This morning, the Los Angeles Unified School Board meets to discuss a wide variety of issues including what promises to be a charged debate about a budget plan unveiled by Superintendent John Deasy last week. Community groups have held a series of meetings and rallies, including one last night, advocating for a say in the...

Ballots were dropped in the mail today to the 35,000 members of the Los Angeles teachers union (UTLA), to decide who will win the top job of the second largest teachers union in the country, in a second-round runoff. It’s down to two candidates from the original field of ten: between current president Warren Fletcher, considered...

With the LA Unified board meeting tomorrow, two rallies are taking place outside district headquarters that seek support for two different educational issues. Parents, education advocates and civil rights groups, who represent Communities for Los Angeles Student Success, or CLASS, are organizing a “silent protest” on behalf of low-income students, schools and communities by placing...

Six LA Unified high schools are splitting a $7 million Youth CareerConnect grant to expand career pathways in health care, biotechnology, and business. The district is one of the first in the nation awarded funds from a collaboration between the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor. It is designed to help schools provide more industry-related...

Garfield High School held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Saturday for the Jaime Escalante Auditorium, which appears as a radical improvement over the old theater set ablaze by an arsonist seven years ago. Construction of the new auditorium included the restoration of Memorial plaza, which connects the auditorium to a new three-story building that includes classrooms and administrative...

The budget proposal LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy will present to the school board tomorrow has won lukewarm responses from three of the district’s biggest labor partners — the teachers union (UTLA), the principals union (AALA) and the support workers union (SEIU Local 99). After reviewing documents the district released on Friday, each group expressed cautious...

A new study by the California Department of Public Health has found that childhood trauma has a long-term impact on a child’s life, and the consequences are far more prevalent among children from low-income families. It is an especially acute issue for LA Unified, which has among the highest concentrations of low-income students in the...

Via Ed Source | by John Fensterwald Signaling the resolution of an acrimonious issue, Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, introduced a bill Friday to make dismissing teachers charged with severe misconduct quicker, easier and cheaper. “I want to thank the education community for its willingness to continue to work on this critical issue,” Buchanan...

LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy made public today the first draft of a $6.8 billion budget for the 2014-15 school year, a presentation that offered the first glimpse of how the new Local Control Funding Formula is going to work. The budget will be formally presented to the school board on Tuesday, after which the...

Two charter organizations want to take over four LA Unified public schools that have become an eyesore in the West San Fernando Valley, after closing more than three decades ago. El Camino Real High School, which became a charter in 2011, has proposed taking over three of the school sites – Highlander, Platt Ranch and...