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LA Unified board schedules start of interviews for next superintendent
The LA Unified school board said today it will begin the first round of interviews of candidates for superintendent at 8:30 Sunday morning. It’s the start of the endgame for the seven board members, who are seeking to find a successor to Ramon Cortines before he steps down at the end of the year. In...
By Mike Szymanski | December 2, 2015
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Surprise tribute to Cortines interrupts school board session
Outgoing LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines got a series of big surprises this afternoon with a long-planned tribute that included a group of students singing for him and old friends stopping by district headquarters to honor his legacy. The school board auditorium was packed for the event, which Cortines knew nothing about. The seven school...
By Mike Szymanski | December 1, 2015
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School board plans to hammer out more superintendent criteria
The LA Unified school board is holding a special meeting tomorrow to fine-tune the one-page list of “Desired Characteristics” for the superintendent that they hope to hire by the end of the year. The open session section is planned for 9 a.m. and will have representatives of the search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates reviewing...
By Mike Szymanski | November 30, 2015
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LA Unified monitoring gas leak near northern SF Valley schools
LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines said late yesterday the district’s facilities staff plans to monitor methane gas levels near two schools in northern San Fernando Valley. Cortines said he will post the results of the air quality report right away on the LAUSD website. Concerns about a smell in the Porter Ranch neighborhood led to a protest that...
By Mike Szymanski | November 24, 2015
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Commentary: For LAUSD, maybe it’s not the time to hire an outsider
It’s getting down to crunch time: Thanksgiving . . . Christmas . . . Last day on the job for LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines. By next week, names for his replacement will begin to flow with a list of candidates that could include such well-regarded figures from across the county as Rudy Crew, a former Chancellor of...
By Michael Janofsky | November 23, 2015
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Report praises LAUSD’s special ed integration, MiSiS progress
The latest annual report from a court-appointed monitor of LA Unified’s special education programs had praise for much of the district’s progress over the last year integrating its disabled students into general education classes. It also gave high marks for Superintendent Ramon Cortines‘ efforts to stabilize the troubled $133 million MiSiS computer system. However, the report...
By Craig Clough | November 19, 2015
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LAUSD board says no decision yet on moving Emerson adult school
Students and staff at the Emerson Adult Center are concerned that their building will be taken over by a charter school and that LA Unified is growing less committed to adult education. The message from LA Unified’s board: relax. The board and LAUSD officials say there is no commitment to separate the adult programs from the...
By Mike Szymanski | November 16, 2015
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For the LA Unified board, a long day of discussions, disputes and votes
The LA Unified School Board convened at 10 a.m. and didn’t adjourn until more than 12 hours later yesterday, in a series of meetings that ran the gamut from moving forward on finding a new superintendent, to confronting ugly budget realities to diving into the minutiae of charter school applications. For background information, each member...
By Mike Szymanski | November 11, 2015
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Search firm creates the profile for LAUSD’s next superintendent
It doesn’t matter if the next superintendent is a he or she, but it does matter if the he or she is bilingual. The person should be good at communicating and love Los Angeles. And, the candidate should have been a teacher at one point in his or her career. Those are some of the...
By Mike Szymanski | November 9, 2015
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Analysis: Six months later, financial warning to LA Unified unchanged
It’s one thing when LA Unified’s Chief Financial Officer appears before the school board and warns of budgetary troubles ahead, based on current projections and obligations. That’s her job. It’s quite another when a panel of outsiders, brought in to take a fresh look, reaches the same conclusions and expresses them in a hair-raising way...
By Michael Janofsky | November 9, 2015