Los Angeles Schools

Closing the final chapter after more than a year of often bitter negotiations, the school board Tuesday formally approved a two-year contract with its 10,000 teaching assistants, 80% of whom are minorities and 70% of whom are bilingual Latinas. The assistants, who unionized last year by joining Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, will receive a pay raise and will be eligible for medical benefits if they work four hours or longer per day.

The board approved 13 more proposals for school-based management programs, bringing to 40 the number of schools that are participating in the program. Board members praised the new proposals--which range from dividing campuses into mini-schools to setting up peer tutoring programs--as being more innovative than the 27 proposals approved last year.

With six months to go before all 649 Los Angeles schools open their classrooms year-round, many questions remain about how the district plans to coordinate a range of academic and extracurricular activities. Administrators say they don't know how many schools will be able to offer special courses during the eight-week winter break that runs from late December into February for students at some schools.

A day after pandemonium erupted in the streets following the stunning acquittals in the Rodney G. King police beating case, thousands of parents throughout Los Angeles kept their children out of San Fernando Valley schools Thursday, apparently out of fear for their safety. All Los Angeles Unified School District campuses will be closed today in a city under siege by rioters and looters.

Second-grader Emariye Louden would debate just about anything with his mother from the time he could talk. At 4, he knew his letters, spelled his name and memorized birthdays and phone numbers. His mother figured he was smart, but odds are that until recently no one at his school would have singled him out for special attention. Few students were being recognized as academically gifted at 99th Street Elementary in South Los Angeles, a common scenario at campuses that enroll low-income minority students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

In theory, Edwin Markham Intermediate School is neutral ground. Crips territory stretches to the east, past a low, graffiti-slashed wall and the Southern Pacific railroad tracks. Bloods claim the turf to the west. Often they parade by the school on bikes or in cars, waving red bandanas--their "rags." From both sides, more than 1,600 children arrive for class each weekday.

On March 6, 1968, more than 1,000 high school students in East Los Angeles marched out of their classrooms and into the streets, setting off a chain of events they hoped would change their schools forever. So began the East Los Angeles "blowouts," a series of student walkouts to expose substandard education for Latinos in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

After decades in which many of the best science and math classes were offered in elite private and suburban schools and catered only to highly motivated children with extraordinary IQs, a new trend is emerging. In a growing number of schools, teachers are experimenting with new approaches and materials, turning average and even below-average students into budding young scientists and mathematicians.

Why can't the Los Angeles Unified School District offer its children a healthier diet than hot dogs and French fries (Part I, March 14)? Certainly the concern over the apples is justified, but to serve these children lunches that contain such obviously high amounts of saturated fats makes one question who is in charge of meal preparation for our Los Angeles schools. JAMES STERN Santa Monica