Los Angeles Board Of Education

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday narrowly approved the distribution of condoms on high school campuses, but gave parents the option of denying their children permission to obtain them. The action brings to an end more than two years of study and often-rancorous debate over the proposal. Drawing cheers and jeers from more than 200 parents, activists and religious leaders who packed its meeting room, the board members adopted the measure by a 4-3 vote.

The Los Angeles Unified School District will require all students to pass a college-preparatory curriculum beginning next fall. The Class of 2016, next year's ninth-graders, will be the first in the nation's second-largest school system who must take those courses needed to apply to a four-year state university. The Board of Education approved a proposal Tuesday that also allows the students to pass those classes with a D - rather than the C needed for admission to either a Cal State or UC school.

Los Angeles school officials lost a chance this week to test whether the booming charter movement can take on all the problems of the district's traditional, and often troubled, schools. On Tuesday, the Board of Education denied proposals from three major charter organizations that had sought to run newly built neighborhood schools, which would have included substantial numbers of limited-English speakers, special education students, foster children and low-income families. That is exactly the population that charter schools have been criticized for not sufficiently reaching.

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday adopted a new math plan that will require all students to take algebra in the eighth grade next school year. The five-year, $200-million program sets benchmarks for math achievement from kindergarten through eighth grade and provides extensive coaching and training of teachers. Algebra will be offered in two basic configurations of one year and two years.

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday postponed a vote on a new discipline policy at the request of the teachers union. United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy told the board that he would like to "go back with my discipline committee and make sure all the Ts are crossed and I's are dotted." Duffy stressed, however, that he had no intention of changing the final document. The board is expected to consider the policy again in two weeks.

The Los Angeles Board of Education agreed Monday night to hire the search firm that found superintendents for New York City and Seattle to locate candidates for the June opening to be created by Supt. Sid Thompson's retirement. The 5-2 vote came after a long debate about the search costs, estimated at $75,000, which will pay the fee of Washington-based Heidrick & Struggles and candidates' travel costs.

The Los Angeles Board of Education unanimously created a panel Monday to oversee the spending of $2.4 billion if the school bond measure on November's ballot receives the required two-thirds support. Because the bonds would be sold over the course of nine years, the board named five agencies, each of which would select representatives to fill the slots. The bond would pay for repairs and some new construction in the 650-campus district.

The Los Angeles Board of Education unanimously approved a restructuring plan that will eliminate layers of the district's central bureaucracy and shift decision making to clusters of high schools and their feeder campuses. Under the plan, to take effect in July, the district will be divided into 27 independent clusters, governed by groups of teachers, administrators, parents, community members and school staff, and managed by "cluster leaders" appointed by the superintendent.

The Los Angeles Board of Education next week will vote on a proposal to ban smoking and other tobacco use on all district property--including cars. The all-encompassing ban, proposed by board President Jackie Goldberg, would apply to people at everything from sporting events to faculty lounges to meetings of non-school groups at district facilities.

In an unlikely victory, groups of teachers, rather than outside operators, will run the vast majority of 30 campuses under a controversial school reform effort, the Los Angeles Board of Education decided Tuesday. It was an ironic twist to a strategy that was designed to allow outsiders to manage new or troubled campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District. When the board approved the concept in August, it was a stunning acknowledgment that the nation's second-largest school system needed help to improve its schools.

In a startling acknowledgment that the Los Angeles school system cannot improve enough schools on its own, the city Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday that could turn over 250 campuses -- including 50 new multimillion-dollar facilities -- to charter groups and other outside operators. The plan, approved on a 6-1 vote, gives Supt. Ramon C. Cortines the power to recommend the best option to run some of the worst-performing schools in the city as well as the newest campuses.

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday approved nearly $1.6 billion in cuts over the next three years that will result in layoffs and increased class sizes and could one day mean the elimination of such key programs as all-day kindergarten and summer school.

A looming costly rematch between the mayor of Los Angeles and the teachers union over control of the school board has fizzled into a guarded truce. The result is a low-key election that finds Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the potent United Teachers Los Angeles endorsing the same candidates despite uncertainties about how they or their backers hope to guide reforms in the nation's second-largest school system.

The Los Angeles Board of Education met behind closed doors Thursday to discuss potential replacements for Supt. David L. Brewer, with all signs continuing to point to the elevation of veteran educator Ramon C. Cortines, who currently holds the school system's No. 2 position. Board members voted 5 to 2 earlier this week to exercise the buyout provision of Brewer's contract midway through a four-year pact at a cost of at least $517,500.

Ben Austin, a front-runner for a hotly contested Los Angeles school board seat, has failed to qualify for the city ballot because he turned in too few valid signatures on a qualifying petition. Austin, a former deputy mayor under Richard Riordan and a longtime political consultant, chose the March school board race to move from behind-the-scenes player to elected official.

About 10,000 teaching assistants, 70% of whom are bilingual Latinas, won their bid for union representation on Monday when the Los Angeles Board of Education agreed to let them organize. The teaching assistants, who work three to six hours a day, five days a week, earn less money than a similar group, teaching aides. They also do not receive any benefits, such as sick pay, vacation or medical coverage.

The Los Angeles Board of Education today will consider a 10-year, $431-million plan aimed at reversing academic failure, particularly among poor, minority students. The plan incorporates many ideas that school districts are increasingly adopting to fight chronically poor test scores and high dropout rates. Programs emphasize smaller classes and strong early education, as well as ways to restructure school management, shifting authority to individual schools and to teachers.

A key Los Angeles school board member signaled Friday that she could consider removing L. A. schools Supt. David L. Brewer through a contract buyout and that she hoped to defuse racial politics in discussions of his future. The board member, Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, also expressed anger at the haste with which Brewer's critics have moved against him.

Two-term school board member Marlene Canter, 60, will not seek a third term, she said this week. Her "purely personal" decision creates a wide-open contest in District 4, which stretches across most of the Westside and part of the San Fernando Valley. Canter's best-known initiative was leading efforts to ban sodas and junk food, while also improving the nutrition, taste and accessibility of school breakfasts and lunches in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She said she also took pride in, among other things, pushing with her colleagues for an increased focus on accountability that has led to improved academic results.