LA School Report

Bodycams beginning to percolate in two schools Two school districts are adopting the use of body cameras this fall to record interactions. The Journal Local year-round schools nearly extinct Once common in the Inland area, the schedule has all but disappeared as enrollment has slowed in recent years. The Press-Enterprise CSBA calls on high court...

With a hearing now scheduled for Aug. 21, LA Unified’s teachers union, UTLA, will have the chance to argue before a neutral party that Alliance College-Ready Public Charter Schools, violated state education law by blocking the union’s efforts to bring Alliance teachers into its membership. The union’s accusations are detailed in two complaints (here and...

*UPDATE Carl A. Cohn, a longtime educational leader in California, was named today to be the first director of the California Collaborative on Educational Excellence (CCEE), a newly-formed state agency charged with providing advice and assistance to school districts in achieving the goals set forth in the Local Control and Accountability Plans. Cohn has a distinguished...

Five national organizations this week released a first-of-its kind guidebook for school districts on how to navigate common issues that arise with educating transgender students. The report, “Schools In Transition: A Guide for Supporting Transgender Students in K-12 Schools,” offers advice and best practices on a wide range of issues districts often face, such as bathroom...

It’s Kumbaya time again for the LA Unified school board. In addition to their next regularly-schedule meeting, Tuesday, Sept. 1, board members are gathering for a “retreat” two days earlier, at a still-to-be-determined time and place on Sunday, Aug. 30. It’s the first such meeting since Superintendent Ramon Cortines returned nearly a year ago, and...

By Zahira Torres California’s labor oversight board has issued a complaint alleging that the largest charter school organization in Los Angeles interfered with the right of its teachers to unionize. The complaint filed by attorneys with the Public Employment Relations Board alleges that charter school leaders violated state laws by denying pro-union organizers access to...

Libraries reach out to day care homes to help improve quality The outreach is a small but innovative part of a statewide effort to improve the quality of day care centers. EdSource Former L.A. teacher pleads no contest to child abuse against student Thelmo Garcia, 37, was ordered to complete 52 weeks of child abuse...

About 50 students and activists disrupted the LA Unified school board meeting on July 30 in a protest over the district police force’s having dozens of M-16 rifles from the federal government’s controversial 1033 Program. While LA School Report was at the meeting and covered the protest, the general public was unable to see what occurred...

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has announced that it negotiated new contracts for teachers at four LA Unified charter schools — Palisades Charter High, Pacoima Charter Elementary, Ivy Academia and Granada Hills Charter High. Two of the contracts include raises for teachers. UTLA currently represents more than 1,000 educators at 13 charter schools. They include six...

By Sarah Tully A group of Los Angeles students who are new to the United States spent part of their summer break learning algebra in a pilot program with materials that are lacking in most places nationwide – Common Core-aligned lessons in Spanish. For five weeks, high school students completed an algebra class given in both...