The president of the teachers union, Alex Caputo-Pearl, today refuted accusations by LA Unified officials that teachers are to blame for the scheduling problems at Jefferson High School. “Some district people, not all, have brought forward the idea of blaming the teachers, which is ridiculous and a red herring,” Caputo-Pearl told LA School Report. “There...

The LA Unified school board today unanimously approved the district’s $1.1 million plan to fix scheduling issues at Jefferson High School and respond to a temporary restraining order issued last week by a judge that ordered the state to step in and fix the problems. Before the vote on the plan — which was presented...

John Deasy is still the LA Unified superintendent. After four hours behind closed doors last night, the district school board emerged with nothing to say. For Deasy, who did not attend the meeting, that was a plus, because it meant that the members might have talked about his performance, but they didn’t take a vote...

During his first State of the Union speech at the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) leadership conference last week, President Alex Caputo-Pearl promised that the union was “gearing up for this fight” as he works to negotiate a new contract with LA Unified. Near the end of his remarks, as if to prove he wasn’t just talking tough, he announced...

In his first State of the Union speech as the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) president, Alex Caputo-Pearl delivered a careful, balanced address at the union’s annual Leadership Conference on Friday night, leaving most of the fiery rhetoric to one of his predecessors, Wayne Johnson, who energetically recalled the 1989 strike, which he led. While Caputo-Pearl...

United Teachers Los Angeles opens its annual Leadership Conference today, and strike talk will be a prominent theme. As part of the three-day gathering at the Concourse Hotel at LAX, local union leaders will hear from union chiefs from other cities who used the threat of a strike to get a new labor agreement. They’ll...

Via the Los Angeles Times | By Patt Morrison It’s a funny world, and a small one. Alex Caputo-Pearl, the new head of United Teachers Los Angeles, went to school in the same Maryland school district where John Deasy, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, was once superintendent. They missed each other there,...

After months of bargaining talks with LA Unified, the teachers union, UTLA, today submitted its first contract demand within the course of current negotiations. In a document submitted to the board this morning, the union called for discussions of various subjects, including salaries, teacher evaluations and discipline at its next bargaining sessions, according to a...

Under withering criticism over the iPad program, a new student-tracking computer system and discordant relations with the teachers union, LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy said today that the attacks feel politically motivated at the expense of his agenda to improve the lives of district students. “I serve at the pleasure of the board,” he said...

UTLA is calling on Superintendent John Deasy to lock himself in teacher jail while he’s under any investigation over iPads, computer systems or anything else. At a rally earlier today union President Alex Caputo-Pearl told a crowd of teachers, “We are saying that he has to play by his own rules… He must not report...