LA School Report

LA Unified has opened contract negotiations with the teachers union, UTLA, offering a 2 percent raise for all teachers for the current school year, and another 2 percent increase next year. The union immediately dismissed the offer in a news release, calling it “far short of what educators deserve after seven years without a pay...

Today the Los Angeles Unified School Board committee on Curriculum Instruction and Assessment meets, chaired by school board member Monica Ratliff.  Among other things on the agenda: A-G requirements and Common Core English standards. To catch the meetings live, check out our dedicated LIVESTREAM which brings you the board’s public proceedings as they happen.

* UPDATED With an overwhelming majority, members of the Los Angeles teachers union (UTLA) have approved an online voting ballot initiative that will change how the Los Angeles teachers union elects its own leadership. The initiative was launched last year by two teachers who were fed up with the low turnout among the union’s rank and...

Contentious battle brews for California’s K-12 chief The two leading candidates for California’s top K-12 spot in the June 3 primary both identify as Democrats in a technically non-partisan race. But the campaign between incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and challenger Marshall Tuck has each camp slamming the other’s candidate as a creature...

* UPDATED Parents of students at Stoner Elementary School, who have been fighting to get the co-located Citizens of the World  Charter School Mar Vista (CWC) off their campus, have succeeded in their quest. A letter from LA Unified has informed them the charter “will not be co-locating” on the campus next year, a decision...

Six years ago the LA Unified School Board approved a program to build affordable “workforce housing” for teachers to live closer to schools where they work. But now, with one project nearing completion and two others in the planning stages, the district concedes that it has absolutely no control over who gets to live there,...

* UPDATED Alex Johnson has opened what is likely an insurmountable fund raising lead over the six other candidates running for the open LA Unified school board. With the June 3 special election just 11 days away, he has raised $208,625 through the reporting period that ended last Saturday, according to the LA City Ethics...

Top candidates for state schools chief in close money race The top contenders to be the state’s public schools chief are neck-and-neck in campaign funds leading into the June primary, according to finance reports filed Thursday. Current state superintendent Tom Torlakson has just under $200,000 in the bank for the final stretch of the campaign....

It now appears that just the specter of a “Parent Trigger” action is enough for parents to get what they want. Lerina Cordero, mother of a first grade boy at West Athens Elementary in south Los Angeles, says parents there had been trying for years to get the school’s leadership to stop rampant bullying and...

* UPDATED In a major policy shift, the LA Unified school district will no longer require teachers under investigation to report to so-called “teacher jails.” Instead, teachers will be allowed to go home, with the understanding that they must remain there during their working hours unless they are summoned elsewhere as part of the investigation.The...