* UPDATED One day before LA Unified’s traditional schools opened, students at ICEF Vista Elementary Academy, a charter in Del Rey, began their classes, greeted yesterday by teachers and administrators — and about a dozen protesters who told them they were not wanted and should go somewhere else. It was also the first day ICEF had moved...

LAUSD School Board president Steve Zimmer discussed the superintendent race on KNX News Radio this morning and mentioned Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King as a potential “top candidate” to replace Ramon Cortines. While on his way to Vine Street Elementary School to kick-off the school year, Zimmer was was asked in the interview about potential...

In the first effort of its kind, LA Unified staged a whirlwind of events for the first day of school today, with board members fanning out across the district, each visiting schools and other sites to welcome back staff, students and district employees. At 9 o’clock this morning, board president Steve Zimmer greeted students at...

By Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education  On the Westside of Los Angeles, there’s a school where eighth-graders code and build websites, develop entrepreneurial ventures and use gaming software to design solutions for saving local endangered species. At the Incubator School, teachers leverage technology to individually tailor student learning and track progress toward challenging academic...

By Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles Do you remember your first day of school? The thrill of seeing friends, the sense of possibility for the year ahead. That moment arrives Tuesday for 640,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. But when they step into the classroom, the rubber will meet the road...

The Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, attacked a proposed expansion of charter schools in LA Unified with a robo-call to district teachers from union president Alex Caputo-Pearl, vowing to fight the education reform foundations behind the effort. Mentioning Eli Broad by name in the call, Caputo-Pearl told the teachers that these groups, which include the Broad, Keck...

About 100 students, teachers and parents picketed Hobart Boulevard Elementary School this morning to protest the removal of celebrated teacher Rafe Esquith by LA Unified while an investigation continues, focused on him and his nonprofit program, the Hobart Shakespeareans. Carrying signs that say “Reinstate Rafe” and chanting “Be Nice, Work Hard,” the students marched around the front...

As the curtain goes up tomorrow on another LA Unified school year, many of the problems of last year appear resolved, giving hope that the new year will unfold with fewer headaches despite a flurry of changes. The last school year featured weeks on end of trouble, including scandal, labor unrest, technology problems, a polarizing...

By Jon Street Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much work has been done or how much...