* UPDATED Five independent public charter schools were denied Tuesday night by the LA Unified school board. The board granted one petition of the nine schools on the special agenda that had been recommended for denial. Another school will likely keep its charter under a last-minute deal, and two were petitions withdrawn. Here is the action Tuesday...

By Brenda Gazzar The governing board of El Camino Real Charter High School revised its fiscal policies Wednesday night in its latest effort to placate Los Angeles Unified School District concerns about liberal credit-card spending by school administrators and inadequate board oversight. The meeting of the El Camino Real Alliance board, which took place in...

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...

If El Camino Real Charter High School is stripped of its independent charter status, its teachers would lose their higher salaries and seniority and would have to start all over as new LA Unified employees, teachers have been told by union representatives. About 30 of the more than 150 teachers from the west San Fernando Valley high school attended...

A $1,139 dinner at a steakhouse. A $95 bottle of fine Syrah wine. A $73 bill for flowers. Those charges and others made by staff of a successful charter school were cited this week at an LA Unified School Board meeting and led the district to take the first steps to revoking the school’s charter. El...

LA Unified Local District Northwest Superintendent Vivian Ekchian faced an angry and skeptical group of West Hills residents Thursday evening as she presented the district’s plan to redevelop a long-shuttered and dilapidated elementary school into a high school serving 500 students. The anger stemmed from the school board’s sudden cancellation last month of a plan that had...

  In dual votes Tuesday about a long-vacant school in the west San Fernando Valley, the LA Unified school board halted a charter school that was previously proposed for the site and instead allowed a district school to pursue it. The school board gave a unanimous thumbs-up for Hale Charter Academy to pursue a proposal to develop a performing...

*UPDATED LA Unified is exploring building two new schools in the western San Fernando Valley on the sites of two campuses that have been vacant for decades at a potential cost of tens of millions. The move comes as the district has no current plans for any new schools and would need to spend an...

As the operators of El Camino Real Charter School High School prepare to ask the LA Unified board for approval to turn three vacant elementary school sites into new charter schools, one of the main hurdles they face is the growing skepticism of board President Steve Zimmer. The sites are located in the western San Fernando...

As if winning the City Section wrestling championship at 195 pounds wasn’t enough, an El Camino Real Charter High School senior will have his short film about the emotional and physical stress of the sport screened at no less than the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Rory McClellan’s film “Pride,” shot during this past wrestling season,...