LA School Report

Only two LA Unified school board members hold law degrees: Tamar Galatzan and Monica Ratliff. But Steve Zimmer, a college professor, did a pretty good impression of a lawyer last night. Zimmer presided over an ad hoc “committee of one” — no other board members attended — that was charged with defining the role and scope...

Controller seeks pay data from all California public schools State Controller John Chiang has asked every public school district in the state to provide salary and benefit information for all employees and elected officials so that it can be posted on the Web and shared with the public.  LA Times LA school district to spend...

A stunning silence fell over the courtroom today when Bhavini Bhakta, the first teacher to testify in the Vergara v California trial, described the impact of the state’s current teacher dismissal and seniority laws. An award-winning educator with two master’s degrees, she recounted how despite her success, the warm embrace of her students and the...

An intergovernmental pilot project began last week to address potential environmental health hazards in Southern California schools, with LAUSD as the only school district involved as a core particpant. The six month pilot program, known as the Southern California – Clean, Green and Healthy Schools Partnership, is intended to foster collaboration among local, state and federal regulators...

Teams of students across LA Unified are preparing for the kickoff this weekend of the Aspen Challenge, a citywide competition launched by the Aspen Institute in partnership with the school district. In an effort to hone social entrepreneurial skills, the program challenges students to find solutions to a series of pressing social issues presented to...

Bad teachers need to leave. And it is a gross injustice that they are disproportionately congregated in low-income communities. Right now, because of Vergara vs. California, the lawsuit waged against education laws alleged to protect bad teachers, there is a tremendous amount of public anger directed at those teachers. But to fire grossly incompetent teachers...

LA school board committee to tackle job description for temporary member Los Angeles Unified school board member Steve Zimmer is inviting the public to help write a job description. It’s for the role of District 1 advocate – a position proposed by Zimmer and approved by the school board to speak on the behalf of...

It took six days of testimony to finally put a human face on the legal issues in Vergara vs. California, and it wasn’t Beatriz Vergara or any of the other eight plaintiffs challenging the state and its biggest teacher unions. Rather it was Joey Raymond, the son of the former Sacramento City Unified superintendent, Jonathan...

Testimony resumes this morning in Vergara v California, with Troy Christmas of the Oakland Unified School District returning to the stand to face cross examination by lawyers for the defendants — the state and its two big teachers unions. Christmas, the Director of Labor Management and Employee Relations for his district, has largely plowed the...

Deasy provides fodder for both sides in lawsuit In a groundbreaking trial over teacher job protections, Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy was the early star witness — for both sides. The case, Vergara vs. California, challenges a set of laws that affect how teachers are fired, laid off and granted tenure. LA Times Aggressive pr...