George McKenna is known for waxing eloquently during the school board meetings, and at the meeting on Sept. 12, he wrote down some of his thoughts. Part of the reason was because the new board President Ref Rodriguez is limiting statements to five minutes per topic by each of the board members, but part of it...

By Patricia Rivera This summer, as the beginning of the school year got closer, I started to feel more and more worried instead of feeling excited. After spending nearly six months trying to find my daughter a new middle school, all I had to show for it was an uncertain position on several waitlists. My...

By Carol Arocha Random wanding has prevented some students from harming others. The weapons may not be guns or bombs, but have no doubt, handmade knives (shanks), clubs, brass knuckles, pepper spray, and other such instruments have been found and removed, saving children from physical harm. Wanding has helped administrators remove drugs and alcohol from...

By Max Arias It is no coincidence that this year, Los Angeles’ largest Labor Day march will begin in front of Ramon Cortines High School. The popular narrative is that labor unions and public schools are on opposing sides; that somehow addressing issues of wages, hours, and working conditions is at odds with putting kids first....

By Haena Shin Teachers can tell when they are effective. In my first year as a special education teacher in a pre-kindergarten setting, the signs were small but profound — a nonverbal student who started to greet me in the mornings, a student who didn’t know how to hold a pencil properly who learned to...

By Jenny Hontz The LAUSD Board votes Tuesday on a resolution to oppose the creation of an innovative new state-authorized STEM middle and high school intended to increase the pipeline of qualified under-represented students of color and women attending elite STEM universities and entering science, technology, engineering and math professions. The resolution against this proposed school, which...

“Wooooow. They built this just for us?” By Glenn Gritzner This week, a significant milestone is being achieved for the students of LAUSD that deserves to be celebrated. The final school — Bell High School — is coming off the year-round calendar, meaning that every school in LAUSD will now be on the traditional nine-month...

By Emilio Pack The new goal charter networks have adopted — boosting the college graduation rate for their alumni — is a wise one. It’s definitely time to move past the short-sighted goal of only ensuring they win admittance into a college. But in rushing to meet this new goal, it’s easy to overlook an awkward...

By Beth Hawkins Few education policy battles have burned as hot as debate over the practice of requiring traditional public schools to share under-used space with charter schools. Co-location, as the practice is called, is often cited as damaging to students in mainline district schools. But groundbreaking new research from Temple University Assistant Professor Sarah Cordes finds that at...