LA School Report

By Phylis Hoffman I was glad when I received tenure in LAUSD. I was also surprised. As a new teacher in LAUSD, I had no idea I was under evaluation for tenure until that moment. Suddenly, the code on my paycheck changed, notifying me I’d been granted the permanent status known as tenure. I’d been...

A united Supreme Court Wednesday set a new, more rigorous standard for special education services in the United States. The unanimous decision in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District will require school districts to offer individualized education programs “reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.” An attorney for the...

This morning, The 74 CEO Romy Drucker will be moderating a panel at the 24th annual California Charter School Conference in Sacramento about how the mainstream press covers, and occasionally distorts, America’s charter schools sector. You can stream the event live here, beginning at 10:45 a.m.: Ahead of the conversation, three of today’s panelists have published a special...

LA Unified is retaining a record-high 98 percent of its new teachers, according to a report presented Tuesday. But as administrative positions are cut, some are concerned that the district’s support staff for those new teachers will be spread too thin. “You are doing an amazing job with what you have,” school board member Richard Vladovic...

The final votes in the March 7 primary election have been tallied and the results show about 21 percent of the city’s eligible voters cast ballots, LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said Tuesday. Turnout countywide was 17 percent. Only one of the three seats up for election on the LA Unified school board was...

By Marco Petruzzi In today’s world of frenzied news alerts from the D.C. bubble, speculation about the new administration and persisting education debates make it easy to forget that out here in the real world, education leaders and local communities are quietly moving forward adapting new federal guidelines designed to help ensure access to a quality...

After suffering years of defeat through failed legislation, a high-profile lawsuit and a ballot proposition, advocates of teacher tenure reform in California will make another attempt with a bill introduced Monday that this time was crafted with wide input from teachers statewide. The proposed change, extending the probationary period from two to three years, would...

A black-and-white photograph of President John F. Kennedy hangs on the wall of Nick Melvoin’s small office, which is the nerve center of his campaign headquarters in Venice’s trendy tech neighborhood. Kennedy’s on the phone, one hand covering part of his pained face. Melvoin, 31, often looks up from his folding-table desk at the iconic photo...

While some schools may wrestle with the best way to handle Snapchat on campus, Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, Calif., has much bigger Snapchat-driven decisions: what to do with the millions it netted from an early investment in the massively popular disappearing-image app. The private Brothers of Holy Cross institution invested $15,000 in...