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New LAUSD guide tells parents how to prepare for a teacher strike and talk to their kids about it
As Los Angeles moved one step closer to a teacher strike, LA Unified this week released a Family Resource Guide to help parents prepare for the possibility of a teacher walkout. The guide, also available in Spanish, addresses questions parents have raised about what will happen at the schools and how to talk with their...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 16, 2018
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Antonucci: The Los Angeles impasse moves on to Act II — and why fact-finding failed to avert a teacher strike in 1989
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. As expected, three mediation sessions between the Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers Los Angeles failed to result in a settlement — or even any movement, apparently — so the state-appointed mediator agreed to move the process forward to its final phase, fact-finding. Each side...
By Mike Antonucci | October 16, 2018
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LA parent voice: ‘The district is making it harder and harder for parents to be engaged’
Every week, we sit down with Los Angeles parents to talk about their students, their schools, and what questions or suggestions they have for their school district. (See our previous interviews.) As vice president of her school’s PTA, Alicia Liotta is getting an earful from parents who want to volunteer but are being held up by a new...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 15, 2018
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New fingerprinting requirements are keeping LAUSD parents from volunteering
Parents who want to volunteer in their children’s schools have run up against a new roadblock this year: a new LA Unified policy is delaying their ability to help teachers in the classroom, and some programs that rely on volunteers have been put on hold. Starting this school year, LA Unified is requiring anyone who has...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 15, 2018
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Los Angeles moves one step closer to a teachers strike
*Updated Oct. 12 with UTLA’s statement Los Angeles moved one step closer to a strike Friday when mediation efforts ended and LA Unified filed an unfair labor practice charge against United Teachers Los Angeles for refusing to participate in good faith. The two sides now move to a process called fact-finding. Each side has five...
By Laura Greanias | October 12, 2018
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English learners in California remain at the bottom of state test scores with only a hint of progress — and it’s even worse in Los Angeles
For California parents watching how well their public schools are doing at educating their children, the fall release of state test scores has brought only slim encouragement. Elementary school students, particularly in third and fourth grade, moved ahead, while 11th-graders lost ground. But the grimmest news was, once again, reserved for parents whose children are still...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 10, 2018
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Commentary: A teachers strike is bad for our students, families and economy
While a strike looms within our nation’s second-largest school district, the business community of Los Angeles urges the Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers Los Angeles to resolve their differences in a way that doesn’t put students at risk. As the organized, grassroots voice of the business community in Greater Los Angeles, BizFed works to...
By Hilary Norton and Tracy Hernandez | October 10, 2018
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LAUSD details 15% job cuts in central and local district offices to satisfy its financial overseers
LA Unified will eliminate $43 million in administrative salaries as part of an emergency cost-cutting plan to stave off its fiscal overseers. The cuts won’t be at school sites this year, but rather at the central and local district offices. The number of jobs that will be lost will be left up to each department,...
By Laura Greanias | October 9, 2018
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A Los Angeles-area teacher asked Twitter how to explain the Kavanaugh saga to students. Thousands — including fellow educators — responded
A teacher seeking advice on how to broach Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation with his students sparked thousands of responses from fellow educators and observers on Twitter this past week. Teacher Nick Ponticello had been searching for the best way to facilitate classroom discussion on what he considers a “big moment” in American...
By Taylor Swaak | October 9, 2018
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Antonucci: I was wrong about the LA teacher strike date; here’s why
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. If you lost your ranch, I apologize. Back on July 31, I predicted with confidence that United Teachers Los Angeles would strike in October — more specifically, the week of Oct. 8, this week. And while there are still a few days left in the week, and...
By Mike Antonucci | October 9, 2018