LA Unified high school seniors counting on grant money to attend state colleges and universities got a reprieve today as the district announced a month-long extension for when student grade information needs to be verified for financial aid. Merit-based Cal Grants require that the school district verify a student’s grade point average (GPA), and the...

Amid reports that LA Unified staff experts were working through the weekend to determine the cause of errors in some student transcripts, Superintendent Ramon Cortines issued a letter to parents today, ensuring them that issues will be addressed. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the experts were attempting to determine if the problems were...

A middle-school teacher at LA Unified has been named one of five recipients of the 2015 California Teachers of the Year Award from the California Department of Education. Lovelyn Marquez-Prueher is an eighth-grade English teacher at Dodson Middle School in Rancho Palos Verdes. She has been teaching for 11 years, the last six at Dodson. Marquez-Prueher...

Now that John Deasy has stepped down as superintendent of LA Unified, replaced on an interim basis by Ray Cortines, it’s open season on speculating who might be considered as a permanent superintendent. In the second largest district in the nation, the challenges of finding a candidate who is qualified, interested in the job and gels with the...

Shannon Garrison, a fourth grade teacher at LA Unified’s Solano Elementary School, has been reappointed to the National Assessment Governing Board, which helps set policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as the “nation’s report card.” Garrison was appointed to the board in 2010 and will serve another four-year term. “I am...

* UPDATED A controversy is brewing at Harvard Elementary School where LA Unified cafeteria workers say they feel discriminated against after being instructed to speak only English during working hours. According to employees at the Koreatown school, an “English only” sign was posted in the cafeteria last week, reminding employees that they could be dismissed for...

No one was more surprised that Ray Cortines became the latest LA Unified superintendent than Ray Cortines. “I hadn’t been planning to return, and I didn’t negotiate with the board,” he told LA School Report today. “The only caveat I put out was that it would have to be a unanimous vote, and I didn’t...

Former LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy was a polarizing figure, earning almost equal parts praise and scorn, and naturally the news of his resignation has evoked similar opposing reactions. Some have expressed disappointment and outrage over his resignation, while some can barely contain their glee. In an email to LA School Report, Ben Austin, executive...

In his resignation letter to the LA Unified school board, out-going Superintendent John Deasy used most of his words to describe a school district that is far better off today than the one he took over in 2011. “I am overwhelmed with pride in what this administration has accomplished for the youth of Los Angeles...