An email that threatened violence with “explosive devices, assault rifles and machine pistols” provided LA Unified officials today with the rationale for closing all schools across the district. Those details and others, which began emerging today, convinced city and school officials that closing schools was the more prudent action, especially in the aftermath of the...

UPDATED All LAUSD schools were closed today due to a “serious threat” called into the district. The threat was not aimed at any specific school, but was judged credible enough for school officials to close all the campuses, which serve 643,000 students in 900 traditional and 200 charter schools. “This is a rare threat, we get...

By the end of next week just before winter break begins, 95 LA Unified schools will have been issued computer devices for the year — one for every student, according to Bill Wherritt, the district’s Distribution Project Manager for the Instructional Technology Initiative Task Force. The remainder of the 103 schools in a pilot program for...

By Nicholas Melvoin If members of the LAUSD Board of Education are curious as to why the district’s enrollment is declining, they should review how the district treated parents over the last few days in the Playa Vista and Westchester neighborhoods for some clues. In a tale that is unfortunately all too familiar to many LAUSD...

More salacious charges against celebrated teacher Rafe Esquith were released this week, and for the first time LAUSD superintendent Ramon Cortines commented publicly about the case. At a forum last night, Cortines said he was surprised about the charges but stood behind the district for taking action, once its investigation was complete. “For me, six...

* UPDATED In what may be his last public appearance as superintendent of LA Unified, Ramon Cortines last night spoke to about 300 people in a wide-ranging discussion that touched on many of the hot-button issues now confronting the district. Sitting alongside Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who served as moderator, Cortines said Eli Broad’s...

After one meeting last Sunday, two yesterday and another scheduled for the Sunday ahead to winnow the field of candidates for the superintendent job, LA Unified board member are moving along “on schedule,” board President Steve Zimmer said today. “We’re on target,” he said. “It would not be a mischaracterization to see we’re on schedule.”...

* UPDATED The Broad Foundation plan to expand charter schools in LA Unified made an ominous debut before the LA Unified board yesterday as one opponent after another ripped into it as unwanted, unnecessary and destructive to the district and public education in general. The widespread attack came in several forms after the board postponed...