A vocal and sometimes disruptive group of mostly student activists declared victory this week over federal weaponry being used by LA Unified police. The group received letters of explanation and apologies from two board members and the school police chief. The Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, a nonprofit civil rights...

The California Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted Wednesday to audit Alliance College-Ready Public Schools over the charter management organization’s use of funds in its unionization conflict with the LA teachers union, UTLA. Alliance operates 27 independent charter schools in LA Unified. The organization’s management has for more than a year been resisting an attempt by UTLA...

Parents may be on the verge of settling a two-year “parent trigger” battle at 20th Street Elementary School without a lawsuit, which both sides hoped to avoid. Nearly 200 parents, students and teachers attended a Monday evening meeting at the school and heard about a unique alternative in which 20th Street would win greater autonomy but be neither...

By Richard Winton and Howard Blume In a recent court hearing, one young man after another claimed that former Franklin High football coach Jaime Jimenez befriended them during summer practice before 9th grade, then sexually abused them. But it’s not the allegations against Jimenez that are at the center of a lawsuit filed this month against the Los Angeles...

Attorneys representing the students in Vergara v. California filed a petition Tuesday to take the case to the California Supreme Court. Last month the Court of Appeal overturned a Los Angeles Supreme Court ruling in the case, which challenges teacher tenure, layoff laws and dismissal policies. “The Court of Appeal flatly got it wrong,” said Josh Lipshutz, one...

How much do charter schools cost LA Unified? Fact-checking the teachers union’s estimate The study commissioned by Los Angeles’ teachers union determined that charter schools cost the LA Unified School District more than $591 million annually. A closer look at the calculation of fixed costs left behind when students leave LAUSD, whether those students would end up...

California may spend more on its students, but the high cost of living means students in the state — and particularly in Los Angeles — are getting far less on average than those in the rest of the nation, a new study shows. But even if there’s less purchasing power for education in California, at...

LA School Report is thrilled to welcome Sarah Favot to the team as writer/reporter. Favot’s data-driven, investigative and political reporting will bolster the breadth and depth of education coverage in California for LA School Report and nationwide for The 74. Favot comes to LA School Report from the Los Angeles Daily News where she covered Los...

By  Mike Reicher Just a 10-minute drive from the school, the waiter brought the table a $95 bottle of fine Syrah wine. Dimly-lit Monty’s Prime Steaks & Seafood, with its red booths and white linen, doubled as a high school meeting room that Wednesday night, Principal David Fehte says. And on many other nights. In 2014...

When school district administrators call parents at home it can often lead to tension-filled conversations. But in the case of Laura and Michael McIntyre, it led to criminal charges and a lawsuit. In 2004, the McIntyres decided to take their nine children out of private school and homeschool them in an empty space inside a...