*UPDATED A contingent of LA parents, armed with a petition of about 420 signatures, will ask the state Board of Education this week to adopt a summative rating to evaluate schools in addition to a number of proposed measures that move beyond ranking schools solely based on test scores. The Board of Education is expected...

LA Unified has a Human Relations Commission, but it may be one of the district’s best-kept secrets. Their meetings aren’t listed on any of the school district’s calendars; more than 40 percent of the meetings last year didn’t have a quorum; and the department overseeing it once had 31 employees but is now down to two....

By Laurie Benn As a mother of seven children, I’ve spent a lot of time involved in my local public schools. I’ve always known that a good education was one of the most important things that I could give to my children. I was shuffled around in the foster care system from birth until I...

When Gregory Vallone took over as principal of Mulholland Middle School in Lake Balboa five years ago, it had experienced years of enrollment decline. The school once had 1,850 students but was down to 1,250. Then Vallone started a magnet. Vallone — a principal, teacher and administrator with LA Unified since 1974 — had been involved...

By Joshua Brown At the beginning of every school year, my students ask me what I did over summer vacation. This year, I have an answer that will surely mesmerize them: I cleaned caterpillar poop.  Let me elaborate.   I was fortunate enough to participate in a weeklong professional development fellowship to the Yanayacu Biological...

Look around at billboards, bus benches and online and you’re likely to spot a message from UTLA about students, teachers and parents telling their stories about their experience with the LA Unified school system. These positive stories about traditional district schools are part of an unprecedented media campaign launched this week by United Teachers Los Angeles, the second-largest teachers union...

LA Unified is wasting no time in getting students with poor or failing marks into its online credit recovery program at the start of the new school year. A district communications representative confirmed that credit recovery began right away for any student who earned a D or F in a course now being offered through the...

If El Camino Real Charter High School is stripped of its independent charter status, its teachers would lose their higher salaries and seniority and would have to start all over as new LA Unified employees, teachers have been told by union representatives. About 30 of the more than 150 teachers from the west San Fernando Valley high school attended...

  LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King signed off on new health benefits for teachers assistants and playground aides even though the agreement stated that it will help push district reserves into the red by half a billion dollars within two years. And the question in the document asking how the district would replenish those reserves was left blank....

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced Tuesday that it has donated $1 million to the city’s public libraries to fund technology purchases for the libraries’ after-school homework centers used by thousands of the city’s children and teens. The free after-school homework centers are located at 34 library branches throughout the city. The centers give students...