Bill Restricting ‘Willful Defiance’ for Suspending Students Moves Ahead With new data showing that more than half of all suspensions and a quarter of expulsions in California schools are for “willful defiance” of school authorities, the Assembly Education Committee voted 6-0 on Wednesday to move forward a bill that would restrict the use of the...

LAUSD Board Votes to Improve Abuse Investigations With 278 Los Angeles Unified educators sitting in “teacher jail,” the school board voted Tuesday to streamline and improve the investigations of those accused of serious physical abuse or sexual misconduct. LA Daily News See also: LA School Report, LA Times L.A. Unified Board Ratifies ‘Parent-Trigger’ Partnership The...

The agenda for today’s School Board meeting is packed with hot-topic resolutions, including a plan to streamline LAUSD’s teacher misconduct investigation process, a call to work with state legislators to pass a new teacher dismissal bill, and a plan to reduce student suspensions and discipline for “willful defiance” in LA schools. These topics have received...

L.A. School Board to Consider Faster Investigation of Teachers Sexual misconduct allegations at Miramonte Elementary School sparked a surge of investigations of Los Angeles teachers, pushing the ranks of those in “teacher jail” to more than 300 — and prompting officials this week to consider the rights of accused employees. LA Times See also: AP,...

Check out this visual breakdown of suspension and discipline rates in school districts across the country, via EdWeek. The positive takeaway is that even three years ago (which is when the data used in this interactive was sampled), LAUSD’s rate of suspensions and expulsions was lower than in many other school districts in the nation. While...

A new report released by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project adds to a growing collection of data that makes the case against using suspensions and so-called “zero tolerance” policies to discipline middle and high school students. The new report, which looked at middle and high schools across the country, finds significant discipline gaps between white, black,...

24th Street Elementary Pulling Parent Trigger The Parent Trigger at 24th Street Elementary School in West Adams keeps chugging along — despite what L.A. mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti thinks about it. LA Weekly See also: San Bernardino Sun New Analysis Bolsters Case Against Suspension, Researchers Say The results of a new analysis of out-of-school-suspension data...

Sequestration: What Southern California Stands to Lose The Southland is bracing for massive cuts in federal spending at the end of the week, with education and airport officials in particular worried about the impact of the impending reductions. LA Daily News See also: LA Times, KPCC, SI&A Cabinet Report Senator Proposes Pushing Back Teacher Layoff...