Jaime Aquino‘s surprise announcement Friday that he’ll resign from Superintendent John Deasy‘s staff at the end of the year has sent shockwaves throughout LA Unified. Tomorrow, the district school board will take up the matter in closed session. It’s unclear what they’ll discus – but his impending departure has exposed the district and its fractured...

“The Reformers Are Dead, Long Live the Reformers,” ran the headline to a story by Howard Blume, noting that reformers faced an “uncertain future” after losing two out of three School Board races. But that story was actually written in 2003 — back when Blume was writing for the LA Weekly rather than his current gig...

Former District 4 (Westside/Hollywood) School Board candidate Kate Anderson sounded relaxed and content during a phone interview yesterday afternoon. The Mar Vista parent laughed easily and often, and said she was getting to see her children a lot more in the month since the March 5 primary. But she wasn’t without ideas and regrets in terms...

Insiders who spoke with LA School Report over the past few days generally rejected criticisms aimed by some outside observers at the Coalition for School Reform-funded campaign to elect a slate of reform-minded candidates to the LAUSD School Board. “Because Kate [Anderson] lost, every single thing [the Coalition] did looks wrong,” said one insider who — like...

Last week’s School Board primary outcome wasn’t a win or even a mixed result for Mayor Villaraigosa and his merry band of reformers, according to former state senator Gloria Romero. It was a big loss. Romero has had public disagreements with Villaraigosa in the past, and she first made her negative assessment of the outcome...

After months of campaigning, thousands of trees chopped down and turned into glossy direct mail, and nearly $6 million spent, last night’s LAUSD Board election left the  ideological makeup of the School Board essentially untouched. Incumbent Monica Garcia won her re-election outright, garnering a very healthy 56% of the vote. In District 6, Antonio Sanchez is heading toward...

About 20 teachers sat down in the back room of a Carrow’s restaurant in Santa Monica last night making phone calls reminding registered voters to vote for UTLA-backed District 4 incumbent Steve Zimmer. Volunteers were given cell phones, a list of phone numbers and were allowed to order a meal for up to $10 plus a...

Click here to listen to a half-hour discussion with District 4 competitors Steve Sanchez and Kate Anderson on KPCC yesterday afternoon. Towards the end of the discussion, Zimmer makes the case that School Board seats shouldn’t be bought by outside interests, and Anderson points out that she’s done a ton of her own independent fundraising.