LA School Report

The scene of a fatal tragedy near a Hollywood middle school eight months ago was populated yesterday by city leaders, parents and students who celebrated new safety improvements at the site and a pilot program aimed at improving pedestrian safety near local schools. A woman was killed and her 10-year-old daughter injured when they were...

Governor Jerry Brown today dropped by John Marshall High School to talk about energy efficiency and the millions of dollars LA Unified schools can expect to receive from the state as a result of Proposition 39. The governor, who’s up for re-election next week, was on the Los Feliz campus with Tom Steyer, the Democratic...

LA Unified is unveiling a new program today, one directed at a small group of students with exceptional needs: those returning to schools from juvenile justice programs. Designed to serve students from probation camps, juvenile halls and residential situations, the program aims at helping them mount a successful return to school, with a special emphasis...

Via The Los Angeles Times | By the Editorial Board With John Deasy no longer in charge at the Los Angeles Unified School District, the school board needs a new superintendent who shares his passion for improving the lives of children in poverty, but not his adversarial approach or his refusal to listen to critics....

State implements new kindergarten cutoff age Of the panoply of reforms now being implemented in California schools, the one affecting the state’s youngest students passed almost unnoticed this fall. EdSource Title IX decision, a reminder on equality in athletics With an appeals court finding that a California district violated federal discrimination protections, legal experts suggest...

LA Unified high school seniors counting on grant money to attend state colleges and universities got a reprieve today as the district announced a month-long extension for when student grade information needs to be verified for financial aid. Merit-based Cal Grants require that the school district verify a student’s grade point average (GPA), and the...

Time magazine is in hot water with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and other teacher unions over what they say is an unfair and misleading cover. On its Facebook page, UTLA posted a link to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) online petition that calls for Time to “apologize to America’s teachers for the misleading and...

Amid reports that LA Unified staff experts were working through the weekend to determine the cause of errors in some student transcripts, Superintendent Ramon Cortines issued a letter to parents today, ensuring them that issues will be addressed. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the experts were attempting to determine if the problems were...

Via EdSource | By John C. Osborn The race for California state superintendent of public instruction has been fueled by a combined $24 million in total campaign spending for incumbent Tom Torlakson and candidate Marshall Tuck. Outside groups not affiliated with either candidate represent the bulk of that spending – close to $19.4 million on...