Los Angeles Unified School District

An 18-year-old former student at Foshay Learning Center testified Thursday that she told a school administrator that she had had a sexual relationship with an assistant principal and that the administrator had advised her to recant statements she had made to police after she expressed concern that the man could go to jail.

For the first time this year, LAUSD has prepared reports for teachers that rate their effectiveness. When I received an email saying I could now view my own personal "Average Growth over Time" report, I opened it with a combination of trepidation, resignation and indignation. First, the indignation. It is, I think, the key factor that has kept me teaching past the five-year mark, when most new teachers quit the profession. I am in my sixth year of teaching after a nearly 20-year career as a professional writer.

The Los Angeles Unified School District announced Thursday it is canceling the bulk of its summer school programs, the latest in a statewide wave of cutbacks expected to leave hundreds of thousands of students struggling for classes. The reductions, which will force many parents to scramble for child care, are the most tangible effect of the multibillion-dollar state financial cuts to education. Community colleges also have announced summer program cancellations.

There's a shocking disconnect at work these days in the relationship between the public and government workers: The public is demanding greater accountability, and public employees — social workers, police, teachers, even state legislators — are finding ways to avoid it. Legislators contend that they should be allowed to conduct budget deliberations in private. Police unions are fighting forcefully to protect the names of officers involved in shootings or other uses of force.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is working with local businesses to find part-time jobs for about 2,500 students. The First Break program has arranged summer jobs for 20 years, but this year it began offering job placement and training year-round. In the program, students 16 to 20 years old run cash registers, stock shelves, do filing and greet customers at businesses and government agencies.

The Los Angeles Unified School District lost its malpractice suit Thursday against the prestigious law firm that advised the district on construction of the Belmont Learning Complex, the $200-million high school still unfinished because of environmental worries. A Superior Court judge said that some of the district's allegations of legal malpractice were unfounded and others could not be proven one way or another.

The number of meals served during the 1994-95 school year: 65.01 million. Subsidized cost to a student for the average elementary school lunch: 85 cents. Actual cost of providing the average elementary school lunch: $1.65 Estimated number of corsages that will be purchased for high school dances this year: 20,000. Average amount a couple spends on their high school prom: $724. Average amount that a girl spends on her prom dress: $181.

Nearly 300,000 Los Angeles Unified School District students are eligible for free tutoring from private agencies during the upcoming school year, district officials said Thursday. Students who attend one of 173 low-performing schools under the No Child Left Behind Act and are eligible for free or discount lunches can sign up for federally funded supplemental tutoring during the 2005-06 school year.

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.

Incumbents Julie Korenstein and Mark Slavkin joined a host of other candidates Saturday who filed signatures to run for two seats representing portions of the San Fernando Valley on the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Saturday was the deadline for candidates to submit petitions with at least 500 signatures of registered voters to confirm their candidacy and be placed on the April 20 ballot.

The long lines in front of Garfield High School started Tuesday. But it wasn't students eager to get into classes at the East Los Angeles school, which began on Wednesday along with most L.A. Unified campuses. Instead it was parents either handing in proof that their children had been vaccinated against whooping cough or trying to find out where to get the mandatory shot. "They just want to comply with the rules; they want to make sure that their kids will get a good education," Principal Jose Huerta said.

Just shy of a year ago, the students on Granada Hills Charter High School's Academic Decathlon team told themselves that they would win a national title. It took months of practice, weekends and holidays lost, and spring break spent hunkered down in a classroom, studying guides thicker than a phone book. But in a hotel banquet hall here Saturday, the students embraced each other, their parents screamed, their coaches looked to be in a state of shock: Granada Hills was the national champion.

British chef Jamie Oliver's food revolution is giving LAUSD officials a case of indigestion. The Los Angeles Unified School District has suspended all filming of reality TV shows in district schools after a standoff with the celebrity chef, who had been filming his ABC show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" at West Adams Preparatory High School in central Los Angeles for the last two weeks. This week the district denied Oliver's license to film at Manual Arts Senior High School in South L.A., which, like West Adams, is operated by MLA Partner Schools under a contract with LAUSD.

What we can learn Re "Who's teaching our kids?," Aug. 15 My wife and I are both retired California public school educators. We want to commend The Times for its investigation into the effectiveness of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. You have brought much-needed light. Though our respective careers were far different — my wife taught in elementary grades; I worked in secondary grades — we often had to evaluate ourselves because there was no way to compare our performance with other teachers'.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has done an admirable job of collecting useful data about its teachers ? which ones have the classroom magic that makes students learn and which ones annually let their students down. Yet it has never used that valuable information to analyze what successful teachers have in common, so that others can learn from them, or to let less effective teachers know how they're doing. For the record: This editorial says the federal Race to the Top grant program pushed states to make students' test scores count for half or more of a teacher's performance evaluation.

The price tag for a complex of schools at the site of the famed Ambassador Hotel has become the Los Angeles Unified School District's most expensive school project, now surpassing $578 million. The latest cost increase, approved Tuesday by the Board of Education, adds $6.6 million for expenses related mostly to safety and historic preservation at the complex for 4,200 students. The main campus of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will open this fall. Two small schools already operate on the back portion of the 24-acre Koreatown site.

The contest for the seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District board that represents the South Bay and part of Watts is widely viewed as a tossup. So much so that the powerful teachers' union has made no endorsement in the four-way race, choosing instead to save its strength for a likely runoff. "They all have strengths in different areas," said Inola F. Henry, who is head of United Teachers Los Angeles' political arm--the Political Action Council of Educators.

A Granada Hills real estate agent seeking the Republican nomination to represent the northern San Fernando Valley in the state Assembly said Tuesday she plans to pursue a breakup of the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District, moving in on political turf staked out by her opponent.

Los Angeles teachers union members have ratified a deal to shorten the school calendar this and next year, officials announced Saturday. Nearly 80% of United Teachers Los Angeles members who cast ballots approved of the deal, which could save the Los Angeles Unified School District up to $140 million, save the jobs of about 2,100 employees and maintain class sizes. Under the agreement, which was negotiated over several months, teachers would take an unpaid day off the Friday before Memorial Day and schools would close four days earlier for summer vacation.

A lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles teachers union to block the city's school district from giving new campuses to charter schools was denied Friday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. The suit was filed in December on behalf of United Teachers Los Angeles as a result of the Los Angeles Unified School District's controversial school reform plan, which sought to turn over 30 campuses to bidders from inside and outside the district, including charter school organizations. The lawsuit claimed that L.A. Unified could not allow charter operators to take over new campuses unless 50% of the district's permanent teachers petitioned for it. Charters are independently managed public schools and are generally nonunion.