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Roosevelt High School student Jerry Gallegos knows the pain of being bullied — he said he was taunted as a "fatty" for years. Yet, when he saw others being harassed, he stood by silently, afraid others would turn on him. Now, Jerry said, he is determined to act against bullies and reach out to vulnerable students. "As one student, you can't do much," he said, "but every little bit helps. " His turnabout came after participating Tuesday in a mass viewing of the acclaimed documentary "Bully.

Things would be easier if Academia Semillas del Pueblo didn't have such low test scores. Then, the focus could be on the El Sereno charter school's International Baccalaureate program. Or on its trilingual curriculum: English, Spanish and Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico. Or on the two co-founders dedicated to teaching culture that stretches back to before colonial Mexico. Instead, the focus shifted in recent weeks to the campus' test results. Compared to schools statewide that serve similar students and when matched against campuses in the neighborhood, results are low. Last year, the school's score on the state's Academic Performance Index dropped 92 points to 624; the state target is 800. Just 22% of students tested at grade level in math, 30% in English.

Regarding the LAUSD reorganization, June 16: How many superintendents does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: 11? DANIEL PRESBURGER Thousand Oaks

A little more than a year ago I retired from teaching adult school in Los Angeles. Since then, I'm embarrassed to admit I've forgotten most of the names of my students. But I certainly haven't forgotten the students themselves: the Guatemalan chef who wore a clean white shirt and tie to class every night; the twentysomething Cambodian woman who worked torturous hours in a doughnut shop and still found time to study, despite her obvious exhaustion; the older Korean man who knotted his long hair in a bun like a samurai and who wasn't afraid to sing "New York, New York" in front of the class.

It's hard to imagine a more trying time for students and teachers at the Los Angeles Unified School District. Even more difficult is determining how much of the current woe was brought on by the district itself and how much reflects the vagaries of demographics, politics and the economy. Consider the dismal budget year, the large-scale layoffs and the declining population of school-age students, then add to these troubles the students lost to charter schools and the resulting reduction in public school funding from the state.

The Los Angeles School Police Department has issued new rules aimed at reducing the number of truancy tickets written to students and focusing efforts instead on helping these students get to and remain in school. The new policy in the Los Angeles Unified School District, announced Thursday, is the latest change from a campaign to reform traditional school discipline that, advocates of the new policy say, results in ethnic and racial profiling and hardships for students and families.

The Los Angeles Unified School District athletics office distributed an e-mail today to its coaches, instructing them to counsel their athletes about hazing and warning that they could be held responsible for "negative consequences." There have been two hazing incidents involving City Section football teams this season. On Aug. 27, four Granada Hills varsity players allegedly "manhandled and roughed up" a teammate in the locker room, according to Brian Bauer, the school's executive director.

It's back to business as usual at the Los Angeles Unified School District, and that's not a good thing. The district's potentially transformational initiative to open about 250 schools to outside management is in danger of being undermined as various interest groups stake out turf. The central goal of the program -- to radically refashion education for the district's most disadvantaged students -- could be lost in the skirmishing. The Public School Choice policy approved by the school board in August was unfortunately vague, a strategy to overcome resistance from various quarters.

The Los Angeles Unified School District does few things efficiently and competently. The big exception has been its construction effort of the last several years, guided by Guy Mehula. The facilities unit has built 80 schools and done most of the jobs well, on time and within budget. It's not a coincidence that Mehula's division has operated with an unusual amount of independence and freedom from school board politics and central office bureaucracy. Mehula's resignation on Monday, and the loss of a measure of that independence, are discouraging signs not only for the future of school construction but for the district as a whole.

All too often, a child's ZIP Code is his destiny. In Los Angeles, it is possible to discern from that five-digit number alone not only whether he lives in a safe neighborhood or whether there's a nearby park — poorer areas of the city are notably lacking in public green spaces — but also his chance, and his children's chances, of living in a different neighborhood at some point in the future. That's in large part because such children often attend low-performing neighborhood schools where the likelihood of earning a diploma hovers around 50%, and the odds of upward mobility are worse.

