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LAUSD board gets a dispiriting lesson on the MiSiS program
MiSiS mistakes were made, and LA Unified can expect to fork over millions more dollars to fix the software system’s myriad problems and get the program functioning properly. In all, it was another demoralizing revelation about the MiSiS rollout debacle last night, and school board members’ frustrations quickly boiled over, leading to a verbal beat...
By Vanessa Romo | October 15, 2014
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Independent investigator on MiSiS finds flaws from the beginning
The Office of the Independent Monitor, charged with overseeing the implementation of the MiSiS program, told LA Unified yesterday, in great detail, how the introduction of the student data system was a massive failure from start to (un)finish. The district was forced to develop the computer software program as a result of a 1993 lawsuit...
By Vanessa Romo | October 14, 2014
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Deasy, MiSiS, union talks among big issues before LAUSD board
The LA Unified school board is entering one of its most crucial periods of the year, meeting again tomorrow to deliberate a change at the top, the on-going contract negotiations with the teachers union and a solution to a range of scheduling problems at Jefferson High School. Nothing is more urgent than what happens to...
By Vanessa Romo | October 13, 2014
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Longer days, more classes proposed to fix Jefferson problems
State and LA Unified officials have met with teachers and administrators at Jefferson High School to construct a plan for fixing scheduling problems plaguing the school since the academic year began in August. Now the hard part: getting the problems fixed. The meeting was scheduled as a direct result of a temporary restraining order issued...
By Craig Clough | October 13, 2014
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Deasy supports state intervention in Jefferson HS scheduling mess
* UPDATED In a move supported by LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy, several civil rights organizations asked a judge yesterday to order the state to address the scheduling mess plaguing Jefferson High School, where computer glitches have caused many students to go for two months without the correct classes. Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the teachers...
By Craig Clough | October 3, 2014
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Trouble for the superintendent? It’s a pattern in LA Unified
Uncertainties surround LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy. He doesn’t see eye-to-eye with board members on a host of issues. Questions are swirling about whether he’ll quit or be fired. That was last year. But here he is again, weeks away from his next performance review, and not much has changed. This time, Deasy finds himself...
By Vanessa Romo | September 26, 2014
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As work on MiSiS continues, LAUSD is creating MiSiS 2.0
While LA Unified is still wrestling with the final kinks in MiSiS, it is already developing MiSiS 2.0. “This time we’re involving users in the conversation early on,” Ron Chandler, the district’s Chief Information Officer, told the school board’s Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee yesterday. As for the current system, which tracks student progress and...
By Vanessa Romo | September 24, 2014
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LAUSD Title I money in jeopardy over enduring MiSiS glitches
* UPDATED The deadline for LA Unified students’ receiving free and reduced priced lunch is tomorrow, leaving anyone who has not renewed an application facing the possibility of running a tab with the district. Making matters worse, school site officials say a bug in the district’s new student data system, MiSiS, has made it difficult...
By Vanessa Romo | September 22, 2014
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Lots of strike talk expected as teachers union opens conference
United Teachers Los Angeles opens its annual Leadership Conference today, and strike talk will be a prominent theme. As part of the three-day gathering at the Concourse Hotel at LAX, local union leaders will hear from union chiefs from other cities who used the threat of a strike to get a new labor agreement. They’ll...
By Michael Janofsky | September 19, 2014
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Teachers union changes tactics, urges board to ‘evaluate’ Deasy*
*Correction In an earlier version of this post we mistakenly reported that UTLA is “urging the school board to fire” superintendent John Deasy. This is incorrect. We try our hardest to write with accuracy, but on this one, we missed the mark – and we regret the error. What follows is UTLA’s letter to us...
By Vanessa Romo | September 16, 2014