Starting today, LA School Report is turning to social media for reader comments. We’re shedding our current model, which required logging into the site. As always, we welcome civil discourse and encourage any and all readers to bring thoughtful points of view to our coverage. At the same time, we ask readers to refrain from...

* UPDATED LA Unified today increased its salary offer to the teachers union, UTLA, offering a one-year deal with a 6 percent increase. The district said in a press release the money would be distributed through a 2 percent ongoing salary increase retroactive to July 1; a 2 percent lump-sum payment based on 2013-14 earnings;...

The deadline for would-be LA Unfied school board candidates to submit nominating petitions passed yesterday, and so far, the City Clerk’s office has qualified nine for the four open seats in 2015. As of today, all of the incumbents are officially in the running — Board President Richard Vladovic, George McKenna, Bennett Kayser, and Tamar Galatzan....

Negotiators for UTLA and LA Unified are meeting for another contact bargaining session today, the first since mid-November. UTLA did not respond when asked what topics might be on the table today, but the previous session saw UTLA adding to its demands to include supports for displaced educators, improved UTLA representation for substitute educators facing...

LA Unified and Teamsters Local 572, the union which represents school administrative assistants and several other school supervisory staff groups, have reached a tentative new agreement. The three-year agreement includes a number of items, including changes to some food service practices, allowing employees to participate in a semi-monthly pay cycle, the creation of an advisory committee...

Ben Austin is stepping down as executive director of Parent Revolution, a group he founded six years ago to aid parents pushing for change in their children’s poorly-performing schools. Parent Revolution played a role in creating California’s parent trigger law and, later, helping three area schools use it. Three other schools used the threat of...

Via The Los Angeles Times | By Karin Klein There was a lot to dislike about the proposal to buy $500 million worth of iPads for Los Angeles Unified School District students (plus $800 million for the necessary broadband at schools): The price, the incomplete curriculum, the paucity of serious questions about whether all of...

While LA Unified officials yesterday dealt with the FBI probe into the district’s controversial iPad program, the school board approved a wave of new instructional hires and promotions despite an on-going hiring freeze. The personnel changes continue a shake-up at the highest levels of the organizational chart that began when Superintendent Ramon Cortines arrived just over...

*UPDATED Twenty boxes of documents now in hand, the FBI is examining records from LA Unified that bear on its digital technology program. By terms of a subpoena, the documents will go before a federal grand jury Friday morning, and evidence of criminal wrong-doing could lead to indictments. But what exactly are investigators looking for,...

* UPDATED There’s a new report that negotiators for United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) might be pulling out at the next round of contract negotiations with LA Unified. A new study by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), finds that LA Unified teachers rank near the bottom of the 113 largest districts in the...