At a high school called the Critical Design and Gaming School, you’d think every student had a device on and was playing a game all the time. Not so. In fact, during one recent morning lesson, students opened up boxes of traditional board games to play with each other. “They find out pretty quickly it’s...

Seven years after city voters approved Measure Q, giving LA Unified the go-ahead to borrow $7 billion, the first bond sales from the measure will begin within a month or so, district officials said today. As the largest local school bond measure in California history, Measure Q was requested to upgrade older school buildings and reconfigure...

As the FBI agent played a video of a 16-year-old caught in a sex ring in Los Angeles, the audience of the Successful School Climate: Progressive Discipline and Safety Committee yesterday remained hushed. Some wiped tears from their eyes. LAUSD Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King reviewed the list of local schools where such crimes occurred and she...

After 90 minutes of contentious debate, the LAUSD school board agreed on a list of desired characteristics for the superintendent candidates they will begin interviewing. The discussion ran the gamut from the definition of the word “bold” to whether the members wanted someone with experience in an “urban environment.” Ultimately, the one-page list of desired...

The LAUSD school board plans a meeting tomorrow afternoon to set the guidelines for a Leadership Profile that the board will us in picking the next school superintendent. The meeting was called last week after the search firm of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates presented its compilation of input from community forums, private interviews and surveys....

Charter schools are asking for input into getting their fair share of LA Unified’s bond program funding. The dispute is particularly about the reallocation of $339 million after the planned Mandarin Foreign Language Immersion Program Elementary School project was cancelled. The district board voted last week to use the money for upgrades to school facilities to...

Spending cuts. Layoffs. Early retirement packages. Reductions in benefits. These needs, which were among recommendations made by LA Unified’s independent Financial Review Panel on Tuesday, are the kind that would make any union leader lose sleep. But three full days since the doom and gloom report was presented at the LA Unified school board meeting, with recommendations that...

A former LA Unified teacher is suing the district for $12 million, claiming it failed to protect her from abuse, harassment and discrimination because she is a lesbian. Cathy Figel taught physical education at Marina del Rey Middle School for 13 years and claims to have endured anti-gay language, anti-gay graffiti scrawled in her work area; exclusion from...

In what appears to be a strategy to undermine the Broad Foundation’s proposal to move half of district students into charter schools, LA Unified board member Mónica Ratliff is exploring the possibility of turning the entire district into a charter organization. Part of the agenda of the Nov. 17 meeting of the district’s Budget, Facilities and...

As many as 200 parents, teachers and students are expected to attend a community forum, starting at 5 p.m. today at Santee High School, to provide input into the LAUSD superintendent search. The meeting was scheduled to reach people that the organizers say weren’t included in the search firm’s recent compilation profile from surveys and other community...