This Tuesday, the school board will meet in a non-voting session, called the Committee of the Whole. It will be the first meeting of the board since last week’s revelations of felony charges against school board President Ref Rodriguez. That news came just after last Tuesday’s board meeting, the second that Rodriguez presided over as...

For this school board president, the end of DACA is personal. Ref Rodriguez’s dad has only a third-grade education, and his mom left school at sixth grade. They were migrant workers in Mexico who came to the United States to offer their children a better future through education. So Tuesday’s announcement that the Trump Administration...

“Respect,” “transparency,” and “teamwork” only got one vote each. Oh, and so did “humility.” The seven members of the largest school district in the country with an elected board gathered Tuesday at their first off-site retreat of the year, where they took a deep dive into health benefits but also hashed out core values for LA...

Labor leaders who work with LA Unified were surprised their regular labor report was not on the agenda at the first board meeting of the new school year. Dropping the “labor partners update” was part of new board President Ref Rodriguez’s “Kid’s First” focus, so he began Tuesday’s meeting with students talking about their schools...

A controversial resolution condemning a legislative proposal to start a STEM school in Los Angeles that would be outside LA Unified’s control failed after a heated debate Tuesday. The first school board meeting of the new year was supposed to display board President Ref Rodriguez’s “Kid’s First” agenda. A new help desk was set up to...

When parents show up at Tuesday’s school board meeting to complain or gripe or advocate for their child, they will be greeted by something new: a “Kids First” Help Desk. As part of his newly passed resolution to put kids first at LA Unified, school board President Ref Rodriguez said that people who used to...

New school board member Kelly Gonez is introducing an ambitious resolution that calls for making detailed data available to the public to ensure students are supported and able to complete college and “access a rewarding career.” With this resolution, called “Creating Pathways to Lifelong Success for Our Students,” Gonez is fulfilling a key campaign promise to...

For the first time in 36 years, all LA Unified district students are starting school at the same time, now that the last school — Bell Senior High School — has ended its multi-track schedule. In 1981, Bell and nearly 80 percent of the district’s schools went on a year-round schedule to alleviate overcrowding. Even though...

(Click on photo to play video of the school board meeting.) It was one of the most uncomfortably dramatic moments at any LA Unified School Board meeting in recent memory — maybe the oddest of any in the country this year. Flanked by her friends, 15-year-old Lila Copeland stood in silence for a minute and a...

*UPDATED Philanthropist and former LA Times publisher Austin Beutner said he doesn’t see the new task force he is co-leading as a body that has any intention of usurping the new LA Unified School Board, or telling the superintendent what to do. “We are here to support Michelle King, and offer suggestions,” Beutner said in...