LA School Report

By Karin Kroener-Valdivia It’s National Charter Schools Week, and I’m remembering my first experience at a charter school. Fifteen years ago, after my fourth year of teaching in LA, I was burned out, exhausted from having my track constantly change and from moving rooms during the day without a classroom of my own. I came...

In an intimate setting Tuesday night at a Sylmar charter school, LA Unified school board candidates Kelly Gonez and Imelda Padilla met for the first and possibly only time ahead of the runoff. Differences stood out in the candidates’ demeanor, but their platforms had some similarities. The forum for the board District 6 candidates at...

By Martin Capuchino This week is National Charter Schools Week, and though many of Los Angeles’ public charter schools serve children of color, the inaccurate dissemination of information regarding charter schools and traditional schools creates confusion in many communities — especially communities of color. During the summer of 2016, a group of students and I...

*UPDATED MAY 3 It’s not every day that a charter educator and a frequent charter critic converge to praise each other’s achievements in public education. But Marisol Pineda Conde, principal of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy’s Miramar High School, credits her mentor for much of her success — LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer. “I’ve known...

*UPDATED More than $27 million is being funneled from the downtown LA Unified headquarters to local school districts, and the district is looking to move more employees out of their main office building. “We are decentralizing and putting more resources closer to the learners in the local districts,” Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson told the...

It was going to be one of the only opportunities to see all four candidates for two LA Unified school board seats appear together ahead of the May 16 runoff election. But organizers of Saturday’s forum on college readiness hosted by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles only expect board President Steve Zimmer and...

The strength of Los Angeles’ Latino community blazed through city streets on Monday as 100,000 people marched to support immigrants’ rights and other causes including public education. With the LA Unified school board runoff just two weeks away, all four of the candidates acknowledge how important the Latino community’s support is in a district that...

*UPDATED The week and the month kicked off Monday with 100,000 people participating in May Day marches across Los Angeles, which for the first time in more than a decade all joined together at their final destination at City Hall. Teacher union organizers had called on Superintendent Michelle King to close the schools, but the...

Much attention has focused recently on a heightened fear of deportation among undocumented K-12 students, but the number of children actually affected is far greater, according to a new report from The Education Trust–West. About 250,000 undocumented children between the ages of 3 and 17 are enrolled in California public schools, says the report, released in...