LA School Report

(Click on photo to play video of the school board meeting.) It was one of the most uncomfortably dramatic moments at any LA Unified School Board meeting in recent memory — maybe the oddest of any in the country this year. Flanked by her friends, 15-year-old Lila Copeland stood in silence for a minute and a...

*UPDATED Philanthropist and former LA Times publisher Austin Beutner said he doesn’t see the new task force he is co-leading as a body that has any intention of usurping the new LA Unified School Board, or telling the superintendent what to do. “We are here to support Michelle King, and offer suggestions,” Beutner said in...

Summer is down time for education, but the California Teachers Association remains active on the policy front. Ever since its May 1 Day of Action — the message of which varied greatly depending on local issues — the union has tried to take advantage of huge legislative majorities and burgeoning school revenues to push its...

Business, philanthropic and community leaders have formed a new task force to work with LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King and its first undertaking will be to tackle chronic absenteeism, the Los Angeles Times reported. LA School Report reported last month that budget documents showed the number of students who were chronically absent — missing 16...

When Nick Melvoin unseated LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer, teachers threatened to strike. Others worried about having to find a new job. A national reporter was surprised to learn in an interview that opponents were all wrong when they portrayed Melvoin as a Trump supporter. And there was palpable trepidation by a server who...

LA Unified is projecting that it has nearly doubled last year’s rate of reclassifying English learners as proficient and has hit Superintendent Michelle King’s goal laid out in her strategic plan. Preliminary data show the district’s English learner reclassification rate is 20 percent for the school year that ended last month, a vast improvement from...

High school athletes at big schools know that sports can be a sure route to college. But for students at smaller schools that’s not as well known, especially in immigrant families where sports isn’t seen as a way to get — and pay for — a higher education. Alex Guerrero, 18, had never heard of...

Teacher advocacy groups are concerned that California’s definition of an ineffective teacher is too loose and won’t be bolstered before the state has to turn in its federal accountability plan in two months. Each state must submit its plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act by Sept. 18, and one accountability measure...

Students of the “Prep for Success Summer Bridge Program” at the Huntington Park Institute of Applied Medicine (HPIAM), one of three pilot schools on LA Unified’s Linda Esperanza Marquez High School campus, wore their best formal outfits Thursday morning for their final presentations. Carlos Barrera fixed his tie as he prepared to talk about how...

Los Angeles parents traveled to Sacramento Wednesday in hopes of making sure their children’s interests will be reflected in the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, which must be finalized and submitted to the federal government by Sept. 18. A mother from Compton, Esther Covarrubias, was one of a handful of parents who are...