For the second time in recent weeks, Tamar Galatzan has turned a critical eye toward LA Unified’s Bond Oversight Committee and the role it plays in monitoring district spending on bond-funded projects. At the board meeting on Tuesday, she objected to the BOC’s wholesale approval of a library project that earmarked $116,000 to move library...

Members of the school service workers union, SEIU Local 99, have ratified their three-year contract agreement with LA Unified, raising the wage of nearly 20,000 workers to $15 an hour by July 1, 2016. The union said in a statement early this morning that 82 percent of the members approved the contract after three days...

As LAUSD kicked off its newly expanded summer school program last month, accommodating more students than ever before, one thing became clear: Sometimes, more money means more problems. And one problem district officials didn’t anticipate was finding enough teachers who wanted to work in the summer. Without a sufficient number, the district scrambled to fill...

Nearly two months after its launching, the LA Unified Sustainable Environment Enhancement Developments for Schools (SEEDS) initiative is off to a slow start. In May, nearly 70 school representatives, community partners and LAUSD employees attended the SEEDS program kick-off event, but only eight applications have come in so far. But no worries, said LAUSD’s chief...

The stage was set with the two public education luminaries, ready to square off on such lightning rod issues as tenure and teacher dismissal laws in the wake of last month’s Vergara trial: Randi Weingarten, leader of the nation’s second largest teachers organization, AFT, and Superintendent John Deasy, leader of the second largest school district in the...

The LA Unified School Board yesterday unanimously approved labor contracts for four of its major union partners, all of which would put (at least a little) more cash in the pockets of employees after years of devastating budget cuts  and furlough days. The district signed off on deals with Service Employees International Union Local 99...

Alex Caputo-Pearl today assumed the office of President of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), a union battling with LA Unified for a larger salary increase than the two percent the district has offered. UTLA remains one of the last of the district’s labor partners to reach agreement on a contract. The teachers had initially asked...

*UPDATED The LA Unified School Board today re-elected Richard Vladovic to serve as president for the 2014-15 school year. Rather than postpone the vote until after the August runoff to fill the vacant District 1 seat, the six member board voted and by a 5-1 margin supported Vladovic’s continued leadership. Tamar Galatzan was the lone...

Today the LA Unified Board of Education will hold three meetings, the first, being their Annual meeting to elect a new president. It is expected, however, that the current president, Richard Vladovic, will win a second term with no contest, as no challengers have stepped forward. The agenda for that meeting is here. Following the...