As part of College Awareness Month in October, LA Unified officials on Tuesday presented a new initiative designed to inspire and prepare the district’s students for college, starting at the pre-K and kindergarten level and continuing every year through 12th grade. “The Division of Instruction wanted to begin a dialogue of specific activities by grade level,...

Racism and stereotypes continue to plague LA Unified, and it’s up to leaders to change that, according to a UCLA professor who is holding seminars at some schools. Tyrone C. Howard, associate dean for equity and inclusion at UCLA’s graduate school of education and information studies, spoke to the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee...

Make sure you complete your ballot. That’s the message that came from LA Unified school board members at a committee meeting Tuesday night. During the meeting, the board’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee heard a presentation from Pedro Salcido, the district’s co-director of government relations and legislative affairs, on key initiatives related to the school...

At a goal-setting meeting last week for LA Unified school board members and Superintendent Michelle King, board President Steve Zimmer said he wanted the district to focus on eradicating the school readiness gap. Described as the variations in academic performance among children entering kindergarten and first grade who are from low-income and diverse backgrounds compared to their...

Some frank talk among the LA School Board members recently led to questions about how many resolutions the board creates and how effective they are. But they’re also one of the best ways to get things done, members said. Every school board meeting at LA Unified has a flurry of resolutions: It’s National Disability Employment Awareness...

Some school board decisions get ignored, all board meetings are too long and most decisions have nothing to do with what goes on in the classroom. That’s some of the conversation that came out of an all-day session Tuesday with the LA Unified School Board and superintendent. The meeting, led by a private facilitator, was held...

LA Unified’s three-year strategic plan lacks a clear mission statement. That was the consensus of an all-day school board session Tuesday. So the seven board members decided to fix it, landing on the goal of a 100 percent graduation rate. Yet the draft of the strategic plan remains light on exactly how to accomplish it. Because...

LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer recently sat down with LA School Report at his field office tucked away in an east Hollywood strip mall, where there is a unique partnership with the Youth Policy Institute and the school district that hosts after-school programs, adult classes and classes for homeless youth. During the hour-long...

Innovative summer school practices are credited with helping 758 students graduate through a credit recovery program, and grades were significantly higher as LA Unified went out of its way to increase the quality of the teachers giving the summer school instruction. “We are emphatically keeping high standards for summer school like we do during the school...

An emergency meeting has been called for Friday morning by the El Camino Real Alliance Board to discuss an internal investigation and the paperwork left to satisfy an LA Unified inquiry. On the agenda is “public employee discipline/ dismissal/ release” in closed session. Meanwhile, the El Camino Real Charter High School already sent new documentation to...