LA School Report

The LA Unified board has scheduled a special meeting next week to initiate discussions on how to conduct the search for a successor to Superintendent Ray Cortines, who has expressed a desire to step down by December. “The board will meet on July 30 to start just the technical part of the [search] process,” board president Steve...

A state lawmaker is challenging California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson‘s recent assertion that grants intended to help low-income, English learners and foster youth can be used for across-the-board teacher raises. Assemblymember Shirley Weber, a Democrat from San Diego, says Torlakson’s interpretation of the law could completely erode the purpose of the grants, opening...

A 28-year-old female teacher has been arrested on suspicion of sexual abusing one of her students at San Pedro High School. Michelle Yeh, who was on temporary assignment in the science department of the school during the past spring semester, was arrested Friday after a 15-year-old male student claimed she had abused him on several...

* UPDATED A wave of angry complaints by parents of students at a small elementary school has succeeded in convincing LA Unified to replace a principal whom the parents described as unfit for the job. The parents at Mid-City’s Prescott School of Enriched Sciences Magnet Elementary School, one of the district’s original four magnet schools, gathered 119...

By EdSource Staff Legislators who headed out of town on Friday for a month have already decided the fate of many key bills. Gov. Jerry Brown has signed, including a much debated child vaccination law that eliminates the personal belief exemption to school-required vaccinations. All of the bills to rewrite the teacher evaluation law have...

L.A. superintendent: ‘When it comes to student safety, we are going to choose students over adults every single time.’ Los Angeles schools superintendent Ramon C. Cortines e-mailed me Monday night with a reaction to my latest column. Washington Post Teacher training course aims to boost students’ college readiness Nearly 5,000 teachers across the state in...

As the result of a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last month, California’s school districts must specifically outline in their Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAP) how they will help homeless students, through tracking their test scores and other accountability measures. The law is believed to be the first of its kind in the...

In a campaign that may be the most ambitious in the state, if not the country, LAUSD is gearing up to launch an anti-sexting campaign for students, teachers and parents. The launch is scheduled for early in the new school year in all middle and high schools, said Judy Chiasson, the district’s program coordinator for...

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association, a 2013 case with huge implications for unions’ nationwide in their ability to collect dues, the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, is gearing up for whatever the justices decide. A victory by the plaintiffs would reverse a decades-old precedent, Abood...

LA Unified’s new board president, Steve Zimmer, had a recent chat with Politico, and some of his comments reached its Education Morning Edition today. Nothing surprising until the final paragraph, when he expresses his hope that the selection of a new superintendent to replace the soon-to-be-leaving Ramon Cortines doesn’t “devolve into another ground war over schooling,...