LA School Report

*UPDATED LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer conceded Tuesday night in a speech before supporters in Mar Vista. “There’s no sugar-coating this,” he said. In an interview outside his campaign party right before the speech, Zimmer told LA School Report that he knew he had lost the election but will not be calling Nick...

The first election results in the LA Unified school board race are in, for mail-in ballots. Nick Melvoin leads Steve Zimmer, 60 percent to 40 percent. Kelly Gonez leads Imelda Padilla, 52 percent to 48 percent. Going into Tuesday, 116,817 of the 866,567 ballots issued had been mailed in and processed, or 13.5 percent. That...

As balloting continued Tuesday for two seats on the LA Unified school board, a few complaints about polling issues in the District 4 race surfaced on neighborhood social media groups, but the Los Angeles City Clerk’s office said no calls had been received about board race problems. As of 3 p.m., only one investigation had...

A year’s worth of arts education, or two textbooks for every high school student, or a crisp $20 bill for every student enrolled in every LA Unified school from early ed to high school, including at every independent public charter school. That’s some of what LA Unified could have bought with the massive amount of outside...

 *UPDATED Have you heard there’s an election this Tuesday? Most likely, if you’re a regular reader of LA School Report, you certainly have, but it’s probably also likely that your friends and neighbors — or the parents you’re dropping off your kids with — have no idea there’s an election. What’s on the ballot? Two...

From Camden, New Jersey, to Los Angeles, funding for charter schools continues to lag behind that of traditional public schools in many cities by an average of $5,721 per student, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Arkansas. The university’s Department of Education Reform on Wednesday released “Charter School Funding: Inequity...

It’s almost over, and there won’t be another LA Unified School board race until the next presidential election in November 2020. This year’s campaigns have become heated — absurd at times — and so we decided to take a look at some of the highs and lows. Some of this the campaigners may not want...

Two charter schools under federal investigation were denied their last chance to appeal their charter petition by the California State Board of Education on Thursday, meaning they will close after the current school year. The unanimous vote against the two schools marks the end of a frustrating battle that escalated when the school petitions were initially rejected...

It’s tough to make predictions of voter turnout in Los Angeles city elections — not even the city clerk does it, but a surefire bet is that despite the most money ever spent on a school board election in U.S. history, there will still be a poor turnout. Past LA Unified elections show that interest...

Kelly Gonez and Imelda Padilla are two political newcomers who are running for the east San Fernando Valley seat on the LA Unified school board. Both are young Latinas who grew up in the district. LA School Report sat down separately with each of them to ask what differentiates them. In many ways, the District...