Los Angeles Unified School District

A newly constituted Los Angeles school board took its first action Wednesday by giving up control of its largest campus, allowing Birmingham High to convert itself into a charter.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has given school district officials the go-ahead to fire a special education teacher seven years after they decided he did not belong in a classroom because of alleged sexual harassment. In his decision made public Monday, Judge David P. Yaffe sharply criticized the state panel that oversees contested teacher firings for disregarding earlier judicial orders.

Faced with unrelenting union opposition, the Los Angeles Board of Education put on hold Tuesday a proposal that would have allowed charter operators and other outside groups to bid for control of 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years. The plan, led by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, would have made available, through a competitive process, new schools that are part of the nation's largest school construction project.

The plan to transform a vacant lot used as an illegal dumping ground into a youth center and soccer field for low-income residents in South Los Angeles seemed like a winner. The Los Angeles City Council allocated a $2.4-million community development block grant to the nonprofit Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles to buy the lot and develop the property in a community long bereft of recreational opportunities. Eight years later, with no youth center or permanent soccer field having been built, the Los Angeles Unified School District has seized control of the blighted six-acre site, with plans for an elementary school and soccer field.

The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to sharply raise the property taxes of hundreds of thousands of L.A. homeowners because the recession has pushed down tax revenues needed to repay school bonds. The economic downturn has also caused a potential cash-flow crisis for the nation's largest school-construction program. The district is allowed to raise taxes under little-known legal protections for bond holders. In essence, if revenues from property taxes can't cover installment payments for bond debt, L.A. Unified can raise tax rates, even if they rise above past projections.

A groundbreaking plan to open 51 new Los Angeles schools and 200 existing ones to possible outside control has Randy Palisoc feeling as if salvation is just steps away. A new $54-million campus he covets is rising a block from where his award-winning charter school operates in a rented church. Palisoc is among many with big dreams since the Los Angeles Board of Education approved its landmark school control resolution last week. The management of about a fourth of all district schools could be up for grabs.

As strapped schools open across California, educators are turning to outside sources like never before in an attempt to ease the effects of multibillion-dollar cuts, giving rise to the new three Rs: retailing, raising money and recouping budgets. Los Angeles Unified School District officials are courting the city's professional sports teams to blunt cuts to athletics programs. Beverly Hills trustees are considering logo T-shirts, hats and other apparel, counting on teenagers to snap up the merchandise because of the city's celebrity and the popularity of television's "Beverly Hills, 90210."

Thirty-nine Los Angeles schools -- a group larger than the entire Glendale school system -- identified as "failing" under federal standards became eligible Tuesday for takeover under a recent Board of Education policy. These schools bring the number of Los Angeles Unified School District campuses eligible for takeover to 252. Bidders from inside or outside the nation's second-largest school system could submit proposals to run such schools. The bidding process also applies to 51 new schools set to open over the next four years.

A former student who was sexually assaulted by a Los Angeles assistant principal now feels "worthless and guilty," according to a probation report obtained by The Times. The school official, Steve Thomas Rooney, was sentenced to eight years in state prison this week for molesting the victim and three other students. "I think Mr. Rooney is a terrible man who ruined my life," she told a probation investigator seeking to determine his suitability for probation. The report paints a picture of a respected educator who used his position to sexually abuse the youngsters he was meant to protect.

In what Los Angeles school district officials hope is the first of several concessions by labor unions, bus drivers have agreed to take six unpaid days off this fiscal year, officials said Tuesday. The deal is the first time in recent history that a school district union has agreed to furloughs. Last year, the district approved -- but never required -- four unpaid days off for most employees in an attempt to offset a budget shortfall. The Los Angeles Unified School District is facing a nearly $200-million budget shortfall this fiscal year.