LA School Report

*Updated Nov. 15 Teachers, elected officials and parents are among the 17 candidates who have filed their intention to run in LA Unified’s special election in March to fill the board seat that has been vacant since Ref Rodríguez stepped down four months ago. Board District 5 represents almost 100,000 students — 89 percent are Latinos and 85...

LA Unified’s school board voted Tuesday to study using district property to house homeless students and their families, despite split public opinion. In a 4-1 vote with one abstention, school board members approved a resolution giving Superintendent Austin Beutner six months to research the feasibility of using district sites to: Allow overnight parking for homeless...

LA Unified on Tuesday ended the requirement that parents have to pay to volunteer in their children’s schools. The school board voted unanimously to approve a resolution by Superintendent Austin Beutner, who exercised his authority to waive the $56 fee for fingerprinting and background checks. The district will also nearly double — from seven to...

LA Unified is poised to consider using district property to house homeless students and their families. Kelly Gonez, who authored the resolution that’s up for a school board vote Tuesday, said that to her knowledge, this would be a first for the district. The resolution, co-sponsored by Mónica García and Nick Melvoin, would ask Superintendent Austin...

Six months after taking over as LA Unified’s superintendent and vowing to bring change, Austin Beutner is weeks away from unveiling his strategic plan for the nation’s second-largest school district. Beutner shared some of his plan’s goals after a parent summit last week at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown, one of...

Education reform, at least its most contentious elements, didn’t have a great night Tuesday. In Arizona, nearly two-thirds of voters rejected a bid by lawmakers to provide education savings accounts to all students. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, a villain of teachers unions, lost his bid for a third term to state Superintendent Tony Evers, who wants...

*Updated Nov. 9 LA Unified’s budget has been approved for now by its county overseers, but they gave the district a new deadline for it to address its structural deficit or face a takeover. In a letter delivered late Thursday, the Los Angeles County Office of Education said the district’s continued use of deficit spending —...

In the months that followed February’s mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, student survivors launched a large-scale campaign to encourage youth voter turnout — and to knock pro-gun lawmakers out of power. The success of those young people on Election Day, however, is open to debate. While Parkland activists played a role in encouraging a...