LA School Report

George McKenna, third from left, officially became the seventh member of the LA Unified school board today, representing District 1, after he was sworn in by Rev. Jesse Jackson, left. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, second from left, and Danny Bakewell, publisher of the LA Sentinel, far right, also participated in the brief ceremony, which preceded the...

Watch the swearing in of George Mckenna to the District 1 seat of the LA Unified Board of Education. Watch here.

*UPDATED LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy told members of the school board yesterday that he is halting the district’s contract with Apple, Inc., effectively ending his grand plan to put an iPad in the hands of every district student. Following the disclosure of emails that suggest he and aides had tailored the bid process to...

L.A. Unified halts contract for iPads L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy suspended future use of a contract with Apple on Monday that was to provide iPads to all students in the nation’s second-largest school system amid mounting scrutiny of the $1-billion-plus effort. LA Times Deasy abruptly cancels controversial iPad contract Faced with mounting questions about...

Continuing problems with LAUSD’s  new MiSiS computer system prompted nearly 250 Jefferson High School students to walk out of class today in protest over scheduling conflicts. The students, mostly juniors and seniors, said their schedules were wrong and they have not been assigned the honor or AP classes they need for their college portfolio. They...

A draft report on LA Unified’s handling of the controversial iPad contract that was leaked to media outlets last week was made available to board members and district administrators only if they agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement, barring them from sharing the report with anyone. While some signed, others, including Superintendent John Deasy, did...

Via LA Times | by Howard Blume Senior Los Angeles school district officials, including Supt. John Deasy, had a close working relationship with Apple and Pearson executives before these companies won the key contract for a $1-billion effort to provide computers to every student in the nation’s second-largest school system, records released by the L.A....

‘There were mistakes’ in $1 billion iPad plan, says school board member Los Angeles Unified’s aborted plans to buy iPads and educational software from one of the nation’s leading textbook suppliers were the focus of a draft report created by a school board committee, according to news wire reports. LA Daily News No easy answers...

As a further indication of how far off a labor agreement is between LA Unified and the teachers union, UTLA, the two sides met yesterday and each focused on an entirely different matter — the district, salaries; the union, the problematic student data base system, MiSiS. In a statement released by UTLA shortly after the...