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Efforts underway to save ceramics class at LAUSD middle school

For 35 years, a group of mostly women gathered to work with clay at their adult education ceramics class, but now it may be canceled due to an LAUSD Catch-22 snafu. Adults, students, grandmothers and their grandchildren have attended the Adult Education Ceramics class at Mark Twain Middle School, and sometimes the class draws as many...
By Mike Szymanski | September 8, 2015
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John Oliver’s guide to everything students need to know

By Ed Mazza via The Huffington Post In many parts of the country, the conclusion of Labor Day weekend marks the start of the school year, and while “Last Week Tonight” was off for the holiday, host John Oliver recorded a video that has everything students really need to know. Sort of. In the four-minute YouTube clip,...
By LA School Report | September 8, 2015
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LAUSD suing insurers for $200 million over Miramonte payouts

LA Unified is suing some of its insurers for $200 million, claiming the companies refused to cover the cost of its defense of the Miramonte sex-abuse scandal. Former elementary school teacher Mark Berndt was convicted in 2013 of sexually abusing 23 of his students and is serving a 25-year sentence. Dozens of former students of...
By Craig Clough | September 4, 2015
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LAUSD board allocates $20 million to get the lead out of water
Allocating nearly $20 million to eliminate lead from drinking water at LA Unified schools seemed like a slam-dunk for the school board, but the discussion on Sept. 1 opened floodgates of concern over how to do it. As the district tries to eliminate any trace of lead, plans are underway to remove school fountains that...
By Mike Szymanski | September 4, 2015
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Former Yale professor taking ‘science evangelism’ on the road

By Acacia Squires Ainissa Ramirez used to be an associate professor at Yale in materials science. Now she’s taking her “science evangelism” out on the road. Awakening that little something in young people, especially young people of color, is Ramirez’s true passion. As a 4-year-old kid in Jersey City, N.J., Ainissa knew she wanted to be...
By LA School Report | September 4, 2015
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What ‘Odds’ are they beating? Ice Cube straight outta Woodland Hills

As the second largest school district in the country, one would think the simple law of averages would see LA Unified with plenty of schools in Newsweek’s recent lists of the America’s Top High Schools and Beating the Odds — Top High Schools for Low-Income Students. But the district didn’t fare particularly well on either...
By Craig Clough | September 3, 2015
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LAUSD board votes to stop Fresh Start Charter from opening

The LA Unified school board did a lot of hand-wringing over a decision this week to deny the opening of a new charter school while approving half-a-dozen others. After several failed efforts to seek a compromise that would have granted Today’s Fresh Start Adams Hyde Park a charter, the board voted to follow the Charter Schools...
By Mike Szymanski | September 3, 2015
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LA Unified moving slowly toward goals of technology in the classroom

This morning, 350 students at Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills are getting computer devices. The rest of the school’s 800 students already have theirs. And, by next week five schools will receive iPads, laptops and Chromebooks. Another 30 schools are in line for their devices, 19,000 of them, said Sophia Mendoza,...
By Mike Szymanski | September 3, 2015
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State bill would create ‘yes means yes’ sex ed in public schools

By Dennis Romero California lawmakers want to teach teens how to say yes to sex. And the state Assembly just passed the bill that would do just that. SB 695 by Senate President Pro Tempore de León of L.A. and Jackson and Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara would require high schools to teach the “yes means yes”...
By LA School Report | September 3, 2015
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LA Unified board unanimously approves girls-only STEM school
Thanks to an unanimous vote by the LA Unified school board yesterday, the district will become the first in California in a decade to open a girls-only traditional public school. The approval of the the school was anti-climactic in that the board had already approved it by a vote in April, but at the time needed...
By Craig Clough | September 2, 2015