Before her election to the LA school board in May, Monica Ratliff was virtually unknown. Now, the race to influence her is on — and all sides have entered. Ratliff, a former teacher and upset winner over Antonio Sanchez in District 6, has raised just over $30,000 since her election to help retire her campaign...

In one of the more dramatic meetings in recent memory, the newly installed 2013-2014 LAUSD School Board selected Dr. Richard Vladovic (standing, left) as its next President by a vote of 5 to 2. Newly sworn-in Board member Monica Ratliff joined Steve Zimmer, Marguerite LaMotte, Bennett Kayser and Vladovic himself in the majority. Outgoing Board...

Earlier this month, Educators 4 Excellence-Los Angeles (E4E) held an event at which the teacher advocacy group unveiled a set of recommendations its members had developed, which included ideas for retaining and rewarding effective teachers in LAUSD. Below, you can check out some snapshots provided by E4E from the event, which was attended by Board...

Less than a week before she’s due to be sworn in as a new School Board member, Monica Ratliff held a fundraiser at Farfalla in Los Feliz to raise money in order to pay off her campaign debt. According to sources who attended the lunch, the roughly 20 to 25 people who were there comprised...

More than a few eyebrows were raised when School Board member-elect Monica Ratliff appeared at a Thursday Educators for Excellence (E4E) event and seemed to signal support for some kind of a test-based pay system to attract and keep good teachers in LA classrooms. See LA School Report (Ratliff Supports Proposal Linking Teacher Pay to Test Scores)...

In a new KNX 1070 NEWSRADIOinterview, Board member-elect Monica Ratliff expresses some of her own ideas about what should get funded and expanded in LAUSD in upcoming years, including vocational education: “One of the areas to which Ratliff plans to bring renewed focus is vocational education, which involves training students for technical occupations and preparing them...

There’s a great interactive map on KPCC’s website showing citywide voter turnout for every single precinct. Meant to shine a light on the Mayor’s race, the map is also pretty useful in trying to figure out what happened in the District 6 School Board race. In essence, the map seems to indicate that precinct-level turnout...

Last Wednesday, mere hours after Antonio Sanchez conceded to her, School Board member-elect Monica Ratliff showed up at a UTLA House of Representatives meeting to thank all the teachers who volunteered for and donated to her campaign. Though the video above (shot on UTLA spokesperson Suzanne Spurgeon’s iPad) is incomplete, it shows Ratliff specifically thanking Jose...