transformed her son who was on the brink of falling into a life of gangs and drugs. Najera told her family’s story Tuesday evening at a town hall event...
By Sarah Favot | October 26, 2016
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9 things you didn’t know about the school police who guard your children

You may have seen the uniformed police officers on campus when dropping the kids off at school. Here are a few facts you probably didn’t know about the Los Angeles School Police Department: • The LASPD is on duty 24 hours a day seven days a week to monitor more than 1,300 schools. • They...
By Mike Szymanski | October 24, 2016
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How is the largest school police force in the nation keeping LA’s children safe?

Every day, the news headlines make Police Chief Steven K. Zipperman aware of something more he has to do to help 664,000 children feel safe coming to school. Chief Zipperman cradles the responsibility of keeping LA Unified’s students safe, as well as its 60,000 employees. And that’s a tall order in a today’s world, with...
By Mike Szymanski | October 24, 2016
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Introducing: LA’s first education news site in Spanish

LA School Report, in partnership with The 74, two of the fastest-growing education news sites, are expanding their coverage in Los Angeles with the launch of LA School Report en Español. LA School Report en Español is the first and only Spanish-language education news site dedicated to the Los Angeles Latino community, which comprises three-quarters...
By LA School Report | October 24, 2016
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Parents share their hopes for their children’s education

One in three students in Pacoima and Panorama City attends a low-performing school, but parents on Saturday heard a message of hope. Great Public Schools Now, a nonprofit formed to accelerate the growth of high-quality public schools in LA, held its first in a series of town halls with parents and community members from those...
By Sarah Favot | October 24, 2016
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Flavored milk, high-speed rail, a name change and more LAUSD board decisions

It wasn’t all about charters at the 13 hours of meetings held Tuesday by the LA Unified School Board. They also made decisions on possibly bringing flavored milk back to schools, encouraging more water access, discouraging a high-speed rail rumbling past some schools, a name change to a school with a titled deemed racist, plus more. Other...
By Mike Szymanski | October 20, 2016
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LAUSD douses plans for local After School Satan Club

* UPDATED On a technicality, LA Unified turned down the Satanic Temple of Los Angeles from starting up an After School Satan Club on one of their elementary school campuses. But it doesn’t mean the idea is banned until hell freezes over. The district’s decision had nothing to do with the merits of the after school...
By Mike Szymanski | October 20, 2016
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Morning Read: California attorney general calls for improvements in student attendance reporting, especially in early grades
California attorney general calls for state actions to improve student attendance California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Wednesday called for the California Department of Education to take over a job that her office has done for the past four years: release an annual data analysis on chronic student absenteeism. The request came as part of a 10-point...
By LA School Report | October 20, 2016
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A balanced job or ‘they want to kill our charters’? Debate rages after a day of tough charter decisions

*UPDATED LA Unified is struggling to define its role in overseeing charter schools as the numbers of academically strong charters continue to grow across the nation’s second-largest school district. LA has the most independent public charter schools overseen by a single district and usually approves most petitions. But this week a record number of charters,...
By Mike Szymanski | October 19, 2016
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Morning Read: Not one teacher lives in LAUSD’s affordable housing units built for them

LAUSD teachers earn too much to live in the affordable housing apartments built for them In the mid-2000s, in the midst of a housing boom, the Los Angeles Unified School District realized that skyrocketing rents were fueling teacher turnover. Nearly half of all new teachers in some neighborhoods were leaving the district after three years. L.A....
By LA School Report | October 19, 2016