LA School Report

*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...

DACA youth were “defrauded” by the government and were victims of their own success, a panel of experts, including DACA recipients, concluded at one of the workshops for journalists at the conference “EWA: Journalism for Latinos in Education in the Trump Era” on Monday in Anaheim. The elimination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), announced...

On Wednesday Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi announced they are moving closer  to a deal with President Trump that would protect hundreds of thousands of DACA “Dreamers” from deportation.  However, the uncertainty among “Dreamers” remains as on the day of the announcement of the end of DACA last week. Luis Eduardo (he chose...

The California State Board of Education voted Wednesday to approve its plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, culminating a year and a half of work with dozens of public meetings and comment periods. Whether it will be accepted, however, is far from clear. The plan is required under the new federal...

LA Unified has settled three cases involving the firing of Rafe Esquith, a celebrated teacher who won many national and international awards, the district announced late Tuesday. The case ends a threatened $1 billion federal class-action lawsuit against the district by attorney Mark Geragos, who was representing Esquith about 2,000 other teachers in opposing the district’s...

*UPDATED LA Unified school board President Ref Rodriguez and his cousin were charged Wednesday with conspiracy and perjury felony counts and 25 misdemeanor counts in connection with allegedly improper campaign reimbursements stemming from his 2014 campaign documents. Rodriguez and his cousin Elizabeth Tinajero Melendrez were each charged with one felony count of conspiracy to commit...

LA Unified is heading faster than expected toward the stated goal of 100 percent graduation, with a surprise announcement at Tuesday’s school board meeting that the district hit an 80.2 percent graduation rate for the 2016-17 school year. That’s more than a year ahead of the aggressive graduation growth that Superintendent Michelle King had planned....

By Patricia Rivera This summer, as the beginning of the school year got closer, I started to feel more and more worried instead of feeling excited. After spending nearly six months trying to find my daughter a new middle school, all I had to show for it was an uncertain position on several waitlists. My...

A plan that could have hurt funding for magnet and affiliated charter schools was withdrawn as LA Unified leaders continue to debate the issues of equity in distributing money to schools in the poorest communities. A resolution proposed in June would have reshuffled the Title I money that the federal government allots for low-income schools. The realignment...

California charter middle and high schools would be prohibited from starting school before 8:30 a.m. under a bill that will be voted on by the Assembly this week after a concern was raised that they would have an unfair advantage over district schools for enrollment. The addition of charter schools this month prompted the California...