Thirty seven community groups under the umbrella of the nonprofit organization Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) are asking the LA Unified school board to form a committee of community leaders to participate directly in the search for a new superintendent. The organization wants the committee to have the opportunity to interview top candidates and provide...

A plurality of LA School Report readers responding to an online poll want LA Unified to return to a tradition schedule, starting school after Labor Day in September, giving families an eight-week window for summer vacations in July and August. With 758 readers voting, over 41 percent chose the post-Labor Day schedule, which is what LA Unified...

By Roxana Kopetman  As gun-control issues once again grip the nation in the wake of the Oregon community college shooting, California may be poised to ban most concealed weapons on K-12 and college campuses. State legislators recently passed a bill that would prohibit most people who have a permit for a concealed weapon from bringing...

The nation’s largest in-school health and wellness program announced today that it will provide Spanish-language programs to schools to promote healthier lifestyles through good nutrition, low-fat and fat-free dairy and physical activity. Already 23 LAUSD schools are involved with the Fuel Up to Play 60 program that is co-sponsored by the National Dairy Council and...

Accusations that charter schools screen out special education students or discourage them from enrolling have returned with a controversial plan by the Broad Foundation to expand charter enrollment at LA Unified. After the president of the LA teachers union, Alex Caputo-Pearl of UTLA, raised the issue a year ago, telling the Los Angeles Times a year...

Two committee meetings and a board meeting on the sufficiency of school textbooks will keep the LA Unified school board members busy tomorrow as they discuss the adequacy of textbooks, a detailed analysis of the recent state test scores and district plans to expand early education classes. Two of the new school board members will chair their...

By Lyndsey Layton The National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union, endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. “We recommended Hillary Clinton on the incredible and lengthy track record she has, that is just wrapped around children, working families and education, from preschool to graduate school,” NEA president Lily...

LA Unified is gathering public input on six different academic calendars it is considering for the years ahead. However, there have been technical glitches with its phone survey, and it isn’t clear when or if it will be completed. The stories here at LA School Report about the calendar options have attracted a high level of interest...

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl released a 12-minute video on YouTube today in which he asks members to vote for a dues increase. According to Caputo-Pearl, the union has not updated its dues structure since its inception 45 years ago, which now “literally threatens the future of UTLA.” In the video, Caputo-Pearl points out that UTLA’s...

The union representing school support personnel is pressing LAUSD to provide the same health benefits for all its members, fearing that the district wants to create a second-class level of employees. Among the 35,000 members of Service Employees International Union Local 99 (SEIU) are about 7,000 who work as teacher aides, community representatives, after-school coaches and...