Daniel Jocz, a social studies teacher at Downtown Magnets High School, is one of five people named today by Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Education, as 2016 California Teachers of the Year. Jocz is the only winner from LA Unified. “The teachers we are honoring today are dedicated, energetic, innovative and very effective,” Torlakson...

*UPDATED A petition is calling for the firing (again) of W. Keith Wyatt, An LA Unified lawyer who argued in court that a 14-year-old girl was partly responsible for her own sexual abuse at the hands of her teacher at Edison Middle School. After being told he would no longer be representing the district, he was...

LA Unified plant managers are putting together a things-to-do list for every school in the district to prepare for a possible record El Niño. Everything from cleaning out gutters to replacing a roof could help schools weather a strong storm system that is forecast to start this winter and last through spring. The concerns were...

In a room set to accommodate 300, fewer than 50 signed in at the Roybal Learning Center auditorium last night to give their input into what they want to see in LA Unified’s next superintendent. “We are just beginning,”  said Hank Gmitro, president of the firm conducting the search, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates. “We provide...

*UPDATED While classmates were at the beach, the mall or the park, about 150 LA Unified high school students spent part of their Saturday dowtown at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, taking part in a Youth Town Hall. The focus of the meeting was for the students to offer opinions on how the district...

The “Great Public Schools Now Initiative” was unveiled recently and has caused great controversy at LA Unified. Led by the Broad Foundation, it has set a goal of adding 260 charter schools to low-income areas to enroll half of all LA Unified students within eight years. The plan is estimated to cost almost half a...

Most readers responding to the latest LA School Report poll said they want a new superintendent for LA Unified with experience, above all, and if the choice emerges from within the district, that’s fine, too. The poll asked straight-forward questions about what was most desirable in the successor to Ramon Cortines, who is expected to...

Nearly 90 percent of Los Angeles residents support improving the city’s public education system, and almost three quarters of them favor expanding charter public schools, according to a poll commissioned by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) released this morning. Conducted over 10 days through Oct. 1, the poll comes...

The Transitional Kindergarten Expansion program for LA Unified is under way this semester with teachers and principals being trained through January for 117 new sites. This is on the heels of the district’s losing 45 percent of its School Readiness Language Development Program. Transitional Kindergarten Expansion (TE or TKE) is a new grade level that is replacing...