LA School Report

The LA Unified school board on Tuesday quashed any chance for temporary representation for the 110 schools and nearly quarter million students in board District 1, twice defeating measures that would have appointed a non-voting caretaker. It was just the latest example of the inability of a school board, paralyzed by the absence of a...

LA school board launches new library task force The Los Angeles Unified school board approved a task force Tuesday to address the hundreds of school libraries that have closed due to a lack of specialized staff. There are only 98 librarians in a district with 768 school libraries. Many elementary schools opt for library aides...

Beatriz and Elizabeth Vergara, sisters at the center of a state lawsuit in their name, Vergara vs. California, took the witness stand today, describing chaotic classrooms with inattentive and hurtful teachers in their middle school. The sisters, who now attend high school at Cesar Chavez Learning Academies, an LA Unified school in San Fernando, are...

A heavy agenda for today’s LA Unified School Board meeting. Expected to get some attention is a report by board member Steve Zimmer on the role of a ‘caretaker’ appointee to temporarily take the seat recently vacated by the unexpected death of Marguerite LaMotte late last year. LA School Report, is there live NOW. Check...

As campaigning begins in earnest at United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the second-largest teachers union in the country, the election for the presidency could be as much about ideology as which candidate has more foot-soldiers. The union has shown signs of deep fracture lately, and with just 20 percent of the union’s 35,000 members expected...

LA schools’ wifi networks to cost about $800 million The Los Angeles Unified School District’s board is scheduled to green light $66 million in wifi upgrades Tuesday, bringing the total reported costs of wifi upgrades need for its iPad proposal to $795 million. With that, iPad and wifi costs together would exceed $1.3 billion if...

After weeks of testimony from administrators, teachers and academics, Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu today finally heard from witnesses directly involved in challenging the state laws at the heart of the Vergara vs. California lawsuit. Jose Macias, whose 13-year-old daughter, Julia, is one of the nine student-plaintiffs in the case, told the court he noticed...

The United Teachers Los Angeles has announced two additional forums with candidates for president, one at Monroe High School on February 18 and the other two days later at UTLA headquarters. Eight of the 10 candidates faced off in a debate that resulted in at least one consensus: the current state of the union is fractured and plagued with in-fighting. Though fewer...