LA School Report

As an undocumented student in her San Bernardino high school, Maria Lopez Lozano was told by her school counselor she couldn’t go to college. She went anyway, graduated from UC Irvine, and now teaches in LA Unified. As a “DACAmented” teacher — as she called herself for being undocumented and a DACA recipient — she...

*UPDATED Despite having laid out options to save money on health care, LA Unified has “rolled over” and agreed to continue funding its generous benefits for district employees, retirees, and their dependents at current levels for the next three years. The district’s proposal was given late last week to union negotiators. The unions will respond to...

In its quest to decide what to do about daily weapons searches, LA Unified is preparing an expansive survey for the entire school community for December to explore whether changes are needed to one of the most rigorous search mandates of any school district in the country. After an information session last week, acting Superintendent...

*UPDATED It took a series of violent crimes on and near school campuses to spur LA Unified’s strict policy requiring every secondary school conduct random daily metal detector searches. Daily searches have been required for more than six years, but the policy is now being reevaluated as the district called this year for principals to...

LA Unified’s daily random weapons searches get mixed reviews from the students themselves. Saisha Smith from Dorsey High says it’s a violation of her civil rights that “wastes valuable teaching time when all they’re doing is taking away my hand sanitizer and cough drops.” But student school board member Benjamin Holtzman from Hamilton High says,...

Weapons found on or near LA Unified school campuses increased by 2.7 percent last year, to 568. The number of rifles and shotguns more than doubled. Those numbers for the 2016-17 school year were revealed last Tuesday at a special meeting of the school board to review the district’s policy of mandatory daily random searches...

When my parents moved our family here, I knew it was their dream to come to the United States to provide a better life for my siblings and myself. At the time, I couldn’t put that into context. As an 11-year-old kid, far away from our home in Guatemala, all that consumed me was the...

The number of homeless students at LA Unified grew by 50 percent last year to 17,258 students — the highest number recorded by the district. Because of that, you might think that LA Unified would be among the school districts in the state with the highest proportion of homeless students, but it doesn’t even crack the...

In the desert just south of San Diego, towering 18 to 30 feet in the air, are eight prototypes for the wall President Donald Trump has promised to build along the 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. But as the administration tests designs for keeping undocumented Mexicans out of the U.S. and cracks down on...

Creating a partnership between parents and schools to achieve student success has been the mission of Families in Schools (FIS) since its foundation in 2000. For the past five years, under the leadership of Oscar Cruz, the organization’s president, that mission of developing parent engagement across schools in Los Angeles has expanded to other school...