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Of all the jobs in Southern California, it's hard to think of one that is harder to do well than serving as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The mission - to educate hundreds of thousands of young people of varying backgrounds, classes and languages - is staggeringly complex. The constituents - from parents to reformers to teachers unions - are varied and sometimes at odds. The budget is regularly whipsawed. And the superintendent's bosses - the seven members of the school board - are highly politicized and driven by interests that sometimes conflict with educating children.

The Los Angeles school board swiftly voted Tuesday to restore a full academic year - and full pay for employees - a week after California voters approved a revenue measure that protects schools and universities from further budget cuts this year. More controversial were two resolutions before the Board of Education with potential effects for charter schools - one sought more oversight and the other to charge fees when charters claim more space on traditional campuses than they need.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's mental health department, along with a group of partners, recently landed a $2.4-million grant to work with students exposed to traumatic events. The grant is the latest in an ongoing partnership among the district, UCLA, USC, the Rand Corp. and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, a group of trauma centers funded within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. L.A. Unified and its partners used the first chunk of money from the network in 2003 to do exploratory work about students and trauma.

At Gault Street Elementary, waves of parents flow through the campus daily. Sometimes the tide is stronger, said parent center director Rosalva Waterford, but they are always there. Volunteers make copies for the teachers using one of the center's three copy machines - including the one they call la viejita (the old woman) a decades-old, yellowing behemoth that frequently gets passed over for the newer models. Parents sometimes help move classroom furniture for an activity or clean up afterward.

After 39 years of working in the Los Angeles Unified School District as a teacher, coach and athletic administrator, Barbara Fiege says she will retire on June 30, 2013. The Los Angeles high school sports scene won't be the same. She is the second-longest-serving commissioner of the City Section and the only woman to head the sports program of the nation's second-largest school district. Fiege took over from Hal Harkness in 1993, when there were 49 LAUSD high schools. Now there are more than 130. She's the one who has been the enforcer of rules and regulations at a time of growing pressure to win. So it comes as no surprise that as the breaking of rules has increased, her role has become more controversial.

An effort by the Los Angeles Unified School District to win a high-profile $40-million grant has unraveled after the L.A. teachers union declined to sign the application, a condition for the competition imposed by the federal education department. The dollars were modest compared to the school system's multibillion-dollar annual budget, but school district officials said the Race to the Top grant could have provided critical services as well as additional jobs. "I'm disappointed," said L.A. schools Supt.

Faced with a looming deadline, Los Angeles schools chief John Deasy on Wednesday urged the teachers union to lay aside its concerns and back a federal grant application that could bring $40 million to the cash-strapped district. If the Los Angeles Unified School District wins a federal Race to the Top grant, Deasy said, it could restore hundreds of jobs for teachers, counselors and others to help middle and high school students stay on track for graduation. "It's a critical opportunity in these painful fiscal times," he said.

Although Los Angeles magnet schools have long been seen as an elusive and exclusive club, more than two dozen of them are under-enrolled and actively looking to fill classroom seats. At Montara Avenue Elementary in South Gate, for example, the math, science and technology magnet can accommodate 220 students; last year just 76 applied. On a recent day, each of Montara's magnet students created projects on stars, the sun and the moon for an upcoming fair aimed at attracting new students.

John Greenwood, a political moderate who headed the Los Angeles Board of Education in the mid-1980s and later served as president of the Southern California branch of the nonprofit Coro organization, has died. He was 67. Greenwood died of a heart attack Oct. 11 in San Pedro, where he and his family had lived for many years, said his sister-in-law Peg Greenwood. First elected to the school board in 1979, Greenwood saw his eight-year tenure begin at a time of deep contention among trustees and in the sprawling district over court-ordered mandatory school busing for integration, which had been launched the previous year.

State officials have urged school districts and charter schools to use $66 million in vouchers to buy technology before they expire next year. The warning, issued Friday, pertains to funding remaining from an antitrust settlement with Microsoft Corp. One set of vouchers must be redeemed by April; the other has a deadline in September. Most of the available dollars, $212 million, have been claimed, but substantial resources remain, including more than $10 million for the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to the state's most recent update on unused funds.