LA School Report

It’s only the second month of school and Ernesto has already cussed me out several times. He learned to protect himself in the school of hard knocks, where daily lessons involve neglect, abuse, and distrust from the adults in his life. His father left him when he was young, and his mother worked multiple jobs...

Mónica García — a staunch education reformer and a favorite of the district’s Latino majority — will likely become LA Unified’s new school board president next Tuesday. She has served as president twice before, for a total of six years, and she is already the longest-serving school board president in district history. The District 2...

Four years ago, a group of college students from across Los Angeles gathered in a coffee shop to share stories. Some of them were difficult to hear: what it felt like to take remedial classes, to be talked down to by a professor, to be the first person in their neighborhood or family to attend...

Ref Rodriguez announced Tuesday he has resigned from his position as LA Unified school board president after the district attorney charged him last week with three felonies related to an alleged money laundering scheme in his bid for the school board. Rodriguez posted a statement on his Twitter and Facebook pages at the beginning of a...

A bill that would allow middle and high schoolers to sleep in later failed to gain legislative support and will be reconsidered next year. The bill, SB 328 — a statewide prohibition against starting school before 8:30 a.m. for public middle and high schools — won only 26 of the 41 votes it needed in...

This Tuesday, the school board will meet in a non-voting session, called the Committee of the Whole. It will be the first meeting of the board since last week’s revelations of felony charges against school board President Ref Rodriguez. That news came just after last Tuesday’s board meeting, the second that Rodriguez presided over as...

George McKenna is known for waxing eloquently during the school board meetings, and at the meeting on Sept. 12, he wrote down some of his thoughts. Part of the reason was because the new board President Ref Rodriguez is limiting statements to five minutes per topic by each of the board members, but part of it...

The man who helped craft the state’s parent trigger law and who founded Parent Revolution has launched a new organization that aims to put a kids-first agenda into practice and give LA Unified students and their parents legal rights in decisions about their education. The organization is called Kids Coalition and will be headed by...

A controversial bill that would have established California’s first state-run STEM school ran into a wall of opposition, including from a broad coalition of unions, and failed to gain enough support as the legislative session ended Friday.  The bill, AB 1217, was authored by Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-San Fernando, and Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada Flintridge....

*Updated Monday, July 23: Ref Rodriguez resigned from the LA Unified board Monday morning after pleading guilty to criminal charges relating to his election campaign in 2015.  In a statement, Rodriguez said:  “It has been the honor of my life to serve the communities of Board District 5 as their L.A. Unified board member. I have...