The LA Unified school board honored two people at its meeting Tuesday as retiring 20-year employee Linda Perez received a certificate of appreciation and late board member Marguerite LaMotte was remembered with a moment of silence. LaMotte was a long-serving member of the board when she passed away on Dec. 5, 2013 at the age...

Today, on the one-year anniversary of her death, LA Unified today named a school after Marguerite LaMotte, a decade-long member of the school board. The district held a celebration event at what is now known as Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte Elementary School at 4410 Orchard Ave. in South LA that was hosted by George McKenna, who won LaMotte’s...

And now there are two. LAUSD school board candidates George McKenna and Alex Johnson outpolled five others in yesterday’s election, but neither reached a majority, moving them into an August runoff to fill LA Unified’s vacant District 1 seat. McKenna, 73, a career school administrator and early favorite to replace the late Marguerite LaMotte, was...

Beginning today, LA School Report is taking a longer look at each of the seven candidates running for LA Unified’s vacant South LA, District 1 board seat. The series starts today with Rachel Johnson and will continue over the weeks ahead. After three decades as a LAUSD elementary school teacher and nine years as a...

Delegates of the LA County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, which represents 600,000 workers in the Los Angeles area, decided last night not to endorse any of the seven candidates for LA Unified school board after a motion to endorse candidate Alex Johnson failed to carry a required two-thirds majority vote. The decision mirrors that of...

LA Unified school board hopeful Alex Johnson kicked off his campaign last night at a west side home, filled with elected officials, education advocates and political funders. “We’ve waited long enough.” Johnson told the room of supporters. “We can’t leave a generation of kids behind… every child should have an opportunity to succeed, to graduate from...

In her first public comments since a rival in the LA Unified school board race accused her of falsifying her resume, Genethia Hudley-Hayes told LA School Report today she considers the allegations to be “mudslinging” in an effort “to bully” her out of the race. “I will not be bullied,” she said, of the charges from Alex...

The LA Unified school board on Tuesday is expected to approve a list of proposed responsibilities and job qualifications for a temporary, non-voting board member to fill the seat of Marguerite LaMotte, who died in December. The recommendations grew out of a meeting this week chaired by Steve Zimmer, the most vocal school board member to support installing an interim...

Only two LA Unified school board members hold law degrees: Tamar Galatzan and Monica Ratliff. But Steve Zimmer, a college professor, did a pretty good impression of a lawyer last night. Zimmer presided over an ad hoc “committee of one” — no other board members attended — that was charged with defining the role and scope...

Steve Zimmer isn’t giving up. Despite legal opinions against him, the LA Unified board member for District 4 is still seeking a way to give voting rights to a temporary appointee to the vacant District 1 board seat until a permanent member is elected later this year. The board voted earlier this month against such a...