The LA Unified school board’s sudden decision to hold a closed door session next week grew out of a Sept. 17 email request from Monica Ratliff to Board President Richard Vladovic, in which she expressed her desire to “discuss the current personell (sic) matter.” The reference was to Superintendent John Deasy, whose performance evaluation is...

It’s long. It’s detailed. And it’s dry. But here it is, LA Unified board member Monica Ratliff’s report to her colleagues on the work of The Common Core Technology Project Ad Hoc Committee. She was chair. By now, most people know the iPad program didn’t go swimmingly, leading Superintendent John Deasy to suspend it this...

A draft report on LA Unified’s handling of the controversial iPad contract that was leaked to media outlets last week was made available to board members and district administrators only if they agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement, barring them from sharing the report with anyone. While some signed, others, including Superintendent John Deasy, did...

Monica Ratliff, who was elected to the LA Unified school board last year, became the first member of the board to take sides in the District 1 school board race, endorsing George McKenna over Alex Johnson, McKenna’s campaign announced late in the day. No other board member has expressed public support for either of the contenders in the...

Anyone attending a recent LA Unified School Board meeting has heard Monica Ratliff talk about “providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students” by boosting the district’s custodial staff. Tomorrow she’ll lay out her plan for doing it. Item No. 47 on another loooooong agenda, represents Ratliff’s attempt to hire 108 new full-time...

In another sign of improving financial fortunes for LA Unified, the school board today approved multi-year contracts for many of the district’s most senior staff. In a break from previous years, when high level administration staffers worked on one-year contracts, several of Superintendent John Deasy’s most senior aides were given contracts of two and, in...

The battle to influence the Los Angeles Unified School board on how to spend Governor Jerry Brown’s new Local Control Funding Formula budget boost and statewide tax revenues for education continues to rage on. Parents, educators and community organizers rallied outside of LA Unified headquarters today before a special school board meeting primarily focussed on...

Some LA Unified schools may be moving closer to allowing students to take district-bought iPads home again, and that has caught district officials by surprise. The district put an end to the practice in September after students figured out how to bypass the device’s security filters. But school board member Monica Ratliff, chair of the...

After weeks of uncertainty, the Los Angeles Unified school board voted last night to hold a special election in June to fill the seat left vacant by Marguerite LaMotte, who died last month. But the remaining six members left open the possibility of appointing a caretaker to represent District 1 families and students in the...

It’s the other delay yesterday that portends long-term consequences for LA Unified students. In the latest sign of the deep divide on the district school board, the members voted to hold off the next phase of the iPad program, rather than approve a carefully crafted compromise that the board had hammered out, and passed, at...