Since becoming Mayor Eric Garcetti’s top education advisor four months ago, Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana has made few public appearances but, today, for the first time, the 30-year educator took center stage alongside LA Unified officials. She was one of several speakers at the UCLA Community School in the Robert F. Kennedy Complex, kicking-off...

The California Charter Schools Association, or CCSA, has become the latest group pushing LA Unified leadership to hold an election to fill the seat left open by the sudden death of board member Marguerite LaMotte. As the school board continues to weigh the options of appointing a replacement or staging a special election — stakeholders around...

While American Federation of Teachers affiliates are holding a “National Day of Action” today, UTLA is planning four vigils in support of “housed” LA Unified teachers, those caught between allegations of misconduct and final rulings on their employment status. Currently 260 such teachers are caught in so-called “teacher jails,” the consequence of what UTLA President Warren...

If history is any guide, a school board election is in the offing. As officials at the LA Unified school board scramble to work out options with the city and county on how best to fill the school board seat left vacant last week by the sudden death of longtime member Marguerite LaMotte, they are...

A day after the death of the LA Unified school board’s only African American member, Marguerite LaMotte, community leaders with ties to her south Los Angeles district began speaking out about how to fill the vacancy and who should fill it. “Unfortunately in these moments there is no opportunity to wait,” U.S. Congresswoman Karen Bass...

If Warren Fletcher is reelected president of the LA Unified teachers union, UTLA, it won’t be easy. At yesterday’s filing deadline, the union announced that eight others – all men — are challenging him for a three-year term that begins next year. The size of the field, which includes one current UTLA officer, Secondary Vice...

LA Unified board member Tamar Galatzan is bringing aboard a new chief of staff, and anyone familiar with how the nation’s second-largest school district works and doesn’t work has the new hire to thank. Barbara Jones is stepping away from a long and distinguished newspaper career, the last 26 years at the LA Daily News,...

Marguerite LaMotte, the long-serving member of the LA Unified school board, died this morning in San Diego, where she was attending a meeting of the California School Boards Association. She was 80. A former teacher and principal, LaMotte was first elected to the board in 2003, before term limits were put in effect, and remained...