LA School Report

Two witnesses from the same California school district told the court in Vergara vs. California today that collaborative efforts have enabled the district to deal smoothly with ineffective teachers without constrictions from the laws at issue in the case. Shannan Brown, the head of the San Juan Unified School District’s teachers union, and Elizabeth Davies,...

The race is on. The Los Angeles City Clerk’s office released the final list of LA Unified school board candidates who qualified to appear on the ballot in the June 3 special election. Of the 13 candidates who originally filed papers to run for the recently vacated seat, only seven submitted sufficient petitions with enough...

Students at City Terrace Elementary in east Los Angeles learn reading, writing and arithmetic, just like any other student in the LA Unified school district. Except for one thing: They are learning these subjects in Mandarin. City Terrace is located in a low-income neighborhood, and the majority of students are Latino. For many of them,...

L.A. school board approves amended contract for Supt. Deasy Los Angeles Unified schools Supt. John Deasy has a newly modified contract that includes an annual buyout of unused vacation days and new performance measures that require him to bring in revenue and enroll more students. He will also pay his own pension deduction for the...

A former superintendent of the El Monte City School District today became the latest defense witness in Vergara v California to describe how school administrators can work within state laws to craft policies and strategies for dealing with ineffective teachers. Jeff Seymour, who spent 25 years as the superintendent, told the court that a well-defined...

After the LA Unified board denied renewals last month for two high-performing charter public schools in southeast Los Angeles — Aspire Antonio Maria Lugo Academy and Aspire Ollin University Preparatory Academy — the schools vowed to fight on. They filed an appeal with the LA County Board of Education and now have a public hearing scheduled March...

Cost grows for proposal to expand transitional kindergarten A Senate proposal to expand transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds would be more expensive than originally predicted, according to a new analysis. At full rollout in 2019-20, Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg’s proposal would cost $1.46 billion in addition to the $901 million already being spent...

The defense in the Vergara vs. California trial got a boost today from witnesses involved with three different school districts – Riverside, La Habra and Long Beach — each describing how collaboration and professional development helps deal with ineffective teachers without any difficulties from the challenged laws in the case. Susan Mills, Assistant Superintendent of...

The field of candidates for LA Unified’s vacant District 1 seat can only reach eight. An update from the LA City Clerk’s office today indicated that Alison Noel, who described herself as an “Educator Advocate/Engineer” on her filing form, produced an “insufficient” petition to get her name on the ballot for the June 3 special...

LA Unified school board hopeful Alex Johnson kicked off his campaign last night at a west side home, filled with elected officials, education advocates and political funders. “We’ve waited long enough.” Johnson told the room of supporters. “We can’t leave a generation of kids behind… every child should have an opportunity to succeed, to graduate from...