LA School Report

In presenting a detailed accounting of community input for LA Unified’s superintendent search, the president of the search firm urged the seven board members to reach consensus on what they are looking for in their ideal candidate. “You do not want to make this decision on four votes,” said Hank Gmitro of Hazard, Young, Attea...

The LA Unified school board is scheduled to meet today at 1 p.m. Among the items up for discussion is an analysis of a district finances conducted by non-district analysts and a number of proposals involving charter schools. Before a closed session scheduled to start at 10 a.m., the board will receive a detailed report on community input for the superintendent search. Click...

LA Unified school board member Scott Schmerelson is bringing a resolution before the board today, asking it to go on record opposing a plan by the Broad Foundation to add 260 new charter schools to the district over the next eight years. The plan has drawn rebuke from other board members and the LA teachers union,...

By Sandy Banks Restorative justice is a wonderful concept; a way to make student discipline less punitive and more productive. But in Los Angeles Unified, it’s little more than a slogan, generally misunderstood and rarely applied. The district did a lot of chest thumping two years ago, when it became the first in the nation to...

LAUSD will not rehire lawyer who said teen shared blame for sex abuse W. Keith Wyatt was removed from district work after saying that it was more dangerous for a teen to cross a street in traffic than to have sex with her teacher. Los Angeles Times, by Teresa Watanabe Editorial: It’s time to stop...

It doesn’t matter if the next superintendent is a he or she, but it does matter if the he or she is bilingual. The person should be good at communicating and love Los Angeles. And, the candidate should have been a teacher at one point in his or her career. Those are some of the...

In what looks to be a marathon LAUSD school board meeting tomorrow, members are scheduled to hear a detailed report on community input for the superintendent search, an analysis of a district finances conducted by non-district analysts and a number of proposals involving charter schools. At the open session at 10 a.m., the board will hear...

It’s one thing when LA Unified’s Chief Financial Officer appears before the school board and warns of budgetary troubles ahead, based on current projections and obligations. That’s her job. It’s quite another when a panel of outsiders, brought in to take a fresh look, reaches the same conclusions and expresses them in a hair-raising way...

By Teresa Watanabe and Howard Blume In a South Los Angeles classroom, a boy hassles a girl. The teacher moves him to the back of the room, where he scowls, makes a paper airplane and repeatedly throws it against the wall. Two other boys wander around the class and then nearly come to blows. “Don’t you talk...

LA Board of Education will weigh Broad charter-expansion plan A measure sponsored by board member Scott Schmerelson calls for the district to go on record against the massive charter expansion plan. Los Angeles Times, by Howard Blume California legislative committee probes shortcomings in arts education California’s education code mandates art instruction for first through 12th-graders....