Board member Monica Ratliff’s effort to quantify how much LA Unified spends on legal defenses to redirect the funds toward student safety improvement programs, ran into a barrage of opposition this morning as the district board began a long day of meetings. Ratliff introduced two resolutions in an open session meeting. One seeks to add an...

Board Member Steve Zimmer has food on his mind. When the LA Unified school board gathers again tomorrow, Zimmer will be seeking a detailed and comprehensive look at how the district spends more than a $100 million to buy food and deliver meals to students throughout the district. He is proposing a wide ranging resolution to...

By Tamar Galatzan | Via Los Angeles Daily News At first glance, the proposal to increase the number of ethnic studies classes in Los Angeles Unified schools sounds like a good idea. After all, students would undoubtedly benefit from a deeper understanding of their neighbors and themselves. However, the resolution scheduled for a school board...

* UPDATED LA Unified said today that one of its long-time outside lawyers, W. Keith Wyatt, would no longer represent the district in legal matters after comments he made regarding a student’s sexual relationship with her math teacher. “As a school district building and maintaining a strong sense of mutual trust with our students and their families is...

* UPDATED As contract negotiations plod along between LA Unified and the teachers union, UTLA, the issue of class size reduction has taken on a new urgency for Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who plans to shrink the number of students in middle school and high school classrooms by the end of the year. “I’m not going...

The head of Parent Revolution said today that LA Unified has reversed course, lifting the ban on using the “Parent Trigger” law this year to overhaul failing district schools. “As one of Superintendent Cortines’s first moves, it’s a sign that the district will be respectful of the law,” Ben Austin, founder of the group that...

It’s shaping up to be a furious campaign next year. With a few late additions at Saturday’s filing deadline, four incumbents plus 14 other people are now competing for the four LA Unified school board seats coming up in 2015. The latest to enter the race are two more challengers in District 5 — James...

While this year’s students fared better than last year, LA Unified kids scored below the state average on the California Physical Fitness Test. According to figures released yesterday by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the LA Unified fifth-, seventh- and ninth-graders who participated in the six-part test during the 2013-14 school year are significantly...