Roosevelt High School student Jerry Gallegos knows the pain of being bullied — he said he was taunted as a "fatty" for years. Yet, when he saw others being harassed, he stood by silently, afraid others would turn on him. Now, Jerry said, he is determined to act against bullies and reach out to vulnerable students. "As one student, you can't do much," he said, "but every little bit helps. " His turnabout came after participating Tuesday in a mass viewing of the acclaimed documentary "Bully.

Eight years ago, the Los Angeles Board of Education adopted an ambitious plan to have all students take college-prep classes to raise academic standards in the nation's second-largest school district. Now, that plan is about to take effect: Beginning this fall, incoming freshmen will have to pass those classes to graduate. On Tuesday, district officials backtracked, offering details of a proposal to reduce overall graduation requirements and allow students to pass those classes with a D grade.

After extensive study, the Los Angeles Unified School District last year unveiled a new draft homework policy that looked like the product of some very badly done homework indeed. Flexible in the wrong ways, inflexible in the wrong ways, self-contradictory and at times simply muddled, it would have mandated that homework count for no more than 10% of a student's grade - meaning that it would make very little difference even if a student blew off half of it. At the same time, it failed to set appropriate amounts of homework based on students' ages and grade levels.

The Los Angeles Unified School District isn't in the same financial straits that led it to seek a parcel tax nearly two years ago. No, it's in much worse shape. It can't afford preschool, adult education, libraries, adequate janitorial services or reasonable class sizes. So even though Measure E, the $100-per-parcel tax it proposed in 2010, didn't come close to the two-thirds majority needed for passage, the district is looking to try again, this time with a tax nearly three times that size.

The allegations of sexual molestation involving two teachers at Miramonte Elementary School have rightly rocked the Los Angeles Unified School District. Now that the alarm has been raised and the need to watch for and report suspicious behavior is better understood, more reports have arisen at other schools of possible abuses. And though it was an extreme move, we also supported the shifting and temporary replacement of the entire staff of Miramonte until the investigation has been completed, to ensure that students are protected.

During five years as a frequent substitute teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, George Hernandez was investigated by police three times for allegations of sexual misconduct involving students. Although he was never arrested, Hernandez resigned a week after the third investigation in 2007. But his teaching career wasn't over. Weeks later, he joined the roster of substitutes in the Inglewood Unified School District and taught there for nearly three years - until police discovered a videotape they say shows him molesting a second-grade girl at school.

Of the 33,378 teachers represented in "Teachers' Absenteeism Troubles L.A. District" (May 9), 20,839, or 62.4%, missed seven to nine days, or less. That's less than one day per month. And 5,364 missed no days. Zero! I've been a public schoolteacher since 1969 (in LAUSD since 1973). This year, I've been absent three days. I love my work, but I've seen everything in the classroom change. Students and teachers are now subjected to the most extraordinary distractions imaginable. An occasional "mental health" day can serve everyone.

As a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, I wish to protest Michael Ramirez's Dec. 5 cartoon. Ramirez chose to depict all students who attend LAUSD as "doomed," able only to work in a fast-food restaurant, while those who can afford private school are a "success," drive a Mercedes, smoke big cigars and have the "doomed" folks as their waiters and servants. I looked around my fourth-grade classroom today, to see who was "doomed." Nobody seemed to be. All I saw was bright, capable students.

They aren't the kind of heroes usually honored during Black History Month. They didn't challenge Jim Crow laws or invent more ways to use peanuts. But they were pioneers 40 years ago in this city's first school integration campaign. Rudy Pittman, now a teacher, was 14 when he took that first bus ride from Watts, one of seven kids, escorted by police, headed over the hill to Van Nuys' Birmingham High. It was 1972 and the Los Angeles Unified School District had been found guilty of intentionally segregating city schools.

The Los Angeles Unified School District paid Mark Berndt, the teacher at the center of the Miramonte Elementary child abuse scandal, $40,000 to drop the challenge to his dismissal last year. The payout consisted of four months of back salary plus reimbursement for the cost of health benefits. Berndt was fired by the Board of Education in February 2011 after officials learned that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was investigating him for alleged lewd acts against students.